Postcards of a Father

Well, I call them post cards....those mental images that you carry around that define a person....

A Greyhound Bus, middle of Texas (I think) around 1952 or 3 or maybe even 4! Long, long ride.....it's night and the bus is standing room only.....Dad and I have been thru Colorado to visit his family and are coming back now from Mississippi....more family....later I realized Mum was in bed rest due to pregnancy and we took our vacation this way. Been standing in the isle forever and am starting to stumble because of fatigue....Dad asks a young woman if she would let me sit in her seat for a while...she refuses.....the driver hears the conversation and stops the buss, telling the lady to spell me for an hour of so.....as I'm dozing off, looking up at my incredibly tall and handsome Dad standing in the aisle with the clarity of an old man's memory I can now see the lines of worry and fatigue etched deep into his face.

Another vacation to Mississippi....1959.....our first and only new car...a '59 Chevy Biscayne...copper color, with no front seat (that's another story).....something called integration the subject of conversation of all the adults..... Never really paid attention myself...hey, I'm 12 years old, baseball, girls and my aunts fried chicken are what's important....oh, and as Guy Clark sings.....Watermelon Dreams.....hot day in Mississippi and ending it by about a dozen kids scarfing down iced watermelons....anyway, at the park for a picnic..a group of the southern men seated around and talking that integration stuff....maybe a dozen or so, all casual, ranging in age from the early 20's thru maybe 40...like I said.....old men! The snapshot is of that one day, but realizing that it happened everywhere down there....whenever Dad spoke on that subject....everyone listened....respectfully...Dad was always soft spoken, but all through his life, people valued his judgement.

Earlier in 1959.....Dad was a trouble shooter for a retail chain....we were transferred to Gallup, NM....the store there had problems with what was called "shrinkage"....Dad managed the store for a few months and things were doing OK, then one night we had the assistant mgr over for diner. Took me years to realize the honor my father did me...See, I can't remember the young fellows name....but he was married and maybe 22 or 23.....I really liked him, nice guy... Dad and this guy went out onto the front porch, and Dad had me tag along.....Turns out the guy had been pilfering the cash from the registers and the corporate people were going to be there in a few days and have him arrested... Dad told him this, and said....he wouldn't want the guy's new baby to grow up with a crook for a father...then told him that he heard that Alaska was booming and a man good get a clean start there....I assume he did...never saw the guy after that night. Took me years to realize why I was allowed to listen to that conversation.

1962.....a rare rare rare Sunday off for my Dad....a beautifully sunny day.....sitting in the right field bleachers with my father at Candlestick Park...watching our beloved Giants take two from the New York Mets.....the enjoyment on his face, and the sunburn on his balding head! Precious memories indeed.

The last one for now...1964 or 65......Dad took another Sunday off to take me to the Drag Races in Oroville, California.....we didn't do stuff like that very often.....and the times we did were so special...wish I could go back in person and just "be" with him then...to tell him thanks for the memories he was giving me.

I love you Dad.

A Total Change of Pace

Good afternoon all. Decided to have my MS kick into high gear today, so just sitting and being semi-grumpy.....or at least not as upbeat.

Thought I would just ramble about some of my observations on the world around me.

I love flags..the study of flags is called vexollogy...guess it was meant to because I "vex" most people.

Today was at the main site for vexollogists and while looking at various national flags was struck by the fact that of the poorest, most miserable, and violent countries in the world...almost if not all of them are socialist countries. Now go and work on that with the chicken and egg theory.

From there to our own country, and the two presidential candidates we have this year......socialist and socialist light....well I guess we get what we ask for....

I'm a libertarian and theoretically that would mean that since I want less less and then less government, there really shouldn't be a Libertarian party....after looking at the candidates they've run the last 20 years....I guess there really isn't a Libertarian party.

Have you noticed how the enviro-nazi's have screwed up the way we live in almost every facet of life....considering there are so few of them....and so many of us...isn't it time to stop being civil and to start taking back our country and the true "American Way of Life"?

Oh, a libertian? P J O'Rourke gave the best example...and I will badly mis-quote him.

"A Democrat / liberal Say's that nobody should ever own a firearm. A Republican / conservative Say's that you should be able to own a firearm to hunt with, as long as the government knows that you own it. A libertarian would say, wanna see my new cruise missile...it's over behind the bazookas"......works for me.

The Supreme Court said this week that a terrorist captured on the field of battle trying to kill Americans has the same constitutional rights as you or I. They also said that a person that rapes a child doesn't deserve to be put to death, because that is to strong a penalty.......

America, what a country....

Decided to really like the Governor of Alaska....her name is Sarah Palin.....saw a picture and was initially struck by her beauty...then read up on her....wow.... a real fiscal conservative, pro-life, pro-gun, had the courage to sack a state board that tried to set her up and stone wall her.....has sent a letter to Harry Reid (Nevada's excuse for a politician) telling the US Senate it's time to start drilling in ANWAR.....

