This morning, in a post on my Facebook timeline, my friend Mary asked me where I went to school in 7th and 8th grades. This kicked off a cascade of memories of that era, and curiosity about why she might have asked.
The 1965-66 school year was a very strange one. My class was near the peak of the baby boom squeezing through the school system. While "they" worked on building the new MacArthur Junior High, my class was shuttled to a block of barracks in Fort Meade, Maryland, headquarters of the second Army. "They" called these barracks MacArthur Junior High That year was remarkable for a couple of reasons. First, it meant that we were not the newbies coming into Arundel Junior High - which was 0.2 miles from my house. We were the only grade in the barracks, so there were no bigger kids to pick on us. Second, we were out of school for a whole week in February due to the Blizzard of '66, which dumped three feet of snow on us. And third, I developed my first serious crush on the girl sitting in front of me in our primary classroom. When the mean girls got an inkling of my feelings, they told her that I liked her. She whipped around and said "HA!!!" in my face. This was the spark that ignited eleven years of clinical depression.
The 1966-67 school year was in Arundel Junior High. MacArthur was finished, so there was room enough for 7th grade to return to Arundel as well, so my class was not the newbies again. My favorite subject was Physical Science, which kicked off my lifelong love affair with physics. I became pretty close to the teacher, Miss Bell. I often stayed after school to help her tidy up and prepare for the next day. The other side of the coin was Art class. The teacher is the one I thought of when I read about Professor Snape in the Harry Potter books. Several times during the year he took whatever I was working on up to the front of the class to show them an example of what NOT to do. The last time he did that, when he returned my sculpture to me, I grabbed a hammer and a chisel and began pounding it to dust, sobbing uncontrollably all the while. My mother was called, and within a week or so, I was seeing a psychiatrist. A "depressive reaction" was the diagnosis of my art class meltdown.
Ninth grade brought on my second serious crush, this time on an eighth grader whose family were the current occupants of the Army officers' off-base rental house next door to mine. That goofy obsession dragged on for seven goofy years. Also, I was heavily into photography and photo-processing by then. I became known for taking pictures in school one day, and bringing the prints in to show everyone the next day. I was invited to be a photographer on the yearbook staff at Arundel High the following year. I was also looking forward to being on the Arundel Wildcats football team. So, at the end of the school year, we went on a 5-week vacation to Vero Beach, Florida, where my mother's mother lived.. After our return to Maryland, my parents decided to move us to Vero Beach, The end of my first incarnation.
Needless to say, I have often wondered about some of the people I went to school with back then, but none have surfaced in over 50 years. Has Mary encountered one of them?
Monday, July 29, 2019
Saturday, March 9, 2019
Phoney Baloney
About five years ago, our car got a rock to the windshield and Carmen called an auto glass place to get it replaced. On the appointed day she took the car in to have it done. They pulled the cracked windshield, crushed it and threw it into the dumpster. Only then did they discover that they had ordered the wrong replacement. This, of course, required them to provide alternate transportation until the windshield was replaced.
I told you that story to tell you this one.
Back in August of ought eighteen, Carmen and I were planning our Thanksgiving week getaway to St. Augustine, where we could relax near the beach and see our gaggle of friends that live nearby. In the throes of this planning, it occurred to us that a) we're not getting any younger; b) we have no children to comfort us in our golden years and c) most of our closest friends live in northeast Florida. We began working toward buying a condo in Jacksonville (that's an extreme capsulization of the real range of options we considered before we narrowed them down to a 'condo in Jacksonville') which included a four-day trip down in September to look at properties, and Carmen's quick flight down in October to see in person what finally became our condo.
It came to pass in those days that we closed the deal in mid-November, which prompted us to rent a 12 foot truck in which to carry a load down on the way to our St. Augustine getaway. They didn't have a 12' in stock, so we got a 16' at the same price. We loaded it about half full of stuff we wouldn't need during the months following our return to Nashville. I drove it down here, and we unloaded it ourselves before we went on to our vacay.
By the time our vacay was coming to a close, we began to realize that there were things that needed to be done here after she needed to return to work in Nashville. We decided that I would stay here and show our electrician friend what all needed to be done, greet the painter and explain the job to him so he could work up a quote, install the new internet-connected thermostat, install the new internet-connected security system, and assemble several pieces of Ikea furniture in my spare time. These things I did, and gladly, before renting a car to drive back to Nashville.
