Folks,

Fittop:

We are fine and I thank you for your good wishes. We received over 8 inches of rain from Matthew around here. Other places in the state were drenched with even more. Some roads were flooded even washed out. At one point over 400,000 homes were without power. There were several deaths attributed to the big storm. We much appreciate the heroic efforts of our first responders, power crews, law enforcement and other emergency crews. They are doing a fine job as usual.

Winds here were clocked below 50 MPH at their worst. Because of the heavy rains many trees fell, their roots ripped from the saturated ground. As expected, the worst damage of the storm has come long after it moved away and the sun came out as streams and rivers began to rise higher and higher. In some areas they are expected to crest on Wednesday higher then the previous record with Hurricane Fran back in 2009 I believe. Homes and businesses have been flooded or even washed away by the rising waters.

No danger from flooding right here in our neighborhood. The beaver pond is almost dry as the rodent's dams were breached and washed away Saturday night. I haven't been to see it myself but I'm sure they are busy at work beavering away,as it were, rebuilding those right now if they weren't drowned. That pond is my grandson's favorite fishin' hole for big bass and bream so he is not any more happy than Brer Beaver.

We experienced one leak during the heavy rain and naturally that was right over someone's bed. No big deal. The bed was moved and the leak stopped soon after when the rain lessened and the winds began to wain. The beavers and some of the distant neighbors had it much worse I'd be willing to guess.

All in all we were lucky and are grateful for it. The great cleanup has been in progress since Sunday and continues across part of the state. Power is being restored one house at a time. Some may have to wait up to a week or more. We lost power yesterday for a few hours but never during the storm. That to me indicates work being done somewhere that required turning our power off for a bit.

So for some lucky families like ours the storm named Matthew is now becoming just a memory (until we go for a ride and see the damage done or watch the news on TV). Yup, as we in our family say our thanks and count our blessings we understand fully that others up and down the southern Atlantic coast were not so lucky as we.

Glad to hear you and yours are OK. Baths while in bed can not be satisfying.
I've yet to hear from my sister in the middle of Florida; but they may be traveling.

I wonder if our friends on the other side of the Atlantic have seen the images of the devastation? It seems they have more news coverage of our happenings than we do about theirs. I'm sure the Yorkshire area is almost back to normal after their flood.
They do have an advantage since the homes on that side of the pond are usually built with concrete and real bricks as opposed to the wood and brick veneer we favor here.

Folks,
Fittop:

I hope you find all is indeed well in Florida. Florida was hit but not as hard as at one time was predicted. Thank goodness for that! The storm was more powerful at that time than it was when it hit us. No doubt there was quite a bit of damage done.

This was an odd storm that defied even the best of the sooth sayers modelling skills. They were on TV day and night saying as you might suspect "Sooth, Sooth, Sooth" as confidently as ever. Yet that storm was not to be so predictable. There were just too many variables I suppose. The European model is often the most accurate but that also failed to predict the final thrust across NC. The saying of sooth in regards to big Atlantic storms is perhaps still as much an art as a science. Our Greg Fischel on WRAL is one of the best prognosticators there is anywhere. Watching his broadcasts is often like taking a lesson in meteorology. He has decades of experience and yet he was also sometime stumped by this one. They all did their best right down to their very last sooth.

The Atlantic has been busy this hurricane season (it continues thru Nov.) with many tropical storms and several hurricanes. The storms have hit our tourist industry hard especially on Labor Day weekend and this past week when the peak of color was expected in our western mountains. It smacks of very poor and unsociable timing on the part of old Mother Nature if you ask me.... and nobody actually did.

Dux would be right up to date on the flooding over there. Perhaps he can update us? I hope his brother is still improving. I would mention that we are well overdue for a story from him however if I did it might substantially lengthen his time away you see.

Gents,

JRT,

We are relative strangers to flooding, thank goodness but it is something which rarely affects us up here in the Peak District. We had the first light frost a few days ago but I have not yet seen anybody scraping away at their car windscreens just yet!

My brother is fairly stable but fluctuates in his mobility from one day to the other. He is becoming rather more dependent on nurse and care worker visits to the house and it seems likely that he will have to face the prospect of time in a local care home for a few days a week while they assess his overall capability and state of health.

Folks,
Dux:

Best wishes for your brother's swift recovery.

I am pleased that you have little flooding problems where you are. There is still flooding going on here as a result of Matthew. Trees are down and the cleanup continues. Some are still homes without power and many secondary roads are blocked either by damage to the road itself due to the flooding. The great north south artery I-95 still has detours.

Some schools and businesses are still closed. Some businesses will not reopen others are still being assessed. A regionally famous and long standing BBQ restaurant will not reopen. The man who built it into a multi million dollar operation is incapacitated due to illness and his young wife just took the insurance money and does not plan to reopen. Many families are still hurting. We were lucky. If additional rain holds off a bit longer things will return to what passes for normal in due time.

I'm fighting a ridiculous battle with my phone network provider. They failed to take the monthly tariff off my card last night and now I cannot make a call. Checking my card transactions I find the correct amount of the usual transaction is listed as "pending" though there is and was plenty of cash on hand. The stupid part is I cannot call my carrier and get the problem resolved. Looks like I will have to go to the phone store. It is absurd and a real inconvenience to do that today. First I'll try using my son's phone but that will mean I must wait until he gets off work.

Something similar to this happened last month and I had to go to the store. They fixed the problem, apologized, and I was out of there within the hour. I nearly switched carriers then. I very well may do that today. I will however wait to hear what their explanation is and see how swiftly and painlessly they fix the problem.

Just another one of life's inconveniences in the technical age. I remember when a phone was just a phone and it always worked if you paid the bill. If in the unlikely event there was a problem you could get it fixed pronto without even once having a difficult conversation with someone who's native tongue was not English.

Gents,

JRT,

The greater the technical advance the greater the inconvenience. Junk calls, junk mail, inaccessible companies who would rather keep you waiting while they entertain you with the 1812 Overture or some vacuous muzak. Call centre operators who have set up offices in some Bangladesh village and attempt to penetrate the English language with a broken, almost extinct sub-dialect.

Attempts to make a purchase on the web often means providing lengthy log-on registration details before you can go to your basket and pay.
Only yesterday I tried to purchase a set of Bass tuners and couldn't even use Paypal because the same 'buy now' page kept coming up! Rather than risk ending up with more tuners than I would ever need I moved on to Ebay and paid a little more for the same thing.

There are some worthwhile advantages though. Model aircraft kits now have the option of laser-cut ribs etc., which means no more (or less) cutting out with a safety razor blade or X-Acto knife. I will be back into the hobby when I have moved and settled in, producing models of various sizes. However large or small we can recall the words of Hardy Kruger in 'Flight of the Phoenix: 'The basic principles are the same!'

