Sometime in the early 1980's, Mandy (whom you have already met) and I visited her sister, brother-in-law, and nephew in a very small town in southern Illinois.
Nephew Jim was of junior high school age and his parents wanted to buy a home computer for him. They knew nothing at all about computers and had little to spend on them, and enlisted my help. By far the least expensive computer available at the time was a Commodore 64, on sale at a local K-Mart for $69. It was also about the worst around, but their budget just didn't stretch beyond a hundred dollars.
BIL and I headed for K-Mart on Saturday morning and made the purchase. That computer only accepted keyboard and cassette input, and we picked up a couple of cassettes containing games, at least one of which was an "adventure" game. We're talking about the early days here, and such games consisted of text and still pictures, a step up from the very earliest games, which were text only.
It took just a few minutes to get everything hooked up and Jim behind the keyboard. We popped the adventure game in and I explained the concept to Jim, who was hot to trot.
We all watched for a moment as he encountered the first danger, which was in the form of a snake guarding a door. In no time flat Jim had been bitten and died, and had to start the game again, a severe penalty as loading data from the cassette was slower than cold molasses.
We four adults adjourned to the kitchen for coffee and conversation, and every five minutes or so we would hear from the living room a frustrated "Dang!" or "Aw geez," or "WHAAAAT?"
But at last Jim's voice floated into the kitchen, amusing us with an exaggeratedly casual "Y'oughtta learn to take care of yourself, Snake."
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Aging Erratically
The subject of hoarding has come up on a chat board I frequent. Apparently there is a television show about it, and posters have aired anecdotes about friends, relatives and acquaintances, causing my Uncle Earl, my mother's brother, to pop into my mind.
After he retired, Earl lived in a nice one bedroom apartment by himself. He took a bus to anywhere he wanted to go, which did not include many places. He was not much of a hoarder, but one thing he would not be without was milk.
One Christmas period, when my brother Billy and I were home for the holidays, we visited Earl. As was our custom, we offered to see to any shopping he needed done, and he had several grocery items on a list. He added milk to the bottom of the list and Billy and I headed for the supermarket.
When we returned we began putting the newly acquired food away. Billy opened the refrigerator, stepped back while still holding the door open, and said "Earl, what's this?" I looked and there were already *three* two quart cartons of milk in there. As it turned out, they were older than Methuselah, and we disposed of them. That's the only hoarding Earl did - that we know of.
After getting all that out of the way, we noticed that an electric wall clock was sitting on the top of a stuffed chair, unplugged and leaning against the wall and directly below the nail it had been hanging on. We asked and learned that yes, it still worked, but there was no explanation regarding its removal from the wall.
I said "Well, I'll set the time," and picked up the clock. It was an old fashioned, round, white face and black hands clock. I chuckled and told Billy "This'll take a minute. Ten hours to go."
Billy: "Just wind it backward."
Donnie: "It would strip the gears, Billy."
Billy (one of the few people in life who is more stubborn than I am): "No it won't. Not today's clocks."
Sigh. I wound it back to the correct time then stood there holding it as the hands flopped down to 6:30, the gears having been stripped. I held it up facing Billy and turned it from side to side so he could see the hands flopping around - my own little Pyrrhic victory. Off we went to buy a replacement.
We actually found a replacement that was precisely identical to the paperweight with an electric cord back at Earl's, costing only ten or fifteen dollars. We took it back, I set the time (ostentatiously winding the hands forward), plugged it in, and hung it on the nail.
Donnie: "How's that look, Earl?"
Earl: "Well actually, if you don't mind, I'd just as soon have it on the back of the chair."
I'd say your guess is as good as mine, but I don't have one. In any event that was a done deal in a matter of seconds.
I am now reminded of my maternal grandmother. She spent her later years in a nursing home as the only relatives living in the area were Earl and my mother. The latter was in her sixties and had a bad leg, and neither of the two children could take care of my grandmother.
During our Christmas visits, Billy and I would visit her several times, and on Christmas day we would pick her up and take her to my mother's home for dinner and socializing with whatever relatives were able to make it back for a reunion.
One year I picked her up all by myself, Billy being occupied with hoonose what else. At this point she was 90ish and Alzheimer's had set in. I got her all bundled up - coat hat, scarf, mittens - and wheeled her to the front door, drove the car up, and got her into the front passenger seat. We had perhaps a ten minute drive.
After a couple of minutes . . .
Grandmother: "Who are you, dear?"
Donnie: "Well, you remember your daughter, Virginia?"
GM: "Yes."
Donnie: "I'm her older son and your oldest grandchild, Donnie."
GM: "Where are we going, dear?"
Donnie: "We're going to Virginia's for Christmas dinner. Your son Earl will be there, and Billy, your second grandchild and my brother, will be there too."
Silence for perhaps one minute.
GM: "Who are you, dear?"
I can't wait to see how all this works out for me. Perhaps I'll hoard grandmothers or something.
After he retired, Earl lived in a nice one bedroom apartment by himself. He took a bus to anywhere he wanted to go, which did not include many places. He was not much of a hoarder, but one thing he would not be without was milk.
