Evening,everyone.
Bob, I had a feeling she was being fed a line, but she didn't really want him in Virginia, so I didn't press it with her. I don't know why the Arlington bunch were so uncooperative with her, but the people at Western Reserve were great. They went back over his records and discovered the Oak Leaf Clusters. We didn't know until the Major in charge presented it to her, along with the flag. He was in the Mekong Delta in 1966. Some VC sappers tried to overrun his fire base. He took over an M2 position after the gunner was killed a kept firing intil the barrel overheated. He then used a bloop gun to fire about 15 grenades to break up the rest of the attack. He was shot in the shoulder but said he didn't even realize it until about a half hour after the perimeter was secured. I guess adrenaline is a good pain killer. They counted 46 bodies when daylight came and he got most of them. He was being evacuated by chopper the next morning when the helicopter came under sniper fire. He was a sniper himself, so he grabbed his Savage 10FP and picked off the guy from about 400 yards away with a clean head shot. He did this left handed, since his right shoulder was wounded!
That's why he got the Oak Leaf Clusters. He got out in 1970 and I don't think he ever picked up a gun again. He wasn't a macho kind of guy but, as you say, he rose to the occasion when he could have stayed in his hootch and hoped for the best. Never having been in the military, I can only relate to my few times in law enforcement when I was in a combat situation. I was always scared sh*tless, every time. Anyway, he was a good guy and now in a much better place.
Matt, sorry you didn't make it into the sectionals but there's always next year. Sounds like you had a nice camping trip. Minnesota and most of the East is getting cranked up for the first heat wave of the year. I talked to my daughter today and she said the high was 95, so it's already summer for us.
Corey, at least in normal times, I get more work done on the layout in the summer than winter. It gets so danged hot that there's not much you do outside, so the cool basement feels good. In most winters, it's mild enough to do yard work and get things cleaned up before the heat sets in again.
Steve, sounds like global warming has moved to the UK. Do you guys start having problems with woods fires when it gets that dry? We get them when we have long periods of drought and hot weather.
Chris, you are such a slave driver.
Of course, the paddle hanging on the wall probably help. I hope your boy does better in the common sense department than Amanda. She's 20 years old and running out of excuses for being a ditz.
Terry, I've had some of those brown trout problems with my holding tank when I cut corners and don't give it a good spray out after emptying the black tank. It's one of the really disgusting parts of owning an RV.
Jeffrey, I know nothing about gas tanks so I''ll assume your judgement about how to handle the replacement is good. If not, your department might have an extra run this year.
Sounds like it will be a good MOW van for your railroad. You going to do an HO version too?
Connie, her son Michael, and her grandaughter Ariel went downtown t see the
William G Mather and the Science Museum. Ariel is just 16 but already took fourth place in the NCAA women's wrestling competition in Florida two weeks ago. She has high hopes of making the Olympics in two years. She looks more like a model than a wrestler but I guess she must be pretty good at it. The
Mather is a sistership to the one I spent a summer on in 1964. Most of the ship has been restored to the way I remember the
Franz was when I was on board her. I didn't realize until I was reading the ship's log that one passenger we transported to Detroit was
the William J Mather, the owner of the Cleveland Cliffs lines and one of the richest men in America at the time. We lowly deckhands were never told much about any passsengers except they were VIP's and stay away from them. I was polishing some brightwork early one morning when our distinguished looking passenger came out on deck to smoke his pipe. He asked me how I liked my work and how well was I being treated. Luckily, I had nothing bad to say, especially for an 18 year old kid who was getting a nice paycheck for the summer. We had a nice talk about the ship, the company, and the future he saw for steel companies on the Great Lakes. He was not optimistic about the US steel industy. He went back to his cabin after about a half-hour and I never saw him again. It was only today that I realized I had been talking to company president and one of the most powerful men in America.
You know, things change as you get older, but you never think they will change all that much. I found out that St. Alexis Hospital, where I trained as a respiratory therapist and my late wife went to nursing school, was shut down in 2004 and the remaining buildings are now a homeless shelter. The hospital started in 1884. It was where Jean and I met and fell in love. Now Jean, the hospital, and the nursing school are all gone. This has been profoundly disturbing.
I guess it's the realization that everything I knew is gone and I won't be far behind. Weird.
? Normally this time of the year the roads clear out after April.......Not this year.
