OH! CHRISTMAS TREE?

The holiday season is the time for reflecting on holidays past and your Curmudgeon is no different. Here's a tale from way back in the dark ages... 1973.

After spending the first three years of our marriage in western Maryland, a place that takes a back seat to nowhere else when it comes to winter snow amounts, my first wife and I moved to Fairmont, WV. This is a small city in the north central part of the state whose claim to fame, at least for us, was that it had a state college (now university) and that it was about 20 minutes on I-79 from West Virginia University in Morgantown.

We were living in one side of a duplex on a little cross street in town. The house was of the "I" house design. From the side view it was a narrow, two stories high with a sharply pitched roof line. Attached to the main house at the back were one story additions with low ceilings. A pretty typical early 20th century duplex in a college town. Oh, and one more thing. The front porch, which covered both front doors, was only about four feet wide up a short flight of steps. The front door opened to a closet directly opposite which required a sharp left turn to get into the living room. More on that later.

Our first Christmas in Fairmont found my wife working at her retail job and my friend and business partner, Ray, and I (we had a roofing and siding business) sort of off work because of the weather. This may have contributed to what was to come. The weather was typical for the area with 5 or 6 inches of snow on the ground. It's possible that a surplus of Christmas cheer, and too much time on our hands, lead to the brilliant idea that we should go out and cut us a Christmas tree.

So, after, perhaps, a bit more Christmas cheer, Ray and I and a saw and some rope piled into my Fiat 128 and headed out across the river to a cut your own tree lot we'd both seen in passing. That's not a picture of my Fiat, but it looked just like that. Bright red. As you can see from the picture, this is not a very big car. The good news was that it was front wheel drive and went very well in the snow. Off we went to the tree lot.

We pulled in and discussed our quest with the guys huddled around a 55 gal. drum fire and thus learned that all the trees were the same price. That seemed fair, so we paid the man, got out the saw and headed over a small hill to the actual trees. There, at the front of a small forest of Christmas trees, was the best looking tree  I had ever seen. It was perfectly shaped even with snow weighing down its branches. It was full, with no ugly voids or missing branches. This was the kind of tree that should grace the front of every Christmas card ever sent. It looked that good from the top of the hill. I just knew, this was the tree for me.

As we descended, saw in hand, the perfect Christmas tree seemed to grow. The closer we got, the taller and wider it became. But I was determined. This was my tree, damn it, and I was going to cut it down and bring it home.

The first thing we had to do was get some of the snow off the branches. It was easy enough to knock loose the snow from the lower limbs and with the saw we could reach a little way up, but there was a lot of snow still on the higher branches. Simple, I just reached in to shake the trunk. I could barely reach the trunk of this tree! I had to push lower limbs aside, and up until I finely grabbed a hold and shook with all my might. Nothing happened. I tried again. Nothing moved. The snow on the upper branches was still there. I backed out, stepped back, lit a cigarette and Ray and I just looked at the imposing thing. It was starting to get dark.

"Okay," I said, "The snow will fall off when the tree falls." "No problem." I finished my cigarette, grabbed the saw, and got down on my knees to crawl under the lowest branches. Now, I was what you might call a city slicker when it came to the fine points of felling trees. Our previous Christmas trees had come from a lot set up in front of the Jewel grocery store. I knew a fair amount about cutting wood having had a house framing business back in Maryland, but that was lumber. And an electric circular saw. This was a growing pine tree and a hand saw. Not a "Bow" saw with great big and sharp teeth. No, this was a regular old, cut a two by four hand saw. I started cutting.

The stump of the tree was about eight inches in diameter. I pushed and pulled and pushed some more on the saw. After about a minute I stopped to check my progress. I hadn't yet made it through the bark! That just made me more determined. More pushing and pulling and a bit of cursing that last cigarette resulted a some progress, so I backed out and handed the saw to Ray. I won't bore you with the entire ordeal. Lets just say that by the time we finely yelled, "Timber," the sky was pitch black. We'd been working under the lights for at least 30 minutes. But the tree was felled. We beat our chests in a manly way with what strength we still had and grabbed up the tree from each end... and barely made it three feet before we had to drop the load. This sucker was heavy. We beat as much of the remaining snow off the upper limbs as we could and then both grabbed the butt end and started to drag the tree up the hill.

Ten minutes later and the tree was next to the car and the tree cutters were somewhat winded. With whatever strength we had left we hoisted the perfect Christmas tree onto the roof of the Fiat. This was probably pretty dumb and would have done some major damage to the paint if the roof wasn't still covered in ice and snow. But on the roof it went and with some effort we were able to tie the pointy end to the front bumper and the other end to the rear. A tug on the rope made us realize that the ice on the roof also had a down side. The tree wanted to slip and slide. After a brief consultation we looped the remaining rope around the middle of the tree and put the ends of the rope through the car's front windows. With Ray holding his side with his right hand, and me holding my side with my left hand we started out of the parking lot. And immediately realized that I couldn't hold the tree, steer and shift gears at the same time. Something had to give.

Being young, cold and tired the only (to us) rational answer was for me to drive while Ray shifted gears. That way we could both hold the tree and make it home before the spring thaw. So off we went. Our path home included a toll on a small bridge. As I recall, the toll was only a Nickle, but there was a booth and a girl collecting, so we stopped and paid up. Until that point I really hadn't thought about how we looked driving a little red car with a tree on the roof. The girl taking the toll put it all into perspective when she said, "You look like a Christmas tree with a red ornament on it." "Is that the tree for the courthouse?"

"IS THAT THE TREE FOR THE COURTHOUSE?" What the heck were we carrying? We laughed, told her no and pushed on. Me steering with my right hand while Ray shifted with his left all the way back home. But we made it and without further incident. When we pulled up in front of the house we saw that my wife was not home yet. Perfect, I thought. We can surprise her with this wonderful Christmas tree all set up and ready to decorate when she gets home. Ya, right!

We untied and rolled the tree onto the sidewalk. Now that we weren't on the side of a snow covered hill we could actually pick up the whole tree and carry it up the stairs onto the porch and to the front door. Oops, we had it wrong way around. We went back down the stairs, made a 180 in the neighbors yard and headed back up to the door, butt end first. Now, remember I said the entry way was a little tight. Well, it no time at all to realize that this tree was not going through that door from that angle. Not goin' to happen.

There were two immediate problems before us. One was the direction of travel. In order to get this tree into that door we needed to come at it from the porch on the other side of the duplex. The second was the storm door on my front door. Number two was easy enough to solve. We were "in the business" so to speak, so we grabbed some tools and took down the storm door. In what may have been the only good decision in a day of not so good decisions we also removed the front door of the apartment. Just in case. We were ready now. We huffed the tree back down our steps, across the front of the house and up the neighbors steps with the cut end pointed at the door. There was a half wall between the two porches that the tree sort of sat on as we attempted entry.

By pushing, pulling, shaking and cussing we got almost three whole feet of the tree into the house. This was not working all that well. More pushing and pulling, followed by much more cussing, and we got it about a third of the way in. This continued through several stages, several more cigarette breaks and possibly more Christmas cheer. Finely the tree popped the final three feet into the living room. It pretty much filled the whole room. But, heck, it was still on its side. It wouldn't take up that much room once it was set up. Would it?

I'd actually thought ahead enough to have gotten out the tree stand. This was one of those with three screws that you turn in to hold, and plumb, the tree while it sits in a pan of water. Simple. Well not so simple. It seems that the eight inch diameter of the tree trunk was a bit larger than the ring holding the set screws. Maybe more than a bit. It was never going to fit. Okay, I thought, we'll just make a stand. We set up some saw horses out back, grabbed power tools from the car and some scrap lumber and in a little while we had a plywood and two by four Christmas tree stand. Back into the house we went and, with some pretty big nails, we nailed the stand to the base of the tree. We were all set.

