Personal Snippets 1 of 4
�Personal/Travel Snippets of Jim and Emmy Humberd�
Personal/
Travel Snippets
of
Jim and Emmy Humberd
A�Why-Not-Travel� rather than a
�How-To-Travel� Essay
This Book is dedicated as a Memorial to Emmy, my most Beautiful, most Fabulous Wife for nearly 55 years.
By Jim Humberd
Personal/Travel Snippets
ISBN - 0-9618405-4-4 978-0-9618405-4-9
� Jim Humberd 2007
February 14, 2007
Valentine�s Day
My Sweetie�s second Valentine�s day in Heaven
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book in any form, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Jim and Emmy�s Books
�Invitation to � �� Series
Or as John Steinbeck might have said:
Travels With Emmy
Invitation to Germany
ISBN-0-9618405-2-8 9 780961 840525
Invitation to Italy
ISBN-0-9618405-3-6 9 780961 840532
Invitation to France
ISBN-0-9618405-1-X 9 780961 840518
Em-J Publishing
Burbank, CA 91501
Please Read this Before You Attempt to Read the Book!!!
This book is written as a Memorial to Emmy, my Beautiful Wife, and Wonderful Travel Companion for nearly 55 years. Dozens of Snippets tell, indicate, hint, express, insist, and broadcast my complete, intense, deep-felt love forever. While I have been signed on as the author of this book, Emmy�s Travel Notes were indispensable. These really are Jim and Emmy�s love stories and travel adventures, so her name appears at the top of the page. Most of these stories were written ten, fifteen, or twenty years ago in the Humberd Chronicles or our Travel Journal, then selected and edited for this book.
This is a most unusual book. You can flip it over and read from either front cover � Personal Snippets at one end, Travel Snippets at the other. You may turn to any page, read what you want, then flip as many pages as you want, either forward or backwards � the paragraphs are random. They are separated by a dashed line, and there is no connection with the next Snippet, or the next page.
Since there is no easy way to find anything in this book, other than to read and read, I suggest you read with a pencil in your hand, and make a mark in the margin if you might want to find that Snippet again. If the first sentence of a Snippet doesn�t look interesting, don�t stop reading, the subject changes multiple times in many Snippets.
At both the Personal and the Travel Snippets ends of the book, there is an odd style of an Index entitled �Punch Lines,� with a phrase from a few Snippets, along with the page number where it is located. Find a Punch Line you like, flip to that page and read the Snippet, then flip pages forward or backward from there, as you will.
Preface
I selected a few paragraphs from our Journals as a biography of my Sweetie and I for my 60th High School Graduation Anniversary (I wasn�t there for either the graduation or the anniversary). I enjoyed what I was doing, so added a few, then selected a few more, and more and more. I could not imagine what to do with them, so I separated them into two sections � Personal Snippets, and Travel Snippets. Then I hit the sort button on the computer and that put each section in alphabetic order by the first few words of each Snippet. Just a very few times it appeared necessary or best, to violate the alphabetic sequence.
While the Snippets were written at different times over the past twenty years, and no attempt was made to keep them in order by subject, alphabetic order makes for some very interesting juxtaposition of some Snippets. Just as an example, one Personal Snippet tells about me banging my head as a child, and we know there can be lasting effects from that, but the very next Snippet tells about me training NASA on computers used to put the men on the moon.
My intention was to present only Snippets about what we did, what we saw, what we said, and about the people we met, there was no intention of showing descriptive tourist narratives. When I did digress, I hope you can see that we did have a special attachment to the subject of that Snippet. One thing you will find is my sense of humor, examples of what I call humor, and what my Thesaurus lists as Synonyms: comedy, comicalness, drollery, drollness, funniness, humorousness, jocularity, witty, (or perhaps half-witty). You won�t find many examples of the Antonyms: depression, sadness, seriousness, unhappiness.
The compliments to my Sweetie, and the humor you see in these Snippets, actually appears in our Journals, and were said or happened where stated, I didn�t just make them up as I edited this book. Well, knowing me, maybe I did just create a couple of them.
I arbitrarily set a budget of 150 words per Snippet, and carefully kept within that budget most of the time. Once in a while I spilled over a few words, but I don�t think any Snippet reached 160 words. To write within a strict word budget, requires a �tight� style of writing, which I enjoy, and I am sure that style results in better writing than just spewing word after word after word.
It is not the intent of the Snippets to tell you how to travel, where to travel, or when to quit traveling. This is a �Why Not Travel� book, not a �How To Travel� book. I want to pique your curiosity, stimulate your interest, and prompt you to investigate details beyond those given in these Snippets.
As far as I know, every building and place name included in these Snippets, can be found on the Internet. I am sure that Google, Yahoo, and their competitors can find a billion pages of information that will tell you more than you need to know about the places we have visited. Of course that information is also in your local library, and many libraries have computers available for your use, if you don�t own one.
Hundreds of these Snippets tell of the wonderful people we met in all parts of Europe. I didn�t clean up a story, we just didn�t have very many instances where all was not fine and dandy. As is known by everyone who must interface with them, we did note a couple of French toll booth or ticket agents who acted exactly like we had been told to expect. But as our beautiful French friend Brigitte said, �French people don�t even like each other.�
During our years of travel we spent nearly 1,000 nights in Europe, including 157 in France, 422 in Germany (Emmy had lots of German Cousins),112 nights in Italy, 26 in Greece, and on and on, and we remember very few people who did not treat us properly. We could find that number of obnoxious people on one trip to a local shopping mall. We will meet crabby people if we are in a bad mood, or when we get on or off a French toll Road. But if we are traveling, how can we be in a bad mood? For my Sweetie and I, �To Travel� was a synonym for �Good Mood.�
Some Snippets, or at least a sentence or two, are shown more than once. Sometimes just because that made the story at that point complete, some because I wanted to make sure you read it at least once. In a couple of cases, the story was both an important Personal Snippet and an important Travel Snippet, and I didn�t think you would object to reading it twice. I just couldn�t leave it out of either side.
This is my correction notice, even before you find an error. At several places in this book there are a bunch of numbers of days, nights, trips, miles, countries, cities, number of words in a Snippet, and on and on. Who knows, I may not come up with the same answer each and every time I counted, during the past 60 years.
