Bluebirds of Happiness

 

Little Jimmy Dickens never met our bluebirds or he would have changed the lyrics to his 1965 novelty hit song from “Bird of Paradise” to “Bluebird of Georgia.” Have you ever heard Johnny Carson’s comedic curse, uttered at his audience for laughing when his side-kick, Ed McMahon, announced the end of any Carnac episode? The insults ranged from elephants stepping on your feet to the famous “May the bird of paradise fly up your nose.” Little Jimmy Dickens took the resulting ditty, written by Neal Merrit, to 18 weeks on the Billboard pop chart. Personally, I think he could have used our pretty little bluebirds instead.

Understanding and protecting the pretty blue and orange songbirds that crash into our front window for hours on end, startling us every single time they hit the glass panes, has us in a predicament. It is always hard to assimilate the idealistic image of perfection and happiness with the aggravation and distaste of reality. The guilt one feels toward disliking the pretty birds is distressing, but the pretty, fluttery images of happiness and love are really hard to live with. Really, wipe off your shoes and come on in.

They arrive back in middle Georgia in late spring, just in time for the nesting season. Actually, it is their first of three nesting seasons they’ll have once they’re back in our neighborhood. Luckily for us, they tend to abandon their first nest and move on to deface someone else’s front porch once the first brood leaves the nest. Where do they love to nest? Under our roof of course, right over our front door. They love the tiny ledge where the soffit meets the fascia, preferably in a corner. If you don’t know where the soffit or the fascia is you are probably a renter.

The piles of mud that inexplicably appear on your front porch are the first indicator the universal symbols of peace and friendship have decided to honor your home with their presence. You instinctively look up only to find the underside of your soffit stained with streaks of mud as the little birds prove they are capable of carrying far more than they weigh. Quick! Get the hose and blast it off there! Don’t let them get a nest started. If you do, you’ll be like us when we first moved in to our house.

The nest wasn’t there when we did our final walk-through before closing on the house, but by the time we moved in they had not only built a nest, but filled it with three eggs as well. I had to use a stepladder and my cellphone as a camera to see inside the nest, but once I found it had eggs, it was off-limits, untouchable until the fledglings flew the nest. I decided, after cleaning the stoop for a month, the only way to prevent it from happening again was to build a decorative barrier or trim that left them no space to build their mud and straw refuge in the future. But life gets in the way, and once they left and I removed the empty nest, I completely forgot about the pretty little birds that pooped regularly in front of my door. Until two weeks ago, and I found I again needed the garden hose to clean my porch. They were back.

The battle has been in full swing. They are tenacious creatures. No sooner do I wash down the soffit than one of them flutters in and smears the pristine white paint trim with more dirty red clay. My homeowners association would definitely not approve red or any other mud on the front of the house and I don’t care much for it, either. I searched my garage for something I could fit on the ledge that would prevent them from getting any kind of foothold, but after spending an afternoon mounting diagonal pieces of Styrofoam to block the ledge, I found they weren’t deterred. The smearing and droppings continued, they just spread it further around the porch! I said they were persistent.

My neighbor suggested I paint the ceiling sky blue to fool them into thinking they were out in the open, but I don’t want a blue ceiling. That would almost be as distasteful as the dripping mud. Besides, I don’t think it would fool the messy transients for even a minute. Yesterday I mounted full size panels around the inside of the alcove ceiling so there is no flat space left for the little stinkers, er, symbols of peace and happiness, to form a foothold. They have flown in, hovered, and flown out several times now. I’ll check daily for the next several weeks, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see a nest sticking out from the wall on stilts.

You think I’m being unfair? You think I’m not Eco-friendly? We, who had alligators in our backyard, opossums in our pump house, and bobcats under our mailbox, not co-existants with nature? [I just made up the word coexistant to describe a participant of coexistence as there is currently no word in English for that particular noun. I don’t want to use coexistent as that is a state or condition, not a member or participant. Really, Google “one who coexists” and let me know what you come up with. I’ll happily credit you with my edification.]

My 15 year old granddaughter suggested coexister, which is far more accurate than Google’s Co-pilot, their AI program, which came back with this jewel:

Copilot

Certainly! A person who coexists with others can be described in various ways, depending on the context. Here are some terms you might find relevant:

1. Conciliator: A conciliator is someone who helps different parties or groups find common ground and peacefully coexist by resolving conflicts or disputes.

2. Harmonizer: A harmonizer promotes unity and balance, allowing diverse elements to coexist in a harmonious way.

3. Peacemaker: A peacemaker actively works to maintain peace and understanding among individuals or groups, ensuring they can coexist without conflict.

4. Tolerant Individual: Someone who practices tolerance and acceptance, allowing others to live alongside them despite differences.

Remember that these terms emphasize different aspects of coexistence, but they all reflect the idea of living together harmoniously. 🌟🤝

If you need more synonyms or have any other questions, feel free to ask!😊

Well, may the bird of paradise fly up your nose! No, wait, wait, how about, may the bluebirds of Georgia fly up your nose! There. That’s perfect.

May The Bird Of Paradise Fly Up Your Nose – Written 1965 by Neal Merritt

Sung by Little Jimmy Dickens

George

Concept

 

My muse loves to tease me. Here I am, busy looking for nonsense I can contradict on Facebook and immediately I can tell it’s bored because I have the urge to type something even though I have no idea about what. My muse can be as dull and mechanical as it is romantic and spontaneous, so I won’t define my muse by gender, that simply wouldn’t be fair. It can be boring at times, but it is never to be ignored. Let’s see what pops out this time. Aaah! It has to do with concepts! What is the best possible definition of concept I can think of? According to Google’s dictionary, Oxford languages, a concept is “an abstract idea; a general notion.” Ask a religious person where heaven is, my muse whispers.

