I Hate Plumbing!

I mentioned that my sewer is plugged up, right?  I knew this, but apparently I am a slow learner.  I did a load of laundry on Saturday because I had done a small load earlier with no bad results.  Unfortunately, the sewer backed up into the tub and out from under the base of the toilet, but not bad.  Not wanting to pay weekend plumbing rates on a Sunday, I figured I would call the plumber on Monday.  In the meantime, I just wouldn't do any more laundry.  Problem solved.  Or so I thought.

 

This morning, I got up to get ready for early church and Sunday school.  I was sitting on the pot, doing my morning constitutional, when I heard the water softener start to regenerate.  It is supposed to do that in the middle of the night, but the timer must be off because it started at 7:00 AM, and this was NOT good news!  When the softener regenerates, it sends gallons of water into the sewer and lasts about an hour.  And the kicker is that I don't know how to turn it off!!  So...here I am on the toilet, watching sewer water coming up into my bathtub and wondering if it was also rising in the toilet underneath me!  The water came and came and came.  I started throwing every towel in the house down onto the floor to soak stuff up, but it was a lost cause.  The whole process didn't stop until 8:00, and by this time, there was water on the floor in both bathrooms, seeping under the walls into the utility room and under the stove in the kitchen, and I was scared to death to even consider flushing the toilet.  Needless to say, I didn't make it to church!  When the water finally went down, I managed to get my hair done and went to Sunday school.

 

I was telling my tale to my SS class, indicating that it was probably too much information for some, but they were amused at the telling.  One gal said, jokingly, that I could have the whole sewer pipe system replaced and it would only cost me $10,000.  I told her, "If I HAD $10,000, I wouldn't be waiting until Monday to call the plumber!"  Thereafter, $10,000 became the class joke.  It came up several times.  Grandma Judy, bless her, told me in front of everyone, that I should come over to her house for lunch and to bring my soiled wet towels to wash.  My response was, "No!  As soon as we get out of church, I am driving to McDonald's to get the biggest Big Mac sandwich that I can and am going to hole up at home as far away from anything having to do with plumbing as I can!"  The class laughed again, but I wasn't joking.  That's exactly what I did!  I have flushed the toilet three times today and nothing overflowed, but every time has been iffy.  Hope the plumber isn't busy tomorrow!

 

Once the sewer is cleared, my job has only just begun.  I have a ton of towels to wash.  Then there are the bathroom rugs to take care of...and the bathroom floors will have to be washed with bleach water.  We are talking about a whole day's worth of work here.  And I'm supposed to head to my daughter's on Wednesday.  Please pray that I have the energy to do all of this in time to get away!

 

If I could be reincarnated as a female, I would learn how to do plumbing and automobile mechanics.   

 

KFC

My sister read yesterday's blog and reminded me that she gets cravings for KFC.  I forgot that!  I get those, too...mostly for the buffet.  I'm not crazy about the place because it always seems dirty to me...but I sure do like the food!  So now that it's time for bed, with no chance of driving out for KFC carry-out, I can talk about it.

So now, among all of my other problems, I have to deal with a plugged sewer.  Roots in the system, I'm sure.  I can flush, but I can't do laundry.  This means a call to the plumber again.  We are on a first name basis.  The system has to be rooted out about every two years.  This comes at a critical time.  People coming to visit and money going out the door.  Fun, fun!

Humoring the Appetite

I don't do sit-down restaurants by myself, but I do get cravings for restaurant food. Today, I had one of those. I could have fixed something here at home. I'm not a bad cook--just not very creative. Thus, in the middle of the afternoon, I took a jaunt to Panda Express for one of their "paw plate" meals. It's fast-food Chinese, but it satisfied. Unfortunately, I always have to add soy sauce which is WAY more sodium than I am supposed to ingest. Still, it hit the spot.

Every once in awhile, I see an ad on TV for Long John Silver's. I think to myself, "That looks good!" On several occasions, I have eaten their fare, and every single time I do, I am reminded why someone needs to tell me NOT to go there again! First of all, everything is fried. Fried fish. Fried chicken. French fries. Fried hush-puppies. Since it is all fried in the same oil, it all tastes the same. And the platter is covered with little fried batter crumbs. Not appetizing at all. Sometimes, the taste of something good resolves a craving for awhile, making the splurge worth the indulgence. Doesn't happen with LJS's!

I do like White Castle's "sliders". I have to be careful, though. They are pretty bad in the fat and calorie department. I maybe have them once a year.

I love braunschweiger (liver sausage). It is extremely high in cholesterol and fat, but I buy it about once a year just to reduce my craving for it. I discovered, however, that not all braunschweigers are created equal. Bought some at a "cheese castle" just over the line into Wisconsin while visiting my daughter last fall. It was so bad, I threw most of it away. From now on, I stick to Oscar Mayer.

The same thing happens with those little jars of Kraft cheese spreads. I particularly like pimento, and neufchatel. Bought one of those the other day (expensive for the amount) and ate the whole jar on crackers over two days, but it didn't taste as good as I remembered it would. That was sad!

