August 18, 2008
Apres nous, le deluge
I think it was Louie XIV who commented "After us, the deluge."
We may be in for one.
Amazed at lack of preparation here for Hurricane Fay.
She's slated to roar right through central Florida and our neighborhood tomorrow (Tuesday) afternoon.
And since our house is less than 10 miles from the beach, we could be in for a REAL bit*h of a hurricane. As well as the tornadoes and surge that are part and parcel.
I call my Scientologist friend and offer to help board up her home today.
Not going to bother, she tells me.
I go out in the front yard a few minutes ago, and communicate with my landlord, busy putting new brakes on an old car.
He speaks little English. So his wife translates.
They've heard NOTHING about the Hurricane's approach; although the Florida Governor declared a statewide emergency yesterday; and some parts of lower Florida are already being evacuated.
Mildred, landlord lady, tells me shortly after they moved here from Cuba, four years ago, a hurricane hit...and they were without power for more than a month.
Probably lucky.
Lets hope we're lucky tomorrow.
And it's not,
Apres nous, le deluge.
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August 17, 2008
"Here, Kitty. Here, Kitty."
Two of the nice things about my new place here in Clearwater, Fla is convenience and diversity of experience.
It’s 6:46 a.m. on Sunday as I write this blogpost.
Around 5:15, I ventured out on Missouri Road…. A stone’s throw … 8-lane divided semisuburban street, type where everyone drives too fast and no one expects pedestrians.
Still dark. The moon visible. Crickets chatting up each other. About 85 degrees, humid.
Crossing Missouri Road, I pass the usual suspects: McDonald’s, Wendy’s, insurance store, dry cleaners, paint place, and head for my morning joe and two donuts at Dunkin Donuts, a bit further down the street.
There are also used car lots along the way. I check them out. “Vespas Coming Soon!” heralds a sign that looks like it was from 1952.
A variety of old cars in this lot… covered with dust, some with flat tires.
Suddenly a car swerves from Missouri in front of me, and into the small sales lot. It’s about a 1992 Olds Cutlass, with a woman behind the wheel.
She stops, and at least 70 cats of all sizes and ages silently emerge from under the old cars, heading to the woman, like lemmings to the sea.
Just behind them follows a raccoon.
“Lady, watch out for that coon,” I half yell to her, as she drags a large bag of cat food out of the back seat of her car.
“No problem here,” she replies, over her shoulder. “I’m here every morning to feed the feral cats.”
I used to run a Humane Society. But, I keep quiet and move on to Dunkin Donuts.
……
A bit later, walk half block up Missouri, the other way, to a laundrymat, carrying a bag of laundry to do.
A 24-hour-place. Front and back doors wide open, small comfort against the morning heat.
Deposit eight quarters and my clothes in a machine.
And notice four old men on hard plastic chairs, watching the TV bolted to the laundrymat’s ceiling.
Two others doze on a nearby picnic table, out in back. Near them are rolled up blankets, backpacks and several brown sacks containing something in liquid form.
Welcome to Florida.
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August 16, 2008
Florida Arrival
Florida Arrival
Clearwater, Florida. Tampa Bay area, west side of the state.
Day One: tornado warning as our flight nears airport. Bumpy.
Day Two: Hurricane warning, over Puerto Rico, heading for Florida's waistline. Could hit us by Tuesday night.
Flown here on USA 3000 out of Detroit. Ticket from DTW to St. Petersburg $97.
Best friend drives us to Detroit at 4 a.m., something I don't venture suggesting to my two grown sons.
Stewardesses look frumpled, tired and out of sorts.
Count seats and multiply by $97. Figure airline will gross about $23,000 from the flight. Two pilots, 4 flight attendants. Aviation fuel. How are they making any money?
Arrive in St. Petersburg, small airport, big terminal banner: “USA 3000 last service to St. Petersburg: August 18th.”
Wander over to the Chamber booth while waiting for the bags.
“It’s airplane fuel charges,” Chamber lady explains. “Please sign this petition to USA 3000, let them know we want to be first-on-their-list for reconsideration.”
I sign.
Think: reconsideration when pigs fly.
My Scientology friend, her 33-yo daughter and I ride through downtown Clearwater. Self contained area, about four times the size of Battle Creek's.
Should be renamed Scientology, Florida. Or maybe Hubbard, Florida.
Church seems to own downtown, except for the County Courthouse and Police Station, and my friend proudly points out all the Church acquisitions and remodeling projects.
I keep an eye out for John Travolta, Tom Cruise, Greta Van Sustern or Sharon Stone. Especially Sharon Stone.
