The Dauntless Dodgers – The Final Curtain

We left the Dodgers in something of a state of flux in my previous story. They ended the first half of their season two games behind the Giants, tied for third place out of five teams, which was something of a miracle and somewhat predetermined. Our loss record was greater than our wins. As I mentioned in my previous scenario about “Dem Bums,” we were becoming more competitive with each game, and actually began to resemble something akin to a baseball team. I had developed a batting lineup that entailed putting those kids likely to make contact between those players likely to get walked. It helped, but we still made too many mistakes.

The kids could be down by 10 runs in the late innings and would start a chant, “It ain’t over till it’s over,” straight out of Yogi Berra (or was that Yogi Bear). I thought about mentioning, “It ain’t over till that fat lady sings,” but decided that would be politically incorrect. Besides, I think that has more to do with Opera than baseball! Although, come to think of it, some of the Moms were rather Wagnerian and resembled the Valkyries. If you have no idea as to what I’m talking about, you’ll have to look it up on the web, because it’s too much to try to explain here. I digress!

When “Doc” would go to the batter’s box, he began to squat down so low that there was no real strike zone. The ball was either in the dirt or over his head, so he had a high probability of getting on base. When he got on base, the fun would really begin. If somebody hit the ball he would run until he was either out or would score. Please don’t get the impression that I coached “Doc” into this batting, base-running technique. I wouldn’t stoop to such a low and unsavory, unsportsmanlike practice. (Sorry, I couldn’t help myself.) I asked him why he started doing that, and his response was he “was reducing the strike zone by an order of magnitude.”

Now – that scared the hell out me! He said that he had watched a TV program about a manager in the majors who had actually hired a midget, and would put him in when he needed somebody on base. This is true! The guy’s name was Bill Veeck, and he did it in the early 50s. Eventually the league banned the use of “little people” in the major leagues. “Doc” was a real thinker! He would still get some hacks in, but that was a hopeless cause.

Our fielding acumen however, left a lot to be desired. To offset this inconsistency, we really did not have an outfield because they were brought to within 20 feet of the infield grass. I modified that only when I got information from the scouting reports that so-and-so could hit. We still needed to work with the outfielders, because anything hit in the air to them was usually an unmitigated disaster. But not all of the time. One of our limited-talent outfielders actually caught a fly ball. He was so happy, he ran all the way in to the pitcher’s mound and handed him the ball. He got a standing ovation.

You have to remember that these were young kids, and to them a hardball was a dangerous thing, and in fact, could cause bodily harm. Getting hit by a batted ball or a pitch is not pleasant, especially if it’s in the mouth or face. A majority of the kids were really afraid of the pitcher and would bail out of the batter’s box, even if the ball wasn’t close. I really couldn’t blame them because the majority of pitchers, including our own, had little or no control. They did get to go to first base if they took one for the team, however, I doubt that they thought it was worth the pain.

So, next on the agenda was to teach them how to get out of the way, and in such a fashion that they did not increase the probability that they were going to get nailed by the pitch. For whatever reason, most of them would turn into the ball, rather than turning away from the ball. In some instances, they would just freeze. This was bad, because many of the kids began showing a degree of fear, specifically those kids that were playing organized hardball for the first time. It was pretty easy to detect, because they were bailing out early, or were literally reluctant to bat. As Martha Stewart would say, “Not a good thing,” but I don’t think she played much baseball, even while she did her time in the low-risk, boutique clink.

So I asked JJ Junior, who is pretty good pitcher, to throw the ball at me so I could demonstrate how to get out of the way. After he plunked me three times, smiling after each of my painful grunts, I really began thinking that this was a bad idea. JJ Junior was getting even because I made him a catcher. I was able to coach each would-be “major league” prospect on how to bailout or duck, or just plain fall on the ground to avoid being nailed. I put each batter at the plate with the catchers vest on, and went to the pitching mound and told them I was going throw at them. I did – but not hard, and they got out of the way. Sweet smell of success!

When “Doc” climbed into the catchers vest, he literally disappeared, waddled to the plate, and I suddenly realized that there was not much of his body visible to throw at. All I could see was this little black mound, a bat, and a helmet that was five sizes too large. He actually dove out of the way a couple times, and had a big grin on his face. I think the kid was a masochist. The other rule I had was no swearing in the dugout. These kids knew some really choice words. It was a good thing none of the Moms were around to watch this mean man throwing baseballs at their little darlings.

There was this kid that his teammates call “Scooter,” because he could run like a deer. He was even faster on two legs. That’s a joke! I don’t know why people say “run like deer,” because when they do I envision this person on all fours hopping and weaving all over the place. Anyway, the problem with Scooter was getting him to stop on those little white things called bags. One time, he scored all the way from first base on a grounder hit back to the pitcher. But frankly, that’s how we got most of our runs. There were others of these speed demons that did the same thing, until we made it clear what little white bags were for.

“Scooter” had a rabbit’s foot attached to the back of his hat, and one day I asked him what it was for. He answered, “Good luck!” Feeling somewhat whimsical, I looked at him and said something to the effect that I wasn’t sure that it was working, because look what happened to the rabbit, and he had four of them. He just looked back at me and said, “Well, I guess there’s a three-legged rabbit out there somewhere.” He and “Doc” were good friends and now I understood why. “Doc” was a realist and “Scooter” was an optimist. “Scooter” did become a good ballplayer.

As the second half of the season rolled on, we were actually winning more games than we were losing. The deviant and nontraditional batting order was actually working quite well. Our infield started to tighten up and our pitching surprisingly was walking fewer batters. We had beaten the Giants once, and had one more game to play against them. This was crucial, because the Giants once again were leading in the second half with only five games to go. The way the league worked is if you won both halves, you were the champs. So, to have a shot at being champs, the pressure was on us to beat the Giants again.

The league had another rule that I didn’t know about, as I hadn’t bothered to read the rulebook. Our diminutive league was considered the minors, junior to the players in the age bracket of 10 to 12, which were considered the majors, and was something of an oxymoron. My little Dodgers were good enough at this point to beat some of the teams in the majors. This rule – simply put – said that if a team in the majors lost players (leaving fewer than 12 players on their roster), they could draft a 10 year old from one of the teams in the minors. Guess what! The day before the Giants game, I got a call and was told that I had lost one of my best players. I was really bummed, but that’s showbiz.

The team didn’t really understand how that could happen, and thought it was unfair. I had to remind them, for the umpteenth time, of my rule about swearing in the dugout. I was concerned that this event would cause a letdown. Just the reverse happened. We played the Giants and beat them hands down. All we had to do now was win our four remaining games, assuming that the Giants would win their remaining games, and we would be champs of the second half by virtue of the fact that we had beaten the Giants twice. We won three of the final four, but so did the Giants.

The last crucial game was to be played on a Saturday, following the Giants final game. All of the team showed up to root for the Giants’ opposition, but to no avail. The Giants won easily. Now it was my “Bums” turn for final glory and the victory parade that would follow. The adrenaline level was out of sight and their confidence was vibrant. Although we were missing one of our better hitters and a real solid infielder, we held together quite well, and we approached the seventh inning leading by two runs.

We were the visiting team, so all we had to do was get three outs in the seventh. I had saved one of my better pitchers for the last three innings. We got two quick outs, but then gave up a walk and a base hit. The next kid coming to the plate was identified by my scouts is not being a real good hitter. We got two strikes on him in a hurry. The next pitch he hit was a bomb, way out to center field, and two runs scored – tying the game as he rounded third to come in with an inside-the-park home run. There was no trophy for second place.

“Ah! There is no joy in Mudville tonight,” or as they say “Game, Set and Match.” Sorry, wrong sport. Some guy that was clearly a Giants parent kept yelling, “Giants win the pennant. The Giants win the pennant.” He had to be from the Bronx. The kids took it pretty well, certainly better than some of the parents and unequivocally better than their coach. “Doc” and “Scooter” were standing in the front of the dugout, tears streaming down their eyes and yelling “Wait’ll next year.” You gotta love those two. If I had seen the movie “Bad News Bears,” I would’ve opened up the beer and passed it out. But I hadn’t seen the movie.

The Minors, like Majors, had the managers select the All-Star team at the end of the season, and they would go on to play other teams in other franchises. A total of 15 players were chosen, and the Dodgers, “Dem Bums,” had five All-Star players. The Giants had two.