There was, of course, a fly in the ointment, otherwise why would I be writing all of this, right?
The laptop computer I am using now, I only use when I want to write something on a real keyboard, or print something. Otherwise, I use my Kindle Fire. It's smaller, faster, way less cumbersome. I did not bring my laptop on vacation. So after I finished with the electrician, the painter and the thermostat, I pulled out the Ring security system. I found the instruction booklet. Step 1 - plug it in. Done. Step 2 - synch your phone with the system: a) download the Ring app from Google Play. Well, the Kindle Fire will not accept apps from Google Play, period. I know this because I called Amazon tech support and they assured me that this was the case. In addition, the only way to activate the system is to download the Ring app from Google Play. I know this because I called Ring tech support and they assured me that this was the case. They asked if I had a computer other than my Fire. Yes, in Tennessee. That was no help. I puzzled and puzzed 'til my puzzler was sore, and finally came to the conclusion that the cheapest and fastest way to solve this was to buy a $45.00 smart phone. I walked to Walgreen's and then to CVS on a fine Sunday morning, and came home with an LG Phoenix 3 smart-ass phone. I wrangled with AT&T to get my prepaid service going - another $45.00 - and within seconds had downloaded the app. Good to go, at last! And now I had a fancy new 904 area code phone number, and a smarty pants phone like the big kids have! I activated the system, set up all of the sensors, rented a car and drove back to Nashville.
Fast forward to January. Two days after my birthday, I drove a 24' truck packed tight from front to back with most of the rest of our stuff (loaded by professional loaders!) and two kitties in carriers on the seat beside me. On Tuesday the 15th, I became a resident of Jacksonville. Carmen drove down with the dog in her car. Professional unloaders brought everything in, most of it to the right places, and a few days later Carmen went back to Nashville. She is still there as I write this, and we four mammals miss her bunches!
Not long afterward, Carmen had finally had it up to here (picture my hand hovering somewhere around my nose) with her old smart phone. She pow-wowed with the tech folks at her church, and they decided to order two new phones from Google fi, because adding me to her plan cost less than keeping my prepaid AT&T plan. And I could keep my fancy 904 number, which was good because I have given that number as my primary contact number to every entity with which I deal. Days and weeks went by, watching for the phones to be delivered. Finally, the office administrator at her previous church in Pennsylvania called to tell Carmen that a package had arrived for her from Google. What??? Carmen called the internet technology behemoth to straighten things out. There was an old Pennsylvania billing address connected to her account, so their brilliant computers disregarded the shipping address on the order, and sent the phones to Pennsylvania. A whole lot of rigamarole ensued, Pennsylvania shipped the phones to Nashville, and all was once again right with the world. RIGHT!
So another tech pow-wow occurred to set up the new phones. They called me with questions about my AT&T account so they could close it. I, of course, had already prepaid March by then, but these things have to be done when all of the parties are free to do them, so, whatever. I spent hours on the internet (on my Kindle) and on the phone to AT&T, and finally got them all of the info they needed to close that account so that the fancy 904 number could be given to the new phone. Great. But Google, upon realizing their shipping malfunction, had refunded the money paid for the phones. "No problem. Just send back those phones, and order another round." That was the internet technology behemoth's best solution to this situation. "Can't we just keep these and pay for them again?" "No, because those phones have now been reported as 'lost or stolen' and we can't undo that." "You can;t??!!" "No"
So, until the new new phones arrive and are set up, and mine comes to me somehow, my fancy 904 number is in limbo, and I'm back to my $10.00 Tracfone flip phone. And that, my friends is the end of the phoney baloney story for now.
I told you that story to tell you this one.
Back in August of ought eighteen, Carmen and I were planning our Thanksgiving week getaway to St. Augustine, where we could relax near the beach and see our gaggle of friends that live nearby. In the throes of this planning, it occurred to us that a) we're not getting any younger; b) we have no children to comfort us in our golden years and c) most of our closest friends live in northeast Florida. We began working toward buying a condo in Jacksonville (that's an extreme capsulization of the real range of options we considered before we narrowed them down to a 'condo in Jacksonville') which included a four-day trip down in September to look at properties, and Carmen's quick flight down in October to see in person what finally became our condo.
It came to pass in those days that we closed the deal in mid-November, which prompted us to rent a 12 foot truck in which to carry a load down on the way to our St. Augustine getaway. They didn't have a 12' in stock, so we got a 16' at the same price. We loaded it about half full of stuff we wouldn't need during the months following our return to Nashville. I drove it down here, and we unloaded it ourselves before we went on to our vacay.
