11/3/25: A Warm Monday in the Old Pueblo

One great thing about living in Tucson is the mild winters.  Those of you up north or back east probably don't want to hear me tell you that we are in the mid 80s this afternoon.  The sky is clear with a few clouds here and there, and the desert is just as beautiful as it ever was.

There really isn't much in the way of news to pass along, so it's going to be random thoughts this afternoon.

One of my retirement projects has been re-reading an anthology collection of history articles back when I was taking History at Evergreen Valley College in San Jose.  We had a great history teacher, a Mr. Ron Zarcone, who was a gifted lecturer and made it interesting.  I have kept almost all of my college textbooks since, and these two anthology volumes were on the re-read list.  I haven't read these since 1977.  Although all were not assigned reading, all of them are interesting, as I am working my way thru articles of what Christopher Columbus really knew before sailing across the ocean, details about indentured servitude, and the Salem Witch Trials.  It makes me wish I had continued studying history after college, and although I have read some books about history I have only scratched the surface.  That's one favorite activity.

Another is going thru my coin collection, but that's been on pause these past few weeks.  I have had to work on two necessary projects recently, and one was taken care of last week.  The other big one?  Not much left to do on that one except for a phone appointment with a senior manager helping to get my second pension activated.  

And as you might guess, ham radio has kept me busy too.  We had really great band conditions during a major worldwide contest the last weekend of last month, and I picked up two new countries.  The 10 meter band was the best I've ever heard it in a half century of this hobby.  A total of 48 countries were worked, thanks to the sunspots and low geomagnetic activity.

I said half a century.  It isn't lost on me that I have many memories that are half a century old or more.  I was still in high school, taking electives in electronics, and fifty years ago at this time we were preparing to move from Virginia to California.  I did not intend to stay in San Jose for as long as I did, but a lot of the memories there are good too, and two lifetime friends were made there.

Now here I am in Tucson, retired, and still not missing work.  It was a great field to be in and I lived really well because of it.  I don't miss a lot of the corporate crap that I went thru.  It was fun, but there were times when it was brutal.  Now I go back to it if I want to, and this time in an advisory capacity.  The thought of doing that is intriguing, but not until I catch up on some things and do some more fun stuff.

With that, I think it's time to wrap this post up.  

Moe, the Lieutenant Demander: 3/23/2007 - 8/4/2020

Moe was taken to the vet this afternoon and from there was returned to his Creator.  He had good days over the weekend and a good day yesterday.  This morning he enthusiastically ate.

After that, he made five attempts at the litter box, and couldn't get anything out.  Confused and frustrated, he left the litterbox, made a few more attempts elsewhere, and failed.  He let out two painful meows, then threw up his breakfast.  At that point I knew it was time.

He was taken to the pet clinic where he met a peaceful end.  I watched the anesthesia take hold and knock him out, but wasn't sure I could watch him die.  I left the room, Sheila remained, and then the next injection came.  I went back in, he looked the same as when he was when I last saw him alive.  His eyes were wide open, staring into space, with a somewhat defiant look, yet peaceful at the same time.

I am convinced that his spirit remained above us for a while as he watched Shiela and I both cry.  We petted him some more, cried, and then left.  At that point he then finished his ascent, likely wondering why we were crying because that cruel disease no longer had hold of him.  I was not going to allow him to suffer.

I am at peace knowing that I did the right thing at the right time for the right reason.  Yet it's going to be hard this evening, going upstairs, and this time he's not going to follow me so that he can cuddle.  He did cuddle this morning but I knew he was in pain, and he didn't stay very long.  He wanted to go back to the front windowsill and sleep it off. 

I had thirteen years of memories with him.  All were wonderful, though he managed to vex me a few times.  He was a great cat.  He had attitude, spirit, he was sweet, he would hiss at the vet, and boss me around.  

My last words to him were:  Moe, your daddy loves you.

I said those more times than I can remember.

The Guy Who Danced in Church

Sheila and I were up in Portland, returning late two evenings ago.  The trip, aside from the air travel, went well.  Our early morning flight out of Tucson was delayed, but there was enough buffer in the layover that meant we weren't going to miss our connection in San Jose.  However, the flight from San Jose to PDX was also late, and Alaska Airlines for some reason had us exit at some slipshod gate where we had to walk a quarter mile or more to get into the terminal, and then another quarter mile to get our checked bag.  Budget Rental Car didn't get on our good side either but that was likely not of their own doing as that Portland was having their Rose Parade later on in the week, and demand was high.