That was my only year with the Dodgers. My job responsibilities had changed, and I was traveling a great deal more and really could not take the management of the “Daunting Dodgers.” I was able to get to a few of their games the next year, but it wasn’t the same. JJ Junior and Tom stayed with the team. “Doc” and “Scooter” had been prophetic. The Dodgers won it all, but “Scooter” had broken his arm and “Doc” had moved. JJ Junior developed some lifelong friendships during his tenure with the Dodgers. I stayed in touch with many of the players. They would come to the house to go swimming or whatever. I eventually managed a team in the Majors, and some of old Dodgers fell under my fantastic baseball tutelage once again. Right!!  But that’s another story.

Moral of the story –  If you see a three legged rabbit, then you’ll know “Scooter” had it right.

The Return of the Dauntless Dodgers

At the end of my other story, Enter Little League, we left this pint-size team, having successfully snatched victory from jaws of defeat. I didn’t offer much of a description of how this was accomplished, other than a timely hit during the last inning. To give you a flavor of the baseball acumen of both these teams, I will just note that the final score was something like 25 to 24. At best, I think there were maybe nine balls actually hit, and maybe only two of those got into the outfield, with some direct assistance from the infielders.

It was your classic pitchers’ duel, but with a reverse concept of “How many can we walk?” A majority of the runs were created by walks with the bases loaded. On one occasion, one kid was forced in by yet another walk, and to show his baseball prowess, he slid into home. Out of curiosity more than anything else I asked him, “Why did you do that?” He answered, ”I don’t know! I just wanted to try it.” Our would-be orthodontist, Westley, who I had nick-named “Doc,” was standing there and commented, “He probably had an irresistible urge.”

There were many strikeouts, but very few were called by the umpire. One of the kids actually had hit a ball that bounced twice before it got to home plate. “Doc” swung so hard at a pitch, he missed it, but the ball hit the bat’s back swing and he ended up on second base. Now that takes real talent! His mother came over later, and asked me if I had taught him that trick. I told her, “No! I think Westley has got God-given talents.”

“Doc” was one of my two innings players, who played in the outfield. I say played, but I mean he usually sat down and plucked grass or filled in gopher mounds. I don’t think he hit the ball again the rest of the year. “Doc” was a good kid, the smallest kid on the team, tried real hard, came to all the practices, and would come up with some of the funniest one-liners that I ever heard. He was only with the Dodgers that one year, as his family moved. I often wondered if he ever did become an orthodontist. I knew one thing for sure; he was not going to be a professional baseball player!

For those of you that have not had the Little League experience, I will explain a few of the rules that exist to impede the natural tendencies of the kids to be a little assertive, and get into the spirit of the good clean fun of baseball. As an example, there was a rule stating you can’t wear spikes. This, of course, eliminated the need on my part to teach them how to sharpen their spikes. There was another rule that said “no stealing,” which I think was incorporated to give the impression that this sport is meant to be a role model against the concept of theft and general corruption. I must make note to you that there was no mention of the use of steroids!

To make matters worse, if you’re on any base, you had to stay there until the pitcher released the ball. No leading off. If the catcher failed to catch the ball, you still had to stay there, meaning you can’t run down to second or third or anywhere. You had to stay there. Another rule was the manager or coach could not go onto the field. During one of the games, our infield was in its usual sieve-like configuration. My second baseman attempted to field a ground ball, missed it and fell on his face, got up, sat down on second base, then threw his glove at our pitcher. I was really encouraged by that, because the glove actually came close to his target.

I could see he was upset, so I went out to talk to him. The umpire, a 16-year-old kid, came over and said that I couldn’t do that and I had to get off the field unless the kid was hurt. I looked at the kid umpire and said, “I think he gave himself a hernia.” I don’t think the umpire knew what that meant, because he just turned around and went back to home plate.

One of the other interesting rules was something of a mandate. All players must wear a jock strap (aka athletic supporter) and a cup. I was somewhat intrigued by this level of protection at this particular point in our young men’s development, and conceded the only possible necessity for this might be for the catcher. I passed out the device at a team practice. It got more than a little complicated when I tried to explain to the team what the purpose was, and how to wear it. They seem to accept my explanation. I knew that both the rule and I were doomed to failure when at the next game, they were flipping their jockstraps like slingshots – over the fence into the crowd of the parents. After that little episode, we were known as the “Flying Jocks of the Dodgers.”

Westley’s Mom came to the dugout and demanded an explanation. At that point, I wasn’t sure whether she wanted to know what this little elastic strap “thingie” was, or why the boys were being so unruly! Tom and JJ Junior thought this concept was so funny that they wore them on the outside of their uniform trousers. The “big guy,” El Presidente was there, and he went into absolute hysterics at this scenario. I couldn’t figure out how they were going to enforce this rule. I could hear it now, “Okay gentlemen, crotch inspection time.” Later, he told me that the Dodgers had to have a little more self-restraint on the field. After he said that, he started laughing, turned around and left.

After the first couple of games, which consisted of the kids not doing much more than running around the bases, the Dodgers management went into a strategy conference, which was me talking to myself. Clearly, the name of this game was “run until you have to stop,” and hopefully that’s at home plate. It was evident at this stage that there was not going to be a lot of hitting, and if there was that happy accident, the kids needed to understand that it was unlikely that the ball would end up in the right place at the right time.

So, we really worked on running the bases and watching the other players throw the ball here, there and everywhere. It was probable that if at any time someone actually hit the ball, the likelihood of someone catching it was about as remote as finding the Fountain of Youth. I had eliminated infield warm-ups because it was too painful to watch.

We still had at least one practice a week, and sometimes two. It clearly became important to attempt to instill the basics, because if we could do that we could be competitive. Doing nothing but getting bases on balls was pretty boring, and I could tell that the kids felt that way as well. I had one rule. You had to show up for practice if you wanted to play more than two innings. I asked only that they call me if they were going to miss practice. I had a couple kids that thought they were too good to have to practice, and when they didn’t show up, I wouldn’t start them the next game.

On one occasion a father came over, who appeared a little red-assed, asked me why I wasn’t starting his little Johnny, because clearly his ”little Johnny was one of the best players on the team.” I just looked at him and told him that little Johnny doesn’t like to come to practice, and these other kids worked for a couple hours to improve their skills. So if little Johnny wants to play more, then he should show up for practice. With that, Dad turned and went back to the bleachers. Little Johnny started showing up for practice.

We concentrated on hitting and fielding, and naturally I took the best players and put them in the infield. We didn’t use the T-ball concept because hitting a stationary target versus a moving one is two different things. Four of the kids could actually pitch well enough to get the ball close to the plate, some of the time, so we didn’t work on any of that. I didn’t bother to teach them any pitches, like a curve (which should not be used in Little League anyway because it can screw up a kid’s arm in a hurry).

By about the fourth or fifth game we actually started getting hits, and much to everyone’s surprise, we were able to throw runners out – once in a while! The concept of a double-play was well beyond the reach of these kids. One of the interesting things that happened, without any surreptitious activity on my part, was some of the players would go to other teams’ games and would come back with scouting reports. When we played the other team, the scouts would come up and remind me that “that’s so-and-so, and he can hit.”

Another rule was that pitcher could only pitch so many innings per week and could not start two games in the same week. There was no way to enforce this rule, other than the managers all making sure that it was adhered to. These teams would sometimes play three times a week, so you could burn through your “pitching staff” in a hurry. Pitching staff is defined as any kid that can get the ball over the plate – every so often! I had explained this rule to the team, and much to my surprise, that became part of the scouting reports. “Hey coach, so-and-so pitched last Tuesday!”

If you’ve read my other story about Little League, then you’ll remember that during the draft I thought one of the managers kept muttering “Just win, baby. Just win!” He was also the guy that drafted the two “ringers.” They were the hated Giants, and were leading the rest of the teams by at least two games before we reached the halfway point of the season. We were about two or three games behind them, but they were fairly good, and not likely to lose the first half.

We were about to play the Giants, and “so-and-so” walked out to the mound to start the game. Good old Westley, “Doc” said, “Hey coach! That kid pitched Tuesday against the Reds, and according to Rule 14, paragraph 4, sub-paragraph 3, he’s not eligible.” So I went over to the Giants’ dugout and got the attention of “Just win, Baby.” I said something to the effect that “I don’t think your pitcher is eligible because he pitched on Tuesday,” and mentioned the rule. He got a little huffy and said “Well, nobody follows that rule.” I just looked at him and said, “I do!” I didn’t think to ask him if he had his jock strap on.

The kid stayed in as pitcher for about five innings. We ended up beating them by four runs. After the game, I went over and told this guy that I thought he should talk to the league president about the rules relating to pitching. It turned out that the manager who had lost to them that previous game was in the stands watching the game, and told our league officials about the pitching rule violation. They fined him $50,000. He got off by filing an appeal and settled for a six-pack of Bud.

