A Blogging Birthday

The year has been slipping by so quickly that an important (at least to a few) milestone almost was neglected.  This is the fifth anniversary of the Gabbygeezer blog.  It started back in 2006 with, of all things, a little story about how it started.  Since then, 300 little stories have appeared, discounting a dozen or so that defy classification as stories, or much of anything else.

Which story generated the most favorable comments?  Hands down it was “Give Yourself a Proper Sendoff,” referenced in my profile on the right-hand column of this page.  That story describes why each of us should write our own obituary, and how we can do it to maximize self-aggrandizement and still be truthful. It uses my obituary (now somewhat out of date) as an example.  Most of the commentators said the story left them laughing, or at least mildly amused.

Which of the 300 stories attracted the most readers?  That is impossible to determine.  But one story was republished several times. The story repeated here, of my business venture in my hometown of Tomahawk, Wisconsin, first appeared as a Gabbygeezer post early in 2006.  It soon was published again in the Tomahawk Leader newspaper. Like the obituary tale and 165 others, it then appeared in my memoir, “Days With The Dads,” in 2008. Shortly thereafter, the Tomahawk Historical Society included it as part of a book it published. 

Here’s the story, once again seeking a few more readers:

A Very Small Business

As small businesses went in Tomahawk, Wisconsin, mine had to be one of the smallest. And as business owners went, at age 10, I was probably one of the youngest.

In the summer of 1946, Billy “Barrel” Schmidt and I were hanging around my dad’s tailor shop voicing the usual complaint of youth that there was nothing to do. Barrel’s uncle Louie, who ran the Central Drug Store in front of my dad’s shop, suggested we do something useful and start up a shoe shining business to make a little money.

We thought that was a pretty good idea. My dad found a shoeshine box somewhere, bought us a few supplies, and we were in business. The partnership lasted only a couple of weeks. Barrel decided going swimming at Crystal Lake and other typical Tomahawk summer activities beat heck out of work. He left me as the sole proprietor of the business.

One of the group of downtown businessmen who met every morning for coffee at Rouman’s Restaurant told my dad he thought the Hotel Tomahawk once had a shoeshine stand in the lobby. Sure enough, it was in storage at the hotel. Dad got it for me, and I hauled it out in front of Central Drug every morning, ready for business.

My only advertising was two cardboard signs attached to the arms of the chair. They read: “Shoe Shine 15 cents, other shoe free.”

This postcard showed me at rest

When business at the stand was slow, which was often, I toted the shine box to the local barber shops (I think there were three in those days) looking for customers. My recollection is that the only shop where I did much business was Charlie O’Rourke’s. That’s where I got my hair cut, and Mr. O’Rourke returned the favor by trying to gently persuade the men awaiting their turn in his chair to let me shine their shoes.

I think my dad suggested my other regular “house call.” If my mom had found out about it, the business would have ended right then and there. On Friday nights, Dad worked until 9 p.m. so Mom thought I was tending to business at my stand until we came home together. Actually, I was at Scorch’s Bar with my shine box. Business there was great, often netting me $2 or $3 for a couple of hours work—big money in those days for a little kid.

At 15 cents a customer, making that kind of cash depended on how much beer was flowing at Scorch’s (usually quite a lot) and some help from my friends.

My friends were two single ladies who worked at the A&P Store and always showed up at Scorch’s about 6:30 on Friday nights. They sort of adopted me, and since the males at the bar were trying to adopt them, they convinced a lot of drunks to get shoe shines—and woe to him who didn’t include a tip in the payment. One slightly absent-minded, or more likely very inebriated, guy paid me to shine his shoes twice in the span of 10 minutes!

I also did some “carry out” business. The best customers were Myron Veith and “Bev” Beverson, who owned The Gift Box across the street from my stand. On Saturday mornings, they left the door to their upstairs apartment unlocked and set out a half dozen pairs of shoes for me. I carried them across the street, shined them up, and took them back.

Another regular customer was Terry Small, who worked at the Quality Meat Market owned by his parents. Terry always dropped off two pairs of shoes for my attention, also on Saturdays. This was easy to recall because Terry was a very big man. His shoes were size 13 EEE. However, he always paid 25 cents a pair, so I didn’t complain about needing to use extra polish and elbow grease.

I worked all summer and occasionally in the fall after starting the seventh grade. Then work got a little old, and in the spring playing baseball was a lot more attractive than popping shoeshine rags and wielding brushes. I sold the stand and my supplies for $5 to Bob Gilley, an older man with some physical handicaps. Mr. Gilley shined shoes at the stand in the entryway of Nick’s Casket Factory on Wisconsin Avenue for quite a few years. He, however, was not known to solicit business in barbershops or bars.

Photographer Claude Venne gave my business a small measure of fame when he sneaked up on me one day when I was taking one of my frequent breaks, reading a comic book and eating a popsicle. Venne made his photo into postcards, which he sold at the Tomahawk Drug Store across the street with some other local scenes he had snapped. He had a note on the shoeshine card display that said something like, “Business is lousy, ain’t it?”

Business wasn’t too lousy. In addition to paying for popsicles, I saved nearly $100 from my summer’s work 60 years ago. I still had the money in the Bradley Bank seven years later to help pay for my first year at the University of Wisconsin. In those days, tuition for one semester at UW was $90.

* * * * * * * * *

Five years from now, I’ll rerun the most-republished little story from the previous five years. That’s a promise.

Come Back For a Look

The "Newer Knowledge" post that appeared here three days ago got a large number of visitors.  If you're among those who were interested in the topic, you may want to revisit the item.  Thanks to blogging buddy Alan G., it now includes a video showing operations of a single-stream recycling plant.

In Grateful Memory

                                             

Staff  Sgt. Nicholas A. Sprovtsoff (U.S. Marine Corps), 28, Davison, Michigan. Killed in combat in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, September 28, 2011.

Newer Knowledge

Sometime back, the geezer spoke of pride in having worked with scientists at the Forest Products Laboratory (FPL) in Madison, WI, who were searching for better ways to recycle wastepaper.  However, I said “to my knowledge” the processes they developed had not been put into use.

Like much knowledge, mine now has improved after I took the time to thoroughly check into the situation.  It turns out that an important part of the work by the Forest Service researchers was put into practice in Europe several decades ago.

The scientists invented a new method, which received a public patent, for separating plastics from paper in household trash.  They thus solved one of the technical problems inhibiting large-scale, mechanized recycling schemes.

In 1979 a plant using the FPL technique was set up in The Netherlands. It processes 50,000 tons of material a year.  Another plant with the same capacity began operations in Sweden the following year.  The equipment manufacturer later established a large-scale pilot plant in Japan.

