I received a call from my oldest grand child, Anjah Fawcett. Her father suggested she thank me for my service which she did. She hadn't known that I served in the military. I felt bad that I haven't been keeping up with the blog, hence this message.
I attended Graeden and Elliott's Dutch Hill School assembly honoring veterans yesterday. The kindergartners used sign language to recite the Pledge of Allegiance and the whole school sang patriotic songs, including "Eating Goober Peas" which I learned was a Confederate soldier song. It's nice to be honored. Like when you go to shows at Branson, Mo. they will normally have veterans stand (about a forth of the people). You sign up and serve at low pay for four or five years and often risk your life all because you love your country. After all, someone has to do it. A video of Dutch Hill kindergartners at a social for veterans after the assembly, the kids when asked what a veteran is mostly answered that they help animals. I am proud of our school system that after their first few months of going to school, every one of those students knows what a veteran is and would thank me without being prompted.
With me, as with many others, there are ulterior motives to join. For me in 1963 just before the Vietnam War men were eligible for a draft lottery. That's a lottery you generally do not want to win. I signed up for the Air Force and received my draft notice while at Officer Training School at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas. I was much happier to be in the Air Force in the officer program rather than to be an enlisted grunt in the Army. My enlistment date was August 3rd, and I endured three months of hot weather and scorpions. I learned to tie my blanket tight so I could pass the daily inspections and also learned how to clean a toilet with a sponge rather than a brush (not clean enough). I had a zipper sewn on the bottom of my laundry bag which was tied by its cords in a very precise manner onto the end of the bed frame, because I didn't want to have to untie it everyday. To leave the room unattended you had to unplug every plug-in except an electric clock, even if you needed to go to the adjoining bathroom, unless your roommate was in the room. That includes the fan which was essential for comfortable living. By the way, I slept under a sheet (not the tight blanket) which was stashed ("panicked") during the day in the zippered "panic bag" hanging from the end of the bed. My bureau drawers had to have underwear and socks that were tightly rolled with the edge that showed forming a "smile" and spaced evenly in the drawer.
When you went outside, you always wore a cover (hat) and received an infraction (gig) if you were caught uncovered. After graduating, it was weeks before I felt comfortable being bareheaded outside. I discovered that I can have a very loud voice (I rarely use it anymore - not even my kids have heard it). When I served as the Duty Officer, staying in the school headquarters office over night) I had to announce the Uniform of the Day and events of the day that would be happening after I had rung the buzzer wakealarm. I surprised myself and others that I could yell so loud in each hallway. We marched everywhere we went as a group. When walking with another person, the higher ranking person is up always on the right. You always salute a higher ranking Officer Trainee or a real officer. They always salute you back.
In one of my leadership training classes, I gave a speech once on buying a car. Most of my classmates would buy a new car when they graduated as Second Lieutenants. I argued that that was a foolish waste of money because the new car loses value the moment you drive it off the lot. Much better, I told the class, to buy a good used car but to put the payment they would have made on a new car into a savings account. That way, after a few years they could buy another car with cash after having earned interest rather than spent money on interest. My friends thought this was a crazy idea, but it is still a good idea!
I'll tell more later, but I wanted to point out something about our military. If you enjoy your food, do you thank a farmer or a grocer? If you are educated, do you thank your teachers. If you enjoy reading English, do you thank a publisher? Sure, thank them, but without a strong military, none of those services would be available without the freedom provided you by each soldier or other military member who dedicated his life to maintain the good life you are accustomed to. Freedom isn't free. It is paid for often with the lives of those who chose to serve their fellow Americans.
Thank a Veteran.
Friday, November 12, 2010
Monday, February 8, 2010
Monkey Business
OK, it's been a month and a half since my last post. The idea for this remembrance was from a Sunday
School lesson yesterday where I made a comment in class that man did not "evolve" from a monkey.
When my kids were very young my parents came to visit, and we took the family to the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle. One of the highlights was the monkey cage which is always fun to watch the shennanagans of the primates.
My father was an Episcopal preacher's kid and had some un-Mormonlike views of the history of mankind. He looked at the frolicking primates and said, "to think we evolved from them!" Temporarily forgetting my own ancestry I said, "Speak for yourself, dad."