As the season rolled along, I came to the conclusion that the kids were absolutely fantastic. The problem was some of the parents and some of the managers, who seem to have forgotten that these were just kids. Winning is important, but not as important as the concept of a team and sportsmanship. In talking with other managers, it was apparent our League was really low-key compared to others, and they knew of events in other leagues that were absolutely preposterous – with parents and managers getting totally out of control.

Moral of the story – Sometimes an athletic supporter is more than a fan.

Enter the Little League Years or “Who’s on First?”

Since Blue-eyes and I were erstwhile aging athletes, it was only natural that we get the offspring involved in different types of sports. This activity extended itself from the organized local school programs to things such as Little League and tennis. Having resurrected the swimming pool at the New Abode, everybody was a swimmer, even though the water was sometimes a bit chilly. Blue-eyes’ idea of the acceptable water temperature for swimming was around 85°, which our pool rarely met.

We were fortunate in that we were just a few blocks, if you can call our residential area blocks, from a relatively low-key Country Club that featured a bunch of tennis courts, an Olympic size swimming pool, and a rather large equestrian facility. Now, don’t get me wrong! This was not a fancy place and was really very oriented toward family activity. The best part, didn’t cost an arm and a leg. So, somehow, regardless of good old JJ’s attitude about country clubs, we became members. I think it was either Groucho Marx or perhaps WC Fields who said “I wouldn’t want to belong to a club that would have me as a member.”

The other neat aspect of our location was we were a very short distance from the three local Little League fields. So naturally, as the curtain climbers began to become interested in a certain level of competitive sports, we got them going on the concept of baseball. I say “concept” because my first experience with Little League was far from what my understanding and past experience of what the game of baseball was all about. I had played organized baseball until I was about 35, and thought I knew a little bit about it, but this did not prepare me for what I was about to face. But that’s another story.

The town we live in has maybe 2500 single-family residences and 10,000 horses, and could be euphemistically defined as a bedroom community, with no retail businesses of any kind. I should qualify that to say that a few years after we moved in, the Sheriff’s Department discovered a “house of ill repute.” I don’t know if that qualifies as retail or not, but I guess you could surmise that there was a certain emphasis on the term “bedroom.” I digress!

This particular Little League franchise was pretty low-key and had been around for a number of years. Because of the limited talent base, they had never really had any inter-league championships. They usually got their butts kicked and eliminated in the first round of regional tournament play. We were surrounded by large communities with multiple franchises, and one of them had nearly gone to the Little League World Series.

With such a small number of families, the league still managed to attract enough kids to form five teams per league. There were three specific leagues, starting with the Minors who were somewhere between 7 and 10 years old. I don’t think there was a lot of attention paid to the lower end of that spectrum because some of those kids were really young. So JJ Junior decided “it” wanted play organized baseball. He was a good athlete, once he made his mind up whether he was to be left-handed or right-handed. And from the time that he was very small, we used to play a lot of “wiffleball” in the backyard along with the other kids in the neighborhood.

So, we went about the process of signing up, paying the fees and during this process, when asked if I would help, made the mistake of saying “Sure, whatever I can do.” The next thing I know this “big guy,” a 6-foot-four character, is at my doorstep with a bag of equipment. I commented “What’s that for?” and he said “I need a manager for one of the teams.” I told him I really didn’t have the time, etc. etc. He said, “Well okay, it’s just interim, until I can find a permanent manager.” He told me there was a meeting at his house the following evening and gave me his address and directions. We chatted for a few minutes and it turned out that he had three sons playing in the league and was also President. Nice guy and too big to argue with. As he walked away, I got this strange feeling that I had just been had, and he was never going to find a manager.

At the meeting, we “new managers” got a Little League rulebook and some quick instructions on the basic philosophy that every kid plays at least two innings. That was a must! Failure to do this meant a forfeiture of whatever game you played, and you would no longer be suitable as a manager. Headlines in the next day’s sports page of the daily newspaper, “JJ gets fired as Little League manager.” Aha! A loophole from which I could weasel out. I guess this was the early stage of “No child left behind,” with little comprehension on my part of the interesting and delightful effects that this would have during the forthcoming season. “Gee Mom, how come I only get to play two innings?”  “Well, that’s because you’re a total klutz, Westley.” We were also informed that there would be “tryouts” for the kids the following Saturday, and that we needed to be there for the selection process. “Wow!” I thought. “This almost sounds like a draft.” I was beginning to wonder if they had “signing bonuses.”

The tryouts event was basically an evaluation and ranking of all those kids that showed up. It’s intent was to discover who had a modicum of exposure to the little things like catching, throwing and hitting. Some were seasoned players returning for more outlandish exposure by mostly incompetent coaches. There were about 75 of these pint-sized Babe Ruths, and only about 40% of them had even the slightest clue about the basics, let alone how the game was played.

After watching some of these kids for a half-hour, my candid conclusion was that most of them would visit the hospital before the season was over. A couple of them had a real good shot at accomplishing that before the season even began. As an example, during tryouts at least three kids got hit in the mouth while trying to catch the ball and ended up looking for Mom. One of the kids swung so hard at the ball, he lost the bat and nailed one of the Dads that was doing the pitching. I didn’t blame “slugger,” because this particular guy was a terrible pitcher. Couldn’t get the ball close to the plate. The kid stayed. The Dad left! I later drafted “slugger” simply because I thought he had style, and worst-case was that since most of the kids at the tryout saw this incident, he would scare the hell out of our opposition’s pitchers.

The ranking system was pretty basic; excellent, good, fair and needs work in the various basic skills. After watching these kids I came to the conclusion that they should have one more category, and that should be called “hopeless.” After the tryouts, the managers got together and had what was called a draft. Each team was allocated so many players from the top two categories to provide some degree of parity. The rest were divvied out on something of an equal lack of skill-set basis. What I didn’t know was that a couple of the other returning manager’s drafted players who had not been at the tryouts, and it turned out these kids were “ringers.” So, clearly the games began before the games began. One of the other managers kept muttering, “Just win, Baby. Just win!” I thought maybe he was in wrong sport. I ended up drafting the “big guy’s” youngest son, assuming that with two older brothers he would’ve developed some of the basic essentials. Smart move! His kid turned out to be a real good player.

Now spring training begins! Each team was given a specific day to use the fields for practice, and this of course had to start after school. The weekends were open and each team was given a two-hour time slot. The team names were not taken from animals like the Bad News Bears or the Woeful Wolverines, but were basically major-league names. My little team was the Dodgers. And as it turned out, aptly named, because you really never knew what was going to happen! One of the neat things about this league was the kids all got uniforms, not just shirts, but actual uniforms with the team name. Most of the uniforms were about three or four sizes too big, but that was okay.

Some of the dads on our team volunteered to help me with the practice days, which could be best described as absolute chaos. Practice started with the basics of breaking them up into pairs and having them play catch, which really evolved into most of the kids running after a ball in the outfield because they couldn’t catch it, let alone throw it close enough to their partner so that he could catch it. Everybody wanted to play first base, or be the pitcher or play shortstop. Nobody wanted to be catcher and I couldn’t find an outfielder to save my soul. One kid didn’t want to play anywhere; he just wanted to wear the uniform and bat. He also informed me that he wanted to be an orthodontist. I almost made him team captain.

Batting practice consisted of mainly showing the kids how to stand, how to swing and most importantly – how to get out of the way of the ball when it was headed straight for them. They all had to wear batting helmets, which were about four sizes too big and flopping over their eyes. It didn’t really matter because not many of them hit the ball anyway. I was doing the pitching, underhand, and watching them swing at just about anything, even if I rolled the ball to the home plate. I tried to explain the strike zone and the concept of watching the ball all the way to the plate. I got this message crossed however – one kid just stood there. I stopped and asked him why he let those good pitches go by. He just looked at me and said “I didn’t think I was supposed to swing.” The next pitch – he hit it a ton, took off and rounded the bases, trotting into home. All the kids cheered!

We had about four more practices before our first game started. I found a catcher, JJ Junior, who I’m sure was more than just a little unhappy with the Dodgers management. We had a couple of kids that could at least get the ball close to the plate, but I was convinced that if anybody on the opposing team hit the ball anywhere, it was likely to be a home-run in that our infield had a tough time coping with the concept of fielding a ground ball. Even if they did, it was highly unlikely that they were going to throw it anywhere near the first baseman. I figured we would get beat by 24 to 2, based on the successes of our practices.