Other Church members and worker bees wait patiently at stop signs, crosswalks and red lights --- not a jaywalker in the bunch -- workers all dressed neatly in white tops, black pants and shoes. If they were carrying Bibles, I'd think they were Jehovah's. Except many are smoking cigarettes.
I get up at 5 a.m. today.
My apartment location is a reminder of travels to Colombia and Costa Rica. Flat roof, stucco exterior on a single family, three unit.
A young Cuban couple own the place; remodeling while they live in one part.
Man is macho; muscled; an under-da-hood kinda guy.
Woman has red and black hair sprinkled with blond sun spots.....endowed by her Creator.... she is hot….early 30s…. smart.... speaks English...plus Spanish…. puts a line thru her 7s...... misses nothing ....very proper.
People don't wear much clothing down here. Yum. Yum.
Joe Z., a BC friend and erstwhile Floridian, warned me about the B-I-G animals in Florida. I thought he was talking about alligators. Not the three white rabbits, the size of Jack Russell Terriers, living under the backyard trash pile.
"Humane Society here last week," my lolita landlady comments, "but I tell them: 'No my rabbits!'"
Middle of first night, apt. lights off, wander toward living room to check computer messages and drink coffee. In the dark, step on and squash a cockroach the size of a normal white rabbit. Slide across the marble kitchen floor, leaving a trail of cockroach guts and green slime.
At 6 a.m., take a walk in the humidity and heat…..to a large grocery store few blocks up Missouri Road…. store's been sold…. shelves half full, with close out items. Just a few night clerks and customers. Mostly eldery. Like me.
Elderly everywhere in Clearwater. As varied in view and appearance as young people.
More clothes. More verbal. Less yum yum.
In the store, I browse sale items.
A small, fragile looking woman with large eyes and engaging smile taps me on the shoulder.
“Monday. Monday,” she says.
I think "Mamas and Pappas?"
No.
“Monday anniversary of my husband’s death. Twenty-three years,” the lady says.
“Minsk.”
Pause.
“Minsk."
"Minsk."
At checkout, she pays for three miniature cans of Bud Light. Nothing else.
"Honey, you're sooooo sweet," she cooes to clerk.
This is gonna be different from Battle Creek.
Even if the hurricane misses us Wednesday.
And I'm going to the beach.
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August 10, 2008
Garage Sale Day Musings...
Garage Sale Day Musings...
…. Local Scientologists help my Clearwater friend/ScChurch member organize my garage sale items …like worker bees around the queen bee. Others honk and wave at her, as they drive down Michigan Ave. I watch, thankful, but a bit skeptical. These Scientologists seem to enjoy life, and have a sense of humor/
…Listen to the struggles of the 50-year old Dominica woman, who lives in nearby Kellogg Manor. She wheelchairs her father down thru the Adventist Church parking lot, to look at garage sale items outside my apartment. Talks rapidly in Spanish to my Clearwater friend, who is also from La Dominica. The woman’s 91-year old father, who speaks no English, sits crumbled…halfway in fetal position, wrapped in a blanket …..in the wheelchair, next to her. Blood-specked spittle runs down his chin and chest. She lovely cleans his chin, takes off his baseball cap, rubs his few remaining strands of closely cropped white hair.
Because she does not want her father to hear what she says, the woman speaks to my friend in ENGLISH…so I overhear and understand. About her not wanting her father to die. “You know, he has THIRTEEN children,” she says proudly. But she also talks about how caring for her father cost her a recent marriage and a job… she wonders if she will ever have her own life again.
… I go into the Family Dollar store just up the street….my daily stop. I know the manager….the constant, in a steady stream of female clerks who last a week or two on the job.
Roam the cheap cookies aisle… my usual stop …. And watch a dude with a green, heavy winter jacket casually, stuff half an 18-wheeler worth of toiletry products inside his jacket. He has SO MUCH stuff, his jacket expands in odd places and odd shapes. He looks like a tent. “Hey, there’s a guy ripping you off in the next isle,” I tell the manager, who is sitting on the floor restocking. She is about 5 foot tall, as thin as a pencil. Rushs over, confronts the guy. “Get the hell out of here. And gimme that stuff,” she screams. The perp takes ONE item out of the jacket, throws it on the floor, as he walks out the front door. Turns, give the store lady some kind of crooked, multi-finger hand sign I don’t understand. And gets on his red bike, heading down Michigan Avenue.
A woman I do not know stops at the sale. She has a wonderful bright smile.... And, after 63 years of beating, my heart suddenly jumps as it hasn't in 5 years. Tongue-tied old man, I think accusingly to myself.
