Veteran's Day

 It has become a tradition, after posting the American Flag out front, that I try to see how much free food I can get due to my status as an Army Veteran.    My granddaughter compiled a list for me, and I headed for Denny's at 7:00am.    They offer the Grand Slam, and I paid for the coffee.    

For lunch I headed to a place I frequent, but although they had a very thoughtful display for the veterans, they were not staffed for the crowd that was there at 12:30.    I checked my list and went to the Lazy Dog on the old Texas Instruments campus in Stafford.    I was told I could have ANYTHING on their extensive menu, to include a bottomless glass of iced tea.    I went for the fish and chips.    I had never been there before, but I will definitely return.    The interior is quite beautiful and the service was top-drawer.

For Dinner, I met my family at the Pluckers in Stafford.   This time I had a chicken salad and more iced tea.   

These locations were well attended by veterans, and I felt very respected.   The offerings ranged from free donuts to a free haircut (my own barber would object) to a full meal, and all were within a short drive from the house.

A Preschool Fall Festival

 I took my ride-on train to a small fall festival Saturday that was being held by a new day care center.   These parents formed their own day care recently after their daycare center abruptly closed.   One Hope jumped through a lot of city and state hoops, and is now fully licensed.   A founding family has ties to our church, so I wanted to help.

They tell me about 40 families showed up, but most of my passengers were made up of about 5 kids, who, apparently, were watching the train for any opening so they could ride again.    One young man was rather insistent that he be allowed to ride continuously, but we finally convinced him to give at least three other kids a chance before commandeering the iron horse.  I also used him as a demonstrator for the more reluctant tourists.

Then there was a little boy who was fascinated by the train, but who absolutely refused our offers for him to ride.   He followed the figure-8, examined the wheels, and generally giggled as someone else rode.

I will state that the kids had fun.    There were all sorts of kid-friendly games.   The event next to me was a cake walk, geared to 3 year olds!    There was even a self-contained snow cone stand on wheels, with a very wide selection of flavors.

One Hope is located between my home and my church.   My plan is to offer storytime every Thursday, after I read to the kids at Meadows Preschool.

Ring-Tailed Tooter

 It occurs to me that I haven't blogged about my church.   Not sure why not, I drive there about Four times a week.    So, here is my first church-related story.

I have known our preschoolers all THEIR lives.   I have sat with them in the nursery and I work with them in Sunday School.   One of them sits with me in the sanctuary while Mommy leads the singing.   And, I offer the Children's sermon about once a month.

Little C........... is a rambunctious, rather active little four year old.   She tests all boundaries, to include her Mommy's last nerve.   She can be a RUNNER!    She has taken to sliding out of her seat on the piano side, during the hymns, and may slip down the way to sit next to me, who sits on the organ side of the worship center.   Her face tells me she believes she is getting away with something.

This past Sunday, she appeared on the pew, next to me, sat down, head barely above the back of the pew and offered an angelic countenance. I glanced over at her Dad, but he was focused on something else, and I did not see Mom.   Bless me Father, for I have sinned, but I kept my eyes open during the pastoral prayer.    Sure enough, Mom comes back down the aisle from looking for big brother, and I can see her mouthing to Dad, "J..., where is C...........?"    Dad gave the trademarked sit-com father look, and I knew someone was in Trouble.   I tried to get Mom's attention, which only got the attention of those behind me.    Mom finally spotted her daughter next to me, and shrugged.     The little darling, with the other angels in the congregation, then went up to the stage for the Children's sermon, and the excitement was over.

You will not see pictures of the children on these pages.    The Internet has a bad habit of reposting pictures, and not always for good purpose.   I guess we'll have to stick with pictures of trains and presidential homes.

I Voted Today

 

This is the first day of early voting in Texas.  I took a short drive to the closest early voting site: The Turkish Community Center on West Bellfort,    The parking lot was pretty full, but the line was moving pretty well, maybe because of the 30+ voting machines, and a large number of voting judges and staff.   

The elderly Vietnamese gentleman in the lobby was overseeing some kind of papers, but he directed me directly to the entrance.   After providing my picture ID (I was ready with drivers license, military ID and current passport) I was sent to a voting machine.   These new machines (ok, they are several years old) are so much better that the old ones with the magic wheel that I could never understand.   The gentleman supervising the actual ballot box greeted me with a wonderful African accent.   I saluted the box and inserted my ballot.   He replied "America!" with gusto!