And don't give me any static about the ANWAR state of pristine beauty....it's one of the most miserable, cold, uninhabitable places on earth.....refuge to mosquitoes that could carry off a good sized cow.....not that a cow of any kind could exist up there....it's the arctic circle anyway... When they first drilled the North Slope of Alaska there were all these horror stories about what the pipeline would do to the poor caribou.....what it did was increase their health and life style....the pipeline has to be warm enough for the oil to pass through it....created a belt of year round nice temps that the caribou and vegetation love....they cavort in that belt and raise their young in it (their young are a by product of the cavorting), and use it as a refuge...their numbers have increased since the pipeline was installed.

Did you know that the Mexican government has installed a welcome center on their southern border......forget which country it is against, but it is for all the Central and Southern Americans that are going to pass through Mexico to sneak into the US....The Mexican government, shelters them, and feeds them and then helps them across Mexico to our border, all the while teaching them how to get across our border!

Sean "Diddy" Combs started a rap at the BET music awards....chanting "Obama or Die"......

America, What a country!

Over the last 10 years the libs have set race relations in this country back by more than 50 years......it's worse now than it was before the integration movement of the 1950s....

Hmmm, do you think I've ranted and rambled enough? Me neither.....hehehehehehehehe

The good thing in my mind......is that the US got that miserable peanut farm for four years...then Ronald Reagan for eight..... quite a change in America...maybe after four the next four years of either McCain or Obama we'll get an American again.....

A Good subject for your prayers, don't you think.

In case you hadn't guessed them already....my political hot buttons.

*A strong military to defend us, used wisely only when our national interest is at stake.

*Pro-life, no abortions unless in the case of rape or incest.

*Pro guns....I don't own any myself, but if I wanted to I could have what I wanted......a side note, theoretically I'm not allowed to have one, but in the matter of half an hour I can get one with no trouble.

*Homosexual and Lesbian couples that live together deserve the same privileges that heterosexual couples that live together have.

*This country was founded as ONE NATION UNDER GOD, let us honor him with the Pledge of Allegiance, the 10 Commandments, In God We Trust, The Nativity, and the ability to Pray as a group at public events.

*Abolish the US Department of Education, that chore belongs to parents first and the states second.

*Abolish OSHA, or call it MSLTSUYL....More Silly Laws to Screw Up Your Life.

*We built the Panama Canal, Lets take it back and make it work the way it's supposed to.

*If you are the kind of person that would and does kill another human being for your pleasure or in the commission of a crime.....I don't particularly want to pay for you to sit and watch TV for the rest of your life....convicted by a jury of your peers, 1 appeal and then we pull the switch..and while we are at it......bring back public executions that are not "painless" Hanging and "Old Sparky" seemed quite effective.

*All of my Caucasian forefathers came into this country legally, they yearned and learned to assimilate.... Build a fence on our southern border, enforce the immigration laws....

*No more family chain immigration...

*We've got oil reserves off each shore, and in Alaska, California, Texas.......use them...

*While we're at it, build some new refineries, and some new nuclear power plants....nuclear plants are safe clean and efficient.

*Get rid of the McCain-Feingold act that took the common people out of the electoral process.

*Stop the flagrant misuse of the emminent domain laws.

Ahhh well, this was sure a long ramble......and/or rant....there will be more...I think you can count on that.

My Dad was a "Depression" Democrat, Mom was a rarity, a Massachussetts Republican......They would not really approve of or recognize America today.

Ha Ha It's Moanday

Yep, it's your Monday and I (hehe) don't have to go to work! In fact I'm not even doing much around the house today, cause I'm a lazy sod....but oh well.

Mum and Dad sure weren't lazy.....they worked from morning till night plus a lot ...all their lives.

I remember in Hayward, California....1961...I was a freshman in high school. Mum would get up at about 5am, make lunches for the four of us...then walk to the bus stop 3 blocks away, catch a bus to just south of Oakland (about 20 miles) and work as a secretary until 3 pm.....then catch a bus to down town Hayward, stop in and check on the store and Dad....walk home (another 5 or 6 blocks uphill), and cook us dinner. Dad, always a late riser, would get out of bed at about 730 or 8 and drive to the store, where he would stay until after we closed at 6pm.....usually get off work about 630 or 7 and take me home (I worked at the store sweeping and stuff from 4pm on). Then dinner and while Mum cleaned the dishes and washed clothes, Dad would start his bookwork for the store....sitting on the couch, work spread out on the coffee table and the tv on.

In that stretch of time I was trying to behave somewhat. Was just out of my first jolt of juvenile detention and was pretty scared of going back.....still hung around a bunch of baddies at Hayward High....learned how to smoke there (ewwwwww!), and got involved in trying to be a "bad boy". It's really amazing how wonderful my parents were with me...all the crap they put up with.

Dad and Mom were so much like everyone else of their times....they wanted a better life for their children. The problem was, Dad...just never really understood that a better life for the children meant that they didn't have to work from can til can't like his generation had to.

On top of that, I wasn't exactly the poster child for "Johnny Too Good" (see above detention reference).....

