Examples of fine acting,....Villians we love to hate.

I am not entirely certain when it happened, but I have come love nothing more than a good, juicy, purely evil television character… sometimes in a stand alone television episode and other times in long term rolls…  I am talking, here, about a kind of pure evil, and only when portrayed by a finely talented actor…. one who can uncannily understand how to become that evil, with a mesmerizing, hypnotic ability. They make you uncomfortable, you squirm in your chair....  -these are the finest actors in any media, the ones you know you will be watching for a long time to come……

 the first time I saw Roger Howarth he was portraying the EVIL Todd Manning on OLTL, and I knew then, that he was magic..... we LOVED to hate that character, and we could not look away.....    (One Life To Live, ABC 1993)

Roger Howarth as Todd Manning -1993

We found Todd Manning, with his mane of long hair, to be rather ugly and undesireable (despite the analysis of others)….   “he is a loathsome, offensive brute, yet I cannot look away” …. 

We couldn’t NOT watch the story unfold….. (grandma would squirm in her chair and say that he made her uncomfortable, but she did not want me to turn off the program)….  This is a mark of fine acting ability, we could not stop –had to know what happened next…..  and the day I told Gran that they were going to “redeem” Todd Manning, she was shocked and said it was not possible.  In true soap opera fashion, as often found in the One Life To Live canon of the era, they did soften the character just enough to keep him a fixture in the stories.   

When Todd kidnapped Rebecca Lewis, and actually started to listen to what she had to say it was mesmerizing.  Rebecca had several opportunities to wound Todd and affect an escape, yet she stayed because somehow, through all the bluff, she saw the humanity in his tortured soul.

Roger Howarth was and is brilliant, he masterfully took a one dimensional character to great heights.  Todd Manning was evil personified, a rapist who egged his friends into joining him in the heinous act, it was a reign of terror that went on for months. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Todd_Manning_and_Marty_Saybrooke_rape_storylines

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Todd_Manning

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 Robert Knepper as Theodore "T-Bag" Bagwell

Prison Break (premiere August 2005)  Robert Knepper as T-Bag was deliciously evil.  “T-Bag is one of the most villainous members of the Fox River Eight” a gang of escapees from Fox River State Penitentiary, a maximum security prison.  T-Bag bullies his way into the escape plan with almost disastrous results.  

He handcuffs himself to a leader of the escapees so that they cannot get away without him. 

Later to facilitate their getaway, one of the escapees severs T-Bag’s hand at the wrist because they have no other way to remove the handcuffs.  T-Bag stuffs his severed hand into his armpit and staggers away, later forcing a veterinarian to reattach the limb, and he (T-Bag) continues to run from the law enforcement officers who are searching for the escapees.  

Actor Robert Knepper’s over the top portrayal is mind boggling.  He comes across almost as the Devil incarnate. A deliciously evil, totally spellbinding portrayal….  “T-Bag is quite eloquent and many women find him charming….” it’s true, it made me, as a viewer, hate the character even more, and yet I could not look away, as if I were one of his victims –unable to escape.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_%22T-Bag%22_Bagwell

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d'Abo as Nicole Wallace 

Law and Order: Criminal Intent   - (recurring character) -Olivia d'Abo. as Nicole Wallace is brilliant in her evilness, at turns pretending to be an innocent and threatening retribution against Detective Goren for seeing through her deceptive practices.  This is a woman so evil that she murdered her own child, then killed a woman and used the woman’s identity to travel the world.  Nicole Wallace is the Irene Adler to Robert Goren’s Sherlock Holmes, she is his biggest nemesis, and one of few people Goren is fascinated enough to spar with –delighting viewer every time he gets her in the interrogation booth.

http://lawandorder.wikia.com/wiki/Nicole_Wallace

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Law_%26_Order:_Criminal_Intent_characters#Nicole_Wallace

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Vincent D'Onofrio as Bobby Goren with Roy Scheider as Mark Ford Brady

Law and Order: Criminal Intent  -- Roy Scheider as Mark Ford Brady a chilling serial killer, masterfully portrayed by Mr. Scheider…in the season 6 episode Endgame and seen in a flashback during season 10.  One of Roy Scheider’s last performances was one of his most chilling and spellbinding, and must be viewed to be truly appreciated.

http://lawandorder.wikia.com/wiki/Endgame

http://lawandorder.wikia.com/wiki/Mark_Ford_Brady

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Michael Gross as Arthur Esterman