Ray and I positioned ourselves at the pointy end and together heaved the tree top up toward the ceiling. And stopped dead when we realized that the tree was taller than the ceiling was high. By what seemed like a lot. It was time to measure the ceiling height and the tree. The ceilings in this old house were 10 feet from the floor. The tree, it turned out, was a little more than that tall. Lets just say that after grabbing the hand saw out of the car and cutting for what seemed to be another very long time we had made the big tree shorter. How mush shorter? I gave Ray the cut off top and he and his wife used it for their Christmas tree that year. It didn't need to sit on a table.

We huffed and puffed and finely the tree was standing in my living room. As I said, the house was an old "I" house. One of the features of this style of building was that the living room, and the bedroom above it, were big. 16 by 16 big. The tree took up a third of the room! And it was against, that is touching, both walls of the corner of the room. It was gigantic.

When my wife got home there were exclamations of wonder, as in "I wonder what you clowns were smoking," wonder. But all was, in fact well. Over the next few days we decorated with lights and ornaments and the old style aluminum tinsel. Lots of lights. Lots of ornaments. Pounds of tinsel. When finished it was, truly, the perfect Christmas tree. But the story doesn't end there.

In the modern world of the 21st. century we have a wide selection of available types of holiday tree. For example, this year the Queen of the Frontier and I put up Frazier Fur Christmas tree that we cut from a friends tree farm. Cut, wrapped in that net stuff and in the bed of my pickup in 15 minutes. A beautiful 9 foot tall Christmas tree. They even drill the butt end to fit the spike on the bottom of the tree stand pan were you put the water. Oh ya, water for the tree.

The home made stand that Ray and I had cobbled together held the tree. Okay, it held the tree along with some wire that I had to run to both side walls to keep this monster from falling over. Luckily this was done before the decorations went on. What we didn't bother with was a way to give the tree water. We figured that since it was fresh it would last just fine. We were wrong!

Now, knowing what it took to get the tree into the house I was in no real hurry to take it back out. By mid-January things were starting to turn a little brown. So one Saturday we commenced to remove the decorations and the tinsel and the lights from the perfect Christmas tree. Several painful hours later the tree stood bare in all its greenish brown glory in the living room. Our hands and arms carried scores of little red spots where the now dry as a desert needles had poked. And we still needed to get it out of the house.

I'm somewhat ashamed to admit that yes, I used my Skil Saw to cut off all of the branches right there in the living room. When done nothing remained but the bare trunk of the tree, the knobby cut ends of the branches ringing around and around. And then, so that I wouldn't have to take off the damn door again, I cut the trunk in half and walked the pieces out with a quiet feeling of relief. At least the ordeal was over.

Except for the needles. We stayed in that house until 1975. I can say, without hesitation, that at least once a week for those three years someone in the living room would step on, sit on or in some other way get stabbed by a very sharp and very dry, pine needle. And somewhere there's a picture of your Curmudgeon wearing a suede leather jacket, backwards, some leather gloves and a fencing mask standing before that tree with a circular saw in my hands.

Have a very merry Christmas and a wonderful new year!

LITTLE LEAGUE MEMORIES

Summer brings so many memories. Maybe it’s the smells, or the heat, or the light as the day settles down to its Daylight Savings end. Whatever the cause the result is the same: Sights, sounds and even smells of things that happened many years ago intrude into the present and demand attention, without regard for my need and desire for an afternoon nap. Lately the play list seems centered around my years of playing Little League baseball.

Rolling Meadows, the Chicago suburb where I grew up, was a pretty well off place to live. We didn't actually know this until much later, but it seems that the average per capita income was above the average for the rest of the suburban landscape. In the late 1950s this didn't show up in day to day living, mainly because we didn't spend any time in the other suburbs so that we could make a comparison. We just thought that our Little League field was like every other field. Didn't they all have outfield fences and huge chain link backstops and concrete dugouts? Didn't they feature bleachers and manicured infields? Well if we thought about it at all we assumed the answer was yes. So please understand that while my Little League experience may not have been typical it was all I knew so it was typical for me.

My team was the Braves. We had gray flannel uniforms with all the matching accessories from caps to high rise wool socks to rubber cleat shoes. We looked good! I remember standing along the third base line as the National Anthem played from the speaker on top of the announcers/press box. Did I mention the announcers’ box? Anyway, the recording they used had a nice, un-embellished, vocal by a choir so we could hold our ball caps over our hearts and sing along at the top of our lungs. To this day, every time I hear the last line of the anthem I hear “and the home of the Braves,” since that’s the way we always sang it.

We had a pretty good team, too. I seem to remember that we won a lot of games in our particular division during my time on the team. This may have had something to do with the players that we could put on the field. Our first baseman was also one of our pitchers. He seemed to play all of every game and I guess that he was an okay player. He was also the manager’s son, but I’m sure that had nothing to do with this kid's playing time. We had three other memorable players who I’ll call Bill, Ed and Moose. I have to believe that these guys had shown their birth certificates when they signed up and that they were, thus, legal. But boy, were they big! I’m talking high school big. At least that’s the way they looked to a pudgy (I preferred husky, thank you) preteen wrapped in pinstriped flannel waiting to get into the game.

But big they were, and talented. Bill also pitched and played first base. Little League, even way back in the day, had strict rules for resting pitcher’s arms. This meant that we needed at least four pitchers to make the rotation. Anyway, Bill was a pretty good pitcher and could also hit the ball to get on base. Considering that he was a foot taller than the kid pitching to him I guess that shouldn't have been too surprising.

Ed was a tall, lanky redhead who could throw a mean curve ball and play better than most at shortstop. Lucky for us he had another talent. He could play catcher.

Which brings us to Moose. Moose was our regular catcher. He could catch anything the other three could throw and if an opposing player even thought about stealing a base that player learned that our Moose could also throw. Nobody ever stole a base on Moose. He was also big. Very big. Big like he shaved twice a day just to look scruffy. We really liked having Moose in the lineup.

Our Little League learned pretty quickly that tie-ins with local businesses paid off. The outfield fence was decorated with signs advertising the local Chevy dealer and dry cleaner and several others I can’t remember. From the players point of view, though, the best tie-in was with the local Pepsi distributor. The deal was that any player who hit a home run received a case of Pepsi. Understand, when I say case I mean a low wooden box with hand holds cut on each end, filled with 24 six ounce bottles of liquid rocket fuel. This was great motivation for 9 to 12 year olds to swing for the fences every time at bat, regardless of the Manager’s instructions. With Moose it didn't really matter.

When Moose stepped up to the plate he made the opposing catcher look like a toddler. Hell, he made the grown man umpire look like a preteen. Moose was walked pretty much every time he came to bat, either intentionally or because opposing pitchers lost any sense of ball control that they may have entered the game with. This boy was scary. But sometimes they had to pitch to him. Our dugout would get very quiet. We would sit or stand in rapt attention just waiting for what, to us, was the inevitable outcome. And sooner, rather than later, the crack of the bat signaled that outcome. Moose had hit another one out of the ball park. We were drinking Pepsi tonight!

That strict pitcher rotation that I mentioned meant that every couple of weeks or so we would run out of pitchers. So on those evenings we were treated to a very special lineup: Moose would have to pitch. This caused a few other changes in the placement of our fielding staff since the Manager learned early on that our backup catcher couldn't catch Moose. I mean, literally, Moose’s fastball would knock that poor ten year old back on his ass every time. And good old Moose only had that one pitch, a fastball right over the plate. We had a problem. After a quick huddle, and some hurried changing of gear, Ed was in a squat behind the plate and Moose took his place on the mound. It wasn't even close to a fair fight. Moose would twist himself into a not at all pretty corkscrew and let fly a fastball right in the sweet spot over home plate. The sound of that ball hitting Ed’s extra padded catchers’ mitt was like a gun shot. Two more gun shots and an opposing batter took his seat in the dugout. This was repeated, with an occasional foul ball by the braver kids, until another half inning ended and it was our turn at bat. The games that Moose pitched pretty much always ended in a Pepsi party too, since opposing teams just couldn't wrap their heads around walking the pitcher. They learned quickly how wrong they were.