I am a carnivore. Would never make it as a vegetarian. I mean, I like veggies as well as anyone, but I build my menus around MEAT. My daughter makes a mean spinach lasagna, and it tastes great, but I miss the beef. So sue me! It's the way I was raised! When I was a kid, there was always meat on the table. My mother perfected the art of making the budget match the family's need for protein. I didn't always like what she served, but it was meat. Beef tongue, beef heart, kidney...sometimes squirrel or rabbit. I turned up my nose at those and was always VERY suspicious if Mom got vague about what was being served. "That's beef. You eat it!" She didn't make me, thank God. Liver and onions, however, was a favorite of mine. I haven't had it in years! (Oh...and I could always tell when she was preparing kidney because I could smell the urine being boiled out of it all through the house. Can't fool me!)

My daughter has some favorite meals that I have served through the years. She asks for my braised round steak once in awhile, and says that her stir fry never tastes the same as mine. (Same recipe, however!) The grandchildren like walking tacos and a corned beef and cabbage dinner. My son-in-law will eat just about anything that is put in front of him. (That's a whole other post!)

When Mom died, Dad filled his huge freezer with meat and produce to send home with me when I came to visit. "Take what you want!" I find myself doing the same. If I see a good deal on meat, I buy a couple of packages and stash it for when my family is here. Problem is, they aren't here often enough now!

My staple meals here at home by myself are: chicken stir fry, if I am ambitious; tuna salad on crackers; anything with hamburger--goulash, chili, spanish rice, spaghetti; chicken tetrazzini; zuchinni stuffing casserole. Anything in one dish. I eat on it for several days, but I eat too much of it all because I like it. If I didn't, I wouldn't fix it! And so it goes....

There are people who only eat to live. Unfortunately, I live to eat...and it shows! Bon appetit!

Thinking Like a Mother

Behavioral scientists have mostly agreed that human beings do not have instincts in the pure sense of the word--behaviors that are present at birth and not influenced by learning. There has been a lot of research on the subject. Things that newborns can do--like suck and cry and pull away from pain--are really just reflexes. The notion that there are "maternal instincts" and "survival instincts" have been thwarted by women who don't want children and/or kill the ones they have, and by people who commit suicide. If there were instincts, they could/would not be changed by thinking. So much for instinctual behavior! Still, there are things that happen from which we have learned to behave in certain ways.

An experienced driver, for example, will automatically let off on the gas pedal in traffic when someone up ahead cuts in on his/her comfortable interval. A vigilant mother will move a glass of milk away from the elbows of an inattentive child. Someone skilled in the art of painting will take measures to make sure the paint isn't spilled by a careless foot or dried by leaving the lid off the can.

More and more, I find myself responding to things with my reflexes of thinking like a mother. A few years ago, when my grandson was just barely 2-years-old, I noticed him on his knees on the floor near his sister's bedroom door. She was trying to keep him out. In the back of my brain, a red flag went up. "He's going to get his fingers pinched in the hinge side of that door." I headed in that direction a split second later to remove him, but I was too late. My granddaughter closed the door on his little fingers, and because the door wouldn't close all the way, she did it again. She was only four and didn't know...but I felt horrible! I knew it would happen! His fingers looked so smashed. There was a quick trip to the emergency room which proved that the fingers weren't broken...just smushed. The doctor taped his injured fingers together so they provided support for each other, and Ryan was none the worse for wear...but Grandma was!

Here are some other things that I respond to with the knowledge of possible bad consequences due to experiences as a mom:
1. When a bottle is open, I close it immediately. Two incidents with liquid laundry detergent over the last 30 years, both my own fault, caused me to understand that the five seconds it takes to tighten a lid, or close it, far outweighs the 30 minutes (or more!) that it takes to clean up after a messy spill.
2. No matter what the promises are, eating over a carpet is never a good idea. "I won't spill!" Yeah...right.
3. Any kind of paper or flammable material on the surface of a stove must be removed instantly. It is too easy to turn on the wrong burner!
4. It isn't enough to remind a child 30 minutes early to do something. He/she must be reminded again at the point of departure. (The loss of my grandson's Nintendo DS on a flight from CA to my house comes to mind.)
5. If I use my debit card for something, I must immediately put it back where it belongs. The notion that "I'll do it later" just doesn't work. By the same token, I must put my car keys in the usual place RIGHT NOW. If I don't, the search is on when I really need them.
6. In this day of instant communications, telling one person something in the hopes that the information will be passed on adequately isn't necessarily an indication that it will happen. Follow up; follow up; follow up!
7. Assuming that you have all the facts based on what someone tells you isn't necessarily true. When I was a teacher, I made a lot of assumptions about a student's home life based on what I heard from him/her, then found out later that it wasn't the case. The same thing happened in the opposite direction. Things that the student said at home didn't necessarily happen the way the kid said. It caused me to tell parents, "I'll believe half of what your child tells me about home, if you'll believe half of what he/she tells you about school!" Listening to what my grandchildren tell me about life at home and at school make this even more poignant for me. I get it!
8. I never leave my car without stopping to ask myself if I have the key in my hand. Never. I think people who are watching think I am nuts as I hesitate before I shut the car door. It's just insurance!