We played our first game and I discovered that the other team was as bad as we were. The best description of this game was that if anybody did in fact make contact with the ball, they just kept running until they got to home plate, because nobody could throw the ball successfully to any base. After the first couple of innings, I moved all my outfielders in about 20 feet off the infield grass, assuming if any of the other players hit a fly ball, it was going to be a home-run anyway. I put the would-be orthodontist out in right field, where he promptly sat down and picked grass. “Slugger” actually hit the ball three times, managing to hang onto the bat. The first time though, he was so shocked, he forgot to run to first base and stood there so long – with all of us yelling “run, run!” He eventually took off to third base, assuming if he gets that bag, he would be able to come home. He was eventually tagged out by their center-fielder, five minutes later.

We would end up winning, but not because we were more skillful than our opponents, but because the “big guy’s kid,” whose name was Tom, hit the ball into the outfield with JJ Junior on first because of a walk. The kid in the outfield was so surprised, he stood there and held the ball while those two rounded the bases. I was satisfied with that because I now realized that the other teams had the same problems. At least I knew that the Dodgers would not go 0 and 25. This was just the beginning of a number of years of fond memories, some not-so-fond memories, the development of lifelong friends, three peptic ulcers, and two broken windshields.

Moral of the story – It’s not so much in winning as it is how you played the game, especially if you can’t hit, can’t catch and forget to run to first base.

Don’t Fence Me In – or – Dude, Keep off the Grass, both types!

If you’ve been following some of my stuff, you’ll know that in “Border Wars,” I was putting up a huge grape stake fence that was reminiscent of the Great Wall of China. It took me about three weekends and couple of “sick days” to finish this job – not to mention a whole bunch of cash. Blue-eyes and the curtain climbers would alternate in holding the grape stake while I continued to pound my fingers. I had placed a level string from post to post to maintain a consistent height on the fence line. All the holder had to do was have the top of the stake just below the string line. Blue-eyes was pretty good at this, but the kids, being somewhat shorter, didn’t prove to be real competent. I came to the conclusion that they all lacked depth perception. But now the property was almost fully enclosed and the insurance company was a happy camper.

One of the things that is important in a project of this nature is called planning. I thought I’d done a pretty good job in laying out the fence line and executing post holes in their proper spacing, including positioning these all in place, facing the right direction and being somewhat level. Minor problem! J.J. forgot to plan for gates. For you “techies” that’s not Bill, but the kind that swing. I don’t think Bill is much of a swinger. This caused a minor flap in that everybody in the family had an idea of where the gates should go and what size they needed to be. I think the suggestions for gate location got around 20!

It was finally mandated that we had to have a gate for the corral large enough for a truck to get through – and a small gate so we didn’t have to open the large gate to get the horse out. So that dictated a large gate up front, near the entrance to the backyard so a truck could get in and – naturally, a small gate so that we don’t have to open up that large gate. We had to have a small gate at the other side of the front of the house so that we wouldn’t have to walk to where the other gate was. There was an area of the property that was not enclosed because it was basically a dry creek, except in the winter, with a storm drain and was about 3 feet lower than the nominal surface of the yard. So naturally, we had to have a gate there so we could get into the area to clean out the weeds and check the storm drain. We got that sorted out, and I had to revise my layout and sink additional posts.

At this point, the priority list mandated the labor battalion (meaning J.J.) move to concentrate on the front of the house. What little lawn there was, was mostly dead. The previous owner had installed a sprinkler system, however it didn’t seem to be working. I located two control valves and turned them on. Nothing! I looked around side of the house and found another valve and turned it on. Eureka! There was water shooting up all over the area and most of it was not going anywhere near the lawn. I decided to try to isolate the problem, and discovered that the guy had attempted to put in both a drip system as well as sprinklers. It clearly wasn’t going to work. After a few hours of trying to figure out this mess, I came to the conclusion that this was the sprinkler system from hell. I suspect this guy was ether drinking something or smoking stuff.

Rather than mess around trying to fix the problem, I just ripped out the lawn and the old sprinkler system. Good decision! The guy had put in flexible tubing, and unfortunately it had kinked in a number of areas and was absolutely useless. In the process of digging out this tubing I discovered tubing for water in areas that went nowhere at all, no input, no output and no sprinkler head.

I went down to the local garden store and got a truck load of loam delivered after I had rototilled the entire area. I got it all spread out, and dug the trenches for the new sprinkler system. I used PVC and had a lot of fun gluing my fingers to the pipes and the various fittings. By the time I finished, my fingers were purple and mostly stuck to each other. One of the more interesting things I learned was that this glue likely contained either or some other interesting substance in it, and you could get a little silly in a hurry. I found myself having a strong desire to say “Hey Dude,” and to begin sniffing the can. “Surfs up!” I jest as usual.

I got some good advice on the type of grass seed and put in the new lawn. I was really quite surprised at the variations of grass available. I’m talking about the type for growing lawns, not that other stuff! The new sprinkler system worked like a champ and I proceeded to stand around and watch the grass grow. About a week and a half later, a bunch of green stuff started poking its head above the mulch. Sweet success!

The guy at the garden store told me I had to keep the new lawn very damp and should water twice a day. Because of this, any little varmint that wandered into the area would leave its little footprints. That’s how we discovered that a mass of dogs, raccoons and cottontail rabbits inhabited the neighborhood. In some instances, the raccoons had dug up small areas, but the ground was so wet I couldn’t walk on it to repair the damage. I figured I’d fix it after the lawn came in. The cottontail rabbits didn’t do much other than to leave a little trail which is not really noticeable. The dogs left some rather interesting deposits that I just chose to ignore.

One morning I heard a bunch a racket in front and went out and found three of one of my neighbors horses racing around on my new lawn. I had put up small string barrier, about a foot tall with red plastic ribbon all around the entire newly planted area so that people would realize that it was not to be walked on. Two of the horses had gotten tangled up the string, and had pulled all the stakes out of the ground and were racing around, somewhat panicked, attempting to get free from whatever was on their hoofs. My new lawn was now a great big mass of horse hoof prints.

I recognized the horses as belonging to my neighbors in the back and went over to his house and woke him up. It was at least 6:30 in the morning. Time to get up, anyway. He answered my banging on his door in his PJs, cute things with little red hearts. I told him his horses were out. He didn’t seem surprised. He asked, “Where?” and I pointed in the general direction of my house. With that he turned and shut the door, clearly an unhappy camper. That’s what he gets for wearing PJs anyway. I’m a skivvy’s man myself, but that’s probably more than you wanted to know.

By the time I got back to my place, the horses were gone, along with my little string barrier. My neighbor showed up a little later and his only comment after surveying my newly destroyed lawn was “Where’s my horses?” I felt like suggesting, “Just follow the string and the muddy hoof marks!” I don’t think he’d had his morning coffee. Naturally, he did not comment on the obvious massive destruction to my infant lawn. Maybe he thought I had planted it that way. If that were true, I assume he went home later and said to his wife, “Boy! This new guy has a unique idea about what a front lawn should look like.”

He didn’t say squat – as in a “Hey! I’m sorry. Can I help repair this mess?” or even return to the scene of the crime. I figured he must be a soul mate of my “Border Wars” neighbor. I later discovered that his horses got out pretty regularly and went down the street to visit their buddies at the stable, which was a couple of blocks away. Within three weeks, my new friend’s house was “For Sale.” J.J. strikes again, making new friends all over the place and changing the basic topography of the neighborhood. I guess maybe I had discovered yet another non-candidate for “Welcome to the neighborhood committee.” Blue-eyes’ comment was “If you keep this up at the rate you’re going, we’ll be living in this neighborhood all alone!” I actually thought about that, but came to the conclusion it would be extremely difficult and too complex to accomplish. Besides, some of them were very friendly.

Moral of the story There’s two types of grass and sometimes you need both.

Let’s Talk or – “Maybe you can just E-mail me”

The following discussion is semi-serious, so you may just want to skip it, although it is an attempt to set the stage for some of my attitudes and antiquated observations for later dissertations on the state of electronic communication and human relations.

This is something of an older generation’s observation on the wonderful world of electronic communication, as we know it today. Now, don’t get me wrong, I have a computer – actually three, multiple wireless telephones and wireless communication for my computational needs, such as they are, and two cell phones. Not that I know how to use all the stuff, but at least to indicate that I have it.

I have some technology knowledge and capability that spans approximately 40 years in the electronics industry – specifically 10 or more in the communications and the data products elements of those markets. This “knowledge is somewhat questionable and antiquated, according to my “curtain climbers” and many past employers. “My God, I can’t get no respect!