There is more that I would like to write about, as far as Portland and Oregon goes.  Before getting into the topic at hand, I want to mention that this was Sheila's first time getting to meet Ken and Gillian, who hosted us after we were done spending time in the Columbia River Gorge.

While I was in Portland, I was reminded of something I saw on TV several years ago.  It was some years back; long before I had to suffer exile in Trashcan (excuse me, Las Vegas).  I'd guess that this was something that I saw one Sunday afternoon in 2012.  I was channel surfing, dwelling into territory that I rarely visit.  I was looking at what the religious channels were running, wondering what kind of crooks would be asking for money so that the Lord would in turn make me into a millionaire.

I stopped when I landed on the start of a church service from one of the charismatic churches.  I can't recall the name of the church or the name of the small town in Georgia that the church was based in.  The congregation was all black, and a rather fiery lady preacher who was the surviving spouse of the previous senior pastor was leading the worship.

It was, shall we say, Pentecostal in nature.  Now I don't personally believe in the present-day speaking in tongues, I don't believe in getting carried away and overcome with outward emotion in a service, I like order and a reserved audience.  That is just me and the personality type that I suffer from, and my statement of preference here should be taken as just that and not as a statement that my way is the better way.  To each their own.

As I'm watching this, and as the camera panned over the audience, they really got going.  This one black gentleman who had to be around 75 years of age or so got up and started dancing!  I found that fascinating.....I mean, he was really moved, and he got up and danced!  No, he wasn't trying to pull one over on Michael Jackson.  He was overcome with joy and felt no self-constraint in letting those around him know about it.  And I'm thinking, more power to you!   It was his way of thanking the Good Lord for his blessing, and I think that in the eyes of the Lord that his form of worship is just as much accepted as mine is.

I had occasion to think about this while I was on my trip.  I won't pass along any detail of what reminded me.  Maybe I saw someone dance on a street corner.  Maybe it was in that movie that we watched with Ken and Gillian.  Maybe I woke up from a dream.

As I was reminded of that black gentleman, I also thought of what some other people might have thought of that guy getting up to dance.  There might a lot of people out there that would make fun of him.  There might be some others who would criticize that form of worship; thinking that dancing is "improper" for one reason or other.  There might even be a lot of people out there who think that the dancing septuagenarian is a fool.

There's one thing in common that these detractors would all likely possess:  not one of them will be explain why they are a better person than the guy who danced in church.

An Old Memory, and Other Odds and Ends

Back when I was in elementary school in the 4th grade, in Titusville Florida, I had a morning teacher and I had an afternoon teacher.  The morning teacher was Mrs. Tague and the afternoon teacher was Mrs. Allen.  I don't know why it was set up that way but it was.  I can't remember what each one of them taught aside from Mrs. Allen teaching English.

All classes were in a portable building.  Oak Park Elementary School was a bit on the overcrowded side.  Titusville's population had boomed from 6000 to 29000, largely due to the space program at Cape Canaveral.  My dad worked on the Apollo program as did several other fathers, and Brevard County had to build new schools to accommodate what was then a growing population.  Oak Park Elementary School was a recent construction; Madison Junior High School was built right next to it and it too was a little on the packed side.  In Madison's first year they had to take in the sixth graders; the year before that Titusville High School was so packed that they had a morning session for one group of students and an afternoon session for another.

Anyway, for some reason I got to thinking about this one song from that time period.  Mrs. Tague taught PE (Physical Education, that is) in the afternoons and on most afternoons there was a record player going round and round and this one song that I remembered was played a lot.  My thinking was that it went "Mary Mary, quite contrary" and it had a real catchy hook to it carried by the bass line.  The girls enjoyed dancing to that one.  I would look up from my desk in Mrs. Allen's class and see that, and wonder why Mrs. Tague's afternoon class was out there having fun while I was in this portable having to do other stuff.

Well, for some reason, I got to thinking about that song a few months back.  A Google search failed to turn up who did that song.  I would think about it every now and then.....for some reason that hook must have really grabbed on to me.

While driving back from Todd's house this morning (I went up there yesterday and stayed the night) I got to thinking about that song again.  Who could that have been by?  I got to thinking it must have been done by the Monkees.  They were really big on TV back then, it seemed as if all my classmates watched that, while me, my favorite TV show was "The Invaders".

Anyway, once I got back home, I decided to do a YouTube search on that.  First I brought up Michael Nesmith's "Cruisin'"......that one had a catchy hook to it too.  A search of Wickedpedia (can't resist calling it that sometimes!) brought up that Mr. Nesmith wrote some songs for the Monkees in an effort to be taken seriously as artists.  And then I tried a YouTube search on that "Mary" song.

