Getting to be Grandpa Again

The Ancient One's season with Culver City Public Theatre (CCPT) ended last Saturday. Actually, the 2011 season in Carlson Park ended on Sunday, August 22 and was very successful. But the Popcorn Children's Theatre production of The True Story of Jack and the Beanstalk was invited to do 2 performances last Saturday as part of the Long Beach Sea Festival and we had large, appreciative audiences at the Bixby Park Band Shell.

It was fun being The Old Man and serving as co-producer of the production. And Heidi Dotson wrote another amazing script with venerable old story being narrated by the cutest cow you ever did see.

But now it's on to a new production for The Ancient One. He has been cast once again as Grandpa Martin Vanderhof in the 1936 Pulitzer Prize winning play, You Can't Take It With You. It was great fun trying to bring this amazing character to life in the summer of 2009 for CCPT. Now he gets to be grandpa again and will be on stage to reprise the role at Manhattan Beach Community Church (MBCC) for 5 performances in October (15 ,16, 17, 22, 23). Thanks to that chance meeting with Director Alan Peterkofsky while walking through a shopping center in June. . .and his invitation to the auditions.

It's not often that an actor gets to play out the antics of a character as wonderful as grandpa. But to get to do it a 2^nd time is pure joy. Rehearsals are going well and learning the lines seems easier this time. Being part of a wonderful cast helps too. I'll talk more about this later and I'm looking forward to seeing many familiar faces in the MBCC audiences come mid-October. Join us there!

A Voice and Memory From the Past

The Ancient One spends too much time on Facebook. But every now and then something happens that makes it all worthwhile. A few weeks ago I received a "friend request" from a woman who wondered if I was someone she knew many years ago when our families were friends and near neighbors. As soon as she mentioned her maiden name I knew who she was; I had not seen her or anyone in her family since some time before I left Detroit nearly 50 years ago. I accepted the friend request.

Earlier this week, my new old friend posted the following photo on Facebook:

When I saw the post, I gasped. I recognized it immediately. It was taken around 1943. It shows my mother, Martha Cohen (on the left) and her good friend Dorothy Masserman, in their Motor Corps uniforms. They were among a large group of women serving their country during World War II. With so many of the men away fighting in Europe and the Pacific front of the war, these women drove newly manufactured military vehicles from the automobile plant assembly lines to the railroad yards where they were shipped to military bases to be used by the troops.

The Ancient One was only about 5 years old when the picture was taken. But I clearly remember mom in her uniform. I am not sure who the photographer was but it might have been my father who was a photo buff and took a lot of pictures during that period, many of them of the Motor Corps women and troops who passed through the USO in Detroit.

Oh, what a memory. Thank you Sally.

Memories of Old Homes

The Ancient One has lived in many locales over his 6-dozen+ years. Born and raised in Detroit (MI), he spent 4 years in Chapel Hill (NC), followed by 7 in Albany (NY), then 9½ in Springfield (IL) and finally bringing back Donna home to southern California nearly 30 years ago. Memories of some of those early homes were brought to mind (and eye) earlier this year.

First, son Seth and friends started the MLB baseball season touring stadiums "back east." After watching my beloved Tigers at Comerica park in downtown Detroit, he called and asked for my "boyhood address." Soon thereafter, my cell phone vibrated and the following visual message appeared:

That is a photo of 2265 Chicago Boulevard in Detroit where The Ancient One spent much of his youth. His family moved in 1-week before his 7^th birthday (1/19/45) and remained there for 12 years. It looks better now than I remember it being then. Looks like folks have taken good care of that old house in the more than 50 years since I left it. (As a side note, most of the time we lived in that house, the house to the left was occupied by the Campeau family and for a few years the house with its edge just visible on the right housed my aunt and uncle Sibby and Sam Glucksman.) It was a grand old house and at some point in the future I may proffer some memories of momentous occasions that took place within its walls.