… the little girl from upstairs peaks her head out the doors to watch the garage sale action and the crowd. She is about 7. Beautiful, inquisitive, innocent as only young children can be. All the adults at the garage sale immediately fall in love with her. But I know that some evenings, I hear the little girl outside at 2 am on W. Michigan, with the teenagers who skateboard in front of my bedroom window.
She lives with her mother in just one room. The mother’s “finance” a constant presence… The mother walks down, wearing a long sleeve shirt covering her arms. Well-picked sitzs cover her face and neck...frequent signs of a heroin or meth addict. A young woman, she is missing front teeth and others are a dark yellow. Only small items, a dresser drawer and nice living room table remain. The little girl brings down a quarter, all her mother has, and makes a game of selecting one item to buy from us. We give her the table.
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August 08, 2008
Super Saving...The Northwest Airlines Way
Super Saving ... the Northwest Way
“Northwest Airlines, how may I help you?”
“Yah, uh, I just found a $69 fare on Orbitz for your Detroit to Tampa flight next Friday. I wanna book it.”
“Ok, sir, we do have seats available for that flight. Do you want window or aisle?”
“Aisle.”
“Very good, sir. That will be an additional $15 for the aisle seat. A new charge.”
“Ok, I’ll take the window.”
“Fine, sir. That will be an additional 25 dollars for the window seat.”
“Would you like the front of the plane or the back of plane. It’s $10 additional for the front and $5 for the back.”
“What’s the difference?”
“Well, sir, if you sit in the FRONT of the plane, you’re more likely to survive if the plane crashes. So we have to charge more for those seats.”
“I’ll take the front.”
“Are there any more charges for my Northwest $69 super saver, discount fare next Friday to Tampa???!!!!!!”
“Only a few, sir. Let me see. Let’s just review those plans, shall we?”
One checked bag -- $50 extra.
Window seat with room for two feet - $35
Use of toilet (once) - $ 5
Fuel surcharge - $25
One carry-on bag - $10
Contribution to Pilot and Attendants Retirement Fund - $5
Detroit Airport Take-Off fee surcharge - $5
Tampa Landing fee surcharge - $10
Detroit City Tax -- $5
Mandatory Contribution to the Kwame Kilpatrick Defense Fund - $2
“So, sir, your total fee for our $69 super saver ticket to Tampa will be only $256. Can you have the cash here at our office in 2 hours? There’s an extra fee for credit cards.”
“I have just one more question.”
“Why don’t you post your REAL price on Orbitz?”
“Sir, now it wouldn’t be a super saver any more, now would it??”
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August 06, 2008
We're So Vain
We’re So Vain
We humans think we’re so, so s-p-e-c-i-a-l. Don’t we?
Created in the image of a God. Endowed with rights. The only Earth creatures chosen by the God for resurrection and eternal life.
Oh, the hubris of those bow-legged, big brow bullies on the Planet of the Apes.
And other animals around us in daily life.
But, are we so far up the food chain from the animals?
We breathe air, fight during rutting season,and still sh*h*t in the woods, when necessary. And unlike animals, we kill each other for pleasure and sport, and with weapons-of-mass-destruction.
Let's face it: some pet pigs, cherished cats and dedicated dogs are nicer than humans.
In fact, places that care for stray animals are frequently staffed by employees who've been beat up by a spouse, belittled by a brother, put down by a peer… dislike people, and leave at night to return to a loving hoarder's home of 6 dogs and 13 cats.
I can understand w-h-y.
Take dogs.
They’ve an extraordinary affinity for humans. More so than other animals except perhaps dolphins and chimpanzees.
"Hey, boss, that was a pretty funny episode of The Colbert Report, wasn't it! But I'm tired, too. Turn off that TV. Bed time. Bed time."
Studies show that up to 70 percent of all canine pets frequently yawn when their masters’ yawn. Empathy.
Killer whales (actually dolphins) will rip apart and eat animal prey, but have been know to wiggle into shallow water, and let humans pet them on the head. Ride on their backs. Save them when they drown. Orca. Orca.
“Shi Shi,” "my" Siamese cat (she thinks she owns me), is more intelligent and emphatic than most of my past wives -- affectionate, intuitive, tolerant, and independent.
Recently, scientists pitted a guy from England, who ranks #1 in memory ability competitions worldwide, against a chimpanzee in a cage.
"Pssssssssssssssssssss, humans. I may not use toilet paper, eat leaves for breakfast, and pick fleas out of my hair, but my memory's a lot better than your's, big shot!"
The challenge: to repeat the exact sequence of a group of numbers, flashed on a video screen – with the number of numbers increasing, and with less and less time to remember each more difficult set of them.
The chimp blew the guy out of the water on short term memory. Wasn’t even close.
