Farewell, Uncle

Yesterday evening I learned the horrifying news that my uncle, his wife, and my cousin died in a house fire at their home in Ogden, Kansas.

This is an old photo taken when my mother passed away in 2000. That may have been the last time I saw Uncle Butch. He is the one on the far right. I don't recall seeing him at my grandmother's funeral in 2007. I suspect this is the only picture of the four brothers as adults in existence. They weren't much on get-togethers.

I don't know that I ever met Uncle Butch's wife. His son, whom we called Buddy, had a rare disease that required a lot of treatment. He was never able to work and lived with his father and stepmother. I hadn't seen Buddy in years.

Uncle Butch served in the U.S. Army and retired from service. I am not sure why he chose to live in Kansas. I think he ran a video store there until video went out of style; then I am not sure what he did. He was about 70 years old.

According to news reports, the fire started in the wee hours of the morning, around 3:40 a.m., and rescue efforts were hampered by 5 degree temperatures.

Four people perished in the fire. I do not know who the fourth person was; I have been told two things - that it was a renter and that it was a homeless person my uncle had let into his home because of the low temperatures. I don't know which is correct. I do know it was not my other cousin, Uncle Butch's daughter.

Fire and/or smoke inhalation is a bad way to go. My uncle had Parkinson's disease so he may not have been able to get out regardless. If smoke overtook everyone as they were sleeping, perhaps they had painless deaths. I shall hope so, anyway.

There is a story about the fire here and another here. If there is an obituary I will post it; I think at the moment there is confusion over the funeral and who will be taking care of what, since Uncle Butch's daughter is, unfortunately, incarcerated on drug trafficking charges. I doubt she will be much help.

Updated:

Here are the obituaries from the funeral home:

Roger Duane Harris, Sr, died on January 31 at his home in Ogden, Ks. Roger was born in Roanoke, Virginia and is preceded in death by his parents, Claude and Melba Harris, and his older sister, Glenda Bruffey. He retired from the Army with honors after 20 years of service, including time in Vietnam, making his home in Ogden. Roger is survived by his daughter, Anita Jo Albino, sister Carolyn Hunt, and brothers Melvin Lee Harris, Claude Harris, Jr., and Gerald Thomas Harris as well as many loving friends in the Ft Riley and Ogden area.

Roger Duane Harris, Jr, died on January 31 at his home in Ogden, KS. Roger was born in Roanoke, Virginia and is survived by his mother, Dottie Prince and sister Anita Jo Albino as well as several aunts and uncles. Roger, often known as Buddy to friends and family, perished on the same day as his father, Roger Harris, Sr. He will be fondly remembered by many friends in the Ogden area, including special friends Angie Reffner, her children Melissa, John, Steven, Shyllyn, and Jennifer, Angie’s grand-children Krystyne, Viktor, and Emerie, special friends Harvey and Michelle Naffei, and countless other children he has watched grow up over the years. A memorial service will be held at St. Patrick's Catholic Church in Ogden, KS on Thursday, February 7, 2019 at 10:30 am with a luncheon to follow.

Rae Elaine LaPorte Harris, 72, died on January 31 in a fire at her home in Ogden, KS. Rae Elaine was born July 5, 1946, in Utica, NY, and was preceded in death by her father, Raymond LaPorte, and her brother, John LaPorte. Rae Elaine graduated from Indian River High School in Philadelphia, NY, and attended SUNY Oswego. After college she became the secretary to the fashion editor of Family Circle magazine in NYC. She then worked as a secretary at Fort Drum, NY, Aberdeen Proving Grounds, MD, and Fort Riley, KS. She changed careers again to become a cross-country tractor-trailer driver, and then she started her own video rental business in Ogden. She loved to sing and was a member of the Junction City Troubadours. Rae Elaine is survived by her step-daughter Anita Jo Albino of Ogden, KS, her mother Mary Jean LaPorte and sister Linda LaPorte Gross, both of Simpsonville, SC, her brother Dan LaPorte of Sabillasville, MD, and her nephews Michael Gross of Carson, CA, and Steven Gross and Raymond James Gross of Simpsonville, SC. Rae Elaine was a friend to everyone she met and will be missed by all.