And my fingers start as if by remote control. My muse takes over!

First, understand that all religions believe in some sort of life after death. Whether it be reincarnation, resurrection, or rebirth of some kind, there must be a holding tank, so to speak, and in Christianity, that area is “heaven,” where all deceased Christian’s souls are held, waiting for the Resurrection upon which they will be returned to earth in physical bodies as their former selves. While there is no scientific evidence of an afterlife, the concept has been handed down generation to generation for well over over two thousand years – long before mankind had ever seen a penguin – creating a strange, surrealistic dogma that is in conflict with not just human logic, but proven facts as well.

The generally accepted concept of heaven is loosely based on angels flying around with harps and a set of big, pearly gates that everyone has to pass through to gain access to everlasting life. How pearly gates got into the act is beyond me or my muse, so, for guidance, I went to Wikipedia:

“In some Christian denominations, the Pearly Gates are an informal name for the gateway to Heaven. The name is inspired by Revelation 21:21, which describes the New Jerusalem as ‘twelve gates, each gate being made for each tribe of Israel.’ In popular culture, the gates are depicted as large gold, white, or wrought-iron gates in the clouds, guarded by Saint Peter, the keeper of the ‘keys to the kingdom.’"

I still don’t know how the gates became pearly, but that is the best explanation AI can currently come up with.

If someone points up at the sky and says, “heaven is in the sky above,” they are ignoring the fact the earth is round. Sky is relative only to where you may be at the moment. If everyone on earth all pointed up at the sky at the same time, they would be pointing to every point of the universe. Some would pointing toward the sun or the moon or Andromeda or wherever the earth happened to be in its daily rotation. Some would be in daylight, some in darkness. No one would be pointing in the same direction. This leads to two distinct possibilities: One, there is no heaven, or two, heaven is not where everybody thinks it is.

We know life, as we know it, anyway, does not exist outside of our atmosphere and that atmosphere does not extend very far up into the not-so-magical sky. Can heaven be located in a non-life supporting environment? Could it be on Mars? How about over in another galaxy? What is life, by the way. Simply put, life is a condition that naturally converts matter from one form to another using energy. Yep! That’s it! Any physical entity that uses matter to convert to energy that is used to create matter in a different form for its own sustenance is alive. Taking a leaf of lettuce and converting that form into bone cells or skin or feathers or driving an organ that rationalizes and compares is is a great example of life. The kicker we humans don’t understand is where in the chain did lettuce learn to convert dirt, light, and water into glycosylated flavonoids, phenolic acids, carotenoids, vitamin B groups, ascorbic acid, tocopherols, and sesquiterpene lactones that other life forms learned to consume in the first place?

But how about a dimension that mortal humans simply can not imagine? One where life as we know it is not sustained, but in a different form from our limited knowledge it might flourish. Is heaven perhaps a dimension, an undiscovered astral plane that spans time and distance and space that mortal humans can not conceive? How far does it extend? Is it limited to our own solar system? Does heaven span the gap between galaxies? If heaven is indeed an ethereal storage area for our un-powered souls, we know it can not be like the cloud where we store our photos on the Internet which requires physical computers and lots and lots of electrical energy. It has to be a reality that exists in a natural, universal state that we can not access. A natural state that, so far, eludes detection by our science.

But everyone knows where heaven is. Everyone points up. And that is a concept. My muse is really enjoying this. I think my muse knows there are penguins we haven’t discovered yet.

George

Complex

I’m embarrassed by the number of articles I haven’t written. I forget the inspiration I want to capture by the time I find a keyboard or scratch paper to scribble down quick notes. I find myself repeating phrases to myself until they just fade away, displaced by the wonder of marvelous items I discover while rummaging around looking for blank paper.

At first I made light of it, trying to fluff off my occasional distractions as normal aging amid a faster, more complex environment that doesn’t allow us time to absorb the constant, unavoidable changes in our daily lives. Changes none of us can escape. Like turning off my daughter's downstairs floor lamp.

In our rush toward an effortless existence, we have siphoned off technological breakthroughs such as sending disciplined energy through space in coherent methods to allow us to communicate with our fearless explorers as far away as the moon. We now use our vastly increasing knowledge to control a lamp I simply don’t want to walk down the stairs to turn off. From the comfort of an overstuffed sofa sitting in front of a colorful wide screen, sharply focused, showing me what happened today in Gaza that shouldn’t have, I ask Alexa to do it for me. I simply have to remember the name of the lamp. Easy. Peasy.

For you, maybe.

“Alexa, turn off the downstairs lamp!”

The light doesn’t flicker, Alexa has not relayed my command. Perhaps she hasn’t heard me.

“ALEXA, TURN OFF THE DOWNSTAIRS LAMP!” Nothing. Darkness is still banished from the downstairs staircase.

I slowly disentangle from the couch and go to the kitchen counter where my granddaughter thoughtfully left a list of Alexa and Echo controllers and their respective subordinates. Yes, they have so many voice activated appliances they have to break them up into families. There are two desk-top lights, but each is assigned to a different controller or else they both come on at the same time. I read the list twice, but the downstairs lamp isn’t on it. The hard part here is I used the lamp last year when we stayed downstairs in the guest room. I used the lamp, by name, for several days, but my memory is as silent as an alligator waiting for a raccoon to wash it’s food at the water’s edge. The raccoon senses danger and backs away, but not me.