Law and Order: SVU  --- Michael Gross as Arthur Esterman in a stand alone episode in which his character:  “Arthur follows Greta to the park and blitz-attacks her while she is walking their dog. During the attack, he rapes her with a tree branch and stabs her to death in a fit of rage.”   Arthur Esterman is a murderer and rapist almost without conscience who uses ecstasy and Viagra in an effort to satisfy his lust (thus the name of the episode is Lust).  Again, this portrayal must be viewed to be appreciated.

http://lawandorder.wikia.com/wiki/Arthur_Esterman

http://lawandorder.wikia.com/wiki/Lust

(aside: I once met Michael Gross and surprised him by speaking of his work on SVU by way of introduction. He appeared intrigued by my reference to SVU ahead of his other rolls.)

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Finally we have:  Farscape – Wayne Pygram as Scorpius, a chilling persona, half Sebacean (humanoid) and half Scarran….. a misunderstood heavily motivated villain, who is at turns terrifying and fascinating….  

Scorpius’ mother was Sebacean and she died in childbirth, leaving her infant in the hands of the Scarrans, a truly terrifying prospect. (“According to Scorpius' brutal "foster mother" Tauza, the gestation shattered Rylani's psyche and she pleaded for death. This finally came to pass during Scorpius' birth.”)   For more on the birth and youth of Scorpius one must view the Season 3 episode Incubator http://farscape.wikia.com/wiki/Incubator ) The Scarrans treat young Scorpius as nothing more than a science experiment to determine whether they can make use of Scarran-Sebacean hybrids, and one shudders to think what would have happened had they decided this to be a useful plan.

http://farscape.wikia.com/wiki/Scorpius  and  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farscape

More I cannot say here, lest I spoil the entire viewing experience of Farscape for the reader…..

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It should be noted that I have been a TV “head” for decades, so I could go on and on here, but will leave more for another blog post, another day…..

Quality in television matters...... they can't stop the signal......

All references may be found by clicking the links provided.

my dear. old Dad  (kidding! but he was a TV head too...

This blog post is brought to you by Ketchup ...(thanks Patty)

This morning, a friend posted on Facebook about stocking up on ketchup (that’s catsup to some of you folks).  Rather humorously she referred to “the great ketchup scare of Feb ‘16”, mentioning that she now keeps several bottles of ketchup in her pantry.

My initial reply was to state that I might use one bottle of ketchup in 2 years.  It is in the refrigerator and it is gluten free.  When I want ketchup I have to search for it!  I didn’t even notice that I had cut down on ketchup use until one day I had to search the house for ketchup.

I must admit that I used to use quite a lot of ketchup…..  I was not even aware that my eating habits had changed that much, this was another reminder of my dietary metamorphosis and health issues.

Over the course of 10 to 15 years I had stopped eating certain food items.  This began as a response to a health issue, at a time when I did not have health insurance. (Meaning that I did not want to have to pay doctor bills.)  I had a health issue,…. I won’t describe it here.  I simply started to read, and research digestive health.[this was pre-google, before I owned a computer at all.]  The effects of modern foods (read store bought, not made from scratch in the home) on the body.  This was not really in depth research, just a search for possible answers to my particular problem.

Initially I settled on not eating bread, at least not at home every day.  I still had things like bagels and tortillas…. (remembering a friends husband talking about tortillas being “better for you” than bread)….and I ate bread in other people’s homes and in restaurants.  (Eventually this led to consuming large amounts of bread in restaurants.  And then wondering why I felt so lousy.) …. Yes, this will turn into a story about issues with wheat and gluten….. but I digress.

I stopped eating as much bread, and I did feel better,… for a few years…  Unknown to me at the time: I had a lot of other symptoms that were related to wheat.  At the time I was in complete denial, and the idea of gluten being the problem was not even considered.  I am glad that I was on the right track: food, consumables, and everything from shampoo to laundry soap can cause health problems for some of us.  And I have heard, countless times, an opinion that I hate:  “I have never been allergic, that cannot be the problem.”   Here is a thing:  your body goes through changes, and you can go from never being sick a day in your life to being sick every second of every day.  Allergies can be brought on by any number of things…. or simply by being alive!  (open your mind)

A few years later a symptom that I had been experiencing every winter for many years became intolerable –that was itchy skin.  No dryness, no scaliness, no hives, nothing to see!  But OH did it ITCH! Burning, itchy spots, and wherever I managed to scratch was never exactly where the itch was –like it was moving around in the layers of the dermis.  I even learned that there is a known symptom described as feeling like “bugs moving around under the skin” –yes it is a very creepy and frustrating feeling. 

