Dog gate

News relic

The Indianapolis News gave subscribers these little pocket Rand McNally road atlases back in the 1990s. Here's one that turned up yesterday.

50 years ago today

Today - Feb. 6, 2017 - is the 50th anniversary of my first day at The Indianapolis News.

I came to The News after five months at The Tipton Daily Tribune in Tipton, Ind. The News, also known as The Great Hoosier Daily, was Indiana's largest evening newspaper with seven editions daily, Monday through Saturday. My starting pay was $110 a week.

Over the next 33 years, I was a city desk rewrite man, city desk reporter, makeup editor, state and suburban desk reporter, suburban bureau chief... I shot my own photos to illustrate my stories most of the time and came to believe that a reporter who wasn't a shooter, wasn't a complete newspaperman (or woman). Happily, Maria wrote and shot photos too. I did about everything except over sports in my years at The News.

I started my newspaper career in the latter days of the hot type era when we wrote our stories on typewriters and printers set them in type on Linotype and Intertype machines. (In those days, a printer was a human being who worked with type, not a printing device attached to a computer.) Consequently, I know most of the arcane minutiae about printing with lead type, including the old "type lice" trick printers loved to play on rookies.

My career saw the advent of computers in the newsroom and the gradual phasing out of a whole generation of printers and typesetters and the transition of photography from film to digital.

I began to lose my enthusiasm for the job when The News staff got merged with The Star folks in 1995 and when The News ceased publication in 1999. I hated working at The Star and by October, 2000, Gannett had sucked the last bit of fun out of it.

So I fired The Star for wasting my time and took early retirement at age 55.

Since then, I've been a volunteer at Maria's newspapers in Crawfordsville, Ind. and Jonesboro, Ark. and can honestly say I've spent my entire adult life watching bean counters and other idiots ruin perfectly good newspapers.

Paper

I found these two certificates recently and decided to immortalize them on the blog.

Maria and I attended a one-day session of the Nikon School on June 8, 2002 at Cincinnati. That was back in the days when just about everyone was still shooting film and the handbook we got with the course dealt exclusively with film shooting.

The other certificate is in recognition of me serving as principal for a day at College Wood Elementary School in Carmel, Ind. on April 15, 1999. I was education writer for the Metro North Bureau of The Indianapolis News and Star at the time and was invited to be principal for a day by College Wood Principal Jane Boultinghouse. Jane's brother Wayne was my roommate for a semester at Indiana State University back in the 1960s.

Same message

Two wildly different Bill Murray movies were released in 1984 - Meatballs and The Razor's Edge. Interestingly, they had the same message - "It just doesn't matter."

Indy Club breakfast

We had a delightful breakfast yesterday with our Indianapolis BMW Club friends yesterday before racing home and concluding a whirlwind 26-hour Brookland-to-Indiana-to-Brookland trip. I'll explain the purpose at a later date.

Hopeful

Our old dishwasher, which sat in the garage since we replaced it, is at the curb awaiting collection by our trash service. It remains to be seen whether they will take it, but we are hopeful.

Bad news from Paradise

Today's Carmel (Calif.) weekly newspaper has bad news about my favorite road - Calif. 1 through Big Sur.

The photo above shows a rock slide just south of Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park that blocked access to 30 miles of the Pacific Coast Highway.

Also, a Chinese couple on a bus tour with their son, died last week in high surf along 17-Mile Drive. The bus had stopped to let passengers get out and photograph the surf, authorities said, and the wife was swept away by a high wave that rolled over Bird Rock. Her husband dove in to save her and was also drowned.

The Flora Building

We're making progress in getting the vacant side of our downtown commercial building ready to market to prospective tenants.

The 3,500 square-foot space was vacated earlier this month. At our Realtor's suggestion, we upgraded the lighting in the reception area and conference room. A cleaning crew wiped down the woodwork, vacuumed the carpet, scraped the Scotch tape off of the sliding glass windows and gave the place a good going-over on Monday.

I got bids from two carpet cleaning firms and scheduled one of them to get busy on the badly stained carpet on Saturday morning.

In the meantime, Maria and I need to touch up dings and scrapes in the paint.