It has not been economical to use the technology in the U.S., but that could change in the future as recycling systems become more automated.  That future may not be far away.  My local newspaper, the Kalamazoo Gazette, recently reported that a township in Kalamazoo County was switching to “single-stream” recycling.  Residents there no longer will have to separate paper, glass, metals, and plastics for processing.  They put everything into one large container and the materials are separated in a sophisticated processing plant.  Such systems are in use in several parts of the U.S.

The video shows a current "single-stream" processing system in use today.  

These systems are not identical to a pilot plant in Madison with which I was involved in the early 1970s. There Forest Service researchers worked with  Heil Company and City of Madison employees to explore the effectiveness of reducing the size of household trash by hammer milling and then separating materials by various methods. However, the approach using dry separation methods and several features of the two types of systems are the same. 

The Madison system took it one step further.  It was designed to take all household refuse, including garbage.  The separation process neutralized contaminants. Very few people were needed in the processing plant. 

It was exciting to handle information activities for scientists pioneering recycling research.  It’s good to know now that some of the concepts they explored 40 years ago have advanced through research and development into use. 

Gone with the Winds

The credit card statements are in, the pile of laundry is done, and the Geezer is on a diet. It’s time to assess results of our recent foray to the Lake Michigan shore to celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary. Most of the balance sheet entries are on the plus side.

We brought back six bottles of what promise to be some really great wines. Beautiful wife Sandy made the selections after sampling (I was driving) lots of fine products of Michigan’s oldest winery and some more at a nearby competitor.

We returned with memories of great dining, from an elegant filet mignon dinner across the border in an Indiana supper club to the best offerings of two local hot spots in the quaint little city of New Buffalo.

We now can admire a few new doodads purchased in several shops in New Buffalo and points north of there along the lakeshore. The usual summer tourist crowds had returned home, so shopping was a fun, leisurely experience.

Sandy finished up four nights of our attempts to lose the family fortune at the Four Winds Casino by coming home a $100 winner.

The Four Winds is a luxurious hotel-casino owned by the Pokagon Tribe of Potawatomi Indians. It is a huge establishment carved out of the woods on tribal lands situated about 75 miles east of Chicago. Among other features designed to take financial revenge on anyone who may have wronged the Indians in the past are 3,000 slot machines. If a smaller casino opened last month by the tribe at another location is included, there is nearly one slot per Indian. The tribe has 4,300 members.

I do not at all begrudge the Pokagons or other tribes the riches they are accumulating by taking advantage of a unique legal position in the U.S. and exploiting a widespread human weakness. Anyone with just a dash of common sense knows if you hang around a casino long enough you’ll come home broke, not with extra cash as Sandy did. She quit when she was ahead. Most don’t ever get ahead, much less pocket any winnings.


Well aware of the likely outcome of visiting Four Winds, I packed an old shirt with my other stuff.

Don’t be surprised if you happen to pass through tribal lands near Lake Michigan and see a Pokagon wearing a faded green T-shirt proclaiming: Green Bay Packers, Super Bowl Champions, 1997. The tribe won it fair and square.

In Grateful Memory

Spc. Chazray C. Clark (U.S. Army), 24, Ecorse, Michigan. Killed by an enemy bomb in Kandahar Province, Afghanistan, September 18, 2011.

Fine Dining

Somehow I missed notices that one of my favorite business associates, Vince Dong, died about two years ago. He was a fine gentleman and editor, serving at the Forest Service’s Pacific Southwest Research Station in Berkeley, CA, for many years.

I sent the news of Dong’s death to several old friends who had encountered him often, as I did, at meetings of station editors. That resulted in some reminiscences, including an account of a dinner at the Dong home overlooking California’s most famous bay. The Dong family had lived in the San Francisco area for many years.

Although Vince was thoroughly American, he was proud of his Chinese heritage. In 2005, he and four other family members joined to contribute $50,000 in honor of their ancestors to help establish the Wing Luke Asian Museum, a branch of the Smithsonian Institution that features history of Chinese and other Asian immigrants.

I tried to take advantage of Vince’s specialized knowledge on one occasion, but it didn’t work out as planned. Dong and I were in a small discussion group at a national meeting in San Francisco when lunch time rolled around. The gathering was in a second-class hotel, so I suggested we go elsewhere for lunch and that, as a local guy, Vince should be the one to pick the restaurant.

I had visions of the finest Chinese fare available in a city known for it. Vince said he didn’t eat out very often, but one place he had enjoyed was nearby.

He took us to an Italian restaurant.

Oh, It Would Be Sad 




The SS Badger may be steaming toward forced retirement.

               Oh, it was sad. Oh, it was sad. It was sad when the great ship went down . . . .

That ship we once sang the sad song about was, of course, the Titanic. Until fairly recently, the Titanic had no relationship to the SS Badger, except both carried a whole lot of passengers. Now the Badger also may be a doomed vessel.

As a little boy, one thing I penciled onto my bucket list was to cross Lake Michigan aboard a car ferry. I’m not sure why. When I got the idea, I had never seen Lake Michigan. My family didn't own a car. I admired the glamorized image of a car ferry on the covers of writing tablets we used in school. That was all the motivation I can recall. It wasn’t much, but I never lost the yen to make the trip.

Six years ago, I finally crossed that one off my list. We had driven from Utah and stopped to see relatives in Wisconsin on our way to visit our son in Michigan. The stars were right to fulfill my little-boy dream. We drove north to Manitowoc, watched as our car was driven onto the Badger, and settled down in deck chairs for a great adventure on a bright, sunny day. The novelty soon wore off.

The 60-mile trip across the lake to Ludington took a full four hours. Although the Badger includes a maritime museum room, shows movies in another area, and has a good galley crew serving up short-order food, I’m sorry to report the trip is dull. Two things constitute the scenery on a trip across Lake Michigan—water and sky. We saw what appeared to be two other vessels in the distance during the whole trip. It was dull, dull, dull.

Dull or not, the SS Badger has been crossing the lake with few interruptions since 1953. It is the last of 14 car ferries to be based in Ludington. Service from that port began in 1897, mostly to carry railroad cars between Michigan and Wisconsin. The Badger was built to carry railroad cars. It is both big and tough. With a reinforced hull for ice-breaking, she originally crossed the lake all year long. The need to move railroad cars ended in the 1980s, and in 1992 the ship was refitted to exclusively carry autos and passengers. It no longer sailed in winter. Nevertheless, it still makes 490 port calls per year.