Heh heh...my sister sent me an email today. She made an assumption about her eldest great-grandson who has an early June birthday. For the past three years, he has wanted a pool party at her house, so she was gearing up...but NO...this year, he wants to go to Chuck E. Cheese's. So much for maternal instincts!

Helping the Homeless

Monday is Homeless Feeding Day at my church. We don't feed homeless people at our church. We just prepare and pack the food there, then send it off to Indianapolis to locate the people who live under bridges and the like.

It all started a few years ago, innocently enough. I think someone from our church was on a committee with members of other churches in the Indy area and heard of their mission to feed the homeless. It wasn't too long before our church took one day a week to do so as part of the larger service to God and man. One guy sort of took charge. Then someone else stepped up. Then my grandchildren's Grandpa Phil took on the chore of actually cooking the food and arranging for (or making) food purchases. Others come to help with the food preparation and to pack sacks for distribution. Still others bring donations of blankets, sweatshirts/pants, blankets, candles, warm socks, hats, gloves, etc. One local business--The Coachman Restaurant--donates the large foam cups with lids that we send the hot food in. Our little mission usurps the church kitchen every Monday from noon to 6:00 PM.

Last year, Grandpa Phil asked if I could come to help from time to time. I had two other Monday commitments, so I usually didn't assist. This year, however, those commitments went away, so I have been helping out in the absence of some of the "snow birds" who go to Florida for the winter. It has been an interesting process.

The supper for the homeless consists of: soup, some form of bread (homemade bread, corn bread, cheddar biscuits, etc.) an applesauce cup, a diced fruit cocktail cup, a pudding cup, and a bottle of water. Sometimes, there are homemade cookies, depending on who brings what. The soup recipe is also determined by donations during the week. Meat has become quite expensive, so many recipes have to be meatless. We do what we can. Today, we packed food for 75 homeless, and another 45 for folks in a local trailer court. (More about that in a bit.)

Here is the process:
1. While the soup is being prepared, sacks are filled with a napkin, a spoon, and the three fruit/pudding cups. Today, we filled 120 such sacks. (It is a little more complicated than that because all of the fruit/pudding cups have to be unpacked from the larger boxes they come in. Takes time! Just opening up a lunch sack takes time!) The sacks are then packed in big plastic tubs.
2. The bread is either baked at church or ahead of time at home. It is then cut and packed in sandwich bags at church. Again, 120.
3. Soup prep requires cutting and chopping and cooking...onions, celery, potatoes, carrots...sometimes meat. Lots of hands needed for all of that!
4. Along about 4:00 PM, the soup is dished up into the foam cups. We then wipe the accidental drips off the side of the cups, put lids on, and pack the cups in big styro tubs and/or coolers. (There is an art to this. Eighteen on the bottom layer and 22 on the top, with a hand-cut piece of cardboard in between. Have to get this just right in order to make it all work!)
5. The drivers arrive to taste-test the soup and pack the vans to go. I haven't actually gone with the van for food distribution, although I intend to, someday. Those who do go, go back over and over again. Helping "the least of these, my brethren" feels good.
6. Kitchen clean-up. Yes, there is always this! There are three very large pots and one smaller pot to clean, plus the various utensils, floor, counter tops, etc. Just because the van and food disappear does NOT mean the job is done!

The homeless feeding in Indianapolis is a given. We KNOW there is need there...but someone alerted the movers-and-shakers of the feeding mission that there are some very needy folks right here in Plainfield at a trailer park. They have homes...sort of...but lack funds to adequately feed themselves. The church took on supplying them with a meal on Mondays, as well. Just today, we were told by the church secretary that there is a single mother at that park who has four children, with another on the way, who has lost her job and has NOTHING with which to feed her children. We packed extra food items for her family, including a gallon of milk. It's only a drop in the bucket, but it will help.

The City of Indianapolis wishes that we "do-gooders" in churches would stop feeding the homeless. Their claim is that we are enabling them to stay homeless by giving them food--kind of like feeding stray animals. (The analogy hurts, but that is the attitude!) The corporate logic is that there are homeless shelters out there for these folks, but many of the homeless don't like the shelters. For one thing, they are not allowed to bring their "stuff" into the shelter. If they leave it all behind for one night's bed and food, their precious few possessions will be stolen while they are there. Also, they are required to be out by 10:00 AM the next day. Sometimes, they have to attend religious services for the privilege of having a place to stay and a hot meal. Granted, many of the homeless folk have serious mental health issues and/or addictions--but not all. Some are simply down on their luck due to loss of job, divorce, or a series of circumstances. They are all God's children, no matter what. I, for one, will not give up trying to help these folks for reasons that are way too personal. There, but for the Grace of God, go we all!

I take ZERO credit for helping in this mission. Many hands make light work. I pack sacks, pack bread, chop vegetables, etc., but it is only a little help in a much larger project. If I didn't assist, someone else would. That's how it is. There are others far more dedicated than I. I look at it this way: if one single person feels better about his/her life because I peeled a carrot that went into the soup that fed him/her, my own life has more meaning.

On another note, a couple of years ago, my grandchildren and their stepsister saved some of their allowance to donate to the "needy"...and gave their year's accumulation to Grandpa Phil for the homeless project--$45. I don't know if they had any clue how far that money would go, but it was a proud moment for the Heffelmans and me. God bless the children, and God bless those who help those less fortunate!