It happens

The only kid I ever knew who got his eye shot out with a BB gun died Sunday.

He was 70 years old and was from Delphi, Ind.

VIDEO: WRETCHED LIBERAL HAG Removed From Plane After Harassing Trump Sup...

She went off on a guy who was flying to D.C. for the inauguration and ended up getting thrown off of the plane.

The other passengers applauded when airport police walked her off.

Obama Legacy Disposal Team

At last!

The last time I felt this inspired by a new president was 56 years ago when John Kennedy took the oath of office. That was when it was still respectable to be a Democrat.

And here's another of my favorite images from today.

New lights!

We had eight sets of fluorescent lights installed in the waiting room and conference room of our recently-vacated office space today.

Those areas were grossly under-illuminated by ceiling mounted can lights and the new fixtures transformed the spaces.

Now it's time to arrange for cleanup, including a good carpet cleaning and paint touch-up before we can seriously start marketing the 3,500 square feet of office space.

One more way to transmit disease

When I checked in at Clopton Clinic for a routine checkup with my doctor this morning, the receptionist handed me this pager.

WTF?

It struck me as a silly waste of money and one more way to transmit germs. Who knows what kind of diseased hapless fuck held it before they gave it to me? I think a lot about the HIPAA privacy law is stupid anyway, and this is a really lame way to avoid having the nurse call your same out in the waiting room.

My doc thinks it's stupid, too, and wonders why they can't just give me a number like they do at the license bureau (state revenue office is what they call it in Arkansas). That would assure anonymity and avoid transmitting diseases.

Bad new about a Newsie

Just learned that a former Indianapolis News colleague is in intensive care with congestive heart disease and pneumonia, having to be restrained from pulling out his IV and thinking he is being held captive in a cell at his wife's request and facing possible amputation of a foot.

Our commercial property

The Justice Network, a Memphis-based firm that works with courts to arrange public service jobs for defendants, has been forced out of business here by a combination of malicious pseudo-journalism and short-sighted judges.

The owner of the Justice Network, met me and our Realtor at our downtown commercial property this week to turn over the keys to their suite of offices and to remove their server. We are sad to see him go, but are gratified by his pledge to honor the terms of the lease and continue rent and utilities payments through the end of June. It takes a real stand-up guy to do something like that and he has my eternal gratitude and admiration.

I wouldn't hesitate to trust him with my wallet. Not so much with the newspaper editor who helped chase him out of town on the malicious premises that the Justice Network was somehow taking unfair advantage of the people it served. The two new judges campaigned on this absurd idea and on the promise that the courts could somehow take over the work being done by the Justice Network at a reduced cost to the taxpayers.

The courts looked at this option a few years ago and decided it would be more expensive, but these guys seem to think they are smarter than that. We shall see.

The upshot is that they have fewer sentencing options.

Our Realtor is hard at work looking for a new tenant. The sooner we can install a new tenant, the sooner we can release the previous renter from his financial obligation to us. The building was designed and built as medical practice with about a dozen examination rooms and generous office and storage space.

Happy Birthday, K1200GT

My 2003 K1200GT was born 14 years ago today in the Bayersche Motoren Werke Spandau Plant in Berlin.

It has carried me more than 78,000 miles so far and I look forward to many, many more.

Hoosier stuff

Even if you're a Hoosier, there are almost certainly a few things here you didn't know:


Tomato juice was first served at a French Lick, Indiana, hotel in 1925.

The first tomato juice factory was also in French Lick.

The world's largest orchid species collection is found at Ball State University in Muncie.

The first regulated speed limit (20 - 25 mph!) was initiated on Indiana roads in 1921.

The steepest railroad grade in the world is in Madison.

An average of 400 funnel clouds are sighted each year in Indiana .

The city of Gary was built on fill brought from the bottom of Lake Michigan through suction pipes.

There are only two Adams fireplaces in the United States. One is in the White House and the other in the Diner Home in Indiana

Josie Orr, wife of former Indiana Gov. Robert Orr, flew bombers and cargo planes during World War II.

The Indianapolis Methodist Hospital is the largest Hospital in the Midwest.

One of the first complete bathrooms in Indianapolis was in the home of Hoosier poet, James Whitcomb Riley.