Gents,

I've given these matters quite a deal of thought lately: I think we live in an age that can be defined as the "just-about-but-not-quite-acceptable" age.

Your accounts of network providers, Roger, and non-existing customer service yet constant pestering to buy, Paypal, Dux, and more woes experienced by me recently, lead me to this conclusion.

Daily, at work answering phones, I'm cold called by people wanting to sell things or ask for information; Are you the Director of your company? Are you the Financial Director, IT Director etc. etc. Often they do talk in broken English and from call centers, where you can hear that the ambient noise level is distractingly high. At home, luckily, now I've got unlisted numbers on all my phones. Once, I made the mistake of asking on a web page for a quote on some work at home and after that, they regularly called me back and asked me if I'd had the work done since last they called me! Cheeky buggers!

We've forsaken the reliable, trusty old POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service and dumped that in favour of terrible sound quality and dropped calls using cell phones. I'm also experiencing issues with equipment using bluetooth where the connection is temperamental and sometimes for no apparent reason is dropped momentarily. same thing goes for Wi-Fi.

The Association of United Danish Motorists agree with me that quality in cars has dropped significantly during recent years.

I've delivered a smart watch for servicing three times now, with the same issue probably caused by a very obvious (once you start thinking about it) design failure.

Tried to get a carpenter to mend a door to my wardrobe, turns out that particular carpenter didn't even want to quote a price but referred me to Bauhaus and their equivalents instead. These and other vendors I Google'd claim to deliver bespoke product but all they do is tear down the existing, perfectly usable wardrobe and offer putting up standardized modules instead.,

Go into a store, and the choice of selection is extremely narrow; e.g. most electronics warehouses stock only Apple watches, if you want anything else the choice is very limited, so you're forced to buy from the internet. Same thing goes for kitchen appliances, and as I recently discovered; during the recent 25 years, the height of kitchen tables in new houses has increased by a couple of centimetres, but some appliances don't allow for a lower height so a new stove I bought, I had to remove the lower part of the stand and put it up on some blocks of wood I had cut to measure! I also had to contact the producer to find out how to set the display clock. Turns out, the instructions in the manual were wrong and no errata sheet provided! And I had a hard time fining a fridge to match the depth of the space where I wanted it placed. It turns out that in order to save energy, the vendors have increased insulation material, adding to the external measurements. All these rather important bits of information are not provided once you enter a store and start talking to a sales representative. They are only really interested in shoving their latest greatest most expensive products up your arse!

You are now expected to be your own expert/software engineer/support.

Sometimes I get so tired!

Anyway; OldDux, your mentioning of Flight of the Poenix, merits a special marketing pitch by me, for all our readers!

Do check out the 19 books by Adam Hall; a.k.a. Elleston Trevor a.k.a. Trevor Dudley Smith, same author as Flight of the Phoenix, on the subject of Quiller, secret operative of "The Bureau" and SIS/MI6 equivalent. Unique, tight, beautiful prose, stories well-crafted, and with a hidden depth, lending themselves to many re-reads for revealing more detail and interpretation on each subsequent revisit.



www.quiller.net

Folks,

Gentle men:

MG:

Yup, I remember old Georgie Segal in TQM film. That was directed by Michael Anderson. The books are indeed well written and enjoyable reading especially for those interested in the fictional inner workings of espionage. I devoured every James Bond book in the entire series by Flemming when growing up. It was said that Pres. Kennedy read them and that got me started. This was disproved later on I believe. That Kennedy read them not that I did.

Although Flemming did indeed have a real espionage pedigree Bond books were more for entertainment than for learning much about real spying. In my case I have always been more interested in codes and code breaking than spying or in discrete information gathering per se. "Kahn on Codes" is a collection of articles and monographs on cryptography. It includes a technical study of spy ciphers. It also argues persuasively against state sponsored computer cryptosystems. Not sure about that altogether but I recommend the book. I got my copy at the public library but you can find it in Google Books or on Amazon no doubt.

I recently watched the story of Alan Turing "The Imitation Game" starring Benedict Cumberbatch of the "Sherlock Holmes" TV series fame and other films and Kira Knightly of "Pirates of the Caribbean" fame. I enjoyed it. We all know what Turing contributed to breaking the "Enigma" code today but only a handful in the world knew for many, many years. He was under rewarded IMHO even though HM the Queen did honor him eventually.

Oddly enough, speaking of George Segal reminds me of something of importance to me but possibly of no interest to you. As you surely must know I I am a long time film buff. Did I ever tell you fellows that I knew the action actor Steven Seagal's aunt quite well? No big deal of course. Kinda like the song "I danced with man who danced with the girl who danced with the Prince of Wales". Seagal's aunt told me many interesting anecdotes about the man. That was about the time Steven was at his peak of popularity. Also about the time he and his gorgeous wife Kelly were in the news.

Apparently for some reason known only to him he changed the spelling of his name when he got into pictures. It is not spelled the same as his aunt spells hers. She spells her last name Segal just as Gorge in the TQM film does. She said Steven is just the same in person as he appears in films. Having seen all his films I must say that if this is true his friends must be very wary of inviting him to their homes as he seems to wreck every place he goes to in his films... She also noted he had not been very nice to his gorgeous wife. That seems to have been an under statement.

Dux:

I have completely lost track of the leaps and bounds of modelling technology. Lasar cut indeed not die cut sounds to be a very good innovation. I used to have stacks of blades and at least 10 different sizes of X-Acto knives. I addition I had several saws and even a small plane for working with balsa models. I had a little aluminum miter box as well. I had so many specialized tools some I made myself. Alas, I no longer have the workshop that I had then and so many of my tools are gone too. I look forward to enjoying the hobby once again if only vicariously through posts about and photographs of your finished work.

In even less interesting old news: I did get my phone bill paid. I had to go to the store and swipe my card there. To add incredible insult to injury the bastids charged me an additional $4 for the privilege of doing that in the store!!!!! Clearly it is a racket that must surely reap them bags of cash per annum. The state Attorney General is from my home town and I have done him a few favors in the dim dark past. He happens to be running for governor of the state right now and thus may or may not be open for doing me a small favor. He will at least take my call. I think I may run this by him and see if they will look into the questionable activities of this carrier.

Not now mind you when everyone in govt., in addition to the political race, is attending to the flooding. Many rivers have still not crested and so many people are still hurting more than a week after the hurricane. No, my tiny problem can and will wait. Or perhaps after I have calmed down a bit and the steam stops pouring from my ears I may just change carriers and tell everyone I meet about the outrageous treatment I have endured two months in a row. Willingly paying a bill on time should never become difficult and certainly no one should be penalized for it. What do you think? remember that, as always, everyone is entitled to agree with me.