Us humans. We’re so vain. We think every song is about us.
Don't we, Shi Shi?
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August 03, 2008
'Taking the Piss...it's a cultural thing here in Great Britain'
So, you think political correctness sometimes runs amok in the US of A., and that, as a nation, we're too quick to roll over....
Check out this video post/link from another aging-boomer, in Great Britian, about Muslims, Radicalism, and Saudi Arabia, where, as he notes: "Men are men, and women are cattle."
Go to:
http://www.dotsub.com/view/84f5c72d-b0ba-408c-ace3-8cc40995e011
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Learning From Our Failures
Learning from failure
A CBS-TV Sunday Morning segment suggested we learn from our failures, not our successes.
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Orville Wright got kicked out of grade school.
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Henry Ford went bankrupt four times.
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The copy machine was rejected 10 years before the Xerox machine was finally introduced.
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The fax machine failed when invented in the 1840s.
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The Apple Newton PDA tanked when introduced; but many of its components are included in the tremendously successful I-Pod.
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President Harry Truman had a lower popularity rating that George Bush – the joke of the day was: “To Err is Truman.” Yet Truman went on to deal with the Korean War, the birth of the nation of Israel, created the Department of Defense – and is today considered one of our top 5 or so U.S presidents.
I guess the real lesson is that we learn from our failures; but shouldn't get rewarded for them.
A lesson lost on Wall Street and in some CEO compensation packages these days.
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August 02, 2008
Dropping Shoes and Eating Crackers
Dropping Shoes and Eating Crackers
Lately, I’ve heard a lot of folks say: “I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop.”
Usually, it’s been in reference to the banks going bust, houses remaining unsold, fear of losing a job, or about General Motors losing $15 billion in one calendar quarter.
Personally, I think we’re waiting for more shoes to drop than a centipede has feet. (Centipede: from Latin prefix centi-, "hundred", and Greek ποδός podos, "foot").
I was curious about the origin of the saying. So I looked it up on Wikipedia:
“ A man comes in late at night to a lodging house, rather the worse for wear. He sits on his bed, drags one shoe off and drops it on the floor. Guiltily remembering everyone around him trying to sleep, he takes the other one off much more carefully and quietly puts in on the floor. He then finishes undressing and gets into bed. Just as he is drifting off to sleep, a shout comes from the man in the room below: “Well, drop the other one then! I can’t sleep, waiting for you to drop the other shoe!”.
On another topic:
Having coffee with a friend the other day, and talking about female acquaintances, he commented: "I wouldn't kick her out of bed for eating crackers."
Here's what the Urban Dictionary sez about that one:
|
| “I wouldn't kick her out of bed for eating crackers “ | |
|
| Refers to a woman who meets an attractiveness threshold above which you would easily forgive minor transgressions such as eating crackers and leaving the inevitable crumbs in your bed. As in, "Lindsay Lohan might have a little nose candy problem, but still, I wouldn't kick her out of bed for eating crackers." | |
(From what the LA Police Chief said yesterday, men don't have to worry about kicking her out of bed.)
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July 30, 2008
Sleepin' With A Pig In The Bedroom
Sleeping With A Pig In The Bedroom
My Chinese relatives, living in a very rural area near Dalian, kept their pigs outside the kitchen door – which actually had no door.
As a result, the pigs would wander in during dinner, cooking in an open, stone fireplace.
And you’d find a pig in the bedroom on occasion.
Seemed rather primitive, even for rural China. With the Chinese, there’s a practical reason for everything. Even when not stated.
An epiphany this morning, thanks to an NPR piece on the mating habits of insects.
It’s all about females and female mosquitoes – not pigs, turns out.
Female mosquitoes love to bite warm blooded creatures – including humans. They suck blood for the protein; for reproduction purposes.
The males (ah, another example of the male species not REALLY being the overly aggressive ones) do NOT bite.
Comparatively speaking, they’re love bugs…or rather love insects.
The female mosquitoes wander the nights, looking for victims and the red nectar needed for making baby mosquitoes – by the millions.
And they end up frequently in your bedroom – especially if you’re rural, poor Chinese and have nothing to cover door or windows.
Pigs are even more warm blooded that humans. So mosquitoes are attracted to the pig in the bedroom…and don’t bite the people in the bed.
Makes you almost want to sleep with a pig in the bedroom.
But I’ve already done that.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93049810
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July 28, 2008
You Know That I'm No Good
Mea culpa. Mea culpa. Mea maxima culpa.
I've trashed Amy Winehouse here and elsewhere for her Janis-Joplin-behavior.
But can this woman ever write music and sing crossover R&B.