A memorial service will be held at St. Patrick's Catholic Church in Ogden, Ks on Thursday, February 7, 2019, at 10:30 am with a luncheon to follow.

Memorial contributions may be made to the St. Patrick's Catholic Church or to the Riley County Firefighters Association in care of the Yorgensen-Meloan-Londeen Funeral Home 1616 Poyntz Avenue, Manhattan, Kansas 66502.

Thursday Thirteen

1. Today is the last day of the month of this new year. So now this is an old year, and we're heading down the stretch toward its end. Christmas is just 10 months and 25 days away (or something like that).

2. My sinuses and ears are bothering me; I'm off to the doctor. To be an old woman, I certainly get a lot of ear infections. I thought those were for kids!

3. Maybe since I'm like a kid in many ways, I should eat Trix. (Trix are for kids!)

4. Instead, I eat yogurt, or eggs, or sometimes a Luna bar for breakfast. I don't eat cereal because I don't drink milk. I probably shouldn't eat the yogurt, either, but it doesn't seem to bother me and I really want a healthy internal flora in my gut.

5. Leaky gut syndrome is not something I think a lot of physicians acknowledge, but I'm pretty sure  have it, and have most of my life.

6. Other things I've had all of my life include allergies, a propensity toward the glass is half-empty view of life, and the notion that I am reincarnated.

7. The reincarnation thing goes back as far as my words, because when I first started to speak I began telling my mother how I lived in a big ol' castle and was killed and buried in Scotland. My mother was so horrified she made me stop telling the story. I don't remember it but she told me about it later.

8. Out

9. of

10. time

11. off

12. to

13. doctor

End in Sight

I'm sitting here with my home in total disarray. The bedroom is in the living room and parts of the living room are everywhere.

The bedroom is getting new flooring today.

Bedroom drawers in the living room.

Parts of the living room in the kitchen.

This is home renovation at its finest. Even here in my office, my most sacred space, I have piles of items around me, things that belong elsewhere. No free space has been spared of a drawer or box.

Stuff in my office. Yikes!

My house hasn't been this wrecked in years. I guess the last time would have been 2005, when we put down the carpet we are now ridding ourselves of in favor of hardwood flooring.

I have been trying to work on our taxes but it is very hard to think with all of this going on. This morning I went through dresser drawers in the living room, filling a nice big box for donations and another with trash. I threw away every pair of panty hose I own. I have no plans to ever put on a pair again. I always hated those things.

Anyway, the work continues. I'm still here. I know I am privileged to be able to do this, to update my home a bit. We're trying to make it easy for the next 20 years, because we both plan to die here. So we've put handrails in the showers, we're making the floor care easier, and I'm tossing out items whilst we are in the midst of this.

All is good. Just very, very tiring.

Flooring Update

The tile has been redone and is much better. It's smooth! My husband can push his chair back under the table without it getting hung up. He is happy.

They started tearing up the carpet in the living room and installing the engineered hardwood flooring yesterday.

Here are some photos:

Replaced tile. Notice the carpet on the lower right.

Tile against the carpet.

Ta da! Hardwood flooring!

Hardwood flooring against the tile.

Close up of tile against the hardwood.

It will look nice when it is done but it sure is a pain in the ass to do it. Whew.

Remembering Challenger

Thirty-three years ago today, the space shuttle, Challenger, blasted off from its dock in Florida at Cape Canaveral.

Seventy-three seconds into its voyage, it exploded. All seven people on board died.

When this happened, I was 23 years old. I was driving down Interstate 581 on my way to my part-time job after taking a class at Virginia Western Community College. Since I was an avid fan of the space program, I always watched the launches and I remember being upset that I was missing this launch of Challenger, which was taking the first teacher into space. Since I couldn't see it on TV, I listened to the radio report of the event.