Then, a couple of months ago, oldest son Bill's boyhood friend Derek Reynolds was back visiting his parents in Springfield, IL and posted a picture on Facebook of the house they still occupy. I messaged him and asked if he might have a chance to take and post a picture of the house 2 doors away where I lived. A few minutes later, this appeared:

There you see 820 S. Park in Springfield, IL. I'm not sure exactly what year I moved into the house; my guess is that it was about 1975 or 76. Bill spent summers there when he was visiting from Hawaii. I was living there when Donna moved to Springfield and married me and that's where we lived when daughter Alicia was born. Central Illinois was so flat that Donna liked telling folks that our driveway was the steepest hill in Springfield. We always liked that big front porch and it looks like the wooden swing is still hanging there. That house is now nearly 100 years old. There are interesting stories about it that I hope to share one day.

Well, that's it. Two houses from The Ancient One's distant past. Thanks to Seth and Derek for the pictures. Enjoy!

The Ancient One Returns

The Ancient One returns. It has been exactly one year since he last posted here and it seems about time to start again. He's not sure what happened after he returned from that wonderful August, 2009 trip. When last seen blogging, it was about his oldest granddaughter's Bat Mitzvah. He planned to write more. . .but his blogpen fell silent.

It would be easy to blame the silence on writer's block, or too much Facebook, or too much game time on the internet. But that doesn't matter. A lot has happened in the past 12 months about which he should have been writing. Some of that will appear in the coming months but many of the passing events, thoughts and feelings will remain in that silent ether.

So, off to post this now before he finds another excuse to continue his personal void. For now, The Ancient One is back and, hopefully, this is the restart of something good and occasionally interesting.

Where Have All the Peafowl Gone?

A few years back there was a nasty political fight in the neighborhood over the number of peafowl gracing our streets, lawns, rooftops, yards, etc. It seemed that people either loved these regal birds or hated them. The Ancient One fell in the "love 'em" category. Yes, I know they are loud, almost like a baby crying in the night. Yes, I hear neighbors complain about how messy they are and how destructive they are of plant life. Well, my garden hasn't suffered and, quite frankly, I find the flocks of crows to be far messier.

Anyway, the fight went all the way to the City Council and an ordinance was passed that allowed for a "thinning out" of the flock. The city, apparently, would supervise the trapping of peafowl and shipping them off to what was described as a "sanctuary" in Colorado. The peafowl population dropped and neighbors started being pleasant to each other again.

But since that happened, the flock has been growing. This past Spring it was larger than I had ever seen and The Ancient One just knew that the fight would start again. This time, maybe because there were so many peafowl about, there was no public fight. Even I had to admit that it might be wise to "thin out" the flock a bit. And sure enough, while not becoming major news, there were references in the local weekly that the City Council had passed a couple of ordinances. One made it a crime, a misdemeanor I'm sure, for citizens to feed the birds. The other provided for the trapping and shipping of the birds in order to reduce the crop. This, by the way, raised a question in The Ancient One's simple mind. How were the peafowl lured into the traps? Was food placed inside these cage like structures to entice them? If so, were city employees breaking the law by feeding peafowl? Or, as agents of the government, were they exempt from the provisions of the anti-feeding regulations?

Anyway, this program must have been carried out successfully. Although I saw no public announcement about the "trap them and ship them" campaign, almost overnight peafowl disappeared. Only a few remain like this lonely peacock I spotted the other day:

In addition, I have seen only 2 or 3 peahens, one of whom had 3 of the smallest peachicks (Is that the right word?) I have ever seen with her. The disappearance of so many peafowl has made The Ancient One wonder if the goal was to eliminate the flock rather than just thin it out. In the absence of a public outcry, I guess I'll never know.

At least a few of these beloved birds remain in the neighborhood. And when they are spotted, they will continue to bring a smile to The Ancient One's face.

It Was the 4th That Was

We had a relaxing, and somewhat different, 4^th of July this year that was a lot of fun, brought back some old memories and led The Ancient One to some thoughts about Independence and Freedom.

Of course, the morning walk took precedence and it was a beautiful day without the "marine layer" that seems to have been hanging over the peninsula for so long. A special treat came about because the city of Palos Verdes Estates moved their 4^th of July Celebration from Malaga Cove to the grounds of Lunada Bay School. This resulted in a panoramic overview along the morning's route. (Unfortunately, the camera was not in hand). While my vantage point was from well above the site and from afar, the crowd and lines of flags could be seen. And voices carried well on the morning air as I listened to a young woman singing My Country Tis of Thee. . . and heard a couple of the orators holding forth.