Yes, I had the same thing happen. I renovated my kitchen around
2000, and made a space in the cabinets for a standard large
fridge, even adding in a couple of inches all around in case
of variability. 12 years later, the fridge failed, due to
the chiller system, all potted into one steel container, to
minimize coolant leaks, having a broken spring in the shock
absorber mount for the compressor motor, which gets flexed
every time the compressor starts. So OK, it's all one unit,
so I can just get that replaced, yes? Well, it involves
draining the fluid, and the charge for the new fluid plus
the new compressor plus labour, you are paying more than
two thirds the cost of a new fridge, to keep up a 12 year old
one. The local repair guy recommended I just get a new one.

In retrospect, I think I should have gone for it anyway, but
instead I set about buying a new one, only to find that none
of the current models would fit my space, due to the problem
you described. Despite allowing a couple of inches, I was
still too small for the new versions. I ended up getting a
floor demonstrator of a previous year's model, the last
existing item within about 50 miles that would fit my kitchen,
and it turned out it was an inferior economy model, without
even a light for the freezer compartment, and not in the
intended matching colour scheme for my kitchen. But I had
to do something quick with a fridge full of food to save.

So, apparently you are expected to completely renovate your
kitchen upon reaching the end of the ever-shortening lifetime
of your appliances. Seems to me one home renovation is quite
enough for one lifetime, if you aren't rich enough to live
somewhere else while it is occurring.

Folks,
Gentle men:

I always used to take some pride in doing my own repairs. My late wife often pitched in as well. If I hit a snag I knew an excellent appliance repairman friend I could call for free advice. I also had built up an extensive library of books on household appliances and had acquired the necessary tools for most handyman jobs. Then came the Internet and that offered a plethora of additional schematics, manuals, videos, and more ideas and advice. I felt I could tackle most anything with hope of success and reap piles of cash savings in the bargain.

Today, it is indeed probably cheaper and easier to buy a new appliance than to have one repaired. Appliances aren't built to last anymore. Replacement parts are almost always from China and often do not meet the quality standards of the original. Of course, having said that, without a magic space stretcher there can still be difficulties if you buy a new appliance as pointed out by you.

I remember the first radio I ever took apart. I was probably 8 years old. I was smart enough to unplug it from the AC but that's about it. My big mistake was that I did not take it apart to repair it, no indeed, just to see how it worked..... My grandfather was not amused... especially when we plugged it in and it promptly blew a fuse. Fuses were those big, glass and metal things residing in that interesting box on the wall on the back porch. These were devices to prevent overloads and resultant fires. Some people put copper pennies behind them when they blew. I was told we NEVER put pennies behind dead fuses. We replaced them.

Yes, I did get the old Philco desk top radio back together and working again though doing so cost 3 more fuses and some errant sparks scared the poop right out of our cat. I eventually tackled the console radio that took pride of place in our living room. When it failed to operate one day I got my tools and moved it out from against the wall so I could unplug it and get at the innards. I had already taken out several tubes and was looking critically at a dusty transformer when I happened to notice that the plug to the large speaker down below the chassis had somehow worked loose.

Hmmmmm. So I replaced that and remembering the the tubes I replaced them and the big radio worked like new. Yes, I took a great deal of undeserved praise for that one. How did the plug pull out in the first place? Our cat loved to go back there and curl up when the radio was on as it gave off a bit of heat. I surmised his tail might have pulled out the plug. Speaking of out, radio was going out of fashion about then. Homes were getting TVs now. Radio with pictures. So, back in 1957, I think it was, our first B&W TV arrived..... and how that worked REALLY intrigued me.

Anyone tried to attempt a major repair on their own late model car these days? Once was the time you could practically take the family car apart, get a good used or new part, make the repair and even put it all back together (in my case with very few parts left over) without even consulting a Chilton's repair manual. Today you require specialized (non multi-tasking) tools, computers and lord knows what else to change a tail light... Well, almost.

Gone forever is the shade tree mechanic. Once things were built to last and even made easily to be repaired by the owner if they ever broke down. We have now entered an age when, though dependent upon them, the average citizen hasn't a clue how his gadgets work or how to repair any one of them. Most don't seem to care.

Even most mechanics don't repair things anymore. It is almost universally - diagnostics, pull, replace.

Folks,
Oldgrognard:
Thank you for your visit and for your succinct and undoubtedly true statement. It is a throwaway age we live in today in so many respects. It is good for business. Perhaps it is also good we live so short a span lest we miss too many things others know nothing about.

Dux:

The sun had set hours ago and the fall chill was now settling upon the neighborhood outside the windows of our cozy living room. Old times sprang into my sleepy mind as I watched our two cats Brody and Kuro happily sparring with one another as they so often do. It was just play fighting of course.

Kuro, a Russian Blue, is much the larger and leaner of the two. Brody, an American short hair, is smaller, over weight and bound to be high in the running if there is ever to be a page in the Guinness Book of World Records for laziest feline.

The sparring is over soon and each repairs to his own warm corner of the carpet. A serious fight wouldn't have lasted as long. In fact, all Kuro has to do is wait a bit for Brody to get tired, disengage, then, watching his flanks, wander off for a good lie down. I've seen that more than once.

Having enjoyed a sun downer plus at least one additional libation by then (I was not counting), seeing the two cats pawing at one another brought to my mellowing mind something from the past that you may well also remember my friend. Or you may not depending entirely upon the inner workings of your own grog encumbered memory at the time you read this. Should you not read this then kindly resist the irresistible urge to comment upon it. If you do read and have somehow forgotten all about what I am about to relate I feel it my duty as a good mate to remind you of it all. Otherwise what are friends for, eh?

Do you recall the RAF Boxing Association trials just before they were ended due to the war? The Lord Burpingham RAF interstation, Regiment and Individual Class A-B-C Boxing Championships held at the RAF College, Fardenwell specifically?

We were all keen to participate.... well, that is to say depending on just how one defines the word "participate". No one but C51 was actually up for any of the physical part... the actual putting on of gloves and getting in the ring part. I certainly wasn't. The very thought of it made we want to lift a pint. Of course many other things did as well.

C51 was usually game for just about anything all the time. He never put too much thought into the possible ramifications of anything you put to him; he just plowed right ahead no matter what. Most of the time he actually made a success of it. You had to like the guy and worry a bit as well.

So it was that we planned to put him up to represent us in the boxing competition dependent for the most part on how his training went. The rest of us would be in training as well. Training for the serious boozeups and partying that lay ahead, especially when C51 undoubtedly won the title. Though most of the men could hold their own in any serious drinking match down at the old P&P, we knew we would be up against some world class guzzlers at Fardenwell. Nothing for it then but to practice, right?