 At this point I decided to try a kind of  4-day rotation diet, in which I consumed far less “wheat”.  That was how I described it.  I only at bread, pasta, etc. every 4^th or 5^th day, avoiding “wheat” for 3 or 4 days at a time.  This did relieve the itching completely, however the following winter avoiding “wheat” in the same pattern did absolutely nothing to relieve the symptom.

This led me to have a medical test, that I asked for –it had not even been suggested to me in many many years.  The point is that the medical test revealed a condition that I have (celiac disease) that means that I must not have any GLUTEN.  This is why I have previously put wheat in quotation marks….  It was not simply wheat that was the problem, it was gluten, which is an ingredient in more things than we realize.

This diagnosis led me to the realization that I had, in fact, been pushing gluten out of my diet without thinking about it, without analyzing it.  Anything that made me feel “lousy” or nauseous was missing from my kitchen.  The biggest clue should have been when I did not have pizza for more than 11 months straight…. Me! I used to eat pizza weekly…. Why was that not the first wakeup call?  Who knows,…. Who cares.   My next trip to the grocery was a revelation!  I could have all of the things that I was missing…. Pasta (rice), pizza (rice crust), gluten free bread and donuts!  I went on an extended gluten free food orgy!  Sadly, I also gained 25lbs….. 

Part of my point, here, is that I truly do not understand people who continue to stubbornly consume foods and drinks that are making them sick.  Especially when it has been suggested that they try avoiding certain foods.  What harm is there in trying?  If you feel bloated and lousy after eating some food item –try avoiding  that food item for a period of time (I am talking about weeks here), and see if you don’t feel better!  That doesn’t necessarily mean that you can never have that food item again…..  it’s a state of mind, and of determination to feel better.  Don’t you want to feel good?

In the last few months I have had a chance to be home every day, and to start cooking again.  It is so nice to have a meal at home, and not in a restaurant.  I am in complete control over my own food. (well as complete as possible when one purchases all consumables from a grocery store.)  I control that I do not consume gluten in my home.  I control how flavorful my meals are….thus there is little need for ketchup…..  and now?  I feel great!    

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( as an aside to this article: there is gluten in so many things, as I stated above gluten is in more things than we realize…. Everything from soup to shampoo to laundry soap….. you really have to do your homework to keep up with all of it.  My main focus is to not eat/drink anything that I know contains gluten.) 

–I want to include a special “thank you” to those I spend Thanksgiving and Christmas with for trying so hard to maintain gluten free meals for me –I love you.

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Learn more about gluten (in particular) at  https://www.celiac.com/

Where I am a member of the forums, which is a huge collective of people with questions about celiac related issues, and a few, very knowledgeable advisors.

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From bits of conversations overheard in a cafe....

I spend two to six hours a day sitting in a café that has free wifi….  thus I overhear a lot of bits of conversations.  People meet here to talk,  there is an interesting  variety of topics….everything from business to vacations to health….  Students do their homework here, high school debate teams, local college students….businesspeople stop in briefly to take care of business on phone and internet, older folks come in for a cuppa and to read the newspaper (a local newspaper and WSJ are provided for our perusal –free of charge).

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This week I overheard a conversation between people I can only assume are some kind of social workers….  They talked about a young person with some kind of handicap, and he takes behavioral cues from his mother.  The mom uses hand signals and key words to guide the young man’s behavior.  What he will do if she predeceases him is the real question.  ….. But this overheard bit of conversation reminded me of my own mother, who had Alzheimer’s disease.  She was regularly given an MMSE (mini-mental state examination), during which she was asked 30 questions, then her answers were evaluated to determine the degree of impairment. 

The questions or exercises involved memory, math, recognition, and drawing (copying a drawing).  It was my observation that, if I stood in the room with her during the MMSE she answered nearly every question correctly.  –However, if I stood outside the room and did not listen closely, but rather, thought of anything other than the correct answers to the questions, she did not do as well.  After some 12 years of living in the same house, we had developed a kind of telepathy.  (My mother was not the only person I was able to “transmit” to, but that is another story.)  We did not have hand signals or key words…. I tell you this because I found it intriguing, and I am still fascinated with the memory of these occurences. 

