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I have mentioned in earlier blogs that I enjoy driving through the farmlands near my home to clear my head and meditate/pray. One day I was doing just that when I came across a pygmy goat in the middle of the country road I was “flying down.” I safely slowed down, and the goat stared at me then slowly walked to the side of the road. When that goat left my field of vision I saw at least seven more wandering around on each side of the narrow road. Worried that a fast-moving truck would take them all out. I turned around and drove up the driveway leading to a large farmhouse attached to the field they had escaped from. On that short journey, my active imagination reminded me of the stories of farmers who protected their isolated lands with a shotgun and a shovel. I carefully approached the farmhouse; there was a glass storm door that was closed and locked with the front door wide open. I knocked, rang the bell and yelled inside but was not able to make contact with anyone. I drove further down the drive to two large barns and, again, exited my car and knocked on doors and looked in windows with no success.    I walked around and didn’t see anyone in the fields or on the property. I returned to the house and tried the same things, oddly enough, I got the same results! The goats were getting bolder, and I was sure they wouldn’t last long outside of the fencing. I drove a short distance to the next farmhouse and knocked on that door- still worried about the many stories I’d heard of farmers and their shotguns. As I was starting to walk away, a middle-aged woman answered the door. I apologized, “I’m sorry to bother you but, your neighbor’s….” She cheerfully interrupted, “Oh! Did the goats get out again, it’s been a few days since that’s happened. I’ll text them. Thanks!” Well! It seems my act of “Probably false” bravery to save these goners was not as gallant as I had pictured in my head! I might have imagined it, but it seemed to me that the goats were laughing at me as I passed them the second time! Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed! Please comment and share with friends, Phil

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I have always been able to fix things. Especially when I couldn’t afford the replacement cost and I needed them. When I was a kid, between the neighbors and my brothers, there were usually plenty of replacement parts for anything that needed to be fixed. In the rare cases when there weren’t any, we could ride a bike to stores in the area. A hardware store about 4 blocks away and a bike shop near 3 miles away, that weren’t out of range for us. My dad was handy, but usually too busy to fix bikes. My brothers were very handy and often had “garbage picked” bikes or other sources for parts. As is often the problem with older brothers, they were not generally enthusiastic about helping their little brother and they were very much against the concept of donating parts to a dead-beat little brother with no means of support (or repayment). This problem required me to learn how to obtain the needed fenders, tires, wheels- whatever, in the dark of night- so to speak! We were “boomer kids” and always had plenty of friends around to help, or join in, no matter what we were up to. We graduated from bike repair to go-cart building, to minibike building etc. My brothers rebuilt an inherited 1950 Plymouth in the driveway with the hesitant approval of my parents and then with that great success my brother Pat rebuilt his 1956 Ford Sun Liner when he was about 17-just a couple of years later.  I was often allowed to help my dad on his household projects: Finishing the basement, turning an 8-foot-high projector stand into a bar in the basement, putting a cement patio in the backyard, tiling the basement, dividing the basement into 4 rooms, paneling rooms, putting a privacy fence in the backyard and many more things. As I was growing up, it was a badge of honor to proclaim, “I rigged that; I couldn’t get it to work so I…” After I was married “rigged” became a dirty word as my lovely bride often asserted- she would prefer that the job be done correctly. I guess that makes sense. When I bought my first house, at twenty-six years old while living alone, I repaired and painted the interior walls and sanded and varnished the hardwood floors. I put an antenna on the roof in a windstorm (I didn’t say I was smart). It wasn’t until I was holding this large metal antenna standing near the chimney, on the roof, of my two-story Cape Cod house and looking down at the thorn bushes approximately 40 feet below me, that I realized that I had not told anybody what I was planning to do! If I had gotten blown off the roof, or struck by lightning, I probably wouldn’t have been found until the next family party! I kept fixing things for over 40 years. Faucets, drains, tables, driveway patches, bicycles, cars, holes in walls. I made shelves, tiled floors, fixed broken screens, removed beehives and more. I think the beehive (Wasp nest) is an interesting story. Early in our marriage we had bees dive bombing us as we entered our front door in a duplex (The first home my wife and I bought together) we lived in for a few years. We spotted the nest on an overhang near the girl’s bedroom on the second floor. I didn’t have a ladder high enough to get onto the roof, so I backed our 1986 Buick Estate Wagon up to the front door and put our 6-foot ladder on the roof of the car. Yes, it was as dangerous and foolish as it sounds!

