Red States and Blue States

Writing last week's blog got me thinking more about the Fall of 1960. It was a presidential election year and the first time in my eleven years of life that I had ever thought of Democrats or Republicans. I had no idea which I was so I asked my Dad. "We're Democrats" came the reply. And that was that.

Idaho at that time, and maybe even now for that matter, was decidedly Republican. Conservative somewhere to the right of Attila the Hun. I had no way of knowing that then. All I knew was that our guy was young, vital, vibrant, and a great speech maker in vast contrast to the only president I had known about who was an old bald geezer. I watched the debate. Their guy looked like a criminal in bad need of a shave. I'd seen better looking pictures on the post office wall.

Being from Atomic City hadn't exactly endeared me to my classmates and now I was the class Democrat. That's right I was it. The rest of the class were lined up like lemmings buying Cliff Notes. Chuck Knight, my fellow Atomic Cityean, may have been one too but he was in Mrs. Stevenson's class. I was all alone in my beliefs. I didn't have a clue as to what those beliefs were but evidently they were diametrically opposed to all that was good and holy.

C. Brent Merrill (not A. Brent Merrill his cousin, in Mrs. Steveson's class to avoid confusion) summed it up when he said Democraps had crap in their hair. I told him Repooplicans had poop in theirs.

My guy won...it was magnificent.

Summer of Love

It actually started in the Fall of 1960. Our little two-room school in Atomic City had been closed by the Snake River School district so they could get the money from the government for each of us. Okay, it could have been the fact that we had gone through four teachers the previous year and nobody wanted the job. We were bused 40 miles each way to Moreland Elementary where we were treated pretty much like white trash (whether we were or not).

I thought it was a grand adventure to spend a couple of hours on the bus each day and go to a "big" school. I was in the sixth grade and there were even TWO classes of sixth-graders! It was a huge change. There were more kids in my classroom than were in our whole school in Atomic City where there were only four of us in the sixth grade.

I was in Mr. Cushman's class. He was the Principal and the first male teacher I had ever had or seen. The other big difference was females, lots of females. There was only Linda Nelson in my class in Atomic City, now there seemed to be TONS! I thought I had died and gone to heaven.

It took most of the year before I finally got up enough nerve to let Christine Belnap know that I liked her. Actually it was the last day of school that we exchanged pictures and I was in love. I spent the entire summer basking in the glow.

Christine lived 30 miles away and I had neither wheels nor a telephone so we had no contact over the summer. I eagerly anticipated the start of the new school year at Snake River Junior High and seeing once again the object of my affection.

The perfect opportunity came when they had a seventh-grade "get acquainted " dance. Boy Howdy did I want to get acquainted! There she was. Standing with some friends across the gym. I walked over, extended my hand, and asked, "May I have this dance?" She reached for my hand then drew it back and said "Eew!" Like she had almost touched something disgusting. She shrank back, giggling with her friends...

and broke my heart.

More B. C.

Tonight I was reminded of what I was originally planning to write about last week when I got sidetracked about old phones. One more thing though. The phone we used at Fackrell's Texaco actually had a handle on the side that you had to crank to make the phone on the other end ring. How bizarre is that?

Onward. Back in BC it cost so stinking much to phone someone that didn't live close, people had to resort to an archaic form of conversation known as mail. Instead of pushing buttons on a gizmo the size of a credit card (which didn't exist then either) you would write your thoughts and questions on a piece of paper, fold it in thirds, put it in and envelope, put a 5 cent stamp (holy dodo, I just realized there is no longer a "cent" key! Do any of you even know what the symbol for cents is? or that it went AFTER the number?) on it, address it, put it in a little box out side your house, and a guy would pick it up and take it all the way to the person's house that you wanted to converse with. OK, the process was rather complex and costs about nine times as much now. BUT...

Now comes the redeeming social value of snail mail and why I was reminded of it tonight: Babs (wife) was on her cell phone conversing with Pete (son). I was eating my bowl of mac & cheese. I could hear her side of the conversation but had no idea what Pete was saying in far away Minnesota. I had to leave while they were talking and didn't get to ask her what Pete said until a couple of hours later. She is getting on in years and was only able to recall vague generalities of the discussion. SO...

Had their tete a tete been via snail mail, I would have been able to read exactly what Pete had said to her. Granted, it would have taken a couple of weeks to take place, but I wouldn't have to rely on the memory of some else.

Slow and steady wins the race?