Toothache Update

Toothache all gone! Antibiotics and pain meds licked it in about three days. The gum back there still feels a little mushy from the swelling, but all is well. Thank God!

Mindless Television

I don't think it's any secret that I keep the TV on in my house as background noise. I don't always watch it, but I do keep the channel on entertainment, some of it interesting and some of it...well...mindless. Take, for example, the fact that I have found a treasure-trove of Dr. Phil re-runs on the Oprah Winfrey Network for three early morning hours. After that, I switch channels for two episodes of Leave It to Beaver, followed by two episodes of The Dick Van Dyke Show, and two episodes of The Andy Griffith Show. ALL of those shows were originated in the early '60s. They are WAY outdated now, but still entertaining. (The only show missing on the lineup is Father Knows Best!)

The most outdated of the three is Leave It to Beaver. A couple of days ago, there was an episode in which Beaver's teacher told his class to keep studying until the bell rang because he had to attend a faculty meeting...and he left the room. That is no-no #1 in education today! Teachers dare not even go to the bathroom without finding someone in authority to watch a class. If something occurs in a classroom without a teacher present, heads will roll. (Sometimes heads roll even if a teacher IS present and he/she fails to see a problem happening.)

Over the course of many episodes, I have watched while June and Ward Cleaver (Beaver and Wally's parents) do things that today's parents simply cannot do without fear of litigation. There have been a lot of times that June asks one of her sons if he knows where the other son is. The boys have plenty of freedom to come and go as they please. In today's society, if you don't know where your kid is, you are a terrible parent. I have seen it over and over again.

I've already mentioned in this blog that children of my generation generally had more freedom than those of today, even though parents still had the upper hand. I don't know how to explain it! I remember, as a very young child, playing outside in California all by myself in a vacant lot a few doors down from where we lived. No one checked on me that I knew of. In those days, kids were expected to entertain themselves, and we did. Mom always wanted to know where we were but didn't necessarily have to see us as we played. One rule in the summers was to be back to the house by dark. I played cowboys and indians, mucked around in the dirt, collected pretty rocks, rode a bike in the neighborhood, and generally just did what kids do. On days that my friend and I were allowed to go swimming, one parent dropped us off at the pool and picked us up hours later. No parental supervision while there. In 3rd or 4th grade, my friend Susie and I took swimming lessons at the "Y" in downtown Danville, IL. We caught a bus, got a token for a transfer to another bus, and arrived all by ourselves. Same thing in reverse on the trip home. I seriously doubt that parents of today would feel comfortable with that.

Why is that? Is society so much more dangerous today than it was then? I wish I knew! All I know is that my mindless TV watching sometimes points out how very different things are today. Maybe we were just more naive?? Of course, there was no Internet back then to remind us of the depravity of the human mind, although it certainly existed. Whatever!

Three Days and One Toothache Later...

I mentioned in my last post that I had a toothache. At first, it seemed that I had just clenched my teeth too tightly in my sleep. (I do that...plus grind them.) By late Tuesday evening, however, it became clear that this was going to be a full-fledged, flaming problem. I went to bed with a throbbing jaw, made only a little better by Extra Strength Tylenol. By Wednesday morning, I medicated myself and waited patiently for the dentist's office to open up for the day. It hurt so much that I really didn't even want the dentist to mess with it. Thank goodness, he didn't. I left with a prescription for a powerful antibiotic and a powerful painkiller...but then had to wait for the pharmacy to fill them, then had to find something that I could eat (since chewing was out of the question) before I took the pills.

Tell you what: I'm no weenie to pain. I've had a number of procedures through the years that should have hurt like the dickens in the aftermath, but didn't. The strongest painkiller I've ever taken was Celebrex for some bruised ribs a number of years ago. I've had bellyaches that hurt worse than some of those deals, including the craniotomy where they went into my brain. This toothache, however, provided some serious pain! I am unimpressed with Vicodin. Yesterday, all it did was take away the throbbing. The jaw still hurt. (Of course, I was only taking half of the dosage offered.) Today, with the action of the antibiotics beginning to reduce the swelling, the Vicodin helped more. But really, why is this stuff so popular with prescription drug abusers? There is no euphoria--no "high". I don't consider absence of pain to be euphoric. I call it "normal"!

Once the tooth infection is gone, we will deal with the cause. The dentist told me so!

I figured something like this would happen because I got my tax return a few weeks ago. As soon as a get a few $$ ahead, stuff occurs to suck it all away. Waiting for my car to break down...or my refrigerator. I live by Murphy's Law!

New Title?

I am thinking of changing the title of this blog to "Peggy's Rant"...rather than "Peggy's Ramblings"...for reasons I won't divulge. I mean, it fits, right? I do get on a soapbox sometimes, trying to express my frustrations with the rest of the world, and I repeat myself because I can't always remember what I've already talked about, but most of my blog posts are self-serving and boring. I am absolutely fascinated to think that anyone actually reads it! On one occasion, I was going through the blog archives thinking of deleting posts when my daughter discouraged me from doing so. She seems to think that they are like history and that it all should be saved...so I left the blog intact. So, Megan...this is all your fault! :)

I haven't written a single thing on this venue that isn't true to my experience. I have said nothing with the idea of hurting anyone else, nor have I fabricated a thing. I am, however, embarrassed by the fact that I have read other blogs that are full of design and pictures. I just don't have the computer skills for that! With all of my time in retirement, I should work at getting better at doing those things... But what do retired English teachers do? They write. Or at least this one does. Sorry, folks. That's what I do best!