I nearly wrecked the car when I heard the horror in the radio announcer's voice as he cried, "It's breaking up, it's breaking up! Oh my God!"

I began crying, sobbing hard even as I trudged into the office. No one there was aware of the tragedy and I had to beg the attorney to turn on a TV so I could see news footage. I was appalled that no one else at my workplace seemed to share my horror and dismay, but I remember it as well as I do any other national tragedy.

This was the 25th mission for a space shuttle and I fear that by this time it had become "routine" in the minds of the public. We flew into space - big deal. We had stopped expecting catastrophe.

Nothing is routine about a space flight, though. It was, and still is, a big deal. I consider our efforts to take humanity off of earth and into the stars our greatest achievement and our loftiest of goals.

The two minutes of CNN footage of the shuttle blowing up is here; the news media missed the explosion and took too long to realize that something terrible had happened. I have hindsight on my side: I know when I see the smoke what exactly has happened. As the NASA spokesperson says, "obviously there was a major malfunction."

Whatever shrugs the space program had received up to this point disappeared quickly. This disaster was hard on the nation because Christa McAuliffe, the first teacher in space, was on board. Millions of children were watching when Challenger suddenly burst into a ball of smoke and flame.

I admire people who put their life on the line so that we might venture out into the great unknown. The space program, now defunded and derided by those who eschew knowledge and education in favor of fiscal prudence and safety, gave mankind many great innovations. It saddens me that we no longer aim for the stars. We only seem to see the dollar bills floating around at our feet. We no longer look up or to the future.

The space program fostered hopes and dreams. The work gave humanity a sense of common purpose as exploration and accomplishments took place time and time again. If we could go into space, we could do anything. Space exploration was a tremendous step forward and an example of what we could accomplish when we worked together.

It was a glorious time in our history, even when bad things such as the Challenger explosion occurred. We stood for something. We believed in science. We were civilized.

I salute all of those heroes who set off in search of something more than themselves. May we find that bravery once again in this country, which now seems to be a land of cowards, bullies, and bigots, not soul-searchers who would walk amongst the stars.

Sunday Stealing

Sunday Stealing

1. What are some small things that make your day better?

A. Hot tea, chocolate, a long hug with my husband, a check in the mail, phone calls from friends or family.

2. What shows are you into?

A. Right now I am into Supergirl and Victoria.

3. What TV channel doesn’t exist but really should?

A. A real Discovery science channel, not one that delves into swamp people or moonshiners or whatever, but offers up real science and explains it in a way that is enjoyable so that you're learning something important while being entertained.

4. Who has impressed you most with what they’ve accomplished?

A. My father. He has built up a multi-million dollar business from nothing.

5. What age do you wish you could permanently be?

A. Early 40s.

6. What TV show or movie do you refuse to watch?

A. I don't watch horror, porn, or things that show a lot of abuse or murder. So I don't watch CSI, Law & Order, or other shows like those.

7. What is something that is considered a luxury, but you don’t think you could live without?

A. My computer.

8. What’s your claim to fame?

A. I wrote for the newspaper and at one time everyone in my community knew my name. They didn't know my face, but they knew my name.

9. What’s something you like to do the old-fashioned way?

A. Talk on the phone. I prefer that to texting.

10. What’s your favorite genre of book or movie?

A. Fantasy.

11. How often do you people watch?

A. Every time I leave the house.

12. What have you only recently formed an opinion about?

A. The political savvy of Nancy Pelosi.

13. What are you interested in that most people haven’t heard of?

A. I Ching. Look it up.

14. What’s the farthest you’ve ever been from home?

A. Paris, France.

15. What is the most heartwarming thing you’ve ever seen?

A. The way my husband looks after his mother.

16. What is the most annoying question that people ask you?

A. When am I going back to work/when will I write a book/ when will I . . .

17. What could you give a 40-minute presentation on with absolutely no preparation?

A. How to write articles for newspapers and magazines.

18. If you were dictator of a small island nation, what crazy dictator stuff would you do?

A. I would give everyone free health care and education. I would have mandatory 40-hour work week (no overtime), all people would be equal regardless of gender, race, sexual preference, etc., football players would make $30,000 a year and firefighters and teachers would make $100,000 a year - there would be no pollution because of strict regulations on such things, the water would be clean, the government would probably be large because we'd need a lot of people to check the food, water, drugs, etc. for quality control. Movies would only cost $2.50 to see and popcorn would be $1.50 a bag.