So that was the team that I found myself a part of. I was not a regular starter for the Braves. I was not a starter at all, actually. In fact, had the league not had a rule that every player got to be in the game for at least three innings (out of the six we played) I doubt that I would have played at all. I was very, very bad at baseball. I had only two memorable games in the three years that I played. Ya, I was that bad.

When I came up to bat, usually once in the last three innings of a game, we would be ahead by several runs. Our trio of giants saw to that in the first three innings. I’d step up to the plate and the infield players would move forward to the infield grass while the outfielders would take up positions that looked like a regular infield. This was somewhat intimidating to chubby little me, but given my record at the plate, not really unexpected. My string of strikeouts was almost legendary. That is, until one game late in my final season.

We had a man on base when I took my place in the batters’ box. The fielders all made their shift to the “this guy can’t hit,” position and things went along pretty much as usual. I swung and missed the first pitch to no one’s surprise. I keep the bat on my shoulder for the second and received a called strike for my trouble. “Here comes number three,” I thought, but then, for reasons that I didn't understand then, or now, I stuck my bat out in a very poor attempt at a bunt. Man on base, advance the runner, those thoughts may have floated through my mind. Much to everyone’s surprise, including mine since I had closed my eyes, the ball made full contact with the bat, and took off as a pop up to short center field. An easy out for just about any fielder in the league. That is, any fielder in a normal fielding position. But all of these guys were in the infield. There wasn't anybody in the outfield to even make a diving catch at this ball. I stood in stunned silence for a second or two until the rest of my team screamed as one, “RUN.” So I ran. When I finely made it to first base, somewhat winded but no worse for ware, it struck me that I had a base hit. In an actual game. I was stunned. The rest of that game is a total blur. I don’t think that I scored, but it didn't matter. I had gotten a base hit!

The other memorable game involved the other aspect of baseball: Fielding. By now you might guess that I wasn't a great fielder. I wasn't even a good fielder. I stunk! My reward for being such a quality player was a permanent assignment to right field. Unlike the big leagues, where switch hitters can hit to whatever area of the field they want (assuming they get the right pitch), Little League players tend to hit to their dominant side: Right handed batters hit to left and center field while lefties hit to right and center. There being far more right handed people than left handed means that the right fielder gets very little action. A perfect place for a less than stellar player.

I didn't help matters, either. Being in right field turned out to be pretty boring. The action was all somewhere else, which lead to, shall we say, my mind wondering. I'd watch airplanes heading to who knows where. I'd count ants as they ran in and out of an anthill. I'd pretty much do anything but pay attention to the game. But then one day something changed.

I had staked out my usual spot. Sort of short right field sort of faded toward center. This was not because I knew anything about the kid at bat, but because it just seemed like a nice compromise place to stand. Right field was quiet that day. The wind must have been blowing the usual “Hey Batter, Batter,” chatter toward the infield so that it was just a dull hum. The sky was clear and perfectly blue, and I had no idea what the balls and strikes count on the batter was, or even how many outs there were. Heck, I didn't even realize that the batting team had runners on first and second base. A perfect day for ant counting.

Just then, out of the blue, the batter connected with a well placed pitch. The ball arched up into that perfect blue sky in the direction of short right field. In fact, the ball was hit right to the spot where I was standing. I raised my mitt, closed my eyes (I seemed to do that a lot), and the ball landed in my open glove. I had caught a fly ball! That felt really good, so with a huge smile on my face I chucked the ball to the second baseman, who was standing on second base, for the usual toss the ball around the infield tradition that ends with the ball back in the pitcher's hands. He turned and fired the ball to the first baseman who was stretched toward second with his foot on the base. I could hear some cheering, and figured our fans and families were happy, and somewhat surprised, that the chubby right fielder with glasses had caught a fly ball for an out. I was wrong.

Remember, I had no idea how many outs we'd already notched. Well, it seems that the correct number was... none. The opposing base runners had seen the ball heading my way and did what any ball player would do when said fly ball had pretty much a zero chance of being caught: They took off at a dead run for the next base. I'm sure that they figured on scoring at least one runner and, given my credentials, maybe two. What the didn't figure on was little old me catching the ball. See, the rules of baseball say that before a runner can advance after the catch of a ball on the fly they had to touch the base they were leaving from after the catch. These guys knew who was in right field, so they just took off running.

When my casual toss to second base reached the second baseman the runner who had headed to third was out. When he fired the ball to first, that runner was out. Now, I was still glowing from catching a fly ball and still had no idea of the number of outs. As my team all started to run toward the dugout, somebody looked out my way a waved me in. I shrugged my shoulders and trotted toward the infield. It was only then that it hit me: My catch was one out, the second baseman made the second and the ball fired to first was three. I had started a triple play!

No, I didn't get a case of Pepsi for my trouble. In fact, the team was sort of unimpressed with the whole thing. I think maybe two of my teammates patted me on the back and said, “good job.” And that was it. My turn at bat came up and my usual strikeout was the result. The world was back to normal. That was my last season playing Little League baseball. My interest moved on to Amateur (Ham) Radio. I'm sure the Braves did just fine without me, but I bet no other player started a triple play. At least I don't think they did.

MEL TORME'S GHOST

It's the holiday season again and. like most of us, my thoughts drift back to holidays past. This year I'm reminded of a Christmas season from about a decade ago.

The Queen of the Frontier and I were living at the beach on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. The pros and cons of that move are fodder for another day, but there we were, owning and running a full service restaurant in Kitty Hawk.

A bit of history is in order. I took up playing the guitar at about the same time I started college. I could tell you that I had a burning desire to express myself through music. I could say that I was influenced by a great music teacher or a great player whose record I had listened to. I could, but I won't. I took up the guitar to attract girls. At the time (1967) that was considered almost a sure thing, at least by we who tried it. All I attracted was the woman who became my first wife, the dreaded "Wicked Witch." Oh well.

The WW and I played and sang folk music. She played the Autoharp and I played guitar. For a while we played some collage coffee house gigs and even once did a show for a VFW party. I can't remember how many times we played for our supper at picnics and family reunions over the years, but it was a few. Heck, we even rode a hay wagon in a parade, playing and singing the same song for 45 minutes. Some kind of fun!

After the WW and I divorced I decided that I'd had enough folk music in my life. The Queen of the Frontier bought me an electric guitar and from that point on I never looked back. I wanted to play lead guitar in a band. To make that beautiful instrument sing and cry. And after a few years of lessons and practice I actually was able to play a passable lick or two. Of course, life intervened. I never did play in a band, but, thanks to the generosity of several real musicians, I got the chance to sit in with some local groups at gigs and parties. I loved it.

Back at the beach, the Queen and I offered live music at the restaurant on Friday nights. Peter, a Jersey boy transplanted to the sand like we were, was our Friday feature. I'm pretty sure that he knows every song from the 60s, 70s and 80s that can be played and sung by one guy. He can remember all of the lyrics and can work out the chords in a flash. He would put on a great show and we advertised the hell out of those Fridays  to bring in more business. Peter and I became golf buddies and, of course, started playing music together. He'd sing and play acoustic guitar and I'd play lead and sing back up vocals. Before too very long we took it to the Friday nights at the restaurant. I would work during his first set waiting tables and doing any of the hundreds of things you need to do to run a beach eatery and then sit in for the second set. We had a ball.

After the first Christmas season we realized that we, that is Peter, didn't know a lot of Christmas songs. Oh, he knew the words, but the music was a bit more of a problem for both of us. As the next holiday season approached we agreed that we needed to learn some new songs. It was time to do some homework.

 This was the perfect opportunity for me to learn one of my favorite Christmas songs of all time; the aptly named "The Christmas Song," written by jazz singer and composer Mel Torme. If you don't know the title I'm sure you know the opening lyrics; "Chestnuts roasting on an open fire." I love that song. And I could sing it fairly well. But neither of us could play it on the guitar. It's jazz, you know.

But I was not to be denied this golden opportunity. I had, in fact, played some jazz sitting in with a superb jazz trio back in West Virginia and while I hadn't messed around with that style for some time, I still owned a very nice jazz guitar. It was time to take that baby out of its case and plug it in.