School lesson yesterday where I made a comment in class that man did not "evolve" from a monkey.
When my kids were very young my parents came to visit, and we took the family to the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle. One of the highlights was the monkey cage which is always fun to watch the shennanagans of the primates.
My father was an Episcopal preacher's kid and had some un-Mormonlike views of the history of mankind. He looked at the frolicking primates and said, "to think we evolved from them!" Temporarily forgetting my own ancestry I said, "Speak for yourself, dad."
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Grandchild game: Caress Hand, Slap Hand
John:
My grandson Elliott, Bridget's #2 son, played this fun game while visitng Pat in the hospital, recently (she is OK now after spending 5 days recovering from seizures - perhaps due to the swine flu vaccine 24 hours before). It was fun because he would occasionally pick the wrong hand by mistake. The deal is that he can choose one of my hands. The right one is always the caress hand, and the left one is always the slap hand. Elliott is a touchy-feely being, like I am, and loves to have his back rubbed (for hours if he could get it). When he chooses the right hand, I gently rub his cheek or back. The slap hand gives him a very light slap on the cheek.
To fool him, I twist my hands so they are on opposite sides or I turn him upside down and backwards and have him choose. He is always so happy when he gets it right but laughs when he screws up. He hardly ever misses, now. I think he has figured out my wedding ring hand is on the slap hand.
Wattle
OK, I've got this big double chin which Bridget calls a wattle, as in the hanging appendage found on turkeys and some other fowl. Elliott is very curious and likes to pull on mine. Only he calls it a gobble!
If Bridget is on the ball she will insert the picture of Elliott playing with my wattle.
My grandson Elliott, Bridget's #2 son, played this fun game while visitng Pat in the hospital, recently (she is OK now after spending 5 days recovering from seizures - perhaps due to the swine flu vaccine 24 hours before). It was fun because he would occasionally pick the wrong hand by mistake. The deal is that he can choose one of my hands. The right one is always the caress hand, and the left one is always the slap hand. Elliott is a touchy-feely being, like I am, and loves to have his back rubbed (for hours if he could get it). When he chooses the right hand, I gently rub his cheek or back. The slap hand gives him a very light slap on the cheek.
To fool him, I twist my hands so they are on opposite sides or I turn him upside down and backwards and have him choose. He is always so happy when he gets it right but laughs when he screws up. He hardly ever misses, now. I think he has figured out my wedding ring hand is on the slap hand.
Wattle
OK, I've got this big double chin which Bridget calls a wattle, as in the hanging appendage found on turkeys and some other fowl. Elliott is very curious and likes to pull on mine. Only he calls it a gobble!
If Bridget is on the ball she will insert the picture of Elliott playing with my wattle.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Clothes Pin Prank
John (we're waiting for Pat to write about her grandfather joining Buffalo Bill's circus):
My sister, Gay, and I would excitedly wait for my father (John Hewlett Fawcett, born in New Jersey in 1898) to come home from work and chant, "Did you get fired? Did you get fired?" Dad worked at the Moore (Drydocks) Shipyard in Richmond,\California building Liberty Ships, I believe, and the war was ending in 1944. Little Johnny (Johnny Skeekie) was 4 then, and little Gay (Gaygee Google) was 7. The nicknames in parentheses were my father's favorite names for us. My father wanted to leave the war effort and get back to teaching since the war was ending. Our chants, not withstanding, ultimately came true and he got a job at City College of San Francisco. We lived in Berkeley, across the Bay.
One of his frequent sayings was to threaten me with, "I'm going to put you in my pocket and take you to San Francisco." It wasn't much of a threat, I would have loved to have gone. I didn't like the pocket part, though. A few years later I went several times with him to San Francisco and he would pay me a penny for every word I could read off of billboards as we rode the old Key Train across the Oakland-San Francisco Bay Bridge. That stopped when I could read better. I remember how disgusted he would get when he would see someone spitting in the San Francisco terminal. There were "NO SPITTING" signs to stop that practice. Another thing I remember at that terminal was the big screen movie machine. You would put in a quarter (worth a few dollars in today's money) and the movie of big band music would play, A crowd would always stop and watch, so the clever thing was to just hang around until someone used their own quarter.