Oddly enough, I didn’t see my wife or any of the kids in the yard to watch me as usual. The ladder was a little shaky on the roof of the car, but I got up there safely armed with a can of Raid and a disposable lighter. The nest was active and as I sat on the roof to work up my courage, I saw 5 or 6 wasps fly in and out. There seemed to be a short break in their activity, so I got active. I lit the lighter and then sprayed the Raid on the small fire it produced. The Raid acted like a flame thrower directed at the active hive. It’s amazing how many wasps can fit into those honey combed nests. Hundreds of them came swarming at me. I couldn’t get down the ladder/car combination fast enough, so I jumped about 20 or 30 feet into the front yard and rolled, purposely, to lessen the impact. As I dove for the ground I saw my wife with the three oldest kids. They were laughing hysterically at the site of me running for my life with a village of angry bees in pursuit. Somehow, I did not receive one serious sting. I think my rapid loss in altitude might have confused some my pursuers! In defense of my wife, she has a motto. She never laughs until she feels certain you will not be seriously injured. Then she lets go! From the timing of her laugh, I believe she knew I would not be seriously injured before I knew- I’m just saying… I am still an active Handy Man Impersonator. Recently, I have put a motion detector light in the backyard and put a dryer vent on a new gas dryer I installed. In answer to obvious questions that might arise: The gas line is secure, and the house has not blown up! The lint and exhaust are exiting the home as designed- even after my involvement. The problems I had that caused me to suspect my “handyman prowess” was not what it should be were how long the jobs took, and how many trips to the hardware store were required after I thought I had all the tools and accessories I needed. For the motion detector, the regular porch light I was replacing hadn’t been working so I needed to do some trouble shooting before I did any replacing. When I pulled it apart, I found one of the wires installed by the builder, 29 years earlier, had separated from the wire nut and was lying loose in the housing. Yes, this is a very simple fix. That’s why I’m doubting myself. That job took me about 8 hours and four trips for parts I didn’t realize would be needed. I imagine an electrician would have been done in no more than an hour. I was happy to finish it. I was happy it works. I was very disappointed that it took so long! A few months later I replaced a bathroom exhaust fan in the first-floor powder room. I had been putting that chore off for way longer than I should have. I have replaced the same type of fans in various bathrooms of different houses. but I recall they were all difficult and time-consuming tasks. The replacement piece, of course, was a different size and shape than the fan being replaced. I am not an adventurous man anymore! I checked every hardware store within 15 miles of my home- Home Depots, Menards, Aces, Farm and Fleets… you get the picture. If they sold screws, I went in and asked them if they had my style replacement fan. The general answer was a laugh and then, “I haven’t seen one of those for 30 years….” I was so desperate for this one to go smoothly that I read the installation instructions (That is a big step for me). They revealed a key to easy removal and replacement! WOW! That job went so smoothly I wanted to tell the world. It was the first time I felt like a true HANDYMAN in years! I felt so good that when my ex-wife and I walked into an appliance store a few weeks later and bought a dryer I declared, for all to hear, that I would install it myself- This, of course, was after they told me it would cost a few hundred dollars more for installation. As with most jobs around the house, I had done this more than once. The night of the purchase, I put the dryer in the back of my pick-up truck and drove my new prize home.  I purchased a new exhaust hose and installation kit before I left the store. I was working on adrenaline. My son and I pulled out the old dryer. Slid it out of the way and gently placed the new one in its’ place. I tightened all the connections, checked for leaks and started it. Everything was AOK!!! I quickly turned it off and turned to the exhaust hose. I remembered how, the old one was very difficult to install- that’s why I had purchased a new hose! I placed it against the dryer exhaust piece- it felt like they were both exactly the same size- THE HOSE WOULD NOT FIT INTO, or OVER the dryer receptacle.  Simple! I put the other end of the hose up against the dryer and got exactly the same result! The bottom line is…. It took me over 2 hours to accomplish what a dryer delivery guy, or trained repairman, could do in about 5 minutes! Again!!! I snatched defeat from the jaws of victory! I’ll tell you this for certain! The next time something needs to be done around the house I will try to do it! That’s because a true handyman must have the same lack of memory that any good professional relief pitcher has! Thank you for reading to the end. Please comment and share.            

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I was asked to watch two of my grandkids while my daughter was out of town and my son-in-law was coaching a third grandchild at his rainy and cold soccer game.

Grandkid sitting is one of the best parts of being a grandfather. I would have loved to watch the kids at Jake’s (The third child’s) game, but the two younger siblings opted for grampie time in the warm dry house. Who could blame them?

I was thrilled for this chance to help my daughter’s family out and bond with two of her kids. I was only going to be there about three hours, but those hours were going to be packed with fun activities!

Noah, a six-year-old, was already involved in an electronic game when I arrived and didn’t want to put it down. Kylie, a four-year-old, took advantage and dragged me to the room where the family games are stored. As usual, she wanted to pull every game out of the cabinet and decide which one to play as we observed them spread out on the floor. As usual, I told her no, explaining that we didn’t want to leave a mess for dad (Or worse yet grampie) to clean up. At her request, I pulled out a game with cardboard pizzas that had complicated rules with people being eliminated and then allowed to come back in. It was clearly written on the box “Ages 8 and up” so I convinced her that we should put that one back. The cabinet was filled with about 25 games, only a few that I had actually played. We took out several more games- one at a time- and even made a move or two on a few of them before Kylie said, “No, this one is too hard.”

I couldn’t help but think of the Goldilocks story with the three bears. But, in our story, we just couldn’t find the game that was “just right.”