In the early days I was part of a team that started a communications company, and we had contacts with Don Ameche, Alex Bell and an Italian guy named Marconi. They were on our Board of Directors along with a couple of Cal graduates, which was two too many and one guy from Stanford name Dave something. The Stanford guy didn’t have any money but he and his partner let us use their garage. We had a small loan from the Bank of Italy and were close friends with an Irishman named Gianneni.

If you have no idea who Don Ameche was, then get on the web and it will tell you that he was an actor who played Alexander Graham Bell in his life story. (If you don’t know who Alexander Bell was, I will assure you that in the 13^th century or there about he conquered 90% of Europe. For you wine lovers, he was better known because he was ”round and purple” and went by what is better known as the name “Alexander the Grape.”  Bell supposedly discovered the telephone, but there are some Italians who would disagree. He formed the Bell Telephone company. Sound familiar? They were the first to develop the basic methods of how the various corporate entities could be allowed to screw up our communication system, as well as nail the consumer to the wall. “Watson! Come here. I need you!” Go figure that one out.

We had cornered the market for used tomato cans, thanks to our banking connection, and waxed string, which really got the attention of the venture capital groups. We submitted a business plan and the Cal guys jumped in, took the total offering, gave us $37.50 for 10% of the company and we were off and running. That was the only reason they were on the board, because they really wanted to protect their investment. The last of the big spenders. It might’ve been the same year they built their first football stadium, but they really didn’t have a team and I had to lend them an ax, which they didn’t return, and of course they have tried to keep ever since. But that’s a different story for later date.

If you have no clue what the hell I’m talking about, then go buy about 20 feet of string, put some wax on it or make it wet, drill a hole in a tomato can, or whatever, pass the string through the hole you drilled and tie a big knot on the string. You now have the rudimentary technological elements of the telephone and a land-line, which you can speak over. It won’t take any pictures, nor will it tweet nor text. There is no provisional answering machine. If you’re still lost, watch for Progresso Soup ads on TV, likely defined as “Ring–Ring.”

Some years ago, I was defined as something of a corporate troubleshooter, euphemistically known as “gunslinger” (Magnum 44 and all). I had to get involved in a company that was underperforming, also known as “on its fiscal and performance ass.” We had just let the CEO go to “find greener pastures” and my assignment was to try to define what some of the problems might be beyond the obvious – marketing, sales, costs, distribution and all that meaningless stuff. Notice I didn’t say engineering, because there’s never really any technical problem in that regard. HA!

After reviewing a number of major problems and issues over a couple of months, and more importantly, talking with what I like to call the working stiffs, I discovered a singular surprising lack of communication. Nobody knew what the hell was going on, what the goals and objectives were, how they were performing and most importantly, what they needed to do to improve. Ouch! Does that sound familiar?

I asked the ex-CEO’s senior administrative assistant (currently politically correct) to bring in the staff meeting minutes over the past three months. Her comment was “There aren’t any, because there weren’t any staff meetings.” Okay! There’s nothing wrong with that approach because I’m an advocate of the concept called MBWA (a.k.a. management by wandering around), which is more effective than sitting in your office with your fat ass waiting for the phone to ring. Plus, it makes you visible to all your fellow workers and gives them the opportunity to come up and tell you how screwed up things are, including you. As Blue-eyes had often commented, I really am weird because even then I got my own coffee, simply because I believed we paid these talented people too much to run around getting coffee for other people and besides, to me it was a little more than demeaning.

I worked closely with this long-time professional assistant, trying to determine how effectively the past CEO had communicated. She said “Rarely in person, mostly by e-mail!” I said “Say what?” and her reply was the same. “By e-mail.” I asked her, “What did he do all day?” Her comment was “I think he was working on long-term strategy.” My opinion at this point was that she had more brains and talent than the guy we fired.

I went to the trusty computer and discovered three months of communication between the various organizations, which struck me as being nothing other than “let’s cover our ass as best we can” and see what happens. I immediately called a meeting of the seven top executives of the company and started the conversation with “Let me introduce you people to each other because clearly you haven’t had a face-to-face meeting of this entire group for better than three months, maybe never and you may well have sunk this company as well as your future with our Corporation.” Three of these people fainted on the spot. I’m joking! Well not really, because in some instances my form of corrective action is to take the culprits to the back parking lot and shoot-em. But first I used to say “Okay punk, make my day!” Now I’m kidding!

The trusted assistant – well she stayed and ended up as the Vice President of HR, had a bunch of stock, and eventually retired with her husband to Hawaii where they started up a “shaved ice” thing in downtown Kona. I’m not kidding! She sent me a certificate guaranteeing that I could get all of the free shaved ice that I wanted for life, as long it was only once a day. Smart and talented lady.

This situation was the first indication I had of the negative and possibly dangerous aspects of electronic communications as an end-all versus face-to-face conversations. It is directly related to decision-making, team-building and a general understanding of each other as human beings. It can often be determined by such mundane and dumb things like body language, eye contact and overall physical reaction, like in make the bastard sweat… There are necessary concepts on subjects such as the “like or dislike” on an individual basis, as well as a collective basis, and a team can only determine this by working personally with each other. I know, you’re thinking what a bunch of pontification and BS.

I fired four of the seven vice presidents within the next two weeks. I found them totally incapable of verbal communication. We found a new president and the company doubled in size within the next six months. This was a major lesson for me, and one I did not hesitate to impart to our other corporate entities. Face-to-face and verbal communication is a necessary human event and extremely important for understanding each other, whether we agree or disagree on direction and objectives.

Moral of story – There used to be a cartoon character by the name of Pogo and one of his great comments was “We have met the enemy and he is us.”

Ancient Technology – Books and other such Declining Mediums

Homo sapiens – that’s us folks – have been communicating with written words for thousands of years. Some of us conquered Sanskrit at an early age, like me. Not true! I’m your typical American who can be identified anywhere in the world because we’re mostly mono-linguistic. I have enough trouble with English, let alone worrying about a bunch of foreign languages. I was forced to take Latin when I was in high school and I have to admit, I did not do well. As a matter of fact, it screwed me up for life, as you can tell by the way I write. At that point in my life it didn’t make a lot of sense for the simple reason the only time I heard it was on Sunday, and now they even quit doing that. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not knocking the classic languages. I saved the Latin primer for many years just to remind myself that – being dyslexic – there are certain things that you should avoid.

I imagine the Dead Sea Scrolls would be a bestseller if anybody could truly interpret their full meaning. There are some Mayan writings that nobody has been able to fully comprehend or find a suitable Rosetta stone. Even the cavemen tried to communicate in artwork on cave walls, which they left for posterity. It’s a good thing they didn’t have a paint spray can. Our contribution in this regard is best defined as graffiti and tagging.

My early reading skills were relegated to comic books and publications like “Mad Magazine.” I had an early alias, “Alfred E Newman.” My favorite saying was “What? Me worry!” I wish I had saved those comic books as well as Mad Magazines, because it turns out they’re worth a bunch of bucks these days. A good book to me in those days was one with a whole bunch of pictures. I did like National Geographic because every once in a while they would show a naked lady, which by today’s standards was no big deal and is rated PG-five. Some years ago, there was an ad that was touting cigarettes for women. The caption was “We’ve come a long way, baby.” I think that’s appropriate with some of the publications I see on the newsstand or at local grocery store. But I digress.

Our new technology has all but killed what used to be called “newsprint” or “the daily newspaper.” To a major extent it’s been replaced by the television news and certainly the Internet. The demise of some of these so-called newspapers is no big deal, because over the past few years much their publications weren’t worth wrapping fish in. There is an added advantage to having instant news and a real disadvantage if it is an erroneous report. We have a tendency to jump to all sorts of conclusions before all facts are in. Bad news travels fast, and good news has a tendency to take a backseat, or in the case of newsprint, a back page. It seems that thorough news reporting in any media has taken second place to ratings and advertising revenue.

Now, I make these comments as a man of experience. Amongst my many careers, I was once the newspaper business – I had a paper route! I was pretty young, maybe 12, but had this opportunity to become an entrepreneur. In those days, your family had put up a deposit with the local newspaper. I remember thinking that this must have been the way that Clark Kent got started, and he ended up as Superman. I also thought about the fact that he had to wear a cape and leotards, and I was not about to get caught dead in a pair of leotards. I can hear my peer group now “There goes JJ, riding his Schwinn and wearing his leotards.” The other discouraging side was the probability that my cape would get caught in the spokes. As a side note, that’s what killed “Isadora Duncan.” She was not on a bike though. Look her up on the web! Besides, I had developed an early fear of flying. So much for “Up! Up and away!”