The career of Dorothy Lamour (famous for the Bing Crosby-Bob Hope
Road Movies) was launched in Indianapolis.

Aviatrix Amelia Earhart was once a Professor at Purdue University.

Crown Hill Cemetery in Indianapolis is the largest cemetery in the U.S.

The Allen County Library in Fort Wayne houses one of the largest genealogy libraries in America.

Wabash was the first electrified city in the U.S.

Pendleton was the site of the first hanging of a white man for killing Indians.

The Courthouse roof in Greensburg has a tree growing from it.

The world's first transistor radio was made in Indianapolis.

Clark Gable and wife Carole Lombard (born in Fort Wayne) honeymooned at Lake Barbee near Warsaw , Indiana .

The American Beauty Rose was developed at Richmond.

Elkhart is the band instrument capitol of the World.

Frank Sinatra first sang with the Tommy Dorsey band at the Lyric Theater in Indianapolis .

Purdue Alumnus Earl Butz served as the Secretary of Agriculture.

U.S. 231 is the longest highway in Indiana (231 miles).

Johnny Appleseed is buried at Fort Wayne.

The singing McGuire Sisters spent their childhood summers at the Church of God Campground in Anderson.

The main station of the Underground Railroad was in Fountain County.

There are 154 acres of sculpture gardens and trails at the Indianapolis Museum of Art.

Nancy Hanks Lincoln is buried in Posey County.

Crawfordsville is the only site in the world where crinoids are found. A crinoid is a form of deep-water marine life that looks something like a starfish.

Pendleton was the site of the 'Fall Creek Massacre.' A museum housing 3,500 artifacts of pioneer heritage now exists on that
site.

St. Meinrad Archabbey in Spencer County is one of only 2 archabbeys in the U.S. and seven in the world. (Abbey Press is an
operation of the archabbey.)

A German V-1 buzz bomb, believed to be the only one on public display in the nation, can be found on the Putnam County Courthouse
lawn in Greencastle.

Roberta Turpin Willett was born in Indiana.

James Dean was born and is buried in Indiana.

The world's tallest woman, Sandy Allen, lived in Indiana .

Red Skelton was born in Vincennes.

Mae West and Claude Akins were from Bedford.

The inventor of the television, Philo T. Farnsworth, lived in Fort Wayne.

Merry Christmas to me

Maria and I are doing our best to save money these days, even to the point of not exchanging Christmas gifts.

We saw to it that our children and grandchildren were taken care of, but austerity prevailed at this Flora house.

But God must have thought one of my wishes should be granted, so he caused Amazon.com to offer me a set of the new Bang & Olufsen H9 wireless headphones on Christmas Day.

Bang & Olufsen announced the latest headphones on Dec. 1 and they went on sale on the 8th for $499.

The Amazon Vine program has given me several B&O audio products in the past couple of years, starting with the H8 wireless headphones in February, 2015. They also offered me the H6 wired headphones and the lightweight Form 2i headphones last August, and an example of the Beoplay S3 wireless speaker.

Also, in March, 2015, they sent me a pair of Parrot ZIK 2.0 headphones to review.

So when I discovered the impending release of the H9 headphones in the early hours of Dec. 1, while sleeplessly surfing the web on my iPhone, I dared to hope the folks at the Vine Program would offer a set to me. And they did. On Christmas morning.

The UPS tracking site says they're on a truck for delivery today.

Schneesturm!

It snowed about an inch before dawn and caused a flurry of school closings. Those led to other closings that resulted in Maria and Morgan having the day off.

After 9 years in the south, I still find it amusing how ill-prepared these folks are for a little snow - an amount that would go practically unnoticed in Indiana.

Whatever. Jack and Dora don't seem to mind it.

Semper Fi

Eleven years ago today, we splashed a story about Crawfordsville native Phil Ward and his participation in the first flag-raising on Iwo Jima.

I had the amazing honor a couple of days earlier to speak with Raymond Jacobs, a member of the Marine recon patrol that raised the first flag on Iwo Jima.

