1974

I spent the winter of 1974 in a small, unheated cabin near Hickory, NC. To get to the cabin, I would take one of the east-west roads in Hickory, like 1st or 2nd Avenue, and drive to US 321 and then head north. Not far up 321 there was a dirt road on the right and I'd turn into that. (No doubt the road is paved now.) I'd enter a forest (now a subdivision) and drive until I came to a small cabin. It was a summer cottage and therefore it was unheated. At night (winter, remember), the room would get cold enough to freeze water left in a glass. I slept on a sofa under an electric blanket on the highest heat setting, with several "regular" blankets on top of the electric blanket. There was a sheet metal shower stall in the bathroom, but in the morning the water faucets could not be turned because they were frozen. 

I had no TV but I had a radio. At night I listened to the Larry Glick radio show that was broadcast on clear-channel WBZ 1030 in Boston. That show was a hoot. Glick would call people on his studio phone and talk to them, not telling them their conversation was being transmitted over the air as they spoke. One night he called an airplane pilot who had recently been in the news for being involved in some kind of aircraft mishap. Larry got the pilot to talk about the accident in a fair amount of detail. At the end of the conversation, the pilot asked Larry to not reveal to anyone what he had said. Larry agreed not to tell anyone about their conversation. But, of course, the entire conversation had gone out over WBZ's powerful clear-channel radio waves that probably reached all the way to Mexico.

A popular movie at the time was American Graffiti. The film was set in 1962, on the last day of summer vacation for friends Curt (Richard Dreyfuss), Steve (Ronny Howard), Terry (Charles Martin Smith) and John (Paul Le Mat). They cruised the streets of a small California town, while a mysterious disc jockey (Wolfman Jack) spun classic rock'n'roll tunes that were broadcast over 150,000 watt radio station XERB. That station today is called XEPRS-AM. (For radio aficionados, XEPRS is a Class A, 50,000-watt clear-channel station using a non-directional antenna in the daytime and a three-tower array directional antenna at night. It is licensed to Playas de Rosarito, a suburb of Tijuana in Baja California, Mexico. You can listen here.)

The year 1974 was also the year that a friend and I bought a Chevy camper van and traveled all over America with our three dogs and often with one or more hitchhikers. Fun times!

Lancaster

It's Sunday morning. Church services are on the television. I suspect the only people watching them are the believers who don't need to attend church. Ironically, the people who really need to attend church are out smashing car windows and stealing what isn't nailed down.

My partner Nuria is going to Pennsylvania tomorrow with a group of friends. They're going to the Lancaster area, where the Pennsylvania Dutch live. I've been there and I can attest that it's a beautiful area, with green pastures and white fences and, of course, horse-drawn buggies. The Pennsylvania Dutch eschew all modern inventions, except for the telephone (which must be located outside the house). They don't own automobiles or tractors, and they live the agrarian lifestyle of their forebears.

I visited Lancaster with a lady friend years ago, and I recall we had dinner in a large room with tables that seated about a dozen people per table. I think the restaurant was designed to accommodate tour groups, inasmuch as all the people seemed to be familiar with one another. We (my friend and I) went for a ride in a horse-drawn wagon that was full of other visitors to the Amish countryside, while a tour guide informed us about the Amish lifestyle.

It was a nice trip, and memorable. I'm sure Nuria will enjoy it, especially being with her friends. Anything you do is more pleasant when you have a friend with you. In fact, the person doesn't have to be a friend. I recall the first time I went to Manhattan, I made an aquaintance through a chance meeting on a Manhattan sidewalk, and he gave me a "tour" of the city. I put "tour" in quotes because we were on foot but we saw a lot of the Manhattan tourist spots, from the top of the Empire State Building to the steps of the Kennedy Center and many places in-between. On another trip to NYC I went to Radio City Music Hall and ate a meal at one of the Automats (which no longer exist).

I hope Nuria returns with some nice memories of her trip to Pennsylvania. And if not memories, then photos.

Bump In The Night

My domestic partner, Nuria, hates to drive at night. She has told her employer again and again that she can't work late because she doesn't want to drive home after dark. Nevertheless, they seem to constantly require her to work until after nightfall.

Last night Nuria was again driving home in the dark when BANG! ... she collided with another car. Here's what happened.