You have my permission to add and subtract, and count this and count that, and if you find that I have miscounted here or there, you have my authorization to take your pencil and make the correction in your copy of the book, but please don�t tell the rest of the world! I can�t imagine that a day or a mile or a night or a word one way or another in our travels will have much impact on the enjoyment of your travels.
Jim and Emmy�s Snippets
Personal Gems & Morsels
These are some paragraphs that I find interesting, and a few I really do think are special. Consider this, the best Snippet of all, is the one just three or four past where you stopped reading.
Except for the few at the beginning, these stories are in random (mainly alphabetic) order, no other order seemed to matter.
Each and every story here is true, we lived them all, and wrote each and every word. It�s been fun, the 30 years in the computer business, our years of travel, and ESPECIALLY the nearly 55 years of working and enjoying life with my beautiful wife, Emmy.
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Emmy and I knew each other for a total of exactly 55 years and 13 days. My Sweetie passed away on November 15, 2005 from complications of Alzheimer's disease. Her illness lasted nearly 9 years, with me as her nurse, the last few years on 24 hour duty. I was sitting by her hospital bed one day when she said, �This must be awful boring for you.� I responded, �It ain�t boring, you�re my Sweetie� Her last five nights were in a senior medical facility. I was not her nurse those days and nights, but I was there at the very end. Her headstone tells the story of her life, it states:
�Now the Angels have a Role Model.�
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In 1950, it was not Love at First Sight, it was LOVE AT FIRST GLIMPSE, for me as soon as my Sweetie opened the door when I arrived for our blind date on Nov. 3. I had to report to the Army in a few days, but I was able to visit her on Christmas and a few weekends. Seven months later � minus one day � on June 2, 1951, after we had seen each other maybe 10 to 15 times, we were married. Emmy is the first and only lady I ever dated. What would I have done without her?
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At an US Army surplus store I paid $13 for a new US Army Uniform (I was on active duty). Emmy had borrowed a dress from a girlfriend at work. On June 2, 1951, the large church was being decorated by 10 or 12 men, some high on ladders, for a wedding later that day. As we approached the Altar, the pastor yelled, �Hey you guys, quit hammering for a few minutes, doesn�t hurt to use this stuff twice.� The Wedding took 5 minutes, the Marriage lasted 55 years. (1951)
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On our wedding day, we ate at The Pantry, in Park Ridge, IL. When we visited near there in 1990, I planned to eat again at The Pantry, but no one told them to still be in business. From that first Marriage Day, we celebrated our Wedding Anniversaries at a restaurant we had never patronized before. Those restaurants were located on three cruise ships, and in five countries and six states. One Anniversary night was spent at the Hotel Queen Mary. Emmy insisted that on our 3rd Anniversary, when we had about the same number of dollars as Anniversaries, she cooked a special meal at home, but our written records and my memory firmly says we ate at the Baker Hotel, in Dallas. Years later one restaurant had been burned to the ground and rebuilt in the years between the dinners, so I guess that counts as a new one. (1951)
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During my working years in the computer business, I visited Las Vegas many times, for conventions, sales calls, etc. In 1977 I had a part to play in a convention that was being held at the Hilton Hotel in Las Vegas on the date of our 26th Anniversary. We intended to eat at one of the many restaurants there, but before we left the convention floor, a line of waiters started to bring trays of food of all descriptions � as much as one could eat. Well, I guess that could be considered a meal at the Hilton. Including a convention or two many years, sales calls galore, plus a few special visits to Vegas, we spent four wedding anniversaries there, always in a different restaurant.
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We celebrated our 29th Wedding Anniversary by spending a night in Hotel Mirabeau (OK) in Monte Carlo, Monaco, and having dinner (not OK) in the Loews Hotel. The nights and the meals in our RV were much better. A few hours after our dinner, in honor of our anniversary (or could that just have been a coincidence?), there was a massive fireworks display. Perhaps the large explosion was an accident. It was as if a one hour fireworks show lasted a minute. It was spectacular, proving Monaco really does or does not, know how to put on a fireworks show. (1980)
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For our 30th Anniversary we went to Hawaii, and ate dinner at the Mauna Kea Beach Hotel, on the Big Island of Hawaii. Excellent food, excellent service, excellent ambiance, the best by far, of the 54 anniversary dinners. I called the maitre d' over and said, �Since our family tradition says one anniversary per restaurant, we can�t return here on another anniversary, so how can we possibly match this experience, any time in the future?� We never did, no other dinner compares. (1981)
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In 1985, for our 34th anniversary, Cousin Toni made a reservation at the Hotel Zur Post in Greimerath, Germany, a little town near Mettlach, then she went to dinner with us. The sun doesn�t set until late this time of year, so there was still plenty of light. Meal was fine, Emmy had Zigeunerschnitzel (Zigeuner means gipsy), pork in tomato sauce with green peppers. It must come as no surprise, I had what Germans call a rump steak.