Soon Noah appeared in the game room. It seems that despite our confusion and inability to fine a game that was acceptable it sounded, to him, like we were having fun. Despite my experience in child rearing and babysitting, I dared to ask the two young siblings to choose a “squabble free” game they could play without fighting. This may not surprise any of you who have raised children, but they were unable to successfully complete that simple task.

Noah complained that the games Kylie chose took too long to play or were boring. Kylie complained that the games Noah chose was “icky and stinky!” After a few more minutes of negotiations between the two combatting clan members Noah suggested that we play chess. I said no. I explained that chess is very complicated, and it’s only for two people. Noah persisted, telling me that his dad had taught him to play last week. Kylie, at that point, had lost all interest in playing anything; she was having too much fun spinning while sitting on the office chair. So, I said OK.

I have not played chess since I was in school, and I only played with equally chess ignorant opponents- I never learned all of the nuances of the game! But, surely, I would be able to give this young man his second lesson. With the help of the internet, I set the board up and we were ready to go.

The two pictures are compliments of my granddaughter Kylie who “needed” my phone and was smart enough to figure out how to take pictures with it. She took these two while she was perched on my neck. They’re pretty neat arial views aren’t they?

Unfortunately, the pictures don’t show that Noah beat me. they show that he destroyed me! He didn’t need help with the rules! He needed a patsy to bolster his confidence! That little chess shark! How dare he take advantage of his dear old grampie like that!

My son-in-law Jeff walked in with Jake at about the point when the second picture was taken. I told him that his son was destroying me at chess, and he replied, “Yea, he beat me too.”

To make it worse Noah heard us and said, in his defense, “Well grampie, you’ve been playing this game for about a hundred years, you should be able to beat me. I don’t even know all the rules yet!” I cautioned him about the “hundred years old” comment when referring to me, and he quickly replied, “Well! you’re my mom’s dad, and my mom’s old; so, you must be a hundred years old!”

How could I argue with that? I said, “Yes I am. And I should be able to beat you. I demand a rematch the next time I come over!”

Noah accepted the challenge, if you can call it that. I’m just worried he’ll want to play for money!

Thanks for reading to the end. Please comment.

Phil

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If you answered yes to that, I have a few ideas as to why that might be true.

One reason is that Boomers are the last generation to be raised with landline phones. These were phones that did not identify the caller and kept ringing until the caller gave up and disconnected. Most landline phones were in the kitchen or the living room/family room and provided little privacy to young people who still lived at home but yearned to have a private conversation with their friends or sweethearts. If you were lucky enough to have an extension phone in your bedroom there were still no guarantees; anyone in the household could pick up one of the extensions and listen in to your most intimate conversations.

When I was dating my future wife, her parents had installed a kitchen wall phone with an extra-long handset wire that allowed her to reach the basement stairs for some semblance of privacy. When we were talking her younger brothers would open the basement door and bother her or, worse than that, sit outside the closed door and eaves drop on our conversations.

One addition to the anti-privacy landline situation was that if someone else in the home answered the phone, they would know who was calling. It was not possible to be assured of privacy when it was necessary to take a call at home (And, with no cell phones, taking a call at home was about the only play) whether it was from a new love interest, a loan consultant, a lottery win (Not so common back then), a doctor’s office, a police inquiry- whatever!

To make a long story short, I contend, that this situation prior to cell phones and even handheld portable landline phones, strengthened our patience, The snoopier the siblings and, sometimes the parents, the more our patience/tolerance was enhanced!

Our TV experience was Black and White only, at least early on. We were limited to four channels, five if your area had a PBS (Public Broadcasting System) station.

Very often TV shows would end with a “cliffhanger”, and the viewer was forced to wait a whole week, sometimes a season, to learn “The thrilling outcome.” If you’re “boomer age” you probably remember the anguish “Dallas” fans experienced when they had to wait over the summer to learn who shot JR! There was no “binge viewing.”

All of the broadcasting stopped every night. I don’t recall it as a set time, but most channels were not broadcasting after midnight or one O’clock am. When the stations signed off, they generally put up a test pattern and played the national anthem. A Facebook friend, Diane, reminded me that with the test pattern there was usually a warning that it was past curfew and, sadly, there were updates on how many soldiers had died in Viet Nam that day.

There were no remote controls on the early TV’s. As my brother-in-law complains to his kids, “We had to walk across several feet of shag carpeting, sometimes in our bare feet, to change the channel!”

All of these TV tests, I believe, helped boomers to learn patience and tolerance.

Another “patience tester” that we faced was that many of the cars in our time came with manual transmissions that were much cheaper than the newly invented automatic transmission option. No such thing as hopping in the car, popping it into gear and going. We had to release the parking brake, push in the clutch (While holding a foot on the brake), put the car into gear and slowly release the clutch to engage the transmission. If this wasn’t done properly the car would lurch forward (Or backward-depending on the gear -1rst or Reverse) and die or, minimally, make a grinding noise that alerted everyone around that you had “missed the gear.”

On the few times that dad was able to leave our only car at home when he went to work, mom would take us on errands and endure one of the four boys in the family saying, “Dad doesn’t make that funny noise” every time she “ground the gears.”