Later in the day we joined some friends who were staying at the new, recently opened Terranea Resort in Rancho Palos Verdes, less than 6 miles from our home. It was pleasant walking the grounds as Jim and Diane gave us the grand tour and then enjoying a wonderful dinner in one of the many restaurants before returning to our own home. It was at Terranea that old memories came flooding back.

This new resort is built on the land that was Marineland many years ago. When Alicia and Seth were pre-school age (she'll be 28 later this month and he's 26) we had season tickets to Marineland. We would often pack a picnic lunch and spend an hour or two there, generally seeing one of the shows (Orky and Corky were the resident performing killer whales) and always stopping by the marine hospital that cared for wounded sea life (especially sea lions), nursed them back to health and returned them to the ocean just below the cliffs. That was the pleasant part of the memories. The less than pleasant part came when the company that owned Sea World in San Diego bought Marineland and then suddenly shut it down, marked by the spiriting away of the many sea animals in the middle of the night. Folks around here have never quite gotten over that bit of corporate chicanery. It's nice to have this sparkling new resort but it isn't the same.

At various points during the day and evening, The Ancient One's thoughts turned to the meaning of the 4^th of July, reflections on independence and freedom and what is happening in the world today. Now I appreciate the flying of the flag, the wearing of lapel pins and all the patriotic speeches as much as anyone. But they are only the out trappings of freedom and patriotism. When I look at the level of intolerance around me in this country it seems that there is a disconnect between the outward symbols of patriotism and what so many of our citizens believe. Some examples.

When referenda are passed that take rights away from a minority of citizens, we hear that it must be honored because we are a democracy based upon majority rule. But those majoritarians forget the other half of the democratic principle that guarantees inalienable rights to everyone, including minorities, regardless of what the majority wants. The drafters of our constitution added a Bill of Rights for that reason although it took a long time for that ideal to start to take hold and it generally has been the judiciary that has had to take on the mantle of defining and protecting minority rights.

The Ancient One is similarly puzzled when our citizens and some political leaders insist that it is our destiny to impose their definition of democracy on other countries and cultures. It seems to me that the heart of America's own fight for independence was to reject having someone else's system of governing imposed on us. Our earliest settlers escaped persecution and came to a land where they could live their lives within their own belief systems. In a line in the play You Can't Take It With You, Grandpa tells his granddaughter, "who says that they're right and we're wrong." I might add that the reverse is equally true, "Who says that we're right and they're wrong."

The essence of America ideally is tolerance, respect for others and their way of life. We believe in freedom. I remember an old saying that "one man's freedom ends when his fist reaches another man's nose." It seems to The Ancient One that this should apply to other countries as well. We no more have the right to impose our system on other nations than they have in trying to impose their systems on us. The ability to live together in a complex world and respect those whose beliefs are different than ours is the essence of patriotism.

Okay, time to get off my soapbox and get back to my daily life.

You Can’t Take It With You at CCPT

The Culver City Public Theatre's (CCPT) 2009 season opens July 18 in Carlson Park. The Ancient One has been in rehearsal in the role of Grandpa In Hart and Kaufman's, You Can't Take it With You, a delightfully raucous comedy first staged on Broadway in 1936.

This story is about a family whose members just want to live their lives in their own way without bothering anybody else. There's Martin Vanderhof (aka Grandpa), his daughter Penny and her husband Paul Sycamore, their daughters' Alice and Essie (who is married to Ed Carmichael). There's also an assortment of other characters, some who live in the house and some who don't.

The Ancient One is doing his best to get "off-book" as the Grandpa and enjoys both the richness of the character and the opportunity to play an age-appropriate character. There aren't a lot of really wonderful curmudgeons out there, but Grandpa certainly is one.

For the moment, the only photo being offered is one of the family taken at a recent rehearsal.

L-R: Grandpa (The Ancient One), Penny (Donna Donnelly), Paul (Clyde Little), Alice (Katrina Straub), Ed (John Glass) and Essie (Hilary Chen)

You Can't Take it With You is one of the funniest American plays ever written and is guaranteed to provide an afternoon of fun and hilarity. The Ancient One will look for friends in the audience. So come and enjoy free theatre this summer in Culver City.