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The Queen Mary sailed to Long Beach, CA, and became a hotel, restaurant, and convention center. For our 37th Anniversary we spent the night in the Queen Mary Hotel � a beautiful room. We had already eaten in the main restaurant on board, so we ate at the Ports of Call restaurant, nearby. Some years earlier I had taken a computer customer and his wife to dinner on the Queen Mary, and of course Sweetie was with us that night. As we were walking around the ship after that dinner, a couple of men were fighting and while running past us, they knocked Sweetie down, but she wasn�t hurt. The Long Beach police were on the dock, but in those days were not permitted to come on the ship. So stupid. Long Beach did send Sweetie a small check to get her coat cleaned, and a few dollars, just because. (1988)
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We celebrated our 38th in the Marriott Hotel in Athens, Greece. From our table we could see the Parthenon at the top of the Acropolis. We asked our waiter when he last visited the Parthenon. He laughed and said as a school child he was bussed to the Acropolis one day, the one and only time he's been there! We visited a half dozen times, during our month in Greece. (1989)
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We celebrated our 44th anniversary at the �Strasbourg Cafeteria.� An order of French Fries here, a piece of fruit there, a very special loaf of bread from a Tunisian bakery in Strasbourg, France, topped by an ice cream cone for desert, all eaten while we walked and walked the beautiful streets of this major European city. We must always visit beautiful Strasbourg in the French Alsace, no other area compares. (1995)
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To celebrate our 49th Anniversary we sailed for three nights on the SS Star Princess, from Los Angeles, to Vancouver, Canada, then flew back to Los Angeles. (2000)
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For our 50th Anniversary we sailed for seven nights on the SS Elation, from Long Beach, along the Mexican coast, then returned to Long Beach. Our wedding had taken place in a huge church with $10,000 (a guess) worth of decorations (for another wedding later that day), and we didn�t want to make a bigger deal out of this anniversary. Get that: The wedding was in a huge church, the 50th anniversary was celebrated on a huge ship, the SS Elation. My parents missed their 50th by two months, and six of their seven children celebrated their 50th. That must be a record of some kind! One brother died before he reached that milestone. (2001)
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On our 52nd Anniversary we sailed roundtrip on the SS Ecstasy, from Long Beach, to Ensenada, Mexico. (2003)
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Anniversaries (including Wedding Day) have been celebrated in 55 restaurants; Athens, Greece; Cruise Ships (3); Dallas (2); Ft. Worth; Greimerath, Germany; Las Vegas (4); Los Angeles area (18); Mauna Kea Beach Hotel in Hawaii (the best!!); Lowes Hotel, Monte Carlo (the worst!!); Palm Springs area (16); Park Ridge, Ill (Wedding day); Phoenix; San Diego (2); San Francisco; Santa Barbara; Strasbourg, France.
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In 1951 I was 23 years old; had been raised on a farm; was a diesel engine repairman; a spot-welder; lugged bales of rubber in a warehouse; operated a metal band saw; was a milkman (twice) in Chicago, and in Penna.; in the Ohio Stage Guard Band, in the Merchant Marines; in the US Army twice. I didn�t want to do any of those jobs for the rest of my life.
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A big evening in Asbury Park, New Jersey, soon after we were married, was to walk on the boardwalk along the ocean, buy a double-dip 10� ice-cream cone, and share it three ways, Emmy, me, and Ronnie. When I first telephoned Emmy, her former husband was there visiting Ronnie. Ronnie started crying, so Emmy said, �That's Ronnie, he was just a year old.� I wasn�t aware of that little detail. I didn't know there was a baby. After a few loud comments, her ex left. Sometimes we went to nearby Ocean Grove and sat in the auction houses and listened and watched the rich people spend their money. Several times we were invited downstairs to the landlord's to watch TV. A few times we also played in the surf. They had a large rope we could hold on to and jump with the waves. (1951)
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A couple of days after our marriage, I drove our 1936 Chevy back to the Army base in Ft. Monmouth, NJ. Emmy brought Ronnie by plane to LaGuardia Airport in New York City about two weeks later. This is the same 1936 Chevy that brother Paul bought for $398 in December 1939 and sold to Papa when Paul went into the Army in 1941. Later Sister Mary and Harold owned it, then sold it to me in 1951. When I was discharged from the Army in September 1951 we tied Ronnie's crib on the back of the Chevy and took it to Brother Johnny�s home in Spring Grove, PA so they could soon use it for newborn David, and a dozen kids and G-kids, since. As we neared Chicago, Emmy was excited, she had never been away from home for such a long time and she was homesick. (1951)
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A few days after we were married I had found a small apartment, with a shared bath down the hall, in Asbury Park, NJ, a very nice coastal resort community near Fort Monmouth. In the kitchen was a sink, stove, refrigerator, table and two chairs, and Ronnie's crib, and all could be touched from the only spot of the floor left to stand on. In the living room was a small hide-a-bed, and a closet. You had to be finished with the closet before you opened the bed, as it filled the room except for a narrow space on one side. That's right, the closet door could not be opened after the bed was opened! The sofa bed was of such poor quality that it was very lumpy and uncomfortable (only noticed when trying to sleep). But it was home and we were thrilled to have found it. (1951)
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After all the years I drove many kinds of vehicles, and taught driving in the Army, imagine my surprise when I flunked a driving test at Fort Worth, Texas. A rainstorm made it difficult to determine where to drive. On one dirt street, half was under water, several boys were playing in �Lake Fort Worth.� It seemed a good idea not to run over the kids, and since I had no idea how deep the water was, and there were no other cars in sight, I just went to the left side of the street, went around the lake, and continued back to the license office. Imagine my surprise when the officer said I had failed the test. He said, �You could have made the kids get out of the way, and even if there is water, it�s still a street.� It was a dirt street, under water, how did I know? (1952)
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After I was discharged from the Army in 1951, back in Chicago I learned more about IBM machines while I worked part time for Statistical Tabulating Company in downtown Chicago, in addition to working nights at International Harvester Co. in Melrose Park, Ill. Emmy did home typing. I picked up and delivered her typing at an office downtown, when I went to Stat Tab. After she got familiar with the work, and had some easy typing to do, she made about $l per hour, when she was lucky. (1951)
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All was OK, we even walked in the hospital lobby for a while, when Linda had announced she was arriving. Easy delivery, Emmy said. Linda was born about 5:50 PM. Dodie, our very close friend, who was a nurse at this hospital, came to rub Emmy's back later in the evening. Emmy still couldn't believe it was a girl. She talked to Dodie about how she would spell Allen, as in Richard Allen. Dodie and I kept telling Emmy we had a beautiful baby girl. It all seemed unreal. We were so happy. Years later, when she was about 5 years old, Linda asked me, �Since I was born in Dallas, does that make me a Texan?� I replied, �If you were born in a barn would that make you a cow?�(1954)
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An important thing I discovered in the early years of being a nurse for my Sweetie. We would be sitting in the den watching TV, and I would also be on the computer. Long before Sweetie became ill, I would be upset that if I wanted to watch a ball game, Sweetie had to go to the bedroom to watch her program. She liked lying in bed watching TV, but I wanted us to be together. One day I had a brilliant idea, and solved the whole problem for about $150 � I just bought another TV. Why did that take so long to figure out? When we moved to Linda�s (when Sweetie was very ill), we had four TVs, two in the den, two in the bedroom. And now that Sweetie is in a much better place, I get to watch two TVs as much as I like, but I would rather be with her. (2000)
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As for Seat Belts, I installed a set in the front seats of our 1951 Plymouth. They were held in place by a stove bolt in a hole punched in the tin floor of the car. Not legal these days, and not very safe in those days, but we felt safer. Then I bought Shoulder Belts for my 1965 Oldsmobile. The dealer would not install them, he said, �You can see them from outside the car, that�s terrible!!� I replied, �Would you rather see blood on the dash board?� I did find someone who figured how to do it. Look at the belts on your car today, and try to figure how we were able to do that in cars 60 years ago. They would not protect very much, but I felt that something was safer than nothing.