One Christmas period, when my brother Billy and I were home for the holidays, we visited Earl. As was our custom, we offered to see to any shopping he needed done, and he had several grocery items on a list. He added milk to the bottom of the list and Billy and I headed for the supermarket.
When we returned we began putting the newly acquired food away. Billy opened the refrigerator, stepped back while still holding the door open, and said "Earl, what's this?" I looked and there were already *three* two quart cartons of milk in there. As it turned out, they were older than Methuselah, and we disposed of them. That's the only hoarding Earl did - that we know of.
After getting all that out of the way, we noticed that an electric wall clock was sitting on the top of a stuffed chair, unplugged and leaning against the wall and directly below the nail it had been hanging on. We asked and learned that yes, it still worked, but there was no explanation regarding its removal from the wall.
I said "Well, I'll set the time," and picked up the clock. It was an old fashioned, round, white face and black hands clock. I chuckled and told Billy "This'll take a minute. Ten hours to go."
Billy: "Just wind it backward."
Donnie: "It would strip the gears, Billy."
Billy (one of the few people in life who is more stubborn than I am): "No it won't. Not today's clocks."
Sigh. I wound it back to the correct time then stood there holding it as the hands flopped down to 6:30, the gears having been stripped. I held it up facing Billy and turned it from side to side so he could see the hands flopping around - my own little Pyrrhic victory. Off we went to buy a replacement.
We actually found a replacement that was precisely identical to the paperweight with an electric cord back at Earl's, costing only ten or fifteen dollars. We took it back, I set the time (ostentatiously winding the hands forward), plugged it in, and hung it on the nail.
Donnie: "How's that look, Earl?"
Earl: "Well actually, if you don't mind, I'd just as soon have it on the back of the chair."
I'd say your guess is as good as mine, but I don't have one. In any event that was a done deal in a matter of seconds.
I am now reminded of my maternal grandmother. She spent her later years in a nursing home as the only relatives living in the area were Earl and my mother. The latter was in her sixties and had a bad leg, and neither of the two children could take care of my grandmother.
During our Christmas visits, Billy and I would visit her several times, and on Christmas day we would pick her up and take her to my mother's home for dinner and socializing with whatever relatives were able to make it back for a reunion.
One year I picked her up all by myself, Billy being occupied with hoonose what else. At this point she was 90ish and Alzheimer's had set in. I got her all bundled up - coat hat, scarf, mittens - and wheeled her to the front door, drove the car up, and got her into the front passenger seat. We had perhaps a ten minute drive.
After a couple of minutes . . .
Grandmother: "Who are you, dear?"
Donnie: "Well, you remember your daughter, Virginia?"
GM: "Yes."
Donnie: "I'm her older son and your oldest grandchild, Donnie."
GM: "Where are we going, dear?"
Donnie: "We're going to Virginia's for Christmas dinner. Your son Earl will be there, and Billy, your second grandchild and my brother, will be there too."
Silence for perhaps one minute.
GM: "Who are you, dear?"
I can't wait to see how all this works out for me. Perhaps I'll hoard grandmothers or something.
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Aiming for Failure
There are a handful of active local auctioneers, but for some reason one has crossed my mind who is now inactive. We'll call him Mel.
Auction houses are a good source for resellers, more reliable than garage sales, for example, and in a climate like Chicago's quite important during the colder months.
Very early in my eBay selling I tripped over Mel's auction house and paid it a visit. Such places range from low end up through medium and still further up to houses such as Sotheby's. Some specialize in certain fields - art, militaria, etc. - but most do not.
Mel's was at the lower end of the spectrum. He had many individual consignors who would present him with a lot or two for future auctions, but I think he got most of his goods from home owners (or their survivors) when houses needed to be emptied.
Mel was not a very good auctioneer, and my own opinion is that it was all due to his ego. He wasn't actually hostile, but many times it seemed as if "resentment" would describe his attitude. At least once an auction he would gripe about the fact that no one bid at whatever starting price he had set, but at some point would bid more than that. "You know the bidding is going to go higher than that, so why are you wasting time?"
But the fact is that some items didn't go as high as his proposed starting bid, and people saved money, getting the items for less. Then he'd whine about people saving fifty cents or whatever. But they weren't trying any harder to save that fifty cents than he was to get it, and if you can get an item for $4.50 instead of $5.00, then you've saved ten percent.
I noted that he consistently got less for items than other auction houses got. In fact, at least one of his regular customers was a woman who worked for another auction house. She would bid on items at Mel's, and when successful she would consign them to the auction house at which she worked. It wasn't unusual for her to pay three or four dollars, say, for a painting or other object, then sell it a week later for twenty-five or thirty dollars.
Although we were cordial, occasionally even friendly, we were not each other's favorite people. Beginning with a couple of conversations, he developed an attitude about me. Can you imagine? Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha.
The first was a conversation we had about unsold items. I offered to reach an arrangement with him. I would go through his unsold items after each auction, select some, then try to sell them on eBay. We would agree on some percentage split of the sales.