All were therefore in favor of knocking off a few pints as soon as C51 tried on his boxing outfit. We eventually located and got the single pair of official squadron boxing shorts from their cobweb adorned cardboard box found under MG's bunk. A delighted MG discovered several lost socks and a half full jar of Dotty Ryder's "Sure Grip" bicycle saddle conditioner as well.

Someone went looking for C51 and found him under a table in the HWH Pilot's Lounge. No, he wasn't drunk, shame on you for suggesting that, he was just filling the cat's bowl with food having found that our man LeRoy had not yet done so. This was a dangerous thing not to do as our cat Kaliegh could become very cross if she went hungry. Kaliegh was an extraordinarily large and unpredictable cat. Kinda the Olga of the feline set. Several pilots and LeRoy as well had discovered this the hard way. I bring that up only because another cat figures somewhat prominently at the end of my story.

Keen to get a look at our champion in full competitive regalia, we urged C51 to strip down and don his boxing shorts. This he did at once and soon he stood there in the middle as the rest of us encircled him under a single un-shaded light. Striking a perfect Jack Dempseyish, pugilistic pose, C51, chin up, fists up, feet planted firmly beneath him was indeed a sight to see.

Unfortunately after a year with HWH Squadron C51 was no longer the strapping, iron fisted Canadian boy he once had been. Let us be merciful and just say the straps had loosened somewhat and the fists had turned a tad rusty. Stunned by the groans of a sudden and profound misery coming from the rest of us, the lad struck an even more aggressive pose. Even more groans and sighs greeted that.

I must say that keen as he was, out of uniform, standing there size x in those size xxx shorts our boy looked nothing like the Max Schmelling we had expected. C51's heart and demeanor were perhaps that of a snarling lion but his body was in reality more like a spitting pussycat. Hopes plummeted. All thoughts of a celebratory boozeup in Fardenwell seemed eternally dashed.

Standing there, looking more than a bit forlorn under that single incandescent light bulb, wiping one eye with one hand and holding up his boxing shorts with the other, we all thought our brave C51 took it on the chin with the best of them. Were we disappointed by his rather puny torso? Yes we were. Yet we were also very proud of him. He had more guts than the lot of us and we knew it.

At that moment when we were all at such a low emotional ebb old Fittop seemed to suddenly have been struck up the backside by a bolt of lightning. Running from the gloom to the center of the room and more or less unceremoniously dislodging the brave C51 from his honorary spot under the light in the process, Fittop shouted he had the solution to our problem! Now old Fittop was not any bigger than C51 even in flight gear so we all just waved at him in disgust, turned our backs and began heading out the door to the Prince & Polecat to cry in our beer.

"Stop!" shouted the man under the light. "I know someone who has boxed professionally and he is right here in this room!" That got our undivided and we all turned to look at the excited Fittop. All but one of us did that and that man was now making a mad dash for the door.

While it was technically true, Dux, that you had indeed fought professionally...you admitted you had been paid to fight... but just the once. OK. Had we looked into it as deeply as you employed us so to do we might well have agreed that receiving 30 shillings five pence for donning a mask and boxing the ears of a certain despised prefect at "Mr.Thrashwell's School for Naughty and Chronically Untidy Young Men" was hardly fighting professionally.

Fittop must take some responsibility for that though it was I who strongly urged everyone to adopt you as our new champion. Regrettably, that hurt my dear pal old C51 almost as much as it eventually hurt you.
To your credit and certainly to the financial credit required to get you thoroughly pissed down at the P&P we managed to swing you around so that you could see your duty to King and Country. That was about all you could see by that time and we had a right old time getting you back to your bed, some of it your being carried and some making your merry way on your knees.

The next morning to no one's great surprise (especially the guards we posted on your door and window) you seemed to have somehow forgotten the part where you had so earnestly vowed to represent us in the ring the night before. Perhaps it was the blinding hangover or maybe it was a more sober appraisal of your own abilities that caused you to so vociferously deny your pledge? What ever it might have been once we appealed to your undoubted sense of honor....

Oh crap, you know very well the truth is once we got Olga over there to point that honor out to you and assure you that while you had at least a chance to survive in the ring if you fought for us, you had no chance whatsoever to survive if you failed to do so and she found out about it.

She already had a twenty bet down at the P&P that you would fight you see. I understand that the odds were already running 100 to one against any possibility you would fight. Yup, if you fought Olga stood to win big. Indeed, there was a nasty rumor, never proven, that she had promised the local undertaker Ken I Diggit that when she won she would pay in cash for the funeral.

You remember Ken's business. Diggit & Diggit Funeral Parlor, Mechanical Ditch Digging, Pipe Laying and Cosmetics sales and Service. His place was just beyond the eastern runway. It was a marble edifice three stories tall, had two Olympic size swimming pools, a crematory, paddock and nine hole golf course. That was just the funeral home. You should have seen where he actually lived.

You started your training and we were to a man so proud of you especially the first time you passed the P&P at a full gallop and never even slowed down. Still concerned you might not fight in the end we had MG set about getting a preliminary bout arranged with a small time promoter in Studley Grange. This done we decided not to tell you until the night of the event.

MG had strict instructions that we were paying for the other boxer to take a dive in this preliminary match. It was all just to beef up your self confidence for the real RAF competition. The promoter was to be told to provide his best, most aggressive fighter but have him pull his punches and drop like a rock on the very first blow of the second round, provided of course we could actually get you back in the ring for the second round.

The night of the preliminary match found you confidently stepping into the ring, gloves tied, shoe laces tied, shorts pulled up rather too high I thought but you were the pro and you knew what you were doing. There was an impressive crowd gathered in Farmer Drubbin's largest barn where such events always took place. He always got the largest piece of the gate money. As you entered the ring wearing your white trunks there was a respectable murmur from the crowd and a mild applause rippled about that almost drowned out the cat calls and shouts of derision.

Once the local drinking community found out it was you who was likely to get the hell beat out of him Dux the crowd of advance ticket buyers increased ten fold and the betting heated up. Several buses arrived late from surrounding towns and there being no fire Marshall present the passengers had all been squeezed in somehow.

The atmosphere in that old barn was smokey, hot and noisy. Dux you were smiling confidently as I remember. Rather remarkably you hadn't even noticed that some idiot had swiped your water bottle and replaced it with a similar looking bottle filled with vodka. We know you didn't do it yourself because we searched you for just such a thing right before you bravely climbed into the ring. The most remarkable part... you were stone sober when you did it.

You sat there on your milking stool for several minutes with MG attending at your side with first aid, smelling salts, styptic powder, a thirsty towel and galvanized water bucket. The filthy rumor is not true that he also had a service revolver secreted in that bucket in case you had any second thoughts. Oh, I do wish we had thought of that minor detail but somehow we did not.

