It's all about the journey....umm kinda

I've been working around water professionally for over 25 years ever since Pattye and I started Blue Sky Pools back in 1989. I've seen thousand of pools from simple little wading pools to mind-blowing $200,000 two and three tiered vanishing edge pools.

I've seen  thousands of ponds with elaborate lighting features and waterfalls that give you the illusion you are in the  middle of the Amazon.

Even our side yard, which often times for most people, is an unused piece of property, is a series of waterfalls and catch basins with beautiful goldfish swimming lazily year round. You can see some of it here. Pond

All this being said, I wanted to start adding even more water features and designs.

I've seen flowing-water urns before and I even recently joined Pinterest to find out as much as I could to start developing my own design. And even provide friends and consumers with simple DIY instructions.

I've made about 10 visits to Home Depot and Loews in the last two weeks. I've gathered parts and pieces, tried different flowing techniques, looked at different pieces of pottery.

I did everything right until yesterday.

I had finally found a way to get a perfect tight seal on our newly purchased ($125.00) urn. One that stood about 3 feet tall. I changed pump sizes to get even a higher flowing fountain. Everything was right. UNTIL...I tried to make a few changes and center the urn and level it just a little bit more.

It fell. It broke. I was mad, sad, pissed, and kinda broken just like that dang pot. I should have emptied it before I moved it. Yep, my bad.

I'll start over again. I've learned more about hydraulics in the past week than I really needed. But things will be fine....

I just had to remember...It's all about the journey...not the destination.

It's only work if you don't enjoy it

I'm sure all of us, at least I hope so, have worked at a paying job sometime in our lives. I mean something a little more than the babysitting or throwing newspapers. I think most of us have had that business experience in life.

Now, however, before I get started, I'm simply going to honor all  all of the women who went directly from high school or college and began raising a family. All of us know there is NO OTHER harder work than being a mom. As a mom, and sometimes a dad, you have to be a doctor, lawyer, cook, storyteller, chauffeur, and well, just about everything in the world and you get no monetary compensation.

So, that being said...my story today is about the long list of exciting, demanding, unbelievable and frustrating jobs I've had over the years.

I guess my first real paying job was sweeping the floor at Leo's Barber Shop down on Riverside Drive in Dayton, Ohio. I got down there after dinner at my house, which was just up the street,  right after the barbershop had closed. It was a three-chair operation and served pretty much the entire neighborhood.

I probably made a dollar or two for the week plus I got a free haircut. Plus I got to spin around in the chairs after closing and of course pump them up as high as I could get them and then release them rapidly. Also, playing with the shaving cream dispenser and carefully, very carefully, sending that straight razor back and forth across the razor strap was also a thrill.

Later on in high school as I advanced up the working chain, I found myself after high school.working in a field that I thought my prove to be a entry level position in the medical field. It wasn't

I had a connection at a clinic downtown across the street from Miami Valley Hospital, which ironically was where I was born. My aunt was the Office Manager for a group of Ophthalmologists in the building which also housed several Internists.

That group of Physicians had a lab down in the basement where all of the blood and urine tests were handled for the doctors.

My job after school was having the responsibility of getting all of those urine bottles all sparkly clean for the next day.And of course, the bottles remained full of the specimen in case a test had to be done over. Uh-huh..Thirty of forty bottles each day waited for me. In all shades of yellow, chartreuse and an occasional light brown color. If I was lucky, there might have been a left over stool specimen container that had to be cleaned as well. That job lasted for two years. That my friend was a memorable experience.

In college, I worked doing everything from being desk clerk at a Howard Johnsons, , a busboy at a Holiday Inn, A chauffeur for a quadriplegic, who was a very successful business man which later evolved into  meeting and becoming friends with Jim Brady, President Reagen's Press Secretary, who was shot along with Reagen.


And another fun job of working in the kitchen and serving food at the State Mental Hospital in Norman, Oklahoma. You never knew what to expect each night at dinner time as the patients shuffled through the line. Sometimes the men women would flash you, growl at you, stare at you or even try to slip you a note telling you there were being held against their will...duh.

Anyway, the list goes on and on. Everything  from being  a stringer for the Air Force Times, a newspaper editor as well as a reporter.

And of course, the experience of working for Chuck Norris, as his property manager for 18 years.

Later on  Pattye and I would start a  successful swimming pool service business some 27 years ago.

Just a few memories on this Sunday morning.

I have loved working. I still work and I hope I never lose the enthusiasm.

The Wonderful Memories of the Neiman Marcus Christmas Catalog

Yep, kiddies...believe it or not it’s only 9 weeks until Christmas. But you probably already knew it was getting close since Home Depot and Walmart have all of their Christmas decorations up in their respective stores.

But around the Kender household in Dayton, Ohio when I was a lil' Skeeter boy growing up, the first sign that Christmas was near was the arrival of the Neiman Marcus Christmas catalog. The holy grail of catalog shopping.

Click to view the Christmas catalog online

I'm not sure how we ever got on the mailing list. Mom certainly never ordered anything from the beautiful magazine. Even still, it arrived every October. And it was just pure magic. I did my best to leaf thru each page and try to act like I was interested in the clothes and furniture stuff....I didn't know the term Home Accessories at that time, all I wanted to see were the His and Hers gifts that only a gazillionaire could afford.

And now, the 2016 edition is online in its full dreamy world.

I remember one of the things we did when I came to Dallas for the first time with my mom and dad. It was 1965, and my niece, Kimberly, was born in Waco and we drove down from Dayton to see her as well as my brother, Dave, and his wife. We spent the night in Dallas and stayed at the Holiday Inn near downtown. The next day we walked through the famous store and were dazzled by the beautiful items. Little did I know I would move here 13 years later.

