A special someone who influenced my life...

The other morning a friend of mine from the "hood" reminded me of someone who had a major impact in my young life while growing up in Dayton, Ohio. A  person who taught me that different races of people were in fact treated differently, if not disparagingly, during the 50s, 60s and on. But she did it silently and with examples of just being a good, if not great person.

A special person, who long after I had left Dayton to conquer the world elsewhere in the Southwest, would continue to send me a birthday card well into my late thirties. A person, who was my protector, and yet I never knew her more than just someone who was always at our house.

The other morning when  Denny, the older brother of one of my best friends while growing up in Dayton, made the comment, "Tom, with all of your writings over the years, you've never mentioned Ethel, your Nanny."

Whoa, whoa, whoa.....yes, he was absolutely correct, I had never written about the person who helped teach me right from wrong but she was NEVER my Nanny. Hey, people I grew up in a small, white clapboard house with two older brothers and one bathroom. Well, two bathrooms if you considered peeing outside behind the garage or downstairs in one of the stationary tubs, when you had to really go.

But, a Nanny?......Never. Or did I have a Nanny?

I always thought of Ethel M. Lewis was just someone who was in the house everyday to help my Mom out before Mom headed off to work for my Dad at his small machine shop on the West Side.

And even though I rode the yellow, electric public transport at an early age to get downtown either for trouble or pleasure, it never dawned on me, that Ethel rode it every morning and every afternoon to and from our house, just so she could be there as our arbitrator among us arguing boys, someone who made sure we never went hungry at lunch, someone who made sure we had clean sheets and clothes but I never once thought of her as a Nanny.

Heck, I didn't even know the term Nanny at that age.

But better than all of those things that she did for our family, and I guess a Nanny as well. She was my friend.

I didn't see her as black. I didn't see her as a maid. I didn't see her as a housekeeper. I simply saw her as Ethel.

Anyone who ever came by our home in my early years, all of them knew Ethel. She was always there. Always my protector. Always my friend.

It's been probably 50 years since I have thought of her, and I am so thankful that Denny, reminded me of my friend. And yes, even though I grew up far from being a silver-spooned child I guess in fact she was my Nanny.

Webster defines a Nanny as a  woman who is paid to care for a young child usually in the child's home.

Yep, I guess she was. But she was a friend first.

Sometimes it's just the smallest of things......

Call me crazy, call me odd or just call me nuts, so to speak, but yesterday I found something that continues to bring me the broadest of smiles.

I've lived in Texas for over 40 years and I've never seen before this curiously-designed, almost-personified happy little item, just laying on the ground. We were at the Dallas Arboretum and there it sat with all of its many little brothers and sisters either waiting to be swept away by workmen with their leaf blowers or taken back up once again high in the trees from which it first grew by a resourceful squirrel making ready his winter cache'.

I give you the Bur Oak Nut.

I'm very familiar with most of the native trees of this Great State starting with, of course, the pecan, the state tree. Texas has over 250 natives trees, including over 50 oak trees alone. One reason I am so familiar with all of the different trees is that for the last 30 years I've had to dig and scoop thousands of pounds of wet leaves out of swimming pools with the Swimming Pool  company we started in 1989. Despite counseling and cautioning pool owners about the importance of landscaping around their pool, they ignore our advice and make the wrong decisions, they will often  add the wrong trees.

And sadly, I guess that's why I've missed seeing the Bur Oak.  From a swimming pool perspective, you really don't want these relatively huge projectiles falling into your pool, let alone hitting you in the noggin.

Bur Oak trees are extremely drought tolerate due to their long taproot which is why they are the dominant tree of north central Texas. Bur Oak trees produce the largest acorn of any oak species that are 1 1/2 inches long and are almost completely covered with a furry cap.

And it is that furry little cap that I tell you looks like a little animated character waiting to have eyes painted on him, a little dot nose and a smile that will cause anyone who takes a moment to appreciate all that we have in the world that God has surrounded us with even if it is simply a nut on the ground.

Okay, maybe it's just a nut some animal will digest or maybe just be swept away. But for me, it's my little friend that I found while spending the day at Dallas's beautiful Arboretum. I'm gonna put a face on him and keep him in my truck. I think I'll call him, Skeeter.