By the time our vacay was coming to a close, we began to realize that there were things that needed to be done here after she needed to return to work in Nashville. We decided that I would stay here and show our electrician friend what all needed to be done, greet the painter and explain the job to him so he could work up a quote, install the new internet-connected thermostat, install the new internet-connected security system, and assemble several pieces of Ikea furniture in my spare time. These things I did, and gladly, before renting a car to drive back to Nashville.
There was, of course, a fly in the ointment, otherwise why would I be writing all of this, right?
The laptop computer I am using now, I only use when I want to write something on a real keyboard, or print something. Otherwise, I use my Kindle Fire. It's smaller, faster, way less cumbersome. I did not bring my laptop on vacation. So after I finished with the electrician, the painter and the thermostat, I pulled out the Ring security system. I found the instruction booklet. Step 1 - plug it in. Done. Step 2 - synch your phone with the system: a) download the Ring app from Google Play. Well, the Kindle Fire will not accept apps from Google Play, period. I know this because I called Amazon tech support and they assured me that this was the case. In addition, the only way to activate the system is to download the Ring app from Google Play. I know this because I called Ring tech support and they assured me that this was the case. They asked if I had a computer other than my Fire. Yes, in Tennessee. That was no help. I puzzled and puzzed 'til my puzzler was sore, and finally came to the conclusion that the cheapest and fastest way to solve this was to buy a $45.00 smart phone. I walked to Walgreen's and then to CVS on a fine Sunday morning, and came home with an LG Phoenix 3 smart-ass phone. I wrangled with AT&T to get my prepaid service going - another $45.00 - and within seconds had downloaded the app. Good to go, at last! And now I had a fancy new 904 area code phone number, and a smarty pants phone like the big kids have! I activated the system, set up all of the sensors, rented a car and drove back to Nashville.
Fast forward to January. Two days after my birthday, I drove a 24' truck packed tight from front to back with most of the rest of our stuff (loaded by professional loaders!) and two kitties in carriers on the seat beside me. On Tuesday the 15th, I became a resident of Jacksonville. Carmen drove down with the dog in her car. Professional unloaders brought everything in, most of it to the right places, and a few days later Carmen went back to Nashville. She is still there as I write this, and we four mammals miss her bunches!
Not long afterward, Carmen had finally had it up to here (picture my hand hovering somewhere around my nose) with her old smart phone. She pow-wowed with the tech folks at her church, and they decided to order two new phones from Google fi, because adding me to her plan cost less than keeping my prepaid AT&T plan. And I could keep my fancy 904 number, which was good because I have given that number as my primary contact number to every entity with which I deal. Days and weeks went by, watching for the phones to be delivered. Finally, the office administrator at her previous church in Pennsylvania called to tell Carmen that a package had arrived for her from Google. What??? Carmen called the internet technology behemoth to straighten things out. There was an old Pennsylvania billing address connected to her account, so their brilliant computers disregarded the shipping address on the order, and sent the phones to Pennsylvania. A whole lot of rigamarole ensued, Pennsylvania shipped the phones to Nashville, and all was once again right with the world. RIGHT!
So another tech pow-wow occurred to set up the new phones. They called me with questions about my AT&T account so they could close it. I, of course, had already prepaid March by then, but these things have to be done when all of the parties are free to do them, so, whatever. I spent hours on the internet (on my Kindle) and on the phone to AT&T, and finally got them all of the info they needed to close that account so that the fancy 904 number could be given to the new phone. Great. But Google, upon realizing their shipping malfunction, had refunded the money paid for the phones. "No problem. Just send back those phones, and order another round." That was the internet technology behemoth's best solution to this situation. "Can't we just keep these and pay for them again?" "No, because those phones have now been reported as 'lost or stolen' and we can't undo that." "You can;t??!!" "No"
So, until the new new phones arrive and are set up, and mine comes to me somehow, my fancy 904 number is in limbo, and I'm back to my $10.00 Tracfone flip phone. And that, my friends is the end of the phoney baloney story for now.
Sunday, January 6, 2019
Career Path
Since Carmen and I got married, I have worked one career more consistently than all of the others, and that has been relocating and setting up housekeeping. We were married in September of '86. We moved twice in '87, once in '89, once in '96, once in '05, once in '06, once in '09, once in '010, twice in '015 and now we are in the middle of what we once again hope will be our last move, our fifth interstate move.