On to other things. Last week, I decided to take a little of my tax return money to put in a new storm door at the back of the house. One of my handy radio friends agreed to help me buy one and do the work. It took a couple of days, but it looks great! Meanwhile, I had decided to ditch Comcast and go with AT&T U-Verse because, according to the salesperson at the door, it was going to save me some money each month. The technician came on the same day as the storm door project. He had to rewire part of the house. Was here for four hours...got the phone and TVs going, and the Internet...then left. Unfortunately, he didn't give me the info I needed in order to log into wireless from my laptop. I figured it would take yet another phone call to AT&T to get that taken care of.

Two days ago, for reasons known only to God, the power glitched here at the house for a split second--just enough to knock out everything. Nothing came back when the power returned. One thing I didn't understand when I went with U-Verse is that even the phones run through the modem. When the power is out and/or the modem isn't working, the phones don't work, either. Yikes! I got on the cell phone and started working with a technician to get things up and running again. He determined that I probably had a defective modem and put in a service call for the next day, but we were able to get things going, temporarily. Meanwhile, I almost ran my Tracfone out of minutes...

Yesterday, a different technician showed up to give me a new modem WITH a battery backup (which the first one was supposed to have, but didn't), and we resolved the information about how to log into wireless with other computers. So far, so good! I'm still a little nervous about not having phone service during a power outage, considering that my health isn't all that good. He told me how I could get around that. I just have to call AT&T to figure out how much that will affect my bill. It's pretty unlikely that I would have a heart attack during a power outage, but stranger things have happened.

I think I'm in for some trouble. Am experiencing a toothache in a tooth that is an anchor for a permanent bridge that was installed in my mouth somewhere around the mid-80s. This isn't good. Wish me luck!

So...Peggy's "rant" for today is that I want a magic wand to use to clean my house!! Am looking after my neighbor's furball (cat) because his wife has had knee-replacement surgery, and he is finding himself coming and going. The cat is probably 16 years old. He's a lover. (The cat...not the neighbor!) In any case, I just keep on pluggin'!

Honk If You Love Jesus!

Do you remember the days when people stood on curbs holding signs that said that? And did that imply that, if you didn't honk, you didn't love Jesus?

We now have the world of social media where people are welcome to post on Facebook and other such sites what is going on with them at any moment of the day--as if we should all care if one's day is going well or badly... I succumbed to Facebook when I retired because my students begged me to create an account so they could keep track of me. But, as a member of that "society", I am now subject to posts from "friends" saying something like, "Jesus died for you. If you care, repost this. If you don't, just keep scrolling". Hello?? This is extortion, with the exception that it doesn't require a monetary donation. I refuse to be bullied! My faith--and my politics, by the way--are quite personal to me. I don't re-post anything, and I won't "forward" anything that I haven't already checked out on snopes.com or truthorfiction.com to determine the validity of whatever is being promoted. I respect the rights of others to do that, but I won't be a party to it, thankyouverymuch. I do make it a point to correct people who have forwarded nonsense. So sue me!

Funny Story

One of my younger radio friends was here yesterday to do some outside painting on my house--painting that required being on a ladder. After the job was done, he and I were gabbing about radio gossip, and I was telling him a story that I will now share with you.

A number of years ago, when I was still teaching, I was visiting my sister in Illinois for Christmas and was sitting at her computer, when a former student caught me on Instant Messenger. (I'll call him "D".) I had D in class when he was a Sophomore and was slated to have him again that year--his Senior year--but he had changed schools. On IM, he told me that he was interested in getting a radio license. I had made a promise to my students back then that if they studied to pass the FCC amateur radio license test, I would personally escort them to a test session and pay for it. I didn't believe for a minute that D was serious because he wasn't all that dedicated a student of English. His main focus in high school was football! Still, I put him in touch with a website that would help him prepare for the test. From time to time, he would check in with me over the course of a week to tell me how he was doing. Yeah...right.

By the time school started back up, D told me he was ready to take the test. We coordinated a day--January 5th--to drive to a test site to see how he could do. I was in total shock when the Volunteer Examiners came out to tell me that D had passed! I mentioned to him that if he had put that much effort into his school courses, he could be an A student. His response? "My dad said that, too." On the way home from the test site, I had the privilege of announcing to the radio world on my club's repeater that I had a new ham operator on board--age 18. Nice!

I was immediately able to come up with a handheld radio for D, purchased from another dear friend of mine. D began to explore the radio world as a new operator. I was really proud of that kid! There was an incident where his older brother got hold of his radio and started broadcasting (illegally) on his brother's new call sign. We had to deal with that. (I also had D's brother in class, so I knew what was going on.) Because D was MY radio protege, I felt very protective of him, wanting him to see the best of our radio brotherhood. I had him checking in to a kids' net on the 146.700 repeater, even though he was at the top edge of age limitations for that.