Money and good Scotch make for a great election campaign....

As I close out this chapter of the Mid-Term Elections of 2018, I’m reminded of my first encounter into the “real” world of politics.. This was back almost fifty years ago when I was a student at the University of Oklahoma.

I had a part-time job in 1970 working as a chauffeur for a well respected young businessman in Norman, Oklahoma. Bobby owned a successful restaurant, the Boomerang, which in addition to great hamburgers and onion rings,  was a popular hangout for college kids just wanting to decompress and drink beer. Bobby was paralyzed from the waist down from a diving accident but that never stopped him from being both popular and successful. My job was simply to help him ingress and egress from his high-end Ford station wagon and then drive him to whatever destination he decided upon.

We developed a trust for each other, his of me being that he was physically dependent upon me to ensure his safety and privacy when as some of you know, often times people paralyzed can begin to suddenly experience extreme uncontrolled shaking and spasms and loss of bodily controls. I trusted Bobby because he simply allowed me to do all I could to remove him for what he thought was just embarrassing situations. Bobby had nothing to be embarrassed about. He was more of a man than most people I knew back then.

In addition to the many other enterprises he was involved in, one included being the Campaign Treasurer for an up and coming young political figure who was on a mission to unseat a 30 year member of the U.S. Congress. The candidate,  was the son of a well known, both locally and nationally, retired college football coach. Nuff said, okay?

Jay, the candidate, had through his father, many connections throughout the country including a young political adviser out of Washington, D.C.. Jim Brady, the adviser, would fly down to Oklahoma City each week to see how the campaign was going. I would pick him up at the airport, we would head to the liquor store, get a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black, then I would take him to his hotel and leave, after of course helping him empty that bottle. Jim later went on to become the Press Secretary for President Reagan and took one of the bullets that was intended for President Reagan. We remained friends until his death in 2014.

Anyway, to continue, one day Bobby,  Jim and I headed over to the local bank and Bobby had me wheel him into the safe deposit area. Jim decided to wait in the car and after signing in, Bobby had me open a deposit box, the kind of box that is a about a foot deep, and inside was I’m guessing thousands of hundred dollar bills. I stared and Bobby looked at me and smiled and said, “Campaigns are expensive”. He had me take out a fistful as he made some notations in his ledger and we closed up and left. We headed back to Bobby’s house, enjoyed a little more of the Johnnie Walker Black and I went on to my afternoon classes.

Yep, I loved politics back then.

Later that year I found myself in Basic Training in the U.S. Air Force and didn’t find out until a few days after the election that Jay had lost the election. I guess he didn't quite have enough of those hundred dollar bills.

Politics haven't changed much over the last 50 years. It's all about raising money, saying things people want to hear and drinking good Scotch at the end of the day.

Another fine memory on this special day...

This being "International Walk to School Day", (I'm serious Alexa just told me), I'm reminded of my early formative years while walking to school with one of my best friends, Bobby R. I would leave my house at one end of our block and meet Bobby at his house at the other end of the block and we would head out towards Our Lady of Mercy, a fine parochial school in Dayton, Ohio where the nuns there would try their best to break my spirit.

We worked our way one block over to Siebenthaler where we would begin the long trudge up the steep hill as we peered closely into the gutters along the busy street with one goal in mind, finding cigarette butts to smoke along the way. We hadn't yet either gotten up the courage to sneak "cigs" out of our parent's packs or maybe we just didn't know how to be that crafty yet. Heck, we were only in the third and fourth grades, respectively. But that was okay, there were always plenty of good butts along the way that would given us several good puffs before they burned our fingers.

Back then there weren't many filtered cigs and if there were, they were the sissy-menthol kind. We always went for the real thing. Luckies, Camels and Pall Malls. You could usually find a good Pall Mall in the gutter because they were a little longer and people wouldn't smoke them down too far.

As we spotted our prey, we would shout out loud and race to beat each other to the prize. Bobby always carried matches with him so he got dibs on getting the first puff. It was so great. Each of us would take a good deep inhale and then cough the crap out of our young lungs and smiling as we felt that rush of excitement and a short high.

