time with Keelin

Friday afternoon it was nearly 70 by mid-afternoon. I had been in the office part of the day but had taken every opportunity to get out and into the sunshine. I have been feeling like a mushroom lately. It has been too cold to enjoy outside so I have contented myself with working inside. I had been working on cleaning the garage out so we could get around and had had the door up most of the day. I had found a bunch of old cassette tapes and had enjoyed listening to Justo Amario, Cruse and then I found Music Machine! There was old uncle westy singing along and enjoying the pre-school tape. Keelin got home and thought I was funny so it was worth something. She wanted to play outside so we got the ball and played “granddad chase the ball and kick it to me”. She can dribble the ball on the driveway and has mastered the side foot soccer kick. She wanted a snack so she brought a little table out and set up her picknic in the driveway. I got out a lounge chair and worked on my tan. Aunt Mandy showed up (see what happens when the sun comes out) and took the above picture. When it came time to take her home she wanted to go in my truck. In the truck she gets to sit up front (still in her booster seat) and granddad keep his I-pod in the truck. The trip to her house is 3 songs long. She listens to Wild Thing,(the Trogs) Takin’Care of Business(Backman Turner Overdrive) and Surfin’USA (Beach Boys) because it makes her feel like she’s at the beach. It ends about the time we turn into her driveway. She had me load those three on HER I-pod so she could listen at home.
Lookin’ forward to Zippidee to come see us for several weeks. I’m sure there will be interesting discussions around the coffee pot at Mom’s.
Unclewesty, over and out.

and the music played on

I come by my fascination with stereos honestly. I know I spent hours listening to 45’s on a record player that only played 45’s. I know we later had record players that played 78’s, 45’s and 331/3 records. The first one I really remember was the one that the speakers folded out on. If you closed the top and folded in the speakers you had a box. It would hold several LPs (331/3 vinyl) at one time and was quite a machine. Mom was quite a believer in Reader’s Digest collections of LPs. I was particularly fond of The Waltz Kings. There were several. While we were at Pt. Mugu dad got the tape recorder. This thing was wonderous. It recorded music from the record player or another tape player. You could put what seemed like endless albums on one tape and play it forever. The tapes were quarter inch wide on seven inch reels. Remember, this stuff was cutting edge at the time so of course it didn’t come cheap. Have I told you dad was resourceful? Pt. Mugu was home of the Pacific Missile Range. They shot missiles from little islands off the coast of California and tracked them on their flight down the range by computer. Our government in all its wisdom and desire to keep information pure tracked all of this stuff on one inch wide twelve inch round reels. Once they had been recorded on the government would not use them again. The information could be erased when it was no longer needed but they refused to use them again. That made for a lot of scrap high quality audio tape just going to waste. Did I mention that dad was resourceful? He and another of the guys from his squadron felt the need to rescue some of this scrap because they just couldn’t handle it just going to waste. Problem. The tape was 1inch wide and on huge reels. Solution. A machined block with 3 shaving razors that you could run the 1inch tape over and rewind to seven inch reels (run by a sewing machine motor) and wa la! Tapes for the cost of the reels. We had hundreds. The other guy had hundreds. We had clear reels. We had red reels. We had blue reels. I would not bet against finding some of those tapes on dad’s book case or down in the basement today.
Unclewesty, over and out.

Look out, I'm on a roll!

Jack Lobdell was my hero. First, his real name was John but he was so cool they called him Jack. He was two years older than me and his dad was an officer so he lived in officer’s housing. HE HAD A CAR! I was a freshman, he was a junior. I had never been allowed to go anywhere with another kid driving. All of a sudden the people next door had two nieces show up to spend a couple of weeks in California. Naturally one of them was my age, one was his age. We were a small community so new girls always got noticed. Jack figured since they were staying next to me, I was the one to set him up with the older one in a double date. I had never been on a real date, why count on me? This was one of those times when Dad was out of town on a trip to school in New York. I didn’t see the real problem, so I asked Mom if I could go to town with Jack and the two girls to “get something to eat”. ( oh yeah, it was dark) She looked at me like I was from Mars and said “I knew you were going to do this when your father was gone”. The way she said it I knew I had created a stressful situation and it was a real toss up as to whether this was going to fly or not. After a couple of minutes looking around the room she relented and we got to go to Oxnard (6 miles) to Shoney’s for French fries and a coke. I cannot tell you the name of either of the girls today, but I do remember fries and a coke and that was the night Jack taught me to balance a salt shaker on its edge. I later graduated to being able to balance a sugar dispenser. Ta Da!
Unclewesty, over and out.