You were having a good time, glancing about, waving to acquaintances in the crowd, blowing kisses to several lovely local ladies who seemed to enjoy blood sports. Oh we never mentioned "blood sport" or even blood in your presence as far as I can remember. That would have not only been cruel but possibly also mind changing had someone slipped up in such a careless way. Had anyone done so it would likely have been they and not you getting in that ring and everyone knew it.

There was a sudden shout and the crowd let out a roar as your opponent in black trunks entered the barn and strode through the crowd. The screams heightened noticeably as he bowed his huge head and chest to step through the ropes and into the ring. I was watching you closely and I can personally vouch for you. Only one of those screams came out of your mouth Dux.

Faced with a hulk of a man well over 6 feet tall with a reach twice that of yours, arms as big as a gorilla's and legs the size of pilings, it is a wonder you didn't faint straight away. Several of the ladies did. We were fine. We knew the fight was fixed. You'd triumph if, and it was a BIG 'if' we could keep you in that ring.

I wish I had noticed the look of abject horror on MG's face at the time. Had I done so I might have wondered why he alone save you was so completely overwrought by the appearance of the veritable Goliath you were now destined to fight. He knew something we did not know. Something you could not know.

The fix was not in!!! MG had forgotten that minor detail when dealing with the promoter. He alone, again save you, knew you were about to die a sudden, shameful and very painful death within minutes if not seconds.

As the referee began to quiet the excited audience in order to introduce the main event,,just a few hay bales away Olga sat with one bloodshot eye on Dux who had wisely not let her down and the other was on her lap where she was counting her winnings. It was a tidy sum. She had now seen his powerful opponent and was very much impressed by his physique. Too bad Duxy Babee would not survive to help the two of them spend her lap full of cash.

As the ref made his announcements and recognized the local dignitaries a very sober Dux took his first swig out of the "water" bottle handed to him by MG. I watched as you did that Dux and your eyes noticeably brightened. You took another big slug and though an attentive if trembling MG offered you the bucket you spat nothing into it. Odd that thought I. Then the referee got my attention as he called the opponents to the center of the ring. The fun was about to begin.

I might try to guess what was going through your mind at that pregnant moment mate but then again I would likely fail. You probably knew more profanity than I did. You sprang to your feet and with only one wishful glance at the bottle in the bucket you walked the short but fateful distance to the appointed spot opposite your smiling opponent. He seemed to be imagining you stretched out and comatose upon the canvass already. Those who could see your face agree you may have been imagining much the same thing.

In the audience Ken Diggit was mentally measuring you and fretting over whether he had a very cheap box most of you would fit in. Then he remembered Olga's pledge to pay for everything and instantly calmed down. Just in front of Ken, about 4 bales away, Olga sat ogling Dux's beefy opponent. The ref was introducing him to the audience. Olga was thinking she had a few things she would like to introduce him to when the man looked down and smiled right at her. What was that glint in his mouth? A gold tooth?

Olga had always hated gold teeth. At least ever since Comrade Stalin had lent her to his cousin Uri for two fun filled weeks at his most private Dacha on the Black Sea. Uri had a whole mouth full of metal and after five minutes of fun with him she had developed a permanent gold tooth phobia. Olga shuddered. She could not abide this man. Ergo, Dux MUST survive.

The boxers returned to their corners and stood ready. Well, at least one of them seemed ready. Farmer Drubbins struck a large cow bell with a ball-peen hammer. The resultant sparks scared a big rat out from under one of the bales of hay. It climbed up into the ring and streaked across the canvass right toward the legs of your worthy opponent Dux with one of Farmer Drubbin's cats in hot pursuit.

At the sound of the bell the fighters had moved toward each other. Dux you were keeping you guard up and I noticed you had hitched up your shorts a good inch higher than before. Marquis of Queensbury rules. No hitting below the belt was allowed. Any higher and you might have choked to death.

Just as Dux began a wild swing with his right the terrified rat arrived between his opponent's legs. The startled man tripped and, trying to catch himself, he inadvertently leaned right into the oncoming blow. BAM! Totally unprepared for it and un-braced for the blow the big man went down hard. Not hard enough though for by the count of seven he was up and groggily advancing toward Dux.

Out in the audience the rat and cat were also putting on quite a show. Some of the ladies stood on hay bales and screamed bloody murder while others kicked at the rat until fed up, one little blond pulled out a pistol from her bag and promptly shot the rodent dead. Blowing the smoke from the barrel like a British Annie Oakley she repacked her pistol, rubbed her hands together as if she'd finished a good job and then she sat down. There was a brief applause.

Back in the ring Dux in white trunks and the other fellow in black were once again coming into striking range. I remember Dux had struck the first blow with a hard chin to the other bloke's glove. Another blow with his kidney to the man's left and Dux was noticeably staggering. Coming in for the easy kill the fellow in black prepared a death dealing right none of his previous opponents had ever recovered from.

Dux seemed helpless. He appeared dazed and disoriented. But was it just a rouse? The fix was in for the second round. What was going on? Our man's chin was forward, his guard was down. His right was slowly coming up. Too slowly it seemed to me. Then the screams from the ladies in the audience and the sudden pistol report startled the man in black and once again he lost his footing spinning around and falling with his jaw directly upon Dux's rising right. CLUNK! The sound of a determined man's hard right contacting another man's jaw full of heavy metal and then that jaw slamming shut with a great force had rung out. He was down for the count. Was anyone counting? I heard no counting. No one cared.

The audience was on its feet shouting. I was on my feet dancing about like a mad man. MG was pouring what he thought was a bottle of water on his head and climbing up on the ropes in pure relief and glee. All our squadron mates were dancing on the hay strewn floor or climbing into the ring. Of course you wouldn't remember that Dux. You would not because you my friend, completely unnoticed by us, were NOT standing up. No indeed. Just as your opponent, with eyes glazed and the match more or less fairly lost, hit the canvass so did you. You were both out cold.

At the end of the day only Olga was really a big winner. The man in the black trunks turned out to be an undocumented German alien and was promptly deported. It was a great loss to the promoter who might have protested the officially proclaimed tie were he not in hospital with a stroke.

Even farmer Drubbins with all his gate receipts was no winner. After the crowd melted away, the hungry cat, recently deceased rodent in its mouth, rushed out of the barn turning over a kerosene lantern and setting flame to the hay. The barn burned down and then smoldered for days. Back at HWH Hall we were all smoldering as well and we could find no one to blame. Dux did more than his best and nearly his all for nothing in return. C51 was blameless. MG took a deserved hit for a failing memory but the tie was not his fault.