I continued that habit, no, not getting butts out of the gutter, but smoking for most of my life. Quitting once after my first child was born and then later starting up again. Fortunately, I came to my senses about 50 some years later and finally gave up the horrible, disgusting routine.

Yep, great memories.

So as you remember back this morning when you had to make that trudge uphill both ways, in 5 feet of snow, share your story with your kids and your grandkids as they make their trudge to the family car as they celebrate International Walk to School Day.

For my gearhead enthusiasts.....the importance of putting it in the hole properly

Just so you know, a "gearhead" is a term of endearment for people interested in cars/racing etc. And "putting it in the hole properly" refers to a story I'm going to tell about spark plugs. So, any of you perverts who thought you were getting a weirdo confession by me, then no such luck. I do think you'll find the story entertaining, as well as informative.

And speaking of informative, once again, the Internet comes thru as the single source of information. Misinformation that it is. I swear there is more written about any topic that is incorrect than it is correct....anyway, let's move on.

Last week, my ever faithful steed, my workhorse that has carried me over hill and dale, my companion for over 13 years, well, she threw a shoe. She must have stumbled over something but we hobbled back to the house, with first stopping at Autozone to diagnose the ailment.

I could have gone home to get my own evaluation kit, an OBD Code Reader but I'm too cheap to buy one.

(Hmm, methinks I might be losing some of you with this story. Nonetheless, I'll continue)

Anyway, a OBD Code Reader is one of those little devices you can plug into your car too see what is wrong with it, or at least what the error codes are telling you.......ugh, now I know I am losing more readers...

Anyway, it said my #3 cylinder wasn't firing. Which meant 3 options. Either a new spark plug, a new wire or perhaps a coil pack. (For you real old timers this is what we kinda used to call a distributor). Period.

Well, two things. I haven't kept a car long enough in my last 55 years that I needed to replace the spark plugs but I have always loved working on cars.

So, I get new plugs and new wires. I do a little Youtube viewing to refresh my thoughts and I proceed.

Dang it. For some reason my 5/8 socket is missing. This is what is needed to remove the plug. I head over to a neighbors house who has all the tools in the world and borrow a socket.

Dang it. For some reason my extension is missing. Hell, it's probably attached to my 5/8 socket. So, back to my neighbors house.

The plugs come out. Yep, they are really worn. The wires come off. Yep. They are really worn. I put in   new plugs one at a time. Except when I get to #4, which is right up next to the firewall (WHY AM I WRITING THIS? I DOUBT ANYONE I KNOW HAS ANY IDEA WHAT A FIREWALL IS!!!) So as I put it in the #4 plug I get the dang thing cross-threaded. I take it out. I put it back in. I take it out. Back in. Out. In. Out. In. The final time I very, very carefully put it back in. Crap. Still cross threaded.

I guess it's time to limp down to one of the best mechanic shops in Richardson and pay the price. Well, they said it would be 3:00 pm before they could look at it. I'm thinking, "Heck, that gives me a couple of hours to keep trying to fix it". So I go back home. Take it out. Put it in. Out. In.Out In.

What's that definition about "If you keep doing the same thing over and over again and expect different results, that's insanity". Well, have me committed then.

I'll go ahead and end now just for the sake of the one last final true gearhead who is still reading this.

The #4 plug is still cross threaded. BUT, it's in there nice and tight. No compression loss. And should be safe. The mechanic did put in a new coil pack, which was the reason why it was still misfiring after the new plugs and wires and not the cross threaded #4. I had priced one and it was $60.00 They did it for a total of $105.00 for parts AND labor.

My steed runs like she did as a young colt. Everything is fine, except my pride.

Just like I have decided to no longer get on a ladder and climb to the top of our steep roof, I think the time has come for me to put away my sockets. I deserve to rest.

Oh, I did find my 5/8 socket and yes, it was attached to my extension. And yes, I also found my gap gauge (you gearheads know what I mean) that I haven't used in 55 years. I had used a plastic credit card which is pretty close to the gap I needed, by the way. Although, here again, the Internet said nowadays plugs come pre-gapped. Well, some do, some don't.

All in all. I guess it was a success and it gave me yet another story to tell.

VROOM!!