Free enterprise

OK, first, I understand that Sherwin Williams does not have that particular color in their color book. I only know that that is what it was called. Remember, this is from a bunch of guys who had not seen one since they were babys and would not see another one for many more years. (I knew I was going to regret saying that when I said it.)
As a teenager it was expected that I would have some kind of job of my own. With six kids in the house I had enough sense to know that there were just some things that Mom and Dad were not going to give me. I guess that this was where I learned my first lessons in entrepreneurship.
Living on base, we had access to the commissary. The commissary is the base grocery store. We were a good sized base with a large on base housing area. The commissary allowed high school aged boys to bag groceries for tips. I learned about customer service and getting paid for service rendered. I learned about the difference between a good attitude and a bad attitude and how your choice of which you had affected your pay. The summer before my freshman year of high school I got a job at the commissary and was able to buy all of my own clothes for the fall. That was HUGE for me. I bought white Levis, madras print shirts, a Pendleton jacket and Hush Puppy shoes. I didn’t have to ask for help from Dad. I didn’t get any of it from Sears. (that’s another story) I bought a Lambretta motor scooter that fall. I had freedom to roam. I rode to school most of the time instead of taking the bus. The next spring Dad helped me buy a lawnmower (I paid him back) and I started mowing lawns in addition to the commissary. Sometime after I turned 15 Dad found an old 1954 Ford Crown Victoria and we took it to the Hobby Shop and rebuilt the engine. I mean we took it down to parade rest and rebuilt everything. I wished I had paid more attention later. I have been a “tool hander” most of my adult life because I didn’t know what to fix, but I knew what the tools were. Now comes Dad’s resourcefulness. We painted that car with spray cans that dad got from the squadron. It had to be blue and grey because that was the color available. And so it was. I do not know if we have a picture of that car. I need to get with Mom and look for one. Before we left Pt. Mugu I also had a business cleaning houses for families that were moving. You had to leave the house in the same condition you got it in. I cleaned up after the family moved out and made sure it passed inspection by the housing director.

ok, lets try another

Wednesday, January 21, 2009
First, a comment. Brian (or someone associated with Brian, wake him up) we are writing memories as you requested yet you do not comment or write on your own blog. Not fair.
I’m sure some rock historian can date this for me but I will only offer the happening. We were stationed at Pt. Mugu and we were all active in church on base. I don’t remember how many of us there were but I remember one Sunday evening the teens came to our house to watch the Ed Sullivan Show. Dad went to the commissary and bought one of those big things of ice cream like they have at the Ice Cream Parlor. (what is that? 5 gallons?) Any way he got the ice cream and a bunch of Cokes, Orange, Root Beer and whatever and we had strange floats as we watched The Beatles the first time on television. Now, that doesn’t sound like such a big deal, but for a guy who was not particularly popular it was a big deal to have everyone over. (especially the girls) He didn’t have to do that, but he did.
Unclewesty, over and out

Ranch Wagon

Christmas 1955. We came home to Alabama for Christmas. I do not remember the details. I was only 6. I do remember the “Ranch Wagon”. I do not remember any car prior to the “Ranch Wagon”. After that I was more aware of what we drove but I remember we bought a brand new 1956 Ford Ranch Wagon from Richard Lawrence at the Ford place and took it back to Maine. What made it a “Ranch Wagon”? Why the seat covers of course. They were sort of leather covered (two tone, light tan and brown)vinyl and they had cattle brands alllllllllllll over. The only one I remember is the rocking R. A large R on a rocking horse base. The other extraordinary thing about this car was the color. To politely describe it, it was called a “flesh kind of color”. All of the kids (at least the boys) called it …..pink. But that was alright because it was a “Ranch Wagon”.
Some time later it became the first car in the neighborhood and probably the state of Maine to sport a seat belt in the back seat. I say seat belt because there was only one. It went all the way across the back seat, meeting in the middle and fastening with a genuine airplane seatbelt buckle. Not only was the buckle genuine airplane equipment, the belt was genuine P2V-7 seat belt material. Dad had talked one of the parachute riggers in the squadron into making him a belt he could use to keep us all in place in the back seat. Seat belts did not show up in production cars for 6-8 years after we got ours and they only held one person at a time. Dad was resourceful. There will be a number of stories of things we had due to his imagination and resoursefullness with materials and talents that crossed his path. (can anyone say enclosed back porch).
Unclewesty, over and out