Another point about cars back in the day, it was possible to remove the keys with the transmission in neutral. On more than one occasion, I was aware of cars ending up in the street after rolling out of the driveway when a driver exited their car without putting it in park (For automatic transmissions) or gear (For manual transmissions). 

Learning to drive stick shift cars took more patience than learning to drive automatics, believe me! I learned to drive in a Chrysler 300 with an automatic transmission. I did not feel that was much of a challenge. After I was proficient at driving my brother Pat taught me drive a manual transmission in his 1969 Nova “Three on the tree” (3-speed transmission on the steering column). This car was equipped with a transmission that was much easier to shift than the car my parents drove back in the day. It was designed to make shifting smoother by “synchronizing” the gears.

I still made “That funny noise” a few times in my lesson and killed the engine a time or two. The grinding gears and killing the engine are not good for the car and I thank my brother for allowing me to mistreat his vehicle until I got my timing right.

Four of the vehicles I have owned have had manual transmissions and believe me, they sure do try your patience- especially on a grade at a stop light when the guy behind you pulls near your bumper. Remember, you have to put the clutch in with your left foot and apply gas with your right foot. That does not leave another foot to put on the brake, so the car is going to roll back at least a little. Add a vehicle right behind you to the mix and that results in a “patience building event!”

In an “un-official poll” a couple hundred of my boomer friends and I participated in, it was determined that the majority of us did not live in air-conditioned residences until high school or later. AC was a rare commodity that few stores or public places had until the late 60’s to mid 70’s.

For those of you who have had AC all of your life, try to imagine waking up and knowing it was going to be a hot day because the sheets on your bed were wet with your perspiration? Sorry but that had to be said. Anyone who is scoffing, remember how you feel for those occasional hours or days that you lose your AC.

This definite lack of comfort during our “formative years,” I believe, helped strengthen our patience.

How many of you have ever tried to “re-fold” a paper road map?

In those days of yesteryear, before GPS, a vacation trip required a foldable road map that was usually purchased at the local gas station. This sounds like a simple task- but I assure you, it is not!

Refolding a road map may rank among the most difficult jobs on earth- don’t fact check this; I may be mistaken. 

I was the fifth of six kids in my family. I did not get to sit in the front seat of the car often. My next older brother was usually competing with me and pulled rank whenever he could. Regardless, I put in a request to sit in the front seat any time, and every time, one of my parents pulled their keys off of the rack by the back door.

One of our few vacations was a trip to Iowa. My dad had borrowed a camper trailer from a friend; so, my usual seat in the very back of our station wagon- a seat that faced back- would be even worse because I would not be able to distract myself by looking at cars and scenery behind us.

I campaigned hard to wrangle the coveted front seat, between my parents. I was faced with their probable refusal because my next oldest brother, Paul, protested that he deserved to sit there citing that he was older but still small enough to sit there without anyone feeling uncomfortable.

Finally, a compromise was struck. I could sit there part the way if I could re-fold the roadmap- Ahhh, piece of cake! How hard could it be?

The answer, as hard as it was to face, it is very hard.

Paul shared the duties with my sister Pam, both of them had solved the puzzle of map folding.

My sister Polly and I failed the challenge and were voted off the island, or at least into the backseat!

These are a few of the many trials we faced as baby-boomers. I hope some of you will comment on tests that I have failed to mention, or didn’t experience.

Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoyed, please comment with your views on this subject. I appreciate your input and look forward to hearing from you.

Phil

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I took as active a role as possible in my children’s lives. Here are a couple of memories from that part of my life where I was not working overtime:

When my kids were younger the second and third oldest, PJ and Sean, were playing “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” in the backyard. They were jumping around on the playhouse, climbing in and out of the windows, jumping off the roof (about five feet high) and battling to the death in every sort of way. The boys used hangers as ninja weapons and fought valiantly.

I was busy with household chores but remembered we had borrowed a video camera from my brother-in-law for a different project. I couldn’t let this moment go unrecorded!

I headed to the boys second floor bedroom window where I would have the best vantage point to record this memorable event. As I drew closer to their door, I heard noises coming from their room. Both boys were outside battling, so their room should have been quiet. I stealthily approached their door, with camera in hand.

But what to my wandering eyes should appear (My apologies to Clement Moore for stealing his line from “THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS”) but my daughter Bridget in the process of stealing the change from the boys’ piggy banks. I kept the camera running and asked, “What are you doing?” Bridget innocently replied, “I’m taking PJ and Sean’s money.” I asked why and she said, “Because I want money and I don’t have any!”

I got such good memories of Bridget and the boys saved forever that I seriously considered buying a video camera of our own. It was not within the budget though.

As the kids grew older we had a lot of sports experiences. Jaime played middle school basketball, PJ and Sean wrestled, played baseball and football. Kelly, Danny and Erin played soccer and Erin played softball through college. There were a lot of other sports, but I think it’s enough to say that we kept busy chauffeuring, coaching and cheering.

Here is one of the many stories that come from those days.

