The day Betsy went swimming

Jordan, NY - around 1966 - I don't remember all the circumstances that led up to this, all I remember is that Betsy obviously deserved it.  It was sometime around junior or senior year at Jordan-Elbridge High School. 

Friends of ours, the Haskie's, lived down on Route 31 between Jordan and Iona Corners.  One of the many cool things about their well to do home was they have a very large pond in their back yard.  Their son Pete was a friend of mine.  I had made arrangement with Pete's mom that it would be OK for me to stop by after school one day with Betsy and give her a dunk in the pond, something she was not suppose to be expecting.  There were other kids there, they knew what was about to happen...  I even seem to remember Betsy knew what the threat was, but no one thought I had the nerve to really go through with it...  but I did.  Her in her school dress went for a swim...  I think I had to go in and pull her out as I remember, geesh, and I don't hardly swim at all, at least she did...  just not too well that day.

Wheel chair races? No, this isn't the special Olympics

Hancock Field, Syracuse, NY - Things aren't like they use to be.  To begin with, this happened a very long time ago, maybe 100 years ago, way back when kids did things for fun and absolutely with no malicious intent.  We didn't break any laws that we knew of, at least not knowing so.

Don't ask me why, because I wouldn't have a clue why we use to go to the airport as kids...  kids in this case means that we could drive and had cars, obviously with nothing better to do.  Once in a while we would ride out to Hancock Field on the north end of Syracuse to see what was happening.  I'm not sure which was our favorite thing to do, but these were two that I remember most.

Back in the day, when you went to the airport to meet arriving family or friends, you could walk right down to the terminal and meet them immediately as they came off the plane and into the terminal.  There were no terrorist in the United States back then, they stayed in their own countries.  We'd find a gate where a plane was arriving.  It seemed that Barry was always arriving from somewhere.  He would either make his way onto the jet way or would just stand by the side of it until passengers were leaving the plane.  At some point, he'd just merge in with them and exit the plane too.  Boy were we excited to see him!  Yelling, screaming, hugs and a lot of hoopla.  Other passengers seemed pretty happy that we were happy as they stood and watched.  Goofy.

Well, we were sort of race fans, but sometimes there just weren't any races to go to.  What the heck, we were at the airport, there might not have been any planes coming in....  but there were wheel chairs.  It seems this was the only time I ever remember seeing or hearing from security at the airport.  They just didn't care for us racing wheel chairs up and down the long hall ways of Hancock Field.

Those are the things we did with some regularity.  I am often reminded of the night that one of the jet ways was open and there was a plane there, but no one around.  What the heck, we go check it out and what do you know, engines running, no one anywhere, I'm in the pilots seat...  I did NOT touch anything, engines running when we got on board....  that was weird, we hauled it out of there.

Soap Box derby racing

I never driven or been in a Soap Box derby race, or even sat in a car for that matter.  But, I did lay on top of one with David and Sara in it driving down the driveway hill at St John's United Methodist Church in Dover, NH.  I couldn't have gotten into it if I tried.  I hope I can find the picture the one picture I have, it was great fun and we all laughed and had such as fun time, as we usually did.

Apparently, as the official rules go, when a contestant builds a soap box racer, they can only use that car one year.  If they are going to race again the next year, they must build a completely new car.  My friend and co-worker in the Radiological Controls Training Division, Llewellyn Millette from Rochester, NH gave me this old car that was hanging in his garage a I remember.  I don't have a clue of how it all came to be, over conversations at his house I guess...  how Sara and David would have a blast driving it, I just don't remember that part, but somehow, I ended up with the sleek black racer.  I also have no idea of where it ended up.

What I do remember was the blast we had pushing it up the hill and then riding down at about 200 mph (or so it felt), wind in our face, laughs and smiles on our faces.

Crashed computers.... ugh

I remember a time, about a week ago when I was working on a post, writing about going to the U.S. Grand Prix (my cousin Fritz Ceratt always called it Grand Pricks).  I was looking for a picture of the car Dick Smothers of the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour (Tommy and Dick Smothers) drove.  Dick as an aspiring race car driver and happened to be racing at Watkins Glen that weekend in july 1969.

Well, I couldn't find a picture of his car, but I did find a picture of one of the posters advertising the race.  Upon attempting to capture it for inclusion within this blog, my computer was hosed with a backdoor trojan virus and has totally destroyed the operating system on my other laptop.  I think since then I have spent at least 10 to 15 hours just trying to recover my data files.  That has been made difficult because so many of the Microsoft Windows files are wrecked.