Then there was a fellow named Phil. Phil is an adult radio operator who always seemed to show up on the .700 repeater when kids were on the air. Suddenly, Phil took a fancy to D. He started calling D's house, trying to set up a meeting with him to "help" him understand radio. D wasn't comfortable with it, and neither was I. Phil seemed like a pedophile stalker to me! I got on the air with Phil and told him, in words that even he could understand, that he needed to leave D alone. Thereafter, I got a couple of letters from Phil--rambling missives that showed a lot about his IQ and intentions--telling me that, since D was 18, he didn't have to back off at all. At one point, I was so concerned about how to protect D (and other young hams) from Phil that I went to one of the movers-and-shakers in amateur radio in Marion County to ask what I should do about this dude. (He was fairly well known in radio circles.) The guy told me not to worry about it--that D should probably just punch Phil in the face and be done with it! In retrospect, I realized that what he was telling me that I couldn't be everywhere and that D probably had skills to take care of himself. Still, I was the mother duck trying to protect my duckling!

Over time, that all faded away. D went on to a 2-year college but kept in touch. Thereafter, he put in an application for an academy and used me for a reference. I got a phone call from the academy and told them, in all honesty, that D had caused me problems in high school English classes, but that I knew his family and I knew him to be clean of all alcohol and drugs, and totally dedicated to his education goal--and that I was in awe of his effort to achieve amateur radio operator status.

Now, here is The Rest of the Story, as the late Paul Harvey would say:
The young man that I was trying to protect as a newbie radio operator--D--was accepted at the academy of his choice and stayed the course. I was invited to and attended his graduation.
You can now find Indiana State Trooper Daniel Criswell (KC9AXD) on the highways and byways of Central Indiana!

My Brushes with Bad Weather

I am amused when I talk to people from various parts of our wonderful country who fear living in other parts of our wonderful country because of various natural disasters. Midwesterners are afraid of California because of earthquakes. Californians are afraid of the Midwest because of tornadoes. I smile and say that I have lived in the Midwest most of my life, but I have yet to see a tornado first-hand. Besides, tornado damage is severe but localized. Earthquake damage is far-reaching. Then there are the hurricanes down south. It's a fact of life that people are never going to be free of the natural forces that abound. I've been lucky, I guess...but I have had some brushes with bad weather, one of which got pretty scary.

TYPHOON!
My family lived in Japan in the late 50s, in Sasebo on the southernmost island of Kyushu. We never gave a thought to earthquakes, although Japan is subject to them. Nor did we worry about tsunamis (which were called tidal waves in those days). But we were also subject to hurricanes. In the Pacific, hurricanes are called typhoons. Each time the threat of a typhoon came around, the Americans always said, "Watch the locals. If they start typhoon preparations, find refuge for your family. Otherwise, don't worry about it." So we did.

We lived in an Americanized Japanese house in a little settlement with other American families up on the side of a mountain, on a street called Yamata-Cho. We would have been out of flood danger there, but maybe not wind damage. One such typhoon warning came along, and we watched as the shopkeepers in the open markets down in the town started boarding up their shops. Dad was stationed on the USS Jason which was on a mission called ComServRon3. (Don't ask! I don't have a clue what that was!) When he got the word to report to the ship because it would be leaving port for the typhoon, Mom knew we needed to find shelter. Dad wouldn't be with us.

I was only 10 at the time. I remember thinking how silly it seemed to send a ship into the ocean during a typhoon rather than have it stay "safe" in the harbor, but I didn't realize that damage to a ship tied up in port was much more likely than taking chances on the open seas. In any case, Mom took us--my sister (15 or 16), brother (4), and I--to town, to the brick Bachelor Officer's Quarters--to sit out the storm overnight on pallets on the floor of the basement. I think we were the only family doing that. Don't remember anyone else there. I DO remember that it was boring. No TV. No radio. No iPods or other electronic devices in those days. Don't recall if we even took games with us. Nothing at all to entertain three children. I couldn't have slept if I had wanted to! We sat and/or laid there on the floor for hours and hours, watching the wind blow just outside the double glass doors leading to the outside. The only visible damage I noted was when one of the outside glass doors broke in the storm. We weren't in danger from it, but I thought it was exciting and scary!

(On a side note, I have to say that I don't know how our mother got through some of those times with three kids to worry about. She called herself a "country bumpkin" and loved the adventure of travel as a Navy officer's wife...but she also had to carry the burden of child care almost single-handedly. The cross-country trips in an un-air-conditioned car, with fueding siblings in the back seat... The times that we arrived at our destinations sometimes a week or two before our household effects did... The constant moves... Amazing that she survived with her sanity intact!)