The night was dark. Nuria stopped at a stop sign, looked both ways, and proceeded to make a left turn to drive to my house which was located only about 100 feet from the intersection. Suddenly her car was hit by another vehicle. The other vehicle was being driven by an intoxicated individual who was driving with headlights off. Not being able to see his car in the darkness, Nuria had inadvertently pulled in front of him, The other driver tried to pass Nuria's Toyota on the right, but grazed her Toyota's right front fender. Both drivers got out of their vehicles and inspected the damage. Then Nuria ran to my front door to call the police. When I answered the door, Nuria ran into the house muttering some letters and numbers repeatedly. She was repeating the license plate number of the other car. She didn't have a pen to write it down until she got inside my house, and she didn't want to forget the plate number. Meanwhile, the other driver left the scene.

The police came and took Nuria's information. Then the officer, armed with the license plate number, looked up the address of the other driver and then drove to his house to get his side of the situation. (The other driver lives two streets from my house.) Then the officer returned. He said the other driver was indeed drunk, but claimed to have only gotten drunk after he got home. The officer printed out a police report for the insurance company (he assigned blame for the accident to the intoxicated driver who was driving with no headlights), and he gave Nuria a copy of the report for her insurance company. 

The officer left and, for a while, our conversation was about Nuria's accident. The Toyota's damage consists mainly of scrapes on the vehicle's right front fender. It certainly could have been worse. But matters slowly settled and returned to normal. Now it remains for Nuria to have her car repaired, and that will likely be a story with further adventures. 

Right Said Fred

I've been somewhat overweight for a long time. I recently weighed about 216 when my "correct" weight was 155 pounds. I will hasten to add that for me, 155 pounds would have made me a very thin person. At that weight, a breeze would have blown me over. I carried most of the excess weight around my middle. My arms and legs and even my face were fairly "normal" but, as the years passed, my middle went from size 34 to 36 to 38 to 40. 

Then in August of this year, I got sick. I don't know what the malady was, but I was sick from August 1 to August 16. Over those sixteen days, I could eat no food. I could drink water or soft drinks, but I ate nothing and struggled to swallow medicine. When I began eating again, I ate one small meal at dinnertime. That's all I could keep down. Over 16 days, my weight dropped from 216 to 197 pounds. But I thought I might be on to something. I've continued eating one small meal per day in the evening, plus snacks once or twice during the day, and my current weight is 194. My partner Nuria says I should stop losing weight when I reach 190. She says that if I go any lower I'll be too thin. I know what she's afraid of: she's afraid I'll be too sexy for my shirt. Wait -- wasn't "too sexy" a lyric in Right Said Fred's 1991 hit song "I'm Too Sexy"? I think it was.

The song of the day is I'm Too Sexy by English pop band Right Said Fred featuring brothers Fred and Richard Fairbrass. The song was featured on their first album, Up, released in 1992.

Voting, Etc.

I drove to the City Hall yesterday (September 25) and cast my early vote in the 2024 Presidential election. I got there about 12 noon, and they were moderately busy but there was no line and no waiting. I picked up a ballot, then took it to a desk where I marked my choices, then took the ballot to the vote-counting machine and fed it into the machine. That was all there was to it. From leaving my home to getting back home took about 30 minutes. The ballot also enabled voting for town council, but I didn't know any of the names on the ballot, nor their positions on any issues, so I couldn't cast a vote for any of them. I decided to vote early because last year I tried to vote on Election Day and the line to vote was so long that I knew it would take hours to get to the Voting Room, and so I left without voting. I didn't want to repeat that experience.

My partner Nuria and I went to Walmart this morning and got our 2024 flu shots. The pharmacist pushed hard for us to also get our Covid shots along with the flu shots, but we resisted just as strongly. We did that last year and we both felt miserable for several days after getting the shots. So I did some research and discovered that many people who got both shots at the same time last year reported feeling bad after the shots. We'll return next week and get the Covid shot.

I was sick last month (August). For the first 19 days, I was unable to eat a bite of food. The thought of eating anything made me want to vomit. So for 19 days, I didn't eat anything. My weight went from 216 to 197 pounds. Since I resumed eating (one small meal per day plus a couple of snacks during the day), I gained a couple of pounds to 199. I need to lose more weight so I'm going to have to double-down on not eating during the day. A small meal at dinnertime is all I really need. But it's hard to resist the call of crackers and cookies.

It's been cloudy all this week. It's overcast today, though the National Weather Service shows a picture of fluffy white clouds in a blue sky. The forecast for today reads, "A chance of showers, then a chance of showers and thunderstorms after 5pm." Does that sound like blue skies and fluffy white clouds?