So the routine was at approximately 5 o’clock every morning, a truck would unceremoniously dump the day’s papers on my doorstep and I would get up and fold the newsprint so that I could do my deliver bit. The smell of fresh newsprint is rather unique and not at all unpleasing. So I would hop on my trusty Schwinn and assault approximately 70 sleeping and unsuspecting homeowners with their morning news. Most of that time I would just throw the thing in the general direction of the front porch, except if it was raining, then I had to dismount and put the paper in a dry place. I really hated Sundays because of the size of the newspaper. It must have weighed 3 or 4 pounds. You could get a hernia trying to throw one of those damn things.

There were a lot of negatives to this new-found profession. One was the called-in complaints by subscribers who said they didn’t get a newspaper, which their dog probably ate and for which I would get docked money. The other was trying to collect for the monthly delivery from a bunch of people who were deadbeats. I lost my route when I came down with pneumonia, and I think the total escapade costs my family 30 bucks. I should’ve put in for Workmen’s Compensation, but I don’t think it existed then. So much for this scheme for wild riches.

Back to the concept of books and reading. My curtain climbers have introduced their curtains climbers the phenomena of ancient paper scrolls, currently called books. Some of them are actually on paper, but others are on yet another whole new technology. At least this one is possibly far less damaging than all this “game stuff.” I have one of these Kindle things and it took me six days to figure out how to use it. I exaggerate – surprise, surprise! However, it seemed like that. I can use this device for reading, and so far have little to complain about. However, I have a real difficult time trying to “dog ear” the page when I put the book away.

If you don’t know what “dog ear” means, find some senior (meaning more than 16), that looks like they can read. Ask them to tell you, or if you can still find a library, mention it to one of the people working in there. They used to be called librarians, and chances are they’ll throw you out on your ass after they’ve stripped you of your library card, which you probably don’t have anyway! If you don’t understand any of this, you will have to ask somebody old or get on the web, because there is a whole different world that’s potentially comatose, and is rather unique.

For those of you that have not had the opportunity and comfort of reading a book made from trees or rice chafe or whatever, you will discover that it has the added advantage that if you don’t like it, you can use it to start a fire. This can’t be said of the Kindle. It used to be called reading a book. I have a friend that got one of these “readers” and he was using it when he felt it get extremely warm. He put it on the counter and watched it melt. The only book that I ever read that could have a possibly done that was called “Ulysses.” Hot stuff!

There was a movie some years ago called “Fahrenheit 360” or something like that, which was basically a futuristic fantasy. It described a society which had a law, that if violated, was punishable by death or some other meaningful penalty. The crime – having possession of a book! The neat part of this fictional story, or maybe not so fictional, was the evolution of the secret society of people who memorize complete novels and formed a secret subculture to keep the concept of creative literature alive. Human books! Their meeting place was in the forest amongst the trees. More tree-huggers in action. To hear a book, you had to go up and whisper the secret words which were “You’ve got mail.” Think about that one a brief moment or two. I know, you’re out of breath, and sometimes thinking hurts or can give you the hiccups.

Looking at where things are going in our current and somewhat grievous social structure and our technological binge, I’m beginning to wonder if maybe fiction is turning into fact, and possibly, life is beginning an imitation of fiction. Other ancient publications that accentuate this possibility were written many years ago, meaning the last century, by a guy named Orwell (I think it was called “1984”), and another by a very intuitive female named Rand, who wrote “The Fountainhead!” Both of these pieces of probable fiction forecast the total demise of individualism, a lack of personal clarity in life, and the complete degradation of the intuitive concept of personal independence. I digress! God help us, this really isn’t any fun, but unfortunately very real.

Moral of the story – You can sleep with a real book and not run down your battery! Keep it clean!

 

J.J. and Second Encounters of the Third Kind

Now, I’m not one of those that buys into all this UFO and flying saucers, cigar-shaped objects or whatever. I suspect this mass reporting of strange phenomena here, there and everywhere is a human phenomenon rather than extraterrestrial. Those of you that follow this intriguing topic would be interested in the following descriptions of what I saw, and of the second event which was witnessed by Blue-eyes. If only 2% of what has been discussed and theorized is factual, then I think even the most skeptical would have to agree that something is going on, and I don’t think it’s our military combine testing secret weaponry.

I’ve seen a few things on TV regarding Area 51 and believe there is a modicum of substance to some of the claims by outsiders. As far as it containing the remains of some intergalactic space men, I’m pretty skeptical. If these space visitors are so advanced in their technology, it would seem only logical that they would have methods to retrieve any of their dead species from a crash site, and not leave the remains around for us to discover. As Spock would say, “That’s not logical, Captain Kirk.”  As far as this being something involving military intelligence, I doubt it and besides that’s an oxymoron! The military intelligence part anyway.

In earlier writings I mentioned my connection with the Aero Space Industry and noted I had been involved in a “not so secret” project back in the mid-60s. I commented that the facility allocated to us for this project was on a local Naval airfield. Much to my surprise, parked in one of the main hangars was indeed a saucer shaped airplane, if you could call it that. It wasn’t any secret and my suspicion was that it belonged to NASA and was an experimental device. I was tempted to ask if the pilot was a “little green man,” but decided that would be unbecoming of a project manager. Besides, my credibility with this company was already in trouble.

However, I will share the following two events with you, and you can make your own judgment regarding credibility. Enter the theme music of “First Encounter of the Third Kind” or whatever.

Back in the late 50s, before I met Blue-eyes, I took a job in Palm Springs for the summer as an electrician’s apprentice, not thinking that the average temperature during those months was 110 or better, and I was going to be working outside. Summer jobs were hard to come by that year, so I was really happy to get this opportunity. As an apprentice, your responsibility was to drill a bunch of holes in the wood framing, dig trenches for underground supply and drag wire all over the place – all the grunt work that a journeyman would not think of stooping to do. I went down there with a buddy whose uncle owned a contracting company, so we had lots of work. We rented a little house trailer just outside the city limits in a high-end trailer park, which his uncle happened to own.

Normal working hours were from 5am – 11am, and then you quit until approximately 3pm, and then went back for another two hours. It was hard, hot work, and you had to stay hydrated and take a bunch of salt pills, which does really strange things to your body. As I may have mentioned in an earlier writing, I also had a part-time job as a disc jockey for a couple of days a week, and on weekends working from about 7 – 10 in the evening, when we closed down the station. It didn’t pay a lot, but it was a nice air-conditioned studio, which is more than our little house trailer had.

Sometimes after closing the station, I would go back to the trailer park and take a quick swim before hitting the sack. My roommate had a girlfriend, so sometimes I wouldn’t see or hear him until much later. One night after taking a swim, I was lying in a lounge chair. It was still about 90 degrees out, and I was just trying to relax and cool off. I looked up in the sky, which is just fantastic when viewed in the desert, and was marveling at how many stars there were and how clearly you could see some of the galaxies. Not that I knew which one was which or could name any of the stars. That was about the only redeeming value of being in the Mohave Desert, at least in the summertime.

After a few minutes I noticed six strange objects, not like any of the stars, all in a row with different colored lights basically moving toward me, which would be North, at a very slow speed. At first I didn’t think much about what I was seeing, assuming it might possibly be some training exercise involving the military. Then, as I was watching these objects, they stayed absolutely still and I noticed that they were changing color, and yet there was no movement. I watch them for approximately two minutes, and then all of a sudden they all broke apart, going different directions so fast that I lost sight of them within a few seconds. I thought, “Well, J.J., that was sure different.” I went back to the pool every night after that experience just to see if anything similar occurred. It didn’t. I chalked it up as something strange, but really didn’t dwell on it however; I have to admit I didn’t laugh at people who reported strange objects in the sky.

The next event was in the mid-1980s, and happened again while I was out by the pool during a warm evening after a hard day at the office. Blue-eyes and I had done the dishes, the kids were all gone, and I was looking at the night sky because I happen to like stars. So I’m staring off to the south and I’ll be damned if there are lights, just like the six I’d seen back in the mid-50s doing the same damn thing. I ran over to the family room, told Blue-eyes to grab the binoculars and come out to the patio. She did, and I pointed to these objects which were traveling very slowly, then stopped, then turned to the left, and came back to their previous course – all very slowly. I got the binoculars on the objects, and all I could see was a blurry glow and constant lights, but no motion at what appeared to be a relatively high altitude.