Back in the summer, when Carmen was in Florida visiting her gaggle of girlfriends, I was becoming grumpy (well, grumpier than usual) because I had not had an actual vacation since the Alaska trip in '01. Every "vacation" since then had been dealing with my dying brother, helping my aging parents or, dare I say, MOVING! So, I did what I do best: I wrote a letter to Carmen telling her how I felt and asking for some fun time off. So we began planning a Thanksgiving week vacation to St. Augustine Beach, where we could relax with no responsibilities and visit with our friends. We even invited our friend Rose to have Thanksgiving dinner with us.
As time wore on, while we were anticipating our fun getaway, we began to see things in a different light. It occurred to us that pretty much all of our friends are in Florida. We are aging ourselves, and have no children to help us when we need it. It suddenly made sense to think about moving again, this time not for work or school or family reasons, but for us, for our happiness and security. I won't go into the details of the long drawn-out process, but will cut to the quick: we bought a condominium in Mandarin, an area in the southeast corner of Jacksonville. When we went down for our vacation, I drove the first truckload of stuff. We spent several extra nights in our "new" condo.
This morning, while walking the dog (another career path) I was thinking about all the work ahead of me at this end to get ready to move, and the huge amount of work ahead of me in Jacksonville before Carmen comes down after her 90-day notice is up. Nearly every move has been this way. If nothing else, I have installed ceiling fans and blinds in every place we've owned. The bookcase beside me here is the fourth of six major bookcases I've built in three states. I totally renovated the kitchen here, as well as major upgrades to doors, cabinets, plumbing fixtures, light fixtures and closet systems throughout. Hell, in Meadville, we bought a 3/2 and moved into a 2/1. I started out life in that house by finishing the interiors of the closet and bathroom, framed out and abandoned by the previous owner. And I won't even go into the long list of projects facing me in Mandarin.
If we were thirty years younger, we would be flipping houses and drowning in cash. But we're not. My arthritis, tremors and carpal tunnel are there every step of the way, reminding me of why I retired at 62 and only work on houses in which we live. It's not a career I chose, but it is a career from which I can't seem to retire. But I hope it slacks off some once we're settled in. And I hope to go fishing!
Back in the summer, when Carmen was in Florida visiting her gaggle of girlfriends, I was becoming grumpy (well, grumpier than usual) because I had not had an actual vacation since the Alaska trip in '01. Every "vacation" since then had been dealing with my dying brother, helping my aging parents or, dare I say, MOVING! So, I did what I do best: I wrote a letter to Carmen telling her how I felt and asking for some fun time off. So we began planning a Thanksgiving week vacation to St. Augustine Beach, where we could relax with no responsibilities and visit with our friends. We even invited our friend Rose to have Thanksgiving dinner with us.
As time wore on, while we were anticipating our fun getaway, we began to see things in a different light. It occurred to us that pretty much all of our friends are in Florida. We are aging ourselves, and have no children to help us when we need it. It suddenly made sense to think about moving again, this time not for work or school or family reasons, but for us, for our happiness and security. I won't go into the details of the long drawn-out process, but will cut to the quick: we bought a condominium in Mandarin, an area in the southeast corner of Jacksonville. When we went down for our vacation, I drove the first truckload of stuff. We spent several extra nights in our "new" condo.
This morning, while walking the dog (another career path) I was thinking about all the work ahead of me at this end to get ready to move, and the huge amount of work ahead of me in Jacksonville before Carmen comes down after her 90-day notice is up. Nearly every move has been this way. If nothing else, I have installed ceiling fans and blinds in every place we've owned. The bookcase beside me here is the fourth of six major bookcases I've built in three states. I totally renovated the kitchen here, as well as major upgrades to doors, cabinets, plumbing fixtures, light fixtures and closet systems throughout. Hell, in Meadville, we bought a 3/2 and moved into a 2/1. I started out life in that house by finishing the interiors of the closet and bathroom, framed out and abandoned by the previous owner. And I won't even go into the long list of projects facing me in Mandarin.
If we were thirty years younger, we would be flipping houses and drowning in cash. But we're not. My arthritis, tremors and carpal tunnel are there every step of the way, reminding me of why I retired at 62 and only work on houses in which we live. It's not a career I chose, but it is a career from which I can't seem to retire. But I hope it slacks off some once we're settled in. And I hope to go fishing!
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