"Cohenism"

Yesterday morning, Cohen was asleep next to me (on grandma's pillow - she was in UT) and Sandler came in. He walked in, "Grandma . . .Grandma . . ." He scrambled up the dog steps, over Cohen and cuddled in next to me. We just sat and had a little conversation until he sneezed twice, those cute little-boy sneezes, in succession. I said "bless you" both times. Cohen, who I thought was still asleep, said, "Doodah, when someone awchews two times you don't have to say bless you both times. I'm trying to sleep here." Such cute little guys. (Maybe Cohen inherited his great-grandma Erma's gift of words?)

Baby Sitting on Tuesday night

Go downstairs for Grapes; cut the big ones in half for Sandler, take them upstairs. Go back downstairs and make popcorn. Forgot the juice cups, back downstairs. Wipe off the spilled popcorn from the sheets, search for the remote control to rewind the Tevo. "I’m hungry, Doo dah." "Watch the movie!" Clean my glasses again from Sandler reaching over and whopping me in the face as he then gets this evil little grin, knowing he’s so cute. (he's a little tuffy and loves to wrestle.) He snuggles in close again, saying "funny." Watching Scary Godmother Halloween Spooktakular back-to-back because "It was good." Both boys dancing on the bed like in the movie. I have a headache. Lindsay is out partying; really, she went to a party of some sort with her old mutual/high school girlfriends and Lewis is at Mutual. At least the movie is entertaining. I'm NOT complaining, I volunteered for this, I realize that these little boys won't be little boys forever. Enjoy it while I can.

Just another Saturday morning in Utah

I will NOT get off and walk. I will NOT get off and walk. DON’T look up ahead, just concentrate on the immediate road ahead. DON’T look up ahead. Just keep pedaling. Doooh! I looked! The top of the hill is still a long ways off. Concentrate. Pull up, push down, pull up, push down. I’m going 4 mph, but I’m still pedaling. Good grief, I shoulda done more conditioning rides before this. Such were some of my thoughts as I rode the hills around Sand Hollow Reservoir. Nice scenery, cool air, very little vehicle traffic. (This picture is at the top of that hill, that’s me in the back. . . or a rendition of what it was like - picture from last year.) Quick chit-chat’s with those I pass and those who pass me. I met one guy, as I stopped at the top of this long hill with others taking advantage to rest their legs, who had a stroke 6 yrs ago when he was 42 yrs old. Riding, he said, is saving his life.

This morning I "took part" in the Tour de St George. As I viewed the course on line, I noted that it started in St. George with the 30 mile turn around here in Coral Canyon. (I didn't want to pay for that.) The remainder of the ride went on around Sand Hollow, (where I'd been wanting to ride anyway) through Hurricane, out to Tourquerville, past Quail Creek Reservoir and back by Coral Canyon again, then back to St. George, for those ready, willing, young and able to do 65 miles or more. So, about an hour earlier I had joined the riders at Telegraph and the highway to Hurricane, heading east to Sand Hollow. I passed a few, I was passed by a few. My left knee began to hurt and I wondered if I could ride up that hill from Hurricane. I knew if I called Carol to come get me in the truck the hill will still be there. It had concerned me for three years, wondering how I'd do riding it. It’s several miles long and looks steep. The traffic speeds by a few feet away. The knee pain lessened and I went for it.

So, I got the monkey off my back. I pedaled up that hill, joining other riders who entered the highway coming from Quail Creek Reservoir. (I’d opted to cut off about 7 or 8 miles since I wasn’t even sure about riding this far, riding alone from Hurricane for about 5 miles.) The hill was a challenge, no one going more than 8 or 9 mph. Not as bad as I'd thought. Going up, I was passed by only one rider; a lady on a pink bike. (Hey, she was about 25 yrs old!) Maybe Brian C. can relate. . .maybe.


For the record, I didn't partake of any rest stop refreshments since I hadn't paid to ride. I rode 32 miles that seemed more due to the hills. Below is the elevation chart of the total ride. My portion was in the left-center. I need to live on the beach where it's flatter. (here we come, Alli.) I'm getting to old for this.

And to think I was going to lounge around and just read this morning. :-)

Watching Food Network

Food for thought (pun on words intentional) ~ it's not in your best interest to watch Food Network Channel late at night. Picture these cookies warm. . . got milk? 4,173 calories, 73 grams fat, cholesterol 40 mg, sodium 730 mg; yummy.

Now, go ride that bike another 15 minutes!! :-)

I Was Tagged!