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As the Government Marketing Consultant, it was my job to arrange for visits for people from other parts of the country. An office in the Southern part of the country, wanted to impress a bunch of school administrators from Kentucky, with a visit to computer installations in San Francisco. They had a very difficult time convincing the �Hero� of this story to take the trip. He had been born in Kentucky, and even though he had been in the US Army, he had never been over 300 miles from the place he was born and had no intention of ever doing so. But we won. I was driving on the freeway, pointing out the sights, exclaiming over the beauty of San Francisco, when I saw my Hero was crying. I thought this may be exotic and inspiring, but is it that overwhelming? Then came his comment, �Just think, these poor people have to live in these crowded conditions!�
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At one company (among the many) where I worked years ago, my boss was from Australia, and during WW II he had been in the British Air Force, and was a Spitfire (fighter airplane) pilot. He said that when they flew missions over France, they were instructed not drop the bombs that remained in their plane, after the main target was hit, on French civilian targets. However, when they saw a French family sailing on a lake in a sail boat, they would swoop down, fly just as close as they could, so the prop-wash (wind from the propellers) would cause the sail boat to turn over. They didn�t like the idea that some French people were suffering, and others were enjoying themselves.
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Aptitude tests give an indication of what a person should do for a living, and law enforcement is sure not my preference. The worst two days of my army life were spent as a prison guard. Terrible. Obviously I was never in a war, that would have been much worse, I am sure.
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At age 15, Emmy�s friend invited her to attend an AWANA Bible Club. Emmy and her friends started a Bible Club at school. In 1945, she graduated from Leyden High School, in Schiller Park, near Chicago. Yearbook said, �carefree and happy,� hobby �memorizing Bible verses,� member of the chorus, the National Honor Society. For years she ran the church �Prayer Chain.� Faith was very meaningful to her, and she never wavered in her trust of the Lord. She was a warm and loving person who shared her faith with others. She gave out hundreds of booklets, Bibles, and tracts to friends and acquaintances, with notes to encourage them in their faith. Some of our very first dates were at the �Youth for Christ� meetings in downtown Chicago, on a Saturday night. I remember Billy Graham was a speaker. We later attended meetings and shook hands with him in both Dallas and Los Angeles. (1942)
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At the office building at Fort Sill, OK, there was a Private whose name was pronounced �Major.� There was Major Fitzsimmons, and the commanding officer�s last name was Major. One day just after someone had washed the porch, the Private Major was on the porch, and the Mess Sgt. could see him, but was not aware that Colonel Major and Major Fitzsimmons were just approaching from the office. The Sgt. hollered, complete with a string of 4-letter words, �Major get your ��� off the porch.� The two officers quickly turned back to the office, and said, �Get that Mess Sgt. in here.� I had seen and heard what happened, and quickly told my Sgt. who instructed me to go to the office and get it straightened out before the Mess Sgt. arrived. The �Majors� didn�t want to be disturbed by me, but I managed to get the story told before the Mess Sgt. arrived, thank goodness.
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Brother Johnny and I were in Basic Training together in the U.S. Army Field Artillery at Fort Knox,, firing 105 mm howitzers. The crew for each gun included a Gunner, a Number One Man, and five or six others. For some reason I was a very good Gunner, and Johnny was a very good Number One Man. For our graduation, after each group of shells were fired, the members of the crew were to rotate so each solider had the chance to be on each position. The Sergeant told us to go through the motions, but Johnny and I were always to be the Number One and the Gunner. It went well until the Colonel in charge, who could not imagine any gun crew doing so well, trained his field-glasses on us and soon discovered what was happening. The Colonel congratulated Johnny and I, but was very unhappy with the Sergeant. (1946)
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Burt Bacharach composed "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head" with lyrics written by Hal David, who with his wife Eunice, I played tennis several times. We had played a couple of times before I was told that he was a very successful song writer. Once, just for fun, I was commenting (complaining?) about a famous musical, and said, �I hope that wasn�t one of yours.� He said, �It wasn�t, I wished it was, it has been successful, and made a lot of money.� One day, during a tennis match, I said, �Hal, what�s the score?� He replied, �Thirty-love.� I said, �When I ask Hal David, what�s the score, I expect to hear something more melodious than Thirty-love.� And everybody laughed. Well, the tennis players thought it was a great line. You know the difference between the �score� in a tennis match, and the �score� of a musical composition? Are you with me now? (1999)
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Considering my experience over the years, I can assure you that there is a higher incidence of criminal mind-set among computer programmers than in the Mafia, or even the legal profession. How else do you explain spam, identity theft, unasked for advertising on your internet page, voter machine fraud, so-called computer games that promote immoral, illegal, and frightening activities, unneeded and useless features in your operating system and application software, that consume billions of characters of memory you paid for, and for features you have no known need for.
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Don�t know when the organization called �Meals on Wheels,� got started, but I would believe my Sweetie got an early start on that idea. I delivered meals, meals, and more meals, over the years. She discovered meals that were rather easy to fix, one contained chicken, and were liked by most people, and did that over and over. I would believe if you checked the reason some ladies checked into the hospital, was because they wanted their family to get one of Emmy�s meals. With my eating habits, along with the meal was the instruction that no one bother to deliver a meal to me, if Sweetie was in the hospital � my eating habits were too picky for that! Picky? No, I will not use the thesaurus here.