I mowed my yard about two weeks ago, and it needs mowing again, but to do that I have to buy a battery for the lawn tractor. Those small lawn tractor batteries last about two years, and if I buy one at the end of the mowing season, and the battery is dormant this winter, it may not last two full years. So I'd prefer to pay someone to mow the yard, but there are two kinds of lawn-mowing crews. There's the crew that shows up and does a bad job, and there's the crew that shows up only once and you can never contact them again. It looks like I'm going to have to buy that battery and mow the yard myself.

Stay well people, and don't forget to vote.

Keys

I was going to a university in Richmond, VA, in 1966 when we had a big snowfall. On one Tuesday it snowed about 13 inches. I don't know if "official" observations recorded this amount, but I was there and I shoveled snow for two or three hours to free my '55 Chevy from the snow, so I remember how deep it was. Then two days later, on a Thursday, it snowed again, about 12 inches, and my Chevy was buried again. So once more I had to spend two or three hours digging it out. You don't forget experiences like that. No, they're not major life changing events, but they're unusual enough, and pain-in-the-ass enough, that they stay in your conscious memory bank.

That same Chevy has another small story. One night I drove home and parked in front of my house. I got out and shut the door of the Chevy. Only then did I realize that I had just locked my car key inside my car. I had no spare key. So I went inside the house and told my dad what I had just done. He pulled his Buick key out of his pocket and handed it to me. "Try this key," he told me. Chevy and Buick were both made by General Motors, so he had the idea his key might fit the lock on the Chevy. 

And it did. I unlocked the Chevy and retrieved my key and all was good again.

A week or two later I was at my college campus in Richmond when I overheard someone complaining that he had locked his key inside his car. "What kind of car is it?" I asked. He told me. I don't recall the particular make of car, but it was a GM brand. "Take me to your car," I told him.

We walked a couple blocks and he stopped beside his car. I took out my Chevy key and inserted it into his door lock and turned it. The lock popped up and the vehicle was unlocked. All was good again.

I guess that trick with the key is probably in the past. But you never know, so if the situation is dire, you might try it. What do you have to lose?

Golden Gate Bridge

It has been fifty years since I drove across the Golden Gate Bridge, so a couple days ago I did it again. I mainly wanted to see if the toll booths had been taken down. I had heard that they weren't collecting tolls on the bridge any longer.

I had forgotten how tall the bridge's supporting towers are. They are impressive. The roadway seemed different. A little more narrow, perhaps. Did they take part of the roadway to create a sidewalk? 

I entered the bridge from the northern end. The last time I drove across the bridge, the toll booths were at the southern end of the bridge. I thought perhaps they would be gone, but the toll booths are still there. But now, they are devoid of employees. There is no one manning the booths. Signs read "Do Not Stop". The toll is still collected, but it is collected by an electronic mechanism rather than human tolltakers. Virginia uses those automated toll collectors, too. I guess the technology spreads fast. 

Crossing the Bridge, you can pay with FasTrak, License Plate account and one-time payment, or toll invoice. If you have two axles (a car) the toll is $8.75, License Plate and One-Time tolls are $9, and a Toll Invoice is $9.75. But if your vehicle has three or more axles, they sock it to you. A License Plate account or a One-Time payment are $27 for 3 axles, $36 for 4 axles, and so on.

I used to think that "Golden Gate" was the name of the bridge. But I learned long ago that "Golden Gate" is the name of the strait that connects San Francisco Bay with the Pacific Ocean.

Full disclosure: I didn't travel to the West Coast. I visited the bridge electronically. I've driven from Virginia to California (and back) and I've traveled to California on business trips when I was younger, But this time I made the trip the easy way: I used Google Maps. You can go there, too, the same way.

Shower Chair

Because of my age and condition, my partner Nuria decided that I might fall down in the shower and therefore I needed a shower chair. In case you don't know this, you can buy a shower chair and sit in it while you bathe. So she bought a shower chair at Walmart. It came in pieces in a box.

We opened the box and took out bag after bag of parts. There were instructions on how to assemble the chair, but assembly required as much guesswork as reading the instructions. It took 30 minutes but we got it assembled. We took it to the bathroom and tried to fit it into the bathtub, but it wouldn't fit. It would fit sideways, but who takes a shower with the water coming at them from one side? Nobody.