Lindsay was tagged and then tagged me with these questions about high school.
Did you date someone from high school? Yup, but not until my Sr year. (Dad wouldn't let me get my license until I was 17 and I didn't live in my school's zone to go visit by walking.)

What kind of car did you drive? Whatever mom and dad had: Mustang, Dodge 4X4 pickup & Ford Galaxy - they all went really fast! (I guess Dad knew what he was doing.)

What was the most embarrassing moment in high school? Waiting and watching for a friend to arrive out front of school, there were two dogs, ummm, doing it on the lawn. I wasn't watching them but a teacher walked by me, thinking I was, and stopped to tell me to quit staring at them, it made me look like a weirdo. (or similar words)

Were you a party animal? Not in high school, I saved myself for Army & college days.

Were you considered a flirt? I didn't think I was then.

Were you in a band, orchestra or choir? I visited friends of mine in the band room daily, does that count?

Were you a nerd? There's a picture of me in the dictionary next to this word.

Were you on any varsity teams? I lettered in four sports ~ watching football, watching basketball, girls and frisbee. Maybe I was a flirt. I tried wrestling, but hurt my knee real bad, I tried soccer but it wasn't a letter sport so I quit.

Did you ever get suspended or expelled? I wouldn't be alive today if I did.

Can you sing the fight song? I can't sing, lip synched it then. Theme from West Side Story....

Who were your favorite teachers? Wood-shop, art and the home room teachers. Names? RIP to all of them; they were old then.

Where did you sit during lunch? Where ever it looked safe...(race riots during lunch were always a possibility.)

School mascot? Ram. As in Rancho Rams.

Did you go to the homecoming? With who? Yes but you wouldn't know her.

If you could go back and do it again, would you? Only if I know what I know now, otherwise, NO WAY!

What do you remember most about graduation? It was boring, worrying about Vietnam and not wanting to go to college and "now what am I going to do?" and finding a way to get out of going to dinner with Mom & Dad and head to a party somewhere.

Where did you go on Senior Skip Day? I never skipped school. Honest!

Were you in any clubs? I kept Dad's old police night-stick in my locker.

Have you gained some weight since then? about 40 pounds.

Who was your prom date? Joni Hurst.

What cliques were you in? I hung around the Mormon kids and some of the 'smart' kids, (not that some Mormon kids weren't smart! Like Glenda Page - then Stratton.) Sandy Searles who later became First Lady-Governor Miller's wife was an associate.

You won't see this everyday!

One day in the spring of 1968 while in Vietnam, downtown Pleiku, I felt a tapping on my shoulder only to turn around and find this street beggar holding the baby and a tin cup. He was making his living I guess, using his obvious medical miss fortunes to elicit sympathy from a young GI. He startled me enough that I'd vowed to seek him out when I had my camera with me. . . and I did that a few days later. I've never forgotten the impact of that initial sight. Carol recently scanned some old photos and now I can share a similar impact with y'all, some 40 years later. It was one of the many things I saw that made me appreciate the good ole USA all that much more. It was my first trip to a third-world country. (I guess you had to be there to get the full impact.) Suffice it to say, I truly believe that we really do live in a blessed country!Notice the wooden block for a nose.

40 years ago in Vietnam

** Door gunner's view, one on each side of helicopter **

For so many years, I’ve tried to put my Vietnam experience behind me. Until recently when, through the wonderful Internet (thanks Al Gore ) I’ve come to realize there are others I served with who went through similar emotions and struggles as we all tried to fit back in to our individual worlds and forget Vietnam. We all grew up fast, the average age 19 years old; I had my 20th birthday there. I saw things and lived a life I otherwise would not have experienced anywhere else. (I’m reminded of Three Dog Night’s song, Momma Told Me Not Come.) I couldn’t watch any Vietnam war movies until the 1980's sometime. I don’t want to dramatize my experience to make it worse than it was; as I know it could have been worse. I’ve seen enough photo documentation of the grunts (infantry) to know my experience wasn’t as bad as some. Before enlisting I’d been smart enough to know I didn’t want to be a "ground-pounder" if I went to Vietnam, so I volunteered for helicopters. I never thought I’d be flying as much and be in peril, albeit, not in the gun-battle sense of it. My days were filled with semi-boredom, hours of flight, intermittent with fuel and reloading stops, worry, adrenaline rushes, hot and oily helicopter maintenance work and feeling like John Wayne.