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Due to a lot of work by Emmy (who managed our apartment buildings) and President Carter�s inflation, I was able to get off the computer industry payroll in 1978 at age 50, after nearly 30 years in the computer business. The fact that I �retired� had little to do with computers, but resulted from apartment building prices soaring. Come to think of it, the money to buy the apartment buildings in the first place, came from my efforts in the computer industry. I didn�t quit work, we worked for ourselves, owning real estate and trust deeds. That provided enough time and money to live well (our opinion of living well) and permitted many trips, including nearly 1,000 nights of travel in Europe, and 124 ports on five continents, by ship and ferry. It�s been fun, both the 30 years in the computer business, and ESPECIALLY the nearly 55 years of working and enjoying life with my beautiful wife, Emmy. (1978)
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During many visits, over many years, whenever I had to be in Washington DC, I made sure I had time to visit the Capitol building, and spend time in the gallery of the House of Representatives and the Senate. Once I was supposed to be at a cocktail party of some kind, and my boss was very unhappy to find I would prefer to visit the Capitol Building, instead of joining fellow employees in the cocktail lounge at a fancy hotel. Among other things, I would ride the little subway cars from the Capitol building to the Senate office building, and would make sure I got to sit next to Senator Taft, Senator Bricker, Senator Knowland, and others whose names I don�t remember at the moment. I always made sure I had a question or comment that was germane to the issues of the day, and they were always polite to me.
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During my second week at RAND Corp., one noontime I went from tennis court to hospital with a collapsed lung. The nurse at RAND Corp., thought I had a heart attack. People at RAND Corp. baby-sat for the kids, and drove Emmy in a company car to visit me. After I had been there for two days, I still had not been told why, so I got dressed to leave. The doctor was upset, and said �You aren't my only patient.� I replied, �But you are my only doctor and you haven't given me any information, or any reason to stay here.� The doctor was shocked, but thought that was a logical comment, so explained the problem (collapsed lung), then let me go home. It was many weeks before the Doctor allowed me to do anything that required much physical effort. (I have tried to follow that Doctor's orders ever since, so no reoccurrence of a collapse, ever!) (1955)
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During one very windy ferry boat ride, from Seattle to Bremerton, Washington, I would have helped Emmy hold down her skirt, but I was too busy leading the applause. Marilyn Monroe received fame and fortune for a similar scene, but Emmy did it best. This happened more than once (Hooray!!), so certainly we must blame the windy weather, not the beautiful full skirted dresses my Sweetie loved to wear. On the ferry boat I did not have the camera available, but two photos, one in Yosemite National Park, and one in another park somewhere, are proof positive. You are in second place, Marilyn. (1967)
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Early in my work as a salesman of computer services, at ten State Capitols in the West, I discovered the Governor�s receptionist knew everyone worth knowing, and knew where to find them. I would go to the Governor�s office and talk to the receptionist each time I needed to get names and the location of people I needed to see. The receptionist would say something like, �Go to building �A�, and ask for Mr. Whoever.� It took very little imagination for me to say, �The Governor�s office sent me.� That was not only true, it worked every time! (1960s)
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Elsewhere I tell the story of my friend Shorty driving his truck to town to take the milk to the diary. Well, here�s another Shorty story, the only time that I know of that I played cupid. We both lived and worked at the local diary. I remember that he mentioned a young lady in town named Betty, but he was too bashful to approach her. One day we drove to town for the Memorial Day parade, and as Shorty drove along the main street looking for a parking spot, I saw Betty walking, by herself, on the sidewalk. I said, �Shorty stop quickly, please.� He stopped, I got out and took Betty�s arm, escorted her to the car, and I went for a long, long walk. They have now been married for over 60 years, and at last report, they are in good health, and are living in a home for elderly citizens, which they really are.
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Emmy always liked molasses cookies. It goes back to the time when she was 6 or 7 years old and her sister Hannah took her to Minnesota to visit a family who lived on a farm. This trip was to get them out of the house, so their father (who had found a lovely German lady through an advertisement in a German newspaper) could get married. That lady, Martha, became Emmy�s stepmother. This was the only vacation trip she can remember until we married, and you know I love to travel. It was while on that trip to Minnesota that Emmy discovered she liked molasses cookies. The lady of the house, Mrs. Mann, had a cookie jar chucked full of molasses cookies with white frosting, and Sweetie did keep going to that cookie jar. Over the years she baked hundreds of molasses cookies, and gave away many cookies and copies of her recipe (1930s)
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Emmy can�t believe this yet, but I actually did it. A couple of months after the Polish family (who we had met in Vienna) arrived in California, and after studying English all that time, it was necessary that they get driver�s licenses, so we took Marian, Dana, and their son Jarek to the DMV. While Dana and Jarek appeared to understand the drivers written test OK, Marian (a lawyer in Poland) gave up, and headed for the parking lot, so I followed. Marian still had the uncompleted exam with him, I took it and quickly answered the questions the best I could. Marian went back inside, got back in line, �passed� the written test, and then the driving test. Marian has had no traffic ticket or auto accident problems in the past 25 years. So there! I was just doing a good deed, not just breaking the law, a little, perhaps. (1981)
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Emmy loved to bake cookies, cinnamon rolls, and other goodies. She loved the macadamia nut cookies at Mrs. Fields, so she tried and tried until she came up with her own recipe, and it was better than the original. She gave away many cookies, and copies of that recipe. At times I was able to talk her into making cinnamon rolls, and when she baked a pie, I always hoped there would be some pie crust left over, so it could be covered with cinnamon, and baked just for me. Well, she liked that also.
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Emmy was born in Chicago, on January 2, 1927. Prior to World War I, German immigrants Nikolas and Emilie Mungenast lived in Minnesota where he worked for the German Consulate. Once the War broke out, they returned to Germany, then in 1922 they settled in a suburb of Chicago. Emmy�s mother was in poor health and died when Emmy was�6 years old. Nikolas later married German-born Martha, who became a loving stepmother to Emmy. Emmy�s parents never wanted her to speak German, they spoke to her in English, but spoke German to each other. Emmy was surprised when she visited Germany (in 1970), that she actually understood a great deal of what everyone said and could even speak simple sentences herself. In her last months, in spite of dementia, she could understand German. Item of trivia: Her pediatrician when she was born, was her father-in-law for a short time, many years later, and of course he was the pediatrician when Ronnie, his grandson, was born.
