Pole Dance, Anyone?

Thought for the day:  You can learn a lot about a person by the way he handles an unexpected detour.

Now that we're back home from our road trip and settled in again, I reckon it's time to come up with a regular post, huh? I must confess, to make sure I got them done, I wrote the Veterans Day post and LST 325  posts weeks ago, so this is the first gotta come up with somethin' post in quite some time.

As luck has it, a couple of you already provided me with what I need to get my blogging engine started again.

The lovely Marcy of Maine Words kindly shared the Versatile Blogger award with me shortly before my hubby and I took off for Florida.

As a recipient of this award, I'm supposed to reveal seven random tidbits of information about myself, and then pass the award to seven other bloggers I admire. Not sure if I can dig up seven things of interest about myself ... OR limit myself to only seven bloggers I admire ... but I'll give it a shot. Thanks, Marcy.

Also, the lovely Julie of What Else is Possible? shared another thingie with me that's going around the blogosphere.

 It isn't exactly an award; it's more of a nudge to get bloggers to reveal themselves. Wait a sec. Maybe that wasn't the best way to explain it. Not reveal as in rip off clothing, wiggle one's derriere, and slither around a pole, but reveal as in tell a little something about oneself. Actually, ten somethings. So, I'm gonna take the liberty of combining this with the Versatile Blogger award, and tell you a total of ten deep dark secrets, and call it a day. (And sorry ... they're neither deep nor dark.)

• Since the thought for the day is about unexpected detours, I'll start with that. Being a directionally challenged person, and the daughter of parents who were even more talented than I at getting lost, we always stuck our tongues firmly in cheeks and referred to the experience as taking the scenic route. And, to tell the truth, as long as said detours don't make me late for a commitment, I actually like 'em. They've led to some pretty interesting sights, and to some pretty interesting people. Besides, who's to say? Our true destinies may lie in the detours. 
• I don't give a diddle about diamonds and gold. I prefer wood and leather.
• I always work the New York Times Sunday crossword puzzle in ink. (Erasable, of course.)
• When I was eleven years old, I inherited two glass powder boxes that had been sitting on my maternal grandmother's dressing table for a bazillion years ... a clear one with an elephant lid, and an amber one with a deer on the lid. Years later, my son accidentally broke one. Fast forward another twenty years or so, and Eureka! Doggone if I didn't spot the broken deer's duplicate at an antique store. (And immediately started crying.) Thankfully, the shop owner didn't take advantage of the tearful situation, and charged a fair price, because there was no way I was leaving that store without it. After that, my hubby, mother, mother-in-law, and a couple aunts turned me into a powder box collector. Now, thanks to their loving generosity, I have quite a few of them, and some are quite beautiful and unique. But (shhhh) I'll tell you a secret: I would've been perfectly happy with the two. They're the ones sitting on the top shelf in the picture below.

• I love playing most board games, with the exception of Monopoly. Loathe that game! As luck(?) would have it, whenever our family plays that vile game, I'm always the first one eliminated. (Oh, darn! Breaks my heart!) Then I sit back with a cup of tea, and read the newspaper, which is exactly what I wanted to do in the first place.
•  What can I say? I like to win. So I tend to be a tad too competitive, especially when playing trivia, word games, or cards. In particular, I used to be a cut-throat Pinochle player. My husband, on the other hand, never even played Pinochle until after we got married, and never gave a good diddle about it, or any other game. Still doesn't. Which is a good thing, because his nonchalant attitude tempered my card-counting bloodthirsty ways. (It's just a game, Susan; it's just a game.)
• Most of the things I consider treasures have little or no monetary value. Like this tiny teacup in the picture below. I found it in my father's house after he died, and it's the last piece from the set of dishes I owned when I was four or five years old.