Go to:
http://www.last.fm/music/Amy+Winehouse/+videos/5485490
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July 27, 2008
Unsafe at any speed?
In 1961, my twin brother and I were attending a rich-kids Jesuit High School in Kansas City. (Not that we were rich.)
One of my brother’s buddies had been given a bright red Chevy Corvair by his parents. I got to ride in it on occasion. 
A rather strange car, I later found out, with an engine in back, along with the spare tire – and a propensity to catch fire and kill passengers – profiled in Ralph Nader’s 1965 book: Unsafe At Any Speed.
Fast forward to about 1971....I was fresh out of the Navy...had a new p.r. job for a Kansas City community college.
And my boss told me to pick up Raph Nader at a downtown hotel for an evening campus speech on "Consumer Advocacy."
And rather oblivious to lots of things back then, I picked him up in a borrowed Chevy CORVAIR.
Two friends -- students in the University of Missouri-Kansas City’s law school -- had successfully begged to ride along in the back seat – so they could meet and soak up a bit of Nader. (Not a word of warning from them.)
I remember pulling up to the downtown hotel entrance....Nader standing outside…waiting for us.
And the uncomfortable exchange.
“I can’t ride in that car,” Nader yelled at me. “If the news media sees me, I’m crucified.”
I didn’t tell him he wasn’t Jesus.
Just it was getting dark; raining, no cabs; no one would see him; he’d travelled all this way; the campus crowd was waiting; and, of course, that his speaking fee meant showing up.
So Nader swallowed his corvair foibles….and got in.
I think about Nader and that encounter.... almost every time I take the apartment trash out these days.
Next to the apt. trash dumpster, in Barney’s Brake Service's backyard, is this silent witness:
The end of the road for an old Corvair....weeds growing like a hothouse in the back seat – where the law school students were sitting in 1971.
And the old, rusted Covair with broken windows seems to be sinking into the mud and ground ….like a casket slowly lowered into the grave.
To think Ralph Nader is still making a run for the White House 37 years later.
At least now we all know he's not Jesus.
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July 26, 2008
In The Heat Of The Night
For the past two evenings, PBS’s Travis Smiley has interviewed Sidney Poitier on a late night TV show.
What a wakeup. What a brain treat.
Poitier continues to consciously defy racial stereotyping.
He's the first Black man to win the best actor Oscar and, in a 50-year-plus career, has starred in over 40 films, directed nine and written four. He's also a best-selling author of three autobiographies, including Life Beyond Measure.
Poitier came to the U.S. at age 15, from the Bahamas, and began his acting career with the American Negro Theatre. An activist and humanitarian, he has appointments as the Bahamas' ambassador to Japan and UNESCO.
Poitier is now 81. His hair has thinned and grayed. But his wonderful smile and hand mannerisms remain. And his serious, thoughtful stare can still melt butter, or racists as Poitier did in “In The Heat of The Night” 41 years ago.
For a balanced and revealing perspective on many topics, check out the transcript of the Poitier interviews at: http://www.pbs.org/kcet/tavissmiley/archive/200806/200806...
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July 19, 2008
'Thanks for shopping at Meijer's'
'Thanks for shopping at Meijer's'
Today's story in our local newspaper tells the tale of a soon-collared bank robber, brought to justice by a bank security camera.
The story reminded me that most crooks probably don’t read the daily Battle Creek Enquirer. Or at least the daily column that lists crimes and arrests.
If they did, they’d know that crime-doesn’t-pay; at least where there are security cameras.
Perps who hit on K-Mart, Wal-Mart, Meijer’s... get C-A-U-G-H-T. Usually before they're in the parking lot.
These stores have more security cameras than a Blackjack table in Las Vegas or a bedroom at The Mustang Ranch.
My son and I were in the old Meijer’s Store (a regional competitior to Wal-Mart) on W. Columbia Avenue last Thursday.
Since the place will soon close…replaced by the new Meijer’s under construction next door… I was taking a more careful look at the old store…its outdated lighting and display fixtures...missing floor tile….the stained, watermarked ceilings…
We got to the front of the store and a long row of cashier stands…..most…as usual … unattended…hardly a cashier in sight….with 30 people and groceries waiting in two lines… like cattle, a bit frantic to get through slaughterhouse gates...
So I had lots of time to look around…and up…
From one end of the cavernous store to the other… on the ceiling over EVERY cashier’s station was a frosted-gray video bulb-security monitor…. (It seems to be looking straight down at your balding head, at you picking your nose…shuffling for change….telling the kids not to whine about candy…)
AND, 20-feet behind every one of these frosted-gray-video-bulb-security monitors was a BIGGER frosted-gray video-bulb-security monitor, presumably watching the first frosted-gray-video-bulb-security monitor watch you.