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Emmy's stepmother, Martha, became ill in 1954, with spinal meningitis. She did not take care of herself when she had ear infections that she treated herself for years. She was only 62 when she died. She was a very good stepmother to Emmy and loved Ronnie with a passion. She must have felt he was the baby she never raised herself. She had a daughter out of wedlock in Germany around World War One, and had to leave her there when she moved to the United States. Emmy discovered this through reading a letter her father had written, but Emmy never let her stepmother know that she knew. She's always regretted not telling Martha that she loved her just the same. In 1985 we tried to find this daughter in Heiligenhafen, Germany, just north of L�beck, but found from court records that she had died in 1978.
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Federal Senator Paul J. Fanin AZ, asked me to present my idea of a needed IRS law, to his staff, and staff members of other Senators, in his office in the U. S. Senate Office Building in Washington, DC. I sure was impressed with his request, they liked my presentation. Don�t think the idea was passed into law. Well I was almost famous! (1969)
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Few people have driven as many different vehicles, as many different places as I have. On the farm I drove several kinds and sizes of trucks and tractors. In the Army, first time, I was a driving instructor, teaching and giving drivers tests on big trucks. For over 20 years I traveled on business, and rented at least 700 cars, in maybe 30 states. My Sweetie and I have driven in 49 of the 50, Canada coast to coast, and Mexico. I have driven on five Hawaiian islands, and Majuro, Truk, Saipan, Guam, in the So Pacific. In Europe I drove six RVs 87,000 miles in 29 countries, five islands in the Mediterranean and Adriatic, crossed borders 227 times, and drove about 15 European rental cars about 15,000 miles. Never had an accident, the cost to repair the few scratches would buy lunch at McDonald's a few times. Lucky or good? Both.
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For several years Emmy was involved in the Literacy Program. The students came to our house a couple of times a week The doctor never confirmed this, but I believe one of the reasons for Emmy�s dizzy/vomit problems, was because she sat next to her student, with her head turned sharply, to help them. No one had any idea of a connection, but the first time she had a spell, was while she was teaching, and that happened a couple of other times. I had tried to get her to sit at the end of the table, but she preferred to sit next to them, so she could see the words they were reading. It is my opinion that having her head turned sharply for hours, was not the way to do it. If only I knew then what I think I know now. I told the local librarian and my US Senator about this, just in case it might help someone else. (1998)
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For several years in the 1950s, I had a lot of problems with migraine headaches. Several times, right in the midst of a meeting at work, I would have to ask someone to drive me home, and someone else would bring my car. Later I was able to recognize when a migraine headache was coming (bright sparkling lights), and I would leave work, take some pills and go to bed in a dark room for a couple of days. I was in a carpool with three Psychologists (RAND employed many of them, what a carpool!), who laughed and said I violated all the rules they were taught about the cause of migraines. I also remember as a child (on the farm outside Martinsburg), when I would bang my head against the wall, just because it felt different. Perhaps no one had heard of migraines at that time. I know, I know, there are reasons to believe there has been a lasting effect from the head banging.
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Forty-five years ago when we put men on the moon, I wrote the programmer manuals for the RCA 110A (Saturn Ground Control Computer) and the RCA 4102 (Atlantic Missile Range, Picket Ship Computer), two of the computers used to put the men on the moon. I created the training course, then at the Marshall Space Flight Center at Huntsville, Alabama, I taught programmers how to program and use those computers. Since everyone got to the moon and back, I did my job perfectly. I did not have a technical education, so I didn�t know the technical words that would confuse the people I was teaching, almost none of whom had ever seen a computer. The RCA 110A was still in pieces laying on the floor in the computer facility I had just built, and that computer had not yet been put in operation. The RCA 4102 existed, but never where I was teaching a class. (1962)
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Frankly I am tired of hearing over and over that there is a problem with electronic voting machines. That is not true, there is a problem with the people who engineer and program voting machines. Guns don't kill people, people using guns kill people. Computers don't miscount votes, people using computers miscount votes. Untold millions of people are Slaves To Technology. Some evidence exists that computers and other electronic devices stimulate the same areas in the brain as alcohol and other drugs. There are drugs, alcoholism, compulsive gambling, and computer addiction. These days there are more electronics in a baby's crib, then existed in the world 60 years ago. Therefore these days electronic addiction starts in the crib, and increases ever after.
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From the first, Emmy was an excellent seamstress, and liked to sew clothes for the entire family, including the shirts I wore to work. In Dallas we bought a Necchi sewing machine, but about a week later Emmy was so unhappy with the Necchi, she was crying when I came home. I said we would return it for the Elna sewing machine that she had wanted in the first place. The storekeeper had felt the Necchi was the best machine and the best buy, but he was happy to exchange it for her. We also bought a brown sectional living room set, and blonde Formica end tables. My overtime and part-time job permitted this all to be owned free and clear in short time. (1953)
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Golf was never my game, I played two rounds 50 years ago with Emmy�s sister Hannah, but didn�t like it. One time, early for an appointment, I stopped at a golf driving range, one of the few times in my life to hold a golf club. The first couple of balls went past the 250 and 300 yard sign, so I thought those signs were phony. The next 8 or 10 shots went about as far, then the last 30 hits went 10 yards this way and that way, and that was enough. As I returned the club, the manager said I didn�t see the crowd that gathered behind me. He said my first dozen hits were the most beautiful swings he had seen, and everyone thought a golf pro had stopped to warm up. Then the rest of my shots were just what they would expect from a rookie swinger. (1960)
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Grace Murray Hopper, a good friend, programmed computers starting in the 1940s, and was considered the inventor of computer program compilers. In 1986 she retired from the U. S. Navy at age 80, with the rank of Rear Admiral. I knew Grace for 10 or 15 years and I often met her at a convention, several times in Las Vegas. Since Grace did not like the so-called fabulous dinner-shows at the major casinos, and neither did I, we would go to dinner in just a plain restaurant. There are a few of those in that town. My Sweetie was with me many times, and I proved again that I often say the wrong thing at the wrong time. While at a computer convention touring a very complex �early computer� exhibit that I worked with, (she was not computer knowledgeable), I said, �I wish I was so dumb, and could eat so well.� She did know I was kidding, and laughed with me. Very few people understood computers those days, and sometimes it seems that even fewer understand them today. (1960s)
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Gunfire played a part in our lives three times. I called Sweetie from a hotel in Denver, and asked, �How did things go at the apartments today?� She answered, �Belinda just shot Edgar.� Belinda was out of jail before Edgar was out of the hospital. In another apartment building, a boy found a gun, played around, and killed a tenant�s son. The building was for sale, we were afraid the man who wanted to buy, might change his mind, but the sale went through. Between two trips to Europe, we rented a small apartment in Palm Desert. The bedroom was in the front, and one evening, while Emmy was in bed and I was in the living room, I heard some gun shots. I hollered to Emmy to get on the floor and crawl to where I was. It was a murder right in front of our apartment. We didn�t know either party. (1973)
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Have you ever met a person who has never seen a TV remote, a hand calculator, a cell phone, a computer, or other electronic device? Well I have. When I worked at the RAND Corp. in 1955, I saw rooms full of college graduates and PhDs of various stripes, who I introduced to computers. Up to then, none of them had seen such a thing. I saw engineers who knew nothing about computers until they attended a programmer training course, be transformed, within a few months, into �computer nuts.� When they recognized the power they had, they become addicts, just as if they took a addictive substance, or had a psychological experience. I saw them become just like compulsive gamblers and alcoholics. That's not the attitude we need in any computer system.