• My parents had a pool table in their basement, so I started playing while I was still in elementary school. Being rather competitive even then, I got to be pretty darned good. Could even do a trick shot or two. On my first evening at college, a couple hometown boys, who were big bad jocks in high school, invited my roommate and me to go to the student union with them. Seems they wanted to teach us non-jock nerdy girls how to shoot pool. (heh, heh) Alas, let's just say the evening did not go well for them and their poor widdle egos. (In retrospect, we might've let 'em win a game or two if they hadn't been so bloody condescending.)
• When I was young, I loved the Clifton Webb movie Cheaper By the Dozen.  So much so, I wanted to have at least a dozen children of my own someday. Didn't work out that way, but whattaya know? Life blessed me with a dozen grandchildren, and that's even better!
• I still have several dolls. In the middle of the picture below  is ALF, the one and only doll I ever bought for myself. (I LOVED that show  ... and his big feet.) On the left is the angel Ruth doll my wonderful sister-in-law made for me after my mother died, and on the right is another doll named Ruthie. My mother made her, and we laughed like idiots when she gave her to me. (Ugliest doll I ever saw, and I love her to pieces.)

There, is that ten already? That wasn't so bad. Now the harder part. Handing the challenge off to seven other bloggers. Not that I don't admire seven of you guys and gals. Au contraire, mes amies. I admire ALL of you. The difficult part is finding seven of you willing to (ahem) reveal yourselves. (I mean, after all, not everyone wants to wiggle and slither around that pole, or is willing to bare one's soul.)

Ah, what the heck? I'll name seven of you, and if you want to run with it, YAY! If you're too chicken to do a pole dance you'd rather pass, that's okay. Maybe you'll give it a go next time. After a few adult beverages.

• Laura at Austanspace
• L.G. Smith at Bards and Prophets
• Carrie Boo at Carrie on Carrying On
• Julie at Empty Nest Insider
• Murr at Murrmurrs
• Anne at Piedmont Writer
• Mr. Charleston at Termites of Sin

The voyeur in me would really enjoy seeing those folks do a little soul-baring, because I'd like to know more about them, but even if they don't, check out their blogs, okay? 

In the meantime, I already showed you mine. Time to reciprocate. How about revealing a tidbit about yourself in the comments? Doesn't have to be ten ... or even seven ogles. Just one little itty bitty peek ...

Until next time, take care of yourselves. And each other.

[Oh yeah, almost forgot. The cute Road Trip picture at the top of the page comes to us courtesy of the cool folks at icanhascheezburger.com]

We Owe Them

Thought for the day:  As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.   John F. Kennedy

I know it's Friday, but it's also Veterans Day, and recognition of our veterans takes priority over my usual posting. We'll get back to lampooning state laws next week, okay?

This week, let's take time to salute our veterans. Particularly our combat veterans. There is a definite disconnect between those who fight our wars and those of us who remain safely at home. This is nothing new, but it is still troubling. The reality of war is such that when soldiers in Vietnam spoke of returning home, they referred to it as going back to the world. And when they did come home, their faces often wore a bone-chilling thousand yard stare. That stony expression didn't go away overnight, either; in many cases, it didn't go away for decades. If at all.

In earlier wars, the lengthy ride home via ship allowed time for decompression. Not a lot, and certainly not enough, but more than our soldiers coming home from Nam got, and more than our soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan get. One day, our soldiers are in a stress-filled war zone, and the next, they're sitting around the family table, shell-shocked, asking someone to please pass the eff-ing potatoes.

And yet, many of us treat our soldiers as though they should simply put the war behind them. Get over it. 

It isn't that simple. Psychiatrist Jonathan Shay, author of Odysseus in America, describes what our returning soldiers face as follows:  In combat, you have to shut down those emotions that do not directly serve survival. So sweetness, the gentler forms of humor, grief --- all shut down. And this is profoundly disconcerting to families when a soldier comes back, and he seems to be made out of ice. It's not that he is irrevocably and permanently incapable of feeling anything. It's that this adaptation of shutting down those emotions that don't directly serve survival in combat is persisting. 


Registered nurse Alison L. Crane, a former Captain and mental health observer-trainer for the 7302 Medical Training Support Battalion, is all too familiar with the difficulties veterans face when trying to assimilate back into civilian life. In 2007,  to help civilians better understand our returning soldiers, she produced a startling photographic essay, which I am pleased to share with you now. For our veterans deserve not only our respect and our appreciation, but our understanding, as well. Ms. Crane's photographic essay is called

                                                  WHEN A SOLDIER COMES HOME

           When a soldier comes home, he finds it hard to listen to his son whine about being bored.