For the first time since 1968, I listened to it!  Another childhood memory!  This time around, I learned how the memory distorts things after a few decades.  I thought that bass line was really heavy, but it wasn't.  Also, the song didn't say "Mary Mary, quite contrary".  It instead said "Mary Mary, where you goin' to?".  As I was listening to it for the first time in 40+ years, I'm thinking, is one of those verses going to say "quite contrary"?

Nope.  That never came up.

I also seemed to remember that the music would stop during that song, and then start up again.  It didn't do that either.  OK, if I had been the record producer back then I might have had the band do it that way, but that's not how it happened.  I always thought it would be neat to be a record producer and I think being a record producer would be a better job than being an engineer, but those weren't the cards that I drew.

But getting back to that song, I've found myself re-listening to it some more.  It apparently wasn't the best known song by the Monkees; two more got way ahead of that one in terms of public recognition.  Still, I think it's a good song, very 60ish, and I still like that hook!

The link below has this song.  If you wish to listen to it, click on hit, but if you want to come  back to this blog you'll have to hit the "back" button unless you have a creative way of opening up a new tab or a window.

Mary, Mary

* * * * * * *

I wanted to post last weekend about Harold Camping's rapture prediction.  No, I didn't think for one minute that there would be a rapture, though I couldn't resist jokingly posting a comment on one forum that "Harold Camping seems to have disappeared".

This isn't the first time that Dr. Camping has made a rapture prediction.  Back in 1994, he said it would happen that year, and when it didn't he became aware of a "math error" that he had made.  When it didn't happen last weekend, I read conflicting posts on what he had to say about it not happening, but my understanding is that Judgement Day is now on for the 21st of October.

Anyway, what I would have said is that Harold Camping, for as many years as he's studied the Bible, should know better about making these kinds of predictions.  Christ himself told us that He didn't know, and neither did the angels of heaven.  So what can Harold Camping know that Christ can't?

* * * * * * *

Yep, I drove up to see Todd, Annette and Amber yesterday.  It was a good visit as always, and Annette continues to display her talented culinary skills.  As long as I've known Annette I've known her to be a great cook, in addition to being intelligent.

This morning we were chatting on the back patio.  She told me that I've changed, and for the better.  That was an interesting comment, and I think she's right that I changed.  For the better?  I would hope so.

I didn't ask her just how recent this change was, but it must have been over the past year and a half.  I have noticed that I don't get as stressed out about traffic and left lane hogs like I used to.  At least, I haven't recently opined to anyone that left lane hogs should be beaten as I've been known to do in the past.

* * * * * * *

I'm going to call it a post right now.  I really thought I was going to write more but I feel the urge to take care of a few other things.  I'm going to have to fire up the BBQ grill before too long; beef ribs were prepped a few hours ago and I'm going to give these guys two hours of cooking time.

Don't forget to pet a dog or a cat.

Thanksgiving Eve and Some Memories

There's always something special about the Wednesday evening before Thanksgiving. It means some time off from work for most of us, reflection for others, and anticipation of the meal that we're going to have the next day. Tomorrow I will be up in Gilbert, that's in Phoenix metro, to spend the day with my cousin Todd. His wife Annette, who happens to be a damn good cook has graciously decided to provide the meal for us. Todd and I kicked around the idea of preparing the main dish on the barbecue grill, but Annette wouldn't hear of it.

Yes, I know, turkey is traditional. And I'm a fan of tradition as much as the next guy. Yep, gimme some turkey, some stuffing, a load of those mashed potatoes and slather on that gravy. Baked beans? Sure. Pumpkin pie? You betcha. (I didn't mention cranberry; I've never been a real fan of that). Then off to the back patio for a long conversation ranging from next year's deer hunting trip and where to go, or maybe getting the clan together in Palm Springs or something. I figure it will be one of those days that will again be filed away under the Memories section of that organic computer that God gave me that I call my brain.

As I think about tomorrow and the drive up to Phoenix, I can't help but think about previous Thanksgiving Eves and the memories that they have provided me over the years. There are a few of them that stand out, a few that I come back to whenever another one of those Eves arrive.

The first one I think about is the one in 1975. That was Wednesday the 26th of November. I was not yet 17 years old, and we were living in Virginia at the time. We knew next month that we were moving to California. That evening my dad took us all up to Hatboro, Pennsylvania, so that we could have one last turkey meal with my Uncle Buss, Aunt Anne, and cousins Gary and Margie. Buss is one of my dad's older brothers, and while we were living on the east coast we would try to see them from time to time.

