2018 - Year in Review

Well as always the year had its ups and downs. 

Chelsea graduated from Ohio State, so that was a big event.  The actual graduation was a cattle call,  lines of students walking through and getting their diplomas en masse.  Still it was Chelsea's day and after grinding through school and investing the time and money, it was worth it for her to have her moment in the limelight.

It was turbulent in the homestretch as Dan's mother was in a bad car wreck - bad enough that she was in a coma.  So the decision was made to come back to help with her business and also to help her recover.  Poor Chelsea had to commute to and from Columbus during the last of her time at OSU.  So that made it all the more difficult.

They now live in house trailer on our property and Chelsea is redirecting her career and is thinking of becoming a school teacher now - specializing in science.  She is substituting now to get a feel for it and is making plans to take the needed coursework to become a full time teacher for next year.

We celebrated her graduation with a trip to North Carolina's Outer Banks.  We rented a house down there for a week. The stay had its moments to say the least.

Annabelle is doing well in school and wants Mommy to come substitute teach in her class someday. Chelsea said that you need to tell your teacher to call in sick someday.  Sterling is mischievous as always.

Vanessa and Eric are maintaining.  Vanessa has become a girl Friday or maybe a better term is a facilitator for her church. It has grown and has 2 services on Sunday mornings now.  With the growth, scheduling and planning became more chaotic. So she was hired part time to help keep everything running smoothly. Eric made the switch to Pepsi and is good with the change.  Slightly better hours and scheduling so that he can spend more time with family.

Elaina is now in Junior High, hard to imagine having a grandchild that old. Violet tried her hand at cheerleading (Ugh), but this winter tried basketball - and is liking it (Yeah!).  Elliot has been a handful at times in preschool, maybe he has my temper.  And young Thomas is getting around and talking, so he is at a fun age.

Joe and Sam bought their 1st house in New Lebanon this fall.  They bought a house trailer and are acting as their own realtors after the realtor they hired simply wasn't performing - no show on appointments, not returning calls, etc.  Sam has a new job, she works in the office of Dayton Freight. Joe has a new boss.  The owner of LaVecke Lighting retired and sold off the business. The new owner is an electrical engineer.  Joe is excited because they are looking more into the controller market where companies control lighting and electrical service operations via computer.  So potentially new products to sell down the road.

Ryker is trying to run his preschool.  I guess the one day the teacher sat down for story time.  So Ryker did not care for the story as he told the teacher - "Could you stop now, we are going over to the toy box and play with cars." He then grabbed another boy and left the group.

Chad and Sarah are also maintaining. No big changes for 2018. He is still a mechanic for Montgomery County.  She is still teaching. His project dujour is rebuilding a backhoe.  He is trying to bring it back to life as he has some tile on his property that he wants to redo. He has done a good job of fixing our vehicles this year, it is nice to have a mechanic in the family.  I can do some of my own work, but these modern vehicles can be so difficult to diagnose and repair.

Cash is still enjoying working on little projects and putting stuff together. Definitely headed for being a mechanic or doing something mechanical in the future.  Serenity is enjoying her school and is doing well.

Me and Becky are counting down to retirement.  February of 2019 has been selected.  Getting the i's dotted and t's crossed have been a pain. Becky qualifies for medicare as she is disabled, but we have insured her under my insurance all these years.  Making the change from private insurance to medicare has been a major undertaking.  Much wailing and gnashing of teeth.  The battle is not over -we are dealing with bureaucrats and they are unflinching in their enforcement of nonsensical rules. But hopefully by January things will have been worked out.

Tilton Tales

With the family coming together this weekend to memorialize uncle Danny.  There has been a lot of swapping of tales and family lore.  So I figured that I would save some of these tidbits before they are lost in the passage of time, so here they are in no particular order:

Uncle Rusty remembers that the 3 boys had bedrooms upstairs in West Alexandria and that it had some vents cut in the floor to allow the heat to rise. It got cold up there and so sometimes wind would blow snow around the edges of the window and there would be a thin layer of snow on the floor close to the window.  They ended up stuffing socks around the edges as best they could to keep the wind and snow out.

Another time they had raised a pig.  So having no truck they put the pig in the trunk of their car and took it to the butcher in West Alexandria.  They backed it up to the chute and as soon as they popped the hood, the pig took off like a shot.  Grandma Garret and the boys chased it around the cemetery in West Alex. Finally they got the idea of going back to their place and getting a bucket to lure it back to the butcher shop.  That finally worked and they got it back to the butcher shop - probably a few pounds lighter than it would have been without the workout.