In the final analysis we decided to blame old Fittop for part of the disaster since he had failed to check his facts regarding Dux's bona fides as a pro boxer. Truthfully, no one was to blame. Dux you were the hero. Olga through a grand boozeup in your honor which we all cheerfully attended. Soon we forgot all about Fardenwell and the RAF competition.

Like you Dux, when you fell upon the field of battle; we had had enough of boxing.

I'll take the blame as promoter. My boxing career was questioned after a broken nose, later a broken knuckle and ended in the teen years after I realized they could make me pay for the window even if it was the other guy that went through it. The soccer team was a far better outlet.

Loved the story!

Folks,

Fittop:

Thank you for your kind remarks. I've enjoyed writing these silly stories for over 15 years now and am always a bit surprised and much delighted when someone says they actually enjoyed one. I've done a lot of writing both for fun, in school and in my profession. Retired now, I like to keep my hand in so to speak. A little encouragement goes a long way.

I didn't do much actual fighting growing up.

TRUE STORY. There was the time some bigger kids from another neighborhood had a few pals and I pinned down throwing rocks at us. I turned 'round at one point to discover my pals had bailed on me. I stood my ground and refused to run.

OK, I huddled back of a small bush keeping as much of me behind it as possible. As the projectiles rained down around me I was madder at my missing pals than at the guys pinning me down. I guess I'd be there now if a small rock hadn't bounced off the bush and hit my glasses a glancing blow. Now, at that time, nothing in the world mad me madder than for someone or something to roughly touch my glasses.

Seething with rage, I rose screaming out from behind that tiny bush. I began picking up the thrown rocks by the handful and throwing them back at the enemy like a mad man. Some of the rocks must have hit their mark but mostly it must have been the sight of me all red faced and frothing at the mouth as I suddenly advanced fearlessly toward them that turned them from a gleeful mob into a pack of cowards now running away in all directions. later, because no one saw it, no one believed me when I told them what happened.

Oh, and as I have done so far here, I left out the insignificant part where I screamed at the stunned enemy that they had broken my glasses (they had not) and that I was telling my mother!! I doubt that had much impact but I will never know for sure.

If by some strange freak of fate anyone reading this was growing up in Rocky Mount, NC, USA in the 50's and you recall being in that group of rock throwers in that rocky, dirt parking lot please tell me if you ran because of me or because you feared retribution from my mom.

Dux:

I hope your brother is still doing well. My son is back in the hospital. The previous surgery has healed however they did an MRI and found infection in the damaged bone in his foot. That is life threatening should it spread. He had more surgery yesterday to remove the infected piece of bone and is recovering though in intense pain today. Plans are to put him in an intensive infection care unit for 6 weeks giving him IV antibiotics daily for up to 6 weeks. Yes, I'm moderately worried but no more than should be expected. He is otherwise healthy and, barring unexpected complications, he should be fine.

Good thoughts go North and East for the two family members in DNIF status (Duty Not Including Flying). May they recover with minimum trauma and pain.

Not being the tallest or biggest guy around, I was not the one picking fights. But somehow physics lessons were ingrained on me when I discover that impact force was affected via mass and acceleration. That lesson came thanks to a head shot with me against the wall by a big-headed so-called friend when I verbally returned an insult in kind concerning my parentage. The loosened tooth was a cruel reminder for a while.
Unfortunately my kick missed the lower part of his body, but the retreat of said part created an opening for a higher hit that left him gasping for air. At least that's how I remember it. Funny how one can recall certain things.

The memory is kept alive at Carnival time since then when some time later, friends again, I knocked on his door and was let in by the housekeeper who stated he was upstairs and I should go up.
I did, she followed me, and upstairs I found myself surrounded by her and two other friends of her. They grabbed me and threw this little guy into a bathtub full of water.

I went home with shoes squishing, dripping water like a punished dog and more than a bit chagrined.

You must understand Carnival in that area is taken as seriously as New Orleans does now. - An April Fools joke combined with party time.
Yes, the family was away, and the housekeeper was following tradition.

Off to cook the family dinner; it's Halloween and the little ones will be clamoring for goodies in a couple of hours.
Hope a couple of treats escape those grubby little hands so that I can also enjoy the Reeses Peanut Butter cups.

But they look so cute in their costumes!

Folks,
Fittop:

Once years ago it was Dux and I who kept this old ship in the air for weeks and weeks until our friends found us again. Today, it seems it is you and I who share the duty. Thank you for your pleasant company. That was quite a fracas you had. You have a knack for writing my friend. You should write more.

I still have two chipped teeth from a brief altercation with a clothesline one dark night. I was chasing a black cat. Don't ask. I'll get around to telling that story another time. You don't have to worry too much about clotheslines these days. Few people need one anymore. When we moved into our first house my wife hinted she would like to have a clothesline. Really?

Seeing the huge question mark shown on my face (she already had an expensive Kenmore washer/dryer set), she swore on a stack of Good Housekeeping magazines that clothes dried outside smelled fresher, and the whites and colors looked cleaner too. Having learned much about wives in one short year of married life, and as I had no burning desire to start doing all the laundry myself, I put something up for her. It was a SOTA one wire, two-pole, sun dryer. It did seem to work on towels and bed linens... who knew?

I survived Mardi Gras once myself but got there late. Everything in New Orleans was booked up. We had to stay a distance away in Slidell which is situated across the big bridge on the northeast shore of Lake Pontchartrain. It was the biggest party I have ever attended. I'm told I had a very good time particularly on the last night but I don't remember it and truthfully the other fun-filled days are a bit fuzzy too.

It was decades ago of course, I was young then and not yet married. I recall huge crowds, eating corn on the cob and drinking Hurricanes on the street. There seems to have been parades, some fine dining at a famous restaurant and the music of Pete Fountain rolled in there with quite a few very scantily clad ladies dancing about through it all. It was a long drive back to North Carolina. Hungover or not, I think each time I woke up I was still smiling.

The help throwing you in a bathtub filled with water seems a strange way to celebrate Carnival to me. On the other hand, there were probably no blinding headaches or internal distress associated with it either.

Folks,
JRT: Thanks for the fine compliment. Clotheslines and Pete Fountain. I can almost hear the music.
I do have stored, top left side of office closet, a vinyl Long Play album with his sound. I should take the collection out more often and let the sound fill the house.
But the lady's cat may then screech.
Besides, I should be careful with the phonograph needle since I have no idea where to get a replacement for it. Maybe I could use said cat's paw?

I recently found out clotheslines are supposedly prohibited by local ordinance. Didn't really matter until after I almost got decapitated by ours trying to put the lawnmower away one evening.
No idea why, unless it's because they contribute against the sterile environment look of Suburbia.