Having limited funds as a large family on a policeman’s salary, I was driving a beater Ford Taurus I had bought from a friend who owned a repair shop near where I worked. It was an eyesore “rust bucket” that I bought to get me to and from work while we tried to save enough money to own a “real car.” I had put the word out that I needed such a car. He repaired automatic transmissions and said he had a client that chose to leave the car rather than fix it. When I went to check the car out my friend, Frankie, asked if I could drive stick shift, I thought he was joking, but I told him I could. He said he had an early 90’s (This was about1998) Ford Taurus with a three-speed manual transmission.

I took it.

This car burned oil and had an electrical problem that caused it to die out at times. I was embarrassed to drive it, and PJ was embarrassed to drive in it. I drove PJ to one of his games and, as we approached the field, he asked, “Dad, would you mind letting me out here?”- Where his friends couldn’t see hm get out of the car. I was heartbroken, but I saw where he was coming from and dropped him off.

Maybe guys and girls have different views on this subject? 

When I was growing up, I started thinking about driving when I stopped dreaming of having my own horse like the cowboys I watched on TV every weekend morning. That was probably around ten years old. My sisters started thinking about driving when they were asked to fill out the paperwork for their permits as sophomores in high school.

That might explain why I had this experience with the third daughter I taught to drive. I was in the habit of quizzing the kids when they were driving me around on their permits. This might be a residual result of being a field training officer in my job as a police officer, I don’t know.

I was driving with Kelly on route 52 near my home. We passed the speed limit sign and I looked at the speedometer. The speed limit was 45 mph and our speed was just below 40. I said, “What’s the speed limit here?” She hesitated as we approached the Route 52 sign and then responded, “Oh, it’s 52, I’ll speed up.”

Another experience I had with the kids learning to drive was with Danny. He was a very nervous driver the first several times we went out. On this particular “lesson” he was more relaxed and so, I relaxed. We were going about 45 on a rural road with very light traffic. Danny was drifting towards the shoulder of the road and I said, “Just try to bring the car closer to the center, we’re pretty close to the shoulder here.” He started to correct, but there was a truck coming in the opposite direction that made him nervous, so he corrected, back towards the shoulder.

Dan’s correction went a little too far and both right tires both went onto the gravel shoulder. I started to say, in as calm a voice as I have, “This isn’t a problem, just steer slightly to the left to bring us back onto the road.” But I don’t think Danny heard a thing I was saying. He cranked the wheel to the left and seemed to accelerate. We had, almost, turned left, where there was no road to turn onto, we were across the center line heading for a ditch on the opposite side of the road. I took hold of the wheel to help Danny bring the car back into our lane.

Long story short, we swerved back and forth a bit and the car finally rolled off of the road to the right. When we came to a stop, I asked Danny if he was ok- he was. I was ok also.

A kid who had been following us ran up to the car and yelled, “That was the coolest thing! I could see the bottom of your car, WOW!” Dan and I went out again, within weeks and he did fine. He became a very good driver and made me proud.

I’m sure that incident was more my fault than Dan’s, In my efforts to keep him calm, I had probably let him get too close to the edge. Anyway, no matter whose fault it was, it was quite an experience! As Launchpad McQuack, the pilot in Disney’s “Duck Tales” cartoon series says, “Any landing you can walk away from is a good one!”

Thanks for reading. Please comment and share

The post LIFE MEMORIES YOU MIGHT ENJOY! appeared first on A Boomer's Thoughts.

The house I grew up in had no pets.

My mother was afraid of dogs and not too fond of cats. It wasn’t like abuse or anything, in fact, I had about sixteen friends that lived within a block of me (Remember, I’m a boomer); and only three of them had pets- all dogs.

My parents were pretty accommodating to the six kids they raised, while they were on a limited budget, they made a real good effort to get us what we asked for, unless it was pets. Then, the answer was no.

I was one of six lobbyists in the household who regularly petitioned the leadership team to budget for a pet. We all failed miserably.

The United Front we were facing did not budge on that one topic. Dad once started his rebuttal statement to me by saying, “Free dogs are not free. I will have to buy him a leash, a bowl, a bed, maybe a crate, food every week, rabies shots, vet visits,” I think he had more to say but mom called him or something and broke his train of thought. He was successful in making his point, eventually, I stopped asking.

There were two times we were able to break them down, at least a little. I was in about first grade when my friend Scott, who lived on the corner, moved. Somehow his mother convinced my mother to take their parakeet, Beau. Beau was a yellow bird and did not speak, but they gave us a recording of a man saying, “Hello baby, want a kiss” that was supposed to get the old bird talking. We played it constantly until my parents couldn’t stand it any longer and the darned old bird never did utter a syllable.

We had beau for about a year and one day my mom found him on the bottom of his cage. He was about 8 when we got him, and that’s the high side of their life span so we had no guilt, but a lot of sadness.

The other chink if my parents armor surfaced when I was a freshman in high school. We, as most freshman biology classes do, hatched eggs as a class project. Our teacher, a savvy teaching professional, allowed us to sign up for a drawing with the “winners” getting one of the hatched chicks. I never win anything, but I put my name in and a few weeks later was one of many students faced with the problem of how to get a live chick home on the school bus.