It turned out that a fellow who worked for us had been a music major before his escape to the beach and he was able to write a chord chart for me that I had a small, but real, chance of learning. Now, this was in October, so you'd think that I had plenty of time in which to learn and refine one silly song. But you would be wrong. I'd played some jazz lead guitar and I could sing pretty much anything in my key. But doing both, that is sing and playing jazz at the same time. That was a different story.

So I practiced. And practiced some more. Weeks went by as I slowly put the chord progression together in a smooth, and hopefully, musical form. Then I started singing while playing. Okay, some set backs there, but it was starting to come together. This was starting to get exciting.

The big night was going to be the last Friday before Christmas. Peter and I had agreed that I'd sit in from the start and end the first set with "The Christmas Song." I practiced a few more times during the week and we were raring to go.

The crowd of mostly regulars knew that something was up, since there was an extra guitar in the corner of the room were we would set up. When they didn't see a third player most, I think, figured out that I was going to do something different that night. As I switched instruments Peter did a little snappy patter and then introduced me and the song. It was on!

"Chestnuts roasting on an open fire," came out smoothly. The guitar sounded fantastic and the crowd was actually taking notice. "Jack Frost nipping at your nose." I had to look either up at the folks or at the neck of the guitar because I knew that if I looked over at Peter he'd make a face and I'd burst out laughing. "Yuletide carols being sung by a choir and folks dressed up like Eskimos," "Everybody knows, some turkey and some mistletoe, helps to make the season bright." Okay, I was coming up to the bridge section. The chords are a little bit easier and I could relax heading into the big finish. "Tiny tots with their eyes all aglow, will find it hard to sleep tonight."

"They know that Santa's....." And just then, the guitar strap came loose from the end of the guitar! The end that I didn't have a grip on. The end that fell to my knees in an instant of shocked silence. It was bad.

I swung the instrument back up and fumbled with the strap for a bit until I could get things right. Yes, I started the bridge again from "They know that Santa's on his way," but the magic was gone. I made it through to the neat little "Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells," instrumental ending. The audience offered polite applause. So I did the only thing I could do at that point. I thanked the crowd and then offered the explanation, "I guess Mel Tormes' ghost didn't want me to sing his song." They laughed. I've never tried to play that song again.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all!

Oh, and one more thing. Now that "The Christmas Song," is running on a loop through your head...you're welcome!

THE BOMB BOX

What was a 43 year old lawyer doing on a barge in the middle of the Ohio River with a half ton of explosives?

The Fourth of July! Independence Day! Fireworks!! Was there a boy alive in these United States whose heart didn't beat faster at the thought.

Flags and parades and marching bands are fine. Picnics and hotdogs and outdoor games are just great. But FIREWORKS.   The very essence of this country's annual birthday extravaganza. Pictures of firecrackers exploding form the backdrop of newspaper ads for weeks in advance of the big day.  Television gives us shells star-bursting in the background as the car/furniture/swim­ming pool salesman offers that special sale price in celebration of the Fourth.

I admit it. I'm a complete fool for things that explode.  I was one of those kids who pestered his father for weeks in ad­vance of the Fourth. "Did you get any fireworks yet?" I'd ask at least five times a day. "Did you get any cherry bombs?" Of course my dad, being a responsible father of the fifties,  had  limited his  purchases  to  snakes (little black buttons  that  when  lit smoked and grew long  ash snakes) sparklers and a couple packs of lady-finger  firecrackers. The evening of the Fourth was always exiting, but sadly, it never felt like enough.

It was the big municipal displays that set the tone for the proper level of pyrotechnics. I felt that anything less  than  a rocket  ascending to the night sky in a trail of sparks  followed by the chest thumping WHUMP as the shell exploded into a  colored starburst  of millions of trailing meteors was, while not a  com­plete let down, at least not all that exciting. Firecrackers made a good loud noise, but they didn't fly. Bottle rockets both flew and exploded, but without the starburst. You can see the frustra­tion.

When I was ten I teamed up with my fifteen year old buddy, Cal, who lived down the block, and entered the mysteries world of science and engineering (junior division). Together we would cut the guts out of old TV sets, re-wire record players into hi-fi
noise blasters and, after that fateful day Cal went to the library, learned to make gun powder.

Gun powder. The Chinese concoction ironically intended by its unknown inventor as a potion to prolong life.  Magic black powder that, with the proper chemicals, could be created in a garage by two kids who had run out of TVs to dismantle.

We mixed, we lit and ... it fizzled, smoked and sparked (a little) then went out. Clearly something was missing and  that something was a container (to contain the powder and contain  the burn until it could reach explosive proportions). We wrapped our black powder in aluminum foil to make a tube shape, not unlike a firecracker. Since we had no fuse we simply left one end slightly open  and made a trail of powder to this end. Our test area was Cal's back yard where we set our device and fuse trail on a slab of scrap 2 x 10.

     Our plan was to light, run and watch the fun as our cracker blew up with a resounding boom. With the Fourth of July approach­ing I think Cal was planning a "booming" business selling home-made firecrackers to the other kids. I just wanted to see the thing explode.

We, that is, Cal, touched match to fuse and the powder began to sputter, then burn up the trail to the shiny foil cracker.  He ran  to our bunker behind the garbage cans (where I was already set  with my dad's old football helmet on my head) and  got  into position  just as the fire reached the open end of  the  cracker. With a sound like a cat spitting, the thing took off from its 2 x 10 launch pad, hit the grass 5 feet away and skidded and skipped across the lawn only to come to rest against the dog house next door. No boom. Not even a pop. But did we care? Not one bit. For in  that instant, as we looked first at the thin trail  of  smoke coming from the now spent cracker and then at each other, we both realized the extent of our invention. We had made a ROCKET!

Did we continue our quest for bigger and better rockets? Did Cal go on to Cal Tech to run the Jet Propulsion Laboratory?  Did these two boys blow themselves to bits (or at least damage impor­tant body parts) in a lesson filled tragedy told and retold on the newspaper's op/ed pages each July 3rd? No. In point of fact, after making a couple more foil rockets and launching them with unimpressive success (one made it onto Cal's roof) Cal discovered an adventure and mystery even greater than homemade fireworks. Cal discovered girls.

Eventually I too discovered girls and the particular brand of fireworks associated with that part of life. But I never  lost the thrill that comes from setting match to fuse and then jumping back  as  a cherry bomb tears the air with a  flash  and  report, leaving  the smell of gunpowder in the nose and a 12  inch  round hole  in the lawn. And now the fates had conspired to grant that ten year old pyromaniac his dream. I was going to help shoot the fireworks display for the city's Fourth of July celebration.  

Nine of us had boarded the old gravel barge down the Ohio River from Wheeling, West Virginia. Eight men ranging in age from thirty to sixty and one of the guys twenty something girlfriend. The guys carried the cardboard boxes of "Bombs", some covered in Chinese characters, from the pick-up truck to the barge, while Michelle and Jay (the sixty year old father-in-law of Ron, the shooter) carried the lanterns, cooler and shovels. The barge was a hundred feet long and twenty-five feet wide and was secured next to a crane barge to which we would be anchored at the shoot site. The day had been one of those perfect Fourths you remember from your childhood; clear sky, no humidity and just  a slight breeze. The perfect kind of day to blow something up.

The floor of the barge had been loaded with several tons of sand and earlier in the day, Ron and some of the others had set the tubes and mortars for the show. The front of the barge con­tained the "Finale" tubes. A double horseshoe pattern of 250 16 inch long pieces of thick walled plastic pipe set in frames of wood and held in place by sand bags and piled loose sand. In  the middle  of  the  barge where the tubes for  the "Flights",  four groups of six tubes each which would hold six bombs fused together. During the show these would act as fillers to add excitement leading up to the grand finale. Then at the back end of the barge were the main mortars. The real fireworks launchers.  The scary stuff.