The line has not been heavily used since a couple of summers ago when we kept waking and walking funny due to a pressing need to scratch different parts of the body...at the same time.
Having fumigated everything inside, I blamed the time sheets and clothes spent on the line and were recovered without proper shaking.
With the appearance of the West Nile and now Zika, it has become a commandment to no longer enjoy that clean smell and crispy feel you mention and we miss.

As I did as a teenager in those five-storied New York tenements where the clotheslines and their colorful content reached from one apartment building to the other, I also miss wondering whose blue unmentionable that was, or if Tuesday was the day Mrs. Johnston would be wearing that flowery number? I thought Mr. Johnston was a very lucky man.
How did I get any studying done?

As far as being thrown in the bathtub fully clothed, that was a land and time that took Carnival seriously. Pranks were allowed and almost expected.
It hit around the height of Summer or later and it was well-celebrated; parties abounded, the masks came out, everyone carried a syringe-type container filled with water or perfumed water and sprayed each other. Aiming for the eyes was bad form. The grown-ups danced and drank. I was allowed to change the records, 78 RPM thank you, and few noticed their glass being slightly less full when they returned from the dance floor if they left their drinks close to me.

Gregory's family was one of the better-off ones and they did have help. Carnival of course was a time of forgiveness and their act would not have been held against them. I sure was not going to tell anyway.
Besides, that house made a mean pudding and that, I was not going to risk the next time I would visit.

Postscript: We have since decided, right or wrong, that the source of the bites were mosquito bites, but obtained outside. The theory seems valid since getting "deeted up" has helped tremendously.

Folks,

Fittop:

I once had a big, big stack of LPs, 45s and 78s myself. Both stereo and mono. There were even classic country music titles inherited from my parents. Valuable today perhaps but scorned by me back when rock and roll was all my friends and I cared for. Then that stack was added to by my bride's albums when I married. Before long I began to experiment a bit with jazz and classical music on the radio. I found a new world of enjoyment and wanted to have some of those genres included in my own collection. Soon I had added many classical and jazz album titles to the collection. BTW Thelonious Monk was born in my home town.

Even with the relatively new stereo FM radio stations on the air the quality of the sounds were much better on my new component stereo system with a Garrard turntable and huge speakers than on the radio, or so I thought. I had a few comedy records as well. One recording was from back in the early 60's when Vaughn Meader was channeling JFK so well. Everyone bought one of those it seemed to me. Sadly it didn't get much playing time after Nov. 22, 1963.

There were more changes of course, as you would know, 8-tracks came along and then cassettes followed by CDs and DVDs. There will always be new fads and innovations brought to market at the very least so we will trash our perfectly functioning stuff and by the latest fad. Many folk have apparently gone back to dust off their turntables and vinyl records claiming the sound reproduction is better than the new fangled stuff. I had great difficulty getting a needle and cartridge for my old Garrard so I gave up on that a decade ago. I wish I had not. I had many Karajan recording on the deutsche grammophone label that would have provided a good test.

Today I have 4 song lists consisting of over 650 MP3s. That includes several genres of course. I find that if I work hard at it I can find music I like in almost any genre. OK, I admit that some have taken longer than have others to find. I discovered this (among several other things) when my son was growing up and took up guitar playing (his passion at the time was Heavy Metal). I made sure he had an excellent guitar teacher. That was good for everyone in the house as either his playing improved more quickly or our tolerance for it did. He had a talent for the guitar and still plays for fun today. That hasn't been easy having had a damaged wrist and a resultant bone graft at 16.

My favorites are still mostly 50s and 60s rock and roll, jazz and classical music. In addition we have an excellent independent, listener supported classical radio station that broadcasts into VA, and SC as well as half of NC. It also reaches the rest of the world via the Internet. WCPE are the call letters and the website is www.theclassicalstation.org. I recommend it.

In other personal news.

My son was released from WillMed yesterday and has entered a new care facility for an additional 4 to 6 weeks of daily IV antibiotic treatment and bed rest. He doesn't like that much and is already complaining.

The infection has gotten into the bone marrow through the damaged (recently surgically removed) bone. They are trying to save his foot and in fact his life. One of the antibiotics he receives is called Merrem. I looked that up and now understand that it is primarily used for life threatening infections.

Now friends, that is a sobering thought for me and I hope he will stop complaining about being stuck in a hospital room. OK, he is a young guy and I get that, but he is getting specialized care and the competent staff is surprisingly attentive to his every need from what I saw yesterday. Plus, there is the minor but rather obvious detail that life will be substantially better for him with two feet instead of just the one. I will of course be discussing this with him at some length. I hope he pays more attention to that then he normally does. I think he is going to be fine.

My sincerest best wishes for the speedy recovery of your son Roger.

Gents;

Roger's and Fittop's recent reminiscences and musings about phonographs and radio, or wireless sets, made me remember that recently I've had a bit of a headache about having too many radio sets.

The invention of the transistor, replacing the valves meant that the word transistor is a synonym for a radio set, and also meant that relatives of mine living in the southern part of this country only had short drive to cross the border into Germany in the sixties to privately import transistor radios, cassette players and coffee machines, then to have these items appear and proliferate throughout the rest of the bloodline in all parts of this country. They were new, terribly fascinating, relatively inexpensive, and I don't know if they were hard to get closer to home, but probably they were cheaper across the border, because this of course was before the time of the European Union, or even the Common Market.

If we search for a connection to our BoB, obviously the miniaturisation didn't start with Japan after the war, no it started during the war, enabling aircraft to carry W/T radiotelephony equipment on board tiny fighters, and later radar sets and primitive bomb delivery systems on board bombers and fighter-bombers.

The top of opulence or quintessence in the sixties thus, was having one of these radios in just about every room, except in the living room, where you would have the serious sound system, the stereo or even quadrophonic setup for listening to and enjoying your records and tapes while yer old faithful dog Craighsmuire, if ever you had a faithful dog called Craighsmuire, rested at yer feet.

Just as fairly recently I was caused to pause and ponder, while throwing out old papers, at the futility of keeping paper records these days where everything from wage slip to income tax report are stored digitally (until something goes bump in the night on the internet perhaps), the physical media of records or albums where for quite a while, alongside the turntable, these recent three decades, relegated to the history books, and just barely escaping extinction.

Back to the transistor radios, which in this country have been pressed into a defensive and long losing battle against the National Broadcaster's pet monster; the DAB, or Digital Audio Broadcast which are tiny units with tiny speakers and they carry all the broadcasters talk radio shows which the broadcaster seems to deem indispensable.

Just yesterday, two so-called "jounalists" couldn't figure out how we know that bulls and crocs are colour-blind. Complete Vacant stares, as they wondered who had been inside either, to check it out. Really!!