An incident last night while I was babysitting Bridget's kids reminded me of a trick I would do during this period. The grandkids stuck a sticker on another's back and then on mine. They would get wise when I would nonchalently press a sticker on their back. My trick was to take a clothes pin (thi kind with two wood pieces with a coiled spring in the middle) and put it on the back of my father's suit. His student's would say, "Mr. Fawcett, there's a clothes pin on your back." He tried to do the same to me without such fun results. I would usually catch on. But even if I went to kindergarten with a clothespin, no one would care as much as my father's students did. After a while he usually caught on. I had to devise a place to put the pin where he wouldn't see it or feel it when he sat down. The best place seemed to be on the back of his suit jacket but on the left side where he wouldn't feel it by reaching for his wallet or by sitting on it.
My sister, Gay, and I would excitedly wait for my father (John Hewlett Fawcett, born in New Jersey in 1898) to come home from work and chant, "Did you get fired? Did you get fired?" Dad worked at the Moore (Drydocks) Shipyard in Richmond,\California building Liberty Ships, I believe, and the war was ending in 1944. Little Johnny (Johnny Skeekie) was 4 then, and little Gay (Gaygee Google) was 7. The nicknames in parentheses were my father's favorite names for us. My father wanted to leave the war effort and get back to teaching since the war was ending. Our chants, not withstanding, ultimately came true and he got a job at City College of San Francisco. We lived in Berkeley, across the Bay.
One of his frequent sayings was to threaten me with, "I'm going to put you in my pocket and take you to San Francisco." It wasn't much of a threat, I would have loved to have gone. I didn't like the pocket part, though. A few years later I went several times with him to San Francisco and he would pay me a penny for every word I could read off of billboards as we rode the old Key Train across the Oakland-San Francisco Bay Bridge. That stopped when I could read better. I remember how disgusted he would get when he would see someone spitting in the San Francisco terminal. There were "NO SPITTING" signs to stop that practice. Another thing I remember at that terminal was the big screen movie machine. You would put in a quarter (worth a few dollars in today's money) and the movie of big band music would play, A crowd would always stop and watch, so the clever thing was to just hang around until someone used their own quarter.
An incident last night while I was babysitting Bridget's kids reminded me of a trick I would do during this period. The grandkids stuck a sticker on another's back and then on mine. They would get wise when I would nonchalently press a sticker on their back. My trick was to take a clothes pin (thi kind with two wood pieces with a coiled spring in the middle) and put it on the back of my father's suit. His student's would say, "Mr. Fawcett, there's a clothes pin on your back." He tried to do the same to me without such fun results. I would usually catch on. But even if I went to kindergarten with a clothespin, no one would care as much as my father's students did. After a while he usually caught on. I had to devise a place to put the pin where he wouldn't see it or feel it when he sat down. The best place seemed to be on the back of his suit jacket but on the left side where he wouldn't feel it by reaching for his wallet or by sitting on it.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
My Favorite Prank
John:
My dear friend Amy Sue Loveless loves cruises and traveling. She referred us to the WorldMark vacation company to get a free trip to Reno just for listening to their come-on. They got some fancy gift for referring their friends. Well, we bit. We actually joined the program and got the coupon for the free 3-day trip to Reno after spending about $7,000 with cash and card. A year later we decided to go on the Reno trip before the deadline. Well Amy had lost her coupon. We got our coupon extended and a new coupon for Amy and Jack. We tried and tried to find a time we both could go and were getting close to the next deadline.
The deal was pretty phony. You could only leave on a Tuesday and return on a Thursday. This meant, basically, a one day trip and two days of travelling because our plane might leave late Tuesday and early Thursday. For a few hundred extra we stayed 5 or 6 days and could choose when we travelled. Our fun trip with the Lovelesses cost us thousands of dollars and never happened. We had a good time, though. We would walk through our hotel lobby which was a full blown casino and ride the elevator up and enjoyed telling other riders that we had not lost a penny and have had no hangovers (we don't drink or gamble). They would look at us incredulously.