19. What is something you think everyone should do at least once in their lives?

A. Travel to another country. It is eye-opening and necessary to get out of the bubble that most citizens of the U.S. live in.

__________

I encourage you to visit other participants in Sunday Stealing posts and leave a comment. Cheers to all us thieves who love memes, however we come by them.

Saturday 9: Favorite Things

Saturday 9: My Favorite Things (2018)

Unfamiliar with this week's tune? Hear it here.

(This is a beefed up version of the Julie Andrews tune.)

1) This week's artist, Jennie Abrahamson, is very happy living in Stockholm, but she refers to Paris as "a flirt." She enjoys her time there so much she always wants to return. Is there a place you've visited that tugs at your heart and imagination, tempting you to return?

A. I'm happy where I am. No place I have visited has ever been like home. There's no place like home. There's no place like home . . . there's no place like home . . .

2) Jennie has said her music has been heavily influenced by 80s pop, which was popular in her early teen years. Are your favorite songs the ones you listened to when you were growing up?

A. My favorite songs are from the 1970s and early 1980s, with the exception of Melissa Etheridge and Sheryl Crowe, both of whom captured my heart in the 1990s.

3) "My Favorite Things" is from The Sound of Music. Crazy Sam's high school claim to fame was playing Sister Margaretta in the senior class production. Though not a big part, her performance lives on because relatives love embarrassing her with pictures of her in an especially unflattering nun's habit. Who took an embarrassing photo of you? What were you doing?

A. I had an embarrassing photo of me in big hair holding a fish I caught; I'm not sure who took it but it must have been in the late 1980s. I tore the photo up.

4) The lyrics celebrate "brown paper packages tied up in strings." What was in the last box you received in the mail?

A. A copy of my blog. Every four months I go to blog2print.com and have a copy of the last four months made into a softbound book. Right now all of those copies take up about 14" of shelf space. At least if my blog ever dies, I will have my words and photos. Someday someone will buy them in my estate auction, or they will find their way into a recycling bin and the paper will be shredded. Hopefully I won't be around to see either.

5) It mentions doorbells and sleighbells. What's the most recent bell or alarm that you heard?

A. Alexa woke me up this morning at 6:15 a.m.

6) This song has nice things to say about cold weather, specifically snowflakes and mittens. What do you like about winter?

A. When it is snowing, and all is quiet and still, it is as if the Universe has inhaled and is holding its breath.

7) Dog bites and bee stings are singled out as things that can leave us feeling sad. What's most recently given you the blues?

A. My house re-renovations. We had the kitchen floor redone in October, and now it's being torn up again and put back down because the first tile installers were absolutely the worst workers ever. After some back and forth with the flooring company, we finally convinced them to replace the floor. My house is wrecked. The tilers broke the glass on my 32-year-old Jenn-Air oven door, so I can't cook anything, either. I'm feeling a bit stressed.

8) In 2018, when this song was released, Roger Federer won the Australian Open. Are you good with a racket?

A. No ma'am, I am not.

9) Random question -- Your local zoo announced the hatching of three snowy owlets. All males. You won the honor of naming them. Go ahead.

A. Gandalf, Aragorn, and Frodo.

___________

I encourage you to visit other participants in Saturday 9 posts and leave a comment. Because there are no rules, it is your choice. Saturday 9 players hate rules. We love memes, however.

Flooring Update

Here's a flooring update.

The old tile was removed in about an hour. This should have taken all day, but the initial tile was so poorly installed that if we hadn't had it taken up within a few months we would have started noticing cracks and tiles breaking.

