Slap me down, silly good!

While watching college football Saturday, they highlighted a local family owned diner, in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. (The Alabama quarterback was filmed there in a pre-game segment where he and his dad ate every Friday morning.) It brought back memories being in the army in Alabama and some weekends driving many miles looking for any truck stop that served potatoes with breakfast, not just grits. In one small town we ordered french fries in a diner after being told by the waitress that potatoes weren't on the breakfast menu. She acknowledged they have french fries and relented to start some earlier than usual. She mumbled "Yankees!" and put the order in. We did not return to that diner.

Breakfast, the best two meals of the day! (FACT: If you enjoy a really good, big & hearty breakfast, you don't really need a lunch, thereby consuming less calories all day.)

Did you know that pure maple syrup has no added sugars or flavoring? (Vermont syrup, of course.)

This all looks so good.

Some a little less healthy than others, otherwise known as the comfort food.

Carol would get the oatmeal. (she's good)

Feel good breakfasts. Blueberries are one of the best berries for us to eat. What better way than on waffles? ~ This is one of my favorite breakfasts. The always popular, bacon and eggs. Is your mouth watering yet? To make reservations, please call 435-eat-good or: http://gk12calbio.berkeley.edu/lessons/eggfacts.pdf

I'm thankful for an friend from the old 16th ward. As soon as the blessing had been said, he'd exclaim, "Let's eat!" Thanks Ron Oldson, for helping me enjoy life.

EAT AND ENJOY LIFE. EAT HEALTHY AND ENJOY A BETTER LIFE. (so we're told, anyway.)

Hot Chocolate Weather

With the arrival of cooler weather, I am thankful that Carol has introduced me to the new hot chocolates from Starbucks. (The best ones are at Jones/I-215.)

The Salted Carmel signature hot chocolate is very yummy. (forget that it has 450 calories, 45 carbs, etc, etc & 5 grams of protein - health drink) It is so good, you'll want to share some with your honey. A deliciously good thing to do!

Dont share with your dog. . . no matter how sad he looks at you. One of life's little pleasures. So easy a Cave Man can do it!!
What? ? ?

Happy Autum everyone.

Speaking of thankful for toilets

The "necessary room" is such a varied experience, design and construction.

September 1968. This picture is similar to the very efficiently constructed sinks I used morning and night in basic training. Maximum usage by multiple users, elbow to elbow. We were gone all day marching, running, shooting, marching, doing push ups, marching and other necessary training to use these during mid-day. (no known pictures of the rows of toilets without stalls exist; memories of those are not good) Then things got better with in Ft. Eustis; less compact sink area and the toilets had stalls.

This posed picture below was actually how it was in basic training after bran muffins, fried potatoes, grits, eggs and weak hot chocolate. And we all only had ten minutes for the S.S.S. (shower and shave were two of the S's) Army life taught me things I would never had experienced. :-0

Then I was exposed to the latrine in Vietnam; below. If the door was open you'd see a built-in plywood, wall to wall flat seat, unpainted, with four to five circular holes cut in the seating area. No stalls, no running water, 55 gallon drums cut in half below was the "sewer." JP4 jet fuel burned it all. (Of course before burning, the drums were removed from the back via a large, horizontal-hinged door, using a long metal pole with hook, by the GI who pulled that duty for that day. Yes, I did it a few times. There was no measurement ~ recipe to burn it ~ and a few guys actually used too much JP4 and burned down the latrine with too large of flames and drums too close. Hey, 19 year olds with fire! Go figure.)

(And I wonder why one of my returning nightmares involved, dirty, unusable bathrooms. . . .What I couldn't show y'all is a photo of the old ones built by the French when they were in Vietnam. "They are number 10, GI" ~ very bad.)

Then in 2004 I found the Loos on the streets in Prague. I looked for "Men" when I was told that they were unisex and I needed correct change. We're spoiled here in the good, ole USA.

Happy Veteran's Day

In lieu of flying a flag for my patriotism I thought I could "talk" about it.

____________________________________
In 1967, America was involved in the Vietnam Conflict. At that time in my life I was in my last year of high school and my patriotism was based upon war movies. I knew that by watching the nightly news coverage on Vietnam that I had to go "fight the gooks." I was naive and young. I had a lot to learn.

My time in the Army began at the US Army Induction Center in downtown Los Angeles, CA. After a bus ride to LA from Vegas I checked in and was given vouchers for dinner and a hotel. I stayed overnight in an old hotel that looks similar to this one below, one that my new room mates and I were too afraid of fire, to sleep that night.