Everyone has seen Associated Press photographer's iconic photo of the second flag-raising on Iwo. It's possibly the greatest photograph to come out of World War II and was the basis for the sculpture that is the U.S. Marine Corps Memorial in Washington, D.C.

The first flag-raising involved a smaller flag. Moments after the Marines erected the makeshift flagpole that was actually a water pipe the Japanese defenders had used to supply their fighting positions on the summit of Mt. Suribachi, the Japanese came out of their holes in the volcanic crater and attacked the Marines. They beat the attack back, but Staff Sgt. Lou Lowrey, who photographed the first flag-raising, tumbled down the slope and smashed his camera. Fortunately, the film was saved and we have this photo of the guys, including radioman Jacobs on the far right of this picture.

Jacobs is one of two surviving men from this photo. The other is Charles Lindberg.

Jacobs has an account of the action on another website and I was struck by this passage from it:

Just moments after the flag was raised we heard a roar from down below on the island.
Marines on the ground, still engaged in combat, raised a spontaneous yell when they saw the flag. Screaming and cheering so loud and prolonged that we could hear it quite clearly on top of Suribachi.

The boats on the beach and the ships at sea joined in blowing horns and whistles.

The celebration went on for many minutes. It was a highly emotional, strongly patriotic moment for all of us.

Jacobs was sorry to hear that Ward died a week or so before I called him and he corroborated Ward's account of the incident. I also spoke with other Marine veterans who insisted that the official U.S. Marine version of who was there was flat-out wrong.

The story went viral and was instrumental in the Marines revisiting the history of that day and confirming that Ward was, indeed, one of the first flag-raisers on Iwo.

It was the most gratifying story I ever wrote.

Page designer Karen Taylor outdid herself with the front page layout. Maria got a call from a reader later that day who said she had never seen a Journal Review front page like that.

"There's never been a Journal Review front page like that," Maria replied.

The laundry claims a victim

The garage door kept opening inexplicably yesterday and had me wondering if our new neighbors were making it happen. It didn't seem logical, since they almost certainly kept the garage door codes that came with the house when they bought it a couple of months ago.

Then, this morning I was taking clothes out of the dryer and found that I had sent my key fob remote garage door opener through the laundry. It is, of course, dead as a doornail.

I have a new one on order from Amazon.com for about $35. I noticed in the product description that the battery can be expected to last about five years, so mine was long overdue to fail.

I bought it to carry on motorcycles so I could easily operate the garage door, coming and going. It also comes in handy when I'm mowing the lawn and don't want to leave the garage door open because of the occasional snake or other varmint.

Worst riding year ever

This was the worst year for mileage in my 38-year motorcycling career. I only rode a pathetic 2,361 miles in 2016 and only made it to one rally. God willing, 2017 will be better.

Here is my accumulation of pins from rallies, events, organizations and other things. My first rally was the 1986 BMW MOA rally at Laguna Seca Raceway near Monterey, Calif.

Blink, blink, blink

Coming home from dinner last evening, I noticed the red and green navigation lights of our neighbor boy's Christmas drone, blinking merrily from the upper branches of a 40-foot-tall tree on the east side of their property and I wondered how many people who got drones for Christmas had a similar experience.

This is the week when newspapers and wire services pretend that people give a shit about their lists of the Top News Stories of 2016. It always struck me a silly self-indulgence to compile and publish those lists.

At the same time, I am mindful that the world that will greet us on Jan. 1, 2017 is very different from the world we inherited at the first of 2016.

A lot of celebrities and other people didn't live to see the new year, but there were some really wonderfully hopeful events in 2016, like the Brexit vote in Britain that may signal the collapse of the ill-conceived European Union and a resurgence of national pride in the UK. Also, the Chicago Cubs won their first World Series in more than a century.

But the most profoundly hopeful event in my adult life - the landslide victory of Donald Trump - came on Nov. 8. It, likewise, signals a resurgence of national pride in the U.S.

And like a demon being exorcised, Barack Obama is doing as much damage to this country as he possibly can between now and Jan. 20. I'm hopeful that whatever Obama can do, Trump can just as easily undo.

The last time I felt this positive and optimistic about a new president was 56 years ago when John Kennedy won the White House. That was back when you could be a patriotic American and a Democrat. My parents were both and they would be horrified to see what has become of the party they followed in those days.