Essentially the only thing holding the tile to the floor was the grout.

Now the new tile is down, and as best we can tell, it has no raised corners to stumble over. We could also tell it was put down with a much better quality of workmanship by a man who takes pride in his work.

This still needs to be grouted. The area by the door with the blue specks are tiles that were installed this morning.

After the kitchen is grouted and that is dry, then we will move all the stuff piled in the living room into the kitchen, and tear up the carpet and install hardwood flooring.

Hopefully in 10 days or so my life will be restored to some semblance of normal. In the meantime, I'm trying not to stress over things. However, I'm the kind of girl who worries about everything, so of course I'm stressing over all of this.

But it is what it is.

Thursday Thirteen

1. Living in a home during renovations is like suddenly moving into a tiny house, because suddenly my living space has been reduced by half.

2. Keep looking toward the end goal, my husband says. In a few weeks it will all be over.

3. I've never been able to see the end of long projects. I strongly suspect this has something to do with my inability to commit to writing a novel.

4. Writing articles has a foreseeable end, even if it's an article that takes me a month to work on. Of course, if I'm doing something like that I'm being paid for it and I have a deadline.

5. Deadlines are not bad things. I never minded deadlines when I wrote steadily for newspapers, because they forced me to do the work.

6. Organization was also important to deadlines. Deadlines kept me organized and in control.

7. School afforded me deadlines, too, and I was able to write longer pieces when I was taking writing courses.  I had to turn something in, and it had to be good. I was always an "A" student and I wasn't going to screw that up.

8. However, setting deadlines for myself doesn't work, because I let them pass. No self discipline?

9. Maybe it is the lack of the carrot on the end of the stick, i.e., the paycheck or the "A" that makes self-imposed deadlines easy to bypass.

10. Lots of things have deadlines; dinner, for example. We try to eat before 6 p.m. because we both have indigestion if we eat later. Laundry has less of a deadline, although the dwindling pile of towels and underwear suggests I need to find access to a washer and dryer soon. (Mine is currently unhooked and sitting idle in the garage.)

11. The workers who are making improvements to my home have deadlines, too. Those are imposed by money, as in, the longer they stay on the job the less an hour they are making, because they are being paid by the job and not for their time. Working faster is better for them.

12. What other things have deadlines? Bills. Appointments. Bedtime is a deadline, isn't it? Projects of all sorts. What are the things that you have deadlines for?

13. Some people don't understand deadlines. I call those people politicians. ☺


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Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here if you want to read other Thursday Thirteens and/or play along. I've been playing for a while and this is my 588th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday. Or so sayth the Blogger counter, anyway.

They Broke the Oven

As we continue with the flooring saga, I offer up the rather devastating news that somehow one of the tile men broke the glass on my oven.

My oven is a Jenn-Air, and it was expensive when we purchased it about 30 years ago. I don't know how it was broken as I wasn't here, and I don't know if there is other damage to the oven. The tile man has managed to locate the only single existing piece of glass for this oven door in the entire United States and is having it shipped here, but that doesn't relieve my anxiety about whether or not the door seals have been compromised.

A new Jenn-Air is expensive - about $3,500, actually. So I am guessing the tile man is hoping this piece of glass he's ordered really does fix things. Otherwise someone's insurance will be buying me a new stove. I have no issues with my oven so I don't know whether to hope the glass fits or not. I had no plans to replace my oven. It has worked just fine all of this time and if it isn't broke I don't replace things simply to replace them.

In the meantime, the old tile that was laid in early October came up incredibly easy, almost by hand, because the first tile-layers did such a crappy job. My husband said the only thing holding the tile down was the grout, basically. That turned out to be good because no jackhammers or other heavy equipment was necessary to get the tile out, and it mostly came up in single pieces. These will be donated to Habitat for Humanity for reuse in someone else's home, according to the tile contractor, since they are in good shape.

