Cucumbers

It's been so long since I blogged we had to look up my blog name.  Now that retirement is just months away, I need to get into the habit of once again recording my memories.

This week I am on vacation so today I am doing odd jobs outside around the house.  I am trimming the hedge to the north of the garage, the yearly chore that will take me all day.  I asked for tuna sandwiches for lunch and brought in a cucumber and tomato from our garden to add to the plate.

And everytime I bring in a cucumber from my garden it reminds me of an event.  When I was about 11 or 12 years old, I rode my bike with my brest friend Bob Gilmore all the way across town.  We went to visit Noel Trunnel house, a girl we both liked (one of about 18 kids in that family).  We didn't tell anyone where we were going specifically but I did tell my mom that I was going to run away for the day with Bob.  As an adult now, I can imagine my mother calling Bob's mom, Jean, to see what was up.

Bob had this great 10 speed English racer and I had an unknown vintage one-speed (but at least it wasn't my sister's bike).  I cleaned it up not knowing what I was doing and halfway into the ride I had no brakes.  I was pedaling with all my might to try and keep up with Bob.  By the time we got to Noel's I was whipped.

So we rode from our far west side of Kennewick to her far east side of Kennewick, at least a good 10 miles and hung out with her.  Her mom asked, "Are you guys hungry?"  We hadn't thought about food, just thought about our love interest.  When she said food, we decided we were hungry.  She told Noel to go into the garden to bring in a cucumber.  I was amazed that they actually could grow a successful garden.  We had lunch and then her mom asked, "Do you boys want a ride home?" and again I am pretty sure she had called our parents by then.  So she loaded our bikes into her car and drove us and the bikes home.

The last time time I saw Noel I was in the hospital after a head-on car crash, January 1969 (on my way home from my 3rd semester at BYU and preparatory to leaving for my mission).  She came up to the hospital to visit me.

But now I can grow a garden with cucumbers,

tomatoes, raspberries, strawberries, blackberries, peppers, onions, potatoes, beans, peas...anything you want.  But I always wonder what happened to Noel and if she ended up with 18 kids, also.

the end of winter

I grew up in the great Northwest, in the desert of SE Washington....specifically The TriCities. Winters for me were cold and dry. We only got snow every couple of years and 2" of snow would have been huge. The land looked tawny in color but there were about 280 days of sun per year.

I have lived in NE Ohio for 38 years now and have come to appreciate the beauty like the picture to the left. We had a winter that was harsh...very cold, particularly working long hours in the mill which is all steel/metal which retains more of the cold. Last week we had the February Thaw. The top of the snow was melted and showed the ugly underside...the black snow. But within a few days, even it was gone. We actually believed or hoped the groundhog was correct, that spring was on its way. However, the next winter storm hit us on Sunday night (specifically as we were on our way for a meeting held in the Historic Kirtland Temple). Icy snow fell...and then icy rain. All over our fair land was the glimmer and shimmer of ice. This morning as I sat at the kitchen table, indexing, I looked out the window and saw the breathtaking shimmer of sun on the ice. I grabbed a camera to take a picture as I also went out to give more corn to the squirrels in our neighborhood. My friend Ken made us this corn feeder and we have enjoyed watching the squirrels come to feed. But more fun is watching our Niko go nuts to get out at the squirrel...and then watch the squirrel overhead in the tree, looking down teasing the dog.

I don't hate it here...I have learned to endure it and enjoy the changes. Yes, there was more sun in the TriCities but today, we have wonderful sun. And I will enjoy this. Because I know, deep down, that spring is really just around a few corners.

a new shirt and a memory of buttons

I am just over the moon with my new John Wayne style cowboy shirt. I just love it. It's perfect. My sweetheart labored 2 days to make it and years to locate the pattern which she already had.