Lisa!

Granddaughter Lisa loves the Alexander Hamilton biography we sent her for Christmas.

Out of retirement

Maria and I came out of retirement as wedding photographers today to shoot the wedding of our neighbor's son.

We just finished reviewing the images and are pleased with the results.

Driving Miss Sadie

I picked up Sadie Jo on the road this morning and returned her to her family who were worried sick because she didn't come home last night.

The neighbor boy, who was jogging past when I got her into my car, said they have continued to feed her and that she slept at their house last night, contrary to the expressed wishes of her owner.

This has all the earmarks of a neighborhood feud and I have no desire to be involved.

In the meantime, I took Sadie Jo to the post office before I got a Facebook Messenger response telling me where she lives.

So true

It can never be easy

Maria asked me to repair the faucet in the kitchen sink today because it had been dripping.

I found the screw that holds the handle in place was so tight that it snapped the head off of the tool, leaving the head in the screw, probably permanently.

I think the only fix is to drill out the screw and replace the handle assembly, which will require a trip to the hardware store over the weekend.

Testing, testing...

Testing a 14-year-old Nikon D100 that hasn't been used in more than a decade. The batteries were beyond recovering, so I bought replacements.

This is the view out of our front door at a yard full of leaves that I'm trying to ignore.

The temperature is 55º which is probably the warmest it will be for the next week or two, since Arctic weather is bearing down on us from the northwest.

Boscos comes up with a really lame mug

Yesterday was "New Mug Day" for Mug Club members at Boscos Squared restaurant in Memphis.

Jonesboro BMW riding friends Charlie and Deb introduced us to Boscos several years ago and I joined their mug club in 2012. For $60, you get a numbered mug of your own to use through the coming year. It holds more than a regular glass of beer and lives in a rack above the bar. And you get to take it home at the end of the year.

The 2012 was the coolest I've seen - a clever design mocking the Mayan calendar prediction of the end of the world. It was downhill from there. The next year's mug looked like something out of your grandmother's kitchen and the following years brought similarly unimaginative designs.

This year, the price jumped to $80 for a special 25th anniversary commemorative mug. I had high expectations that were cruelly dashed yesterday when I saw the cheesy 2017 mug made by Libbey Glassware with a metal emblem attached. It holds maybe 20% more beer than the previous mugs, but I think it looks cheap. I was hoping for something more British or German-looking.

In fact, if I'd known what it looked like in advance, I wouldn't have renewed my membership.

Sold

I just sold this WWII German soldier's shaving kit on Ebay for $100. Woo-hoo!

Semper Fi!

I'm reading a biography of the legendary Marine Lt. Gen. Lewis "Chesty" Puller, which makes me even happier that Donald Trump is apparently going to name retired Gen. James "Mad Dog" Mattis as Secretary of Defense.

Somewhere, Chesty Puller is smiling.

Sadie Jo

I was in my upstairs office about 45 minutes after Maria left for work when I heard barking- from the garage. I investigated and found our neighbor dog Sadie Jo looking forlornly out the window. She apparently slipped into the garage and got trapped when Maria put the overhead door down. I gave her a handful of IAMS and made sure she was outside when I lowered the door.

19 years gone

My Dad died on Nov. 23, 1997 at St. Elizabeth Health Care Center in Delphi.

I miss him every day.

Five years of Gentleman Jack

We brought Jack home from Briarbrook Kennels in Carthage, Mo. five years ago today.

Like today, Nov. 20, 2011 was a Sunday.

Maria found Briarbrook online and we narrowed our choices down to a black tri puppy initially named Luke who had charmingly stuck his tongue out and smiled for his online portrait.

Maria held him much of the way home after he pooped and barfed in the crate we brought along in the back of the Subuaru Forester.

He made unearthly, bizarre sounds that first night away from his mom and littermates, but quickly adapted to his new forever home.

Two of his grandfathers were Best of Breed at the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Shows and he has a very noble bearing, in addition to a very sweet disposition.

Dad's jigsaw

I bought this Black & Decker jigsaw as a birthday or Christmas present for my dad way back in 1964 or 1965.