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Here�s a �Shaggy Dog Story.� After moving to Woodland Hills, we came home after dark and couldn�t find our dog, Lady, a shaggy chow dog. We looked, and called, were surprised she did not come. She was the best dog, never a problem, so we were concerned. We had parked our second car outside the fence, so I went to the car to drive around and see if I could find her. I heard and �felt� something in the back seat. I turned my head to look, and looked right down the huge throat of Lady, who was yawning, just inches away. It scared me, I froze in my seat, goose bumps a mile high. Lady jumped out of the car, went to the house, and soon Emmy came looking for me, Lady had gotten outside the fence, the neighbor didn�t want her to run away, so opened the car door, and Lady jumped in expecting a ride. (1958)
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Here is the story I tell at each 25th Anniversary we attend: There was a large noisy 25th Anniversary party on the 50th floor of an expensive apartment building. The �groom� was on the balcony looking over the city, and looking very glum and unhappy. His lawyer friend asked what was wrong since, �. . . you are very wealthy, a hundred friends are here to celebrate this special day, so what�s the matter?� The man said, �Remember the party we had on our 5th anniversary, and do you remember our conversation that night?� The lawyer said, �Yes, I remember. You said you were going to kill your wife, and I said that if you did, you would be sentenced to 20 years in jail. But what�s that have to do with anything?� The man replied, �Just think, tomorrow I would be a free man!� Well, some people laugh.
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Here is a story where the details are unknown, but the facts are interesting, at least to me now that I am no longer in that predicament. I haven�t the slightest idea what year, or why I would be doing such a thing, or who was in the car with me. Sometime in the middle of a winter night I was driving through Pittsburgh. It had been snowing, and now it was really a blizzard, and the snowy street had not been plowed or swept. I found that if I followed the streetcar closely, driving on the snow-less streetcar tracks, it was easier. Easier that is, until I felt the bump, bump, bump, after the street car tracks left the street and I was traveling on tracks that were attached to ties, every yard or so. Well I backed up and got out of there OK, but what an experience, with not much memory.
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I better give at least one story of something good that resulted from being recalled to the Army for the Korean War. It doesn�t make war OK for the general public, but for me, two byproducts were outstanding. I mentioned to my sister�s friend (her husband had been recalled to the Navy), �I have no one to kiss good-bye.� She said, �I should have thought of you.� That very day at lunch, her coworker, Emmy, said, �You girls need to get me a date.� (Emmy had recently been divorced.) Pat gave me the phone number of her beautiful friend, and the rest is history, or better yet, herstory. For over 55 years that �phone� rang and rang and rang, and was �answered� each and every time. The other byproduct of being called back to Army, was that I got very involved with IBM machines, my career for the rest of my payroll life. (1950)
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I can remember that 75 or more years ago my Dad, as a visiting preacher, was preaching Sunday Service in a church in Breathitt County, KY, when a window was raised from the outside, and a gun was aimed directly at one of the audience. The Minister of that Church, well regarded in the community walked slowly down the main isle, the gun was withdrawn, the window was closed, and the sermon continued. I also remember sitting on a river bank, and watching across the river, a man on a galloping horse being chased by another man on a galloping horse, with the added attraction of a rifle he was firing toward the man in front. Don�t remember what happened. But I do remember it was called Bloody Breathitt, and I do remember why.
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I created, and encouraged through the legislature, then 3,021,947 Californians voted for �my� amendment to the Calif. Constitution, and 2,390,947 voted against �my� amendment, in the 1976 election. Then known as Proposition 13 (in 1976), now known as Article 13, Section 8.5 of the California Constitution. This is not the famous Proposition 13, that was passed in 1978. Howard Jarvis, a very good friend, was the man who championed Proposition 13 in 1978, and he wrote the argument against, not for, my Proposition 13 in 1976. That�s a long story.