“Alexa, turn off the floor lamp!” Nothing. As frustrated as I am, I am determined not to walk down the stairs.

“Alexa, name the lamps downstairs!” The silence is embarrassing.

“Alexa…”

“Here,” my wife says as she hands me a note. “Try this one.”

“Alexa, turn off Bunny Rabbit!” I said. The light emitting from the stair well faded away.

“Where did you find the name?” I asked.

I texted them in Orlando, I needed to hear the television instead of you.”

I read the note again. I swear I’ve never heard the name Bunny Rabbit before. Well, maybe not since last year, anyway.

- George

Modern Cruise Ship - 2023

The Second Greatest Scam

 

Everyone has their own idea of the greatest scam ever pulled on mankind, but only a few acknowledge the current popular myth that may be the most pervasive in modern history. Need a hint? Let’s start with the manufactured foundation the big lie is based on: the entertainment media’s obsession with obscure, unlikely mortals, who through inhuman sacrifice and orgasmic, hyper-devotion, become pedestal-mounted demigods who command the respect of world leaders and the social elite of every nation. I’m writing about the perpetuated image of the arduous hard work, personal sacrifice, superhuman skills, and the absolutely blind devotion that creates the incredibly talented, elite superheros known as Chefs de Cuisine.

According to the media, neurosurgeons, theoretical mathematicians, and space shuttle crews undergo far less stress and nowhere near the intensive training the average executive chef apparently receives. Obviously, poor misguided commoners reap far less fame and fortune than the culinary idols known world-wide for creating a world-class, single leaf salad. Why are the entertainment elitists, especially Hollywood, absolutely enamored with mythical, gastronomical decadence and the infrastructure that supports it?

Movie after movie depicts the trials and tribulations of becoming a world class chef, winning the hearts and wallets of all mere mortals while making food, that, personally, I just don’t like very much. Except desserts. I do like French desserts. And that revelation, I confess, was an epiphany triggered by my daughter when she said she liked French desserts, but not their food. She pried the lid off my subconscious grievance about the fanatical global fanfare of “creating” outlandish food only the absurdly rich actually eats. It has been simmering in the subconscious regions of my mind ever since a pretentious server at a local French restaurant scoffed when I inquired about sausage gravy over biscuits for breakfast. “We don’t serve ANY gravies for breakfast,” she sniffed. My bad. Being deep in the heart of Georgia had inadvertently set the “local” cuisine latch in my taste-buds. She didn't even mention biscuits.

According to Wikipedia, “A cuisine is a characteristic style of cooking practices and traditions, often associated with a specific region, country or culture.” Let me see if I can help demist the fog here. Americans will eat anything with sugar on it. If that doesn’t work, just add salt. It’s always one or the other. I have said for years if Americans were handed a plate of sugar, they would put syrup over it. We have friends we avoid eating with because they put so much sugar on their spaghetti sauce I’m afraid I’ll contract diabetes before morning. We produce American cuisine in factories and prepackage it so even my dog can be trained to hit the microwave start button. We fill bags with air and toss in a few ounces of chemically produced crunchy product, flavored to increase your ghrelin hormone levels while diminishing your leptin levels, add a good dose of sodium chloride and sell it by the truck load, especially during football season.

Wikipedia’s definition of Gastronomy doesn’t help much, either. “Gastronomy is the study of the relationship between food and culture, the art of preparing and serving rich or delicate and appetizing food, the cooking styles of particular regions, and the science of good eating.” As mere mortals who eat primarily for sustenance know, it’s what you do with what you got that determines a region’s choice of foods. It is not much of a choice for many countries on earth. You’ll notice words like “starvation” and “malnutrition” are not factored into the overall concept of international cuisine. Neither is the word, “profit.”

Not convinced yet? Count the French restaurants in your neighborhood, and then count the Italian and Mexican restaurants as well. Now, which one comes in third place?

I rest my case.

George

Beam Most of Me Up, Scotty!

 

While lying in bed, slipping aimlessly between thinking about tomorrow’s to do list and traipsing along with the sandman, somewhere between consciousness and dream world, I thought about being beamed up. I have no idea where to, just maybe to the Holodeck, but something occurred to me while I implausibly stood in my designated circle waiting for the command, “Energize!”

The famous science fiction tele-transportation method that disassembles your molecules and your life force in one portal and reassembles everything in another portal somewhere else may have many more possibilities than just simple transportation. The line “Beam me up, Scotty” was made famous by the TV series Star Trek, and was responsible for solving many problematic script exits from impending danger. Even though impending danger was part of my thought, my being beamed up was somewhat different: I dreamt, “What if I had cancer?”

I thought, if they can identify all the biological components needed to recompose me, why can’t they leave out the pieces that shouldn’t be there, like cancer cells. Why not simply leave the bad parts out of the rebuild? Maybe even leave out any viruses, or even stray bullets. Could they even possibly reconfigure my nose during the reassembly process? You know, a little architectural rearrangement of my skeletal cartilage that might help with my self-esteem. When the teleporter process disassembles you, in what ever format or process that may take, each component, each molecule, must be meticulously identified and ported, incubated, and then either transmitted to its reassembly point or perhaps just replicated at a predetermined location for reassembly and activation. Maybe once you’ve been teleported, they could save a copy or two of you in case you’re needed somewhere else. Perhaps your disassembled self could be put in a container and put on a shelf for inter-galactic travel.

The basic concept of somehow disassembling and reassembling our molecules along with their necessary life force has been around for a few years, from Thomas Reid’s letter about replication to Lord Kames in 1775, and more recently by Stanislaw Lem’s epic Fourteenth Voyage of the Star Diaries in 1957. The concept has migrated from science fiction to cautiously awaited anticipation, thanks to Captain Kirk, First Officer Spock and the famous Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott who solemnly pulled the activation lever.