To Brian

Sunday, January 18, 2009
Young Brian has asked for information that I feel we bloggers in the family are qualified to answer. He wants to know more about Grandad. It is hard for me to remember just how young he was when we lost Dad. Rather than try to write a biography which could take a long time I suggest that we all take a moment occasionally and document a particular memory we have of Dad. Perhaps sometime in the future this collection could be a family treasure. For now, lets help Brian know a little of how we saw Grandad.
I am going to rely on my memory and just write the first memory that comes to mind without trying to psychoanalyze why I picked this one.
I had to have been in 4th or 5th grade for this one. I know that was my age the last time we were in Brunswick, ME. I was in cub scouts. Dad was home from deployment. I had a project to do for a merit badge and I (we) decided to do a rock collection. Typical 5th grader would have put a glob of glue on some paper and stuck rocks on top of it. Mine was different. We went to a hill (small mountain) we used to go to for picnics and collected rocks from around the property. Dad had access to plexiglass at work (I didn’t know what plexiglass was). He took six pieces and cut them the same size. They were about ½” thick and 8”x6”. He drilled about 15 ½” holes in the two middle pieces and we put the small rocks in each hole. He had drilled all the way thru the four corners. Screwed them together and had two rock collection displays unequalled in my pack. I remember having those stacks of plastic well after I graduated from high school. From that I think I learned to do things a couple notches above what the rest will do. Ordinary was never acceptable. We were capable of better.
Next!
Unclewesty over and out.

It has been an entire month since my last entry. Shame on me. You don’t know how many times I sat down intending to write, only to postpone it because I didn’t feel very wise.
Tonight, wise or not, I will carry on. (I just did a dance, jumped up and came down, made a silly face and talked to myself. I did not yell, it would scare Andrea.) Why do we say “jumped up and down”? If you jump up you will come down without any additional effort.
I continue to be encouraged, amazed, pleased and proud of my children. I see maturity, spiritual and emotional, in both of them that tells me that they are more than ok. I read some of the stuff that Mandy writes and I just marvel at the depth of thought and understanding that she displays. She knows what value I place on original thought. I watch her marvel at the goodness of God and how he affects her life. I see in Robby the man of God I have always known he would be. I see his faith, his resilience and his command of the word. He has grown to be the man of God he always knew he could be. He has had many opportunities this year to show his faith and his maturity. I have been impressed beyond my ability to express.
As the Dad, it has been a fault of mine to keep too tight a rein on my kids. I lacked the ability to let them go to do the things adults do without interfering or at least expressing an opinion. I have always been one to express my opinion. I have one on every subject and have always just let fly. I am learning that sometimes my “letting fly” contains miscommunications and opportunity for offense. Two ears, one mouth. I have decided to make a conscious effort to speak less often. Back to the kids. I felt that it was my responsibility to prop them up and “save” them from themselves and the world. I have had that discussion with several of my friends over the years and they all told me that I needed to get over it and get on with my life. What they meant was get over it and let the kids get on with theirs. That’s hard for a controller. I prefer to think of myself as a controller in the nicest sense. (if there is one) This year I have found more than any time in my life, that I am not in control. I don’t control me, I don’t control Andrea. Hard as I may have tried, I do not control Mandy or Robby. The three of them, spouses and child have shown me that God is really in control and that I should practice more of what I have preached to everyone else over the years.
So, as I go into this still night I wish you all a good night and blessing for tomorrow.
“when evening comes and shadows fall, I’ve done my best for Him today”
UncleWesty, over and out.