There are 24 buttons on it. It made me think back to my 2nd Youth Conference as a youth. John Delane Wiberg, my good friend, had a stylish sweater vest on with lots of buttons. The ice breaker prize was who had the most buttons...and naturally he won. The prize was a transistor radio and we stayed up later than we should have, listening to his transistor radio.
Some kid drove up to youth conference in a 1953 Starliner Studebaker, a model I always liked. He probably paid 50 bucks for it. One youth conference I went to showed 7 Brides for 7 Brothers on an old projector from a classroom. The brothers wore this same type shirt that I am wearing in the photo.

I have always liked this style shirt and am happy to now own one. As I struggled to button all the buttons in the new button holes, I remarked that this was a good birth control shirt. By the time you'd get this unbuttoned, the "moment" had passed and you might as well go home. Brigham Young considered buttons to be immoral because you could get undressed to quickly.

The purpose and need for this shirt now is the fact that in 2 days I leave for TREK...It's a spiritual experience in the woods that make us appreciate what the pioneers did for us, regardless of if it's for the spiritual heritage or the building of the nation/community. I will go as an adult child of a family. No, Susan is NOT going on the trek. I'll report back next week...but no pictures since we are not allowed to take any modern technology.

Today I am mudding the dining room walls. After over a week of removing the wallpaper and the horrible thick cement-like glue that remained after the paper was gone (and I ask, "You did want your wallpaper to stay up didn't you? Didn't you?"), it's finally time to make the walls as flat as I can. It was good to have Jordan and family come up the past weekend and really took on the bigger part of the paste removal. We were left with the fine removals.

I didn't grow up mudding walls. In my youth the walls had broken up almond shells added to the mix to make a very textured wall....and by the way, that's the kind of walls we had in 809. Linda Zuro taught Susan to mud one day but she was having too much fun so I made that be "not distaff" and I ended up mudding just about the whole main floor and down the hall to the basement.

My parents converted peaked-roof army barracks (which they bought whole and then floated it down the Columbia River and installed it in Kennewick, Washington) into an apartment house. It formed a U-shape. Our family lived at the whole base of the U, and the 2 sides were filled with apartments. When Susan and I were married, we lived in #1. So when an occupant left, I was always called on to paint. I got so that I could paint a whole apartment in a day. Obviously, that's how my painting ability developed. I also can claim to paint a very fine, very straight line between wall and ceiling with only my faithful, trusty brush, named? what else? My Old Trusty Brush. Somehow I lost him...but discovered his hiding place when we moved to 3830. He had fallen behind the old workbench in the old garage. I was a happy camper when I found it!

I love to paint. I do not love to strip wallpaper or the paste. But I think we are going to be ready to paint tomorrow. At least I hope so. The paint has been purchased so all is well.

How to impress your mother-in-law

Each night, Susan will ask me what I want for breakfast. I had mentioned recently that I didn't like eggs much, whereas she does. That surprised her but now she's worried about what I haven't enjoyed. Last night was the discussion how she gets up to cook me breakfast and then packs me a huge lunch (this was the only request I made of her when we got married because for years I watched my dad rummage for something/anything to eat/pack because my mom didn't do this for him). And then she has to spend the day planning and making dinner. And we wondered how food controls our thoughts.

I remember my mom had this large cupboard. It was hinged to fall downward, at waist level and in our home it was filled with dry milk/powdered milk.
We would use the scoop to bring out a measure of the milk and then added a gallon of water. No, it wasn't nice-tasting milk but it was all we had. It tasted like chalk or variations thereof.

Years later when we had more money perhaps (or maybe this was just my mother's quirky way to economize) we graduated to Carnation dry milk in a box. That was high class. That was name brand! It didn't taste much better but it was more palatable. It did help to pour it over the mush we'd have almost every day. We were also given canned milk (evaporated) to pour over our mush.

For a real treat, in concert with my older siblings, we'd steal away with a can of sweetened condensed milk, sharing it to the full, slurping it straight til it was gone...and then we'd pass out in ecstasy.