We took the chair to the living room and disassembled it. Taking it apart took only half the time that putting it together required. We put the parts back into the plastic bags, but we had bags left over. We stuffed those into the box and taped it shut.

A day or two later, Nuria brought home another chair. This was just an outdoor folding chair that you might use to seat your friends around a BBQ pit and enjoy the warmth of the flames and the smell and taste of pit-cooked BBQ. We opened up the chair and put it in the bathtub facing the shower head. It fit perfectly. 

Now it remained to try it out. I had doubts, but I turned on the shower and adjusted the water temperature and then sat down in the chair.

The warm water sprayed over me. I washed my hair and face, my chest and stomach, and my arms and legs. Nuria washed my back. It was like a massage combined with a warm shower. It was better than I could have ever guessed it would be. I've had a massage done by a professional masseuse and this felt better (though not nearly as long). I'm a believer now. 

What happened to the first shower chair? Walmart said they'd refund our purchase price but they didn't want the chair returned to them. It makes sense. They'd have to open the box, remove all the parts, make sure all the parts were present, repack the parts, and put them back into a new cardboard box. The cost of the labor for doing that was more than the profit they'd make on the chair. 

All in all, it was an interesting experience.

Alcohol

I've never been much of a drinker of alcohol. I used to hang out at an Applebee's bar, and sometimes I would have a beer, but usually it was just iced tea. 

However, in the past year, I've put the pedal to the metal and my consumption of vodka went through the roof. I'm an artist (writing is an art) and everyone knows artists are flawed -- especially the great ones. Look at van Gogh -- he cut off an ear. Artists are famous for drinking themselves to death. Hank Williams. John Bonham. Amy Winehouse. It's a long list, my friends.

My father was an alcoholic. His brother (my uncle) was an alcoholic. His brother's son (my nephew) was an alcoholic. I've no doubt that my family tree, especially on my father's side, is littered with alcoholics.

So I've been trying to cut back. I think I will have to stop completely. I'm okay with doing that. My father was a heavy drinker for many years, and then he stopped completely. But if he went to a party where alcohol was available, and if he was offered a drink, he would accept it. It's a social politeness, But he would never drink more than one or two drinks and he never resumed buying bourbon. But he did have an incentive to quit drinking: his doctor told him on several visits that if he (my dad) didn't quit drinking then he (my dad) would die soon. 

continued a day later... 

I too have an incentive. I've been drinking to get to sleep. My doctor refused to prescribe sleeping pills or even mild tranquilizers for me. So I turned to alcohol. However, I have to drink a lot more than I should in order to get to sleep.

Early Monday morning I got up to drink another shot so I could go back to sleep. But something went wrong and I fell down and hit my head on the floor. I think it knocked me out. Nuria found me but I was too heavy for her to get back into bed, so she called 911 and asked them what she should do. Fairly quickly the street in front of my house looked like a parking lot for emergency vehicles. There were two police cars, two fire trucks, and the paramedics in an ambulance. She said there were eight men in my bedroom trying to talk with me, but I was not responsive. So they took me to a hospital. I "woke up" in an ER room next to a nurse's station. I was there for about six hours before they released me.

I told Nuria that I wasn't going to drink any more alcohol and I meant it. Alcohol is not good for me. 

I had some debate about whether I should publish this blog. I felt like I shouldn't. Nuria encouraged me to publish it. She said there were millions of people like me and some of them may find my blog and benefit from reading about my experience. If you are one of them, you know that what happened to me can happen to you. Don't let it.

VPN

Do you value your privacy? Me too. That's why I use a VPN when I'm on the Internet.

What's a VPN? It stands for Virtual Private Network. One end of the VPN is at my PC and the other end is at the VPN provider. The VPN scrambles my communications so that no one who intercepts my web-surfing or email can know what I'm doing. My data is flowing through a "tunnel" which encrypts the data and obscures my IP address. The other end of my VPN is in Washington D.C., although there are many cities around the world that I could connect with. When I connect with the other end of the VPN, it unscrambles my communications but it continues to use a fake IP addrss. No one out there who may intercept my communications knows my identity. 

There are many VPNs from which to choose. I use PrivadoVPN. Due to a special deal I have with EasyNews, I don't pay for PrivadoVPN. However, if I did have to pay for it. it would cost $1.99/month for 24 months Their website gives a lot more information. If you want to sign up, go to https://privadovpn.com/