A year or so later I called Amy and informed her that I had won a free cruise - I think to Hawaii. The best thing was that we could take another couple and we had chosen the Lovelesses. She was so excited. Furthermore, "we get $500 spending money." She was ecstatic. I said that the trouble was that it was $500 per couple not $500 each. "Oh, that's OK," she said, a little disappointed, but keeping her spirits up to comfort me after I delivered the sad news. Her husband came in the room at that moment and she relayed everything about the contest and the cruise and added the part about only one $500 per couple. He also said that that was all right, the cruise itself was plenty. I then wished them a happy April First. After a long pause she asked me if this was an April Fools joke. I said yes and that she had reacted better than I could have possibly asked for.
I tried once or twice to get her again on April 1, but they don't usually answer their v0ice mails or their phone. You can't leave a message because when they would call back days or weeks later the surprise was over. You can't say, "April Fools" on July 17th! I will get Amy again, but I'll have to wait a long time because she is very suspicious on April 1st if I call.
My dear friend Amy Sue Loveless loves cruises and traveling. She referred us to the WorldMark vacation company to get a free trip to Reno just for listening to their come-on. They got some fancy gift for referring their friends. Well, we bit. We actually joined the program and got the coupon for the free 3-day trip to Reno after spending about $7,000 with cash and card. A year later we decided to go on the Reno trip before the deadline. Well Amy had lost her coupon. We got our coupon extended and a new coupon for Amy and Jack. We tried and tried to find a time we both could go and were getting close to the next deadline.
The deal was pretty phony. You could only leave on a Tuesday and return on a Thursday. This meant, basically, a one day trip and two days of travelling because our plane might leave late Tuesday and early Thursday. For a few hundred extra we stayed 5 or 6 days and could choose when we travelled. Our fun trip with the Lovelesses cost us thousands of dollars and never happened. We had a good time, though. We would walk through our hotel lobby which was a full blown casino and ride the elevator up and enjoyed telling other riders that we had not lost a penny and have had no hangovers (we don't drink or gamble). They would look at us incredulously.
A year or so later I called Amy and informed her that I had won a free cruise - I think to Hawaii. The best thing was that we could take another couple and we had chosen the Lovelesses. She was so excited. Furthermore, "we get $500 spending money." She was ecstatic. I said that the trouble was that it was $500 per couple not $500 each. "Oh, that's OK," she said, a little disappointed, but keeping her spirits up to comfort me after I delivered the sad news. Her husband came in the room at that moment and she relayed everything about the contest and the cruise and added the part about only one $500 per couple. He also said that that was all right, the cruise itself was plenty. I then wished them a happy April First. After a long pause she asked me if this was an April Fools joke. I said yes and that she had reacted better than I could have possibly asked for.
I tried once or twice to get her again on April 1, but they don't usually answer their v0ice mails or their phone. You can't leave a message because when they would call back days or weeks later the surprise was over. You can't say, "April Fools" on July 17th! I will get Amy again, but I'll have to wait a long time because she is very suspicious on April 1st if I call.
Friday, November 6, 2009
College Pranks
John:
I went to college (class of 62) at the University of California, Riverside. I have enjoyed doing pranks over the years and college was probably the height of such activities.
The University of California, when possible, has a giant "C" on a nearby hillside to advertise the campus. When I was a freshman in 1958 the tradition for this new campus (they had graduated their first 4 years of students the previous Spring) the big task was for freshmen to repaint the "C" in yellow paint to make it sharp and yellow. The next year, as a wise old Sophomore, I would drive some of the new Freshmen up to the "C" in my 1929 Packard I would buy my Freshman year.
As a really wise upper classman I supported or instigated several alterations to the Letter, just because it was there. We found that end-rolls of newsprint from the local Press-Enterprise newspaper was the material of choice to make the changes. It was cheap (free), and it instantly covered the rocks and boulders which surrounded the "C." The first time we changed the letter was to make it a backwards "C." Another time was in honor of the President of the University, Clark Kerr, when he came to the campus for a Reagents meeting that was held at one of the campuses each month. With the news print we made a "CK" to acknowledge his visit.
The meanist thing we did was on a day when high school seniors visited the campus to see if they wanted to attend four years there. In a deep fog that morning we changed the letter to become a Hammer and Sickle, the symbol of the dreaded Soviet Union. As the fog lifted at about noon, I imagine there was a collective gasp from the attendees and the college administration. I don't know if some potential enrollees chose another college to go to.