I must admit to never have had the urge to splash out for a DAB. These things seem entirely superfluous to requirements to me. If I want to hear people talking, or the rare piece of music compressed and tortured to death, I can switch on a PC or laptop, or receive radio stations via my cable network provider. I don't need a radio in every room, I just need a speaker or two, to wirelessly connect me to my audio streamer, which in turn has access to my Network attached Storage, holding my music files in Flac, HD-res and the occasional mp3/320kbps format.

Just as music sounded better on the home system than on the radio because of the radio limiting the available radio channel to 15 KHz, I recently heard a piece of prog music on one of the digital stations, it was even the national broadcaster's station, and half the music was literally cut off due to the compression utilized by the radio station.

So, to conclude and once again arrive at where this short ramble started, all those transistors, or at least quite a few, ended up with me as I grew older, and the previous owners passed on. Which makes it so much harder just to throw these old radios out.

Folks,

MG:

It is always good to hear from the Denmark branch. I sincerely thank you for your good wishes. Did I tell you he stepped on an 18 inch nail (blunt end up) that went up through his foot and into a bone? That was what caused the injury to his foot two months and two surgeries ago. The latest word regarding my son is not as encouraging as I had hoped for but there is still a very reasonable hope for his eventual complete recovery. He may never surf again, we know that already and he may have some minor difficulty walking on uneven ground. He just needs to beat this infection.

However the infection has apparently gotten into his bloodstream and that is very serious. They are treating it aggressively with 3 powerful antibiotics now and I am told the prognosis is still very good. His white blood cell count is good, not too high. He had a low grade fever last night but that is gone today. They are keeping an eye on his kidney functions as the drugs are so strong. I just talked to him by phone and he is getting up and around on crutches and seems in very good spirits. His wife will be talking to the doctor and I will know more this afternoon.

Forgive me for posting about this fellows. It may not be considered proper. Yet I have come to know you all fairly well over the years and I think of you as friends, almost like an extended family. Naturally my son's condition is heavy on my mind and I find writing about it lightens the load. Writing has always been therapeutic for me. Enough for now.

My first personal radio was little more than a lot of wire wrapped about a round oatmeal box. My first personal radio produced commercially (this was before transistors were common) arrived in my stocking the Christmas of 1957. That was a simple crystal type radio about as long as my hand with antenna/tuning rod extended and about half as wide. In fact rockets and Sputnik were in the news that year and the device was fashioned more or less in the shape of a rocket. It was an ingenious way of bringing an old design into the "space age" and making it appear new again.

I loved that thing. My teachers...not so much. There was a long, thin, braided cord with an alligator clip attached on the end of it for grounding and another similar wire that was connected to a single ear phone. You have all probably seen something similar. I'd sit near the iron radiator that heated the classroom and clip the radio ground to it. Then I'd listen to a broadcast with one ear and the teacher with the other.

Surprisingly, I somehow managed to continue to get very good marks even when I was caught and the radio was confiscated (Fascists!). I was otherwise a good student and the teacher clearly liked me even though I had what must have been for her a most irritating tendency to argue with her. We had a talk after school. She feared a proliferation of such radios in the class so she had to make an example of me. So she said anyway. She owed me no explanation. I understood.

We all remember those so called "Boom Boxes" the size of small child some bigger kids used to tote about on their shoulders. Well, in my mind at least, bigger isn't always better. I remember when the first transistor radios came on the market. This was well before those Boom Boxes came along. Transistor radios were amazingly tiny devices and so portable. A radio the size of a small walkie taklie was small indeed to us. Today you can get the same music and broadcasts with something the size of a quarter.

Every teenager back then wanted a transistor radio (sometimes it was just called a "transistor" MG) but they seemed very expensive. Not everyone had one or could afford one at first. Local AM radio was our best connection to the music we loved. Before the advent of the transistor radio all radios we knew about were not very portable, not even the "portable" models. I was living with my maternal grandparents at that time and wrote to my dad in Philadelphia (he was a captain in the merchant marines then) that I so desperately needed a transistor radio. I listed all the reasons why in bullet points. In essence, my life depended on it.

To my great delight and no little surprise one neatly wrapped radio about the size and length of my hand and about 2 inches thick arrived by parcel post within a month. I was a very happy fellow. I carried that thing with me everywhere that I went ... but never to school. I was in high school then and I had grown up a bit. I actually cared about not getting into classroom scrapes and earning high marks by then.

I didn't study very much but my marks were fine. An "A" was good enough for me, I wasn't greedy enough to covet the 'plus'. I had gotten into high school with a perfect "B" average. High enough to impress my home room teacher and advisor, God bless her soul wherever she is. She was one of the two best teachers I ever had below college level. I owe that good lady a lot. She was so good, so smart, so helpful and so wise that most of her students lovingly called her "Mama".

Mama was also our drama teacher. I was cast in many plays,(possibly for punishment, either for me or for the audience) some parts I thought I was cast much against type. That is, of course, a good way to learn acting. We all "act" every day from childhood. I'm not sure acting really has to be "learned" just refined.

I never felt "stage fright" and I reveled in being on stage or back stage. This will astound you Dux but I even got good reviews in the local broadsheet. I have ever since loved the theater and I have become quite a movie buff. Mama knew many Broadway stars personally and so it was that when she took her classes on the annual field trip to New York we were all excited and suitably impressed to be allowed to see many of the Broadway stars backstage. They all recognized her on sight and called her by her first name, "Ada". Mama often told us her highest thrill was the day she got into a NY taxi only to have the famous actor Charles Boyer poke his handsome head in the window and ask, in his romantic French accent and ever so politely, if he could share her ride. In shock, she instantly said "yes", of course.

I think teachers here in the US are shamefully underpaid and possibly under appreciated. Maybe it depends on how one describes the word "teacher"? In my mind it takes a very special person to become a 'real' teacher. IMHO just knowing the information is only a minor part of teaching. Someone with a photographic memory cannot necessarily teach well. Someone with an IQ they can't write down without many digits cannot always impart the information to those less intelligent or interested (I had one of those).

No. There has to be actual learning going on for teaching to be taking place. Not everyone with a wall covered with sheepskins can do it well. I know from personal experience that a "good" teacher impacts his or her students for their entire life. Ditto, I'm afraid for poor teachers as well.

OK, OK, I heard that churlish remark. I agree. No one should pay too much attention to my opinion (Dux will verify that) however I am of the opinion that good teachers should be right up there with good physicians and some good pilots both in pay and in prestige. After all, who taught those physicians and pilots?

I now relinquish the soapbox and the remainder of any time I may have left today to any and all comers. Even to those who are short sight.... misinfor.... woefully ignoran....of an entirely different opinion than I am.