The Badger is the last large coal-burning steamship in the United States. That’s the problem. Its boilers consume huge amounts of coal, and disposing of the coal ash waste in Lake Michigan waters caught the attention of environmental groups and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency several years ago. EPA demanded a change to keep the pollutants out of the lake, and Badger owners face a deadline at the end of next year to find a way to dispose of the waste on land or substitute some other power-generating system. If they don’t, the ship’s sailing days will be over.

In somewhat of a reversal of the usual pattern when Great Lakes water quality is at issue, citizens groups are forming to petition EPA to lift the order against the historic ship, or at least extend the deadline. The main group is titled S.O.S. for Save Our Ship. It seems appropriate.

The Geezer is torn. I fully endorse measures to protect or improve water quality in the Great Lakes and elsewhere. But I also love history, and, after all, that steamship is part of a colorful heritage of lake navigation. Both Michigan and Wisconsin have declared the ship to be among their historic treasures.

Despite my good feelings toward the old Badger, we figuratively jumped ship after my one voyage. Since we moved to Michigan, beautiful wife Sandy has made three trips across the lake to visit her Wisconsin relatives. I put her aboard the Lake Express in Muskegon for those journeys. She arrives in Milwaukee in two and one-half hours, not four, although that trip also is 60 miles.

The Express is a twin-hulled catamaran powered by four Detroit Diesel engines. She holds 42 vehicles, far fewer than the Badger, but the Express has plenty of room for passengers and can travel at 40 m.p.h. When I asked Sandy how the first trip went she said, “Dull, but at least it wasn’t dull for four hours.”

While waiting for Sandy in Muskegon after her latest lake journey, I struck up a conversation with a fully mature adult who was waiting to make the trip to Wisconsin. He said, “You know, when I was a college kid I had a chance to work one summer on the SS Badger out of Ludington. I took a different job. Wouldn’t that have been something to remember if I’d have joined the crew when I had the chance?”

Maybe. He could have become a part of history, but he might have spent a pretty dull summer earning the honor.

Commitment

Sandy and I decided this morning to establish a long-term relationship. We figured the trial period has been sufficiently lengthy and quite satisfactory. Today is our 50th wedding anniversary.

Tonight we are invited to dine out with son Lee and his fiancé Karen. Next week we will celebrate the start of the next 50 with an auto trip to enjoy the wonders of the Lake Michigan shore. There just happens to be a glitzy casino right where we are headed. We’re not worried. We started with no money; we can restart the same way.

Why Not a Little Fun?

I attended a church service recently where comments were encouraged regarding death and an afterlife. At the conclusion, a participant said approaching the concepts with a bit of humor was a human characteristic, at least for some.

Consider, we often hear the phrase, “He (or she) laughed in the face of death.” We associate that with a courageous person, a strong person, a person with good values. We seldom, if ever, apply it to the “bad guys.”

I think that when we humans are faced with something we fear, we often tend to respond with humor. Many comedians made good parts of their livings exploiting that position. One of the more famous utterances was by Mark Twain. When Twain (Samuel Clemens) was traveling in Europe, a newspaper made a glaring error. Clemens picked up a copy and read his obituary on page one. His response: “Rumors of my death are greatly exaggerated.”

Comedic comments on death and the hereafter, more numerous although less famous than Clements’ remark, have been a big part of Woody Allen’s works. On the Internet, you can find dozens of jokes on the subjects written and delivered by Allen. Three (paraphrased) that tickle me are:

“I’m not worried about death; I just don’t want to be there when it happens.”

“Dying is one of those things best done while lying down.”

“I don’t think there is an afterlife, but just in case, I’m bringing a change of underwear.”

A couple of years ago the laugh was on me. A strange disease, which my doctor was unable to diagnose, hit me hard. I spent several days in bed going through alternating periods of chills and fever, comatose much of the time. Fortunately, the ailment left nearly as suddenly as it appeared, and it never has returned. But I was very ill while it lasted.

One night, I came out of a deep sleep in a groggy state. I saw a bright, white, light emanating from a space behind a door. “Here I go,” I thought. “The good news is that it’s not a red light in there.”

I woke up a little more and discovered that my wife had failed to turn off the light in our walk-in closet.

The Pen Prevails 

My July 28 post (The Power of the Pen) bemoaned the fact that two Forest Service Research organizations had failed to respond to e-mail requests for information. I vowed to send off old-fashioned paper letters to both and pursue the matters until I got answers.

Just a few days after my letters to the heads of the organizations were mailed, e-mail responses arrived. I had requested e-mails.

The Pacific Southwest Research Station in Berkeley, CA not only answered my question completely, but said the webmaster already had begun an investigation into what happened to my ill-fated e-mail inquiry. A glitch in the system was discovered. It will be corrected soon.

E-mail responses came from two staffers at the Forest Products Laboratory in Madison, WI. The answers were detailed and included contact information for several scientists who had worked on the project of interest in the 1970s. I was asked to send the address used for my e-mail inquiry, so improvements in the FPL mail system also may be on the horizon.

A little written ranting can be just the thing to get results, and might even improve a system or two.

Thanks for the Notice

Just got an e-mail ad from Applebees. It announced “Kids Eat Free Tuesdays.” I rescheduled my dinner reservation for Wednesday. Groups of kids are wonderful in many places. Restaurants are not one of them.

In Grateful Memory                

Cpl. Joseph A. Van Dreumel (U.S. Army), 32, Grand Rapids, Michigan. Killed by an enemy bomb in Paktika Province, Afghanistan, August 14, 2011. 

Bachelor Bungling

Beautiful wife Sandy is away visiting relatives in Wisconsin. I was a bachelor for a fair number of years before we hooked up, so I knew this temporary separation was likely to present certain problems.

When Sandy takes a little vacation, she leaves me enough food for a hungry Boy Scout troop and detailed directions for just about everything. She knows my ineptitude with things mechanical, electrical, and electronic is perhaps exceeded only by my complete inattention to where useful items are stored. In my defense, I was trained as a word arranger, not an auto mechanic or pantry expert.

A problem was not long in arriving. On day two of Sandy’s absence my computer stopped delivering anything except a nice, clear opening scene (isn’t that called wallpaper?). “No problem,” I thought, “I’ll just crank up Sandy’s computer and seek her advice with an e-mail.” I had worked at her laptop several times in the past.

Unfortunately, whenever I worked on the laptop, Sandy had turned it on before I arrived. I plugged in everything that looked like a plug into everything that looked pluggable. Nothing. I phoned Sandy.

She told me to take the little doodad off the bottom of the mouse and plug it into the first available slot in the bright blue gadget plugged into the left side of the computer. I don’t like her keyboard, so I explained what had happened to my machine and said I really didn’t want to work at hers, even though now I could.