But oh Lord, they sure did the best that they could with all they had.....We kids never new we were poor, and we never wanted for love. Unfortunately most kids don't come with good sense and ethics installed....oh well.

I was the lucky one, I was born in 1947....first child, doted on by one and all.....Kris was born in 19....OK, I won't tell... but there was a "slight" gap in ages.....let me put it this way, when I went off to my junior year in college, she was entering junior high school!

Poor Mom and Dad.....in between us there were 3 other children, that didn't make it. All I can remember is Mum being sick an awful lot.

The folks were very private people...didn't show strong emotions often to us kids. I never saw them raise their voices to one another, and on the obverse, never saw them get very mushy either.

At the time of Mum's passing, I found a box of cards and letters from one to the other of them.....shock would be the mildest way to describe it. I never saw them give birthday, anniversary, Christmas cards to each other......however ... in that box were those cards from each of them for every year they were together...along with all their love letters of the early marriage....

I'm getting goose bumps just thinking about it now, and some tears...they loved each other so very much. But, it was a private thing to them.....they new each others love and commitment, they didn't need to show it to the world.

Frank & Virginia Spencer.....

I love and Miss them to this day, and that's OK, because they are with me now, both in spirit and with what they imparted into my soul......took me a long time to realize how truly special they were.....now I can't think of two more wonderful people that ever lived

Frank & Virginia Spencer

Well, here we are.......Sunday afternoon, home from Church, bought coffee at the store....not working tonight, due to the heat. I know I'm a wuss, but what are you gonna do....that's MS for you.

Still thinking about my parents and grandparents a lot. So many stories to tell.......not sure where to begin. Honestly don't have any idea of what I'm going to write. Will ask God for inspiration and put my keyboard in his hands.

They (Mum and Dad) hit it off right away. The war was over, each was getting over a broken heart and they were each popular with a wide circle of friends. Prescott, Arizona has always been know for "Whiskey Row", in 1945 it was a block of nothing but saloons and cafes. There were a few other places in the area...after all, although Prescott was the 4th largest city in the state, it was still a country cow town of about 8,000 people.

Now in the mid to late 1940s going out on the town was different in many ways than it is today.....Everybody smoked and drank...hey, after the depression and 4 bloody years of war...those were little things. Some nights they would meet with a group of friends and hit the bars on the The Row, other times it would be one of the road houses in the surrounding area. Sometimes just a quiet evening playing bridge with their friends. On Sunday afternoons, there would be a picnic in the desert or on one of the mountains surrounding town...exploring the old west.

Their first date was to a place in the pines outside of Prescott called the Pine Cone Inn..... Dining, Dancing, a Good band, a few drinks....and love for the rest of their lives.

I took Mum there for dinner on what was their 50th Anniversary......they closed just after that....but will always cherish the memory of how she dolled herself up for the occasion....A wonderful meal, still good music, and a few tears. Life can be awfully good.

That reminds me of one of Mums favorite sayings.....she would say (when Kris and I were teens)....that she would turn to Pop and and "If I knew then what I know now.....I would have not gone on that first date!"

I'm fairly sure she was kidding.

One night they had been with 2 other couples to the tiny mining town of Cottonwood...now as the crow flies, Cottonwood is maybe 20 miles from Prescott....as the car drove in those days, about 60 or so miles up and over a huge mountain through the town of Jerome. To see the Jerome grade is to ask for a motion sickness pill....and that's now, then it was really, really fun. About 1 in the morning, all three couples had been dancing and drinking adult beverages for maybe the last 5 hours. Cottonwood up to Jerome no problem, through Jerome.... no problem....Starting down the grade.....big big problem.....the brakes on Dad's old Ford took one look at the grade and said goodbye all!

Now I would assume that Dad (and the others) sobered up real quick....Dad made it to the bottom of the hill, about 12 miles of tortuous curves and switch backs.....and just let the car coast for as long as it would.....by then the clutch was gone, burned to shreds, the emergency brake was toast and so were the tires.......ok, the people are now at the bottom of the hill on a stretch of 2 lane road that crossed the Fain Ranch....a hundred thousand acres of sage brush...no building in site and it's still about 130 in the morning on a Sunday in 1946!

Leaving the others at the car Dad walked from there into a bar at Granite Dells (about 10 or so miles) and used their pay phone to call his uncle to bring out the tow truck....

Wow..

Well, I guess The Lord is to be thanked for blessing me with the stories to tell today.

Have a wonderful Sunday.

And another thing.....what?....oh, er....Hi.

Took a day off yesterday as these wonderful machines call computers sometimes don't want to co-operate......

Actually this one wasn't the computers fault....I think.

About 4 in the morning, there were the sounds of a cat fight in the front of the house....Didn't pay much attention because with all my cats.....this happens. Came out in the morning and there was my brand new (2 month old) top of the line,19" wide screen HD monitor on the floor.....sheesh.