The big fireworks rockets we love to watch on the Fourth of July aren't rockets at all. They're bombs that are set off inside of pipes pointed (hopefully) into the sky. The finale bombs,  all 250 of them, are 2-1/2 and 3 inches across and are either cylinders  8 inches  long or round like balls, each  with  its  paper covered  fuse  sticking out the top. All of the fuses are tied together so that once lit, the finale will progress, bomb after bomb, without anyone having to light another fuse.

The main mortars are steel pipe set in sand inside of a long wooden box which is then also set in sand bags and loose sand. For this show Ron had set four each of 3  and 4 inch  pipes  and three  each  of 5 and 6 inch pipes, all pointing  skyward  in  an ominous row. This was not to be the hi-tech modern electronically controlled fireworks display seen at theme parks, shell bursts timed to the instant and coordinated with blaring music. This was old fashioned fireworks. The men at the bomb box hand bombs to the runners who drop them into the mortars.  The shooter then lights the fuse that is left hanging out of the tube with a railroad flare. The bomb's first charge (at the bottom) explodes in the tube which sends the bomb several hundred feet into the air.  Then the secondary charge(s) explode giving the effect, Starburst, Palm Tree, Double Ring or just the very load boom of a Report.  My job was going to be to work the bomb box with David. We where the new kids.

As the barge crew set the anchors and fixed our position  in the  middle of the river I had a chance to relax and  contemplate what  I had gotten myself into. There on the near shore were the backs of houses on Wheeling Island, yards full of revelers including our respective wives and children. On the far shore was the downtown skyline and the river front amphitheater.  Thousands of people lined the shore. The river itself was full of pleasure boats.  The slight breeze brought the sound of the symphony orchestra and the realization that the crowd also included the Governor, since his wife (our First Lady) is Maestra of the or­chestra. This was a BIG show.

     Then it hit me. For weeks the newspaper, the TV news, even rock and roll radio stations had warned of the dangers of fire­works.  "The use of these illegal objects could result in your arrest, but more importantly, thousands of injuries  occur  each year, so  be smart and be safe. Go to your municipal fireworks display and LET THE PROFESSIONALS SET OFF THE FIREWORKS."

Well, it seemed that the warnings had gotten it right.  Here I was, a lawyer, in the middle of the Ohio River with two den­tists, an optometrist, a teacher and a tree farmer. The nicest bunch of professionals you ever wanted to meet and we were going to set off all of these wonderful fireworks. The fact is, full time "professional" pyrotechnicians are few and far between.  It's a  job  where you don't do much 364 days a year  (except  at the theme  parks)  so, of course, these guys do other  things  for  a living.  Ron, one of the dentists, has been doing this for over twenty years.  The fireworks company belongs to his father and uncle. From my point of view it was still a scary thought.

As daylight faded we made our final preparations. Loading the finale tubes and joining the fuses. Loading the first sets of flights for the opening. Setting up the bomb box and assigning the jobs for the show. As the new guys, Dave and I would work the bomb box. This was actually the cardboard boxes of bombs stacked on the floor of the barge, in order from 3 inch to 6 inch, and covered with a heavy tarp. Our job was to kneel behind the boxes, facing the mortars, and hand out the bombs to the runners.  The runners would either ask for a specific size to fill an empty tube, or we would give them a bomb of our choice and tell them the size.

Our instructions were simple. (1) Hand out the bombs as fast as they were needed. The idea of a good show is to never have a break in the action. Thus, the runners would be loading tubes that had just fired, as tubes next to them were firing. (2)  Keep the bomb box covered by the tarp at all times.  We were told simply, if a spark lands on the tarp shake or brush it off, but if a spark lands in a box of bombs, WE WOULD BE THE FIRST TO DIE!

With that comforting thought in mind we made our final preparations.  Long sleeve shirts replaced or covered summertime t-shirts.  Some of the guys covered their heads with tied banda­nas, while I choose to turn my ball cap backwards to keep the sparks off the back of my neck. As I pushed foam earplugs into my ears the sound of the orchestra faded. We awaited the signal to shoot. Eye protection goggles in place, David and I knelt behind the bomb box with our hands under the tarp. I held a 5 inch round ball of explosive in each hand, ready to be passed to a  runner after the first volley. Sweat trickled down my back as I flashed for just an instant back to Cal's back yard.  The feeling of excitement, of anticipation, of fear, was the same.  The two minute signal was given and the shooters lit their flares.

The opening flight from the middle of the barge went THUMP, six times and was away. I looked up as the trails went straight up a very long way, then stopped. For just an instant there was silence, then the shells exploded right over our heads.  Six colored stars appeared, one after the other, each accompanied  by a  loud BOOM. That was the signal for Ron to start lighting the bombs in the main mortars, twenty feet in front of us.

By the light of his flare I could see Ron first pull a  fuse from  a  3 inch tube out straight, then touch the  end  with  the flare. In less than a second the mortar fired, WHUMP, as a shower of sparks fountained into the sky. In the time it took to realize that shell was away Ron had lit two others, a 4 inch and a 5. Two more WHUMPS, each bigger than the one before and two more foun­tains of fire leapt to the sky in front of me. Then the first shell went off high above with a boom and Jeff, one of the run­ners yelled, "Give me a 3 and a 4." At least I think that's  what he said because just then the first of the 6 inch bombs went  off and  I felt rather then heard a giant WHUMP and a geyser of fire erupted right in front of me. The show was under way.

On and on it went. WHUMP, WHUMP, BOOM, BOOM, WHUMP.  Some­times the BOOMS were followed by smaller booms or even the siz­zle-boom of a special effects round. The smell of gunpowder was overwhelming as we passed bomb after bomb after bomb. "Give me a 6 and a 5." yelled Greg. "I need two 4s and a 6." for 20  minutes my  world  was reduced to the feel of the round bombs  under  the covering  tarp,  the WHUMP/BOOM of the mortars  firing  and  the shells  exploding and the huge plumes of sparks leaping into  the air. Then Murphy's Law took over.

I had just shouted to David that he had the last box of bombs in front of him and had shifted over to be able to help him pass bombs when a 6 inch shell misfired. It left the tube but only went high enough to fall back behind the sand bagged row of mortars. The first charge went off showering sparks up and to the sides. Ron yelled "Look out!" as he and the others headed for our side of the barge as the next charge, and the next, and the  next after  that  went off in the space between the  mortars  and  the steel wall  of the barge. Somewhere in there I  pulled  the  now fairly  loose  tarp up over my head and ducked down as low  as  I could get. Since I was now on top of David, this wasn't very low, but I guess it was low enough. In less than 5 seconds it was over and Ron, the professional that he is, yelled for us to "Keep Shooting!"  That's when we heard a WHUMP from the far end of the barge.

The misfired shell had set off the finale!  And, to make matters even worse, it had started in the middle rather than from an end so the tubes were firing two and three at a time.  The finale would be a little short at that rate.  With nothing to lose, we started to pass bombs and shoot as fast as possible.  If this was now the end of the show we would make it an ending to remember. David and I handed out bombs with both hands, no longer concerned with telling the runners what they had. Let them figure out the size in the five steps from the box to the mortars.  Ron and Wayne flashed their flares back and forth like swordsmen in a pirate movie, slashing at the fuses before them. And then, it was over.

As the last finale bomb burst over the barge, the boat horns started and the applause built. We heard whistles and screams and shouting and realized that we had just launched the biggest fireworks finale Wheeling had ever seen.

What was it like? It was that perfect ski run. It was a hole in one. It was that perfect Christmas. It was beautiful! I wish Cal had been there to see it.

OH! CHRISTMAS TREE?

The holiday season is the time for reflecting on holidays past and your Curmudgeon is no different. Here's a tale from way back in the dark ages... 1973.


After spending the first three years of our marriage in western Maryland, a place that takes a back seat to nowhere else when it comes to winter snow amounts, my first wife and I moved to Fairmont, WV. This is a small city in the north central part of the state whose claim to fame, at least for us, was that it had a state college (now university) and that it was about 20 minutes on I-79 from West Virginia University in Morgantown.