In 1971, while visiting my future wife in Ohio, there was this tall, slender glass of ice cold milk at my place setting at the table. I put it to my lips. It was like heavenly choirs singing. I glugged it right down, and slammed the slender glass down hard on the table. My to-be mother-in-law was startled and before she even sat down saw that my glass was empty. She had offered me more and then I realized, "ohoh...faux pas". I looked around as if to say, "the cold mug made me do it!"

Employment History

BLAST FURNACE

Currently I am working Greg Dziadon's job because he is out on medical, recuperating from prostate cancer surgery. I am also his vacation replacement as well. My own boss, Angelo Ciu, has had medical problems and has dealt with them admirably.

I will probably have to work on Sunday again and Susan asked, "Again? Why?" I mentioned to Susan, that I hoped Greg and Angelo do, indeed, return to work. Otherwise, I may find myself in a job position I do not relish. I have been in the Bar Mill for all my days at the mill since 1973 so why would I want to go somewhere else.. I am doing the job of 6 guys right now in the Bloom Yard and the Billet Yard. But every job I have aspired to, I have not gotten, yet I still have remained employed.

As I've learned from these past experiences, things never work out the way I wish. After working there for 5 years, an older foreman retired and there was an opportunity to become a Straightener and Saws (finishing) foreman. I said to the division manager that I was interested in being considered for the job. He said, 'ahhhhh, you were actually never considered." And I said, "Oh, have a nice day." heheheh.

Then about the time of the strike (mid '80s), I said, "Hey I would like to be a maintenance manager (millright, electrician, welder, a fixer in other words)." And they said "No, you can go back to Finishing. At that point in time everyone was saying Finishing was caput, that it was going down the tubes, that there was no need for a manager there.

The more I think about it the more experiences I remember....same results.

Back when they started to put in the Rod Mill to replace the straightener and saws area, I applied for Inside Salesman, working out of the old YMCA building. Didn't get that job. Stayed with Inspection.

Then when George George was around and we were revamping things with retirements and cut backs, he asked me if I wanted to go to Shipping or stay with Inspection. I said, "No." It was my choice and as it turned out, the Inspection job was done away with so I ended up going to Shipping.

Then when I wanted to stay in Shipping, the world economy took a tumble about 18 months ago and I had to go back to Finishing. Then when I wanted to stay in Finishing they sent me to the Bloom Yard.

Is there a lesson to be learned from this? Yes, there is. Take what you get and don't throw a fit, to quote Connor and Dawn.

Who knows what path I will be on soon. But what I do know that I have been watched over and lead to so many areas within the mill that by now I can do many jobs. That has worked in my favor so far...but you just never know what the future holds. For now, I have a job and can provide for us, as I have been able to do with the kids were young. And for that I am so grateful.

Tea with the Tudors

I've been reading this remarkable book about The Tudors (by G.J. Meyer). I've renewed it repeatedly. Then for my birthday, Marissa and Hank gave me this mug. Surprisingly it has Henry VIII on it as well as his wives printed on it. The fun part is when I drink 'tea' with the Tudors (or Hot Cocoa as is my case), the heat of the liquid will make the wives disappear as they did in Henry's time.

Other Tudors are: Henry VII, Edward VI, Mary Stewart, Elizabeth. Henry VIII was a very bloodthristy man...chopping people's heads off when he didn't like them. He changed the whole religious scene in England and inadvertently pushed along the Reformation.

My interested started back in 9th grade when I had to type a report. I was in Seattle visiting my sister, Julie. There was nothing for me to do other than listening to women talk. Julie had a book on monasticism and I started to read it. From then on, my interest in anything old, medieval, post medieval, European piqued my interest. Henry VIII is one of the most famous kings so when I saw this book at the library I picked it up and started reading it.

The mug is perfect! It has the same picture of Henry VIII on it as is on the mug. This is mug which I will be sure to keep and treasure...not to mention which I also intend to keep. Thanks Marissa and Hank.