According to an essay by National Science Foundation released on July 6, 2020, “While human teleportation currently exists only in science fiction, teleportation is possible now in the subatomic world of quantum mechanics – albeit not in the way typically depicted on TV. In the quantum world, teleportation involves the transportation of information, rather than the transportation of matter.”

They continue; “Quantum teleportation is a demonstration of what Albert Einstein famously called "spooky action at a distance" -- also known as quantum entanglement. In entanglement, one of the basic of concepts of quantum physics, the properties of one particle affect the properties of another, even when the particles are separated by a large distance.”1

Aaah! I’ll sleep better tonight. Unless my muse is restless once again. Wonder where I’ll be next time?

1 https://new.nsf.gov/.../teleportation-possible-yes...

Laura, The Riveter

This Blog was originally published in the Sleeps Two Blog in 2011  

The blog is not really about camping, it is about my Grandmother

It should be here instead.

George  May, 2023

***************************************************************************************

After several months of car shopping and driving all sorts of SUVs that could comfortably haul our new KZ Sportsmen 202, we finally traded our trusty, venerable 1999 GMC Jimmy for a newer, 2005 Toyota Sequoia. We simply wanted more towing power to haul our new 21 foot travel trailer than our six cylinder Jimmy offered. We wanted a comfortable vehicle we could use whenever the travel trailer was sitting dormant, waiting to be once in again connected and hauled somewhere exotic.

We test drove GMC Yukons, Toyota V-8 4-runners, Chevy something or others, and Fords with hoods so high I couldn't see the road in front of me. We drove just about every combination of pick-up truck or SUV that could haul the new trailer and still give us a vehicle we could use “off-duty.” We finally decided on Toyota's big V-8 SUV and drove several Sequoias before finding the dark blue unit we really liked. It only had ninety-five thousand miles on it, and other than a couple of cosmetic issues, was in great mechanical shape. I was surprised to find there were very few used Sequoias with less than 100,000 miles on them.

My dad never kept a car beyond the 60,000 miles. He traded every car before the fenders might fall off or the floor board might rust out, but that was then, and this is now, since Detroit has been slapped up against the side of their corporate heads by foreign competitors. Our American-built, Japanese designed SUV looked like new, except for the floor mats, which we replaced. I added a new brake controller and was pleasantly surprised to find the necessary wiring was already in place, all I had to do was take off the existing plastic caps from the wiring coiled up under the dashboard and plug in the new controller. Nothing like planning ahead.

I had the Sequoia safety checked and all the inspections brought up to date, from spark plugs to brakes. When we test drove the SUV with the trailer attached, we knew we had a great combination. Only one thing needed to be resolved: The ride height difference between the two vehicles. The trailer hitch had to be lowered to keep the travel trailer level.

The two-inch box hitch receiver is fixed on each vehicle, but the shank on the trailer ball assembly for the load equalizer was adjustable. All I had to do was move the shank down and we once again had a level travel trailer. But I had a problem: I didn't have any regular wrenches that even came close to big enough to fit the nut on the hitch.

However, using the Ford wrench from my grandmother, yes, my grandmother, I made the switch effortlessly. You see, my grandmother used to build bombers. B-24 Liberators, to be exact.

B-24 Liberators being assembled at Ford's plant at Willow Run, Michigan
1943 Ford photo from Wikipedia Commons

Laura Corns Mindling, my grandmother, worked during the war for Ford Motor Company at the Willow Run Aircraft Plant, just outside Detroit, Michigan. She was originally hired as a stitcher, working on seats and strapping, but was soon promoted to the machine shop, or production floor as a press operator. She was so good Ford kept her after the war, moving her to the River Rouge plant, near Dearborn, where she worked as a press operator until 1956.

Assembly line at Willow Run, 1943
 Any of the women could have been my grandmother, Laura,
who worked as a drill press operator for Ford until 1956.
Wikipedia Photo

She slipped on an oily floor in 1956 and broke her wrist in the fall. When she was finished with her medical leave, she took medical retirement, and eventually moved to Miami. 

From Left: Daughter Ruth, Laura with Grandson, Dick; her Husband Louis, Son Glen, my father,
home from Italy, and me. Detroit May 1945

She and her husband, Lou, first with her son Glen and us for several years, then moving not far away in their own efficiency apartment. 

Laura lived alone for several years in Miami after Louis, my grandfather, died in 1966, then moved to live the rest of her life with my Aunt Ruth in Denver. After Laura's death, my brother and I received several artifacts and family mementos. I received a few items, including a heavy, wrapped bag.

Included were two wrenches used by my Grandmother at Ford, oh so many years ago. I like to think she used these tools to help win a war, or build a car that perhaps someone she knew may have driven. 

Today, those wrenches helped me change out a ball hitch and a trailer shank that had me absolutely stumped. Grandma would have been proud.

Laura Estelle Cornes Mindling - Circa 1917

https://wwiiwomenmemorial.org/stories2/2020/7/8/laura-estelle-cornes-mindling

______________________________________________________________

This Blog was originally published in the Sleeps Two Blog by the same author in 2011. It deserves to be here as well.

When My Muse Goes Back to Bed

What to write? I’ve been sitting in front of my laptop, reading Facebook posts and old e-mails, killing time waiting on my muse to inspire me. There must be something worth writing that hasn’t filtered out to my fingertips. I’m beginning to think my muse went back to bed. Maybe she didn’t even wake up in the first place.