Anyway, back to the catalog.  

I was always very careful turning the pages because I knew this was something I would treasure until a few days before Christmas hoping that maybe, just maybe, I might get one of those special gifts. Maybe a ride in an Indy car or my own airplane.

It wasn't like I was living out in the sticks. We had a wonderful department store, Rike's, in Dayton, but this was Neiman's. The best of the best.

I can remember His and Hers boats. His and Hers cars. His and Hers trips. His and Hers jewelry. His and Hers helicopters.It was exciting...but then when I saw the prices!....wow...now that was some Christmas present.

So once again. I fell into my dreamy world when I looked at the catalog this year. A lot has changed. You can view it online.  You can have your gifts delivered overnight. And, yep, you can dream about that "special" gift. How about a trip for two to the Grammy Awards for just a mere $500,000.  Time to dream...and shop.... 

One of my Dad's saddest and proudest moments with me

I grew up in the "old school" of affection with my parents. Mom and Dad both loved me but with Dad it wasn't ever that warm hug or even that tousling of my hair or giving that "fake punch". It wasn't done back then, I don't think. Maybe it was but I usually didn't see it in my friends homes either.

Dad just worked.  He worked hard. He left early before I got up and came home at dinner time.

One of his great joys was certainly baseball and he coached, managed and sponsored baseball teams for all three of his sons and many of my friends today had a chance to play for Dad. My friend for 58 years, Eddie Stout, often tells a story of  Dad's care and concern for the kids on the baseball team. 

As I mentioned earlier, Dad was always loving but never emotional "touchy" loving. I guess it was the times or maybe how he grew up.

There was one exception.

When I was at the University of Oklahoma, I invited Dad to come to the annual Father's Day weekend. He couldn't have been prouder.

Most of my fraternity brothers were all from the Southwest, either Texas or Oklahoma, and here my "Yankee" Dad shows up from Dayton, Ohio. But Dad had that infectious personality that immediately bridged the Mason-Dixon line and Dad was welcomed by all. He was made an honorary "Okie" and wore the little lapel pin that was given to him proclaiming his new title.

 He beamed with pride all weekend and I felt a pride that I never knew I had for him as he blended in so well. When he left to fly back to Dayton, we hugged and maybe for the first time we said, "I Love You" to each other. We had never said that before.

The next year, he returned for Father's Day. He was excited. He wore his Okie Pin and immediately began renewing friendships with the fathers he had met the previous year.

But this year would be different. 

I had decided to work as a "houseboy" at the fraternity house my sophomore year to help offset the cost my parents spent for me to go to college. Neither my Dad nor Mom knew I was doing it.

When it came time to have dinner at the house on Friday night, I told Dad that I had to work and help serve meals. He didn't understand. I told him it was okay and I was just trying to help pay my way and several of us were working and their Dads were here for the weekend as well.

His eyes teared up and  he felt so sad that I had to work for a few hours that evening....but always the proudest and kindest man...and as my fraternity brothers and their Dad's filed into the dining hall, here was my Dad, sleeves rolled up, an apron on, and he and his son, his proud son, served the meals together.

After we finished for the evening and joined the rest of the group. We did the handshake and a slight hug. When he left at the end of the weekend. He simply said, "I'm proud of you and love you". I think it was his happiest moment with me and probably now just the second time we had said that.

I wish I could tell him now that simple simple phrase of..... "I love You, Dad".

May flowers bring tears in many ways

As the May flowers just begin to slightly open their buds and release the powerful fragrance in the air, my eyes begin to tear...both from the allergens produced by the beautiful creations but also from the memories of my mother's own tears.


It seems like our backyard on Sandhurtst Drive in Dayton, Ohio always seemed to be the scene of some kind of escapade the caused my sainted mom to just shake her head and try to smile as her Little Skeeter boy caused  yet another reason for the moist twinkles in her blue eyes. The backyard was where we dug up our dead dog, where we ran around all nekked around the tent after losing playing strip poker and where I cut off all of the branches of my mom's favorite red bud tree. It was also the site  of mom's peony bushes that separated our yard from our neighbor behind us.


Having recently acquired slingshots from Northtown Sporting Goods "The Jer" and I were looking for some more ammunition since we had spent most of the rocks and pebbles we could find in the street. We shot at everything including each other. The rocks always hurt so as we looked to find a less lethal projectile, ...we spotted mom's peony bushes.


I never thought much of flowers or bushes back in those days and heck, how could anything called pee-o-knee mean anything special. We even laughed at the silly name, never really giving any thought to how beautiful the flowers would be until decades and decades later.


So we descended on the peonies like locusts on fresh crops and began to stuff our pockets pulling each bud off the stem with the perfectly formed spheres. The buds that were slightly opened made for the best "bullets" because as they hit their targets they would explode with juices, tiny flowerettes and an aroma.


I guess mom came outside either because she heard the excitement or laughter and felt like perhaps we were up to something once again.


She saw the remains of all of the buds from her more than ten peony bushes scattered around the yard and the helpless naked stems each standing bare on the bush.
A few tears began to flow, she shook her head slightly back and forth, she reached out to me and said, "Tommy, one day you will remember what you did here. It will make you sad, but at least it will help you remember me".


She was right. I'm sad for destroying mom's favorite flowers and that brings me tears but I am happy that she loved me and understood me.  And that brings tears as well as I do remember my mom and her love and patience with her little Tommy boy.