Grandpa Jack remembers the time that me and Matt decided to help Dad by filling up his truck.  Only with a garden hose...  He was suspicious when the truck would not start and there was a garden hose laying nearby. He had to drain the tank and refill it with gas to get it running again.  We were only like 6-7 years old, it was hard for him to get angry at us.

Another time he ran into a parent at the store and asked him how the first week of contact at football practice was going.  He had been working and hadn't had a chance to swing by and see how things were going. He said, "The only ones hitting are your boys - and they are hitting each other!" I was playing center and they put Matt at nose tackle when we practiced plays.  Neither one of us was going to let the other show up the other.  So we went to the whistle on every play.  They only did that for a practice or two and then split us up.  If they hadn't we surely would have killed each other.

Both Uncle Rusty and Dad had memories of their grandfather (John Henry) who had a business in Drexel.  Coal in the winter and ice in the summer. Sometimes the grandkids would ride with him on his stops and ride on top of the ice in back of the truck.  That came to an end when the tail gate became unlatched one day and they all spilled out of the back!

In a backroom, there was a bootleg slot machine.  Customers would come in and try the machine for a nickel a play.  If they left and hadn't hit, they would beg nickels because they knew it was due for a win.  More often than not, they would get a winner and pay him back - then have money to spend.

Uncle Rusty's father - Dale Sr.  was in world war 2.  He spent some time in North Africa and was in Normandy.  He was part of a crew on a half track.  They saw a lot of action.  They used molotov cocktails against tanks because they didn't have much firepower to knock them out. They would throw the molotov cocktail on the tank and catch it on fire, then shoot the crew when they tried to escape.

 They caught a bunch of germans in a staff car and took them out.  Another time a sniper was shooting from a brick building.  Their bullets weren't having much effect and so they just rammed the building to eliminate him.

His tour came to an end when they were engaged by a 88 cannon in France during the breakout from Normandy.  They had seen them in North Africa and knew that they were very accurate.  They would first fire 2 shots.  One to get the range, another to get the angle ( left/right ).  The third shot would be dead on.  So they saw the first two shots and knew that they would not make cover before the 3rd.  So they stopped the halftrack.  4 of the guys took cover under the halftrack, he dove into the ditch.  The 4 guys under the halftrack died.  He woke up a week later, naked, in a hospital in England.

Dad told of the time that us kids were playing hide and seek in the house.  I hid Misty in the deep freeze!  he was not happy about it - but Misty explained that I showed how not to let it shut all the way.  It was summer and she said actually it wasn't bad in there. And the important thing - she won!

Dad played football for a spell for the West Alexandria Bulldogs.  He was a safety - about 5'9" and 145 pounds dripping wet. There was a fullback from Dixie that over 200 pounds.  He busted through the line and Dad filled the hole and tackled him.  Right away he knew something was wrong. He went to the sideline and told the coach "I think I broke my collarbone."   And sure enough the bone was actually sticking through the skin. That ended his career for good.  He also mentioned that most helmets at that time did not have facemasks.  Only players with glasses would wear one.

Uncle Rusty had a close call coming home after a night on the town when he was young.  He was speeding and lost control of his car in Dayton.  He slid through a gas station and took out a couple of gas pumps.  Totalled the car - and this was before seat belts were as big a thing as they are now.  He was able to walk away from the wreck - although he was dinged up.   Another time he was fooling around with his motorcycle in his yard.  It had a little hill and he went airborne.   He went up in the air and landed on his butt - hurt his back for quite a while from that little escapade.

My memories of Uncle Dan

Recently Uncle Danny passed away and so I wanted to post a few of my memories of him.  My earliest memory is of when he lived with us in the old farmhouse. He stayed there for awhile after he graduated.  I must have been a toddler, but I recall having a bad dream where there was a gorilla in the bedroom (hey, I was a kid and kids have weird dreams).  He settled me down and told me that it was just a dream that there was no gorilla in the room.

He started down his path with a LaSalle class that he took on architecture/drafting.  One of these deals where there was a matchbook and it had a phone number on the cover to contact LaSalle Institute to get a degree.  He made the call and took a correspondence course.  After he got this degree, his career was set.

He designed houses and built some in New Lebanon.  He designed my Dad's house and even designed his own place.  I remember going with my Dad from time to time when he would help on these projects.  Me and Matt helped cut out door frames and other simple tasks.

He went to work for Pitney Bowes and helped to design office machines. Later he decided to again start a new business.  He designed and made a printer and was able to make a huge sale.  But the marketing guy was not able to follow up and they ended up dissolving the partnership. But he tried - threw the dice and made a good effort. In his later years he did government contracting and helped design modern landing craft for the marines and other similar projects.