It is dark out, it should be as it’s only 4:49 in the morning. The apartment is subtly noisy even though I’m the only one awake. It’s not noisy in the loud sense, it’s noisy in the odd sounds at odd times sense. The noises that would normally stimulate my writing motivator that we all call our muse. This dark, detached morning when every sound drifting in from who-knows-where should be questioned, my muse is oddly silent.

The refrigerator makes strange noises, clicking and straining as it cycles through its programmed duties. The building itself seems to occasionally groan, or burp, or emit steam and of course I can hear the ever present hum of electricity. Oddly, I can hear 60 cycle AC, 115 volt electrical power. I used to think I had ringing in my ears until Hurricane Andrew shut down all of our electrical power in Miami for several weeks. I didn’t really realize how quiet it was without power until the night it came back on and the ringing in my ears started again. Perhaps that is one of the reasons my wife and I love camping. I finally hear true piece and quiet when we get away from the outlets and extension cords, except for the ambient noises that come and go in the night. As long as they are not train horns I don’t mind.

CSX Freight train crossing the
Middle Oconee River, Athens, GA
 - Photo by Nikos - Munich Germany
                                                                                

Train horns are why I’m awake now, sitting in front of my laptop screen trying to write something intelligent. My muse has abandoned me, leaving me here alone, unable put coherent sentences together. The freight train rolled through at exactly 3:14 am. The tracks really aren’t that close by our rental house here in the rolling hills of Athens, Georgia, but the main-line CSX railroad track between Atlanta and Charlotte runs along the crest of the hill on the other side of the Middle Oconee River from us, so the sound of the daily, sometimes hourly trains is unimpeded. In fact, I think the small valley is a great natural acoustic chamber and we’re unfortunately at the wrong end of Mother Nature’s really good amplifier.

I like to think one day a great piece of writing will appear here, but so far only detached musings and oddly mismatched pieces of memories display in front of me. For some unknown reason, thoughts about high school, in 1959, when all the cool, future leaders of America were reading their mother’s copies of “Lady Chatterley's Lover,” my friends and I were trading dog-eared copies of “My Brother Was An Only Child” and the book about the Roman Circus Maximus, appear magically on my screen. I don’t remember the name of the book about the Romans but I doggedly remember astonishing things about the Roman Coliseum and the gladiators. It was also when I read my first paperbacks by Ian Fleming, a collection of short stories and a hand-me-down copy of Casino Royale.

Since I was a teenage airplane fanatic, I also had a copy of Adolf Galland’s book, “The First and the Last” and of course Robert L. Scott’s famous book about the Flying Tigers, “God is My Copilot.” I also had the original, illustrated large hardback I got as a present from my Grandmother – with a little coaching help on selection – William Greene’s outstanding “Famous Fighters of the Second World War.” I still have the original book, along with the other three volumes of the set I collected over the years. I used the airbrushed illustrations to paint the multitude of plastic airplane models I built as a teenager. Probably well over a hundred between my brother and I. Most of them ended up hanging from our bedroom ceiling from monofilament fishing line and one time or another.

One of the books in that set I have is a replacement for one I loaned a friend and never saw again. It took over forty years to find a replacement book, but it did teach me to never, never loan a book to anybody. Period. Not a book you want to keep, at any rate. They never come back. Never.

I wonder why no one here complains about the trains, especially in the dead of night. It is Sunday morning and I seriously doubt anyone is driving across any of the several unguarded railroad crossings in the dead of night or in the early hours before daybreak, but I know the trains blow their mournful long blasts at the same places every time, day or night. Probably at the bridge over the river. That’s why the awful sound carries so powerfully down the valley.

And not just short toots or honks. I sometimes think the engineer might have died and collapsed on the horn button. Of course I researched train horns and why they have to be a loud, blaring nuisance at Oh Dark Thirty in the morning. I now know that under the Train Horn Rule, (49 CFR Part 222), blah, blah, blah, “Train horns must be sounded in a standardized pattern of 2 long, 1 short and 1 long blasts. The pattern must be repeated or prolonged until the lead locomotive or lead cab car occupies the grade crossing. The rule does not stipulate the durations of long and short blasts.” I also learned the volume can no longer be above 110 decibels, down from the old 130 decibels which is probably why railroad crew members are all deaf. I also learned that we are forty miles from any of the fifteen registered "Quiet" railroad zones in Georgia. I’ve heard so many horns in the last month I can tell differences between different types of locomotives. My wife just looks at me and shakes her head. It is now 5:52 am and there have been no more trains since the one that woke me up almost three hours ago.

It’s really quiet right this minute. The place has gone silent. It doesn’t last long as a compressor starts up somewhere in the kitchen or wherever back there in the dark. I look at my computer screen, apparently my muse was here after all. There isn’t enough to write about to take advantage of the otherwise secluded time of traction. Yes, look it up! Look up the opposite of distraction. That’s what writers do, they research! That’s why I know so much about train horns. Research. 

Maybe that’s why my muse went to bed. Muses just don't seem do well in the land of facts and reality. They much prefer to be free and unrestrained, flying on the backs of dragons or joking with the President about his golf game. They don't care much for the mundane universe of plausibility.

I’m going back to bed, too. The sun will be up soon and maybe, just maybe, they’ll forget to blow the horn.

The Magic Circle and the Loop That Isn’t

Moving to a new city means getting lost at the strangest times. Like, while driving in a straight line. I was driving on Alps Road and then I wasn’t. I was dutifully driving straight and hadn’t noticed the street name had changed to West Lake Drive. Somewhere back there a ways it changed and my GPS was naively silent. Did I miss a turn? Nope!