“Sounds like you just need new batteries in your mouse,” Sandy said. “Oh yeah,” I said, I seem to remember this same kind of thing happened before.”

Sandy told me where our spare batteries were. I searched the basement area without result. I made another phone call. She said the batteries were there, and I ought to look again. “Nope,” I said, “I just wasted a half hour looking where you said. I’m going to buy some batteries downtown.” (“Downtown” is 5.5 miles away.)

Here’s a tip for your older gents: If you want to attract female attention, just stand in the middle of a supermarket aisle looking confused. Women will flock to rescue the poor old man. That won’t work for you younger guys. I suggest buying a cute little dog, and taking it everywhere on a leash. That will work for you. Bewilderment in supermarkets will not.

I didn’t need to pretend to be bewildered, because I was baffled by the location of batteries in the supermarket we shop at every week. Two female clerks and a gray-haired lady customer guided me to two large battery displays in a matter of minutes. “What size do you need?” the young blond clerk asked.

“I don’t really know. I think it’s something about A, and it looks like those on the left.”

“Those are AA’s,” the older clerk said. “These over here are AAA’s.”

“Seems backwards to me,” I said. “You’d think the bigger ones would be triples and the littler ones would be doubles. That’s the way it works in baseball.”

“I never thought of that,” the lady customer said. “Didn’t you look at the ones that wore out?” When I shrugged, she gave me a strange look and left.

By visualizing my mouse for several minutes, I decided it was a relatively small device, and therefore AAAs had to be the right selection. I bought a dozen. Eager to get back to my computer routine, I hurried home, pried open the back of the mouse, and gazed upon two big, fat, AA batteries.

Unwilling to chance having to face up to even one of my trio of helpers at the supermarket, I added a mile to the 11-mile roundtrip and bought a six-pack of AAA batteries at a hardware store. Two of them worked just fine.

Two days later on a visit to the basement to replenish the water softener salt, I inadvertently knocked a box off a shelf. I learned that we had a substantial supply of AAA, AA, and other batteries. It is more substantial now.

Let’s hope nothing really big stops working before the lady of the house comes home.

Excuse Me, Puhleeze

In the wake of Casey Anthony’s acquittal of the charge of murdering her daughter, the jury came in for blasts of criticism from all sorts of commentators. Whether they deserved accolades or brickbats, the jurors should be applauded for one thing. They served.

Trying to wiggle out of jury duty is an American tradition that ranks right up there with a little cheating on the old income tax return. Maybe it ranks higher. There are reasons. Some jurors are injured financially by being taken off their jobs with no compensation. Others suffer when forced to spend what can be many hours away from family obligations. A few people are terrified by the prospects of retaliation should their verdicts wound friends of bad guys too deeply.

My jury experience involved service in the Second District Court in Ogden, Utah. The process there was to summon about 40 citizens for duty, and select the panel for each case from that group. The selections were made based on questions from the opposing attorneys and the judge. I was selected four times.

The first time I made a pitifully weak run at pleading to be excused. I said I was a federal government worker and had a backlog of really important matters to attend to. The judge, who it turned out had a good sense of humor, pointed out that my office was right across the street from the courthouse. He said if my absence from work was threatening to cause a national or international disaster, I probably could slip into the federal building after the day’s jury duty ended and attend to the emergency.

Several prospective jurors had been passed over before my turn came. Only two were excused at their request. It appeared that very good reasons were needed to escape the civic duty.

A young man wearing a dirty t-shirt, ragged jeans, and scuffed work boots sat next to me during the selections. After I was picked, he whispered, “I’ll show you how to get out of this. Just watch me.”

He made the first selection cut, failing to score with a lame work excuse somewhat like mine. During that part of the questioning, my new acquaintance informed the court that he worked in a gravel pit. When the judge asked what his specific job was, he replied, “Digging.”

The judge enjoyed a good laugh, but then posed a meatier question: “Have you formed any opinion about the guilt or innocence of the accused?”

“You bet,” the digger said. “The cops arrested him, didn’t they? So he must be guilty as hell.”

That response did not tickle the judicial funny bone. The judge bellowed, “Out, out,” and pointed dramatically to the door of the chamber.

As the gravel pit worker rose to depart, he winked at me and said, “See.”

Incidentally, I was proud of my fellow jurors. They listened carefully to evidence, debated every conceivable question like ladies and gentlemen, and reached what I thought were solid verdicts. The cases we heard ranged from a relatively minor hit-and-run traffic charge to attempted murder. Serving as a juror turned out to be a rewarding experience, and caused me to gain respect for others who serve.

If called again, I will cheerfully do my duty as a citizen. But then, I pay all of my income taxes, too.

Great Start

After a lengthy strike and lockout that angered fans whether they supported the rich players or the even richer owners (except for the Green Bay Packers, who have 110,000 stockholder owners, most of whom are decidedly not rich), one could be pretty sure the start of the National Football League season would be screwed up.

I watched part of the first exhibition game last night on the tube. Not unusual, eh? Well, the show was titled “Monday Night Football.” Last night, of course, was an integral part of Thursday.

Another exhibition game will air this evening. Wonder if  the presentation will be called “Tuesday Night Football?”

Another Barrier Broken

On Monday, I passed the average life expectancy of an American male.

What a relief. With that barrier behind me, no generally recognized obstacles lie in my future until we get to what often is cited as our maximum allowable stay on earth. For me, that is 44 years and a couple of months in the future.

That should give me just enough time to finish up those two book manuscripts I’ve been working on (sporadically).

How do we know 120 years is the magic number? Because “the bible tells us so” (Genesis 6:3). The 120-year limit also pops up in a genetics theory supported by a fair number of scientists. How could that number be wrong?

For one thing, a French lady just a few years ago lived to the ripe old age of 122. Her longevity was well documented. On the other end of the scale, a different passage in the bible says the limit is 70 years. If that forecast was right, I’d be long gone. Various other religious pronouncements say all sorts of different things on the subject.

Shucks. Can’t we poor humans count on anything, even an approximate exit date? Well, that old saw probably covers it—death and taxes lie ahead, for sure.

The Power of the Pen            

Oh yes, we’ve long been told the pen is mightier than the sword, despite numerous instances when it wasn’t. We’ve yet to be told the pen is mightier than cell phone messages, e-mails, or tweets. Recent experiences at our place showed it might well be.

More than a year after disputing my 2009 real estate taxes, I was told my claim had been upheld and a settlement check would be sent soon. Six months later, despite numerous phone inquiries and e-mails, no cash had appeared.

I decided to sit right down and write those guys a letter--the old fashioned kind on real paper with a real signature, placed in an envelope, and delivered by the U.S. Postal Service. The only bow to today’s technology was typing it on my computer and printing it out.