                              ... to keep a straight face when people complain about potholes.

           ... to be tolerant of people who complain about the hassle of getting ready for work.

                        ... to be understanding when a coworker complains about a bad night's sleep.

                                        ... to be silent when people pray to God for a new car.

                           ... to control his panic when his wife tells him he needs to drive slower.

                     ... to be compassionate when a businessman expresses a fear of flying.

   ... to keep from laughing when anxious parents say they're afraid to send their kids off to summer camp.

                      ... to keep from ridiculing someone who complains about hot weather.

          ... to control his frustration when a colleague gripes about his coffee being cold.

             ... to remain calm when his daughter complains about having to walk the dog.

                                      ... to be civil to people who complain about their jobs.

             ... to just walk away when someone says they only get two weeks of vacation a year.

               ... to be forgiving when someone says how hard it is to have a new baby in the house.

                                                The only thing harder than being a soldier

                                                                      is loving one.

And when you meet one of our returning soldiers, please remember what they've been through, and show them compassion and tolerance.  [Pictures and text courtesy of Alison Crane]

A very special thank you to all our veterans out there. For all you non-vets, with an estimated 24.9 million veterans in the country, it should be fairly easy to find one to thank. God knows, they've earned it.

Congress should stop treating veterans like they're asking for a handout when it comes to the benefits they were promised, and they should realize that, were it not for these veterans, there would be nothing to hand out.    Nick Lampson (former Texas Congressman )

Let's end on a feel-good note. Wanta see a short video of a soldier being welcomed home by his dog? Guaranteed to make you smile.

Until next time, take care of yourselves. And each other.

Veteran Heroes Get it Done

Thought for the day:  As you get older it is harder to have heroes, but it is sort of necessary. Ernest Hemingway

me, at an Atlanta science museum

When you spoke to him on the air, he was JY1, and he had as much fun on amateur radio as anyone else you contacted. Off the air, the friendly Hussein was King Hussein of Jordan. (For a while, he and I even ran the same radio, a Drake TR-7. Pretty cool, huh?)

One of the fascinating aspects of amateur radio is you never know who may come back to you when you put out a call. Could be a king, sheik, politician, entertainer, singer, astronaut, or just a friendly "1938 model with a shiny top," which is how one contact described himself to me when I was operating W4WOW, the station at (now-closed) SciTrek Museum in Atlanta. Not to be a name-dropper, but ... okay, so I AM being a name-dropper ... but some names you may recognize from the amateur radio fraternity are Barry Goldwater, Walter Cronkite, Priscilla Presley, Joe Walsh, (of the Eagles), Ronnie Milsap, Chet Atkins, and Arthur Godfrey. Lots of royalty from all over the world. Lots of politicians, and lots of famous people. Since there's amateur radio gear on the International Space Station, as well as on other space crafts, most astronauts are hams, too. And they seem to get as much of a kick out of talking to us earth-bound operators as we get out of talking to them.

So, I've had the privilege of speaking to and meeting some really neat people, of hearing my echoing voice bouncing back at me from a satellite, and even shaking the president's hand. All because of amateur radio.

With Veteran's Day coming up in a couple days, I wanted to tell you about one of my favorite amateur radio experiences, the contacts I will never forget. This is the saga of a group of honest-to-goodness American heroes, who captured both my imagination and my heart. A bunch of geezers who knew how to get 'er done.

In 1943, General Dwight Eisenhower said, No amphibious attack in history had approached this one in size. Along miles of coastline there were hundreds of vessels and small boats afloat and ant-like files of advancing troops ashore. 


Ike was specifically referring to a landing at Sicily, but he could just as easily have said the same about multiple other WWII amphibious landings. And in every one of those landings, the LST was a major player. An indispensable star. LST stands for Landing Ship, Tank, and those vessels were specifically designed to carry tanks, troops, and supplies directly onto enemy shores, a vital job no other vessel was capable of performing.