Say you’re in Athens, Georgia, and you decide to find an address on Barnett Shoals Road. Barnett Shoals turns unexpectedly left at an intersection that will leave you on Whitehall if you don’t make the turn. But let’s say, just for fun, you do a U-turn to get back on Barnett Shoals, you will find several miles later, at a T-intersection with still more options, BSR turns unexpectedly back toward the way you were headed to start with. In fact, you’ll soon be in Watkinsville, three blocks from Simonton Bridge Road, which is what Whitehall turned into if you missed the turn that got you off Barnett Shoals in the first place. Stay with me here.

“One day through the primeval wood
A calf walked home as good calves should;
But made a trail all bent askew,
A crooked trail as all calves do.
Since then three hundred years have fled,
And I infer the calf is dead.
But still he left behind his trail,
And thereby hangs my moral tale.”

My first exposure to the poem The Calf-Path, written in 1896 by Sam Walter Foss, was a single-page insert into my first management course material package taken while was in the Air Force. I kept it with me until I moved to Athens recently, finally tossing it exactly 60 years after I took the course back at Bitburg Air Base, way, way back in a former lifetime. Dog-eared and often copied, passed on to my daughter, and proven time and again to be absolutely correct, it once again flashed through my memory as I tried to figure out where Timothy Road went. Not because I was curious where it would lead, but because I was driving on it and then I wasn’t.

“The trail was taken up next day,
By a lone dog that passed that way;
And then a wise bell-wether sheep
Pursued the trail o’er vale and steep,
And drew the flock behind him, too,
As good bell-wethers always do.”

But I don’t mind. Even with the University of Georgia in full swing, the local traffic isn’t bad and the countryside is just beautiful, turning even mundane address hunting into a scenic road trip. They're even fixing the famous loop that isn’t, the Athens Outer loop, sometimes called Athens Inner loop. It all depends on whether you are coming or going.

“And from that day, o’er hill and glade.
Through those old woods a path was made.
And many men wound in and out,
And dodged, and turned, and bent about,
And uttered words of righteous wrath,
Because ’twas such a crooked path;
But still they followed—do not laugh—
The first migrations of that calf,
And through this winding wood-way stalked
Because he wobbled when he walked.

Are you going clockwise or counter-clockwise? How would you know? According to some local experts, it depends if you are driving in the inside lanes or the outside lanes and where you are going or maybe where you might have been. I don’t know how to tell the inside lanes from the outside lanes since there are both left and right hand curves on the loop(s). Which way you’re going is generally relevant on most roads, even if they are a loop(s) because if you drive all the way around at east once, you’ve usually covered all the points on the compass. Apparently, a loop is not necessarily a circle.

“This forest path became a lane,
that bent and turned and turned again;
This crooked lane became a road,
Where many a poor horse with his load
Toiled on beneath the burning sun,
And traveled some three miles in one.
And thus a century and a half
They trod the footsteps of that calf.

In Athens, you still won’t have a clue if you did it on the Outer Loop or the Inner Loop because it still is the same road and it ends up where it began, the point where you have to get off the loop to stay on it. Yes, you have to get off the loop to stay on it. Believe it or not, the last exit, or the first exit, depending if you’re coming or going on the inner or outer loop(s), is number 10. It used to be exit 11 until they improved the numbering. Exit number one is on the other side of town.

“The years passed on in swiftness fleet,
The road became a village street;
And thus, before men were aware,
A city’s crowded thoroughfare.
And soon the central street was this
Of a renowned metropolis;
And men two centuries and a half,
Trod in the footsteps of that calf.

First, how far is it from the Outer Loop to the Inner loop? Not very far, I found out after my third week driving on them. Somehow, I wasn’t surprised to discover they are the same road. The Inner Loop and the Outer loop are halves of the same highway. Not like a highway cut serially in pieces by toll booths, like a pizza, but cut in parallel down the side like a sliced bagel. The SR 10 Loop highway is a divided four lane, limited access highway, just like any other divided highway you’ve ever driven on where two lanes go in one direction and the other two lanes go in the opposite direction, except the middle – median – of this oddly named road is an important line of demarcation of sorts: the name changes from one side to the other.

Each day a hundred thousand rout
Followed the zigzag calf about
And o’er his crooked journey went
The traffic of a continent.

The loop closest to town, by the width of the median strip, is the inner loop, and since we are in the United States and drive on the right side of the road, travels in a clockwise direction. The lanes on the other side of the median, the furthest away from Athens by about 100 yards, going the other way, counter-clockwise, comprise the outer loop.

Oddly, there is something naively appealing about this simplistic naming convention once you live here: Is it faster to get to where you’re going by the Inner Loop or the Outer Loop because simply cutting through town is out of the question during when the University of Georgia is in session. You can drive the entire nineteen and a half miles of the SR 10 Loop at the legal speed limit in either direction and still knock fifteen minutes off driving through town to get to the same destination.

A hundred thousand men were led,

By one calf near three centuries dead.
They followed still his crooked way,
And lost one hundred years a day;
For thus such reverence is lent,
To well established precedent.”

Just don’t get off on Highway 78. Highway 78 can be Atlanta Highway, which is U.S. Highway 78, but not SR (State Road) 78. SR 78 cuts through the middle of the loop on both the North and South side of the loop(s). The US 78 exit on the west side of town is number 18, the same one where SR 10 coming from Atlanta meets SR 10 Loop, also known as the Outer/Inner Loop that goes both clockwise and counterclockwise, depending on whether you are coming or going.