STRAIGHT LINE WINDS!
Flash forward to when I was a young mother, just getting ready to move into a rented farm house near Pontiac, IL, where my then-husband had accepted a principalship at the local school district. We were preparing the house to move in...putting in some extra electrical sockets in the kitchen...that sort of thing. That weekend, we had my daughter Megan (18-months) and my stepson Eric (about 9) with us. The house was totally empty except there was a Murphy bed on a sun porch where Joe and I would sleep. We had a cot for Eric to sleep on, and a play pen for Megan. We were all enjoying a much-needed night's slumber when, just before dawn, the wind started to howl. I only woke up when Joe left the bed to go hunt for his glasses, alarmed. I told him just to come back to bed. "It's just a little wind." Right then, one of the windows on the porch broke and scattered glass all over the place. Rain was hitting the other windows hard, and that's when the action started. We began to shout at each other to go to the basement. I grabbed Megan and all of the blankets underneath her. We herded Eric down the stairs to the lower level, looking out the window by the back door on our way. Once safely on the lower level, I said, "Did you see that the willow tree is blown down?" Joe responded, "No, but did you see that the garage has collapsed?" Adrenalin was pumping. Megan, a mere toddler, was now awake and thinking what fun it would be to play!

It was all over in a few minutes. When we felt it was safe to go back upstairs, we did so. It was probably 5:30 AM, just beginning to be light out. It was way too early to call the landlady, and no one was going to be able to go back to bed or to sleep, so we vacated to go find breakfast until we could figure out what to do next. The damage on the property consisted of: six trees down, a collapsed garage, broken window, and a hole blown clear through a barn. When we talked to a policemen at the restaurant, he told us that there had been no reports of tornadoes. (And we all know that it isn't a tornado until the National Weather Service says it is! This was 1980, if that tells you anything.) Anyway, I guess that was my first experience with the power of "straight line winds". In time, we alerted the landlady to the damage and eventually drove the 25 miles to my parents' at the family farm before heading back to the Chicago area. What a day!

TORNADO!
My scariest brush with weather, however, came at a time when I was in no danger at all. It was Memorial Day Sunday of 2004. My daughter, son-in-law, and two grandchildren were living at a house on the Friendswood Golf Course just six miles from my house. That day, I was working the Indianapolis 500 with my radio club. At noonish, our responsibilities were done for the day. We could leave whenever we wanted to. One of our club members, who was listening to weather frequencies, reported that our county (the next over from the Speedway) was under a tornado warning. Since we all do Skywarn storm spotting, we thought it was wise to go home. I was ready!

Once I got home, I changed into a pair of shorts, but still had on my yellow Safety Patrol shirt as I monitored our club's repeater for a severe weather net. We had several spotters out in critical areas, one of whom is a level-headed fellow who never gets noticeably flapped about anything. Suddenly, I heard him say to the net control operator, "W9RXR, priority! We have a tornado!" Wow! Bob sounded excited! When he reported the location of the tornado he had spotted, I noted that it sounded close to where my family lived. I had been in phone contact with Megan. In my last call to her, I told her there was a tornado on the ground not far from her location. "What should I do?" I said, "I think you should take cover." When things quieted down on the radio net, I made calls to Megan which were not answered. Then I heard one of our spotters report "heavy damage to Friendswood Golf Course." OMG! My family!

There was nothing to do but rush to the car and head for Friendswood. As I turned onto the road to their house, I was met by a truck turning around. "There are trees over the road. You can't get down there." I thought to myself, "Watch me!" I parked the car near a downed tree and started the hike to their house on a trot. Not far down, I ran into a guy named Dave, the golf course owner's son who was out trying to prevent people from driving onto the course in order to get around downed trees. "What do you know about the yellow house?" I asked.
He said, "The yellow house is fine, and so are the people in it."
"Where are they now?"
"They said they were going to their mother's house." Oops! That would be me!
I went back to the car, turned it around, and returned home, where I was met by Nathan out in the yard, pacing, holding baby Ryan. A shaken Megan was inside with toddler Robin . I said to Nathan, "Thank God you are okay!" His response was, "Yes, but did you see the golf course??"

The tornado had gone right through the golf course. Electricity and phones were out. Clearly, the family would have to stay at my house for the duration, so my brain began to work about what we would need. Nathan and Megan and the children escaped with only the clothes on their backs. Nathan called his folks across town to let them know that they were okay. I headed to the store to pick up diapers and toothbrushes, etc...and food. Nathan's folks came over to hear the stories. I didn't have places for everyone to sleep comfortably in those days, but we managed. The next morning, Nathan was up very early, wanting to go back to the golf course, and Megan wanted to go with him. I watched the children at my house.

Here is the part of the story that I didn't know until after the fact. Megan knew a tornado was in the area. The golf course had an alarm that was sounded in order to bring golfers off the course, but apparently no one paid much attention to it. She was at the back door trying to snare Nathan to come in when golfers began to shout in alarm as they saw the tornado. And that's finally when Nathan came in! They pulled a mattress off their bed, and holding onto both babies and the dog underneath the mattress in a hallway, they listened to the wind howling and the house creaking, and crashes outdoors...and then the lights went out. In short order, it was all over. When they emerged, the house was still intact, but the outside world was different. Lines were down. Nathan decided that they needed to get out of there to prevent potential problems...so they came to my house, escaping from a different direction than the way I had tried to get to them.