The other trauma that happened yesterday involved some adhesive crap that the tile people spread all over the cement. I don't know why my husband didn't stop them, because it smells and everyone has been told 100 times that I am sensitive to chemical odors and have asthma. Nevertheless, this stuff was put down.

It smells terrible and after a little while my lips started tingling and swelling, which is where I tend to react to things. We left for a while to eat dinner and go to Lowes, and it was still stinking when we returned, so we left the windows open and the furnace on (our light bill will be hideous this month) and left to spend the night at my mother-in-law's house.

We came back early this morning (around 6:15 a.m.) and have been trying to air out the house so it doesn't smell so. James is hoping that once the tile is over the stinky stuff the odor will dissipate even more. The odor isn't bothering me quite so much but I am staying back in my office with the door shut and I also have taken extra allergy medication.

This adventure living during a renovation is not for me, I have to say.

The Floor Saga Continues

So now we come once again to flooring.

My parquet floors in August had to be replaced because of a dishwasher malfunction.

In early October, men came and put in tile.

It was a horrible, awful job, although initially we thought it was ok. You can't really tell until it's done, after all, because you can't walk on it and stuff is wet and you think it going to dry a different color.

However, after they were through we realized that the grout changed color halfway through, the tiles are not lined up straight, and they are not flat. You can trip over this floor without even thinking about it.

After much back and forth with the flooring company, they have agreed to replace the tile floor. This entails jackhammers and sledge hammers and other equipment that I don't even want to think about being in my home.

I am leaving as soon as they arrive, and leaving this part to my husband to supervise.

As it is, we've had to remove everything not just in the kitchen but also in the living room, because of the anticipated dust that we have been told this will create. That is also another reason for me to leave, as I have asthma.

Here is what my house looks like now:

We need some help with the cabinets; the tile men will have to help us move some things.

Yep, my refrigerator is in my living room.

This has been very stressful. The tile does not look bad to just look at it, but it is wavy and a nightmare to walk on. My husband was determined it was going to be made right, and so hopefully it shall be.

The new tile installer is a "certified tile installer," which is supposed to mean something. Anyway, the flooring people took this fellow's word that the job was poor. They initially brought him out to prove it was "acceptably poor" but he said it wasn't and it all needed to come up. That was when they finally agreed to pay to replace it.

I will be out all day and I'm not really well enough to be out for long periods. Fortunately I will be able to meet a friend for lunch, so that will be a nice long break.

Wish me luck, with all of it.

Lunar Eclipse of the Supermoon Wolf Moon

We set an alarm for 11 p.m. and I took these shots between 11:10 p.m. and midnight last night.

 

 

 

 

 

And these are photos of the Supermoon Wolf Moon setting over the mountain on Monday morning.

Sunday Stealing

Sunday Stealing

1. Do you have a passion project? What is it?

A. I must not since I'm not sure what that is.

2. How many languages can you speak?

A. I can speak a wee bit of Spanish along with my native English (American version).

3. What was the last book you read?

A. The Book of Life, by Deborah Harkness

4. Where in the world would you most like to visit?

A. New Zealand.

5. Top 5 fictional characters?

A. Jo from Little Women, Diana Prince aka Wonder Woman, Buffy Summers (Buffy the Vampire Slayer), Kinsey Milhone (Sue Grafton's heroine in her alphabet mysteries series), Xena, from Xena: Warrior Princess. I'd put something from Lord of the Rings in there but I thought I'd go with an all female list and let's face it, Tolkien was sexist. Aside from Eowyn, there aren't many women of note in his books.

6. Something you miss from your childhood?

A. I didn't particularly like my childhood.

7. What skill do you wish you had?

A. The ability to travel through time.

8. Tell us an interesting fact.

A. There are more lifeforms living on your skin than there are people on the planet.

9. What was your favourite subject in school?

A. English.

10. Favorite planet?

A. Saturn.

11. Which historical figure fascinates you and why?

A. Mary, Queen of Scots, because she was tough and I bet she was going "nyah nyah" at Queen Elizabeth even as her head was being chopped off.