“A moral lesson this might teach
Were I ordained and called to preach;
For men are prone to go it blind
Along the calf-paths of the mind,
And work away from sun to sun,
To do what other men have done.

According to Wikipedia, “Between exits 4 and 8, there is an eight-route concurrency, consisting of US 29, US 78, US 129, US 441, SR 8, SR 10 Loop, SR 15, and the unsigned SR 422.” Believe it or not, old-timers here still call the road the Athens Bypass.

They follow in the beaten track,
And out and in, and forth and back,
And still their devious course pursue,
To keep the path that others do.

They don’t mention if this is the Inner Loop or the Outer Loop because they don’t know which direction you might want to drive, and if you are a hometown fan of the National Champion University of Georgia Bulldogs because then you have to sit on the other side of the stadium regardless of how you get there.

They keep the path a sacred groove,
Along which all their lives they move.
But how the wise old wood gods laugh,
Who saw the first primeval calf.
Ah, many things this tale might teach—
But I am not ordained to preach.”

1896 – Sam Walter Foss (1858-1911)

I can hardly wait for the football season kick-off. Game day here must be something to behold.

Migration

I rocked back and forth on my heels as we waited patiently behind the red line admonishing patrons against having cellphones beyond the Plexiglas barriers. Not allowed, the sign said. Please forward all documentation via email or texts to the Tag agency at the following e-address. No passing cellphones through the time/space portal of the translucent barrier that separates the world of the unknowing masses from the masters of the universe. If you want to transfer your driver's license or register your car, the all-knowing beings on the other side of the Plexiglas are indeed the undisputed masters of the universe.

Kind ones at least, in Clarke County, Georgia, home of the National Champion College football team, the University of Georgia Bulldogs. My wife and had I decided to relocate to Athens, Georgia, and the first, mandatory actions were to transfer our driver's license and automobile registration.

The three county employees on the other side of the Plexiglas were very busy as our diverse group patiently waited for our turns. One of the patiently waiting was a tall, slender young Sikh wearing a dastar. The four other county representatives were apparently still at lunch, causing the line to extend beyond the entrance alcove and out the front door of the only automobile tag office in the entire county.

I listened intently as the patron in front of me turned dejectedly to leave. He stopped and said back over his shoulder, "In Florida, our proof of insurance cards suffice to get our cars registered, but apparently not here in Georgia.”

“No sir,” the young lady on the other side of the transparent, dimensional separator. “Here you need the binder from your insurance company to register the car. I’m sorry, but you’ll have to return with the proper insurance document. Next!”

My wife and I looked at each other and slowly approached the bureaucratic sanctuary, fully aware we didn’t have the proper insurance binder either. All we had was the same proof of insurance card required in Florida that all car owners have.

“Hello,” I said as I pushed the wad of paper work through the access slot, “If this keeps up, there won’t be anyone left in Florida. We’ve recently moved here as well. Have you seen many of us moving up here.”

The young clerk looked up, her face mask covering her face but not her dancing, expressive eyes.

“Yes, It’s becoming more and more common, let me see if all this is in order.”

She dutifully read the old Florida title and registration, then carefully looked over our brand new, temporary Georgia driver’s licenses, and began typing furiously on her computer keyboard. She glanced up and said, “I can issue the new title, but not the registration. You’ll need the insurance binder from your insurer as well. Sorry, but I can only do so much with incomplete documentation. She slipped a blue stick-em note with the amount $504.14 back to me and said, “This is the Ad Valorem tax required to transfer the title.”

We thanked her, and headed immediately to the nearest insurance agency that issued our policy. After an hour and a half of travel, introductions and explanations, we headed back to the county tag agency.

The counter positions were all staffed and there was no waiting, and as luck would have it, the next open clerk was the pleasant young woman we had earlier.

“Welcome back! All set?” she asked.

“We hope so,” I said as I pushed the newly acquired paper work through the trans-dimensional portal.

She laughed, keyed a few lines and held up two different style license plates we could choose from. Ilse made an artistic selection and after a twenty dollar bill disappeared into the void of government coffers, we received our new Georgia license plate.

As we traded pleasantries to say our goodbyes, I turned and stepped on the biggest shoe I have ever seen. The bright yellow color startled me as much as his huge black ears.

“I’m terribly sorry,” I said, “I didn’t see you behind me!”

“Gosh!” he said in his instantly familiar high-pitched voice, “That’s all right! I sure hope they take my insurance card! I’ve heard it’s different up here.”

We looked back several times as the Magic Kingdom icon stood on his tip toes to see over the counter. We could tell he was listening to the same instructions we received as his ears began to slowly fold down,”

“Maybe they are moving to Atlanta.” my wife said. “It would serve DeSantis right.”

The Flight Engineer and the Nose Wheel

The 76th Troop Carrier Squadron, 435th Troop Carrier Wing, based at Miami International Air Depot, had the distinction of not only hauling our Civil Air Patrol drill teams around the state for drill competitions, but they also got to fly all the cadets from the Miami area to the two week long encampments held annually at different Air Force bases. The first CAP Summer Encampment I attended was at Eglin Air Force Base in the Florida panhandle in July, 1959, and once again, we flew in a C-119G Flying Boxcar of the 76th Troop Carrier Squadron. With three cadet squadrons in Miami alone, one of which was the Miami All Girls Squadron, the competition between the drill teams was fierce, but this year, our Miami Composite Squadron II won not only the Florida state championship, but our regional drill competition held in Memphis as well. The summer encampment was scheduled just before we flew up to New York City for the National Drill Competition. Spending two weeks at the Air Force Air Proving Ground Center was a treat for all of us, watching, inspecting, and even sitting in practically everything flown by the US Air Force. Nothing, however prepared us for the flight home.