Sucker will turn on, you get about 3 seconds of beautiful picture...then.....fade to black.....double sheesh.Have got an old monitor hooked up now, the resolution is all wrong, there are blank spots across the screen now and again and I can't' see the tool bar across the bottom.....but am at the computer....

Yesterday was one of those days, you the kind of day i mean....the "Midas touch" in reverse day....where everything you did, tried to do, touched or even thought about turned to something ....er...that belongs in a diaper. Oh well, was really trying to maintain my equilibrium and keep cool about it. Only partial success.

I am reading the Bible at dinner now, have started at the beginning and am reading it straight through, the first time I've read all of the Old Testament. So I served up my (burned) chili, spilled my glass of ice, got back up from the table and got a fork. Asked for grace and opened to my book marker....turned the page for today's new chapter...of course it was the book of Job!

That wasn't thunder you heard yesterday, that was God snickering at his servant! Read the first 3 chapters of Job and before I'd gotten 1 page done I realized I had not the slightest bit of trouble in my life. Wow, what that man went through and never once cursed God, or anything else.

His prayer says it all for me.
And I am paraphrasing this.

"I came unto this world naked,
I will leave this world naked,
I have been blessed so very much,
The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh,
I am so grateful for all my blessings from the Lord.

This was on a day, when he had lost all of his possessions and family. Would that I had that faith and intelligence.

On a side note of a different color, my sister was up to visit on Wednesday and brought up some of the family shrub....ok tree.....will be devouring that and maybe adding it to a future post....Monitor permitting.

So until the next time..............

Well, I'm pretty sure it's morning, although I'm also pretty sure I wish it was still night and I was still asleep.

Long day yesterday, and am shifting to a new summer schedule....up most of the night and sleep during the heat of the afternoon...hopefully.

Took on a foster kitten last night....first one, so will see how that goes... his feral mother was killed and he is about 4 weeks old, have in the Arizona room with one of my cats that is nursing her 8 week old twins....the only unfixed cat I have, and of course she had babies for the first time this year.

But, I digress.....

Thinking allot about Mum and her tales of growing up recently. She was another child of the depression, but that was just naturally to those kids....nobody had much, but they seemed to make the best of what they did have. You worked hard, but so did everyone.....even with the depression, people still had more than their parents had had and were significantly better off than their grandparents had been.

A lot is made today of the illegal immigrants here in the US, and I will talk more about that another time. Can you imagine though, what the legal immigrants of the late 1800's had to cope with ? For one thing, they had probably never even seen a picture of America, much less seen it on TV. All they had was word of mouth, or maybe letters from a distant relative or friend. An arduous voyage across the North Atlantic stuffed in very small space with literally hundreds of other people......the terror of Ellis Island, who stays, who goes....your 7 year old son tests positive for TB.....decide, stay in America to make a future, without your son...or back to the old country to a life of poverty. The Streets of New York a massive crush of humanity that is speaking (probably shouting) a dozen languages all at once. Your family is clutching a few small valises, all your possessions. You're not sure, but think you have a new last name, because the harried clerk at immigration didn't speak your native German, Latvian, Russian, Swedish, French, Gaelic, and did the best he could.

Finding your second cousin Rudolf is of prime importance...holding fast to a torn and tattered envelope that has his address on it....you are one of the lucky ones....you're from Germany and are able to read and write, most new arrivals don't have that bonus. After asking half a dozen strangers and getting rebuffed because of the language barrier, you see a man in a uniform. A bluff and gruff Irishman (who if you're very lucky doesn't hate Krauts) will read the street address of cousin Rudolf in Brooklyn...pointing you in that direction he is able to convince you to start walking north......Chances are you don't have the money for a cart or bus ride....so you trudge all the way across the vast island of Manhattan...stopping every so often to get more directions...another bit of luck, is you run across quite a few German speakers...before World War One, German was the second language of the United States.....actually, as a side note....after the Revolution there was a great debate on wether German or English would be the official language....we were evenly divided between the two languages and cultures.

Anyway, after a day long trip with your little family, you arrive at Rudolph's little home to be greeted with open arms and a small celebration.....family is family.....within a week you are working as a cabinet maker in a small shop, your wife is cooking in a small delicatessen and little Sigmund (the 7 year old that actually didnt test positive) is selling new papers on a the corner outside a paint factory....tiny Ingrid is in the care of a good German Hausfrau in the neighborhood....with the three of you working and toiling all the hours that God gives you....after just a few months you are able to move into a small 4th story walk up in the Bronx... Two years later you have scrimped and saved enough to send money to The Rhineland and bring over your Uncle and Aunt. It's now 1900 you've been working long hard 12 hours days, 6 of them a week...no vacations no holidays... you know enough English to get by, your wife a little more.....little Sigmund is quite fluent now, and Ingrid who is in the 3rd grade has almost no German accent..you are so proud of your children....a third child has been added, baby Joseph.....the first true American in your family....Sigmund is learning how to repair clocks and watches.....you are a Foreman at a small furniture factory.. 1905....you have almost killed yourself with hard work but now are set enough to take a Holiday with the family into the wilds of Massachusetts (where do they get these strange names?)...you love the peace and tranquility of the area. The beauty of the woods reminds you of the Bavaria of your youth. 1910.....you have saved enough to leave Brooklyn and move to a little town in Massachusetts. In the German section of South Gardner you open a little pool hall and in the shed out back make fine wooden chairs and tables. Your children are successful baby Joseph grows up to be the manager of a machine company, his children are even more successful.....an entrepreneur who owns a packaging company and another who is President of a major corporation.