Clearing Brush in Palos Verdes

As The Ancient One reached a turnaround point on one of his walks last week, something looked quite different. He gazed down canyon at the end of a cul-de-sac and was greeted with this view:

What were all those white spots? Aging eyes weren't quite sure but he was sure that some of them were sprouting legs. With the help of the modest zoom feature on his camera and the editing capabilities on the computer, the view became a bit more clear and focused. A "modern" of clearing the brush had come to Palos Verdes in an effort to protect against brush fires.

Yes, those are goats. A herd of them had been transported into the canyon to feed themselves to distraction. They were consuming, and thereby clearing away, the heavy brush. I guess that even with transportation costs, using goats to prevent brush fires is far faster and less expensive than employing human labor.

A modern solution to a potentially serious hazard!

Data Lost. . .and Found

This is a true fable in the life of The Ancient One. It is a fable of the age of technology in which we live and how precarious data are.

The story begins a few weeks ago when Donna could not find her Palm Tungsten E2. She looked for it for several days to no avail; it was gone. As it happened, she was not happy with her current cell phone and was eligible for one of those special deal upgrades that the various providers of mobile service offer their loyal customers. So off she went and got a great deal on a Palm Centro. Now she had a combination phone/PDA and could HotSync all her data from her Palm Desktop (which she did).

As often happens, a few days after getting her new phone/PDA, Donna found the lost PDA. It also happens that my Palm Tungsten T/X had gone berserk; while I could HotSync it with the desktop, I couldn't bring up the screens. I would touch the appropriate spot on its little screen and it would act as if I touched another part of the screen. The Ancient One thought that it would be nice to get a Centro too but he is not eligible for a special deal until next January. But Donna said he could have her E2 if that would help. Of course it would. But, whenever he tried to HotSync it with his desktop, it refused to do so. Once an identity has been established on a Palm PDA, you can't just change it even though you can have several identities on the desktop.

Then The Ancient One had a brilliant idea. He would do what is called a "hard reset" on the E2, wiping it clean so he could then set it up in his identity with his data. Fair enough. But he also did a couple of other things that turned out to be less than smart. First, he thought he would try to resurrect his T/X by doing a hard reset on it, which he did. However, while that wiped the PDA clean, it did not solve the problem of the device thinking that it was being poked at distance locations on the screen from where it was being tapped. So he declared the T/X dead and got ready to HotSync his desktop to the E2.

Now here is where it gets really stupid! Before starting the HotSync, The Ancient One looked at the Palm website and found that there was an updated version of the desktop available for downloading. We all know that with technology newer is better. Right? Well, not necessarily. He downloaded the new software and installed it. It easily replaced the earlier version. Then he moved on to carry out the HotSync only to discover that there were no data to move from the desktop to the handheld. ALL THE DATA WERE GONE!

So, for the past week-and-a-half, The Ancient One has been searching for his data. He knew that the address book, datebook, and memo and notepads were somewhere on his computer. But, oh my, they were hidden well and he had nightmares about how long it was going to take to rebuild those data files. Finally, this afternoon he got lucky and found the files. It took a couple of hours but he did figure out how to transfer all those hidden backup files on to the new Palm Desktop and eventually was able to HotSync them with the handheld.

And just in time too! The next doctors' appointments are coming up in the next couple of weeks and The Ancient One really didn't want to call the various offices and try to explain why he had no idea when the appointments were.

As with all good fables, this one had a happy ending and The Ancient One is smiling again. : - D

Election Day?

Today was Election Day in California. . .and hardly anybody noticed! With the exception of a handful of contests to fill vacant offices around the state, the primary purpose for voters was to decide on 6 statewide propositions supported by the Governor and legislative leaders. A "Yes" vote was supposed to address the State's enormous deficit and avoid greater shortfalls and further reductions in state programs.

It was a curious campaign. There were few TV commercials; I guess that was a blessing. The Governor occasionally was seen claiming that layoffs and program reductions would result from a no vote. The Governor voted by emergency absentee ballot before he headed off to Washington, D.C. to attend a press conference in the Rose Garden today. I had trouble finding much information on the election in today's newspapers; I think it was on page 3 of the Los Angeles Times. While I felt no great enthusiasm for the election, I did vote this afternoon and had very little wait in a very short line at the polling place. Last I heard estimated turnout was about 8% of the registered voters in the state.