The polling place had only been open for two hours, but everything seemed to be running smoothly

As I passed through the lobby on my way out, I noticed an elderly Orthodox jew, with yarmulka, having a very pleasant conversation with a Muslim lady who was wearing a nice hijab.   America, indeed!

I would have loved a picture of the two, but am pretty sure pulling out my camera in a polling place is "frowned upon in this establishment!"  (Quick, name the commercial)

I had several choices for voting.   I could have voted by mail, waited for election day, or voted at my leisure on a day of my choosing.    My problem with voting by mail is that is how we voted for 20 years while stationed in Germany, El Paso, and California.   Gore V Bush highlighted my concerns about voting by mail, when it came out that standard practice was to shove absentee ballots in a corner, and maybe count them a few days after the election.  Assuming my ballot actually got there.  Thanks, NO, I want my vote to count.

I calculated that this was my 14th presidential election, and my 26th congressional election.   I tried to figure out how many senate races, but my head started to hurt.  Google says seven senators have been elected on my watch.

So, I voted.   How about you?

End-of-September Trip

 

It's October 2, 2024 and I am back home after my 15 day trip to New England and Eastern New York.

My posts the last two weeks were all composed and published on my iPhone.   I made extensive use of the dictation feature, but you doubtless noticed it produced a very sloppy product.   I am now sitting at my home computer with a decent keyboard, and will attempt to make these posts a little closer to MLA (Modern Language Association) format.   As always, I welcome constructive comments.

Of the 46 American Presidents, I have now visited some-kind-of site for 34 of them.   Presidents Obama and Biden have not yet opened their museums, and the only Trump site, to date is his un-marked boyhood home in Queens.  

I will also assert that I have now visited 45 of the 50 US states, in my lifetime.

I am hoping to visit Ohio, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Western New York, and Kentucky, this coming Spring.

Dan

Calvin Coolidge and other things

September 30, 2024

I said goodbye to Troy, New York where I had spent the last three nights.   The Best Western is right on the river, downtown. They do a thriving business in weddings on the weekends since there is a large banquet hall/wedding venue across the street that also belongs to the hotel.   The bridesmaids and the bride have the hair done at the hotel and run up and down the halls, giggling and screaming, and then everybody goes across the street for the wedding.    The hotel also host a bus load of Danish electrician students two months out of the year as they come for the local junior college.   These young men are about as wholesome as you could possibly imagine.

I have never given it any thought, but in western Massachusetts I drove over the highest point on interstate 90, East of North Dakota! Approximately 1700 feet! Who knew?

My next stop was to the Calvin Coolidge Library and Museum, which should have meant a big whoop- de-doo.    In presidential things, the word library means the president's archives and personal papers.    What I found in North Hampton Massachusetts was a large room on the second floor of the Forbes Library,  It details a good bit of his life, but completely left out his ascension to the presidency after the death of Harding.   About the only souvenir they offered for sale is a T-shirt that says, “ I do not choose to run” Which apparently is what he said after his full term.   The library building itself is a public library.  The building would fit in very well as a Texas county courthouse.    Old, stone, very well maintained.   For an old Library, they offered jigsaw puzzles and musical instruments to check-out and they have an extensive collection of graphic novels and music on CD.   Northampton was chosen as the site as this is where he spent much of his political career, from mayor to state senator, to governor.  

From North Hampton I drove down into Connecticut and bought some gas and had lunch.   According to my personal rules, I can now say I have been to Connecticut.  I had pasta in a very nice Italian restaurant in Connecticut and would have liked to have stayed for dinner because the wine list included a German Riesling that the server said was very good.

I now pointed the car to the interstate and drove pretty much nonstop up and over Boston and into Maine.   I asked the gentleman at the visitor center to help me get a hotel. I told him my criteria was it had to be in Maine so that I could say I had been to Maine.  He liked that approach as he said he gets people who come in all the time, who walk into the visitor center, take a picture and get back in the car and go back into New Hampshire, telling themselves they’ve been to Maine.    He suggested a lighthouse and a decent restaurant where I could buy the requisite lobster roll.    I followed his instructions to the T and got a good picture of a lighthouse and a lobster roll with a very good cup of clam chowder.  The clam chowder met my Dad's standard, it was so thick my spoon almost stood up in the cup!    The lobster roll contained large chunks of tender meat.

I am back at the room, ready to go to bed, I’m pretty much intend to head from here, to Boston's Logan airport tomorrow.

I think I have gone to the Darkside as I have depended upon GPS for the last two weeks.   No paper maps, and even less idea of where I am at any given time.   I set my destination, it tells me where I currently am, and I tell it to go. It is rather scary if you think about it.