The land of opportunity ... indeed.

But, dear reader.....could you have done it?

Could, after loosing everything in a fire...you have placed a wife and 3 children in a box car and gone to the wild wild west to start over.....build farm working 7 days a week from before dawn until after sunset? Raise 5 children to be successful small businessmen and women...good Christian family people?

We will never have the slightest idea of the struggles and fears our parents and their parents knew....but we can honor them and respect them for what they did.

Later folks....

Happy Father's Day

Hope everyone is having a great Sunday. Me, well thanks for asking.....been kind of rough physically and incredibly good spiritually......my kind of day.

Like I noted before my maternal grandfather had Multiple Sclerosis, as do I. Like I said, some good days and some bad...this is one of those that the disability is hitting very hard....haven't been able to work for about 8 or 9 days, and won't make it in this evening.

Heat and stress are the worse things to have around if you have MS.....heat...well this is Arizona in mid June....about a hundred here today and warmer is on tap for the week. As for stress the only stress in my life now is the constant battle of being a big time symbol of a loving man......you know how the women are constantly after us rock star types.....

Me neither.

Oh well.

Actually going to start two new blogs...one will be a daily log of how my various disabilities are and how I am dealing with them......boring but will help me keep straight with how the battle is going.

The other one will be a recounting of a fictional universe, I've been working with.....concerning well....to start with I've been building it as the background for several of my games.....sports, and city building and such.....will start it probably with a description of the "world" and then move onto having it describe some of the baseball season's I've been simulating and then the Boxing I've been doing also.... probably from the perspective of a big city newspaper columnist who is shanghaied into writing sports stories.

Yah never know, might be fun for me and will probably bore everyone else to tears...but that's ok by me. The first I've felt like writing in years.

Well, more later....it's now time for a lie down.

Take care everyone.

The Way Back Machine

Got to thinking last nite about the way we all come to America...and how my ancestors made it here....at least as far as we know.

On Dad's side of the family....have no idea how his maternal side got here or when.....last name of Keller, so could be a gazillion different times or ways.

The paternal-paternal (did that make sense?) Spencers... an Aunt found the earliest record of our particular branch that she has been able to trace came from approximately 1830. A woman (widowed) who was moving from North Carolina to Kentucky with (and I might have the exact figures wrong) 2 children, 2 slaves, and 4 mules....also had $400.00 in cash. For the time quite a wealthy woman. Now being a widow, we can assume that she married into the Spencer name, but as to the who when where why we can only speculate.

Before anyone gets excited about the "slave" bit, the same aunt found a branch in the family that goes back about 4 generations that are black......

So There. A side note on that subject......Lost relatives on both sides of the family and both sides of the issues in the War Between the States! And, before any smart Alec remarks....I didn't know any of them personally...I was still a toddler and can't remember names anyhow.

Mum's side of the family has more information on the subject...... For one thing, the Balzers were relative late comers to the states, getting into Ellis Island in the mid 1890's....Living in Brooklyn for many years and then moving to central Massachusetts...my Grandfathers father ran a pool hall/barber shop, and made chairs by hand (still have 2 of them) for a hobby. Now the Balzer name is kind of unusual and there are quite a few spelling variations upon it. Using incredible amounts of brilliant deductive reasoning (or maybe just some wild guess work), we can assume that the family started out Jewish in Russia several centuries ago, fleeing the pogroms they made it first to what is now Poland and then the Rhine River Valley in Germany. When they converted to Christianity or what their station in life was we can only guess.

The maternal maternal side is the Sinclairs (my middle name). Have a lot of information on that side prior to coming to America. From the Scotland highlands a Sinclair or maybe St Clair was either drafted into or joined a British infantry regiment during the American Revolution. Upon arriving in New England (will have to look up the year but was in the late 1770's) he promptly deserted to the Northern New England/Canadian border.... Many Sinclairs in that area and I know the family is also inter-related with the Struthers family from that area.

Being old and somewhat decrepit myownself I know I have forgotten some parts of the history, but will include them as remembered at very inappropriate times.

Was going to be absolutely brilliant today and cover all the history of my family since time began.......or try to get a little on the page anyway....

However (you knew there would be an however didn't you), on Friday's I answer the phone for a local animal rescue organization (United Animal Friends)....got a call from a lady many miles away (Yavapai is huge county) and she has 5 kittens barely a week old that have been orphaned. Their mother was feral and this lady rescued them....she's been feeding them (every 3 hours) since midnight Tuesday and needed help! We have been able to do that, and the kits are being taken to a vet in the morning and have new foster mom all lined up.