I threw in a few legal-sounding phrases in the hope the Michigan Tax Tribunal and my local assessor might think I was benefiting from expert legal advice. (You can pick up all sorts of lawyer phrases watching reruns on TV of “Boston Legal” or the more recent “Harry’s Law” show. Both are entertaining, although they probably have little to do with reality.)

My letter worked. Almost immediately, the assessor presented me with a settlement document to sign. Shortly thereafter, a check arrived in the mail from the county treasurer.

During almost the same time span, promised utility company rebates for installation of a new heating system failed to materialize. Phone calls and e-mails to the contractor and the utility proved fruitless over several months. Each entity said the other was responsible; none offered any real help.

Remembering the “mighty pen” adage, once again I put computer to paper. The letter to the contractor’s vice-president included some nifty phrases like “time is of the essence” and “documentary evidence” and strongly implied that Small Claims Court was the next place we were likely to meet, although I carefully avoided any specific threatening language. Two days after I mailed the letter a sales agent phoned and asked what the company could do to make me happy. I told him, and he did it.

If letter writing has been removed from your communications arsenal, you may want to consider reviving it, if just for those special occasions when more modern techniques don’t get the job done.

My “mighty pen” is about to be dusted off again. Two months ago I sent e-mail requests for some routine information to two U.S. Forest Service research units. One, to the Forest Products Laboratory, asked a general question about the status of a long-running research program. The other, to the webmaster at the Pacific Southwest Research Station, inquired about the status of a history of the organization, which I knew was produced a few years ago. Neither organization responded.

When I worked at the Forest Products Laboratory back in the 70s, it was considered almost a sacred duty to quickly and accurately respond to any request for information. Every incoming letter, and there were thousands, was logged in and assigned to an individual or unit head for reply. A fairly high-level administrator followed up if replies were not made promptly; he also monitored outgoing mail to ensure responses were complete and of high quality.

The many good attributes of our ability to communicate quickly and effectively in the electronic age apparently are counter-balanced by a big, fat negative. If a potential correspondent doesn’t feel like working a bit to frame a reply, he or she simply ignores an e-mail inquiry and nobody seems to know or care.

As a tenacious geezer, I will get the answers to my questions, either with an old-fashioned paper letter or a lot of pesky phone calls. But why, oh why, do they make it so difficult when an e-mail response would be so easy?

The right mix for the USA

Dumb and Dumber             

A Cocktail Party
Position

For several years, your Cocktail Party chairman had legislative liaison responsibilities for the U.S. Forest Service in research or management areas that included the State of Utah. There was a standard saying among legislative coordinators, including those who closely observed the Washington scene, regarding long-time Senator Orrin Hatch. It went like this:

“The only political people dumber than Orrin Hatch are his staff members.”

Now the Utah Senator is again proving his mettle by proposing a constitutional amendment to require balanced federal budgets. Rookie legislators in the House have passed a bill requiring balanced budgets; fortunately, it will go no further.

Mandatory balanced budgets work rather well at the state level, but there the stakes are quite different. Imagine a few scenarios should the feds have a strict balanced budget system:

1. Floods sweep over large parts of the Ohio River Basin. Several governors ask the President to declare disaster areas in their states and provide emergency federal funding to deal with the crisis. The President cannot comply; because it is late in the budget year and the government has insufficient funds earmarked for natural disaster relief, has no surplus funds in other accounts, and is not allowed to borrow money to cope with the unforeseen disaster.

2. North Korea without warning launches a massive missile attack on U.S. bases in South Korea and Japan. Military leaders urge immediate retaliation. The Commander in Chief says, “Sorry, boys, but we’re maxed out on the defense spending budget item right now. Your actions will just have to wait until next fiscal year unless we can quickly get three-fourths of the states to change the Constitution. We’ll probably have to eliminate Social Security next year to handle the extra military funding if we can’t get a substantial tax increase passed in a hurry.”

3. The State of California goes bankrupt. The Governor asks Congress for emergency funding to maintain the education, law enforcement, and prison systems while all the legal issues are being resolved. Congress has no funds budgeted for such bailouts, so it decides to respond by cutting 200 billion dollars from the authorization for defense spending.

4. Unprecedented forest and range fires burn huge acreages throughout the western States. The U.S. Forest Service asks Congress for a supplemental appropriation to pay for combating the blazes. To comply with the request, Congress cuts general disaster relief funds earmarked for such things as unforeseen flooding in the Midwest.

And round and round it could go. The federal government is where the buck stops when disasters strike us. That’s why the founding fathers wisely provided our government with the ability to borrow funds and didn’t say a word about balanced budgets.

We do need to reduce the size of the national debt in the near future, but removing the ability to borrow when necessary would be sheer folly. Borrowing is necessary right now, and will be for some time, to keep the good ship USS America from sinking and sucking the rest of the world’s economies down with it.

Senator Hatch is smart enough (just barely) to know that many Americans are dumb enough to think a federal balanced budget requirement would be just peachy-creamy. A balanced budget amendment would be horrible.

The Great American Cocktail Party is absolutely opposed to any requirement that the government of the United States be hamstrung by a balanced budget amendment or similar foolishness. Our representatives have enough trouble functioning rationally without that sort of impediment to effective government at the federal level.


To view the announcement of the founding of the Great American Cocktail Party visit the August 5, 2010 post titled “Coffee, Tea, or . . .” in the archive on the right-hand column of this Blog.

In Grateful                 
Memory

Seaman Aaron D. Ullom (U.S. Navy, assigned as a hospitalman to a Marine combat team), 20, Midland, Michigan. Killed while on patrol in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, July 12, 2011.

Will Work for Taxes

We were among the fortunate. My wife and I both were born before 1946, so my pension continued to be exempt when Michigan Gov. Snyder and his critics “compromised” by phasing in new taxes on retirement income rather than taxing all seniors the full amount immediately.

Almost hidden in the hot debates were the other two legs of the proposal to raise taxes on seniors. One removed the homestead tax credit for residences with assessed values above $135,000. The other removed the $3,200 individual personal income tax exemption for all seniors.

Thank you, governor, for sparing the oldest Michiganders such as us from part of the tax increase. Unfortunately, the other two tax increases will cut our spendable income by about $1,000 a year. We have no prospects for recovering that amount in the future, other than returning to work. At age 75, I’m having a hard time finding employment.

Perhaps one of those businesses Gov. Snyder said will use my higher tax payment to create jobs will hire me? I’ll wait for the calls.

(This item was published June 26 in the Kalamazoo Gazette. The Geezer is still waiting for the first job offer.)