(an MMSE can be found at http://www.dementiatoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/MiniMentalStateExamination.pdf ) 

[incidentally there was one portion that I was unable to telepathically “transmit” answers to her:  The examiner names three unrelated objects clearly and slowly, then the instructor asks the patient to name all three of them. The patient’s response is used for scoring. The examiner repeats them until patient learns all of them, if possible.  They would tell her 3 words, for example:  “pencil, rock, quarter”,…. followed by completely unrelated subjects,… a few minutes later they would ask “what were the 3 words I asked you to remember?  Now, it happened that Mom, without fail, could tell them the 3 words.  I was always amazed by that ability in her, because I almost never remembered any of the 3 words when I listened.]

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Another time I heard an older woman telling someone about driving on the toll road.  The toll road between Rockford and Chicago in Illinois has a minimum of three lanes.  A lot of ignorant people drive slow in the left lane, this is what she was talking about.  This foolish woman rationalizes that she is safe driving in the left lane because she is “out of the way” and there is room to pull to the left side of the highway should she experience engine trouble or a flat tire.

For the record: THE LEFT LANE IS FOR PASSING ONLY.  Law enforcement has devoted hours to enforcing this in order to attempt to educate people on this. 

Unfortunately there are a lot of people who think that they can putter along in the left lane.  So, here I ask of you: PLEASE TELL EVERYONE YOU KNOW THAT THE LEFT LANE IS FOR PASSING ONLY.  That is one of the reason that trucks are to drive only in the right lanes.  Truck drivers are taught to pass on the left….. passing on the right is foolhardy and dangerous, what with entrance/exit ramps, and people who read signs that say things like “SLOWER TRAFFIC KEEP RIGHT”. 

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I overheard someone I know talk about  the Camino de Santiago https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camino_de_Santiago aka The Way of St. James, which was wonderfully depicted by director Emilio Estevez in the movie The Way.  This is a spiritual journey or pilgrimage, which one may take, which is weeks long if on foot (as depicted in the movie The Way)….. it is a journey of discovery of one’s self…

“The Spanish consider the Pyrenees a starting point. Along the French border, common starting points are Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port or Somport, on the French side of the Pyrenees, and Roncesvalles or Jaca, on the Spanish side. (The distance from Roncesvalles to Santiago de Compostella through León is about 800 km.- 497 miles). An alternative is the Northern Route nearer the Spanish coast along the Bay of Biscay, which was first used by pilgrims to avoid travelling through the territories occupied by the Muslims in the Middle Ages."

there are different routes one may choose

(The movie The Way follows the Camino de Santiago trail from Saint Jean Pied de Port in the Basque Country across the Pyrenees along the Napoleon Pass to Roncesvalles, then to Pamplona, the Rioja region and its vineyards, on to Castilla y León, the vast Meseta, the breath taking Mountains of León, El Bierzo and finally the green hills of Galicia before reaching Santiago.)

The person who was talking about the pilgrimage was not able to properly articulate what the Camino de Santiago is all about for believers who make the pilgrimage….  precisely the reason I do not spontaneously discuss the topic….. I am not able to retain in memory an explanation that does the pilgrimage justice. 

(Perhaps I should make the pilgrimage myself.)  http://www.caminoadventures.com/

My point, here, being that one should know more about a topic when presenting it to anyone who has not heard of the topic before.

Finally their discussion turned to the European habit of taking a long vacation every year (what a marvelous thought!).

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Otherwise my time in the café is partially spent observing behaviors and eavesdropping snatches of conversation…..  There is a person who has Tourette’s or some related disorder, a  foursome of senior citizens who bring their chess sets and play, trading partners after the first set is done.  A Christian men’s group- early in the morning.  Women who play Scrabble, a Mah Jong group, and a group of ladies who play various games from cards to some kind of tile game I have never seen before.  Other groups of as many as 10 people gather for various kinds of meetings.  And a great number of people who come here for the free wifi, or simply to visit with friends.  

In short, this is often a lively place, full of conversation, and the occasional writing prompt as you can see.

wifi...out of order....