The reason I am writing this is to let anyone who reads it about the necessity of getting your pets spayed and neutered. Like I said, Yavapai County Arizona is huge....we are bigger in square miles than the combined states of Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Vermont! In this county alone there are an estimated 25,000 feral cats! The mother of these kittens was killed by a pack of wild dogs! Dogs that had been abandoned as pups or there parents were. The problem is huge.

I got a lecture from a friend about taking on these kits as my own fosters ( I already have a ton of rescued cats), but like I told her "hey, it's not the babies fault, they at least deserve a chance at a good life". One that there mother never got.

A feral cat on it's own, has a life expectancy of 1 to 2 years. A feral cat fed and "helped" by humans, can expect to live 2 to 3 years. My cats are indoor/outdoor cats, and should expect to live somewhere between 6 and 12 years! My sisters cats are indoor only, and with good care could live to be 30! Quite a difference.... One of my rescues is nuzzling me for loving now.... A friend brought her and her baby to me 11 years ago, her baby is Dolly Kitty, so naturally she is "The Dolly Mama"....sorry....nah, not really..

Have had them these 11 years and she was an adult when we got her.....not a bad life span compared to what could have been.

Vets are expensive, however in just about every town in the country there is a group or several groups of people who devote themselves to helping this situation.... find them and they will try to help with the spay/neuter costs.

So there, a real live lecture, brought to you by an old softy.

More later, so stay tuned

A Break in the Action

You'll have to forgive me, but today am kind of .... hmmm, I guess in an odd mood and can't get inspired (as of yet) to write more history.

Got a good recipe tho'.
Baked Chicken with almost no work, wish I could remember where I got it from.
Take a whole fryer, cut it in quarters....
Oops...first preheat your oven to 375....
Put aluminum foil over a cookie sheet...
spray a non-stick thingie on the foil......
rub the cut up chicken with extra virgin olive oil....
sprinkle liberally with lemon-pepper...
I've experimented with other spices, but that seems to be the best so far...
place the chicken on the foil....
dribble some honey on top of the chicken.....
place in the oven and cook for 35-45 minutes....
Thats it.....takes about 10 minutes max, and is a hit with everyone....
Oh...one other thing......and this is from experience... don't forget to change the oven from pre-heat to bake!

I will probably add some of Mum's favorite recipes as we go along.... She was always experimenting with new recipes... well, I should amend that, she was always getting new recipes....They would sound good and she never seemed to have the time to get to allot of them.

Growing up, we lived quite frugally (and we kids didn't know it)... That meant pretty much the same menu every week. Got to hating liver and onions with a passion....that was until I had been away from Mum's cooking for a few years and my wife didn't cook liver or even want to be around it. So I started eating it at restaurants and then when separated learned to cook it my own self.

We do change into our parents.

Anyway, that is all for now, and maybe more tomorrow or this evening.

Growing up Gardner

Here again I only have bits and pieces of the life of my mother as she was growing up.....although when it came to talking....she was much like me (except shorter), and could talk for hours before thinking of something to say.

The Balzers moved to South Gardner shortly after mom was born, Grampa Joe worked as a machinist and later has a machine shop manager. When not with the kids Gramma would take the train into Boston and sit in the Fenway bleachers to root for the Sox.

Mom had a very happy childhood, the neighborhood was filled with relatives and friends of the young couple. Anyway, if you are in New England, everything is close. Spending summer vacations at a seaside camp across from the Nubble Lighthouse, going to Vermont for winter outings, traveling all the way to New York City to visit the Balzer family, and see Grampa's favorite spot Battery Park. It must have been quite exciting for a vivacious young girl in the 1920's.

In the mid 30's Joe came down with a mysterious "nervous" illness that left him helpless to move or work. They set up a bed for him in the parlour and mom being the oldest of the children and able to do so, got a "part time" job. She first went to work for a wonderful lady who owned a candy store in downtown Gardner. It didn't bring in much but she was the only breadwinner for the family so it was certainly needed.

Many years later, the mysterious disease was actually given a name and we have put two and two together, finding out that 2(Joe Balzer) + 2(Duane/me) = Multiple Sclerosis. Mom said that watching me cope with the disease brought back many memories of what it was like from Grampa Joe for a period of 2 or 3 years. MS is a very strange disease.....it comes and goes and sometimes comes for a short visit (Hi how ya doin), and is gone after a quick chat....then the next time it brings lots of luggage and has decided to move in for a few years or maybe forever.

Back in the mid '30s it didn't even have a name, so it was just one of those things and when it went away everything was kind of back to normal. Joe went back to work....

Before I delve into some of mom's stories of her childhood, I think I will try to figure out how to attach photos to this blog and maybe that will help visualize what these wonderful people looked like and how the world they lived seemed.

Hello

Busy working at her typewriter at her showroom desk in Webb Motors Ford & Mercury Dealer in Prescott, Arizona, Virginia Balzer was thinking of how different her life was now after moving to the "wild west" from Gardner, Massachusetts a few short months ago.