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I did not play much tennis until we moved to the Rancho Las Palmas Country Club in Rancho Mirage, in about 1981. We were just a block or so from the Tennis Club, and I played (such as it was) most every day. The Marriott Hotel was next door, they owned the Country Club, so sometimes I was called to play with a Hotel guest, when there were not enough people to make up the match. My level of play was not that great, but I did win several prizes in what I called the �Old Man�s Division.� One time I won a gift certificate, good at the clothing store in the Rancho Las Palmas Tennis Clubhouse. They asked me what I was going to buy with my $25, and after looking at the prices on the clothes in the shop, I said, �I think I�ll put a down payment on a pair of socks.� (1983)
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I had been offered a job in San Diego to work for a man who had been my supervisor at Chance Vought Aircraft near Dallas. I quit my job, we sold our house in Dallas, stored the furniture, and as we were (actually!) in the process of loading the trailer with clothes etc., to take with us to California, the postman handed me a letter saying that the company in San Diego had a big layoff, and there was no job for either of us. We had subscribed to the Los Angeles Times and had communicated with various companies about jobs there, and were sure there would be no problem finding one. After we arrived in Los Angeles I had two job interviews each day, and had no problem getting an excellent, wonderful job at the RAND Corporation. All this before my two week vacation time from Chance Vought was used up. RAND paid to move our furniture and dog from Dallas to LA. (1955)
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I had borrowed a couple of hundred dollars from my brother Paul to buy our first house in Dallas, Texas, a two bedroom place that cost $7,200. In order to repay the money he loaned us, at night I worked part time at the Lone Star Gas Company, processing the paid-bills through IBM machines. Learning and earning as I went. (1953)
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I had forgotten this story, haven�t thought of it in years. I dropped out of Indiana University because of problems with my eyes, a couple of years later I knew that to get a good job, I needed an education. I could not take a full �load� of classes, so signed up for a couple of classes at Northwestern University�s downtown Chicago night school. I don�t remember what the classes were. After attending just a couple of classes, I got the letter recalling me into the Army, for the Korean War. I wasn�t happy about that, but that letter resulted in my blind date with the Sweetest lady in the world. I left for the Army, and never returned to study in a college. I won my Sweetie, and no diploma or peace treaty would ever be worth as much as that Marriage License! (1950)
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I had the idea of giving Emmy a necklace with exactly 70 stones, for her 70th birthday. I could find nothing of interest in local stores, so called a long time friend (Dodie, the nurse in Dallas when Linda was born.), who now lives in New Jersey, and asked her to make one. (She did that for flea markets.) She made two, one has 70 dark amethysts, each stone separated by small gold balls. The other has flat amethyst colored stones, separated by Chinese Cloisonn� stones. Elegant, to say the least! For her 50th birthday, I had given her 50 tiny pieces of gold, and 50 small emeralds, in a glass vial, with a chain around her neck. (1997)
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I had to visit Boeing Aircraft in Seattle, but the weather didn�t cooperate. The airplane couldn�t land in Seattle, so flew on to Vancouver, British Columbia. Since the weather didn�t clear up for a return flight to Seattle, the airline provided Greyhound Bus tickets, and the bus left late at night. At the US/Canadian border, in a very cold, driving snow storm, they made everyone get out of the bus while they looked and looked for something. Since I had expected to fly into Seattle, rent a car at the airport, drive to the meeting, then back to the airport for the trip home, I was not dressed for a snowstorm. I got a terrible cold, and later in the week, when I was to teach a computer programming class, on a NASA computer, in New Jersey, I could barely talk. I made it through the two weeks, but my voice was terrible. (1962)
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I have a lot of favorite stories, but here a favorite farmer story. Shorty was a neighbor, and his dad owned a lot of cows. The cost to ship the milk to town using the regular milk truck, was expensive. So Shorty drove his pickup truck to town each day to deliver the milk. Since people in the neighborhood knew of this trip, he often had a passenger. One day as I rode to town with Shorty, there was a beautiful lady sitting in the middle seat. Shorty was horrified at the possibility of being misunderstood if he pulled the gear shift lever into high gear, so he drove the whole way to town in second gear. Shorty is now 90 years old, but he still remembers me kidding him about this act of chivalry. Many years later Shorty was best man for Brother Johnny and his Betty�s wedding, and Johnny was Best Man for Shorty and his Betty�s wedding.
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I have been wearing glasses since about 4th grade. I had been hit in the eye by a baseball, and since then I have paid 50 doctors to tell me that caused the problem, and another 50 who insist I was born with the problem. One year I bought new glasses, and as soon as I returned to the farm where I was working, I got on the tractor and started to mow the grass in the orchard, among all the trees. At one point as I was watching the cutter bar to make sure I didn�t hit a tree, a branch caught on the tractor exhaust (which stuck up above the engine) and sipped past and caught my glasses, without touching my face. As I watched the cutter bar, I saw my brand new glasses fly right into the cutter bar, and be cut into little pieces. There went my one hour old glasses, and a half month�s pay.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -I have had about 170 to 180 Letters to the Editor, travel articles (most with photos), Op-Eds, interviews, book reviews, and bios, published in 12 to 15 publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Vanity Fair Magazine, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, St. Petersburg Times, US News, Morrisons Cove Herald, Hoosier Democrat, etc. We have published five travel books, there are 2,000 pages of stories and photos (each with a story) on our Internet Site, in addition to over 1,600 Snippets � these are Personal Snippets, and the others are Travel Snippets.
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I installed (late �50s) the first 10 million character disk in So Calif., the IBM 305 RAMAC, at Rocketdyne. It was used for production control of rocket engines. It took 50 disks, two-feet in diameter, to hold that amount of data in those days. Today 10 million characters could be saved under your thumb print.
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I met with Gov. Ronald W. Reagan several times while he was Governor. Between Governor and President, his office was on the 7th floor, mine on the 4th, in the same building in Los Angeles. Mr. Reagan remembered me, so we talked a few minutes, several times. Sure impressed my coworkers. He really was a wonderful, friendly man. I�m sure he didn�t see us, but one time, while my grandkids were with me, we stood at the end of the runway at the Palm Springs airport, just below Air Force One, as it landed. He had attended a New Years gathering there, for many years.(1975)
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I remember one time when I returned from from running an errand, as I entered the house, Sweetie said, �Don�t get excited when the Fire truck gets here, the fire is out now!� WOW! What had happened, she decided to heat some bent candles in the oven, so she could straighten them, but set the oven too high. She had the good sense to call the Fire Dept., then put out the fire, and all was OK when they did arrive. The Fireman got a kick out of how Sweetie explained what happened, then they got more of a kick out of the big bag of cookies that Sweetie baked for them, and I delivered to the Firehouse a few days later. The only damage was in the timer equipment on the oven, so she had to watch carefully as she baked the cookies.
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I saw part of MIT�s Whirlwind Computer in the Smithsonian Museum in Washington DC, and it did sort of
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