On the evening of the day-long Scotts on Rocks Day one year four or five of us drove up to the "C" with large tin cans and containers of kerosene. I drove them in my 1934 Ford four door sedan which I had brought down from my home in Berkeley up to the "C" on the rutty road up the back side of the mountain. We placed the cans along the outside of the letter and filled them with kerosene. The others gave me a head start so as to give me cover by being at the carnival when the light-up occurred. They were premature and as I neared the campus I looked up and saw the firey letter. It was beautiful. My partners in crime ran down the steep hill in the dark and arrived at the campus not long after I did.
My favorite book as a youth was "The Compleat Practical Joker" (British spelling) by H. Allen Smith. A slow reader, it took me way too long to read because I would laugh out loud and long several times every page. It would be fun to find that book again.
I went to college (class of 62) at the University of California, Riverside. I have enjoyed doing pranks over the years and college was probably the height of such activities.
The University of California, when possible, has a giant "C" on a nearby hillside to advertise the campus. When I was a freshman in 1958 the tradition for this new campus (they had graduated their first 4 years of students the previous Spring) the big task was for freshmen to repaint the "C" in yellow paint to make it sharp and yellow. The next year, as a wise old Sophomore, I would drive some of the new Freshmen up to the "C" in my 1929 Packard I would buy my Freshman year.
As a really wise upper classman I supported or instigated several alterations to the Letter, just because it was there. We found that end-rolls of newsprint from the local Press-Enterprise newspaper was the material of choice to make the changes. It was cheap (free), and it instantly covered the rocks and boulders which surrounded the "C." The first time we changed the letter was to make it a backwards "C." Another time was in honor of the President of the University, Clark Kerr, when he came to the campus for a Reagents meeting that was held at one of the campuses each month. With the news print we made a "CK" to acknowledge his visit.
The meanist thing we did was on a day when high school seniors visited the campus to see if they wanted to attend four years there. In a deep fog that morning we changed the letter to become a Hammer and Sickle, the symbol of the dreaded Soviet Union. As the fog lifted at about noon, I imagine there was a collective gasp from the attendees and the college administration. I don't know if some potential enrollees chose another college to go to.
On the evening of the day-long Scotts on Rocks Day one year four or five of us drove up to the "C" with large tin cans and containers of kerosene. I drove them in my 1934 Ford four door sedan which I had brought down from my home in Berkeley up to the "C" on the rutty road up the back side of the mountain. We placed the cans along the outside of the letter and filled them with kerosene. The others gave me a head start so as to give me cover by being at the carnival when the light-up occurred. They were premature and as I neared the campus I looked up and saw the firey letter. It was beautiful. My partners in crime ran down the steep hill in the dark and arrived at the campus not long after I did.
My favorite book as a youth was "The Compleat Practical Joker" (British spelling) by H. Allen Smith. A slow reader, it took me way too long to read because I would laugh out loud and long several times every page. It would be fun to find that book again.
Monday, October 26, 2009
Sword Fight with Real Blood!
Bridget asked me recently to make a blog and enter each Sunday a story by me or Pat about our childhood. She has heard stories but can't really remember them well enough to embellish them to her kids. I think that is a great idea, and it may end up being pieced together to become the personal history my church asks everyone to write.
She wondered about the bear traps in the basement which are from Pat's grandfather who ran away from home at age 14 and became a sharp shooter in Buffalo Bill's circus. And there was the friendly sword fight I had with Robert Lawrence using carving knives in his kitchen. We were probably 13 or 14 in Berkeley, California where we lived. He, in a moment of extreme stupidity, grabbed my blade with his hand. "Aha, I've got your sword." I, in a moment of extreme stupidity, pulled the blade out slicing all of his fingers. "Not so fast, Batman."
There was blood everywhere. I think we mopped up the blood and the hand, and I don't remember if he went to the doctor or if his parents found out. Ironically, he became a doctor and had a practice doing private autopsies. More about our morbidity in a later blog. In med school he did a dog abortion. He was surprised that the dog later delivered a whole litter, less one.
Bridget, thanks for setting up this blog. I would rather call it Remembrances than Memory Lane. I couldn't figure out how to do it. I didn't have to put in a password to write this. Does that mean everyone can write my blog? Or did my computer memorize my password?
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