Suddenly a hand was placed on her desk and a shadow blotted out the light....she looked up into the smiling face of a tall and lean man a little older than her own 25 years... with a shy kind of smile he said "Hello, my name's Frank Spencer, are you Ginnie?"

Friday the 13th, July 1920 in Ashburnham, Massachusetts a girl was the first born child of Joseph & Sarah Balzer. They named her Virginia. Followed over the next two years by Winton (Wink) Balzer, and the youngest Raymond Balzer, they family had a good if somewhat spartan life in the industrial town of Gardner.

Joseph was from Brooklyn, New York and the son of German immigrants that had arrived via Ellis Island in the mid 1890's. The family had spent the summer vacations of his youth at some lakeside camps in the Gardner area......young Joe had fallen in love with the outdoors and quiet surroundings of eastern Massachusetts. Also with a young lass that went by the name of Sarah (or Sadie) Sinclair....

The US Navy and WW I came first, Joseph enlisted and was a Machinists Mate on the Destroyer Tender USS Dixie (AD 1). The Dixie spent most of the war in English and Irish waters and the young machinist took at least 2 cruises as a machinist on American subs in combat patrols......

Joseph and Sarah were married shortly after the war and settled down in Ashburnham, Mass.

Well, from being sun (and according to the photo's ....fun) Dad's unit was sent to the invasion of Okinawa, attached to the 6th Army they went on shore, not in the first wave, but soon after.

The AAA btn that he was with used the American 90mm dual purpose gun. A very reliable and effective weapon. As a side note, the American 90mm, the British 25 pounder and the famous German 88mm were in fact all the same size and off the top of my head was closer to an 89mm size than anything else....all three were excellent weapons and served their countries well. I do know that they (Dad's unit) provided Anti-aircraft support and were close enough to the front lines to provide direct fire suport against the enemy.

Understandably, Dad never talked about the Okinawa experience, however for many, many years, infact until the end, it was not uncommon for him to wake up screaming night after night. When I was quite young, I asked Mom "what was wrong with Dad last night?' and her answer was "Oh, just some bad nightmare from the war honey, don't worry about it, cause they will go away."

They never did.

In 45 Master Sergeant Frank T. Spencer got his "Ruptured Duck" (a patch showing he was discharged) and headed home to be a single man in Prescott, Arizona. My sister informed me last night that the divorce was caused by infidelity on his wife's part, and took place after the war.

Dad moved in with his Uncle Jack in Prescott and went to work as a saleman for the Schilling Spice Company (I have a feeling that my sis will correct me on that also, but you never know).

One day, Uncle Jack (he of the Studebaker dealership) told Dad "you ought to check out the new receptionist at Webb Motor's".

Dad did, and 62 years later, here I am.

What, Monday already

The next few years of Dads life are pretty much a puzzle to me. I know he was married sometime in the late 20's or mid 30's. I never met the lady, or indeed didn't know of the marriage until I was in my mid teens! If I remember correctly (real iffy proposition) her name started with an E and isn't a currently in vogue or even common name. How long they were married or anything else...I have no idea. Around 1935 they moved to Prescott, Arizona.... Again I don't know if Dad was transferred to Prescott by Penny's or if there was another reason. I do know that Dad had an uncle by the name of Jack Jackson who owned the Prescott Studebaker dealership, so that might have had something to do with it. I believe they were divorced just prior to the second world war.....That is something I could find out at the county records, and someday might....just to satisfy my curiosity.

Dad was 30 years old at the start of the World War 2, as a single man and not a father (yet), he was drafted a few months into 1942. I got a kick out of Gramma Spencer telling me that he was so thin when he went of to boot camp.. Six foot one and 135 pounds! When he got out of boot camp he was still the 6'1" but now weighed 170 pounds!
It seems like that was the first time in his 30 years that he had ever had the luxury of 3 squares a day for any length of time.......It sure is a different world now.

Without digging into the records (stored away) I can't remember where he took his basic training, he did go to his advanced training in the Rocky Mountain area, Idaho I think.

Being a mature and hard working 30 year old, Dad made rank early. He was a Sergeant not long after his training was done. Attached to an anit-aircraft battalion he was quickly a gun captain.

I really am having one of those days, I can't remember what the AAA Battalion was. I do know it was one of the ones in the 550's numbering system. I think it might have been the 550th AAA Btn. I promise I will look some of these details up and add them to the story.

Anyway, the unit spent 1943 and early 44 near Honolulu, which dad did admit, "Wasn't that bad an assignment".

Like I said earlier, Dad was a very private man. So a lot of what I know of his YMB (years before Mom) was picked up in driblets of conversation over a great many years. Probably some errors, but he will correct me on those in Heaven.