In Grateful
Memory

                                                                                      
Staff Sgt. Joshua A. Throckmorton
(U.S. Army), 28, Battle Creek, Michigan.
Killed by an improvised bomb during an
attack by enemy forces in Paktika
Province, Afghanistan, July 5, 2011.



Sgt. Einer Ingman at age 82.



A True Hometown Hero

Other commitments kept me from attending the Fourth of July weekend activities in my hometown--Tomahawk, Wisconsin. That was unfortunate for several reasons.

The parade is a good one. There’s plenty of music, lots of participants, and having a Harley Davidson plant in town ensures there will be enough high-volume roaring to suit those who appreciate Fourth of July noise. Many high school classes hold reunions during the weekend, so it is a good time to renew old acquaintances.

But most important, I missed a chance to see a real American hero for the third time, and there probably won’t be many more chances. Most people have never seen a Medal of Honor or met anyone who has earned one. Sgt. Einer Ingman, who now lives in Irma near Tomahawk, received one for extreme valor during the Korean War.

Ingman is one of only 85 men alive today who have earned a Medal of Honor. About half the awards were made during the Civil War, when the medal was established. Since the start of World War II, only 859 soldiers, sailors, and airmen have earned the medal, and half forfeited their lives doing so. Ingman is one of just three Medal of Honor recipients now living in Wisconsin.

The Medal of Honor is nothing like those ribbons you see covering the chests of generals and admirals. That gaudy stuff mainly consists of unit citations awarded just for being somewhere, not doing anything. Earning a Medal of Honor requires heroic action.

I never was personally acquainted with Einer Ingman, but because of him I can claim membership in the small group of people who have seen both the medal and a recipient. In 1951, Ingman was flown from a military hospital to receive his award from President Harry Truman. Shortly thereafter, he took leave from a military hospital to be reunited with his family in Tomahawk.

The visit was somewhat of a surprise to civic leaders, but they moved quickly to set up a parade and a program to recognize Ingman. I marched in the high school band during the parade. Immediately after that, the program was held in Pride Athletic Park. I was among the spectators.

Tomahawk people did themselves proud. They gave Sgt. Ingman a new Buick sedan and what is almost as essential in northern Wisconsin—a new boat. I was close enough to the hero to see the award he wore around his neck.

A few days later, I got much closer to Ingman. We were in a small group waiting for the doors to open at the Lyric Theater for an evening movie. Ingman had difficulty walking with a cane and support from his girlfriend, who he married a year later. Frankly, it was hard to look at his disfigured face. It was said he had a dozen operations up to that time. He ended up having 30, before surgeons could do no more for him.

I said “Hi,” and he said “Hi.” I think it was just a ritual hometown greeting. He joined the Army while living in southern Wisconsin, and thus probably made north wood’s visits only occasionally on leave. Two years earlier, I worked with his brother, Bobby Ingman, for two months at the Highland Egg Farm near Tomahawk, and that was my only direct contact with the Ingman family, I think the war hero was just saying hello to everybody he encountered, which is customary in small Midwestern towns.

In the 59 years since, I’ve never crossed paths with Sgt. Ingman. He and wife Mardelle, who had seven children, attended numerous patriotic events over those years, including 11 presidential inaugurations. I had to make a living during that time, and didn’t travel in the same circles.

Medal of Honor recipients are so rare because of the extreme courage they must exhibit to merit the award. Here is a summary of what Sgt. Ingman (then a corporal) did to earn his medal, and what happened to him as a result:

Ingman was in one of two lead squads of an assault platoon in Korea. While attacking a fortified ridge held by the enemy, the platoon was pinned down and both squad leaders and several men were wounded. Ingman assumed command, combined what was left of the two squads, and formulated an attack plan.

Than Ingman single-handedly attacked a machine gun crew that was firing on his group, tossed a grenade into the emplacement, and killed the soldiers with his rifle. He approached a second machine gun, and was knocked to the ground and lost part of one ear when a grenade exploded near his head. As he got to his feet, he was shot in the face by a Chinese soldier. The bullet entered his upper lip and exited behind his ear.

Ingman continued his attack on the machine gun emplacement, firing his rifle and killing the remaining crew with his bayonet. He then fell unconscious as his men captured the objective and forced the enemy troops to flee.

Ingman was sent to Tokyo for medical treatment; he regained consciousness seven days after the battle. He lost his left eye and the hearing in his left ear, and had severe amnesia. Memories gradually returned after emergency brain surgery, but he has experienced memory problems throughout his life since and has difficulty speaking clearly. He was transferred to Percy Jones Army Hospital in Battle Creek, MI, for additional treatment, which spanned two years and included 23 surgeries.

What heroic action and what a horrible price to pay. I relate the details only to emphasize the huge sacrifices made by men who earned the Medal of Honor.  Ingman still carries the scars of battle, and now is wheelchair-bound.  The photo here was published recently by the Tomahawk Leader.

My hometown people saluted Sgt. Einer Ingman once again with a special ceremony on July 5, sixty years to the day after he earned his Medal of Honor. I wish I could have been there, if only just to say “Hi” to a hero.



“The Fridge” (left) and the kitchen variety both can inflict considerable pain. Encountering either one should be a young man's game.

 Refrigerators. . . Ouch!

I used to shudder while watching William “The Refrigerator” Perry run over pro football opponents when he was among the stars on some great Chicago Bears teams. Probably part of my horror was because “The Fridge” seemed to save his most ferocious attacks for my favorites, the Green Bay Packers, who were suffering through some bad years at the time.

The Bears added insult to the Packers’ injuries in one memorable game when they placed Perry, a defensive tackle, at running back. He promptly plowed over and through a couple of Packers on his way into the end zone for a touchdown. I remember wondering at the time how it might feel to be hit by “The Fridge” when he was traveling under a full head of steam. I got a pretty good idea a couple of weeks ago.

Perry claimed he weighed 382 pounds at his physical peak. That was in 1985 when Da Bears won the Super Bowl. The average weight of refrigerators in American homes nowadays is 400 pounds. As part of our ongoing home remodeling project, I was on a two-man team moving a slightly below-average-sized fridge down a flight of stairs. It and Perry probably would have been a match on the scales.

We were not novices at appliance moving. Equipped with a rented professional-model dolly, we securely attached the refrigerator and worked it into position at the head of the stairs. Being the oldest team member (by far!), I took the easy position below the unit. All went well for a while.

Then, about halfway down, we loused up our procedure somehow. The fridge started thundering down the stairs right on top of me. There was nowhere to go but down as fast as I could, and that wasn’t fast enough. The refrigerator bashed me against the wall at the bottom and pinned one arm and both legs to the floor.