The next day revealed 125 trees down on the golf course, one of which was a HUGE old maple just outside the back door of the yellow house. It missed the house by inches. Robin's "tugboat" sandbox was skewered to the ground by a branch that went clear through it, and her Little Tykes playground/slide was nowhere to be found. (Days later, Nathan discovered it, disassembled, in a pile of rubble. It was unbroken! As Nathan dragged it out, I will never forget seeing my little Robin clapping her little hands and saying, "Yay! Yay! Yay!") Remarkably, the electric company had power restored to the yellow house that very day, so the family stayed there that night and thereafter, but cleanup had only just begun. It was a huge task--all up to Nathan, since he was Supt. of the course.

Megan made a stellar little scrapbook of the whole event. (Nathan has it. I sure would like to make photocopies of it.) I hope to God that's the closest any of my loved ones ever have to come to the forces of nature. That one was close enough!!!

So, as our spring progresses and weather abounds, survive as best you can. I'm not worried. My brushes with bad weather have been few and far between. I'd like it to stay that way!

Heh heh

You might notice that I put a new feature on my blog (thanks, Megan)! A search feature.
Had to do that because I've been doing this blog so long that I forget what I have written about and not written about.
Happy searching!

Heroes

I'm going to get in trouble with this blog post because some of the things I'm going to say aren't popular.

Like most of the rest of the world, I have a Facebook account. Most of my "friends" on there are former students--young folks who get sucked into the emotions of the moment. Someone posted something on there a few days ago that I didn't read, but I think it said something about establishing a holiday to honor Vietnam veterans. And, of course, there are always posts about our "heroes" in the military--not heroes by the true definition, but heroes just because they are serving our country.

Before I make my comments, I need to establish that I am proudly from a military family, most of whom served in war time--World War II and Korea. My father and favorite uncle were career officers--Dad in the Navy; Uncle Bud in the Army. My favorite aunt was in the Coast Guard, and my brother (toward the end of the Vietnam Conflict) was in the Navy. I was a young wife when the Draft was initiated in order to support the Vietnam Conflict. It was not a popular war. Vietnam was a tiny country, half a world away, that supplied us with nothing. We promised to help them be free of Communism, which wasn't really possible because the Communist forces were being supplied by China. (There are a LOT of Chinese!) We were sending our young soldiers there to die...for what? No one was really sure. It wasn't to protect our freedoms. It was to make our government make good on a promise. It tore the country apart.

There were a lot of deferments. In the beginning, if you were in college, you were deferred. (My husband was in college.) Lots of men enrolled in college. Then, if you had a family, you were deferred. Men got married and started babies. Finally, the Selective Service (Draft) made a lottery by birthdate that would ace out deferments. The lower your number, the more likely you were to be called up. My then-husband's birthdate drew #16. Sixteen out of 365. What luck!

Then, one day, Tom (my husband) got the letter that ordered him to report to Chicago for a draft physical. I was beside myself! I called my aunt in San Diego to ask her advice. (She was the head of the Selective Service in San Diego and had to tell her own son that his number was up.) She told me/us that Tom needed to report but take any doctor's documentation with him. (Tom's eyesight was bad. He wore Coke-bottle lenses in his glasses. I think vision in one eye was 20/400.) He took the trip and had doctors' letters with him. At the very end of the physical, the doctor in charge had Tom's glasses in his hand and asked if Tom had any letters from a doctor that would explain his eyesight. Tom had to ask for his glasses back in order to find the letter in the envelope he carried! Needless to say, he was no longer a candidate for the military, but it had scared both of us.

I also need to establish that I was a teacher for 40 years. When males graduated from high school, there were a few choices: college, vocational school, a job, or the military...in that order. Since Vietnam was such an unpopular war, those who served were not always treated well when they came home. There were no "welcome home" banners or "thank you for your service" hand shakes. I think it was pretty much recognized that if you were serving, you were doing so because of the Draft more than any particular desire to save your country's freedoms (unlike WWII after Pearl Harbor). Years later, when the hue and cry went out about our forgotten Vietnam vets, my father called them "crybabies". Still, as a country, we learned to appreciate our soldiers...but I think we have gone too far the other way. Now, on Facebook, anyone who is in the military is being called a "hero".

Heroes aren't people who are merely doing their jobs. When one enlists in the military, he/she understands that there will be sacrifices. If deployed, their families will be split up for months or years. It's not as if they didn't sign up for that...

You are a hero if you do something above and beyond the call of duty. A fireman isn't a hero just because he goes to a fire. He chose to do that. His job is to put out the fire and rescue anyone who is trapped. The fireman who is a hero has gone into a fire that would threaten his life just to save someone else. In the same vein, a person who enlists in the military in order to have an income and take advantage of government benefits isn't a hero just for having done so. It would be like calling my plumber a hero for unplugging my toilet! I think we are using the word "hero" too lightly.

Coming from an "intellectual" frame of mind that venerates a college education and downplays those who can't do that, I am well aware that we NEED people who have skills that aren't intellectual in nature. My college education allowed me to teach children for a lot of years, but I can't fix my car if it breaks down, nor can I put in a new water heater. I get that. I'm just not ready to declare a special day for Vietnam veterans or lift other veterans to a pedestal that only says that they served. Let's not go overboard, folks. We already have Veteran's Day and Memorial Day to honor our service people...plus the Fourth of July. What more do we need to do? Nothing!