Blue-eyes took the binoculars and was watching these motionless objects. They then proceeded to head directly toward our house, which would be in a northwest direction at a slow speed, and then as once before, they changed color and all took off like a bat out of hell. My first reaction was this was some kind of helicopter exercise, however, the speed with which they departed visibility was almost instantaneous, and in my estimation they were quite high. My first reaction was they went absolutely vertical. If it’d been a flight of helicopters, the rate of climb would not have been damn near instantaneous. We would’ve been able to see their running lights for much longer than these particular objects. It was a not a case of the lights being turned off, they literally flew out of sight in a matter of seconds to the point where you no longer see any source of light.

I had not told Blue-eyes about my previous experience down in Palm Springs. I then told her about it and described the similarities that she had just seen. We sat there trying to come up with an explanation of what had transpired, and began to discuss reasonable causes – such as a helicopter training program. We don’t live anywhere near a helicopter military facility, the closest one being well over 400 miles away. The other factor involved was the speed with which these objects disappeared. General conclusion – not a group of helicopters. It certainly wasn’t any fixed wing aircraft, because there aren’t many of them that can remain completely still.

Now, you can argue that we have the capability of vertical liftoff of fixed wing aircraft, but not one that could go from no motion to a high-speed vertical departure like these particular objects. It was not a weather balloon because it happened at about 8:30 in the evening. It wasn’t reflections from the moon, because at that time year, the moon doesn’t rise until much later. Could it be some atmospheric bounce back from automobile headlights, flares or some other source of light or reflection? Possibly! But flares don’t go up though, they usually come down. Explain the high-speed departure on an almost vertical plane. Possible reflection from a satellite – not in that orbit, and besides, we didn’t have any in the mid-1950s.

The conclusion we came to was we both needed another glass of wine. Blue-eyes made the suggestion that we not mention this to any of our friends, simply because they already thought I was funny, like in strange, and this would just add fuel to the fire.

Perhaps a year later, I was watching television, getting bored out of my gourd and was channel hopping when I came across a UFO documentary on the History Channel. I sat there and watched it for a while, and they interviewed this couple who described an identical occurrence such as what we had seen. They lived someplace just outside of Phoenix. The major difference in their story was that they caught the experience on video. It was almost identical to the two situations that I have just described. Let me make it clear, that got my attention!

Up until now, we have not shared these experiences with anybody. I haven’t reported it to any of the focus groups, nor do I intend to. It’s my belief that if they’re really up there and they decide to let us know that, they will remember that good old J.J. kept his mouth shut.

“ET where are you?” “I’ve got my cell phone on.” “You can text me.” ”Have your people call my people and we can do lunch.”

Moral of the story – If you see a little green man taking your picture with the new iPhone, relax. It could be Richard Dreyfuss making a new movie.

Border Wars: Hawks versus Squirrels and JJ versus Squirrely Neighbor

 

So that some of this makes some sense, you may want to check out my other little story regarding the new house, called New Abode. Now, you might get the impression that this is blatant commercialism, but the last time I looked the stories were free. I’m just trying to be helpful!

As you may recall, we moved into the new house which filled the needs of our growing family. More bedrooms, more bathrooms, more space and more problems. Not only was there work that had to be done on the interior to make life suitable and get Blue-eyes off my back, but we had to go about taming the jungle on this rather large lot. Blue-eyes had developed a rather lengthy “honey do” list. After some review and prioritizing, I could see that my weekends were shot for at least the next two years.

You might say that our new home was in an open space, because there were literally no fences between the properties on either side, with the exception of fencing that imprisoned the horses, but didn’t do much to control the horse flies. There were seven horses adjacent to the property, not including our own. This produced so much horse poop that some of these flies were as big as a small bird. If we failed to close the screen door, which was often practiced by the curtain climbers, we would be invaded by these huge flies and it was reminiscent of the scene out of a movie called “The Birds.” I was waiting for Alfred Hitchcock to show up at any moment.

We had one small fence surrounding a dead or dying lawn, but it did not enclose the property. We had a swimming pool and our insurance company mandated that the property be fenced. That made it high on the priority list. The unique view from our back patio was this rather ugly fence, and then a whole bunch of dead trees and high brush growth including – much to my chagrin – poison oak and wild blackberry bushes.

This little development had been built on what had been a walnut orchard, however most of the trees were in extremely bad shape and would eventually have to be removed. What little fruit the trees produced was being consumed by a multitude of squirrels. I’m not talking about just a “few” of these little beasts. At one point, I counted 11 squirrels in two trees munching away. It was clear that the only thing the squirrels had to do was consume walnuts and reproduce. Where did I go wrong?

This overpopulation was corrected – not by me and my trusty lever-action, Red Ryder BB gun. The local hawks initiated a slow elimination program of this squirrel heaven with a “swoop and grab” strategy, mostly executed in the morning. Breakfast is served.

I would watch this demonstration of Mother Nature in action with my morning coffee. Blue-eyes didn’t want any part of it and told me I was being “ghoulish.” My reply to that was it was not much worse than the morning news on TV. We were getting our butts kicked in Vietnam, and I found watching that was a pretty disgusting way to begin the day.

The hawks would sit patiently in a tree and wait until a squirrel hit the ground with its booty filling its cheeks, and usually the little varmints were toast. The more combat-savvy squirrels would wait until this predator would finish its dive and then take off for shelter, zigzagging like a World War II convoy. Sometimes they would wait, and two or three would scamper away at the same time. Those survivors were clever little devils. I could swear on more than one occasion I could hear the Hawks humming “Come fly with me.” The rest of this problem was resolved, for the most part, when I removed many of the trees.

The area that I wanted to enclose was about 200’ x 200’ x 150.’ That’s a lot of grape stakes and a whole bunch of holes for fence posts. I found the real meaning of terra firma was really “terribly firm.” The ground was not just adobe, but clay adobe, and during the summer, was hard as a rock. You couldn’t dig a hole without soaking the ground with water. Even though I had an auger, it was pure hell. I did discover that if things ever really got tough economically, I had a lot of adobe brick raw material and could go into the brick business. I did in fact make a small adobe wall out of our marvelous soil, however, the second time it rained it melted!

So, I began the process of digging post holes every eight feet, and approximately 18 inches deep. I know this is boring, however it will get interesting in a hurry. I’m putting holes adjacent to one of my neighbor’s property lines and as I got down about a foot or so, I noticed the hole filling with water. What the hell is this? I can’t believe that the water table would be that high, and then there was this terrible odor. I came to the conclusion that this was runoff from my neighbor’s septic tank. No wonder his small lawn was so green. This emission also provided an answer as to why that part of my property was like a bloody jungle.

I called him to show him what was happening. He was already unhappy with me because I was putting in fencing. He didn’t even offer to help install this proposed good neighbor fencing, let alone pay for any portion of it. I got even though, by placing the rough ugly side facing his property, not mine. Now he was even more PO’d because I had uncovered the fact that his septic tank was not working properly. The guy had no sense of humor. The upside of this was I didn’t have to put water into the ready-mix to plant the post. This area had so much fertilized water that the redwood posts seemed to me to begin to grow. I exaggerate, but I really expected it.

After I had dug all those holes and had secured the fence posts, my buddy came out and stated he thought the fence was on his property. I commented that I had found the property stakes and had basically put the fence better than 3 feet away from the property line. I took this friendly son of a gun (I cleaned that up), and showed him the surveyor stakes that revealed the property lines. This proved that the fence was indeed well behind that line. He didn’t say much, turned around and left.

Now, after the fact, the fence is up and I happened to go out front where one of the surveyor stakes had been driven into the ground. This is an 18 inch, metal stake. The stake was missing! Someone had dug it up. Hell, we’re talking over an acre of ground – three or four feet don’t much matter. Clearly this guy had a severe burr up his behind. I think that’s one of the last conversations we ever had. We eventually signed a non-aggressive treaty which included a clause that stated neither one of us existed.

To confirm the old saying “fruit does not fall far from the tree,” one of his sons came over about a month later and said that our dog’s barking was keeping him awake at night, and that if we did not control him he would call the Sheriff. I mentioned to this “Chip off the old block” that I was pretty sure it was not our dog, and he stated unequivocally that he knew it was “Rusty.” I looked at him and said that would be very difficult, because Rusty had been run over by a truck three weeks ago. This interesting young person just looked at me, turned around and left. I don’t think he was Chairman of the “welcome to the neighborhood” committee!