I turned .... looked back toward the center of the store, again at the ceiling….and there were enough frosted-gray-video-bulb-security monitors sprinkled around to decorate the White House Christmas Tree.
“Josh, wonder how many people they gotta have to watch all these monitors?," I said to my son and to no one.
“Got to be at least three or four people,” he calmy responded.
I replied, only half joking, "Well, maybe they can get a couple of 'em down here to sack groceries."
“But don’t pick your nose.
Smile at the camera.
And keep your hands where they can seem um.”
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July 07, 2008
Celtic Thunder and Ryan Kelly
Several weeks ago, I turned on PBS-TV during pledge week.
They were showing a recent concert by Celtic Thunder; and had several of the four male singing leads, in the studio, in person. Nice guys, unpretentious...interesting, fun.
Celtic Thunder performs with a huge touring orchestra, terrific sets...stage presence, production values.....and incredible voices.
Watch Ryan Kelly of Celtic Thunder sing Hearbreaker on UTube.... (Listen to it LOUD and check out the two gorgeous women on stage with him.) Also his version of Desparado.
What a show-stopper!
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July 04, 2008
'Love and Memories' For WWII Vet On Independence Day
By Jim Richmond
The snow was 2 feet deep, and Europe was having its worst winter in 50 years.
Twenty-three-year old Curtis Canard, fresh from the farm fields of Northwest Arkansas, was a member of the U.S. Army’s famous 82nd Airborne and a long way from home, cold to the bone, and after wearing the same combat clothes for a month, smelled as bad as he looked.
Canard found himself stuck in the snow, and in the middle of the biggest battle of endstage World War II: the Battle of Bulge.
The battle dragged on from December 1944 to January 1945, and was the last German offensive in the west during World War II. It pushed a "bulge" into Allied lines in Belgium and Luxembourg.: Over 75,000 Americans were killed, maimed, or captured at the Battle of the Bulge
The Allies would eventually cut off the German advance near the Meuse River and the Germans withdrew, suffering heavy losses.
On January 7th, Canard was part of a patrol, sent to check on an Allied outpost and to set up a road block against the Germans advance on the western side of the Salam River. Canard would be the only patrol member to fight on.
“We scrunched down in deep snow beside the road, when suddenly we saw 5 German tanks and about 200 infantrymen approaching us.
Curtis Canard, right, on leave in France,1945, with unknown Army buddy..
"The patrol opened fire, and the tanks killed two of us; a third took off running over a hill. I laid unobserved in the deep snow, in a ditch, when the Germans passed. They were close enough to spit on me,” he recalled.
In later combat, Canard would fight hand-to-hand with the Germans outside a farmhouse, injured by artillery fire, and be awarded 3 Bronze Star medals by war’s end.
Returning home, Canard helped on the family’s 370-acre farm near Mountain View, Arkansas, “milked cows, and grew wheat, corn and potatoes – all the food we ate,” Canard said.
“We didn’t have any heat in the part of the farmhouse where we (Canard and his six siblings) slept, no electricity early on, and just an outhouse.”
Canard met Betty Hopper and the couple married in 1949.
Like many others from the rural south, the Canards soon moved north to Michigan to find better jobs and a better life. They settled in Kalamazoo.
Betty and Curtis Canard. Outside Kellogg Company’s Porter Street Plant in Battle Creek, where Curtis worked for 25 years.)
Fifty-nine years later, the couple is still together, with five grown children, 14 grandchildren, and 8 great grandchildren.
Both are retired.
Curtis worked at the Kellogg Company’s Porter Street plant for 25 years. Betty was employed with the James River paper company in Kalamazoo, where she worked for 34 years
.“Especially on July 4th, we shouldn’t forget the War,” Canard, now 86, said. “So many Americans gave their lives to save democracy back then.”
On Independence Day, 2008, some of the Canard’s grown children have gathered at the family home near Richland to visit their parents.
This isn’t rural Arkansas, but there still was no heat or electricity (because of the recent storm) at the Canard’s home. The family said they didn’t mind.
Today, they’re sharing a lot of memories. And love.
Youngest daughter Colette, and her family are here from New York.
“My parents have always had high expectations for us. But they also have big, open hearts. Hard working people. Full of warmth. Integrity. And forgiveness,” Colette said.
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July 02, 2008
Kellogg's Plant Tours
So the years when 250,000 eager tourists from around the world visited Kellogg Company's Porter Street Plant in small town Battle Creek, Michigan USA are….. gone. And nearly forgotten,
When they’d be greeted by smiling hostesses, shephered into attractive waiting rooms, watch an historical filmstrip how shy W. K. Kellogg invented commerical cornflakes, overcame his flamboyant brother, charged ahead when times were tough and his early plant burned to the ground ...