But my cynicism took hold in this election. I actually believe that when the Governor threatened more layoffs of state workers and more program reductions, he wanted voters to vote know so he could blame what he wanted to do on the ballot box rather than himself and the legislature. When the first news show I turned on tonight did not report on the election results until 15 minutes had passed in the broadcast (an aftershock of last Sunday's earthquake was the lead story), it reflected that "we don't give a damn" attitude that seems to permeate the state. Yes, the elected leaders of the great progressive state of California proposed more tax increases and a lot of gobbledygook and said that they expected people who were already suffering from the economy to buy it. But I think they wanted us to vote no and it appears we did; in the early returns the NO votes exceeded 60%. It seems that one proposition is going to pass. Among other things, that one will stop salary payments to state political leaders when there is a budget deficit (or something like that).

I can hear the Governor and legislative leaders as I write this. When they decimate our schools and needed services, I can hear them saying, "The voters left us no choice." I am saddened by the total lack of leadership in what historically has been a progressive state.

These are the views held tonight by The Ancient One who generally has had a relatively positive view of those who hold political office through his 71+ years on this planet. It is a sad day in California, not because it appears that 5 of the 6 propositions failed but because the absence of leadership led to their being on the ballot in the first place.

Enumerating Colors – Banners 17

Well, The Ancient One's job as an enumerator for the Census Bureau is over. The crew he was on completed canvassing addresses in their assigned areas in less than 6 weeks, far less than the 10 weeks allotted for the task. The credentials and hand held computer have been returned to the government.

Completing this temporary part-time job is not all bad. My legs are very happy to not be spending any more 6-hour work days climbing up and down the hills of the Palos Verdes Peninsula. And this job ended just in time for me to take on a short consulting gig with a long time client of mine.

Since the canvassing took The Ancient One outside of his own neighborhood, he was able to view many flags and banners he had not previously come across. Three of them are now offered up as examples of the colors seen along the enumerating way.

Now on to look for other earning adventures. Enjoy!

Opening Day at Chavez Ravine

Thanks to son Seth, The Ancient One and Donna had tickets for today's home opener for the L.A. Dodgers. Our seats were in the Left Field Pavilion and offered a panoramic view of the entire stadium. The beloved Dodgers were playing the hated Giants and the 11-1 final score was to the liking of all but a few fans in the seats today.

The game's highlights were noteworthy. The paid attendance of 57,009 (I may be off by a few) was the largest in Dodger Stadium history. Newly acquired 2^nd baseman Orlando Hudson (O-Dog) hit for the cycle, the first Dodger to do so since Wes Parker in 1970 AND the first Dodger to ever do so in Dodger Stadium. Right fielder Andre Ethier contributed 2 home runs. Pitcher Chad Billingsley struck out 11 batters and gave up only 5 hits in his 7 innings on the mound. Every batter in the Dodger starting lineup had at least one hit. (Note: None of the few Giant highlights are mentioned here. After all, The Ancient One is a Dodger fan.)

Below are 3 pre-game photos. The first shows the players and coaches from both teams lined up along the baselines after being introduced, an opening day tradition in all major league ballparks.

Next is a view of the field after the flag was unfurled by the line of sailors and marines seen in the above photo.

Finally, a rear-view shot of the great Manny Ramirez (#99) warming up before the start of the 1^st inning.

It was truly a glorious day and the first "opener" anywhere ever attended by The Ancient One. Thank you Seth!

Elevating Fiction to Fact

When I was in college, over 50 years ago, I recall seeing a debate between our campus team and a visiting team from England. One of our bright lads buttressed his arguments with quote after quote from published writers. Not to be outdone, the first English debater stepped forward and proclaimed, "The quickest way to elevate fiction to fact is to quote someone else as having said it." I never forgot that moment.

About 30 years later, I discovered what I believed to be the quantitative corollary to the English debater's premise, to wit, "The quickest way to elevate fiction to fact is to hand someone a computer printout." People seemed to accept without question what computers spewed out, forgetting that the results were only as accurate as the data some human being fed into the computer.

A similar corollary is one that I heard from the professor on the first day of my first statistics class. He opened his lecture with the declaration, "You can prove anything you want with statistics; it's just a matter of selecting the right ones." I always think of that during election campaigns and the flow of political and economic discourse.

