Yesterday I did not fill up my gas tank because I refused to spend that much money. After the frustration wore off it reminded me of high school when almost nobody could afford to fill their tank.
I didn’t drive that much in school, and didn’t get my first car until after we graduated, but I know the guys I rode with rarely filled their tank. A dollar or two at a time was usually the way it went. The price of gas is more now, but it was pure economics then too. We just didn’t have that much money to spend on gas and entertainment, even tho more times than not, simply driving around was our entertainment.
After I got married I was on an allowance of $10 every two weeks, and with that $10 I could buy a case of beer, a carton of cigarettes and fill the car up with gas. Ten bucks would not come close to covering either of those now.
Along the same lines was hitchhiking. I hitched to Lenoir City several times and to Sweetwater or Piney or Steekee a few times too. After joining the USAF, and before I got my own car, a friend and I hitched all over Southern California. After I got a car I picked up several people, male and female, hitching to different places. I remember once picking up a hiker near Memphis and he rode all the way to Southern California with me. I would neither hitch, nor pick up anyone hitching, anymore.
I think with the gas thing, we have come full circle.
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Some of the Things I Carry With Me.
Some of the things, both good and bad, about Loudon that in some ways influence me even now..
Some of the good….
Rain on a tin roof
Ice cold buttermilk
Going fishing
Sitting on a front porch, usually in a swing
High school sports
Country ham… yes, I know. It has too much sodium, fat and cholesterol, but I love it.
The sound of a mourning dove
The smell of honeysuckle
Peace and quiet
Picking (and eating) blackberries along the road
Jumping into the creek or river from a rope swing. So what if it was muddy river water?
Ice cold watermelon
Going barefoot in the yard --- no way I could do the roads anymore.
Powdered milk
Powdered eggs
Lonely Sunday afternoons downtown
Snakes
Mowing yards for $1 a piece. Some of them were pretty big
Moving to
People bumming cigarettes
Trying to go to sleep when it was still hot outside
3 TV channels
The far too many times the baseball field was empty
I can’t go to bed with the front door open
Friday, May 16, 2008
Friday Nights Are Different Now.
There are obviously a lot of ways to tell you are getting older. There are the usual ones like grey hair and more wrinkles and maybe a few extra pounds here or there, but there are some other ways too, and some of those vary by person.
Today is Friday, and I used to almost live for Friday night --- football games, basketball games, cruising, maybe a party. I can remember when I first joined the USAF I could do 3 or 4 things on a Friday night if I did them right. As the song says, at 17 you can’t see much past Friday night. They should change that to be between 15 and 25.
Anymore though, my Friday nights are a lot different. I said before I don’t watch much TV, but I do like to watch movies, and if I don’t have to take the kids anywhere or there is no work or social commitment, I like to find a movie on cable or DVD, and watch it as I lay there and fall asleep. I know it sounds silly or odd, but I like doing that, and it’s more for what it represents than for what it actually is.
It means I have nowhere else to be or nothing else to do, I don’t have to be up at any certain hour, and everything can wait until tomorrow. As long as the kids stick to what should be their agenda everything is quiet and peaceful in our house, and I can be lazy.
Just thinking about it makes me yawn. :)
Today is Friday, and I used to almost live for Friday night --- football games, basketball games, cruising, maybe a party. I can remember when I first joined the USAF I could do 3 or 4 things on a Friday night if I did them right. As the song says, at 17 you can’t see much past Friday night. They should change that to be between 15 and 25.
Anymore though, my Friday nights are a lot different. I said before I don’t watch much TV, but I do like to watch movies, and if I don’t have to take the kids anywhere or there is no work or social commitment, I like to find a movie on cable or DVD, and watch it as I lay there and fall asleep. I know it sounds silly or odd, but I like doing that, and it’s more for what it represents than for what it actually is.
It means I have nowhere else to be or nothing else to do, I don’t have to be up at any certain hour, and everything can wait until tomorrow. As long as the kids stick to what should be their agenda everything is quiet and peaceful in our house, and I can be lazy.