I don't know that he ever used it and it was still in the house when we cleared it out after Mom died in 2000.

I haven't used it since then - until yesterday when we ran into a problem threading a steel braided water supply line for the new dishwasher through two offset holes in cabinet partitions. Maria asked if we had a coping saw and I suddenly remembered this saw on the bottom shelf in our tool/utility room.

It worked like a champ and saved us much time and anguish.

Thanks, Dad.

Dishwasher problem solved

I never got a return call from Strong Arm Appliance Service yesterday so Maria and I drove down to Lowe's and bought a $350 Whirlpool on sale for $270. We had it loaded into the Lexus and spent most of today removing the old machine and installing the new one.

All by ourselves.

Thank God for YouTube instructional videos.

WTF?

We've been without a fully functional dishwasher for more than three weeks and spent $353 on repairs that didn't fix it - $148 to put in a new heating element and another $205 for a new circuit board. Today saw the arrival of a third technician who determined that we need a new keypad - the buttons you push to select various features and start the wash cycle. It will be another $180.

That would mean $533 to get the dishwasher working and we still have a 10-year-old dishwasher.

Lowe's is running an early Black Friday sale and will sell us a new, more energy efficient model for $279.

I left word with the appliance repair folks that they have until 5 p.m. to tell me they will waive the charge for a new keypad (since there is now some question about whether I needed to spend $205 for a circuit board) or else they can cancel the keypad order and I'll go to Lowe's.

I didn't mention that I will share this nasty little saga on social media.

Relieved

I didn't realize what a toll the political scene was taking on my mental well-being until I woke up Nov. 8 to a Trump victory.

Now, more than a week later, the sense of relief is still present and strong.

We may still be in grave peril, but at least my gut feeling that the country would repudiate the Democrat policies and vision was validated beyond my wildest imagination.

At first, I was annoyed by the liberals who posted endless screeds cataloging every imagined evil associated with a Trump presidency. I cut them a lot of slack, remembering how crushed I was eight years ago when those same morons elected Obama.

Now, reflecting in the wake of their week-long temper tantrum, I've come to regard them as just pathetic. They imagine they can reverse the will of the electorate, pretending that Hillary won the popular vote, which she did not, and that they can somehow influence a huge change in the electoral college through maverick electors or by abolishing it altogether.

I would pity them if their aims were not so dangerous.

This is what we get for letting progressives run the schools and teach revisionist history to a couple of generations.

Carpe diem

The 5½-year-old battery in my BMW K1200GT is on its last legs and I had serious doubts whether I could nurse it through the winter on a trickle charger and wait for warm weather to ride to a dealer for a replacement.

The forecast for today and tomorrow was sunny and warm, followed by a rainy cold front on Friday and cold and rain for the rest of the month.

So I called Performance Plus Specialists, the Memphis BMW dealer, this morning and discovered they could put a new battery in for me today. I left about 10 a.m., arriving at their shop around 11:50. About a half-hour later, they were done and I was loading my tank bag and GPS for the trip home. I arrived home about 1:15 p.m. from a trip that I fully expected would have me still on the road when the sun sets at 4:53 p.m. The cost was about $20 more than the $247 I paid in May, 2011 at Bloodworth BMW Motorcycles in Nashville, but there is something to be said for working quickly.

Now I can look forward to the 2017 riding season with confidence.

Who knows? I may make it to Daytona next year.

Four years gone

Our beloved Pete, our first Aussie, left us to go to the Rainbow Bridge four years ago today.

He inherited a defective liver that finally caught up with him a little past his seventh birthday.

He was the sweetest dog I ever knew and I miss him.

Trump Derangement Syndrome

Facebook continues to abound in hateful screeds by idiots suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome.

They're making up all kinds of excuses for his smashing victory and trying to dream up ways the Electoral College can nullify the vote and make Hillary Clinton president.

One of the most unhinged is a guy I went to high school with who is absolutely certain that Donald Trump is the anti-Christ and the reincarnation of Adolf (he spells it with a ph) Hitler. Every few hours he posts a new rant, each crazier than the one before. I have chosen not to respond because, as we all know, the only thing crazier than a crazy person is trying to reason with a crazy person.