Just when the filmstrip seemed too long, the kids whined, pulling on your pantleg and needing to pee.....it was over...
and you were gathered like a flock on to the plant tour...and to smells of cooking cereal....amazed looks by all at giant copper cauldrons
...gawked and shufflebyed at hundreds of silent net-headed cereal line workers …and then…
and then…at line's end, the door, the warm smile, and eagerly anticipated going-home goodie bags of Kellogg sample products and Americana collectibles.
Today the old Kellogg Plant Tour entrance is gateway to Kellogg’s ‘Porter Street Office Complex,’; the huge tourist-size parking lot remains, but near empty; no mention of any Porter Street plant, or plant tour.
Walk through the entrance and find some Kellogg offices, a cafeteria and store. The building façade has been redone in Kellogg's nearby downtown corporate headquarters' red bricks, part of a seemingly corporate graphic identification system.
A few blocks further east on Porter Street is the entrance to Kellogg’s new Porter Street Plant. Now a state-of-the industry, largely automated plant that reportedly employs about 500 people -- compared to more than 4,000 in the days of W. K. and the plant tours.
Smaller sign. Smaller parking lot. Different feel.
The entrance is for authorized personnel only. Salesmen, employees, caterers delivering stacked boxes of pizzas and cakes for lunchtime..
Walk inside, and find a glassed-in security enclosure, with banks of tv camera monitors and two attentive guards.
Need a purpose and name badge.
No, taking the kids to see Tony, and to the bathroom, won't do.
Instead, pass through one of four StarTrek-like transporter enclosures of stainless steel and clear plastic that guard the plant entrance.
There is a red light. A green light.
A large sign next to the transporters is for all who seek to enter:
· No fingernail polish and artificial nails
· No audio, visual and digital recording equipment
· Scarves and ties – tie or remove
· Remove all articles from pockets above the waist
· Shoes must completely cover the foot
· No jewelry
· No food, beverages, candy, gum, tobacco or medications
· No glass containers, equipment or supplies
· No alcohol, narcotics or weapons
· No purses, bags or backpacks.
Times have changed on Porter Street.
And the world.
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June 28, 2008
Jesus is in the parking lot.
PostScript: Volunteer Essex was right. Yesterday (6/27) people wanting the food were lined up 90 minutes ahead of time. Many had brought along plastic wash tubs -- several pulled out wire framed grocery carts from their car trunks -- to get their Food Bank items. Watching the activity from my second-floor window, I also noticed that about 75 percent of the people were obese. Poor people may get enough food, but it's the type that leads to overweight, diabetes, heart problems, high blood pressure.
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Looking out my second-floor window and across W. Michigan Avenue this morning, I saw this gathering crowd in the Seventh-day Adventist Tabernacle parking lot.
As 10 a.m. approached , the crowd seemed to surge. So I walked across the street.
Turns out the Tabernacle lot is one of 5 or 6 Food Bank distribution sites every Friday morning in summer months, scattered at locations across our little city of Battle Creek, here in the American Midwest.
Tabernacle Volunteer Phyllis Essex predicted that future Fridays would see more people, there to pick up perishable items, including fresh produce.
"Oh, next Friday, people will be here waiting for us, early in the morning," she predicted, "once folks know or remember about the sites and the food availability."
Caption: Three church volunteers help pass out perishable food in the Seventh-day Adventist parking lot this morning. Back row, left to right, Phyllis Essex, William Minear, Rudy Hall.
People fill out a simple form; list the number in their family. No screening for income or need. The presumption is those who show have need for the food.
Why do Essex and the other Tabernacle volunteers spend mornings handing out food to poor people, under the summer sun?
“Because if Jesus was on Earth today, he’d be right here in the parking lot, handing out food with us,” Essex said.
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June 07, 2008
McNamara, 'Rummy,' And Misery Revisited
The old man next to me at the dinner table in New York City was still recognizable. But barely.
Gone was the black hair; replaced by a few white strands combed to hide his scalp.
Brown, age spots dotted his now sunken cheeks and pencil-thin face.
Only the eyeglasses were familar from TV news clips in the mid 1960s.
It was Robert McNamara, Secretary of Defense under LBJ, who with his “Whiz Kids” from the auto industry, carried out LBJ’s dictums in Vietnam; while trying to apply business 
management systems to the Defense Department.
McNamara served longer than anyone else in American history as DOD Secretary.