The long, droning flight from the Florida panhandle was uneventful. We never flew above ten thousand feet and most of the cadets took turns looking out the few windows that were not scratched or discolored, watching the Florida landscape slip slowly beneath us. The magnificent Florida thunderheads never interfered as we started the long approach from the Marco station on Florida’s west coast, approaching Miami over the Everglades. On the long, gradual descent into MIAD, the flight engineer climbed down out of the cockpit and casually looked out the window on one side, and then crossed over to the other side of the cavernous, square box of the troop compartment and leaned against a window to get a good look at the engine on the other side. The fabric troop seats mounted sideways along the fuselage walls were in the way, so he would lean between whoever was sitting there to see out the window. The flight engineers always checked for oil leaks from the powerful Pratt and Whitney radial engines on every flight, and sometimes before we started an approach to land. They always came down from the flight deck when the landing gear was lowered.

He was satisfied and climbed back up the short ladder on the left side of the front bulkhead and disappeared back into the flight deck. Not soon afterward, the huge wing flaps began to extend and the buffeting that accompanies their extension began in earnest. The huge main landing gear doors opened and the main landing gear began to noisily lower. The C-119 was unique as some of the passengers could watch as the huge landing gear assemblies extended downward right beside the passenger windows. Another unique feature of the C119 was it required almost full power to fly with all the drag of the wing flaps and exposed landing gear. Those who were in the Flying Boxcar for the first time always got quiet and you could usually see the whites of their eyes from anywhere inside the fuselage as the noise levels rose and power was applied to the big Pratt and Whitney engines. The whole plane would shake and vibrate. Us “old” cadets would usually talk heroically to the rookies but some you just couldn't console. Besides, you had to yell which didn't help matters.

The flight engineer, a dark haired young looking fellow, probably in his mid to late twenties, climbed back down into the troop compartment for a second time. The flight engineers usually came down to spot check the main landing gear, a routine task done for every landing. This time however, he couldn't mask his concern. He turned and squatted down looking at the center of the bulkhead in the very front of the compartment. The bulkhead had an access panel held in place with Dzus fasteners, the standard Air Force twist-lock type quick access fastener. In the center of the panel was a small inspection panel that allowed a quick check of the nose landing gear. When the landing gear was up, the huge double tires of the nose wheels were clearly visible from inside the cargo area. You could squat and look through the panel window and see the tread on the tires on the nose landing gear, folded compactly inside the fuselage just under the flight deck. That was the problem for our flight engineer: they weren't supposed to be there, at least, not when the pilot was trying to land. They should have been down and locked for landing. The adult members of our squadron began to look like the first timers. You could see the whites of their eyes in the dimly lighted compartment. We all had on the mandatory parachutes but only the cadets were excited about possibly having to bail out!

We hadn't changed course, still droning on directly toward Miami. We knew we were still over the Everglades west of Krome Avenue, but we knew we weren't too far out or the pilot wouldn't have lowered the landing gear. The flight engineer removed the panel and looked around inside the nose-wheel compartment. He backed out and stood up, grabbing a red painted D-Ring hanging just above the panel. The D-ring was on the end of a metal stranded cable which barely protruded into the troop area. It was the emergency gear release should the hydraulic system fail. He braced himself by putting one foot against the bulkhead and yanked the D-ring with all his might. He practically fell on the floor as the D-ring pulled off the cable, leaving our surprised flight engineer with a useless, red painted D-ring in his hand and the nose landing gear still firmly stowed inside the aircraft. He scrambled back up the ladder and almost immediately reappeared as if speed were of the utmost importance. We all watched, absolutely fascinated by the drama unfolding right before our eyes.

He had grabbed a pair of vise grip pliers from the flight deck, a type of locking pliers that can be adjusted for size and locking grip, and returned to the stubborn cable. Working to get a grip on the cable proved to be futile as attempt after attempt to pull the cable met with failure. Finally, with absolutely no recourse, he twisted the remaining Dzus fasteners and took off the main panel. He laid it off to the right side of the bulkhead. With the panel removed, we could all see into the wheel well from the troop compartment. The flight engineer took a deep breath and climbed into the wheel well, squeezing past the struts and braces that cluttered the opening. He disappeared from sight completely and all the cadets as well as the few adult members held their collective breaths.

It was a moment I will never forget. The flight engineer couldn't be seen, yet we knew he was struggling with no tools inside a dark, cramped compartment with absolutely no room. The droning was incredibly intense, yet none of us heard it. Suddenly, with an indescribable noise, the nose gear doors slammed open and the huge landing gear swung free. The inside of the fuselage was blasted by 150 mile an hour wind! Dress uniforms, carefully wrapped in plastic, hanging from the static jump lines that ran the length of the aircraft, blew all over the back of the airplane. I could see the landscape below with the nose gear fully extended, and our incredibly dedicated, unsung hero, bracing himself with one foot against the fuselage and the other foot against the other side of the bulkhead, inches from the gaping hole! Nothing below him but the Everglades some 2000 feet down. And he didn't have on a parachute! He couldn't fit in the wheel well with one on.

The young flight engineer slowly backed out of the wheel well, stood up and brushed off his pant legs. He climbed back up the short ladder while we sat in wind-blown awe. The landing was without further incident, even though we were followed back to Base Operations by an Air Force O1A fire truck.

He got a round of applause but I don’t think he heard it. We never even found out his name. We all disembarked from the aircraft, and waited on the apron, but we never got to meet him. He was probably busy filling out paperwork.