I named her Bertha and, while I don’t remember any specific details, my mother reluctantly allowed her to stay in my room. It was late in the school year and my sister Polly, and I enjoyed having her for most of the summer. At one point Bertha started crowing in the early morning hours. (I guess sexual identity problems aren’t as new as I thought they were- our female chick decided she was a male). We started to call Bertha Bert, and mom started calling poultry farms to see if any of them would keep Bert until they found something more profitable to do with him.

As I hit adulthood the yearning for a dog never left. I married a girl who also wanted a dog and the rest, as they say, is history.

The girl of my dreams- Eileen, had a four-year-old daughter- Jaime, which just sweetened the pot as far as I was concerned. They would be moving into my small 2-bedroom cape cod style house after we married.

Eileen and Jaime were moving out of a house they shared with five of Eileen’s siblings, her parents and a dog. We were concerned Jaime would suffer from “culture shock” coming from a home where there was always action and commotion to a smaller house with only the three of us. Before the wedding we decided to increase the household “commotion” index by adding a dog.

Eileen, Jaime and I went to several county dog pounds to adopt and, finally, found a beautiful Siberian Huskey/Malamute mix. Her name was Brandy and I watched her until Jaime and Eileen moved in. She was beautiful with one brown eye and one blue. I took her jogging every day and she would run with her nose in the air, enjoying the smells of bar-b-que’s, restaurants and other dogs.

It didn’t take long until Brandy started to show signs of a trait, unbeknownst to me, Huskies are known for. She started to escape!

No matter what I did she would get out of the yard. I only had her for a few weeks but, in that time, I had to track her down about 4 times. Luckily, I had nothing going at three of those times and I was able to track her down. The fourth time, unfortunately, was my wedding day.

When I have morning plans, ordinarily, I get up with just enough time to eat, shower, dress and get out the door. Since this was such a special day, I got up real early. I took Brandy for a run, put her in the yard, and went upstairs to shower. I still had about an hour before I needed to dress so I sat down to have a leisurely breakfast and read the paper. I glanced out the window to see if Brandy was ready to come in. She wasn’t the yard! OH! That female dog!

I guess I am just not the type of person who is allowed to have leisurely breakfasts!

I ran out to my pick up truck and started driving to all the places I had found her, or she had strained to greet another dog. Up an down every street in the area. I had already spent way too much time searching. I would have no choice but to go home and get dressed soon. I couldn’t call any friends to continue the search- they were all invited to the wedding! Finally, ten minutes after I should have been dressing, Brandy popped out of a backyard as happy to see me as she ever has been. She jumped in the truck oblivious to the fact that she had almost ruined my life, or at least my day.

After Eileen and Jaime moved in the problem persisted and we had to start putting money aside to pay fines to the village we lived in to retrieve her from their dog pound.

When Eileen was pregnant with our second child, we had to move to an apartment to have enough room for our growing family and we were forced to give Brandy to friends who owned a farm.

As our story continued, we almost always had a dog in the house. Currently, we have Centry, a mixed breed, and Brody, a Labradoodle. They are both wonderful and always, make that almost always, make me feel loved. 

I titled this, “IT’S A DOG’S LIFE, IF YOU’RE LUCKY!” Because our dogs, the same as all of my friends’ dogs, are treated better than we treat ourselves.

When I had hair, awhile back, we were spending more money to groom the pets than to groom me. We buy them special treats, food, food additives, if they sneeze, they go right to the vet. If I sneeze somebody, might, give me a tissue!

If the dog gets in the bed first, I might end up sleeping on the couch because “We don’t want to upset the puppy.” If the dog gets in the bed after you, he will, most likely. keep moving into your “space” until you are forced to flee to the couch. If he’s well trained, he goes where you tell him to go. If he’s not, you might end up with some uncomfortable nights, but one thing is for certain. When your dog is with you, you will love him. When your dog must leave you, you will mourn like he was one of the family, because he was!

Thank you for reading this. Please comment.

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My brother, I’ll call him Paul because that’s what my mother named him, was my next oldest brother- there was a “buffer” sister between us, and that was probably a good thing.

I’ll try to limit this post, mainly, to one incident or it could easily become a book. I won’t mention the times he beat me up, intimidated me, blamed me for things he did and more. I’m feeling charitable.

The incident I have in mind happened in the summer of 1962 or ’63. I was about 7 and had recently received my first communion, which is a very big thing in my church. My parents invited our many relatives, and I received $24.00 in 1 and 2 dollar gifts. Remember, this was a long time ago and I felt like I had won the lottery (Which didn’t exist at the time)!

Being the fifth of six kids I had only “owned” hand-me-down bikes. I wanted a bike of my own more than anything in the world. I badgered my parents to allow me to spend my newly acquired fortune rather than invest it- the option they were strongly behind.

I scoured the Sears Catalog and sales papers from the day of my First Communion Party.

I fell in love with a red 26″ J.C. Higgins coaster brake bicycle. The negotiations were horrendous since the bike listed for $25.00 and my parents mentioned, more than once, that there would be taxes and the added expense of a lock, which I would have to promise to use every time I took it out.