Just thinking about it makes me yawn. :)
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Really Getting Started
Getting started takes on a whole new meaning when the subject turns from the first house or apartment to when the little people start showing up. A scant two years after verbally sparring with Miss Mize and Mrs Goode, there was this little person in my house who, in his own way, was a lot more demanding than they were.
When you’re 20 and you find out you’re going to be a father I think the first reaction is always, “Holy Crap!” Then, depending on how long it takes you to get over that initial reaction, your chest sort of puffs out a little and you think more along the lines of, “Hey, I can do this.”
But since there’s no training manual to refer to, you find yourself going through the experience usually one mistake at a time. For example, her doctor was this crusty old guy who probably brought thousands of kids into this world, so when we asked that all important question of how long we could continue having sex while she was pregnant, his response was, “I don’t know, how kinky are you?” I think it was his way of saying, “Hey, there are other things that are a lot more important to worry about”, and he was right.
In late November or early December 1972, the doctor thought she was full term and decided to induce labor. After being plugged into an IV all day with no sign of a baby, they unplugged her and I took her home. Then, around 5 in the morning on Christmas day, she said it was time. He didn’t show up until 1 in the morning on the 26th. I really, really tried to hang in there with her the whole way, but along about 11 that night I needed a break. I know, what I was going through was nothing compared to what she was going through, but I still needed a break. I recall sitting in the waiting room sipping a coke and smoking a cigarette and the next thing I remember the nurse is nudging me awake saying, “You want to come see your new baby boy?”
When I walked into the room he was in an incubator to keep him warm and those big shiny eyes were looking right at me, and there is no way anyone can ever convince me that he didn't know who I was. He was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. My mother in law and I had been having a friendly argument over what it would be --- a boy or a girl. I won.
We put his crib in the corner of our bedroom, and his outgrowing that crib is the reason we moved out of that little duplex. It would not be the last time we would make adjustments because of him.
Owner’s manual or not, things turned out okay I think. I know he taught me as much, if not more, than I taught him, and there were times I should have been leading him when it was actually the other way around. He’s a grown man now with a terrific wife and four kids of his own, but there is a part of me that will always think of him as my baby boy.
When you’re 20 and you find out you’re going to be a father I think the first reaction is always, “Holy Crap!” Then, depending on how long it takes you to get over that initial reaction, your chest sort of puffs out a little and you think more along the lines of, “Hey, I can do this.”
But since there’s no training manual to refer to, you find yourself going through the experience usually one mistake at a time. For example, her doctor was this crusty old guy who probably brought thousands of kids into this world, so when we asked that all important question of how long we could continue having sex while she was pregnant, his response was, “I don’t know, how kinky are you?” I think it was his way of saying, “Hey, there are other things that are a lot more important to worry about”, and he was right.
In late November or early December 1972, the doctor thought she was full term and decided to induce labor. After being plugged into an IV all day with no sign of a baby, they unplugged her and I took her home. Then, around 5 in the morning on Christmas day, she said it was time. He didn’t show up until 1 in the morning on the 26th. I really, really tried to hang in there with her the whole way, but along about 11 that night I needed a break. I know, what I was going through was nothing compared to what she was going through, but I still needed a break. I recall sitting in the waiting room sipping a coke and smoking a cigarette and the next thing I remember the nurse is nudging me awake saying, “You want to come see your new baby boy?”
When I walked into the room he was in an incubator to keep him warm and those big shiny eyes were looking right at me, and there is no way anyone can ever convince me that he didn't know who I was. He was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. My mother in law and I had been having a friendly argument over what it would be --- a boy or a girl. I won.
We put his crib in the corner of our bedroom, and his outgrowing that crib is the reason we moved out of that little duplex. It would not be the last time we would make adjustments because of him.
Owner’s manual or not, things turned out okay I think. I know he taught me as much, if not more, than I taught him, and there were times I should have been leading him when it was actually the other way around. He’s a grown man now with a terrific wife and four kids of his own, but there is a part of me that will always think of him as my baby boy.
Wednesday, May 07, 2008
Getting Started
Donna mentioned her first color TV in the comments to the last post. To one degree or another, we all went through the joys and pains of setting up a household, whenever it was, after high school.