Do you know how loud a glass coke bottle is when it hits a street three floors below you in downtown L.A. at 3:00 AM? I do. It's a wonder LAPD didn't alter our army plans that night. It was also my first time downtown L.A. seeing "bums" (homeless wasn't used then) sleeping in closed storefronts, picking cigarette butts up and saving them for later use and then me not seeing the sun through the thick smog until about 9AM the next morning.

__________________________

After being sworn in while standing with a room full of other young American males, I was officially a Private in the US Army. Ironically, all my privacy went out the window. I stood in endless lines, wearing only my underwear & t-shirt, (everyone isn't created equal) getting shots with new-fangled 'guns' and being seen by various doctors as a car on an assembly line in Detroit gets put together. Automated actions, no-personality-employees of this center.

All my new friends and I were then put on buses for a trip to the airport. We weren't told our destination, several guessing we were off to Ft. Ord in northern CA. We sat on those buses for hours finally boarding, buckling in for our new adventure, being told only after we were in the air, we were off to Ft. Lewis, Washington. "Cool" I thought. Enlist and see the world. I don't remember the exact times, but I remember the hour we were marched into our new barracks and told "lights out, reveille is at 0500 hours." (it was 1:30 AM now!) The bathroom had a row of white toilets, urinals and sinks, showers in adjoining room, all in old, faded, white porcelain tiles. I passed on using the bathroom, brushing my teeth or showering before bed. What had I done? By 5:30 AM I was eating powdered eggs, cold toast and drinking lousy coffee but loved it having not eaten for 12 hours, and that was airplane food. We were all very cold as we had dressed for So Cal and hadn't been issued uniforms yet.

Above is an actual barracks in Ft. Lewis, built during the 1940's. They hadn't changed since then to when I arrived. I felt like I was in a Jerry Lewis movie although, I hated it. I was in a new world, in awe at all the tall pine trees surrounding us and wondering why and who painted all the little rocks bordering everything, white. So, I survived basic training 12 or 13 weeks, I can't remember to be honest, it was a blur. But these guys where my family and best friends in the world, and I, theirs. We deepened on each other through it all.

Then as quickly as we had bonded we all separated being sent off to our individual training bases. (I have no idea what happened to these guys and I can't remember their names.) I was sent to Ft. Eustis, VA, arriving in November 1968. The picture below was taken soon after arrival, sent home to mom & dad showing them my new home. I was beginning to think the Army only had old, wooden, pre-WWII barracks. This one had a coal furnace and we had to take turns with "fire-watch." More freedom than in Basic, but I didn't like the Virginia weather, smell of coal in the air, the pig farms in the country side, the night-time training or Army life in general.

So, after three months of AIT (Advanced Individual Training) I was sent to Vietnam, and more fine living conditions. And, I was developing some patriotism.

So, another picture sent home to mom & dad, these were the newest barracks I'd slept in yet, in my seven months in the Army. Plieku, Vietnam. April 1968 to April 1969. Then I was sent to finish my three-year enlistment in Ft Rucker, Alabama. I remained in helicopters as a flight engineer as new pilots learned how to fly them before they went off to Vietnam. I flew half days, these young pilots rotating from class room to flight training. I told the war stories then.

This is my last home-away-from-home, courtesy of Uncle Sam in Ft Rucker, Alabama, for almost 18 months. The tan car closest to the barracks on the right, was my 1963 Ford Fairlane and the first car I'd ever owned. My bunk was the first one on the left as you go through the lower floor screen door. The same screen door that everyone let slam as they came and went. These barracks were also pre WWII era construction, and although I'd been housed in newer, brick barracks when I first arrived here, for some unknown reason, my company was moved to these old ones. It was a fitting end to my career. I'd gained a knowledge of true patriotism, if not by what I went through, but by the ghosts and my imagining the thousands of soldiers before me, some who never came back home, in those old barracks I'd lived in at three different Army forts. Happy Veteran's Day to all. I'm glad my name isn't on "the wall."