We were living in one side of a duplex on a little cross street in town. The house was of the "I" house design. From the side view it was a narrow, two stories high with a sharply pitched roof line. Attached to the main house at the back were one story additions with low ceilings. A pretty typical early 20th century duplex in a college town. Oh, and one more thing. The front porch, which covered both front doors, was only about four feet wide up a short flight of steps. The front door opened to a closet directly opposite which required a sharp left turn to get into the living room. More on that later.


Our first Christmas in Fairmont found my wife working at her retail job and my friend and business partner, Ray, and I (we had a roofing and siding business) sort of off work because of the weather. This may have contributed to what was to come. The weather was typical for the area with 5 or 6 inches of snow on the ground. It's possible that a surplus of Christmas cheer, and too much time on our hands, lead to the brilliant idea that we should go out and cut us a Christmas tree.

So, after, perhaps, a bit more Christmas cheer, Ray and I and a saw and some rope piled into my Fiat 128 and headed out across the river to a cut your own tree lot we'd both seen in passing. That's not a picture of my Fiat, but it looked just like that. Bright red. As you can see from the picture, this is not a very big car. The good news was that it was front wheel drive and went very well in the snow. Off we went to the tree lot.


We pulled in and discussed our quest with the guys huddled around a 55 gal. drum fire and thus learned that all the trees were the same price. That seemed fair, so we paid the man, got out the saw and headed over a small hill to the actual trees. There, at the front of a small forest of Christmas trees, was the best looking tree  I had ever seen. It was perfectly shaped even with snow weighing down its branches. It was full, with no ugly voids or missing branches. This was the kind of tree that should grace the front of every Christmas card ever sent. It looked that good from the top of the hill. I just knew, this was the tree for me.


As we descended, saw in hand, the perfect Christmas tree seemed to grow. The closer we got, the taller and wider it became. But I was determined. This was my tree, damn it, and I was going to cut it down and bring it home.


The first thing we had to do was get some of the snow off the branches. It was easy enough to knock loose the snow from the lower limbs and with the saw we could reach a little way up, but there was a lot of snow still on the higher branches. Simple, I just reached in to shake the trunk. I could barely reach the trunk of this tree! I had to push lower limbs aside, and up until I finely grabbed a hold and shook with all my might. Nothing happened. I tried again. Nothing moved. The snow on the upper branches was still there. I backed out, stepped back, lit a cigarette and Ray and I just looked at the imposing thing. It was starting to get dark.


"Okay," I said, "The snow will fall off when the tree falls." "No problem." I finished my cigarette, grabbed the saw, and got down on my knees to crawl under the lowest branches. Now, I was what you might call a city slicker when it came to the fine points of felling trees. Our previous Christmas trees had come from a lot set up in front of the Jewel grocery store. I knew a fair amount about cutting wood having had a house framing business back in Maryland, but that was lumber. And an electric circular saw. This was a growing pine tree and a hand saw. Not a "Bow" saw with great big and sharp teeth. No, this was a regular old, cut a two by four hand saw. I started cutting.


The stump of the tree was about eight inches in diameter. I pushed and pulled and pushed some more on the saw. After about a minute I stopped to check my progress. I hadn't yet made it through the bark! That just made me more determined. More pushing and pulling and a bit of cursing that last cigarette resulted a some progress, so I backed out and handed the saw to Ray. I won't bore you with the entire ordeal. Lets just say that by the time we finely yelled, "Timber," the sky was pitch black. We'd been working under the lights for at least 30 minutes. But the tree was felled. We beat our chests in a manly way with what strength we still had and grabbed up the tree from each end... and barely made it three feet before we had to drop the load. This sucker was heavy. We beat as much of the remaining snow off the upper limbs as we could and then both grabbed the butt end and started to drag the tree up the hill.


Ten minutes later and the tree was next to the car and the tree cutters were somewhat winded. With whatever strength we had left we hoisted the perfect Christmas tree onto the roof of the Fiat. This was probably pretty dumb and would have done some major damage to the paint if the roof wasn't still covered in ice and snow. But on the roof it went and with some effort we were able to tie the pointy end to the front bumper and the other end to the rear. A tug on the rope made us realize that the ice on the roof also had a down side. The tree wanted to slip and slide. After a brief consultation we looped the remaining rope around the middle of the tree and put the ends of the rope through the car's front windows. With Ray holding his side with his right hand, and me holding my side with my left hand we started out of the parking lot. And immediately realized that I couldn't hold the tree, steer and shift gears at the same time. Something had to give.


Being young, cold and tired the only (to us) rational answer was for me to drive while Ray shifted gears. That way we could both hold the tree and make it home before the spring thaw. So off we went. Our path home included a toll on a small bridge. As I recall, the toll was only a Nickle, but there was a booth and a girl collecting, so we stopped and paid up. Until that point I really hadn't thought about how we looked driving a little red car with a tree on the roof. The girl taking the toll put it all into perspective when she said, "You look like a Christmas tree with a red ornament on it." "Is that the tree for the courthouse?"


"IS THAT THE TREE FOR THE COURTHOUSE?" What the heck were we carrying? We laughed, told her no and pushed on. Me steering with my right hand while Ray shifted with his left all the way back home. But we made it and without further incident. When we pulled up in front of the house we saw that my wife was not home yet. Perfect, I thought. We can surprise her with this wonderful Christmas tree all set up and ready to decorate when she gets home. Ya, right!


We untied and rolled the tree onto the sidewalk. Now that we weren't on the side of a snow covered hill we could actually pick up the whole tree and carry it up the stairs onto the porch and to the front door. Oops, we had it wrong way around. We went back down the stairs, made a 180 in the neighbors yard and headed back up to the door, butt end first. Now, remember I said the entry way was a little tight. Well, it no time at all to realize that this tree was not going through that door from that angle. Not goin' to happen.


There were two immediate problems before us. One was the direction of travel. In order to get this tree into that door we needed to come at it from the porch on the other side of the duplex. The second was the storm door on my front door. Number two was easy enough to solve. We were "in the business" so to speak, so we grabbed some tools and took down the storm door. In what may have been the only good decision in a day of not so good decisions we also removed the front door of the apartment. Just in case. We were ready now. We huffed the tree back down our steps, across the front of the house and up the neighbors steps with the cut end pointed at the door. There was a half wall between the two porches that the tree sort of sat on as we attempted entry.


By pushing, pulling, shaking and cussing we got almost three whole feet of the tree into the house. This was not working all that well. More pushing and pulling, followed by much more cussing, and we got it about a third of the way in. This continued through several stages, several more cigarette breaks and possibly more Christmas cheer. Finely the tree popped the final three feet into the living room. It pretty much filled the whole room. But, heck, it was still on its side. It wouldn't take up that much room once it was set up. Would it?


I'd actually thought ahead enough to have gotten out the tree stand. This was one of those with three screws that you turn in to hold, and plumb, the tree while it sits in a pan of water. Simple. Well not so simple. It seems that the eight inch diameter of the tree trunk was a bit larger than the ring holding the set screws. Maybe more than a bit. It was never going to fit. Okay, I thought, we'll just make a stand. We set up some saw horses out back, grabbed power tools from the car and some scrap lumber and in a little while we had a plywood and two by four Christmas tree stand. Back into the house we went and, with some pretty big nails, we nailed the stand to the base of the tree. We were all set.


Ray and I positioned ourselves at the pointy end and together heaved the tree top up toward the ceiling. And stopped dead when we realized that the tree was taller than the ceiling was high. By what seemed like a lot. It was time to measure the ceiling height and the tree. The ceilings in this old house were 10 feet from the floor. The tree, it turned out, was a little more than that tall. Lets just say that after grabbing the hand saw out of the car and cutting for what seemed to be another very long time we had made the big tree shorter. How mush shorter? I gave Ray the cut off top and he and his wife used it for their Christmas tree that year. It didn't need to sit on a table.


We huffed and puffed and finely the tree was standing in my living room. As I said, the house was an old "I" house. One of the features of this style of building was that the living room, and the bedroom above it, were big. 16 by 16 big. The tree took up a third of the room! And it was against, that is touching, both walls of the corner of the room. It was gigantic.