It is a big letdown to get inside a restaurant that claims to have free wifi, where in fact I have used the free wifi,… and it’s not working.  I am not sure I believe that… really? What is wrong with it….. why does wifi just fail? What are they trying to prove?  No. I really do not believe them.  This is at a Denny’s where I have used the free wifi on many occasions in the recent past.  This is also the case, very consistently, at the McDonald’s nearest my home.  I no longer go to that McDonald’s for anything, because every time I have tried to get on their “free wifi” it just plain does not work.  If I am going to drive all the way to the next McDonald’s I may as well go to the library, it’s almost the same distance from my home, wifi is free at the library, and I can spend all day there online for free.  (Well, of course I pay taxes to that particular library district, so it’s not totally free, but look at your property tax statement – I bet you pay less than $20 a year for the public library.)

What I am getting at, though, is that I go to a café almost every day, and their free wifi is ALWAYS working.  How can that be?  McDonald’s and Denny’s, who both advertise “free wifi” fail consistently, but an independent café has wifi that never fails.  

I came to Denny’s today to use the free wifi, while I wait for my lunch date, who will not be here for more than an hour.  So, I am here with nothing to do but write a blog about the problems of not having Internet at home….  And, NO, I do not have a smart phone, or whatever people are using to access the Internet at the merest whim.  Believe me, after having Internet access in the palm of my hand for 3 or 4 years, it is not easy to be without it entirely at home.  That is a large portion of the day…. No longer can I look up some trivial information on the spur of the moment.  It changes the way I think….  I shrug off a great many questions.  I have no GPS, not that that is exactly a challenge for someone who can read a map.  No Pinterest, no Facebook, no Google, nothing,… “no Internet” being literal and complete.  There are many frustrations that come along with that. 

At my house there is no landline telephone, no Internet or wifi, and no “live” television either.  When I put live in quotation marks I mean that there is no signal, of any kind, coming into my home: no cable, no satellite, and I have no antenna.  In the last few days I have also learned that they are now making most televisions with no tuner –that means that having an antenna may not do you any good, if your television does not have a tuner to bring in the signal.  One way or another the powers that be are bound and determined to force us to pay for television.  My father, a tv “head”, is rolling in his grave: television is supposed to be FREE!  But I digress….

In order to get on the Internet I must get dressed and drive away from my house to the library or to the café, or any other establishment that provides free wifi.  The library closest to my home is great, offering rooms with doors and thus a “private office”, although that room is not soundproof; you can hear the people in the rooms on either side of you, and anyone outside the room (usually children too young to understand that the library requires quiet).  For example, there is a woman who uses one of these library rooms to make a phone call, about once a week….apparently a very distressing phone call, as she cries, sobbing loudly, talking through her tears –it is more than a little disconcerting if you are in the next door room.  Others hold meetings in these rooms, and they are not quiet about it.  Quite a few of us trek to the library and set up our “office” for hours at a time. 

The café I go to is about 1.75 miles from my house.  The most convenient, warm, dry, safe place to use free wifi.  They will allow a person to occupy a booth all day long, so long as you do not try to do that every day of the week.  I usually have something else to do, during my period of unemployment, at least a couple of days of the week.  And, for those of you who may not know it: the Internet gets old and boring after a couple of weeks of being online all day long.  I know this because I once had a job where there was not enough work to keep me busy all day long, yet I had to be there all day long; so the company owner told me that I could do “anything” I wanted to occupy myself.  I could read a book, play solitaire, do crafts, or “play” on the Internet –all day long!  It does get old.  Mind you, I am job hunting, which –these days – is best done on the Internet.  One can spend the better part of the day applying for jobs on various websites.  I read tutorials, and watch videos, and visit LinkedIn, all in an effort to find a job, learn more about finding a job, increase knowledge of skills I already possess…whatever is “free” with that Internet connection.

When I get tired of job hunting and filling out applications, etc. on the Internet I go to social media and “visit” with my friends and relatives.  This is my primary contact with other people.

So you can understand that it is inconvenient to not have Internet at home…….  the gasoline for the drive across town (which I find a chore and hey: my car guzzles gasoline!) or the cost of a cup of coffee or tea or water at the café…. It’s a small price to pay for “free” wifi.  And it is a huge disappointment to plan on using the “free” wifi  in a specific place, only to find out that it is “out of order”.   

Books are in my soul

Books are in my soul.  I should be better at writing, what with all of the reading I have done in my life.  My mother loved books, and had a rather large collection before I came along.  I always had access to books, any book in the house.  From a very tender age my mother instilled a healthy respect of books, and how to handle them, in me.  I particularly remember that she enrolled me in a book club, I think when I was 3 years old, thus I got a book in the mail with some regularity.  There was also a kind of a language book, geared for preschool minds, and it was all about words, sounds, and phonics.  Mother was a huge proponent of phonics in teaching a child to read, and I poured over this book regularly as a tot. (I still have the book, ….somewhere….)

My mother read to me, every day of my life until I was about 13 years old. When I was very confident in my reading abilities we sat side by side, and if Mom made any error in reading I would point it out and we would laugh together,....good times.  

I remember one time, I must have been nearly 4 years old, mom wanted to nap, but I wanted her to read to me.... Mom sighed and said that she would read me "a couple" of books.  Holding the books I wanted to hear in my hands I announced, "a couple is five!"  Of course Green Eggs & Ham was one of the five books she read to me that afternoon.

As a small child I was read to during the day and at bedtime.  Everything from current children’s favorites to fairy tales.  My parents bought a edition of the Encyclopedia Brittanica for me and with that came a supplementary series of “Childbook” installments, which included a book of stories for children.  Childbook #2.  This one of my favorite sources for bedtime stories, a huge anthology of a variety of stories, some fairy tales, some tales from “foreign lands”, all highly entertaining for young minds. 

And, very precious to me, on the bookshelf in my living room (where I can see it every day): The Childrens Treasury of Literature (Grosset & Dunlap ©1955). This contains fables, nursery rhymes, and a load of stories that fascinate youngsters, like the Tales of Aladdin.  I have always kept this massive tome within reach, every day of my life.  Sadly, it is out of print, and I sorely wish that I had purchased a second copy when they were still reprinting it.

  

Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss became the bane of my mother’s existence.  It was ALWAYS included in any selection of 3 to 5 books that she would agree to read to me during the day.  I would tease her with it all her life, and even when Alzheimer’s took her short-term memory I could get a sigh of dismay from her upon showing her the book.  “Not that again!” she would say.  But I believe that Green Eggs and Ham was the base upon which my foundation of lifetime reading was built.  Only 2 books jump immediately to my mind when I am asked about the first book I loved.  Green Eggs and Ham, and The Little House.  Two books that were read to me more than any others, and I accumulated a very large library as a child, which I still own to this day.

In grade school I argued with the school librarian to allow me to check out books that were considered to be beyond an 8 year old, books she felt were for the fourth through sixth grades.   In particular Smoky, The Cowhorse, which was the book that began the argument in the first place.  I told her that I would read the entire book and bring it back within the allowed two week check-out period, the librarian relented, and I accomplished the read with days to spare.  That ended arguments with that librarian, after I told her all about the story of Smoky, The Cowhorse.

Other favorites of my youth and adolescence include White Fang, by Jack London, ….. 2250AD “original title Starman’s Son”, by Andre Norton ….. I Am Legend, by Richard Matheson –the novel upon which the Charleton Heston movie The Omega Man was based.  When asked about favorite books these are the ones that come to mind first.

There are many other favorites, among them The Godfather and The Exorcist, as the original movie versions of these books in particular were extremely true to the books upon which they were based. To me The Stand is Stephen King’s best novel.

I love The Far Pavillions, by M.M.Kaye, which I purchased for the sole reason that it was over 1,200 pages in length and the bargain price was $1.99, when I was still in high school, and first read when I was 18 years old.  I adore The Thorn Birds, by Colleen McCullough.   I am not usually one to choose an author and then read everything they have written, but I do have a couple of favorite authors….

For cheesy Cinderella-type tales I love Judith Krantz from her first novel , Scruples 1978 through her 1994 novel Lovers,  after that I lost interest…. I will have to see what I am missing from her later years.  Mistral’s Daughter by Judith Krantz is an amazing story of the frailty of the human psyche, fraught with failings, confidence, and regret, but also encompassing love so great that we break our own hearts.

Another favorite, quite more intellectual in style is author Allen Drury. The first Allen Drury book I obtained from a bookstore where I worked, someone had special ordered, never picked it up, and it was marked down from $34.00 (because of being a special order) to $1.00, a bargain!  The title: Roads of Earth  ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_Drury)  Allen Drury wrote several novels that were about Washington D.C. politics, a duo of ancient Egypt novels, and even a political/science fiction novel.  Allen Drury’s novels are on a rather more intellectual level than I normally read, however, I find the content interesting and compelling, in an old-school style reminiscent of columnists and newscasters of my youth.

Recently, for nearly a decade, I had a job that made reading inconvenient for me –too many interruptions.  Therefore, from mid-2007 until late 2016 I believe that read fewer than 25 books.  How sad!  However, the first thing I did upon leaving that job was to pick up a book and start reading….. now approximately 75 days later, I have read 13 books, and am into the 14^th.  These include the 7 book Harry Potter series, a book about Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, and currently the excellent Robert Redford biography by Michael Feeney Callan.  I am participating in a reading challenge, which is to read 26 books in 2017, I may actually read 52 books in 2017!

I have far more books than I have shelf space for.... and I have been known to read as many as 3 books at the same time; one upstairs, one downstairs, and one in the backpack. I definitely need a large room for exclusive use as a library.  And yet, I still go to the library; for the Harry Potter series, and occasionally when someone recommends a particular book to me. I loved spending hours getting lost in the library.... and that will be another blog.........

a few memories of my dad

I purchased a new snow brush for the car today..... I use a push-broom.... and the old, wooden one broke.... (my Dad bought that old, wooden push-broom back around 1968.... thanks Dad, I know you did not intend it to be used to clean snow off of cars, but it served me well for many years.)

I posted the above paragraph on a Facebook post about a predicted snow storm today.  I reminded me of the good things, from my Dad, that I have been thankful for lately.  While Dad did not intend that push-broom to be used to clean snow off of cars, I think he would appreciate that I put it to good use. You see, I had a Subaru wagon, and I wanted to clear snow off the roof of the car before putting it inside the garage.  I think that my Dad would have appreciated the ingenuity of that.  Over the years I have grown used to using that push-broom as a snow brush on many other vehicles....  I now own a Jeep Liberty, with a cloth roof (sun roof), and I still want the snow off the roof before putting the car in my garage.  I will miss the old, wooden, boar bristle broom.

snow brush, new and old.....

I have a bunch of tools.... most of them were my Dad's.  Some are nice sets, and some are just mis-matched tools that he accumulated one way or another over his nearly 70 years on this earth.  I am grateful for these tools... I have used many of Dad's tools -more often the my own tools.  I have been most grateful for the monkey wrench.... the time I fixed the toilet it came in handy,.... so glad that I was able to find it and put it to use.

I think that I also inherited a kind of toughness, a hardy spirit if you will, from my Dad.....  some of it came from Mom too, but Dad's family was a hardy, spirited bunch.

I still have Dad's recliner.... Dad was a kind of a tv "head", because he followed the old radio programs, --he followed them from radio to television. He was one of the first people in the area to get a television set.  The television was set up in the living room of the house, and that is where the recliner was placed, maybe 12 feet away from the television. By the time I was born Dad had established a pattern of turning the television on first thing in the morning -and leaving it on all day long.  My bedroom was off the living room, so the sounds of variety programs and westerns were my lullabies.  Many a night I was awakened in the wee hours by the sounds of The National Anthem, television sign off, or blare of the test pattern scream.  Dad would fall asleep in the recliner and the television played on until Mom came and got him. 

(I was just 9 years old when he passed.)   When he died we kept the recliner, and it got regular use... when the house was sold I brought that recliner with me.  It was in my large bedroom in my first home, and media rooms (with a television set) thereafter... I still have it and sit in it a few times a week while reading a book. 

One other thing that Dad left me, unfortunately, is his anger.  I have learned to manage that anger well over the many years of my life,... I allow it to manifest when I am alone, in the car or at home, where I rant until I have exhausted whatever topic particularly ignited the angry urges.  Dad was filled with passion, passionate anger, passion for fishing, passion for the motorboat (once upon a time he had a beautiful Criss Craft, later a pontoon boat), passion for "going to the lake", and passion for "going bumming" which meant driving out, late in the afternoon, to pay a surprise visit to one friend or another.  Going bumming, meant that I had a nice ride in the back seat of the car featuring views of stunning sunsets in the countryside of northern Illinois "back in the day'.

Chris Craft (note: this photo is an example, not the actual boat that my Dad owned)

Anyway, Dad, in spite of everything and anything, I still have fond memories of my childhood days, and interactions with you.  I still have things that belonged to you.  Cherished items from my youth, and warm memories of comfort, a sense of direction and a sense of wanderlust.....  Thank you.

Me and The Continental Divide (2008)

It was the nature of my job to be “on call” all the time, and ready to travel upon request.  So it was no real surprise, late one Sunday morning, to get a phone call from my boss Mark, telling me that I was going to Denver the next morning.  The CDL driver out in Colorado had “a fear of heights”, although he had driven the vehicle up into the mountains….  I will explain this more later….  So, I prepared to go to Colorado, for an undetermined length of time, or as long as one month.  This involved taking a bus from near my home to O’Hare airport early on that Monday morning, in May of 2008.  I was to fly to Denver International Airport, which I must confess I have very little memory of being in that airport, and I met the technician, the female member of the team, who drove my up to Georgetown, Colorado (elevation 8,530’).  Georgetown is a little over an hour west of Denver’s airport. (see altitude sickness: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altitude_sickness )

The CDL driver was not feeling well at all, and did not want to continue driving the rig.  We had lunch and then set out on Interstate 70, heading for Eagle, Colorado.  Unknown to me as we set out was the fact that the Eisenhower Tunnel was closed to vehicles over 22,000 lbs.  This meant that the vehicle I was driving was too heavy to pass through the tunnel.  When I saw the first warning sign I immediately got on the cb radio and called the driver, in the pickup truck behind me…. I asked him to confirm the weight of the vehicle, and he said that we could call it “under 22,000lbs.” and then I saw the Colorado State Trooper parked by the detour sign, and I said, “let’s not, and I will see you on the other side.”

So, I was driving a rig over  (yes OVER) the Continental Divide for the first time in my life.  I had never even driven a car at such and elevation before, so I was more than a little concerned.   My concern was heightened by the fact that the trucking company I had driven for would never have put me in such a position as a less experienced truck driver, but here I was, with no option but to proceed.  Up old U.S. Highway 6, The Loveland Pass.  This is a two-lane, paved highway that few people drive on during a Monday afternoon in May.  In other words it was me in an F550 Ford truck with a 18,000lb trailer on the fifth wheel, and a big rig in front of me, and –a short time into the journey another big rig behind me.  And we were driving into the heavens on a narrow two-lane, with a sheer drop off on the right side…. the three of us all driving down the middle of the road, so as to be a few  feet farther from the edge.

We were in third gear, and could go no faster up the mountain than that,… around 25-27mph.  A slow, scary crawl upwards… I was grateful that the F550 had the capability to keep up with the big rigs.

 

If you have ever seen a movie called The Long, Long Trailer (staring Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz; MGM 1953) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0047191/  then you have some idea of what it might be like, climbing ever higher into the Rocky Mountains, on a narrow road….  I was NOT laughing.

Then came the downhill side…. but “downhill” makes it sound so small and so simple…. It was hair-raising!  I had no idea whether the brakes on the F550 could take it, no idea when the brakes had been serviced last, and there is no jake brake on an F550.  I decided to mimic the driver ahead of me, though he was in a real semi-tractor, with a jake brake….. but I followed his lead, allowing the vehicle to get up just above the speed limit, and then gently braking it down to 5 miles per hour under the limit, and then let her glide on again. All the while in 3rd or 4th gear.
It turned out to not be as bad I as had feared, and after about 10 minutes I started to relax and look around me at the Arapaho National Forest.  Around the time we arrived in Dillon, not far from rejoining Interstate 70, my other driver came back on the cb radio to see if I was okay.   He later complained that the brakes on the F550 and trailer were “singing”, but really they were fine, and we continued on, working at various locations in the western part of Colorado, for several days before we took the vehicle in to a shop to be inspected and have a tire replaced.

It was scary, driving over The Continental Divide, all by myself for the first time, on a narrow highway, but looking back –it was exhilarating, and I will always wish that I had had someone with me to take pictures along the way.

Somewhere along the way I had picked up a brochure on Altitude Sickness and, sure enough, the other CDL driver had about 6 of 9 symptoms listed on the brochure.... that was what I had been thinking all along.....  I had even stated to my boss that this is not "fear of heights" - this man had physical symptoms that were beyond 'fear'.

I was in Colorado for just over 3 weeks, and had a wonderful time with the coworkers and being a part-time tourist.  I will be friends for the rest of our lives, with Gwen and Alan.  Gwen and I drove through the Colorado National Monument national park at Grand Junction and drove up to Steamboat for an afternoon.  We had a great time getting to know each other and I got to see a lot of Colorado, and made a short visit to Wyoming one memorable afternoon……..