I’ll never forget sitting at the door gunners’ position in our Chinook helicopter on a remote mountain top firebase somewhere in the Central Highlands of Vietnam, the noisy engine and rotor blades going, as our internal cargo was unloaded by a human work chain of dirty, young GI's. I sat at a window mounted M-60 machine gun, locked and loaded ready to fire. I was scanning the tree line, ever vigilant as I knew we were a big target. I was new at this flying thing and one of my jobs as gunner was to also watch the rotor blades to ensure the pilots are aware of any obstacles, lest we hit something and ruin our day. (I knew that the blades would go out of sync and the instantaneous destruction of the aircraft would be horrendous. I stood a good chance of being cut into pieces, decapitated or otherwise terribly mangled with little chance of survival. I know, this happened to the door gunners on Chinooks in the past with a similar results, it still does today, and will continue to do so. It’s the design of the helicopter. The FAA had never approved the Chinook CH-47 model for civilian use because of the propensity for disaster. We were all more worried about mechanical failure than enemy fire. The one used in major cities are the CH-46, a different version, and used by the Marines and Navy.)

Enough of the mechanical issue, back to my original thought. As I sat there, the rotor blades kicking up dust, the noise of the two jet engines and high pitched squeal of the two transmissions, a young grunt attached to this artillery company sitting in his bunker about 100 feet away caught my attention. I waved at him. Trying to block the dust from his face, he waved back and in well-known sign language, he put his finger to the side of his head, and rotated it in circles; the crazy sign. And then he pointed at me, gesturing to me that I was crazy for flying in this helicopter. I smiled and in typical young, defiant, male attitude, I pointed back at him with the same motions, indicating he was the crazy one for being out here in the middle of no where on this mountain top.

At the end of the day, I went back to Camp Holloway, Pleiku, where I had a army bunk, with sheets if I wanted to sleep in them, rows of buildings, a make-shift fort, kinda like those the Army set up in the middle of Indian Country in the old west. (The Army is so ‘anal.’) With us in the enemy’s country, we were subject to occasional mortar or rocket attacks at night; sitting ducks all lit up for them. We had the occasional black-out order, with "lights out" call to lessen us as a target, but only after the first yell of "incoming" when everyone ran for cover. The first such attacks I fled to the nearby bunker for safety. It was not always clean and it was always dark inside, with it’s metal and dirt roof and sandbag walls. Somewhere during my year, I was either too tired, too drunk, too accustomed to it all or too tired of the filth in the bunkers and I merely crawled under the nearest metal bunk, feeling annoyed yet hopeful my hooch wasn’t hit. I said and heard many prayers in these situations. One such attack happened while I was on guard duty and we all thought we were going to be over-run with the typical, human wave of the enemy - it didn't happen. I was jumpy at sudden loud noises for a long time.

Challenge from Niece

This is a challenge from my niece: "Please share ten things that are going on in your life." Here goes:
1. I attended a retired cop’s funeral. I’ve worked with him; knew him from the ‘80's. Suicide.
2. I’m waiting to hear word on another’s funeral. I’ve worked with him too; knew him from the ‘80's. Suicide also.
(I’m usually okay until the 21-gun salute and taps played on a bugle.)
3. I’m hauling up the race timing matts and equipment to the St. George Marathon on 10/4/08. I know it will mean getting up @ 3 AM race day, but I enjoy the atmosphere of it all. Runners are nuts.
4. I’ve recently been reacquainted with some Vietnam buddies via e-mail. One said he was glad to hear from me, he thought I'd been killed in a helicopter crash. We both agreed time had caused us to forget too much.
5. I play with my grandsons every day. (They like doing the cannon-ball on me.)
6. I’m still fine-tuning the barricade plan for the Vegas Marathon. Even though the same barricade company has drawn this plan for three years, they manage to omit necessary lane closures/access to some businesses, hotels and a trailer park. (Or is it a "mobile home" park? The homes aren’t too mobile anymore.)
7. I will be working on various parts of the marathon until race day, 12/7/08 - oh, the anniversary of the attack of Pearl Harbor by the Japanese on 12/7/1941. Yes, before my time. (Think Tora Tora Tora.)
8. I have to locate and replace he electronic ignition on my gas barbecue.
9. I will go to the gym daily; alternating between weights and Stair-master. Last week a guy I’ve seen there for several years now, and don’t know his name but I know he’s a chiropractor, said "Why do we lift these weights? They’re heavy."
10. Like Carol, I don’t know which house to live in. Think about it everyday. I love the Coral Canyon home and area, but have to wonder if it’s right for us with the rest of the family in Vegas, but realize with the country’s financial situation, can we hold off until Aug next year to make that choice? But I've grown to dislike Vegas - mostly.