When my wife got home there were exclamations of wonder, as in "I wonder what you clowns were smoking," wonder. But all was, in fact well. Over the next few days we decorated with lights and ornaments and the old style aluminum tinsel. Lots of lights. Lots of ornaments. Pounds of tinsel. When finished it was, truly, the perfect Christmas tree. But the story doesn't end there.


In the modern world of the 21st. century we have a wide selection of available types of holiday tree. For example, this year the Queen of the Frontier and I put up Frazier Fur Christmas tree that we cut from a friends tree farm. Cut, wrapped in that net stuff and in the bed of my pickup in 15 minutes. A beautiful 9 foot tall Christmas tree. They even drill the butt end to fit the spike on the bottom of the tree stand pan were you put the water. Oh ya, water for the tree.


The home made stand that Ray and I had cobbled together held the tree. Okay, it held the tree along with some wire that I had to run to both side walls to keep this monster from falling over. Luckily this was done before the decorations went on. What we didn't bother with was a way to give the tree water. We figured that since it was fresh it would last just fine. We were wrong!


Now, knowing what it took to get the tree into the house I was in no real hurry to take it back out. By mid-January things were starting to turn a little brown. So one Saturday we commenced to remove the decorations and the tinsel and the lights from the perfect Christmas tree. Several painful hours later the tree stood bare in all its greenish brown glory in the living room. Our hands and arms carried scores of little red spots where the now dry as a desert needles had poked. And we still needed to get it out of the house.


I'm somewhat ashamed to admit that yes, I used my Skil Saw to cut off all of the branches right there in the living room. When done nothing remained but the bare trunk of the tree, the knobby cut ends of the branches ringing around and around. And then, so that I wouldn't have to take off the damn door again, I cut the trunk in half and walked the pieces out with a quiet feeling of relief. At least the ordeal was over.


Except for the needles. We stayed in that house until 1975. I can say, without hesitation, that at least once a week for those three years someone in the living room would step on, sit on or in some other way get stabbed by a very sharp and very dry, pine needle. And somewhere there's a picture of your Curmudgeon wearing a suede leather jacket, backwards, some leather gloves and a fencing mask standing before that tree with a circular saw in my hands.


Have a very merry Christmas and a wonderful new year!

HAPPY 4Th OF JULY

For you newer readers, here's a link to a piece I wrote a long time ago about my adventure with holiday fireworks. I posted this first in 2009. Enjoy.

YOU CALL THAT A SNOW STORM?

The recent mega snow storm that hit my home town of Chicago put me in mind of the record Chicago area storm of 1967. I was a senior in high school and thus allowed to drive to school instead of taking the bus. On this particular day I'd picked up my friend Bruce on the way in, planning to take him home after school. The sky was threatening and starting to spit a little snow as we went into the building. And then the sky opened. It began to snow at the rate of 2 or 3 inches an hour! We'd move from one class to the next, sit down and, I swear, the view out the new classroom window would be worse than the view from the room we left 5 minutes before. It was really coming down.

Now, this post wouldn't be truly complete without saying a little something about my car. My first car.

My first car was a powder blue, 1952 Austin Healey (Bug Eyed) Sprite which I bought for $450 as a 16 year old in 1965. At the time I had yet to learn how to drive a standard transmission car. As I slipped behind the wheel after completing the paperwork the former owner mentioned that "1st. gear and reverse where a little broken." It seems two teeth were missing. It clunked, but moved, in reverse but 1st. was just not worth the trouble.

Since I had a date with a tall redhead later I had no choice but to learn how to drive stick in my new sports car and do so without the use of 1st. gear.

Well, I only spun out once and never actually stalled the engine. Thanks must go to the fine British engineers who put a lovely, and forgiving, hydraulic clutch in my cute little car. I made my date with the redhead on time and we went merrily on our way...top down, wind in our hair, starting from each stop sign in 2nd gear and having the time of my life.

Neither my relationship with the redhead, nor the car, lasted all that long. The redhead broke up with me while driving, in the Sprite, to a Lake Michigan beach on the day after I had taken her to her school's prom. Not a real great memory there. The car I sold to one of my brothers and then I got married and moved away and I never saw the little cutey again. Here's an old Polaroid from the day I brought the beauty home.

So there I am, sitting in class just after lunch, when the Vice Principle comes on the PA to tell us that the school would be closing early. Now, understand, this was northern Illinois in the winter. They didn't close school ever for snow days. But this sucker had already laid down 16 to 18 inches of blowing snow, so I guess somebody thought earlier was better than later when we'd be facing 23 inches.

My first thought was, "Hey, we get out of school early." My second was, "and my car sits only 5 inches above the road!" This was going to be interesting. I found Bruce in the hallway and off we went to the parking lot. I was in a bit of a rush because I figured that fresh snow was going to be easier to maneuver in than the tracks from the bunch of school buses lined up along were the curb used to be.

It turns out that I was right. The Sprite was so light that I was able to drive pretty much on top of the fresh stuff. We were the first car out of lot and a quick look over my shoulder revealed the second and third cars caught in the tracks from the buses. We, on the other hand, were bobbing and weaving along at a good, yet safe, clip. Sort of in a controlled skid as we made our way to Bruce's house. At least that's what we did until we were about a half mile away from school. The little Sprite coughed once and then just died. Since there really wasn't a shoulder on the road, just plowed snow mounds, we were sitting on the roadway, during a white out blizzard, in a very small British sports car that was dead as a post.

We, of course, did what you are supposed to do. We opened the hood to see if we could fix it. Surprise, surprise! Lifting the hood (which on this model included the front fenders) revealed a perfect sculpture of the inside of said bonnet made of  eight or ten inches of beautiful fresh snow which had blown in throughout the day. Here's a little tip about early British sports cars: their electrical systems will short out if the air is humid. My electrical system was covered with snow which, thanks to the heat of the engine while it ran, was now melting. A lot.

While I made this rather unpleasant discovery, Bruce very wisely flagged down another student who's car had not died and got us a lift to the nearest gas station. There, after an hour of so wait (it was in the middle of a blizzard) the tow truck guy and I went off to get the car, bring it back to the garage and try to dry it out sometime before Spring.

With a lot of digging, by hand, and the liberal application of a high pressure air hose, it only took another hour or so until we again heard the sweet sound of that British four cylinder engine and we pushed off again into the storm. Now, being a Midwestern boy, I might have been dumb enough to go out in a blizzard in a sports car, but I wasn't so dumb as to do it without carrying a shovel. So we'd go along pretty well until we hit an intersection full of ruts where we'd get hung up on snow packed under the car. A little digging and a little pushing and away we'd go again. This drama was repeated several times before getting Bruce home, but we finely made it. A ten minute ride in the summer had taken all of four hours and I was still several miles from home.

As tense as the trip had been with Bruce in the car, and on the shovel, I was now alone and it was getting dark. Either through luck, or my superior winter driving skills, I only had to dig myself out a couple of times. By the time I made it into our subdivision it was night dark, but the streets had been plowed. It felt so good to have challenged the elements and to have made it home safe and sound. I turned into our street and ... the Sprite died again, right at the end of the driveway that my father and brothers had spent all afternoon clearing. A quick glance at the gauges told the tale. Super winter driver had run out of gas! My dad was not amused.

So, all you folks that want to bitch about the bad winter weather just keep one thing in mind. We old folks can always top your stories with our own.


 

WEAR A KILT LADDIE!

Here's a great idea for the next time you need to fly the friendly skies. The cell phone videos alone would be priceless.

SOME RAMDOM THOUGHTS

There's so much going on in the world right now that it's difficult for me to land on a single topic. This could be a result of undiagnosed ADD or just that I'm busy and never seem to have the time to research and write a long post. Whatever. Here are some points to ponder. Some may get the full treatment later. Or not.

Does it bother anyone else that today's conservatives and the tea party bunch seem to hold the following ideas simultaneously:
1.The United States of America is the greatest nation now or ever on the face of the Earth and we are, in a word, Exceptional!
2. We are a government of the people and by the people. The people are the government and that government must remain subservient to the will of the people. And,
3. The U.S. government can't do anything right!