After leaving Missouri the family ended up in the area around Garden of the Gods near Colorado Springs and Pikes Peak. I imagine this to be sometime around 1920. Not really sure what my grandfather did in that area, but Dad was certainly in school. They moved to the plains of eastern Colorado shortly there-after. At various times living in or near the small farming towns of Rocky Ford, Ordway and La Junta. I believe La Junta was the last one of the three. Grampa was a farmer and life could not have been easy for the family. I know that Dad had to quit school at the age of twelve to start earning a living. His first job was driving a mule team hauling gravel for a road project. From there, the next thing I am aware of was that he was hired in his late teens to work on the CB&Q RR (that's the Chicago Burlington & Quincy). His first job there was with a friend standing on the top of refrigerator cars and lowering big blocks of ice into the cars! Hot back breaking work in the summer. From there he went to working as a telegraph lineman for the railroad. In the early 1930's he went to work for the J C Penny Company (I think in Pueblo, Colorado) and learned the retail business, which was his livelihood for the majority of his adult life.

You know as children, we absolutely know that our parents are the most boring and have never done anything remotely exciting or interesting. You also know that usually we are completely wrong in this assumption. Had the wonderful and somewhat unique opportunity to listen to my father and a long lost friend of his reminisce about the "old days"! I would give anything to go back and listen to that conversation as an adult.

That's when I found out that dad used to drive bootleg hootch from the La Junta area down to Trinidad, Colorado! If I remember correctly, Dad would drive one time and his friend (whose name I can't remember) would ride shotgun (in the literal sense of the word).....the next outing the roles would be reversed.

One of the stories that I loved the most and Dad repeated it to me several years later, was the families first car.

I don't know the year, but when Grampa decided it was time to move to a motorized vehicle, they hitched a ride with a neighbor on his farm wagon and Grampa, Dad and one of the younger boys rode into Pueblo to the Ford dealer. I believe it was a Model A they bought, however could have been a T. None had ever driven a car before but, they managed to get it all the way to the farm! Now being farmers they were well equipted with a desire to know how things work. That was in large part because they knew that sooner or later that thing would have to be fixed!

Grampa's solution to this was to have them take the Ford apart.....all the way apart...Dad said that when they were done that there were "no two things attached to each other" Picture an entire old Ford laying in literaly hundreds or thousand of pieces on blankets in the front yard. Engine, transmission, enterior, wheels, chasis.......everything! Then they put it back to gether again! The whole process took about a week, and when they were done, they had a bucket of assort nuts, bolts and whatnot that they had no idea where they went. Dad would grin and say "But that Ford still ran like a top, so I guess they weren't that important."

My first oops of the day

Ok, so I got sidetracked and didn't finish my thoughts yesterday.......sheesh, it is tough to get old!

Anyhoo, got to thinking about my father while I drifting off to sleep last night. It's so sad that we know so little of what our parents were like before us. To top that off, dad was a very private and quiet person.

Born at home on a small farm near De Kalb, Missouri in 1912, dad's parents wanted to name him Tyrel Frank Spencer....an uncle was sent to St. Joespeh (the county seat) to register the birth. Must have been a long walk, because he transposed the first and last names on the birth certificate! So dad was forever after a Frank. The 2nd of 5 children born to Benjamin Franklin Spencer and Edith Spencer nee Keller. The first was a girl that was fatally injured in her early teens. Then in dad followed by his brothers Kenneth and Ralph and the "baby" of the family Vanita. Dad never shared much of his growing up with me, but I do know that one of his earliest memories was as a toddler, running in fear, holding his mother's hand, across a furrowed field and over his shoulder seeing their house burning to the ground! We never went anywhere after that, without breathing a sigh of relief when we got home and the house was still there. Understandable.

I'm quite fuzzy about what went on next, but do know that sometime in the late teens the family picked up what was left and with all of their belongings (and themselves) in a boxcar, moved to the mountains of Colorado.

Well, here we go

Hello all....Am trying to type this first bit of fluff whilst fending off a hungry 18 pound tabby named Specs. Best cat ever put on earth.....but don't tell him that or he'll get even more egotistical.

This is meant to be a way for me to put down thoughts about the past of my family........have realized how little my kids and grandkids know about me and my parents. Heck...how little I know about that subject is amazing.

Will divert into my faith, world events, politics, sports, computer games, recipes, weather and whatever else takes my interest at a particular time.

Not sure if I will tell anyone I know about this for awhile....might be kind of fun to just see if anyone at all stumbles across it and lets me know. That was a hint to any wayward stumbles out there.

A little about myself, because at heart we are all egotists to one extent or another. Currently I'm probably 61 years old and a retired old coot....have several passions in life, but they will probably bore anyone who takes the time to read them......live with 2 dogs and an unknown number of cats. Here in the great state of Arizona..well used to be the great state of Arizona.....now is more like Eastern California or Norhern Mexico! More on those situations down the road. Love to play a few computer games to ease the mind... Sim City 4, Civilisation 4 and TitleBout 2.5.......hmmm looks like the boxing game has some catching up to do. And that being said am going to post this and come back after a while and finish this entry......Mr Stomach is telling the rest of me that it's certainly time for an early dinner.