The fateful night finally came. Mom and Dad took me up to Sears Oak Brook- a treat in itself- and I was destined to make my first “grown up” purchase!

We got the bike home and, even though it was late, I was able to stay up and watch/monitor my dad as he assembled my shiny new bike. I was bursting at the seems! It was only because I had an ounce of common sense that I didn’t insist on taking my new ride out that night, around 10pm.

The next morning I got up early and rode to every friend’s house in the neighborhood to show off my new bike. Most of them were still asleep, but it’s the thought that counts.

I had to go out early because Saturday was the day I went with my dad to visit my Uncle Charlie at his print shop a few miles away. Dad would help Charlie set up and design menus and programs while I kept myself busy doodling on scrap paper- always a plentiful resource in a print shop- and occasionally pestering them.

We spent four or five hours there and stopped for lunch on our way home, which was another treat for me.

The fun of the day evaporated when we got home. My mom dutifully told me my bike had been stolen.

“Out of the backyard!” I exclaimed. “It was locked!” “No,” mom replied, in her best June Cleaver calm voice. “Paul took it to the movies with Rob and some other boys.” “Everyone had bikes but Chip (One of Paul’s friends) so I let Chip take yours.” I was confused, I asked how it was stolen if it was locked. Mom said Paul told her the lock chain wouldn’t fit all of the bikes so mine didn’t get locked.

I was angry for more than one reason, Paul went with my best friend Rob when he knew I would be back soon. It was my lock, and mine was the only bike that didn’t get locked, mine was the newest bike by far. Was he just trying to make me mad?

Later mom and dad agreed that Paul should buy me a new bike with his paper route money because he used my lock to secure everyone else’s bike. Paul argued that he wasn’t to blame and my dad caught me before my hands landed on his throat. Now I realized why Paul wasn’t there when mom broke the news to me.

Once I was safely subdued by my father Paul continued his complaint that he wasn’t to blame.

Later, when we were alone in the room we shared with my oldest brothers, Paul started teasing me about how good the movie was. He could always beat me up and my lunging at him without getting a strong punch in the face seemed to bother him. The moment had passed though. At the time, with the rage I felt, I might have had a chance to beat Paul for the first time in my life. Now, I had calmed down and he was ready for me. I passed.

I’m pretty much over the anger of that day. I think the 50 or 60 years that have passed have softened my heart.

Paul and I are good friends and spend a lot of time together now, but every once in a while, I think about that bike.

Today, for instance, I looked up the bike to confirm the manufacturer’s name and I saw that one J.C. Higgins bike owner is asking $999.00 for a bike similar to mine. I think I’ll call Paul.

Thanks for reading, please comment on like, dislikes, similar experiences. If the comment section is not available, please tap on the title and it should come up at the end. Sorry for the inconvenience, I am working on the problem.

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Our shift ran from 10:30 pm to 06:30. It was about 2 in the morning when I got the call. “Zone 4 (Me) and a unit to back for a glass break alarm at…” droned the dispatcher. NOTE: Dispatchers were trained to maintain their calm when sending officers to anything from a lost puppy to a major violent crime in progress. Our team was good at it, besides, for every “real deal” there were several, if not hundreds, of false alarms. The “Glass break” alarm is a very effective way to alert local police of a broken window or kicked in door entry. Unfortunately, these alarms can also be triggered by a car engine backfiring or any other loud noise.

I responded with my close friend Scott.

The office was in a strip mall. Scott and I met at a spot where we couldn’t be seen by possible offenders inside the building. It was an older structure, built in the 1960’s. A part of our job was, even before this “extra patrol,” to pull-on doors and windows of businesses trying to find any unsecure locations before some opportunistic criminal or vagrant could. The sergeant that was our supervisor that night was known for putting his calling card on doors to encourage us to check them. If we brought his cards back to him he knew we were following his orders.

Scott and I had both located unsecured businesses in this area previously.

I tried the handle of the back door. The handle was locked, it did not turn, but the door was not completely closed, and I pushed it open- very quietly. I called in to alert dispatch, and the other officers, that we had found an open door and would be searching the building.

Scott and I had been to many building search/Active shooter trainings that recommended searching officers move quickly and stay together to limit the chances of a “friendly fire” tragedy (A situation where a police officer accidentally shoots another officer) and also to allow the backup officer to be very close.

For every rule there is an exception.

This office presented several challenges. It was much larger than it appeared to be from the outside. There were several “half walls” that prevented us from moving freely within the office without being seen by a potential assailant hidden in a different room. It was very dark inside and certain areas were cluttered with boxes, magazine racks and other obstacles. For this reason, Scott and I agreed to break from the protocol and separate.

I worked through exam rooms on the East side of the office while Scott was doing the same on the West. I observed no signs of a break in such as open cabinets or drawers, items of value moved or missing, or valuables piled in one area. There was a lot of searching left to go. I had not gotten to the office area or the areas where a criminal might hope to find drugs.