So, lets review: we're incredibly exceptional, but we can't do anything right!?

Along that same road: did you ever notice that the "government is the problem" crowd never fixes it when they are in power? They just seem to screw things up even more, get defeated at the polls, then grouse about the other side's attempts to expand government in order to fix, or at least address, the problems that they created until they throw those bums out and start over. Lather, rinse, repeat.

I, for one, am sick and tired of news talkers who act as if what they are reading is a complete surprise to them, and by extension, to their audience, even when it's something very common. For example, I remember a news story about a study that showed that a substantial number of adults, not just college kids, binge drink. The news reader was shocked, shocked I say, to discover this incredible nugget of new knowledge. Ya, like he or she never went to a wedding. Or a family reunion. Or never had an Uncle Harry or neighbor Don who drank a six-pack of beer every night, except weekends when he'd drink a case. The news readers have never seen this behavior before? If these folks are that far removed from real life, why do we listen to them at all? And don't even get me started on the breathless "Team Coverage" we get every time there's a thunderstorm. "Rain pounds the Valley...film at 11!" Spare me, please.

The real harm of the $700 billion Bush/Paulson financial bailout is that we the taxpayers replaced the banks "vapor wealth", that is, the gigantic sums that were bet on complex and convoluted derivative products by those high finance guys, with our "real" money. 
Let me explain. All of the trading back and forth of derivatives and credit default swaps really just amounted to ledger entries. Stuff was put on the books at such and such a value. And the values kept getting higher. It's just like in the savings and loan crises of the 1980s. Then, real estate moguls were buying up commercial property, financed by friendly S & L loan officers, and then selling it to other moguls for more money, also financed by S & L loans. The value of the property didn't actually increase, it just looked that way on the books. Swap that property back and forth a few times and you've got property worth a whole lot of money. At least on the books. At some point a "real" appraisal will show that the prices have been inflated and that's what happened when that bubble burst.
Jump to 2008 and you see the same thing only this time with derivatives. But this time, thanks to George W. Bush and Hank (the sky is falling) Paulson we, the taxpayers, bought this junk with real money and at the inflated value. So the taxpayers paid actual money for what was really only bookkeeping entries. Vapor wealth!

If you listen (in small doses for safeties sake) to the tea party folks you'll begin to notice a theme. It's the same theme that runs through the GOP of today. They're always right! They convey opinions and spout positions, but underlying it is the absolute certainty that they, and their opinions, are now, and have always been, the correct ones. No doubt. No hesitation. No small hint of hoping that they have gotten it right. They know they have.
I see this as having a firm connection to the fact that this group is, in the main, not just Christians, but evangelical Christians. Since they know that everything they believe is, well, true. it's very easy for them to carry that same belief structure into the realm of politics and governance. The only problem for the rest of us is the same problem one has trying to argue about religion. You can't get anywhere. They know they're right and you're wrong so there really isn't anything to discuss. I think this is why we are unable to find any common ground. This assumption of rightness overpowers any argument one chooses to make. And, by extension, anyone else with the same position must also be right so it becomes very easy to listen to the ranting of the birthers and Rush and Beck and the like. "They're just like me, so they must be right," becomes the the glue that sticks this bunch together.

You may now return to your regularly scheduled web surfing. Thanks for stopping by.

I WAS WRONG

In my last post I outlined what I thought was a Medicare mess which I had fallen into. It turns out that I jumped a little to quickly to that conclusion.

In fact, it turns out (and yes I knew this, I just forgot it) that Medicare pays a pre-set amount for reimbursement. In my case the reimbursement for the enteral nutrition that I need is $2.57 per can rather than the $11.88 which the supplier would charge me if Medicare didn't pay. Now that, in and of itself, shocks the conscience. It is even more shocking when you realize that Medicare is willing to pay more than a dollar per can over the retail (on-line) price. But it's certainly not as outrageous as I presented it.

Lesson for the blogger; check your facts. Now back to our regularly scheduled ranting.

HEALTH CARE HORROR SHOW

I'd like to share with you a tale of horror concerning our very badly broken health care system. First the facts.

As my friends are aware, I had a little dust-up with throat cancer back in 2006. As I have told many people since, cancer is easy to beat, it's cancer treatment that gets you. The radiation therapy that killed the cancer also did a number on my esophagus. I can no longer swallow and have tube fed for three years. That, in concert with some other permanent side effects means that the Social Security Administration deems me to be disabled. That status also means that I became eligible for Medicare before my 65th birthday. The plot thickens.

In going over the mountain of information and literature available about Medicare that one can find on-line I came across an interesting reference. It seems that Medicare will help pay for what's called Enderal Nutrition. What is enderal nutrition? Why it's the formula which yours truly pours through a tube into his stomach four times a day. And that horrible government run health plan called Medicare will help pay for it. This was starting to get interesting.

Now, anyone who knows me well can tell you that I like to be parsimonious. Waste not want not and all that. Back in the day when I was a roofing contractor I took great pride in never ordering more roofing than was needed and then using up every possible piece and scrap to finish the job. So saving some bucks by letting Medicare pay for what I've been paying for for the last three years was pretty appealing. Not that I was spending all that much. I very kind nurse in the hospital where I received the feeding tube told us that you could order the formula they use in the hospital or just use the WalMart version of a nutritional shake. Well that's all it took. We stopped at Wally World on the way home from the procedure for the first cans and that has been my exclusive source for nutrition since.

Now I'm currently paying $6.87 per 6 pack or $27.48 for a case of 24 cans. Doing all the math means that I need $240 worth of "food" a month. $8.00 a day is not bad, but if Medicare picks up 80% that's even better. So off I went down the rabbit hole.

After some more research I discovered that WalMart is not what Medicare accepts as a provider of enteral nutrition. That would have been far too easy. So back to Google I go until I land on a manufacturer's web site. Not only do they have what I need, but they will deliver right to my door. I call. I wait on hold. I play Solitaire and wait some more. Finely, a very nice young lady explains that the brand name product I need will cost $37 per case. I thought, fine, Medicare's going to pay 80% anyway. "No problem," I said, "So how does this get billed to Medicare?" Oops. Seems that they don't do Medicare sales. I would need to find a provider locally. Just a minor setback. Nothing to worry about.

A quick trip to the yellow pages and I found a local medical products company. The very nice lady there told me that once I get an order from my doctor they can get the product and deliver it to my door. I asked how much my share would be, put she couldn't say until it actually came in. Okay, that sounded good, and since I already had an appointment with my doctor, things were moving right along. The doctor visit and a few phone calls and faxes later and my order for six cases of nutritional shake would be on my front porch.

The six cases came today. In the course of signing nine different documents acknowledging receipt of the cases among other things, I came upon the document that said that if my insurance declined or refused to pay that I would be responsible for payment at the rate of $11.88 per can. 

Let's see now, $11.88 per can equals $285.12 per case or $1,710.72 per month. And how much would my 20% co-payment be? $342.14. So if I order from the approved provider I can pay  $100 more per month for the convenience of having this stuff delivered and Medicare can pay $1,369 for a product that I buy now for $240! This is messed up.

Needless to say, I will not be ordering my nutritional needs from that provider nor will Medicare be helping me pay. My friends on the right (you know who you are) are probably crowing loudly how this proves just how broken the "Government Run Health Care" that we have is and why we should abandon "Obamacare" just as fast as we can. I see a different lesson here.

One of the administration's arguments for the health care plan now before Congress is that it will save $500 billion from Medicare over ten years. The GOP points to this and says, "See, they want to cut Medicare." But clearly, there are huge sums that can be saved if someone just works at it a little. The government will pay over seven times the retail cost of this one product the way the system works now. Is it the GOP's contention then that the greatest nation on the face of the earth, the country that put a man on the Moon, invented the light bulb and the Twinky, can't figure out how to not spend $1,700 for $240 worth of product? I'm just curious.

So that is my tale of horror. Hours of research, hours of phone calls and many games of Solitaire later and I'm right back where I started. Oh well, I got a blog post out of it. Is it time for dinner yet?