I don't know why I have been thinking about these things today but I have and decided to share them.

The Realities of Enumerating

Well, The Ancient One has completed his first week (actually 3½ days) in the field as an Enumerator or Lister or Address Canvasser for the U.S Census Bureau and he has made some discoveries about work and life.

First, he had forgotten how much he has enjoyed his retirement where he has controlled the calendar. Although this work is part-time (no more than 30 hours per week), it's been hard adjusting to the concept of "being required" to at a specified place at a specified time. Second, it is strange having someone else as a work supervisor after several years of pretty much being his own boss.

Third, walking the streets confirming addresses of housing units is tiring to old legs, especially in this area where it seems there are not many level streets. Some of the hills are real challenges. And the amount of walking adds up. The very accurate pedometer worn on the belt is getting a workout; normal days (before enumerating) ran from the target minimum of 10,000 up to about 12,000 steps a day. On the 4 days worked this week, the pedometer tallied about 16,000 steps on 2 days and over 20,000 yesterday and today. If nothing else, The Ancient One should be in pretty good shape when the job ends in about 3 months. And there are indications that all this walking and hill climbing will also move the weight downwards. . .at last.

Most of the "counting" has been fun. I've talked to a lot of interesting people who seem to be disappointed that we aren't asking a lot of questions; only those that are necessary to make sure we are counting the correct number of housing units on a property. That can be tricky in neighborhoods where many houses have an apartment out back or above the garage. We can't miss those multi-unit properties or hidden housing units (HHUs) In some ways, I'm lucky; with the exception of one small area, almost all the housing units I have counted are single family residences. And I haven't come upon a new condominium development that wasn't standing 10 years ago. That poor enumerator had no housing units listed on the HHC (hand held computer) and had to add them all.

All-in-all, I'm enjoying myself although I'm tired. I also tried to get a few extra hours in this week since I will be gone most of next week to spend the Passover holiday with daughter Alicia in Delaware, with a "side trip" to see Bill, Melanie and the granddaughters in Brooklyn.

Now off to sleep; it's going to be a busy weekend even without counting housing units.

The Trashman Stoppeth

The Ancient One, as many know, does much of his reading on his morning walks through the neighborhood. Only on rare occasions does it pose a physical threat, usually the result of walking into a parked car while engrossed in a compelling scene of a murder mystery. Now and then other walkers or neighbors wake him from his reverie with comments or questions about the reading material.

Having been noticed regularly by others as he passed along the way, he wasn't really prepared the other morning when the trash truck stopped to pick up the greenwaste as I was leaving for work. After emptying the barrels, the driver turned and came up the driveway. With a big smile and a heavy accent, he said that he often noticed my reading habit as I walked along the street. He asked what types of books I read and I gave him my standard answer about mystery novels and thrillers. Then he surprised me.

"Reading is good," he said. With a wonderful, wide smile on his face, he continued, "I always have a book with me on the truck and I always read during my lunch hour and breaks. I learn so much from reading." I must confess that he proved to me once again how much people in all walks of life want to learn and that books provide an excellent vehicle to do so. And I was delighted to know that it was the printed word on paper that helped enlighten his day.

Yes, The Ancient One agrees. Reading is good for everyone!

Enumerating. . .

It’s been a quiet writing month but The Ancient One has been busy. This week, for example, he began work for the U.S. Bureau of the Census as an “Enumerator” or should I say and “enumerator in training.” The 4 days of classroom work ended today and tomorrow is field training. If all goes well, the real enumerating begins on Monday.

At this point in the year before the decennial census, the enumerators count and confirm listings of housing units. To assist us in this process, we have been training on HHCs, which in English means Hand-Held Computers. They are marvelous little machines using cellular technology (I think) and they include GPS capabilities. We’ve been running exercises on them for 4 days and now we get to show that we know what we learned. Assignments for the blocks where I am responsible for “address canvassing” will be downloaded mysteriously to my HHC and off I will go. At least all enumerators are assigned to “crews” in the area where they live and don’t have to travel far and wide across the land.