Scott and I couldn’t communicate because we had not secured the building. We had no way of knowing if we were alone. The safest thing to do was complete a thorough search and either confirm it was safe or locate and arrest an offender. At this point chances were, as they say, “Six of one, a half dozen of the other.” We could be on another false alarm; the rest of our shift might be consumed with action followed closely by reports.

As I approached the office area I found a door with the doctor’s name on it. The door was closed, but not locked. When I opened it I would, momentarily, be illuminated by the soft light behind me. I needed to get through that door as quickly as possible, while spraying the room with my flashlight to, hopefully, temporarily blind anyone waiting to attack me and to allow me to see what danger might be waiting in the darkness.

I flung the door open while keeping my body close to the wall and moving quickly. I did not leave my flashlight lit. I blinked it on and off to give me an idea of what I would have to deal with while trying not to make myself a target by leaving my flashlight on.

To my left, the direction I was moving, there was a large heavy desk- easily large enough to hide a large man (I’ll have to move fast and check that out I thought). Moving my gaze around the room as I was seeking cover there was a bookshelf, continuing a scan to the right there was the silhouette of a large, dark-skinned male wearing a sleeveless t-shirt/jersey and shorts, I saw the couch next to him but I was already raising my gun to attempt to control that man while I yelled, “Get down and put your hands behind your head! Do it now! I was about to yell for the man to put his hands up again when I realized he was smiling. His expression hadn’t changed at all!

Is he crazy? Is his accomplice behind the desk? Does he know I’m about to die and my orders mean nothing?

Scott was coming into the room now, he was yelling, “What have you got? Where is he? We realized together that my suspect was a cardboard, life-size, cut out of Michael Jordan.

Training, and my guardian angel, stopped me from shooting. I was assessing the situation as it was unfolding and made the right choice not to shoot. I was also very embarrassed when Scott started to laugh as he took out his handcuffs and read Michael his Miranda rights.

Thank you for reading. Please comment below. If a comment section does not come up please tap on the title and it should. We are working on that problem, sorry for the inconvenience.

I hope you enjoyed the story.

Phil

The post THE NIGHT I ALMOST SHOT MICHAEL JORDAN appeared first on A Boomer's Thoughts.

I woke up as the red-winged blackbirds on the Audubon wall-clock my grandson Gavin gave me were chirping to tell me it was 9am.

I rubbed the sleep from my eyes; as my still sleeping mind tried to figure out what was wrong, what was different?

I sat up in bed and listened intently. I heard nothing, the dogs weren’t barking. I couldn’t hear anyone moving around the house. I couldn’t hear anything at all.

Neither of the showers were running. There was no noise in the kitchen. My 2 granddaughters, who live with me part time were not talking, playing, fighting or crying.

My 2 sons, who have moved back home for awhile could not be heard.

My mind was waking up now, so I tried to put it to work.

That’s right, I remembered! P.J. was gone for the week, and he had the dogs with him. Sean is working, so his girls are with their mother.

I’m alone! My mind determined, and the silence confirmed it. I AM THE ONLY ONE IN THE HOUSE!

I felt a little concerned, I wasn’t scared, I was just contemplating the reality that I was alone in my home for the first time in a long time.

I asked myself, when is the last time I woke up in an empty house? I was stumped!

My ex-wife and I had raised 7 kids in this house and 3 others. We only owned one house at a time, but we outgrew our small 2br Cape Cod that I owned when we married, then the duplex we moved up to could not expand as quickly as our family did, so we moved to a ranch house.

The ranch house comfortably held the family, for a while, but we found that the kids kept growing in both size and number, so we moved to the 5-bedroom house I woke up in this morning.

Finally awake, I thought, this is really neat! Should I invite people over? Maybe a poker night!

I came back to my senses. I’m not in high school anymore. I am not “required” to have a party just because I’m alone in the house! But then again, I haven’t had the guys over for cards for quite a while.

There was quite a battle raging in my head. Part of my brain was still working on the math and determined that it has been 35 years since I have awakened alone in my house. Another part of me was still working on the feasibility of a last-minute card game. I should have no problem getting 4 or 5 guys… Another thought was that I should do something right now. Maybe go downstairs in just my shorts to make coffee and breakfast? I can’t do that when the girls are in the house. Oh wait, two of the windows still have no drapes after I recently replaced them. A view of me in my shorts might shock the neighbors.

As I was “over assessing” the situation I heard a noise downstairs. What was that?

A burglar? One of the boys? Am I expecting anyone? Could the house be settling? Wow! for the first time in 35 years I have to figure out what caused a noise in the house. Should I bring my gun downstairs? I’d be embarrassed if it was one of the boys, or one of the other kids dropping something off, but I’ll certainly want to have my gun with me if it’s a burglar!

I went downstairs and searched. I found nothing. I went into the basement and found the same but, as soon as I reached the bottom stair the furnace, right next to me, started up. From the way I reacted I think maybe I should rewrite the sentence about not being scared.

I went through the rest of the day with no problems and alternating thoughts of, WOW it’s really neat to have the house to myself! And I wonder if Sean’s working tomorrow?

Please comment if you liked it, or if you didn’t.

Thanks

Phil

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