6/19/2011

Sunday Things

So the interview starts out with, "I'm a people person." All my life I have aspired to be the leader, the boss, El Supremo when dealing with people. It might have something to do with the fact that I love people and the never ending saga of situations they present. I am a lot more binary than I would like to admit in dealing with people but I hope in my heart of hearts that I tend to err on the side of positive. I do have one thing that I hope puts me in good stead in that I truly love to see people succeed. I have spent my life trying to come to grips with the fact that there is enough room for most of the people who work hard to succeed. It might start with the fact that my wife and I we were poor growing up and we had what we had and that was mostly enough. It might end with the fact that life has been wonderful for us and our success grows even in our retirement years.

Hardly a trip goes by out in the City where someone comes up to Barb or me and says, "Hello, do you remember me?" After Barb's teaching for over 25 years and my involvement with the Guard for over 25 years there is a whole bunch of people out there in the Topeka Metro area we have met. Add to that the teaching a new class of 25 students for three years for 6 weeks at a time and I don't even have a clue the number of people I like to stop and talk to. Just yesterday we were at one of the Optical stores and a young woman asked her mother where do we know that lady (Barb) from? It turned out that she had taken some cake decorating classes at Michaels from Barb.

Another thing I love to do is go to Wal-Mart just to see what people are wearing. The eclectic collection of clothes thrown on just makes me smile. The other day there was a young girl wearing what looked like her sleeping attire with a pair of those sheep wool lined boots. She could have not had any idea how silly she looked or she would be permanently mortified. The amount of amply endowed people that waddle into Wal-Mart with clothes that are stretched beyond belief amazes me. It takes me back to my counter drug training and I want to shout, "Say No to Crack" Not the drug, but the fact that people don't seem to notice the air blowing down their butt crack is just a hilarity. Once stretch pants become stretched pants, something gets lost in their fashion statement.

Do you get lost often? I don't get lost, I just find myself in places I have never been. If I have driven to a place once, I can almost always find my way back there without having to back up in a driveway to turn around. If you grew up in Kansas, you would come to realize that almost all the roads run east and west or north and south. It is only when you get into the small rolling hills in extreme northeast Kansas that roads just go in a general direction. If you see a sign that says K-4 west, you will wind from north eats to southwest of Topeka. Take US-81 south from Wichita and you had better want to run into San Antonio, TX.

A few years ago, a niece of mine had a travel trailer in Southern Georgia and the truck she had used to take the trailer out there was no longer able to make the trip pulling one of those big white wind sails that you can sleep in. Being newly retired and bored out of my mind, I volunteered to borrow a truck and bring that thing home all the way to Sacramento, CA. Now, realize I started and ended in Kansas and you will have an idea that I drove across the United States and back during that week long period. I had visions of being an over the road traveler, not so much after that trip. I definitely got over the idea that it would be fun to pull a travel trailer. I want to point out that that trip was prior to our owning a Garvin Nuvi to direct my travel. I would stop to get gas, pee and consult the map about once an hour. Yes, I spent over a thousand dollars on gas from Georgia to Sacramento. I didn't charge my niece for the gas from Here to Georgia and back from California as I was really on my trip and that truck just zipped down the road at 20 MPG without that damned trailer.

I don't give a damn what you drive! I have driven clear to Oregon in a tiny Chevy Vega so I don't have pride about the car I drive. What I do have is a sense of what my butt can endure. No more itty bitty little cars for me. I have a Ford Crown Victoria that gets an average of 25 MPG and I get to my destination not feeling like I have been beat up with an ugly stick. After almost 60 years of owning GM cars, I found a Ford on sale from a private owner and love that silver behemoth chewing up miles on the road. Some lady had to put her father in a nursing home and he had only 18,000 miles on a six year old car. It was like new and drives that way. He had every ticket for every service it had even had.

Does your name have any meaning other that what it is. Dennis is a derivative or Dionysus, the Greek god of wine. Works for me, except that most wine has sulfates in it that gives me headaches. My brother Rick was named for my mother's step father. Richard Milton Petty, or Rick as I call him (when I don't call him Dave or Dave, Rick) is the subject of a lot of, "Are you related to Richard Petty questions?" Yep, he is my brother but we aren't related to the Stock Car Petty family. No, Tom Petty is not a relative. Yes, somewhere in the Lee line of the family someone claims we are related to Robert E. Lee. Hell, I think half of the world claims to be related to him. I'm sure that he was at best a third cousin from my great......great grandfather.

In the service I met a ton of guys with neat and different names. Millard Fillmore Molthrup IV or MFM4 was just one of those guys. Gentleman Johnny Lott, was a nice guy that we added the Gentleman appellation because of his Georgia Drawl and his propensity to address the cannoneers as "Gentlemen" in spite of their unwashed smell and appearance. The funniest example of a name that got murdered was when our TAC Officer in OCS would address candidate Obiajulu in that southern drawl from Alabama. Candidate Atta Junduway Obiajulu would come out like Candy date O by a jew LU are you making fun of me? Obie would in his excellent British accent say his name in almost one syllable and our TAC officer couldn't say it in less than five. I won't even try to add to this discussion the wild names people give their kids today.

My sister married into a family that used the first name Asa and they went by their middle name. Asa Eugene was Gene and his son Asa Robert was Bob. Gene's dad was simply Ace and I don't have a clue what his middle name was. They are the kind of people you would expect to meet here in the heartland.

Moving on, Happy Father's Day to all you mothers out there. You know who you are, I hope.

MUD

1 comment: