Family History: Seattle, the First Years

I lived in Seattle for about twelve and a half years, and until this endless stint in Woodbridge, that was the longest ever.  That is where I grew up.  This piece tells about how my first family arrived and the early times there. 

We drove from Albuquerque in the silver Fury III, with Teufel sharing space in the back seat, stopping to see the spectacular views that the Grand Canyon and the Petrified Forest offer the lucky visitor in Arizona.  Next we zipped into California and headed north, eventually hitting Bakersfield the town Dad was born in, and needing to stop near there to get the car's thermostat replaced.  We stopped to see Redwood National Forest, and those magnificent trees still fascinate me and lift my spirit.  Their massive size, and mere existence was somehow so impressive that to this day they stand out as beacons of how wonderful nature is.  I do not recall much about Oregon, nor southern Washington, on that trip beyond the greenness of those areas.  When we first arrived in Seattle, we stayed with the Schmidts, who were the last set of Mom's "parents".  Recall that her biological Mom had died in an accident at their farm, her Dad had remarried, then he died in a USSR concentration camp after WW II, and she remarried.  We were told to call Mrs. Schmidt Oma and Mr. Schmidt Vetter, as befitted their status.  Sis and I practiced the "Vetter" which was a new word to us and he heard us and may have been offended since it sounds like the German word for "fat person" but nothing was said and so hopefully he did not take offense.  They were nice, but I never sensed the amazing warmth and love that was a constant part of dealing with the Bayers, and I was not sad when Mom and Dad told Sis and I that we were moving to our new home north of the Seattle city limits. 

As noted previously, Dad was never to work again after his stint as a construction worker in Albuquerque.  The PTSD, as I now believe it to be, the lifelong effects of those years of abuse at the hands of the Japanese, was just to much for him.  So we ended up renting a 900+ square foot home in a working class area a few miles out of Seattle using his retirement income.  Three bedroom, one bathroom, two car carport, center home of three in a row behind the street.  17829 Wallingford Ave N, Seattle WA, 98133, was in the Shoreline School district and at the time the schools were probably pretty good compared to most in the US although maybe not great. Three years of junior high  school, four of high school, then a mixed-up path through college that I will cover later and off to my Air Force career. 

I had middle school at Einstein Junior High, where I remember few teachers.  One of these was an art teacher who I recall only because of the plaster of paris sculptures we made in a one week or so segment of class, and the discussion we had when I suggested that modern so-called art was not really anywhere nearly as great as painting "real" pictures that did not allow one to simply splash paint around but rather captured a real image of a scene or person.  She countered that the modern art was just as good and even as difficult to create, a viewpoint that made no sense even to my young mind and is eminently cringe-worthy to this day.  The sculpture work started with us filling a milk carton with plaster and letting it dry, than making whatever we wanted out of it.  With little teaching from her I was not going to follow Michelangelo as a great sculptor but I'm sure she did the best she could.  In the academic classes I was not a fantastic student despite still being ahead in some subjects from my Wernau schooling, such as biology which Seattle schools did not touch until high school, but did better than most which actually meant something in those days, because grades really did have to be earned which is something that is not obvious today from much anecdotal evidence.  Unfortunately I was a somewhat lazy student, although a good one, so unless a topic interested me, or was fairly easy, I might not have tried as hard as I should have.  Mom and Dad kept on Sis and me to do well in school, and for that I thank them since without their pushing what little success I have would have certainly been less.  This was just another example of how true wisdom is seldom found in the young.  Other classes that I recall, although vaguely, included math, english, and some state history. 

I had a few friends during this time, but I was not one of the popular kids, nor was I a jock.  The friends included Gregg Parrott who later went into the Army before transitioning into the Air Force at which time I lost track of him.  Marc Wilson, later a standout as quarterback at BYU who made a career in the NFL was another friend.  I was an introvert, and add to that our lack of money the combination kept me from having much of a social life beyond school, except for the few kids who traded visits back and forth with me, and Boy Scouts and later Civil Air Patrol.  At first I enjoyed Scouts, the meetings, having Dad around, but within a year or so I drifted away from them.  In those years there were no popcorn or mulch sales, but we had one businessman who brought a huge number of cargo tie-down ropes to those who were interested and we could make a few cents each for tying them in a designated way.  I did some, than was bored with it and despite Dad noting that this was an easy way to get money for fun activities I could just not get into it, and soon after I quit both the rope tying and Scouts.

When I was 13 or 14 I joined Civil Air Patrol, the civilian auxiliary to the Air Force.  CAP became my center for social activities until I went active duty.  From the start, I knew that this was a place I belonged.  The light military discipline, the shared goals of developing good citizens, flying, and - in the Washington Wing though not in most other wings for Cadets - Search and Rescue gave me goals to share with others who would not try and mess with the shy kid.  I believe that this experience may have helped my already somewhat formed desire to make the Air Force a career.  And I had some real, although sadly long lost, friends in CAP.  Senior Members Chesley Stevenson and Red (I forget his last name but he was a wonderful man who took training very seriously), Greg P, Anita Baker, Joleen Hurley, Mark, and a host of others who made CAP a life-highlight helped cure at least some of my shyness and gave me confidence.  What was it like?  I joined the Ed Hauter Composite Squadron.  Or at least that is the one I thought I belonged to ... looking it up leads to a brief history that includes an airport during the time I was there which I do not recall but perhaps those details are not important.  We met once a week, had inspection to check if the Cadets were "in regs" for personal appearance and uniforms, had classes on any number of topics and some activity.  Once a month those who were interested went to train for a weekend to support search and rescue operations, taking classes in disciplines such as Land Search and Rescue (for those wanting to hike a lot, learning how to conduct a search for missing aircraft and people), Communications (how to use radio to support, we had Citizens Band radios as well as those on aircraft and we all had our government certification before we could go on the air during a SAR mission), and my favorite, Flight Line Operations (how to guide and service the light aircraft CAP uses for SAR, including fueling and guiding them while they were on the ground).  The training weekends started when we boarded the old bus and drove for what seems to have been an hour or more to some old buildings deep in the forest.  We had class in whatever specialty we were getting certified for during most of the day, and our dues paid for meals cooked by senior staff with plenty of Cadet help.  We slept in old barracks at the training site, and had watch duty much like in those days in the military.  Those were some of the best times in my young life.  Eventually I participated in several searches, not only looking for survivors from crashed aircraft but also for lost people, and for several days looking for remains from serial killer Ted Bundy's victims in the forest.

Due to our shortage of money, I could not afford to learn how to fly, because even though CAP members would have donated their time to teach, the cost to fuel and maintain even a small aircraft would have been to much.  But I learned a lot about the physics of flight, aviation history, and other topics that kept my desire to be around airplanes strong.  Also, Greg P. earned his wings and took me flying a few times.  Big joy! We flew over ships in Puget Sound and the nearby cities and forests.  It also made the idea of being in the military an even better goal than before.  I enjoyed my time in that fantastic organization through much of college, and valued it greatly.  Thank you, CAP.

I never thought of my family as poor.  Yes, others had more things, but we always had food, clothes, and a roof and love from the family.  Mom and Dad were always there, helping as needed to get us through the rough parts of growing up, providing perspective as good and bad things happened.  Pushing when we started to slack off.  Sis and I wore clothing until we outgrew it, meaning that there were some patched jeans that Mom kept serviceable and some tennis shoes that were fairly well worn down before they were replaced, but nothing needed was missing in our lives.  By now the weekend trips were mostly a thing of the past, something I now wish had not stopped but at the time perhaps I would not have even wanted.  I did odd jobs, babysitting and - as I had in Albuquerque - housesitting for people on vacation.  A few times Mom and Dad borrowed from my account to buy food, and at the time I was upset about that.  I wonder if I would have preferred hunger? <sarcasm>  But overall, as long as you have the basics (food, home, clothes, a way to control the environment, a path to improve) and the love and efforts of family you are fine.  Dad and Mom let us know that right was right and wrong was wrong, that we needed to be responsible for our actions, and well behaved.  It was right to work hard for what you wanted, it was wrong to force others to give of their labor for you to have what you wanted.  So we took no welfare, which to this day is a scourge on the USA as it is implemented.  They taught that in this country you can create opportunity through persistent effort, a truth which continues to this day, although it is made much more difficult by the huge national government that stifles individual effort in order to grow even larger, to take even more prominence.  Perhaps some day I will do a piece on this, but enough for now.  Bottom line:  The USA is, in many ways, the best country in the world for opportunity of the individual to make something of his or her life.  That was a given in my father's house, and I believe that to this day.

Dad met his best friend from his early Service, Mr. Bryce Lilly, and joined either or both the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the American Legion.  Apparently it was a totally fortuitous meeting.  Mr. Lilly was interviewed by a newspaper, and Dad read the article and decided to call him up thinking that he was his old friend.  After that, the Lilly family came to visit many times and we visited them several times.  I recall the whole family as being wonderful people and am glad to have met them and to still maintain Facebook contact with his "kids" Shauna and Keith.

To summarize, although poor, with the great parents I had I usually felt at the top of the world.  High school did not change that, and that will start the next Family History

Family History: Albuquerque

1968.  I either never knew or have forgotten why we moved to Albuquerque.  As mentioned before Georg told me why we left Germany, but no reason was given for why we went to Albuquerque.  I do not remember much of the trip that brought us to the US.  We landed in New York after a flight that I have unfortunately forgotten any details about, Dad picked up a silver Chrysler Fury III, and we headed west and south while taking in a lot of sightseeing as well.  The car was big, a lot more so than our old Bug, and I liked it.  We toured New York, perhaps for a few days, and Sis and I shopped at shops with Mom that seemed bigger and more hectic than those in Wernau.  If I recall, this was where some friends of Dad from the Air Force had us stay over, a kind gesture which I remember most because of their kids being nice though barely leaving any other impression, the color TV that was in their basement, and seeing Star Trek for the first time.  We went to the Statue of Liberty, and Dad told us about what we were seeing, and about how when he was a kid Americans donated a huge amount of money, mostly in pennies, to have some work done on the Grand Lady.  I heard that only workers were allowed to go up into the torch in the late 60s, but it was impressive seeing New York below us from the head.  We may have seen a museum or two as well before starting the Great Drive.

We stopped in Washington DC and toured the area for several days as well.  It was amazing!  We took in several of the Smithsonian museums, and I remember the seemingly endless racks of stamps (I was a devoted collector in those days and for some years later, until I went on active duty and basically stopped cold), important and interesting pieces from our country's past such as the Ft. McHenry flag, and of course in the Natural History museum the dinosaurs, the rocks and minerals, and so much more.  We also went to the National Archives and saw the Constitution, and Dad told me how important that document is to freedom and our way of life.  Other stops included the Capital, the Washington, Lincoln and Jefferson Monuments, and the old FBI building, where they had an impressive display of bad-guy weapons and had an agent fire a submachine gun at the visitors who were behind a thick bullet proof window.  I had the souvenir case from one of those rounds for many years. 

While near DC we had a day tour of Gettysburg.  My first remembered battlefield trip, not counting the many castles we visited in Germany.  Hallowed ground, where the USA was quite possibly saved by the sacrifice of thousands of brave men.  Of course back then it did not mean that to me, despite Dad telling us about the battle and how significant it was.  For me it meant time with the family, cool cannons placed about where they were back in those fateful days and some almost as cool monuments.  Signs to read, about actions that in coming times were to mean so much.  Little Round Top where the 20th Maine held the flank and saved it all, and Pickets Charge where the South was irretrievably broken stand out but I am sure we saw many other parts of the field.  I probably still have the toy cannon that Dad bought me when we left.

I do not remember much of the rest of the trip.  I believe that we made fairly leisurely progress, stopping to see the sights off and on during the drive, but sadly those memories are gone.  Driving through Texas I was of course impressed by the sheer size of the state.  And since I did not remember seeing desert conditions before in my young life the landscape did make what to me was a first impression, with the yellow-brown near barren conditions still being in their own strange way beautiful.  Finally we reached New Mexico, and our new home.

Albuquerque was a good place to live, even though we would only be there for about a year.  The new house was huge compared to our apartment in Wernau.  We lived at 3409 Yosemite Dr, on a half-circle that was served by the road that was the closest paved road to the Sandia Mountains.  We were the first owners.  Tramway, now a major street a few blocks away, was a dirt road back in those days, the last vestige of civilization before walking on fundamentally untouched land and being awed by Nature in the form of the foothills of the Sandia Mountains.  Best friends Kirk and Kent Wall lived a couple of houses to our left (looking out our front door), and the twins Sherry and Terry Gates, their sister, and Happy Hoosier, one of the most magnificent German Shepherds I have ever met, lived behind our back yard.  Speaking of the back yard it was huge, and many of the neighborhood kids would congregate with Sis and I to play softball, or other kid games.  Luckily the windows were strong because several times we put long fly balls off of them.  Despite our funny accents (Kirk or Kent once could not understand when I said "TV" when I was excited that we had purchased our color set, in the German accent it probably sounded like "Tay Vay" and of course everyone around already had one) the kids were nice, and school was ridiculously easy.  Sis and I were both well ahead of our classmates in every subject except English, not because we were geniuses but because the German school system is, or at least was, far superior to the Albuquerque public schools.  My teacher, Mrs. Webb, was a bit older and seemed not nearly as good as the German teachers, though I did not dislike her but rather simply was not impressed by her.

Thinking back on the TV, it opened a lot of ideas on American culture to us.  Mom and Dad did not let us watch a lot, keeping us outside playing or inside doing homework or playing instead.  But the news kept us aware of current events, and since back in those days news tended to be news instead of propaganda for whatever political leaning the station or network favored it was more balanced than the crap that is offered today (if you do not like my opinion feel free to do something other than read this).  Game shows, sports, a few shows like Star Trek and the like were what I saw.  And special reports like rocket launches.  The sports included football, baseball, track and field, and hockey as well as the weekly program "Wide World of Sports" which featured a little bit of a lot of different sports offerings.  The Olympics were big, of course.  The TV helped me pick my favorite teams.  For football, it was the Los Angeles Rams.  I recall them playing in the first game I ever watched, and what kept me hooked was the unit and player names as much as them winning that game.  The Fearsome Foursome defensive line, with Deacon Jones and Merlin Olson crunching people and getting much mention from the announcer.  The Quarterback Roman Gabriel was another decent player with a cool name.  Not long after that Life magazine had an article on the Rams, and that helped seal my support of the team until they left Los Angeles.  For baseball, I became a Detroit Tigers fan, mostly I think because of the team name since my favorite animal was the Tiger.  It did not hurt that they won the World Series that year behind players like Al Kaline, Willie Horton, and the pitching greats Denny McLain and Mickey Lolich.   In hockey I liked the Montreal Canadians, with great players like The Roadrunner Yvan Cournoyer and The Pocket Rocket Henri Richard keeping us entertained, though there were many great players in the NHL at that time.  But the reason I first was a Habs fan was that my Mom had emigrated to Canada after the war, first to Montreal where she became a fan when the people she worked for used to give her their season tickets for many games.

Dad found work on a construction crew, which given his wartime experiences was not a good thing.  I guess when you have had a bunch of diseases and conditions that debilitate your body like he had it is not a good thing to work in the hot sun.  Not to mention that the untreated PTSD was probably wrecking him emotionally.  Even back in the '60s the Veterans Administration was often a useless waste of taxpayer funds, and I do not recall my Dad getting any help at all from that organization.  Given that they had allocated him only 15% disability it is obvious that they were the same often bureaucratic scum then as now.  Mom stayed home as mother and caregiver, and kept us kids in line while at the same time letting us grow.  Within a few months Dad had to quit the job, and I do not think he had a long term job for the rest of his life.  Still, life was good even though we were not rich in money, because we had a stable and good family life.  Thinking back on it, while we still made trips around the local area they were infrequent compared to our time in Germany, though if that is because of Dad's worsening condition or Sis and I getting to the ages when we somehow made it clear that we preferred to spend more time with our friends I do not know.  Perhaps this drifting from my first family was a bit of both.  I did spend a lot of time with the group of friends that were centered by those I named above, and some of us would occasionally take a lunch up into the Sandia Mountains, to a large rock formation that was visible from our home and just hang out and explore.  Most of my time on these excursions was spent with the Wall brothers and Gates sisters, though other kids came along at times too.  There were arroyos in our neighborhood, designed to carry water from the summer storms to the Rio Grande miles away, and we learned to stay away from them when it rained or looked like it might rain, because the term "flash flood" was the perfect description for what happens when the rare rain dumped on our side of the mountain and the sun baked earth was not ready to absorb the moisture.  At other times they were fun to walk or play in.

My group of friends used the wide cement block walls that form the fences of probably most homes in and around Albuquerque as our own walking paths.  We were able to move fairly quickly around the neighborhood like that, and I look back with a touch of wonder that I never fell off a wall, especially since the I was probably not the most balanced of boys even back in those days.  I was just a bit hesitant to cross the really high ones, but always eventually did.  Also it was interesting that we were never yelled at by any homeowners in our travels.  No one told us to get off their wall, or to stay away from their property.  Perhaps this wall wandering was accepted, or perhaps people were just more accepting of kids being kids back in that day, or maybe it was an Albuquerque thing.  Typically we would use the walls to get to a friends house to play, and of course later to return home. It was a lot more fun than walking on sidewalks, though today I would not even try to climb up on the walls, much less walk along them.  Good days of youth, to soon gone, never to be repeated in this life.

I learned that my knees, each of which has the thick gnarled scar of my birth-tearing away from my brother and which I had thought were the way "normal" knees were supposed to be, were in fact different and thus that the rest of the family, and all my friends were the normal ones.  I found out when Mom told me about the circumstances of my birth.  Strange how much of a shock that was.  It took me a while to accept the new reality, but apparently the scars made no difference to my friends and I was soon able to accept that they were not strange and that my strangeness was not a bad thing, just the way it was.  Dad also told me that even though I would be big and that school football coaches would want me on their team that I should not play, because my birth-doctor had said that some of the circumstances related to my birth had resulted in my kneecaps being weakened and thus susceptible to being damaged if I engaged in a rough sport like football.  I do not know if the damage was from the kneecaps being weak due to the attachment to my brother, or from the surgery that was apparently needed after birth, but in any case I avoided football except for pickup, non-tackle games.  Sometimes I wonder what it would have been like, imagining that I could have been a pretty good running back with my size and body style, but life is what it is, and it is not what it is not and so it is best not to let imagination of what might have been run to rampant.

So many memories.  Although we were not big on church, Mom and Dad volunteered to support a local church "feed the poor" effort.  They spent a day in some local apple orchards, picking the apples which meant climbing into the trees, and later handing out baskets of the fruit to local poor people.  My Dad was angry when they came home and never did it again.  The reason was that many, if not most, of the recipients were younger and in better shape than he was, which is not surprising given what he had gone through.  He wondered, and I agreed and agree with him, why the healthy poor could not have gone on that trip to pick their own food?  The Sandia Peak Tram was and perhaps still is the longest in the world.  As you move up or down the mountainside you can see Albuquerque out one side, which is a beautiful sight especially at night, and the mountainside out the other three sides.  You see a lot of cactus and scrub brush, big rock formations, and sometimes wildlife.  At the top they have a ski area, a somewhat high priced restaurant, and good viewing of the other side of the mountain as well as the city.  We did not go often, but had fun even though we were not skiers and only had drinks at the top.  A good family memory.  School:  At recess and PE we played kickball, touch football and softball, and during the winter we engaged in mass snowball fights that usually featured boys against girls with the girls sometimes huddling in a mass with the surrounding boys launching snowballs into a "cannot miss" situation.  I think that everyone survived without great injury, and hope that kids today can still let loose like we did, but think that our sadly nanny-fied culture probably prohibits this now.  Our society and kids both loose if this is true.  Real life has some risks, and the sooner we teach our kids how to deal with risks the better.  Anyhow, I was not great at those sports, having never played them before, but I was not a total klutz either.  One incident in softball stands out.  I was in left field and a kid smacked a long home run well beyond where any of us could get it.  For whatever reason play started before I was back in position and the next kid sent the ball back into deep left again.  This one I caught (no mitt; I did not get one until a couple of years later) while still coming back to the field.  Of course the other team wanted that declared a home run too, since if I had been in position it would have been well beyond me, but we argued that a catch was a catch and the batter was out.  I think we won that argument.  In football, all I knew about the game was what I saw on TV, and of course the cameras focused on the player with the ball so I saw a lot of tackling.  So at first when I lined up on the offense or defensive line I naturally tackled the kid from the other side.  The kids were fairly insistent that I needed to not tackle or hold anyone, and I soon learned the basic rules.  I joined the Boy Scouts, and Dad was there to help with camp-outs and meetings although he never became an Adult Leader.  It was fun, and we had a lot of activities.  One camp-out stays in memory as the time I sat on a cactus.  A real learning experience indeed.

Christmas.  The Christmas that we were in Albuquerque was one of the best in my life.  Dad was making enough money to get us a few more presents than normal, and he and Mom had picked a few life changing ones for me.  First, they indulged their continuing fascination with knowledge by getting me a telescope and a microscope.  For several years we enjoyed taking them out now and again and checking out the moon and other celestial items or the local scenery with the one, and the mysteries of the very small with the other.  It was fun, and learning about the very big non-Earth part of the universe and the microscopic aspects of our own planet were powerful forces that carried over to a desire for knowledge that has lasted even to today, though perhaps not with the burning intensity it had in my youth.  But the really big gift, for the whole family, arrived Christmas morning when Sherry and Terri, with faces that seemed sad but at the same time happy, rang our doorbell and handed me a large shoe box.  I thanked them and carried it back into the house, and when I opened it this small German Shepherd puppy looked into my eyes and I instantly became a German Shepherd loving boy, a wonderful condition which endures to this day.  Teufel von Berlichingen had arrived in the Marshall home.  Strangely enough, although there were other toys, I remember none of them.  Thinking back over the years, there are very few gifts I remember, and so conclude that indeed the right gift leads to happiness more so than a lot of them.

Teufel.  OK, to this day I love and miss Teufel, so this is going to be a bit rambling.  He was the embodiment of that fine breed, loyal, strong, intelligent.  He was energetic, sensitive to our moods and a fun puppy to be around.  We ended up using the telescope case to barricade him into a room, or perhaps it was out of a room, and that barrier only lasted a few weeks before he was scrambling over it to be around us.  From the start, my Mom - who had guard dogs when she was growing up - trained him, taught him what he needed to know to be a good dog and to fit in with our family.  And he was incredibly fast to learn.  He learned to go outside to do his business within a few days, and the basic commands every dog should know within a few weeks.  He learned how to go outside and bring the morning paper in, though for a while he would get all the neighbors' papers too and so I would go redeliver them.  As any great dog is, Teufel was protective although there were few real threats in those days.  His name?  Mom and Dad picked it.  It means "Devil of Berlichingen" which refers to the great knight Goetz von Berlichingen, one of the more famous knights in Germany who told the Imperial Commander of a besieging force who was demanding surrender that the Holy Roman Emperor could kiss his ass.  I believe that "Devil" was not meant as a religious reference, but rather as a reference to the rambunctious and sometimes mischievous nature that was evident from day one that Teufel displayed.  So many stories.  We were sitting around listening to "Die Fledermaus" (The Bat, a light operetta whose plot line you may look up if you so desire) on a record.  We often enjoyed listening to the classics, as both parents enjoyed good music and I was developing into quite a fan of the only music that can be considered great as well.  One of the lines involved a character shouting in frustration "zum Teufel!" and Teufel jumped up and looked around for the person who had called his name.  Teufel learned to read our mind when it was time for a vet visit, even if we spelled it out or talked around it.  Most of the time he was excited and happy to go on car rides, but for the vet we had to carry him to the car on the outbound part of the trip.  I had the rear end, Dad had the front.  Oh, and we had to be careful at doorways because he learned to slow the process down by spreading his front paws and thus blocking use of the doorway until one of us pushed them closer together again.  Playing with him was an immense joy.  He grew up running around with us in the back yard, playing softball out there with the friends, and staying near us in the house.  We made special Teufel softball rules allowing only one base when he fielded the ball, and of course you were out if he caught the ball without it touching the ground or tagging the base runner.  Also, he never could bat, and played for both teams.  At night he slept in my room, and from the start Mom did not think it proper for him to sleep on my bed, but once she and Dad were asleep Teufel would get up from his dog-bed at the foot of my bed and curl up at my feet, which I of course was happy to allow.

Dad and I both had pretty bad allergies, and I think that was the causative reason for us leaving Albuquerque.  Another issue that might have pushed my parents to this was that the school system was just not that good, and they did not want to hinder Sis or my development.  In any event, the summer after moving there we piled into the Fury III that the parents had named Betsy and set off for Seattle.  I remember feeling sad that we were leaving, possibly understanding that except for an occasional letter that my friends and I would most likely lose touch and would never see each other again.  I really enjoyed the year there, the romps in the mountains, the free spirited wandering around, and how wonderful my family was.

Another New Year: Early Days

2015.  Not a good year for my family.  Lot of stress, lot of sadness.  Much tied together in a web of interrelated negatives.

Specifics:  1.  Health continued to ratchet down.  2.  The job went from great a few years ago to good to now being tolerable.  3.  Finances took a hit when taxes went up, endangering plans to retire;  the five year plan that seemed to be achievable early last year has been turned into a minimum six year plan starting this year.  The kids, except for Kristi, continue to struggle to get good jobs.  4.  Vivian's death, and Travis after her, took more of our family members. The loss of friends Bill "BA" Andrews and Chris Anzalone hit me hard.  I have few enough friends and these two were fine men and good friends.  Chris was my oldest friend.

All interrelated.  Most of my health issues probably started back in March of '82, when a soccer injury while playing for the Mountain Home AFB club was misdiagnosed by an incompetent Air Force Physicians Assistant (PA) as a sprain instead of the ACL tear that it really was.  To compound her failure each of the next 4 or 5 PAs that saw me, being just as wretchedly incompetent as she was, apparently looked at her diagnosis and "treatment" plan and, as simple minds will, copied what she prescribed.  I became convinced that I was somehow at fault and spent the next 7 years learning how to run and walk without an ACL in the left knee.  I met another incompetent Air Force "medical" member who should have realized that there was something significant wrong instead of rushing to diagnose and simply removing cartilage from that same knee after a subsequent injury.  A couple of years later I finally ran into a Doctor with a functioning brain who recognized what the problem was and treated it.  Despite a well meaning but apparently also incompetent nurse nearly killing me after that surgery, it was a success.  Of course by then a lot of damage had been done so years later the knees are going bad, but at least I had a few more years of walking and even running without pain.  But in the last few years problems not only with the knee but other associated issues keep popping up and I feel like I'm in a downward spiral with no way to stop.

9 Jan.  37 years ago I returned home from taking a military physical, to find that after a 9+ month battle with cancer my Dad was dead.  He was a great man, who endured unimaginable hardship in WW II and came out of it to found this family.  I loved him, respected and honored him.  For several years after, I held a private ceremony grieving for him on this day.  This year I am following that path again; as I type this I listen to his favorite piece of music (Beethoven's 3rd) and mourn him.

10 Jan.  2 years ago I returned home from an out of office meeting to find that my Mom-in-Law had died from a heart attack.  She had been living with us for almost 20 years after her other daughter died, and despite a few rough periods during that time she was well liked by us all.  She resisted the urge to try and get us to change how we raised the kids or in other ways lived our life, which I greatly respected and liked.  Always helpful, quick to help in many ways from taking care of the kids to shopping to loaning money for education.  And most always nice.  If I had a hard day she would listen to my grumbling and soon I was feeling better.

Well, enough whining about things that cannot be changed.  Back at it!
 

Family History: Wernau, Germany

Perhaps the happiest time in my childhood occurred in Wernau am Neckar (Wernau on the Neckar River) about 25 miles from the great city of Stuttgart.  We moved there after my Dad retired from the Air Force to be around much of my Mom's family who had settled there after World War II when the Soviets and their Tito's thug minions had forced the descendants of the Donau Schwaben off their land in the Banat region of what was then known as Yugoslavia.

Good memories.  Some of the best people I have ever known, the Bayers, lived in Wernau, and many other good people and friends lived nearby.  When we arrived, in 1964 I believe, all three of Onkle Hans' and Tante Leni's kids (Georg, 3 years older than me; Herbert, a few years older still, and Reinhart, who must have been a mid teen in those halcyon days) still lived in their parents house.  Onkle Hans' father Onkle Sepp lived in the attic, a very comfortable fully furnished main room, bathroom, and kitchen.  Onkle Sepp used to smoke hams, and every time we visited I looked forward to the treat of some smoked ham that he had cooked.  Good times indeed.  Also in Wernau lived Onkle Klaus and his family, and a short drive away lived Tante Suze and hers.  We had more family in the nearby town of Reutlingen, and others who I do not remember except vaguely were sprinkled around the area.  Mom had an older sister who lived in Vienna, Austria, who we visited a few times as well.  There were a few family members and friends in Northern Germany including another Onkle Sepp and his family.  Why did we move there?  I am not sure but I think Dad and Mom wanted us to grow up in Germany because they felt more at ease in that country at that time.  Given that Dad seldom kept in touch with any but the closest of his family in California (his brother Reyes Beltran and kids) and that his Dad had either left or died before or shortly after Dad was born and that his Mom had died while he was a POW, perhaps the sheer size of Mom's family made for a level of comfort they knew would be lacking in the US.  Plus Dad had decided that he did not want to follow Indian (OK, for those who are politically correct "Native American") ways, instead choosing for us to live as "Americans" if we were in the US.  Perhaps given the difference in their races this might not have seemed a good deal. 

A quick aside:  Thank God for Dad's great wisdom to part with the old and join with the new, because I would not have wanted to live the limited life of the reservation or the victim in the poor sections of some California city where some of his family ended up. 

While Dad did not keep close contact with his family in the US, one of our cousins, Rudy, was stationed for a few years at one of the Army posts in Germany and we visited him a few times, and had him over to visit a few other times.  He was always nice.

Now Mom's step parents had or would eventually move to Seattle, but I think that by that time Mom was not close to them so much so that was not a big draw.  Remember that her biological Mother had died when she was a teenager, her biological Dad remarried, and than her Dad was forced to a concentration camp and left to die (with one of Mom's brothers if memory serves) by the communists after the war, and than her step mom had remarried so she had probably never been really close to these people who were now her parents in name only, though when we eventually moved to Seattle everyone was friendly.  There was also a branch of the family that moved to Argentina after the war, who I possibly only know about because the people in Reutlingen hosted a great family gathering once.  But more of this later.

We lived at 52 Lerchenstrasse in Wernau, an apartment building with nice people like the Zinn's ( I may be totally misspelling their name but phonetically in German this is what it sounded like).  They had a kid or kids who were some of my earliest friends but sadly my memory is not great on this.  My main memory is spending time there watching TV, back in the days before color TV at least in Germany, especially the show "Orion 7" which was a space exploration show that predated Star Trek by a few years and obviously had an even smaller budget than ST had.  We had a little convenience store very close by that Mom and Sis and I would visit to get the daily necessities, and the old baker had a probably 1940s or 1950s era Mercedes that even back in that day I admired.  One of my good memories was visiting the Mercedes Museum in Stuttgart while we lived in Wernau, and being so impressed with the cars.  Even back in that day Mercedes stood for German craftsmanship and high quality, and I was certainly not alone in dreaming that one day I would own such a car.  Another memory:  The family was out on a day trip and a high end Mercedes, possibly the 500 or the top of the line 600, drives by in the opposite direction.  I had been going to the local school long enough to call out in the Schwaebische accent "Quick Dad, go after the Mercedes" and Mom and Dad both got a laugh.  We were, according to a book about our small city that was published when the town grew enough to be recognized as a city, not the only Americans, but I never met the others and they may have been South American.  Need to find the book and clarify if I can. 

We moved in, set up the house, and visited the Bayers a lot starting the summer after Dad retired.  One day, Mom had us dress in some nicer clothes than we normally wore, took us for a walk and into the Schlossgarten Schule, or "Castle Garden School" which was the elementary school for that part of town.  When we arrived at the school I was surprised to hear her speaking German and seeing the obvious respect that the staff had for her, and eventually she turned to Sis and I and told us to go with the people and behave.  So off we went, and I ended up in a class full of kids I did not know with a nice teacher who I remember little else about.  Over the next few weeks I started to pick up German pretty quickly, and the teacher and kids helped a lot by being nice when I made the inevitable mistakes.  I started in 2nd grade, which was the same grade I had just finished at Ramstein, a fact that kind of bothered me but in retrospect a very logical choice, since I went to that school knowing next to nothing about Germany, how they taught, or German.  The kids, mostly, were nice, and I developed some friendships with several of them.  Of the few names I remember were the two Brigittes, and I probably remember them because my parents said "the two Brigittes" more than once, but there were others who became friends with.  There was one kid that I, and a lot of others, disliked, though I cannot remember why, and Peter and I ended up having a fight during recess one day.  Herr Moergenthaler, the Principal who I respect and admire to this day, arrived to break it up and I was impressed that he so quickly realized that I was in the right when he slapped Peter across the face.  My interpretation of events quickly changed to one of shock and dismay when he turned, told me that there was to be no fighting at school, and slapped me as well.  For anyone thinking "How horrible" or other such nonsense please stop.  Not only did that settle the fight and effectively stop any future fighting but it also ended my dislike and picking on of Peter.  A quick, painful but not long-term damaging slap is, in my opinion, a very effective and suitable tool to solve nonsense in school, and we as a culture have opened up a lot more problems than we have solved by not continuing to use this and other similar disciplinary measures.  Other beneficial effects are the extreme embarrassment as all your fellow students observe a lesson in why they do not want to fight either.  All good.  I also occasionally tried to get both Brunette and Blond Briggitte's attention by pulling on their braids, though not so much that it would hurt, but the teacher never caught me and they never complained so there was no punishment for those transgressions.  Finally, in this "mea culpa" of early transgressions, were the great missile and chemical debacles.  First, the missiles.  A friend and I decided to make missiles by bending popsicle sticks in two, pushing a pin through the center, and using rubber bands to launch the projectile.  We actually launched a few of these, aiming to stick other students in the rear, and had a sort of success when my shot stuck to the heavy coat of the target, who kept walking oblivious to the fact.  Heavy coats worn to counter the cold winter were a good thing to counter our missiles. Fortunately we stopped right away and no one was ever hurt by our stupidity.  The chemical experiments were meant to use sneezing powder (or was it itching powder?) to annoy other students, and since neither of our parents would get us that gag product (I think I may have asked to get it only once, knowing the response to trying to push past the certainly inevitable "No" would include an inquisition about why I wanted such a powder) we tried to make our own by getting some substance that sort of had the same color and scraping some powder off of it.  Of course the hoped for result never occurred, and us two mischievous kids (lausbuben in German) went back to being students, which was better for all.

Students were required to bring writing notebooks, fountain pens, glue, pencils, crayons and other school supplies, and to keep up with homework.  The school week was 5 1/2 days a week, and included religion (your family chose Protestant or Catholic) instruction.  Every day you took books, notebooks, and whatever supplies you needed on the walk to school.  The backpack, called a "rantzen" became a close friend for those years.

I was a very good student but certainly not great.  I thank my parents, teachers and a great school system for the good, and blame my own lack of pushing myself for the bad.  My parents pushed education all their lives, but I sometimes pushed back, which was not to my future betterment.  The school system was very advanced compared to the US system even of that time.  We had math, English (British English of course, and Herr Baum (Mr. Tree) had to correct the only native English speaker in class many times when I used an American word instead of the British one.  Did you know that a car's trunk was a bonnet and a windshield was a windscreen?  Gas was "petrol", and I was soon rocking back on my heels.  And "color" was spelled "colour"?)  We took history, which over the four years I was there included, if memory serves, the time period from dinosaurs to at least ancient history, which meant trips to the local Roman tower.  We had biology, and I knew the parts and functions of plants and creatures.  Of course we had German, and I remember the frustration with the three tenses designating what a thing is (he, she, it) and of course the incredibly complex case and tense construction that is German.  Most of all I remember a sense of how dedicated those teachers, and Herr Moergenthaller, were.  Never since have I felt that way about an entire group of teachers.

At some point, probably in school, I met and became close friends with Adam Zabuchovich.  The spelling of this fine friend's name may be a bit off, but the memories of the fun times we had still bring smiles.  We usually called each other Schneckenudel (me) which is a pastry that was in a spiral shape like the snail that is part of its name, and Stachelschwein (Adam) which is a porcupine.  I have no clue why we started with these names, but I know we hardly ever used our real names once these monikers were given.  In those times playing, of course, did not involve the use of electronics except perhaps a TV or probably a radio.  So we played with legos, kicked soccer balls around, bought packs of soccer star stamps (like baseball cards but stamps that were stuck in soft cover books), ran around playing made up games and old stalwarts like tag.  Adam and I were inseparable, with other kids coming in to play off and on.  It was a simple but good way to live.

Incidents.  When we first bought our school supplies, the shopkeeper was a Greek who was unabashedly pro-American because of what the US had done in the war, according to Mom.  He was a "gastarbeiter", a "guest worker" one of the group who were invited to work in Germany after the war since some parts of Europe had to many people for their situation and Germany did not have enough to do the jobs that needed to be done.  That night I tried to get the fountain pen to work, and ended up spraying ink all over the wall, Sis, and myself when I shook it trying to get the ink flow started.  Mom was a bit mad, but helped me to understand how to get the desired result from there on.  Another time either Sis slammed the door on my fingers or I slammed it on hers.  That got both parents pretty upset of course.  Strange how I cannot remember whose fingers were hit, but if I had to guess I would say mine.

Dad sold cars for Chrysler for some time, being based out of the American military area near Stuttgart, and in addition to our VW Bug we could drive around in some big American cars.  The cars tended to be big relative to German cars.  The streets were a bit small for the huge Detroit beasts, and I have no idea what our neighbors thought when they saw Dad cruising by in some of the nice models, but it was fun to go out in the cars.  One time when he had a big car (New Yorker perhaps?) we went to visit the Bayers and my cousin Georg, never at a loss for words, exclaimed that we had a "Street Cruiser", as in the large Navy ship. 

Smoking.  Mom smoked cigarettes, Dad smoked pipes.  Years later society would finally realize that smoking is bad for your health, but even back in these days Mom and Dad both knew those facts.  Mom had started smoking during the war, after she walked to Austria, and told Sis and me occasionally that we were never to smoke and that she wished she could quit.  Apparently she had started while a war nurse, since a lot of the other nurses smoked and she wanted to fit in.  Dad never told us how he started, but since it seems that he seldom smoked it was probably not a big health issue.  Anyhow, on one of our camping trips we arrived at the camp site and Dad started to put up the tent.  There was a typically German cold drizzle, and Sis, Mom and I were standing by to help as directed.  When Dad asked her to help, Mom handed me her cigarette and headed behind the tent.  Somehow I thought that this would be a good time to try my first cigarette and I took a puff.  Never had I felt that instantly sick.  It felt like my lungs were about to explode, and I know I felt nauseous as my body rebelled against the stupid thing I had just done.  I looked at Sis, and she was staring at me, probably wondering if I was about to puke.  Somehow, I came to the incredible decision that the second puff would make this all better, and so I did.  More pain as the lungs finally forced me to cough, and the stomach forced me to gag at the same time.  About this time, Mom came back.  She saw the state I was in, and her eyes instantly became hard as she knew I had disobeyed one of the most important warnings she would ever give me.  Of course I had to be given a chance to redeem myself, and she innocently asked if I had taken a smoke.  For just a moment I thought about lying, but thankfully I knew that trying that would result in even more bad times, so I answered "Yes Mommy".  She approved of the truth, and asked "Are you ever going to do this again?" to which, with my lungs still trying to come out of their lifelong home for some fresh air, I very truthfully answered "No Mommy", a promise to her and myself that I have never broken.  A moment more and the steel hard woman went back to help with the tent, and I never heard a word on the incident again.

Just like when we were in Ramstein we often took trips on weekends, often to go camping, more often to take a day trip to see relatives or the local area.  The local area had several castles, and I continued my love of those old structures which endures to this day.  Teck, Hohenzollern, Linderhoff and Neuschwanstein; so many good times that were spent climbing to and wandering in castles and palaces.  Museums, trips just wandering in the woods, and sometimes just driving around seeing what was to be seen were also normal activities.  I also have fond memories of Dad playing with me and Sis, often building castles, and towers, and much else with the Legos that were always something I looked forward to getting for Christmas and birthdays.  A high tall tower one day would be followed by a large complex castle the next week.  He would get on the floor, and the fun would start.  He spent so much time just being a Dad.  It is strange, but I do not have a lot of memories of Sis at home.  The Lego sets that they sell now are not nearly as cool as the old sets that had standard pieces.  I was never completely happy getting the sets for my kids, was always hoping to find a box of basic pieces but never could, and remembering how fun it was to have a big box of pieces and to build something using pure imagination from that group of blocks only made that frustration deeper.  The sets are OK; sure, build that gas station 50 times, but the unlimited imagination that was unlocked by the basic pieces cannot be topped.  Mom was often busy doing housework, but also spent time with us as well.  I remember her strength, her ability to keep Sis and I from being to out of line.  I remember her singing lullabies to us at night as she tucked us in, and the sense of absolute love and security that I felt as I drifted off to sleep. I miss my parents.  Sometimes intensely so.  Those were good times, and they were the best of my early years.

The family gathering stands out among the many times visits were made back and forth with the numerous members of our extended family.  It was appropriately hosted by the people who lived in Reutlingen.  They had one of the, if not the, biggest home of our area family, and so it was the logical place to have about 30 people gather.  The Bayers did not go, because they were on the outs with someone and were somehow not close family.  Sis and I dressed a little better than normal, Dad was in a suit, and Mom of course looked sophisticated but not haughty, and we all piled into the VW and headed out on the pleasant trip.  So many people.  I am sure that I did not know many of them, even though it seems we had made it a point to meet most of those who lived anywhere close to Wernau.  Endless introductions, followed by a nice lunch with all of the kids at their own tables, trying to be nice and proper to everyone, and overall having a good time.  The most exotic members of the gathering were the relatives from Argentina, a branch of the family that had moved there after the war and were now back for the first and only time during my years in Germany.  I think four or five of them made the trip, and have no idea how many were and are still living in that country.  It was a fun day, though since I have never even heard of another such gathering of the family perhaps more so for me than for the grownups who arranged and managed it.

Perhaps due to my age when we lived for those few years in Germany, but I cannot remember ever feeling so carefree, or like I advanced so much in so little time.  The trips to castles, museums, just to walk in the forest, the friends, the close family; close both in distance and spirit, made for a happy and certainly not boring life.  Within a short period I fit in at school, and there was never a time when I did not think that we as a family fit into the town, region or country.  There was much to do that did not stretch our budget, and life was good.  All these factors contributed to the general feelings of fun, and there were no threats that I can remember bothering me.  And at that time Dad and Mom took care of all the hard stuff so it was an easy life for us kids as well.  I cannot help but think that overall Mom and Dad felt the same way.

Looking back, when my parents told Sis and I that we were moving back to the US I did not have a big reaction.  I think I failed to realize that the move would take us away from the family that loved us and that we loved, from friends who meant a lot, and from a culture that had accepted us and that had so much to offer.  Years later, while visiting Young Georg while on a long TDY to Belgium he and I spent a memorable day drinking fine German beer while his kids were at school and waiting for Angelika to come home from work, and he told me that the reason my parents decided to move back to the US was that there were stirrings of a new Nazi party in Germany.  I trust that Georg got this either first hand from Dad - though I did not know this when we lived there I gather that they were close - or from Onkle Georg and that it is true, even though neither of my parents ever told me.  But as we packed up we had to get rid of most of our toys, including my much loved Legos, I only felt a few pangs of sadness.  I sold the Legos to Stachelschwein for 5 marks, and am glad he got them because we had had so many good times together playing with them.  The move took us to Albuquerque, NM.

Thinking about the move.  In some ways, if we had stayed in Germany, perhaps life would have been better.  Some good possibilities, some bad.  I like the freedoms we have here in the USA but realize that there was much good about living in Wernau, surrounded by family, and probably most anywhere in Germany as well, although they do have their problems as well, and there were indeed problems back when I was a kid though I did not realize that.  Overall, bottom line, I do not wish we had stayed, despite the sadness in leaving so many good people that touches me once in a while even now.  The reason is simple:  The family.  My family.  Sharon, Kristi and Chris, Chip, and little Chloe.  This wonderful wife, these kids, and my wonderful granddaughter would not be.  I would have been unlikely to have ever met Sharon, much less to have fallen in love for all these years.  And I love them all so much.  So while "what might have been" may be a stray thought once in a while, "what is" is much stronger and constant.

Sadness: A Friend Gone

My wife called me at work today (28 Sep 15) and said that Chris Anzalone had died.  Immense sadness for us all, because he was a wonderful human, a great Air Force officer, a fantastic family man, and my, and I think Sharon's, oldest friend.

Early in my first Air Force assignment, I was a somewhat socially awkward introverted young Lieutenant who really had very little beyond good intelligence and dedication to country and duty going for him.  I was painfully aware that I did not quite fit in with the post-work-day life of the rest of the base there at Mountain Home, Idaho.  This all started to change when a new guy showed up at the EF-111A Test Team at our little Tactical Air Warfare Center (TAWC) detachment.  And here is how that was:

One day, in the early part of 1982, a new Weapon Systems Operator (WSO) had been brought into our EF-111A test team trailer, located just a few hundred yards from the end of the  runway at Mt. Home, or Mt. Goat as it was affectionately known.  Eventually I went over to greet the new guy, and Chris seemed like he was going to be someone special from the start.  A very positive man, with an incredibly all inclusive "lets get this done and have some fun" outlook.  He fit right in with the team from the start, knew and was liked by a lot of the other crews, and from the start included the admin and geeks in the daily office pleasantries.  It seems like only a few weeks later he was inviting me to come meet his wife Renee and two year old daughter Tina for dinner and socialization, and soon I, and other members of both the team and others from the base EF-111 community were playing Dungeons and Dragons at his home several times a month.  I was a pretty decent dungeon master, and since Renee preferred to be the perfect hostess during the games all had a great time and this kept on for the whole time I was there.  We also drank copiously at times, which - given that we were all young - was not a bad thing except for possibly reducing our brain cell count, since the Anzalones would not allow me to drive home drunk and so I often ended up spending the night on their very comfortable couch.  They threw parties for their large group of friends that I was at, and made sure that I went to the Officer's club including many of the social events that a real Air Force Base used to have, and invited my help and offered theirs for the many home improvement projects that we, and other friends, had.  While I was not nearly as good a host, they came over the few times I had any event, and I am sure that was why the events did well.  And when their sons, Eric and Robert, were born it became obvious that Chris could handle the challenges and joys of having a bigger family as well.  Chris and Renee, like a lot of military people and their God-sent spouses, had a difficult situation, mixing family and work that demands many separations and often long hours.  Over time, they were so good with the three kids that I lost my aversion to having kids of my own and was not aghast when Kristi and Chip were born a few years later.  At work Chris was a fully involved very valuable member of the tactics development team, and had no problem leading informal meetings to help plan the wide variety of tests that we had to put the EF-111 Raven through to show what it could do for the warfighter.  Always a cool headed thinker, a suggestor of alternatives, a bridge between the operational world and the geeks.  And fun to be around.

Eventually I met Sharon, and the Anzalones took to her immediately, helping her to see the social aspects of the Air Force world that she would be a part of if she decided to stick with me.  I cannot count the number of times they helped me get through rough spots when my lack of understanding women became frustrating enough to have me nearly banging my head on a wall, nor can I count the number of times they celebrated the good times that Sharon and I had that I believe helped us to see how wonderful the other was.  When we decided to get married they helped us celebrate the homecoming, and Sharon could not say enough about how much Chris and Renee meant to her.

Over the years, we kept in touch, and spent time together when we were in the Pentagon at the same time twice.  It was great being around them whenever we could be.  Spending time in their basement after we returned from Crete, hosting them at our place when they moved, seeing Chris in the Pentagon from time to time whether at a promotion party or for a quick lunch.  One of the few regrets I have of my last few years in the military and the years since is that I did not make more time to spend with them.

Chris was a special man, and despite him not being a pilot, even the Air Force realized that, and he ended up retiring as a Major General.  Chip and I had a most memorable visit when he pinned on his first star in 03, going to Eglin AFB to help set up the party at their quarters and participate in the ceremony, party, and spend a few days in the guest house.  That was a great time, and I treasure those memories to this day.  Sharon and I were at his second star ceremony, and the party at his house as well.  Soon after that they moved to Huntsville, and I, not a good traveler, did not see them again until this Valentines day week when we drove down to see Tina get married.  As was always the case throughout the years, the positive energy that Chris brought to pretty much everything he touched was in full force, and his bringing together of old friends and good people made for enjoyment and good memories.

And now he is gone.  I have faith in God, but still feel hurt by my friend being taken while he should have had much more time to continue with his family.  Moving to the South, perhaps not to Huntsville but to an area not that far away if we can ever leave here, is one of my possible choices, and a big part of that is to spend some time with the Anzalones, Yes, Chris and Renee were that big a part of my life.  Now I feel horrible for Renee, Christina, Eric and Robert, and their extended family, since they have lost a wonderful husband, father, brother and cousin. God, please give them, and us, comfort and let Chris be waiting for us all when it is our time to leave this Earth.

Just Do Things My Way, Young Ones

This was started about 15 or so months ago.  Finishing it and posting just to move on. 

OK, I do not really feel that my way is always the best way.  I know and even appreciate that for others there are other ways to do things that often work.  I also know that "My Way" is not perfect, since it fails at times too.  But on the other hand, many times your ways, young whippersnappers, are indescribably inefficient and likely to fail since you lack the wisdom born of a longer life needed to formulate a sufficient response to the crap life throws at you.  So how about using some should-be-common sense for a few glaringly obvious situations instead of wandering around in the darkness that comes from not thinking?

Getting along.  You know, treating people the way you want to be treated.  Not pissing off those who love you or like you or work with you or breath the same air.  I know you have issues, problems, challenges.  But at this stage of life, unless you really mess up, most are opportunities to learn rather than life-limiting results.  We all have problems, and later on when you get older you can have some fun dealing with some real ones.  Try never knowing if the next step is going to send spikes of pain racing through your body as ankles, knees or hips decide they are not wanting to be used, for example.  I know you have to deal with things and want to do so in your way, and that is fine except that when you get angry and you create stress that talking it out would help settle.  Do you really like making bad situations worse?  Look, just adapt for crying out loud.  Understand that sometimes things will be tough.  And learn to talk to us! 

Develop a realistic world view.  Are you sure that the things you think you know about the world are at all realistic? I don't know that you are wandering around fooling yourselves, but just in case:  Please learn to accept that people will often oversell their ideas, and can be counted on to be wrong quite often.  What I am thinking about the new thinking:  Much of what they teach is garbage, and my prediction is that in a few years the "newthink" will be as discredited as over processed white bread.  With trans fats.  So no, the nice-nice view of the world that some actually believe exists is a false dream.  The problem is that newthinkers assume that the fundamental human nature has changed, that somehow people are enlightened and that hundreds of thousands of years of evolution has miraculously changed and we are now nice, fair, sharing beings instead of the stronger but less nice ones that many are and always will be.  They fail to realize that as soon as things get tough that we revert to what has kept our species alive for lo these many eons, and the weak, the fools and the trusting are the first to go.  Not everyone wins, life does not give you a trophy for showing up, and you do need to act well and treat others properly to get ahead of the grind that is life.  Newthink has done nothing except create a lot of whiny self absorbed stupid people.  Of course even when things are good, when a wolf comes into that herd, the sheep are unprepared to deal and chaos and hurt results.

Life is often difficult, and things often do not turn out like you would prefer they do.  People can be mean, or jealous, or even just evil.  Many are just stupid.  But do not fixate on all that; instead learn from it and go on. 

And for heaven's sake stop taking it out on those older and wiser who love you.  It is not our fault that you screwed up and are now suffering the consequences.  No major decisions should be made while riding a high horse.  Worse yet, sometimes you make the same mistake again, without having learned the first time.  When something goes wrong, please refer to the famous Einstein truth defining insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.  Try really talking to us instead of shutting our ideas out; we like to live in an imaginary world where our endless wisdom is used to help you avoid all the little disasters that your lack of wisdom gets you into, instead of merely sitting back and shaking our heads when you flub up.  One way to do better is to be smart enough to not burn bridges just because things are not perfect or because you think you know better. Stop ignoring our suggestions; after all doing things your way is what got you in the mess you are in, so you think continuing to follow your own lead in the darkness that you now find yourself in is really the best way to find the light?

Wisdom vs. smarts.  Right now you think you have all the answers.  Sorry young 'uns, you don't.  You may be the smartest thing since sliced bread, but until you have enough life experience to make those smarts work for you, you will not "win".

Another issue that you really ought to consider:  Choose your battles wisely.  It does not matter how smart you are.  It does not matter how right you are.  It does not matter how wrong they are.  These dust ups about getting someone fired or put in their place have a very low probability of success because you are the transient and they are the long term.  Always realize:  In a short time you are going to move on, while they will be around for a long time, making life difficult for those who stood by you.  Choosing when to fight is an important skill.  Of course the system is not perfect.  But it is what it is, and no matter how smart you are it is not going to change just to be "fair" to you.  But you cannot see that, or choose to believe that somehow you know better.  That arrogance saddens me, because if it is not corrected you will never be successful. 

Jobs.  The economy is bad.  Think before you leave a job:  Do you have another lined up?  How likely are you to ever find that perfect job that you fantasize about?  Do you think that maybe many others want that job, and have better resumes to offer to get it?  Perhaps now you should be aiming to get a beginning job, and stick with it even if you do not like it for a few years in order to build a good job history.  Remember, most bosses do not care about grades, or how smart you are, nearly as much as they care about dependability and how well you will work for them.  Even if they are not wonderful people and do not make things perfect for you.  They will not want you to  redefine the job instead of doing the job.  Please do not respond with a "I don't want money I want a job I like" response.  News flash:  At some point you will want money.  You will need money.  And if you do not have a decent job, even if it is not perfect, you will be poor and wretched. 

OK, that is all.  Bye for now.

You Deserve

Commercials often feature the "you deserve" theme.  "You deserve nice hair".  "You deserve the best"  Etc. Etc. Ad infinitim.  And oh so wrong. 

Here is what you deserve.  The founding principles of our nation, bought with the blood of hundreds of thousands for over 200 years and written up in the Constitution.  Read it sometime, with the intent not to get through in a few minutes or to see what you want to see but rather to understand what the founding fathers, in their great wisdom, intended.  A few hints to start you off:  You deserve to be protected from foreign military enemies by the Armed Forces acting through the Federal Government.  You deserve to be protected from domestic enemies by the police forces acting through State and local governments.  You deserve the protections and rights granted by the Constitution as amended by the Bill of Rights.

What you earn through your work by physical, mental, or spiritual means that inspires others to pay an agreed upon wage, or to otherwise voluntarily fund you, is also deserved.  No, you do not deserve to make the same as someone else just because they have different colored skin or a different set of sex organs.  Your value, and thus your pay, should reflect how much value you add or seem to add or are expected to add after training to the entity that employs you.

You deserve a reasonably clean, healthy but certainly not pristine environment.  Just as you pollute simply by breathing, so others pollute when they make the electricity that allows your gadgets to bring these inspired and insightful words of wisdom to enlighten you, and to disabuse you of feeling like somehow the world owes you anything.  So no, you cannot expect to escape all pollution.  Building and keeping your house up also pollutes, as do most of the activities that you do.  Deal with it.  But to a certain extent, you should have clean leavings from the others that use the environment. 

And that, people of the United States, is all.  You do not deserve to be allowed to take from others using big government as your bully.  You do not deserve anything just because you are alive.

Low - life "you deserve" commercials (aka "lawyers").  No, you do not deserve to make megabucks off of a medical problem unless there was actual malpractice.  These windbags have convinced a lot of weak minded fools that they "deserve" something for nothing, and it is hurting our nation.  If you are prescribed a drug that the company who made it according to good practices and brought it to market according to the big government rules that later on hurts you, you do not deserve anything.  Vote in smarter people to make better rules if it bothers you, instead of wasting your vote voting for someone because they are charismatic or have a particular skin color or gender or other traits that mean nothing on how well they will do their job.  There are provisos, which I hinted at:  If the company hid any test results, or saw anything that would have warned them that their product was not safe, than the owners of said company should be forced to pay those they cheated big time.  Similarly, if the doctor who prescribed the drug had no knowledge of the issues that the company hid, than he or she is guiltless and, again, you deserve nothing.  Sorry, but sometimes in life you draw the short straw and it is game over and no one is at fault, except for Mom Nature.  Try suing her.

Stupid "you deserve" commercials (aka products).  I guess trying to get people feeling good about a product (let us pick on shampoos since there are so many adds for them) is the job of the lying sleazebags who make ridiculous commercials that have some nitwit fake blond with more silicon than brains proclaiming that you deserve beautiful hair.  This is not good for the self image of those who will never have a model quality hair, or skin, or whatever.  It also allows people to be duped by the sellers.  Resist the urge to believe that somehow you, a person who leads a normal life, can have the same looks as someone who has people funding this or her physical attributes through paying to see them in movies, or pretending to sing something worth listening to, or showing off cloths.  Accept that your qualities are important and good and worthy and stop chasing the false claims of these products.

That covers that.  Now go and do something good!