Lucky Two Times ~ 24yrs ago

I will never forget seeing the car continue towards me and wondered why she wasn't hitting her brakes! (Yup, I could see it was a woman driver.) I had a split second thought of, "Why is this happening to me?" and then the mental image of movie stunt-men jumping over moving cars and another split second decision to jump as high as I could. It all happened quickly but at the time it was like slow motion. A few minutes earlier I had parked my patrol car nearby and was out on foot at the fence of a trailer park, waiting and watching for one or all three suspects to jump over this fence. They were trying to lose another officer who had followed them in the park, but had quickly parked and abandoned their car and were on foot in the trailer park. That officer was only seconds behind, not yet in pursuit, not wanting them to run, awaiting the return on the license plate. As we all heard dispatch announce it was a reported stolen vehicle, I was already nearby, having heard him say on the radio, that he was following a 425A (suspicious vehicle) "occupied three times." I was to be his back up officer when he made the car stop. But, as it sometimes happens in police work, the bad guys didn't agree with our plan. So I took up the position where I was, the standard, police method of containment, locate and arrest - only we had just one side of the perimeter so far - me. Holding my portable radio next to my ear to listen as other arriving units searched the trailer park, I heard possible suspects were seen going over the block wall a few blocks east of me. I turned to run to my car that I had backed up under a large cottonwood tree, shading it from the nearby street light. I was hoping they wouldn't see it and go over the wall where I was. They had a different plan and now they were too far for me to run and catch up to.
I had been talking to young man who lived in this park, Derek Swatling, also a member of my ward then, and when I took off to run, he'd yelled at me "Watch out." He'd seen the car but I hadn't; the portable radio still held up to my left ear, the on-coming car blocked from my view. After dodging left then right only to have the car do the same thing, and still wonder why this car wasn't stopping, I jumped; stunt-man-imitation-like. I remember seeing the night sky as I flipped over the car. I don't remember actually hitting the car, but I know I did. The next thing I was aware of, I was coming down with my hands in front of me, sliding down the car, landing on my butt. I thought it was the front and was readying myself to become as flat as I could get as the car would pass over me. An instantaneous thought, "will I live through this?" came to mind. I was relieved when I saw the car going away from me. I had come down at the rear of the car and I was not being run over. Derek was now next to me and had picked up my radio. He was yelling into it, "Officer down! Officer down!" I reached up, took the radio, and as calmly as I could, reported what had happened. (Real "manly-cops" remain calm on the radio.) Dispatch said, "Medical is en route." (Dispatchers do a great job, a tough job sometimes and don't get credit for it.) I tried to get up and felt sharp pains in my legs, sitting back down then laying on my back, remembering how odd it was that the pavement could feel so good. It was still warm from the day's sun. I soon had other cops around me, helping me out of my gun belt, offering to take my patrol car back to the station, etc, while I was being loaded into the ambulance. It was a surreal experience as I’ve always watched others going through this, it wasn’t suppose to be me. Derek , said he thought I was dead, having flown so high in the air. No, I was alive because he had warned me. I realized that "small still voices" can come in varying ways.

Ten days later as I recovered, I witnessed the birth of Lindsay. I assured everyone I was well enough to drive and I went to the hospital as another ward member and good friend Julie Jenkins, had filled in for me as birthing coach to Carol. They had gone earlier when she went into labor. Driving home from the hospital I realized how close I came to have not been alive to seen this, to be her dad. I am so thankful I am. I will be eternally grateful to those who came to my aid during my recovery period. (and Carol who was a great nurse!) Jerry Page comes to mind, who sadly, has passed away. Also, Ron Mecham and his sons took over my lawn mowing accounts until Carol and Marlene W. did them while I recovered. I was lucky twice, 24 years ago.....

Not Politically Correct

It's official. We now have an Obamination. (I love puns!)

Saturday ride @ Hurricane & Sand Hollow

I rode around Sand Hollow this morning, only I went the opposite direction, similar route from a few weeks ago. This time, I attacked that long hill from the other side, coming in from Hurricane. I still had to climb some, just not as pronounced. As I rode down, met a few riders going up, panting and struggling as I had done. I encouraged them, "you're almost there!" This is a facsimile of what I may have looked like today, not having a photographer there.

I rode past a heard of cows. Being friendly I "moo'ed" them. I got some strange looks, as you can see. You know how aggressive cows can be, I didn't want to take any chances.

I was brought back into reality when a large bug hit me in my mouth. I'm guessing grasshopper. I spit and spit, drank and rinsed and spit as I pedaled.

Fortunately, I wasn't in a pack of other riders or it could've been worse.

So, I ignored this sign and completed the ride, again beating that long hill up to Telegraph Rd and over the top to Coral Canyon. Total distance: 31 miles.

Life is good ~ sometimes.