The Ancient One has learned a lot this week. But he is very tired. It is the first time he has worked a full-time week since he retired in 2006. Yeah, there have been a couple of 12-14 hour days on TV shoots but they never add up to a week of full-time, detailed work. This may be the most tiring week because once the real job begins, it won’t be full-time and it will last only for about 12 weeks. By then, it is hoped that the nationwide army of enumerators will have every possible housing unit listed on computer-based maps to be used by the “people counters” during the actual census next year.

So, “Hi Ho, Hi Ho, it’s off to enumerating I go.” That’s just one reason there have been so few posts this month! The Ancient One will offer up additional comments on this new working experience in the weeks to come. Yawnnnnnnnn. . . And now to get some sleep.

Inky Finger Tips and Old Memories

A little over a month ago, I applied for a temporary job with the Census Bureau and took the qualifying exam. About 10 days ago I received a call offering me a position as an enumerator which I accepted. That means I'm a counter of some sort working in the field, possibly interviewing families although I think that part of the job won't come until next year which is the official U.S. decennial census year. This year involves all the preparation for the census itself.

My training was scheduled and rescheduled. I asked a few questions and know that my work will be in the area where I live and the job is part-time for 12 weeks. I figure that the income will finance a couple of east coast trips we have scheduled this year. So, what does all of this have to do with inky finger tips and old memories?

Before I can start training, I had to go in for fingerprinting and the filling out of forms. My appointment was yesterday (Friday) afternoon. The line was appropriately long but moved right along. The pleasant lady who took my prints was very talkative and had a lot of questions as she was rolling my fingers one-by-one on the ink pad and applying them to the cards on which the prints were recorded.

She asked me when was the last time I had been fingerprinted. I thought for a moment and told her the only time I could remember was when I enlisted in the Marine Corps Reserve in March of 1956. She then asked me about that service; how long, where and that kind of stuff. That's where most of the memory kicked in.

I was 18 when I enlisted for 6 years in the Marine Air Reserve. I was assigned to VMA-222, a fighter squadron at Grosse Isle Naval Air Station down river from Detroit. After testing, I was given an MOS of 6600 which classified me as an air radio technician. The squadron flew AD-4 sky raiders, a prop driven plane that served yeoman duty in the Korean War. (In fact, one of my brothers and a cousin had served in the same squadron in Korea.)

Yes, The Ancient One was a weekend warrior in his youth. I had enlisted under the Reserve Forces Act of 1955 which required that at some point during my 6 years of service, I was to do 180 days of active duty training. The rest of the service would be in the form of one weekend a month and 2 weeks during the summers. But there was a loophole in the law; it did not say when that active duty was to take place and the squadron leaders seemed to be oblivious to the fact that I had not gone to boot camp or been designated for my active duty training. (The loophole was closed in late 1956 or possibly 1957 when the Act was amended to state that new recruits were to be assigned specific dates for their active duty at the time of enlistment.)

In my case, the fact that I had not been called up for my 180 days of training wasn't discovered until the fall of 1961. I had moved to Chapel Hill, NC to attend graduate school at the University of North Carolina. To complete the final 6 months of my enlistment, I was assigned to a squadron based at the Naval Air Station in Norfolk, VA. That was when it was discovered that I had not done my 180 days but since I had less than that amount of time left in my enlistment, the Commanding Officer decided that it made no sense to send me to boot camp at the end of my term of service.

Yes, I was among a small cadre of Marines who volunteered to be available if my country needed me but never went to boot camp or received any combat training. I did get pretty good at removing and installing the radio gear in the AD-4's and that's what I did on my service weekends and summer training for 6 years. These are the memories evoked by my inky fingertips yesterday afternoon.

One last memory of that time. One morning, as I was getting ready to leave for my weekend training, my father (the original cantankerous old curmudgeon) saw me as I came down the stairs in my uniform. He looked up with a mischievous grin on his face and commented: "This is protecting me?" Dad's been gone over 44 years now and I still miss his sense of humor. At least I think he was kidding.

Old Dogs and New Toys

Since daughter Alicia was visiting, the family decided to celebrate my birthday about 2 weeks early. After a dinner with neighbors last Tuesday evening, we went back to (ostensibly) see for the first time the apartment into which son Seth moved about 2 months ago. It is very nice; about a block from the ocean in Redondo Beach. While we all were sitting there, Donna presents me with one of those gift bags and brings out a large brownie and they all sing happy birthday to The Ancient One.