I suffered a gash on one leg, a cut elbow, a slice on a hand, a terribly painful knee on the other leg, and assorted scrapes and bruises. When my moving team pal managed to crawl over the fridge and pry it up so I could escape, he asked, “Did you hit your head?”

“Are there any dents in the wall?” I asked.

“None that I can see.”

“Then I didn’t.”

For two days I could hobble about 15 feet from my bed to the bathroom with painful effort and help from a walking stick and anything else I could grab to take pressure off my knee. Two weeks later I could walk fairly normally, and most of the cuts and bruises had healed quite well. Today, everything is back to normal.

I’ve decided fooling around with refrigerators is a young man’s game. In a way I was lucky my encounter with a runaway 380-pound object happened late in life on a stairway rather than as a youth on a football field. Granted, those Packers “Refrigerator” Perry plowed through wore protective helmets and pads, but they didn’t have several weeks to heal up before their next game.

In Grateful Memory                


Pfc. Brian J. Bakhus (U.S. Army), 21, Saginaw Township, Michigan. Killed by small arms fire in Kandahar Province, Afghanistan, June 18, 2011.

Ah, Yet Another 
 Benefit

The right mix for the USA

                                                                     
A Cocktail Party
Informational 

Our executive committee was entertained recently by a newspaper column written by two automotive experts. They were asked if cleaning an engine’s spark plugs with vodka was a good idea, and if so what brand was recommended.

The response to the main question was an emphatic “Yes,” with the observation that any type of alcohol is good for cleaning up accumulated grime and sludge. We have known that for years. It is only logical to believe that a few well-constructed, highly alcoholic, martinis ingested at decent intervals have played a key role in keeping our chairman’s piping in excellent condition for more than five decades.

The mechanical wizards went on to recommend using expensive vodka and avoiding any of the juice and vegetable additives favored by the younger set in what they erroneously claim are martinis. The mechanics were right on the second count, but way wrong on the first.

Their error was in succumbing to what we call the “James Bond Syndrome.” Who has not heard 007 ordering up his favorite drink, a “vodka (pronounced in Bondian British something like vuwadka) martini, shaken, not stirred?” Rubbish, we say. Bond was an exemplary agent, but a total failure as a martini connoisseur.

First, vodka is a tasteless beverage favored by Russian peasants and depressed businessmen who would rather get quickly drunk to forget their woes than have their palates pleasantly tickled. Gin, on the other hand, has a unique taste associated with imperial splendor and fashionable cocktail gatherings around the world. Second, shaking a martini is premature, and thus counter-productive. An excellent martini features two small stuffed olives and a very small amount of vermouth. If you shake the gin and vermouth and pour it over the olives, much is lost. Ice is important. Drinking martinis “straight up” can be disastrous to your equilibrium.

The proper way to make an excellent martini is to fill a glass with ice, add two small olives, pour in two jiggers of gin (large if you really want to get blasted, small if you don’t) and add a dash of vermouth. Stir the liquid gently with a toothpick or swizzle stick upon which the olives are impaled. Stand or sit with a compatible person or persons, sip slowly at intervals, and enjoy the experience.

Never drink only a single martini. That will unbalance your body chemistry and ruin your disposition. Two is the correct number. Three is too many, unless you have a fervent wish for something approaching oblivion.

Two more instructions should be heeded. For the very best martinis, chill the glasses for a half hour before you do anything else. Putting them in the freezer does this nicely. If you have no room, surrounding the glasses with ice cubes or chips in an insulated container is almost as good.

Use any cheap gin and the most expensive vermouth you can find (Martini and Rossi is recommended). This is important for your economic well-being. If you have followed the other steps to successful martini making and ingesting, you will enjoy the result and save a good deal of money in the long run.

Cheers!

Read It Your Way        

German friend Eckart Maier chided the geezer with several messages while he was reading Days With The Dads: Recollections of a Small-Time Journalist, by Richard J. Klade.

Maier read the book a few pages at a time over several months during his daily train commute to work. He advised that a version available on a hand-held electronic device would have made his journey through the memoir more pleasurable.

Eckart, it took a while, but your suggestion, and probably those of others, got action. Now, the 120 million or so readers who can shop at “iBookstore” and own an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch can buy an edition of Days With The Dads specially formatted for them to enjoy. The price is a bargain $8.99, a big discount from the retail cost of a paper version.


What will our intrepid production company president, Sancho Thuesen, come up with next?

Apple describes the contents of the new addition to its library thus: “An array of stories—many funny, some educational, and a few inspirational—take readers through the evolution of middle-class American society from the years just after World War II until the Iraq War era.”


Readers now can have it their way, whatever that may be.

By Which Rules?

In sports, as well as in life, there are written and unwritten rules. And sometimes, the unwritten ones take precedence.

Two incidents in major league baseball just a few days apart illustrate the point. Both involved catchers. I toiled at that position as a youth on grade school, high school, American Legion, and county league teams, so the news got my attention.

First, Buster Posey, a legitimate all-star performer with the San Francisco Giants, had a broken leg after an opponent crashed into him instead of sliding as Posey awaited a throw near the plate. Posey is out for the season. Just days later, Houston Astros’ catcher Humberto Quintero was put on the 15-day disabled list with a sprained ankle after a collision at home plate.

What’s new? Not much. Catchers have led most leagues in injuries since the game began back in the 1800s. “Muddy” Ruel knew of what he spoke when he dubbed the face mask, shin guards, and chest protector (plus a cup to protect a young man’s most important parts) as “The Tools of Ignorance.” Ruel was a catcher for the Washington Senators. The implication was that intelligent people with some semblance of ability could choose more rewarding positions with fewer hazards.

I was a very slow runner with other limited skills, so working behind the plate was my only real chance to participate in what was then, without a doubt, America’s pastime. Green Bay Packers t-shirts were rarely seen when I was a kid in Wisconsin. Chicago Cubs and White Sox and St. Louis Cardinals (and eventually Milwaukee Braves) caps were common. Every rinky-dink town had a baseball team, and, especially on Sundays, going out to the old ballpark was the thing to do. Boys wanted to be part of the action, and donning “The Tools of Ignorance” was my chance for glory.
 
My baseball career ended at age 17. By then I was smart enough to know I couldn’t hit curve balls tossed by even washed-up former minor league players. I also knew by then I had a relatively weak throwing arm to go with my poor foot speed. Before those truths dawned on me, I had played in several hundred games.

Four things remain from my days on the diamond. A deep bone bruise in my left hand still hurts if something hits there hard enough. The thumb on my right hand is noticeably larger than the one on the left, the result of being split open (it resembled an overcooked hotdog at the time) by a foul tip. All four fingers on my left hand work just fine (I can type really fast), but I can bend them at the first joint in a way few other people can. My left kneecap has a small scar over an area that serves well as a weather forecaster.