So much for that post. Let's hang the son-of-a-bitch bastards that write virus programs just for grins.

When there's no heat in the van

I'm gessing this was around 1967 or 1968.  I remember a time when my cousin Fran (Geaslen) and I were in a van.  Just a plain old cargo, something like the one pictures here, although we weren't lucky enough to have flowers painted on it, it was just plain blue.

I'm not sure where we were, I think down near Utica, NY on the New York Thruway, probably on a cookie run  but you'll have to read that story another time.  It was winter time and it was cold.

If you are not familiar with this old classic Chevy vans, the engine sort of sat between the driver and the passenger under a metal compartment that opened on the inside of the car.  There was enough room to swing your legs between the engine and your seat so you could easily get into the back.  The top of the engine enclosure was flat and gave you a table like surface to put your drinks, food and other junk on.

Well, during the trip, the heater in the van decided to stop blowing warm air and act more like an air conditioner, not what we needed.  Fran came up with a brilliant idea, note that this was his idea.  We had a small metal box in the car, I seem to remember it being cash box.  Fran decided that we could stop, find some small pieces of wood on the side of the road and build a fire in the box, on top of the engine compartment.  Brilliant!

We stopped, collected some wood, broke it up and were ready for the heat.  It took a little paper and effort, but finally the fire was going and our hands felt the warmth baby, again, this was Brilliant!  We continued on our trip, Fran driving, be adding the wood (twigs) to keep the fire going, roaring, blast out the heat equivalent of, well, a very small heater.  All was going well for the first 5 or 10 minutes into our trip with heat, until, bump in the road, a swerve, something, but the lid of the wood stove slammed shut.  Damn, not heat if the cover is closed.  Reopening the top was not such a brilliant move the best we could see... for about 10 seconds, then the van was full of smoke.  Gag me with a spoon, we couldn't see anything, nor could we breathe.

All I remember is trying to stop, jumping out and one of us flung the wood stove out in the snow.  Got our breath back, aired the van out and continued on our way, in our now ice box van.

My history, what I remember, the things I've done

This blog is mostly for my kids, my grand kids and anyone else interested in what one does or has done in their life.  I hope to start writing, although it won't be in a timely order, it will be in the order I remember, what back then...  events, times, places, people.  Some good, likely some not so good.  Some nice, maybe some gross...  we'll maybe not, someone might read this while I'm still alive!

I don't know how I'll try to figure out how to put it in chronological order...  my mind is not as good as it...  well, maybe it never was so never mind.

Here goes....
My Deputy CTO (Chief Technology Officer), my glue for our division, my detail godsend and any other good and great things I can say about her, Linda Shaffer, is about to retire in 8 days.  I can only think one thing - OH MY GOD!  She does the day to day work of the office, keeps things moving, never misses anything...  all the things I don't do well...  or do at all.  Another loss in my life is coming.

She asked me today, what was my favorite job.  Wow, I'm not sure I have had just one.  I told her I really enjoyed being in the satellite business.  Not only did I bring in a significant amount of money, but it was really nice bringing happiness into people's homes. Especially the people in the middle of nowhere, Arizona...  the people with an antenna on a mast 75 feet tall to get 1 station out of New Mexico were ecstatic.  That was cool.

I didn't like many of the people I had to hire.  Many only looked for money, had no thread of customer service in their bodies.  Some would get paid and be gone and not come back until all the beer was gone.  They were not dependable.

Then there is the distributor I contracted with, RS&I (Recreational Sports & Something based in Idaho), they still owe me 2 checks that were returned by the post office after one of the stores closed as well as a $7,500 deposit.  They've owed me that since 1998.  Sometime around 2000 I did get a letter from them acknowledging they owed me and that they were going to look into the 2 checks, I never heard from them again.  I still have my account representative's RS&I business card (Tom Alvarez).  Tom was a great guy, I really liked him.  He did his job well.  I think he liked what I was doing with the business, but eventually wasn't getting what his management wanted in our area and did some things I wasn't happy with for other dealers...  but that was business.  I never blamed him.

I remember when Bridget Jones (her name at the time, might be Olberg or Blair now) took a government vehicle for a float and sank it (I think she wanted to see what it was like on a submarine).  She was really embarrassed, was angry when anyone mentioned anything...  well, anyone but me,  I think I was able to harass her in a way that made her smile.  As Mike Schlappi meant to say, shot (shit) happens.