I am convinced that the Liberal trauma would have been less if the mainstream media had not spent the past year assuring us that Trump could not possibly win and deluding people with bogus polls showing Hillary with a commanding lead. It great measure, this shock and disbelief is a consequence of deliberate misrepresentation and self-delusion by the very people who are supposed to be objective truth-seekers.

As one who spent most of his adult life in journalism, I spotted the bias early on. I also recognized that a lot of Americans weren't buying it and hated the direction the country was headed under Obama. Anyone who paid attention to the repudiation of Obama policies in the off-year Congressional elections knew this was coming. The political pendulum had swung so far to the left that it was time for it to swing back to the right. With a vengeance.

Now, all we can do is wait for George Soros's paid minions to exhaust themselves and fade away, just like his Occupy Wall Street people did.

30 years ago today

I made this ride 30 years ago today. Here's the story I wrote for the BMW Motorcycle Owners of America magazine:
I knew when I woke up in my Baton Rouge, Louisiana motel room I had to go for it.
My end-of-the-season ride to the warmth of New Orleans and Louisiana was about to end. The 'Siberian Express," a killer blast of Arctic air, was charging into the eastern half of the United States, dropping temperatures to record lows and threatening my return ride to Indiana.
Even without a proper cold weather riding suit, I figured I could handle a little cold, but the vision of freezing rain in Tennessee or snow in Kentucky added a real sense of urgency.
The alternative of holing up for a couple of days meant I'd miss seeing my son star in his high school musical, I knew I had to race the Express to Indianapolis.
The massive cold front was advancing on a northeast-to-southwest diagonal, and my plan was to avoid it as long as possible by riding northeast to Birmingham, Ala.before making the dash north.
It was in the low 50s and misting when I rolled out of the motel parking lot at 7:15 a.m.
Over jeans and a turtleneck, I wore my Eclipse electric vest and chaps, and my lightweight Fairweather riding suit. A fresh pair of
foam earplugs were firmly in place to fight wind noise fatigue, and a silk balaclava and pair of Thinuslate-lined riding gloves completed the ensemble.
About two miles up the road, I pulled over to add a heavy wool shirt to the outfit.
In doing so, I had the optimistic thought I'd probably shed it soon as I rode east and into the warmth of day.
Sure.
The 1000cc BMW made quick work of Louisiana, boring a neat hole in the wind east along I-12 to Hammond and north on I-55 to the Mississippi line. The mist came and went. But after a refueling stop at McComb, Miss., it got heavier. And colder.
I tucked in behind the RS fairing,looking for warmth.
Despite the nagging realization that frequent stops were counterproductive, I pulled into a rest park to see if my Rukka rainsuit would fit over everything else I was wearing.
It did, but zipping it up meant rerouting the power cord from the vest and chaps down my right sleeve to the outlet near the right handgrip.
Back on the road, I was relieved to find I was - at last - reasonably comfortable.
Now for some serious riding.
Except for a 15-minute breakfast stop at McDonald's somewhere east of Jackson, Miss. (the hot air hand dryers in the restroom were great for restoring feeling to chilled hands), the only stops for the next eight hours were for gas.
My Rl00RS goes onto reserve around 200 miles, but I started looking for ethanol-free stations whenever the trip meter rolled up 175 miles.
The I-20 run across Mississippi and Alabama dissolved into a blur of impressions-log trucks laden with long, dangling, bouncing pine tree trunks; a dead deer at the side of the road, leapfrogging the some slower traffic after each gas stop.
The sun came out around Birmingham and I was able to switch off the electrics for a couple of hours as I rode north on I-65 through Alabama's autumn colors.
Crossing into Tennessee, however, it become clear I was on a collision course with the Siberian Express.
The light was fading and it was misting as I wolfed down a bacon cheeseburger at a Hardee's south of Nashville and studied the map. Time was running out, and it was getting colder by the hour.
I wondered if Bowling Green or Louisville might not be prudent overnight stops, but realized it would be colder still the next morning. There was no choice but to go on.
As I sped north, I noticed people in cars were beginning to stare at me in surprise. The temperature was down to 38 when I stopped for gas north of Nashville, and the cashier questioned my sanity.
At Horse Cave, KY, I stopped for coffee. Hoping my rainsuit seams would hold, I added another pair of pants and a light jacket to my outfitand stuffed a t-shirt into my helmet for added insulation. I was beginning to look like Mr.Bip, the Michelin tire man, but that was the least of my concerns.
At a gas and coffee stop near Jeffersonville, Ind., a motorist cheerfully announced it was snowing when he left Indianapolis earlier in the evening. No matter. This was the home stretch.
The cashier at the Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet in Columbus, lnd., stared in disbelief as stomped up to the counter for a cup of coffee some 50 miles farther north.
The final 50 miles were the toughest as the mercury continued dropping and nasty crosswinds developed.
I occupied myself searching for on elusive spot in the air envelope where the wind couldn't knife around the edge of my face shield and sear my face.
A time-and-temperature sign just off l-65 in Indianapolis read 25 degrees when I passed it on the last few
miles to home.
It was about this point when I realized that, other than being excruciatingly cold, I didn't feel all that bad for having covered 880 miles in 15 hours, Had it been summer, I might have ridden another 120 miles just to make it on even 1,000.
Maybe next time.