That’s what catchers do. They get hurt, whether the hurt is applied by errant balls, foul tips, flying bats, or base runners intent on scoring any way they can.

During the time I played, and to this day, the written rule in baseball said a catcher cannot impede a runner by standing in the base path without the ball. I knew that, because I made an effort to be familiar with the rules of the game.

My high school coach, who was a former minor league catcher as well as a college football star, never mentioned it. He taught the unwritten rule: “Your job as a catcher is to guard that plate. Make the opponents respect your territory. Whenever you can, make them pay a price for crossing the plate.”

My mentor pointed out that catchers have an advantage. The “Tools of Ignorance” give them some armor-plating the runners don’t have. That doesn’t always help, though. It often didn’t help in county ball.

The Lincoln County League, where I played two summers, was made up mostly of men in their 20s and 30s with only a smattering of high school boys. It was a man’s game, no question.

In one contest at Tug Lake, a community consisting almost entirely of a tavern and a rudimentary baseball field with no fences, the going got rough. Early in the game, a runner charged in from third base after tagging up on a fly ball. I took the throw and had plenty of time to block the path between him and the plate. He chose to slide with one foot high enough in the air to rake a spike across my leg above my shin guard. There is no written rule against that kind of high-spiking; there is an unwritten rule.

He was the third out, so the father of one of our players had time to give me medical attention between innings. That consisted of pulling a piece of sod out of my wound, dousing the cut with beer, and applying a bandage brought by a lady who had been watching the game from a window in the tavern. I continued to play. We had no subs.

A bit later, one of my teammates, Joe Obey, retaliated. Obey weighed well over 200 pounds and had success as a football center and hockey goalie among his athletic credentials. He was clearly out at first base on a routine ground ball. The first baseman somewhat sloppily let his foot drag over the bag. Obey stepped on it. Howls of pain and a few choice words resulted, but there was no serious injury.

Perhaps intentionally, perhaps not, an opposing runner tried to run right over me several innings later. He was attempting to score on an infield ground ball. I blocked the plate without the ball, assuming it had a chance of arriving about the time he did. It did.

The runner threw himself into me with a sort of clumsy cross-body block. But he missed most of me. I heard a sharp crack as I tagged him out. The middle of his shin had collided with the middle of my shin guard. He had a broken leg. The game was stopped for some time waiting for a stretcher and an ambulance. There were no further incidents, and both teams adjourned to the bar after the contest.

In the wake of the major league collisions, some are proposing rules changes to make it illegal for runners to try to level catchers and to keep catchers from impeding a runner’s path to the plate. The latter already is the rule. Neither of the two injured big league catchers had the ball when they were bashed. They were the ones violating the rule, not the runners.

The better player of the two, Posey, made somewhat conflicting statements. “I don’t think he did anything illegal,” he said of the runner who broke his leg. Later, he suggested that runners might be required to slide if “a lane presented itself.” Why should they have to slide when they could score by just running straight ahead?

Traditionalists yowled that just because an all-star was seriously hurt doesn’t mean the rules should be changed, and that injuries in the battleground around home plate are inevitable. I’m pretty much of an anti-violence guy, but in this case I’m with the traditionalists.

And, it’s not all bad to have a left knee that throbs a little to warn you when a storm is coming.

In Grateful Memory

Pfc. Robert L. Voakes, Jr. (U.S. Army), 21, L’Anse, Michigan. Killed by an enemy explosive in Laghman Province, Afghanistan, June 4, 2011.

One Up, For Sure


The geezer used to get lots of laughs with this line:

“Utah has a higher birth rate than Bangladesh.”

Well, no one stays atop the comedy charts for long. Recently, blogger Kay Dennison (http://kaysthinkingcap.blogspot.com) provided a U-Tube link in which Bill Maher rolled them in the aisles while discussing presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Maher said:

 “Mormons have a higher birth rate that Catholics on Ecstasy.”

He’ll Be There


A trusted commentator, who keeps track of such things, wrote on Memorial Day that many communities abandoned the traditional parades years ago. She said the holiday, originally established to honor Civil War dead, was becoming nothing more than a chance for family barbeques and other outings preceded by heavily promoted sales of outdoor merchandise. I was shocked.


By gum, Plainwell, Michigan, hasn’t abandoned our parade. People decked out in red, white, and blue came from near and far. The Martin Fire Department even dispatched a truck, and their village is seven or eight miles away. Imagine that.


I lucked out. A little bench in front of the Plainwell Ice Cream Company, the most popular place in town during summer, miraculously was empty. There I perched for the whole show.


Just as I settled down, a white-haired man wearing a Veterans of Foreign Wars outfit sat down on the other end of the bench. As he rose to offer up a salute when the honor guard carried Old Glory past us, I noticed his shirt and trousers were crisply pressed, the brass insignia on his collar and cap sparkled, and his black shoes gleamed. I also noticed, as the procession continued, veterans and military personnel in the parade often SALUTED HIM as they passed by our bench.


Things like that still happen in small towns.


The parade was almost a replica of those held a half-century ago in my hometown, which is just about the size of Plainwell. The high school band tried mightily to stay in some sort of formation and deliver a martial air. Children, young and old, followed the band in various costumes and vehicles. Restorers of old cars and tractors showed off their prize possessions.


Floats (I use the term very loosely) sponsored by businesses, churches, schools, and other organizations appeared at intervals. Most were decorated trucks of various sizes and vintages. Three displayed signs honoring a Plainwell boy killed in Afghanistan just a week earlier (see previous post). After the parade, a special ceremony at the city’s veteran’s memorial monument honored him. That was nice.


Everything wasn’t solemn, though. Few others seemed to make the connection, but I doubled over in laughter after a business “float” followed by a dozen girls decked out in Uncle Sam uniforms had passed. A point of local pride is that boys from our county formed the Federal unit that captured Confederate President Jefferson Davis near the end of the Civil War. Apparently unaware of which side Michigan was on, the operator of a CD player on the “float” programmed it to blare out the strains of “Dixie.”


What the heck, nobody in the parade was a professional, except the cops who kept things in order and the firemen who showed off their equipment. After the last police car signaled the end of the procession, many of the bystanders headed for an ice cream social on the lawn of the Community Center. The social was conducted by volunteers to benefit a women’s shelter charity.


The VFW guy and his wife just got up without a word and headed, arm-in-arm, for their car, which was parked not far from mine.


Abandon the Memorial Day Parade? I’ll bet if that old vet hears of any such nonsense, he’ll personally march through Plainwell to keep it from happening.