12. Favorite mythical creature?

A. The Goddess Freyja and her Valkery warriors

13. Do you believe in any conspiracy theories?

A. Which kind of conspiracy theory? The "I think #45 was colluding with Russia" or the "they are holding aliens at Area 51" kind?

14. What is your favourite word?

A. Serendipity

15. Do you have any obsessions right now?

A. I'm obsessed with not getting my taxes done, because apparently I simply don't want to work on the damned things.

16. Do you play any instruments?

A. I play guitar. In the past I have played ukelele, guitalele, dobro, dulcimer, saxophone, flute, piccolo, piano, organ, harpsichord, accordian, harmonica, tamborine, recorder, bass guitar and probably a few others I've forgotten.

17. What’s your worst habit?

A. It's a tie between eating too much and chewing my finger nails.

18. Do you have a collection of anything?

A. I have a collection of Christmas mice and a lot of books.

19. What’s your biggest ‘what if’?

A. What if the apocolypse comes tomorrow and I don't have enough toilet paper?

20. What is your favourite fairy tale?

A. Snow White and Rose Red. Didn't we just have this question?

21. Have you ever dyed your hair? Is there a colour you’d like to dye it?

A. I have never dyed my hair. I had it highlighted a few times but I became allergic to the coloring.  So I don't dye my hair and there is no color I would dye my hair. I have earned the gray.

22. If you could learn one language overnight, which would you choose?

A. French.

23. What’s the most useless thing you know how to do?

A. Procrastinate. I'm a master at it and it's very unproductive.

24. What’s the most important change that should be made to your country’s education system?

A. It would be nice if they taught civics again, and parents should stand behind the teachers, not their kids, when things go awry.
__________

I encourage you to visit other participants in Sunday Stealing posts and leave a comment. Cheers to all us thieves who love memes, however we come by them.

Saturday 9: Love Affair

Saturday 9: '65 Love Affair (1977)

Unfamiliar with this week's tune? Hear it here.

1) The first line of this song is, "I was a car hop." Car hops used to take orders and bring diners food to eat in their cars. Today, the drive through lane has pretty much replaced car hops. Think about the last time you went to a fast food restaurant. Did you order at the counter or at the drive through window?

A. Actually, I phone it in and go in and pick it up.

2) Mr. Davis sings that his girlfriend was "bad with her pom-poms." Presumably she was a cheerleader. Share one of your school's cheers.

A. We're Cavalier born and Cavalier bred and when we die we'll be Cavaliers yet! So rah rah for Cavaliers! Rah rah for Cavaliers! Rah rah for Cavaliers!

3) The lyrics tell us he believes that if he could go back in time, his girl would still be his. If you could travel back in time to your high school years, what would you enjoy doing again? What would you do differently?

A. I would enjoy learning and visiting the library, which I did and would do again. I would try to be calmer. I was not a very calm teenager on the inside, though I was generally quiet and unnoticed.

4) During his performing days, Paul Davis sported a full beard and flowing hair. We're using that to check your powers of observation and recollection. Think of the last man you spoke to. Who was he? Describe his hair, and tell us whether he was clean shaven.

A. The last man I spoke to was my husband. He's balding with gray hair on the sides, and he had a 5 o'clock shadow because it was late in the day. He looked tired.

5) Paul Davis was born in Meridian, MS, and that's where he returned to when he went into semi-retirement in 1982. Meridian's biggest employer is the Naval Air Station in Meridian. Do you know anyone who is currently in, or employed by, the military?

A. I have an uncle who was in the Air Force and then retired and went back as a civilian worker. He's some kind of high tech airplane mechanic.

6) He was a pool player and a golfer. Which sport are you better at?

A. Pool. I used to shoot a mean game of pool back in the day.

7) Sadly, he died in 2008, on the day after his 60th birthday. His best friend remembers him as "a homebody," who enjoyed staying up long into the night with his friends, playing and listening to music. Describe your perfect way to spend an evening.