Mr. Buck

Mr. Buck has peered out of our garage window for a couple of years now and wants to move on.

Happily, I got a response to his ad on the Jonesboro Online Facebook Yard Sale and am making arrangements to transfer him to his new home tomorrow.

Smart dog

I'm Facebook friends with a guy I worked with at the beginning of our newspaper careers. He and I were flaming liberals in those days and supported Eugene McCarthy in his quest for the 1968 Democrat nomination for president.

I grew up, but he didn't. Even though he's retired and old enough to know better, he supported Hillary Clinton this year. He just posted this on his Facebook wall:

This really happened. We went to the dog park today. A nice border collie sauntered up and peed on me, with no warning. His owner was mortified. Strange thing is, it wasn't the worst thing that happened in the last 24 hours. Not even close...

If you ever needed proof of the intelligence of border collies, here it is.

Our prayers were answered

A lot of my Facebook friends are throwing tantrums today because their liberal fantasy blew up in their faces overnight.

I know how a defeat like this feels. I experienced it eight years ago and again four years ago. Get the fuck over it.

I somehow managed to suppress my schadenfreude on Facebook, although I'm sure I wouldn't have been granted the same courtesy if the vote had gone the other way.

But it didn't.

The American people, as Greg Gutfeld so aptly pointed out last night, gave a huge collective "Fuck you" to Hillary, Obama, the liberal elites, the liberal sheep, a mass media that has become an arm of the Democrat National Committee, and anyone else who wants to tell them what to think and what to do. I'm honored that I could play a minuscule part in this historic swing of the pendulum back to the right.

I went to the Newseum web site just now and scanned the nation's newspaper front pages for an good image. I chose the front page of the Sioux Falls, S.D., Argus Leader because they obviously know how to play a good photo.

Maria and I awoke this morning with smiles on our faces and joy in our hearts. I feel like an enormous weight has been lifted from my shoulders and the anxiety and stress of this horrific campaign is gone.

WWII German 88mm fuse

Here's an interesting item I inherited from my late father-in-law.

It's a German artillery shell fuse and its bakelite case. For safety, the Germans kept the shells and the fuses separate until ready for use. The fuses, being more delicate, were shipped in bakelite cases.

This particular fuse is most likely for an 88mm gun, most commonly used for antiaircraft and antitank action. At least the consensus on one of the Facebook militaria groups is that it's for an 88.

That makes sense because my late father-in-law was in the 144th Field Artillery Group. He told me they captured a few 88s as they fought their way across France and down through Germany to Bavaria and eventually Austria. He said they added the German guns to their inventory, so it would be natural that he would have had access to 88mm fuses.

Another day of selling

I met two buyers this evening in the Sonic parking lot and sold a watch and another trail cam.

Woo-hoo!

Fourth sale!

I just sold this humane animal trap to a couple who recently bought a 110-acre farm and have raccoons eating their corn crop. They paid the asking price of $25. This is almost like having a real job.