Not on this planet.

The Rule of Thumbs

Last week something happened that caused me to reminisce about times gone by. I'm talking times WAY gone by. I'm talking B.C. That's Before Cell phones. Way back then there was a form of price gouging foisted upon us by the monopolistic A T & T, also known as Ma Bell. This outrage was known as "Long Distance". I know most of you young'ns out there may never have heard of it but it was an additional charge from several cents to several dollars for every stinking minute of conversation just because the person you called didn't happen to live near you.

This caused you to seriously consider not only the necessity of the conversation, but how dear your feelings were for the person on the other end. I'm so old I remember when we didn't even HAVE a telephone. There were only three in all of Atomic City. One time, when I was in the 6th grade at Moreland Elementary (30 miles from A.C.), I had to call home because my left leg fell off or something like that. I had the operator place the call to phone #3 at Fackrell's Texaco to have someone there go get my Mom (who didn't drive) and have her call the school. I'm not sure exactly what she was supposed to do about my missing limb but it seemed like the right thing to do at the time.

It was so exciting when they ran a new phone line to A.C. and we got our very own phone! It was a "party" line that wasn't much of a party. That meant there were several other homes that shared one single line and you had to wait until no one else was using it if you wanted to make a call. When it rang (there was actually a bell inside the phone that went ding-ding-ding) we had to wait to see if it was "our" ring which was one long and two short rings.

It was free to call the Blackfoot area that was 30 miles southeast of us but it was long distance to Arco that was 30 miles northwest, go figure. Back then they didn't think human beings could remember all seven digits of a phone number so they gave us a mnemonic help for the prefix. Our number was MUrdock 4-5033 (684-5033). Yes Virginia, that's the real reason there are letters under digits on your phone. Blackfoot was SUnset 5-xxxx. Cool, huh? I have no idea why there are no letters under the number 1, but back then there were only three letters for each of the other numbers. They left out the letters Q and Z.

They must have been added to the 7 and 9 with the advent of text messaging when we started talking with our thumbs...

Mein Kampf

Today Aaron referred to my personal trainer (his little brother) as Little Hitler. I do want to set the record straight. I may have given people the idea that he is some kind of Snidley Whiplash kind of task master but that really isn't true. Sure he keeps making me do more reps each week (I'm up to 12 for most machines and 15 on some) but I think next week I go back to eight but add some more weight. He is rather pleasant to work with and hardly ever yells at me. He even helps me when I can't quite make the last rep or two of the third set. I may be even getting stronger (go figure) because yesterday I was able to do all three sets of overhead presses without his help.

I thought I had become a 265 lb weakling through many years of disuse and sedentariness but then I remembered how wimpy I was in high school. What brought this to my remembrance was the semi-fond memory of a fishing/water skiing trip that Brad, Chad, and I took to Mackay Dam in the summer of 1966 or 1967. Chad had a cool pale yellow Studebaker convertible and a boat, and a boat trailer, and skis. I had little brains, fewer arm muscles and lived on the way to the lake.

I had seen people water ski before. How hard could t be? All you have to do is hang on to a rope and skim lightly over the water. Even bugs can do it. Evidently bugs weigh less than the 200 lbs I weighed at the time. Brad and Chad both did quite well. In fact Chad could start on one ski instead of having to drop one off after starting with two. My turn.

I'm in the water, ski tips just above the surface, eagerly anticipating the jolt of the rope. Whang! There it is. Odd, shouldn't I be skimming merrily along the surface of the water? Why do I seem to be swallowing vast quantities of lake water? Perhaps they should have mentioned letting go of the rope.

After an inordinate amount of time I realized the surface of the water really should be below me and I had forgotten my gills. Air became enough of a priority that I figured out all by myself that letting go of the rope would be a decent thing to do. Having more stubbornness than brains, or muscles for that matter, I had let them drag me around the lake far too many more times when, wonder of wonder, I am on the skis and ON the surface! Woo Hoo! Whee!
At this point the boat motor ran out of gas.

Going down. Bottom floor. Dead fish, old tires, bottles, fishing gear, Jimmy Hoffa. I struggle to the surface and wait for Brad and Chad to stop laughing and refill the gas tank. I was fairly successful after that fiasco and even attempted that drop-off-one-ski thingie. A faceplant at 30-40 mph cured me of that thought. Hmm, maybe after I lose some of this tonnage and gain some muscle I'll give it another try.