I will forever be indebted to a salesman at Levitz Furniture in San Bernardino, California. We were only a week or so away from getting married and didn't even have a bed. After trying several times to get a co-signer without any luck, he finally said, "Forget it, this will be my wedding gift to you," and he let me get the mattress, box springs and a Hollywood frame without a co-signer. The payment, $15 or $20 a month, I can't remember which, was significant in light of my $62 paycheck twice a month. Add that to the rent on a 3 room duplex of $30 a month, and you can see the budget was tight.
The rest of the furniture was a hodge-podge of things people gave us. Our living room had two couches, an old naugahyde recliner, an old chest we used as a coffee table and a small round, metal patio table we used as an end table beside the recliner. In the bedroom with the brand new bed was the dresser from her old bedroom back home, and in the kitchen was a red plastic top kitchen table with 4 matching chairs (remember those?) There were no pictures or anything on the walls.
Sometimes things were tough and money always seemed to be short and we openly wondered if things would ever get better, but now, when I look back at it, most of the memories are good ones.
I will forever be indebted to a salesman at Levitz Furniture in San Bernardino, California. We were only a week or so away from getting married and didn't even have a bed. After trying several times to get a co-signer without any luck, he finally said, "Forget it, this will be my wedding gift to you," and he let me get the mattress, box springs and a Hollywood frame without a co-signer. The payment, $15 or $20 a month, I can't remember which, was significant in light of my $62 paycheck twice a month. Add that to the rent on a 3 room duplex of $30 a month, and you can see the budget was tight.
The rest of the furniture was a hodge-podge of things people gave us. Our living room had two couches, an old naugahyde recliner, an old chest we used as a coffee table and a small round, metal patio table we used as an end table beside the recliner. In the bedroom with the brand new bed was the dresser from her old bedroom back home, and in the kitchen was a red plastic top kitchen table with 4 matching chairs (remember those?) There were no pictures or anything on the walls.
Sometimes things were tough and money always seemed to be short and we openly wondered if things would ever get better, but now, when I look back at it, most of the memories are good ones.
Monday, May 05, 2008
Another TV Transition
I don't watch TV very much so this might be old news to some of you. One night as I was trying to go to sleep and Sue was watching the news, I heard a spot about the "digital transition." It seems, for whatever reason, next year TV stations will switch from an analog signal to a digital signal.I have no idea whether I should be jumping up and down or cussing, but since I don't watch it that much my reaction is a bit more blase`.
However, it does conjure up a memory or two, which leads me to this picture. No, it's not a plug for 'The Guns of Will Sonnett', although I thought it was a good show, but instead it's about watching a color program on a black and white TV. Do you remember that, or were you one of the lucky ones who had a color TV all along?
I think it was Hollywood's way of telling us that it was time we upgraded our sets, but in those days we didn't stand in line to buy the latest upgrade like they do now, so it took some time. At our house it seemed to take forever, but since I was 8 before we got our first TV, I guess that was par for the course. I'm not complaining. Times were different then and money was tighter. It took our parents a year to make what most of us get in a month now, so things like TVs were not priorities.
Besides, they were supposed to last forever, right? Why else would they have tube testers in places like Richeson's Drug Store?
Thursday, May 01, 2008
There is still a connection
I was happy to see last week's poll turn out the way it did. Most of you voted the same way I did and to me that demonstrates a bond between us even after almost 40 years. Maybe it was the place or time, I don't know, but it's obvious that in spite of how far we are removed from that time by age and location, we still share some things. We fought the same fights, felt the same feelings and dealt with the same issues and problems.
I've said it before and I'll repeat it now, we leaned on each other then as we entered adulthood and in some degrees we can support each other now.
I won't mention names, but I think I can guess who answered yes to all three questions. It' s no big deal if I'm wrong, but either way, they have my admiration.
I've said it before and I'll repeat it now, we leaned on each other then as we entered adulthood and in some degrees we can support each other now.
I won't mention names, but I think I can guess who answered yes to all three questions. It' s no big deal if I'm wrong, but either way, they have my admiration.
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