He retired to Kentucky - close to Cumberland lake. And he finally passed away.  I know he smoked most of his life, so that was probably a factor. But then once you hit your seventies, each day is not promised.

Graduation Note to Shane

Young Shane,

It has been a long path to get to this point.  There have been many minor milestones along the way, but graduating from high school is a major milestone in everyones life.  This whole crazy school thing has been a right of passage to get to this point.  An artificial environment in which you have to navigate and not long after it is over, you will realize that very little of the experience or the education has prepared you for the real world.  What have I been doing for the past 12 years???

As I have done so often in the past – I will share some quotations from Shakespeare – the first one is that “Advice is wasted on the young.”   You are 18, when someone twice or thrice your age gives advice, at least give it some consideration.  You have to consider the source – particularly when listening to me! But someone older has life experience that you should at least think about before discarding.

“Neither a lender nor a borrower be.”  Lending  - particularly to friends seldom ends well.  So if someone asks for a short loan let them know that you are tight too.  And borrowing is fraught with danger.  It is easy to get that 1^st credit card and easy to charge this and charge that and suddenly you have ginormous payments to make every month.   Get a gas card and pay it off every month. That will build your credit. Then after you have a good credit history get an American Express card. It charges an annual fee – but more importantly – you have to pay the full balance at the end of every month.  So you won’t accumulate a balance like you would with a Visa or Mastercard

“All things in moderation.”  Alcohol, food, love and so forth – all in moderation.  Always be in control and don’t let your passions control you.   I have a friend of mine who is a great guy to hang around with, but when he drinks, he puts the pedal to the metal and just gets crazy drunk.  Don’t be that guy.  And when you think that something is getting the better of you, stop for a month and see if you can do with out it.

Last word that I had was that you were planning a career in law enforcement.  I think that is a honorable career – a difficult career, but honorable.  First get rid of your tells – when you are nervous or uncertain you shuffle your feet and clench/unclench your hands.  So get rid of these traits.  Always be calm and steady even when you are in the eye of storm.  Even when you are scared to death – inside you may be hollow and scared to death, but outward you must project strength and certainty.

I dealt with the public as a telephone man and later in cable tv.  It won’t take long and you will enter a house and in about a minute or less, you will be able to get a feel for the other guy.  You will be able to read personalities and get a vibe about them.  Trust your gut, if something doesn’t feel right – there is something up.  

Oh and always do the honorable thing. I have a friend who was a deputy.  Don’t let a crook talk you into doing something on the other side of the law.  Because now they have a hammer over you – they can blow you in for aiding and abetting or whatever.  He stayed on the straight and narrow, but knew of another cop who got caught up in some bad crap helping some crooks and got busted.  Do you want to be a cop in prison with the same people you put in there??? 

But you are young, the world is in front of you.  Remember the only person that limits you – is you.  Don’t be afraid to change careers, change states, travel - go do what you want to do.  Before long the world will grind you down, have fun now while you can still bounce back!

Anyway enclosed is $50, have some fun – but not too much fun.

turkeys and time

Went turkey hunting this past weekend at Rose Hill. The trip was not successful from the standpoint of bringing home a bird for the table. We will need to get a Butterball turkey at Krogers for that. But it was successful as far as getting away from it all and spending time with nature. There are worse ways to spend a weekend.

 I did get off of a shot and perhaps I was too hasty and got off a hurried shot and missed completely. Or, as I later reflected, my ammo was about 10 years old - it may not have had enough oomph to get the job done. I did the math - the last time I went turkey hunting was with Joe when he was like 15 or so. From my perspective, it didn't seem possible that it was 10 years ago.

 Then later in the afternoon I felt my boot heel start flopping. I sat down on a log to survey the damage. The entire sole was separating from my long trusted hunting boots. I had gotten them when I was 41, after my heart attack. When that happened I had resolved to start doing the things that I had been putting off - fishing, hunting, and travelling. Not many things crossed off my bucket list at that time. So I got the boots to go deer hunting. I had sought out a pair of Wolverines as those were the brand that my grandfather carried in his store and they have served me well. So 17 years, I calculated as I looked at the worn leather. It didn't seem possible that it was that long ago when I had first pulled them out of their box. Now they were wore out, spent.

 The days are long, but the decades are short is one expression that I have heard from folks my age and older, and it certainly seems to apply. So I will buy some more outdoor gear and get set for next season. I have some grandchildren to take adventuring and teach them to enjoy their time and adventure now - before their days grow long. Now where is that Wolverine website - I need to get going before I am wore out and spent!