A. Staying in with my husband, with his hand in mind, and a good back in my lap, while he watches TV.

8) The publishing rights to "'65 Love Affair," as well as Paul Davis' bigger hits ("Cool Night" and "I Go Crazy"), are owned by another Paul -- Paul McCartney. Sir Paul's MPL Publishing Company has made him a very rich man, and Paul says that's because he chose to invest in music, something he loves. What about you? If you were to invest in a business or industry you love, which would you choose?

A. I would invest in publishing, although I don't think that is very lucrative right now. Perhaps I'd have to do something digital.

9) Random question --You're at a party and one of your host's best friends is a real egghead who tries to draw you into a conversation about paradigmatic counter existentialism. Would you: a) just listen politely while letting your mind wander; b) admit you don't know what the hell he's talking about; c) explain why you personally feel that the counter existential paradigm just adds unnecessary complexity to the individual's search for meaning?

A. Oh, my. I would be totally into this conversation. So I guess c), but I'd have to add that absurdist existentialism has merit as well, and that in all honesty, the universe really doesn't give a damn what we all do, and the search for meaning is in and of itself an absurdly pointless exercise, and thus the entire conversation was in and of itself useless.

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I encourage you to visit other participants in Saturday 9 posts and leave a comment. Because there are no rules, it is your choice. Saturday 9 players hate rules. We love memes, however.

Thursday 13

1. Today I am thinking about the word "trust."

2. Trust is defined as a relationship between two people, generally.

3. But it can also be a relationship with an animal, or a thing - like corporations or governments.

4. I am trusting you, my dear reader, to not use my words or photos in some nefarious manner when I place them upon a blog page. Not that I write things that are bad, or take naughty pictures, but you never know what people will do with things once they are on the Internet. So I must trust that you - someone I likely do not know - will honor the implicit contract of reader and writer and not steal my words or take them for your own (copyright violation).

5. Trust plays a big role in society. Could society function without trust? Let's think about it.

6. If we didn't have an implied trust that people will obey laws, would we ever leave our houses? Would we drive on the road? Would we trust the clerk at the grocery store not to steal from us?

7. Bad things happen that break these societal trusts. People steal credit card numbers. This is a breakdown of societal trust. When you're afraid to use a credit card online, you've lost your trust in the system.

8. Some corporations are trusted more than others. I trust Coca-Cola, for example, to sell me a product that tastes like it is supposed to. I trust Del Monte to sell me good-tasting canned vegetables. I trust Microsoft not to screw me over with its operating systems (might have to rethink that one, we'll see). What corporations do you trust, and why?

9. I trust my friends to have my back. Sometimes that means they call and check on me. Sometimes it means I call and check on them. Sometimes it means we help each other out with visits, chicken soup, or whatever is required at a specific time.

10. Family comes with an implied trust. Society on the whole insists that family members should be trusted and families themselves are a microcosm of society in many instances. Families break down, though - through divorce, drug use, alcoholism, bigamy, adultery, abuse, and multiple other reasons. Other families, though, are consistently true and there for each other.

11. We also trust the government - or did. Once we trusted them to ensure that our drugs were safe. We trusted to them to ensure the quality of our food. We trusted them to keep our National Parks safe and to keep our heritage available through museums. We trust the government to wisely use our taxes. We trust the government to keep us safe from enemies. (I don't trust the government anymore.)

12. We trust people all the time and don't even think about it. We trust the airline pilot to fly the plane. We trust the bus drivers, teachers, principals, etc. with our children. That's why it makes news when that trust is violated, when a bus driver wrecks or hurts a child, or whatever. That trust has been broken.

13. Broken trusts serve as warning signs. The more trust is broken, the worse the relationship, whether that's a one-on-one with a spouse, friend, or family member, or a relationship with a corporation or government. Waning trust signals a breakdown of society.

Do you think society is broken?

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Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here if you want to read other Thursday Thirteens and/or play along. I've been playing for a while and this is my 587th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday. Or so sayth the Blogger counter, anyway.