The guy on the other side was the complete opposite. He was a Naval Academy graduate and ex-pilot who had bent up some airplanes, and decided that real estate was a better place to be. So he was very happy when we moved in and began making improvements. He helped me put up fence posts and grape stakes, and watched as I consistently hit my fingers rather than the nail. He thought that was pretty hysterical, and I think I called him a “swab jockey idiot.” They had this huge Palomino horse that was slowly eating his corral, and I mentioned that I hoped he would not go after my fence. He said not to worry, they were moving him on to some other property. I got to ride this beast a number of times and I took Lucky, our horse, along just to show him what a real horse looked like. It did not improve Lucky’s disposition at all.

This was a really nice neighborhood, with the one exception duly noted. The houses were better than 100 or more feet apart and you rarely heard your neighbor. Facts are, you rarely saw your neighbor. We got to know most of the neighbors through their offspring, because we became Kids Central shortly after we moved in. When we bought our house it could’ve been classified as the ugliest house in the neighborhood. So for the most part, we received a warm welcome with our various projects. Over the years, it became a really great place to live and we all have very fond memories of the new abode.

Moral of the story – Love thy neighbor, but make sure you know where the property line is.

Hello, Can You Hear Me Now? I just hit a Dead Spot!

The dark side of this technology onslaught is we are losing or have lost our conversational capabilities. It would seem to me that conversation these days has been relegated to monosyllabic answers to a question, or with conversational attempts of two or more variations of grunts and tactile gestures, like gestures of a single finger, thumbs up, thumbs down or half of the peace symbol clearly indicating displeasure with whatever I might’ve asked! As an example, I recently ran into a friend while they were texting and said “Hey, how are you?” The response I got was “Ugg!” My assumption is that meant “not good,” and that ended the conversation. If we do lose the ability to verbally communicate, there is an upside that I really would be in favor of – it would shut up most of our politicians and certainly simplify the matter and manner of law by not allowing lawyers to talk.

I do know how to make a call, answer a call and turn the damn thing on and off, which is mostly off! Not too long ago I inadvertently switched the ring tone to vibration and scared the living hell out of myself. At first I thought it was some sexual experience, and then came to the conclusion that I was having an out of body experience involving an isolated earthquake. Blue-eyes fixed it for me with the unnecessary comment “Not only are you weird, but you’re getting old. Sex indeed!”

My kids and their kids are no exception to the current cultural phenomena that basically mandates everybody has to have a cell phone, or whatever the current technology is offering. I have a cell phone, but even now there are functions that I don’t understand, and quite frankly don’t care about and refuse to use. I guess that makes me a real dinosaur.

I still have the understanding that a “cell” is something that you can get slammed into if got caught perpetrating something illegal – unless you have a real good lawyer. If you go back to the Cold War, it was something that according to a lot of politicians the Communists had a whole bunch of in the US, but that’s history and you probably don’t have a hell of a lot of interest in that. Or maybe “cell” is something like issuing stock for a company on the public market that within the first 30 days loses 50% of its value. But what do I know?

I have a tough time getting and reading missed messages and frankly don’t really care because my attitude is that if it’s important whoever it was will call back. I can’t text, nor tweet. As hard as I try, I cannot take any pictures because this phone doesn’t have a camera capability. That’s how old this phone is. I got it while I was still working, but frankly felt that it was something of an invasion of privacy.

Case in point, I’m in the men’s room or whatever, to take a whiz and the damn phone goes off. I’m tempted to answer, telling the caller exactly what I’m doing and if it’s really necessary that we talk at this particular moment. The only reason I kept the cell phone was principally for emergencies or to call Blue-eyes while I was shopping for groceries or whatever to make certain that we didn’t forget something. She is very good at making thorough lists of what needed to be bought, but would consistently leave this exacting document on the kitchen counter. That, of course, always led to buying a bunch of stuff we didn’t need, but that was okay with me because otherwise I would have to run to the store, which I really hated.

When she got home, I would mention that she forgot her notes once again and this was usually a huge mistake. Blue-eyes had sliced a tendon in her middle finger some years before and didn’t realize that she’d done some permanent damage, which caused this finger to do a left oblique. This deformity gave her a very personalized signature gesture when she decided to flip me off. She thought this was hysterical, and I threatened to take a picture and show the curtain climbers some of the unique aspects of her personality. Her come back with something to the effect that I should keep in mind that she got half of everything and my half will be the remaining debt. This usually got my attention. But I digress…

I only use this ancient cell phone about 10 minutes a month and have accumulated 534 million rollover minutes or at least that’s what my carrier says. When I die, I intend to take it with me so that I can call the smart ass grand kids or whomever and continue to harass them, like I was still there. This is not just another hollow threat.

Moral of the story: Don’t denigrate a woman with a deformed middle finger. Also, use your cell phone minutes because there is not a heavenly repeater.

Can We Talk?

The wonderful world of electronics has advanced to the point where communication could soon be relegated to sign language – if we’re not already there! For sure, the concept of social networking is far superior than going to a bar and trying to meet people, but I think that still goes on, in that all you’re doing is sitting there texting. What few observations that I have of the current generation manipulating these various devices is often hilarious, however, I’m absolutely astounded at their tactile dexterity.

Sometimes I go up to a total stranger and ask some dumb question – just to screw up their texting or whatever it is they’re doing on their little social network devices. Most the time, I just get a blank stare. Very rarely do I get any kind of a verbal answer, and a majority of the time that is usually monosyllabic. I usually apologize by saying “I’m sorry, but I thought you were somebody else.” The potential problem here is if you were to ask them what time it is, they will either say “what?” or suggest that you look up that question on one of the networks, which of course, will give you the location of the most rudimentary instructions on how to build a clock.

It would seem to me that the last thing someone might want to do is sit and talk to a computer, addressing some unknown person in the never-never land of the Internet. I recently got an e-mail from one of these networking sites which said I had four friends that wanted to contact me. I knew right away this was just so much B.S., because I haven’t got four friends. Well, not that can write, anyway. It’s also like this on another site called Classmates, which say some of them are trying to find me. The only reason they’re trying to find me is more than likely that I owe them money. What’s the compounded annual rate on 10 bucks over 40 years? It’s a bunch of money, and I don’t want to know anyway.

Social networking and things like Zinga, Linked-in and Facebook, which I call “Dunga and Butt Book” to me are extremely frightening. I was very tempted to sign up, put a picture of Tom Selleck on my site and see what the hell happened. But, frankly the more I thought about it, the more I figured I would get close to 16 million inquiries. It didn’t make any sense to me unless I could convince each one of them to send me a dollar. As a second thought, I dug up the picture of Harpo Marx, thinking I would use that with the understanding that anybody who contacted me would have one hell of a sense of humor.

I do understand, however, that LinkedIn has some redeeming values relating really to professional networking. “Hey! You know where I get a job?” The others all seem to be very a successful marketing ploy to sell you something you wouldn’t think buying if you weren’t sitting there screwing around with your computer. Gee-whiz! There might be some money in this business and maybe if we were talented enough, we could take it public and make a gazillion dollars! Does that sound familiar? Yeah, and you could also hit the wall at Mach 2.

The rest of the concept, although intriguing, seems to me to be somewhat dangerous and clearly personally intrusive. I worry about what these various sites are doing with all the data that they’re collecting, and how much more potential junk e-mail we might expect to see. If you can’t talk to somebody other than texting or tweeting, then I guess this is your last resort. If you try talking, you may find a rewarding situation – far more rewarding than the social networking that you could ever possibly achieve using these impersonal electronic devices. Some people are naïve enough to think that the whole world out there thinks the same way that they do. Believe me – during my short tenure on this earth and exposure to people, you never know what the hell is in the back of their mind.

My attitude then and continues to be 90% positive, until you show me that 10% negative. Unfortunately, sometimes that occurs too late to remedy. So the concept of social networking, albeit intriguing has to be done with a thorough understanding that there are certain intrinsic dangers. It’s not clear to me that this current fad will last much longer than the CB radio (“Breaker Breaker – Rocker Babe! – watts-cher 20?”), nor will it be around in the next two or three years with its current popularity, but there is no question we will have opened up social mores which will exist with or without electronic social networking. Moderation and caution are the key elements of utilizing what is an extremely positive advance in social communication and understanding. The ability to instantly communicate has prospects of forestalling international misunderstandings, but at same time can be used, such as by terrorists, to create unconditional havoc on a worldwide basis. My attitude is that with the good of any new invention or situation, there is always the bad that must be dealt with and resolved.

The moral of the story – Keep your eyes open, your hand on your wallet or purse, your mouth shut, and try not to run into a fire hydrant or a telephone pole while you’re networking.