But when he retired, many believed McNamara had failed in Vietnam. And had setbacks in modernizing the U.S. military.
So, here it was, in the early 1990s, as I sat next to him at this black tie, charitable fundraising dinner in New York
I was nearly tongued-tied. Not that I didn't know what to say to or ask McNamara. As a Vietman vet, I had questions.
But the evening, the timing seemed inappropriate, wrong. My questions would be too pointed, I convinced myself.
So I let the chance go by. Confined comments to small talk about economics and the World Bank, which McNamara headed after leaving government service.
Vietnam still seemed like the big, silent elephant at our table.
I recalled this unsatisying experience the other evening as I viewed the 6-hour Frontline series "Bush's War," telecast in its entirety on PBS, and watched another Secretary of Defense, who, next to McNamara, served the longest tenure in American history as DOD Secretary: Donald Rumsfeld.
The PBS-TV series depicts Rumsfield as a no-holds-barred White House infighter, who took on the State Department and the generals, to advocate, with Dick Chaney, for a quick, decisive invasion of Iraq after 9/11.
Like McNamara, Rumsfield is proven myopic in his global and battlefield perspective of a geographic region and a very different type of military conflict.
And, also like McNamara, Rumsfield experiences setbacks in efforts to reinvent, streamline and downsize the Defense Department -- some reflecting a new reality after 9/11. (He gets a large measure of the blame/credit for the BRAC efforts to close the Battle Creek Federal Center and other military installations over the past 15 years or so.)
New York Times stories (and Bob Woodward's books and articles) have profiled McNamara and Rumsfield: Their micromanaging, impatience, arrogance. (Rumsfield was a member of the Kellogg Company Board of Directors for a time. There are local stories of his arrogance and impatience in that venue.)
Since his DOD departure, the 76-year-old Rumsfield has been out of public view....probably savoring his later years in St. Michaels, Maryland, on the former slave plantation he owns known as "Mount Misery," and infamous as site for captivity of Frederick Douglass at hands of "slave breaker" Edward Covey.
Rumsfield is reportedly a multimillionare from his business turnaround years as head of G.D. Searle and other multinational corporations.
We probably won't know -- for sure -- the outcome of the Iraq War for decades -- just as we are only now rewriting outcomes of the Vietnam Conflict, in light of the 'new' Vietnam's pell mell rush toward capitalism. (The Domino Theory turned out to be about capitalism, not communism.)
Today, Robert McNamara is 92. . I'd like to collect a rain check on that dinner chat of long ago.
Ask those questions about Vietnam.
Hope "Rummy" is happy on Mount Misery.
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June 03, 2008
Billy Bob Clinton
Bill Clinton and Angelina Jolie 'share' the July issue of Vanity Fair Magazine.
Clinton is burned about his risky, anything-goes friends and alleged sexual obsessions, post White House, in a hatchet job by a former White House correspondent for the New York Times (go to: http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/... )
The author describes Clinton as (the) "smiling, snowy-haired man who is the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral he attends."
In the cover article, Angelie Jolie postulates and poses in a series of (some pregnant) photos and slides, including a bathtub scene that is bizarre and too artie.
We learn she loves being pregnant because, among other things, gosh, its 'such a sexual turn-on for the man I'm with.'
Presumably, she means former nerd, current hollywood hunk Brad Pitt.
Jolie described-- not so long ago -- how she had sex in back of the stretch limo taking her and lover/grungman Billy Bob Thornton to a awards ceremony in Hollywood.
How liberated. Cute. Kinky. Sooooo Hollywood.
Both Clinton and Jolie have tried to reinvent themselves as internationalists, philanthropists, and champions of the poor.
The Clinton article in Vanity Fair is not well sourced. But you read and think, once again, : "WHY DIDN'T HILLARY DUMP THIS DUDE?"
And, Billy Bob Clinton and Angelina Jolie might make a great couple.
Uuuuppps, gotta go.
A guy with an Arkansas accent is on the hook from his Harlem office. Wants to know if I've Amy Winehouse's phone number.
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May 30, 2008
'Honey, they're shrinking the kids.'
Follow this link, http://health.msn.com/fitness/articlepage.aspx?cp-documen..., and read an interesting story about how playing football can temporarily shrink high school and college players. As in “Honey, they’re shrinking the kids.”
Certain football positions can shrink a player by up to 1 percent of height per day.
As freshmen in high school, 1959, my twin brother and I were involuntarily “placed” on “The Midgets” football team, which was made up of players so small we only played 6-8th elementary school teams.
No way you’d call a high school (or any) team The Midgets today.
Or trot high schoolers out to play elementary kids on the grid iron.
(Maybe in Texas.)