Inside the bag I found an iPod nano. It is one of those music players (whatever they're called) that young people have attached to their ears with little speaker "buds" while they listen to the music contained thereon. I had just read about this particular device (along with many others) in a recent issue of Fast Company with heralded the arrival of SSDs (solid state drives) with a prediction that they would gradually replace the current HDD (hard disk drives) in our computers and such. This little iPod nano that I received contains 8GB (gigabytes) of memory which is a lot although my son told me I would fill it far more quickly than I thought possible.

My nano (I immediately became attached to the cute little thing) measures 3½ inches by 1¼ inches. It is all of ¼ inch thick. To get a better sense of its diminutive size I took the below (not too clear) picture of it in the palm of my hand.

Although I am a septuagenarian, I decided to not let myself become intimidated by such a tiny piece of new technology. Since Tuesday, I have been uploading my (mostly jazz) music collection on to my computer's external hard drive (an HDD drive) using iTunes software. Then I plugged the nano into the computer via a USB port and downloaded it all to my new toy. Thus far, I have moved 25 albums, containing 17.1 hours of good music to the nano using about 942MB (megabytes) of its memory. In other words, it is only about 12.5% full. Amazing! But then came the test: How does the music sound?

Off I went on my morning walk. Since the device is solid state, it can be shaken and jostled about without a problem. Following the claims of the literature, after I inserted the buds in my ears (they're even marked L(eft) and R(ight), I gave the nano a good shake which put it into "shuffle" mode and songs, randomly selected by the toy, began to play. I must say that once I mastered the volume controls (sliding a finger left or right around the center dial), I was amazed by the high quality of the sound entering my ears. If I had not decided to "shuffle" the music, I could have selected the album or artist or musical piece I wanted to listen to. It truly is amazing.

Yes, this old dog is hooked on his new toy. And now I face an additional challenge: Am I up to multi-tasking, i.e. can I continue to read my thrillers and mystery novels on the morning walk and listen to fine music at the same time? I think I am up to it. You know, some things happening in the 21^st century are pretty nice.

Best Wishes for a Happy New Year

Well, another year has passed and The Ancient One is delighted to be sending out greetings and wishes for a wonderful 2009. Our family holiday letter this year, penned by Donna, ended with, "We wish you all a year of joy and fulfillment, health and peace of mind, and for all of us a new start, a renewed spirit, and the love and affection of friends and family."

While I generally avoid political statements in these meanderings, I do feel that we are coming to the end of an 8 year national nightmare. While I have no illusions about the economy turning around immediately after January 20, I am hopeful that we are entering a new era that will gradually bring peace, prosperity and respect for what this country stands for. I am looking forward to a national leadership that listens to people and other nations and does not simply try to impose a narrow view of what is right and wrong on the rest of the world.

So, to all of you who pass this way, have a Happy New Year. I look forward to hearing about your thoughts and the events in your lives as they unfold in the coming year.

Life is good! Let us all enjoy what we have and strive to make it better.

Mother Was (Almost) Always Right

One month from today will be the 25^th anniversary of my mother's death. She was 79 years old at the time. I mention this because the weather in southern California today leads me to offer a memory about Mom now rather than on January 17.

I moved to the L.A. area from Springfield, Illinois to start a new job in January, 1982. At that time, my mother was living here. The weather was delightful! I moved from snow and slush and cold to sunny days and warm weather. That seemed like heaven. Then as Spring arrived, the sun was harder to find. It seemed like it appeared only briefly during April, May and June (contrary to Chamber of Commerce claims). I learned new terms from local TV weathermen; they referred to fog as the "marine layer" and the daily lack of sunlight as "June gloom."

One day as I was complaining about the continually overcast weather, my always optimistic mother proclaimed to me, "The sun shines every day in southern California. Some days you just have to wait a little longer for it to appear." For the most part Mom was right. There were only a few exceptions; today was one of them. We are having our 2^nd rain storm in a week. (I'm not looking for sympathy from my freezing, snowbound friends in other parts of the country.) Today, I did not see any sunshine.

Alas, my mother's assertion was wrong today. But that's all right. Just thinking about her and that statement brings a smile to my face nearly 25 years after her death. Once again I think of how "wise" I was in the "selection of my parents." :-D

I still miss you Mom!