That particular day my mind was more on the purchase of the first album recorded by Bachman-Turner Overdrive. I had been a huge fan of them for over a year at that time, and I was looking to complete my musical library with every last song that they had ever done. I've always been partial to that album. It had a lot of great songs on it: "Gimme Your Money Please", "Hold Back the Water", "Blue Collar", "Down and Out Man" and "Don't Get Yourself in Trouble" were my favorites. Not only did it have some cool songs on it, the design and artwork of that album was the best that I had ever seen, and I think it's the best that I'll ever see.

Another day that comes to mind was one here in Arizona, in 2003. I drove up to Chandler (also in Phoenix metro) with Peggy. Peggy was a former girlfriend of mine back in 2002. We had really had quite the passionate romance but I wasn't able to jump in feet first on that one. It was the first serious romance since my divorce in 1999, and my mindset of the time was that I wasn't ready for a serious relationship. Somehow though we have managed to remain good friends over the years. I'm still in touch with her. She's living full time in Palo Alto, California these days. Eventually she'll return to Tucson but her job is very demanding and I suspect she'll be up there for the next several months.

Anyway, on that day of 2003, I left work early to pick her up. We drove up to her sister's, and after a run to Sam's Club and Fry's Electronics I was relaxing in the hot tub with her and her sister. Her sister had this Siberian husky named Bo, and ole Bo was really quite the character. He'd place his head in my lap knowing that I would instinctively scratch it. If I stopped scratching, he would growl at me. If I still didn't resume scratching, he'd start barking. Dang, he was as assertive as a cat when it came to wanting attention!

I don't think though that this evening is going to rank up with the two aforementioned evenings, aside from the fact that this year I have a blog whereas I didn't the years before. I can't remember what I was doing last year on Thanksgiving Eve. I do know that in years past I took the whole week off from work. I wanted to do that this year but I'm saving what little vacation time I have left for the year for next month's road trip to San Jose.

On another note, I am mindful that a lot of people this year don't have as much to be thankful for as I do this year. I don't know why, but that bothers me. I can in one way identify with them, having been there once. That was in 1998, when some severe adverse circumstances were going on for me.

I hope that those others can find their way out like I did.

An Old Memory, and 35+ Years Later

Sometime in the autumn of 1973 I was using my brother's transistor radio. There were some songs on the airwaves then that I was taking a liking to, and some of those were played on WABC Music Radio 77, 770 on the dial. The numbers on the tuning knob weren't exactly dead on accurate, but that wasn't really an issue as that WABC was easy to find if you were in northern New Jersey.

As it was, I had stumbled across a song that was in WABC's rotation. I can't remember what it was, other than I listened to it to the very end, and I fully expected the WABC jingle to follow it.

What followed it instead was the station identification of CKLW. I thought Canada??? I'm hearing Canada on this little radio??? It was at night, and I was obviously unfamiliar with how radio waves in that part of the spectrum propagated at night. After enough listening I was able to determine that CKLW was in Windsor, Ontario, and I discovered that I was also able to get a whole mess of other stations. I remember tuning in WLS (Chicago), WBZ (Boston), WLW (Cincinnati), WWWE (Cleveland), CBM (Montreal), WMAQ (Chicago), WBBM (Chicago) and even KMOX out of St. Louis. The fact that I could tune in distant radio stations and instantly know what was going on in another city fascinated me to no end. Shortly thereafter I checked out a book called "Elements of Radio" from the high school library. I was determined to learn how a radio worked, and how its components worked. Thus began a fascination with electronics and radio, a fascination that continues today, a fascination that motivated me to pursue and earn a degree in Electrical Engineering.

Things have really radically changed since then. I didn't dwell on that memory very much, and I mean really dwell on it, until I was here at home this past Saturday night. Kathleen was sick, and advised me to stay away lest I catch her fever, and so I needed something to do. I was on the computer, researching something, and somehow this led me to a search of Canadian radio stations. I then remembered this long available feature called streaming audio, and what the hell, why not see what it does?

Ten minutes later I was listening, real time, to an FM station out of Toronto. Shortly after that, I was tuned in to Radio One of CBC, which had an interesting music program going on. It was almost like old times: listening to some sounds originating from a great distance away, but this time I was using a computer, and not a radio.

Since that night in 1973, I have spent countless hours listening to shortwave, ham radio operators, police scanners, AM and FM. If I wasn't listening, I was talking, as that I've been a licensed ham since 1974. I have learned a lot about propagation effects and what time of day and/or year and/or frequency band would be best for tuning in, say, Japan.

Now all it takes is a few clicks of the mouse.

Things have really radically changed since then.