Fast forward to the late '90s. The non-profit organization USS LST Memorial, Inc., a 10,000-member strong group of LST veterans, wanted to acquire and restore a WWII LST as a museum for the American people. One major problem from the get-go? The United States didn't have any. The government  had already either given away, scrapped, or sold all of them to other countries. At that time, Taiwan had 23, Brazil had a couple, and some were in Mexico and the Philippines.

And as it turned out, some had also been transferred to Greece in 1964 under a Military Assistance Program. After serving as part of the Greek Navy for more than thirty years, the country had mothballed them in Crete several years earlier. Talk about serendipity. Greece was done with them. Ready to scrap 'em. So some of our heroes headed to Greece, negotiated, and picked out the LST with the strongest-looking hull. That proud old vessel, the former LST 325, laid down at the Philadelphia Navy yard and launched in 1942, commissioned in 1943, veteran of multiple campaigns in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, decommissioned in '46, and transferred to Greece in '64, was once again in American hands.

But that was just the beginning.

In July of 2000, a group of mostly WWII veterans, average age 74, went to Crete to undertake the herculean task of getting that old craft seaworthy again. In blistering heat, in the face of countless obstacles, back-breaking work, and frequent stonewalling by the Justice Department, those guys surmounted the insurmountable, and accomplished what some said was impossible.

The Crew

From the time the crew arrived in Crete, an online log chronicled the hurdles they faced, and the mostly good humor with which they faced them. That log is still available, but if you want to read it in chronological order, start at the bottom of the page and work your way up. One entry says, This ain't no job for sissies. And it truly wasn't.

The 8th of August entry reads If you want to know what it is like to be a member of the crew here in Crete, it's very easy to describe, it's hot as Hell and work all the time. (No exaggeration. Temperatures were well over one hundred on deck. Below deck, it was even hotter.)

On the 10th of August- Many needed items missing or damaged beyond use. Since there's another inactive LST tied up alongside us, the usual solution is based on the idea God helps those who help themselves. 

In spite of all the obstacles, in spite of the age and serious illnesses of some of the crew members, LST 325, refurbished and retrofitted with $25,000 worth of satellite navigational equipment, modern communications, computer gear, and life rafts, embarked on a 6500-mile voyage back to the United States on the 14th of November. Private donations of $70,000, plus a 50,000-gallon donation of diesel fuel from BP Oil Company, made the rebuild, repair, and voyage home possible, but it was the hard work and perseverance of those veterans, that crew of senior citizen sailors, that got the job done. 

In case you hadn't already guessed it, amateur radio was part of  the communications aboard that LST, and  WW2LST operated almost every day during the nearly two-month trip across the ocean. The ham originally slated to operate was unable to sail due to illness, so another amateur radio operator among the crew was drafted to pull the duty. You could almost see the twinkle in his eye when Jack Carter apologized on the air to all the hams who were so eager to talk to him, when he said he wasn't used to working pile-ups. (That's when someone puts out a call, and it sounds like half the world's population responds at the same time.) But you know what? He did a terrific job. I had the honor of listening to his conversations many times, and of speaking to him several, and he was always a delight. 

LST 325 arrived in Mobile, Alabama, on January 10, 2001, and our heroes were greeted by cheering crowds. Many newspaper articles were written about them, and the History channel even produced a program about the escapades of this never-give-up group of stubborn, wonderful veterans.

Today, the vessel is moored at its permanent berth in Evansville, Indiana. True to the aspirations of those veterans, it is a museum ship now, available for all of us to see and honor. But most of all, I honor that dauntless group of veterans who made it happen. 

Amateur radio operators exchange what we call QSL cards to confirm various specifics of our contacts, like date, time, radio frequency, power used, mode, rig, antenna, signal report, and often a personal note, as well. Here is the QSL card confirming my contacts with LST 325. (The MM stands for maritime mobile.)

On the back of the card, in addition to the confirmation specifics, it reads, We are sad to report that Jack Carter became a Silent Key on February 20, 2001 shortly after returning on this voyage of a lifetime.

                                  Until next time, take care of yourselves. And each other.