I have spent a lot of my life trying to understand electricity, television, how the heck a monarch can find my backyard; so I know I will never ever understand everything that goes into my iPhone. As far as I’m concerned, it is black magic.

Over the past two weeks I have purchased a lot of souvenir coffee mugs, and more than a couple of presidential history books.  Today I had to pay the piper! I took several bags of mugs and books into the UPS store and paid more to ship them than my hotel bill for the night! But it had to be done.  If you ever come to my house for breakfast, I will have your choice of coffee mugs and maybe even a cup of Teddy Roosevelt’s personal Bull Moose coffee!

The Baseball Hall of Fame

It’s Sunday, September 29 and I drove from Troy, New York to Cooperstown to visit the baseball Hall of Fame.  The trip took over an hour and a half and much of it was on little country roads that were too small to have a center stripe!  The foliage is getting more and more beautiful, but as I think I said yesterday, my little iPhone camera cannot possibly do justice to the beauty unfolding on these hill sides.

Cooperstown seems to be one big classy tourist trap! There are a couple of other attractions but the main one, of course, is baseball.  There are a large number of gift shops ready to take your money, and they took some of mine! Parking is about the only thing that I could complain about as most of the parking is street parking, but there is a two-hour limit and you have to pay the meter quite a few sheckles. The guy in front of the Hall of Fame suggested I go down to Doubleday field and park there where it cost $15 for the whole day. It was only a couple blocks.  One of the shops seems to be an outlet for a local distillery, who will sell you whiskey and vodka in bottles shaped like baseballs. I don’t really drink either of these, so I did not inquire as to the price.

The Hall of Fame is right downtown and covers three floors. The introductory film involved a number of baseball’s best players. each offering a few insights about baseball. It was fun to watch!  For many years baseball writers and historians stated that baseball was invented by Abner Doubleday, a Civil War general.   Doubleday existed and was apparently apparently from Cooperstown, But I read the line in the history that says "Doubleday did not invent baseball - Baseball invented Doubleday!"

There was a display about some of the colorful terms that were used in the early days, that are no longer used. For instance, a striker is now called the batter.  I would love to watch a game where the announcer would try to include as many obscure terms as possible. Wait, they already do!

Lots of coverage of Babe Ruth and lots and lots of coverage of the Yankees! Well, why not? They are the most successful team in baseball. There were a number of displays about their various and many dynasties. My only comfort is that there will not be a display of a Yankees Dynasty after 2017! The Astros have taken care of that!  I was disappointed that there was not that much information or displays devoted to my Houston Astros.   There is an exhibit on women’s baseball and a good-size exhibit on the Negro league and the success of African-Americans in baseball.

There is a room made up like a locker room where each team gets a locker. This is where I found most of the Astros knickknacks.

I went down the street for one of the best hotdogs I’ve ever had.  Since the Hall of Fame is on the main street of town and there are many places to eat, it really makes sense that the museum does not have its own diner. Most of the on-site snack bars that I have run across were just OK.  Besides, this might be another way to keep the town happy, and sharing in the profits!

One of my favorite exhibits was this homage to the fans.  Each papier-mâché statue represents a specific, named super-fan of the sport.

A great line from Casey Stengel that I think works outside the sport as well.

In the room, devoted to baseball art, this piece of woodwork is my favorite.

I was able to exercise self-restraint in the gift shop because I figured that anything I wanted about the Astros I could get at Minutemaid Park, but then I saw a gift shop on Main Street that offered German style nutcrackers, dressed up and baseball uniforms.  I hope I can get my Astro home safely!

I bid farewell to the national baseball Hall of Fame and headed for the very small town Of Blenheim, about an hour south east of Cooperstown.   Last month, I watched an interesting episode of Nova in which this little town lost their historic Wooden bridge in a flood, And decided that the bridge was part of their identity.  The episode included lots of background on wooden bridges, both American and Chinese, And is fascinating both from the Engineering standpoint, and the aesthetic.  GPS took me down a lot of winding roads, but the result was worth it.    

The original bridge was built in 1855.  It was touted as the longest single-span covered wooden bridge in the world. It has now been rebuilt using, for the most part, centuries – old building techniques.  It may be a source of civic pride, but it really serves no useful purpose, as it lacks an approach from the town end.

I offer a few more pictures of foliage, because I did try.

Back in downtown Troy, on the front lawn of my hotel, I met this little fellow.  The hotel staff tell me he lives near the flagpole.