"What makes you think you can sell them if I can't?"
"Well, you have forty or fifty people in a room for an hour or two, and perhaps someone who would buy it isn't there. I'll have twenty million potential buyers for a week."
But I think that the thought that I might sell something he failed to sell rankled, and instead he threw the unsold items into a dumpster each week. Is that insane or what? For *no* work he would have received *some* money, but he trashed the goods instead.
The second conversation was over a cup of coffee during the preview period before an auction. He was boasting of having acquired several decades of art work by a now deceased Chicago newspaper staff member, and saying that he was trying to decide whether to sell it all at once or break it up into smaller lots.
"I think you should consider taking it to a place like Sotheby's or Christie's."
"Oh, I guess I can't play with the BIG boys, huh?"
"No, of course not. Those houses are generations old, and they can fill rooms with people who wouldn't blink at bidding millions of dollars. They might get you something in five figures for that material."
He got up and left the table. In the end he broke the stuff up into smaller lots. At a guess he got between eight hundred and a thousand dollars for all of it. Aim low. It always works.
Well, eventually his business folded. I miss it, as it was a good source of stuff for resale.
Auction houses are a good source for resellers, more reliable than garage sales, for example, and in a climate like Chicago's quite important during the colder months.
Very early in my eBay selling I tripped over Mel's auction house and paid it a visit. Such places range from low end up through medium and still further up to houses such as Sotheby's. Some specialize in certain fields - art, militaria, etc. - but most do not.
Mel's was at the lower end of the spectrum. He had many individual consignors who would present him with a lot or two for future auctions, but I think he got most of his goods from home owners (or their survivors) when houses needed to be emptied.
Mel was not a very good auctioneer, and my own opinion is that it was all due to his ego. He wasn't actually hostile, but many times it seemed as if "resentment" would describe his attitude. At least once an auction he would gripe about the fact that no one bid at whatever starting price he had set, but at some point would bid more than that. "You know the bidding is going to go higher than that, so why are you wasting time?"
But the fact is that some items didn't go as high as his proposed starting bid, and people saved money, getting the items for less. Then he'd whine about people saving fifty cents or whatever. But they weren't trying any harder to save that fifty cents than he was to get it, and if you can get an item for $4.50 instead of $5.00, then you've saved ten percent.
I noted that he consistently got less for items than other auction houses got. In fact, at least one of his regular customers was a woman who worked for another auction house. She would bid on items at Mel's, and when successful she would consign them to the auction house at which she worked. It wasn't unusual for her to pay three or four dollars, say, for a painting or other object, then sell it a week later for twenty-five or thirty dollars.
Although we were cordial, occasionally even friendly, we were not each other's favorite people. Beginning with a couple of conversations, he developed an attitude about me. Can you imagine? Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha.
The first was a conversation we had about unsold items. I offered to reach an arrangement with him. I would go through his unsold items after each auction, select some, then try to sell them on eBay. We would agree on some percentage split of the sales.
"What makes you think you can sell them if I can't?"
"Well, you have forty or fifty people in a room for an hour or two, and perhaps someone who would buy it isn't there. I'll have twenty million potential buyers for a week."
But I think that the thought that I might sell something he failed to sell rankled, and instead he threw the unsold items into a dumpster each week. Is that insane or what? For *no* work he would have received *some* money, but he trashed the goods instead.
The second conversation was over a cup of coffee during the preview period before an auction. He was boasting of having acquired several decades of art work by a now deceased Chicago newspaper staff member, and saying that he was trying to decide whether to sell it all at once or break it up into smaller lots.
"I think you should consider taking it to a place like Sotheby's or Christie's."
"Oh, I guess I can't play with the BIG boys, huh?"
"No, of course not. Those houses are generations old, and they can fill rooms with people who wouldn't blink at bidding millions of dollars. They might get you something in five figures for that material."
He got up and left the table. In the end he broke the stuff up into smaller lots. At a guess he got between eight hundred and a thousand dollars for all of it. Aim low. It always works.
Well, eventually his business folded. I miss it, as it was a good source of stuff for resale.
Monday, June 22, 2009
Where People Keep Their Word
I'm really pretty easy going, but I have a strong personality which pushes back when pushed, and I have pushed back all my life. I must say that I've been lucky that I've "gotten away with it," so to speak, as I was consistent in that respect in the Army and in all my civilian jobs.
As you may recall, I was hired as a mainframe assembler programmer at Blue Cross of Massachusetts in 1972. My actual title was Senior Systems Designer, which was shorthand for "I need to pay this programmer more money than I pay some others." To be fair, the job description did have additional responsibilities defined, and one was expected to grow into them.
There was in production a kludge of a program, one that people had nicknamed "the cowcatcher" because when anything related to its function had to be automated people threw it into this program, and the program grew like Topsy.
Somehow I became responsible for the cowcatcher's maintenance and for adding any additional functions. "Somehow" is shorthand for "I was junior and sh*t flows downhill."
The program did a lot of things it was not initially designed to do, things that had been added by different programmers over time. As a result, any underlying structure to the program had long since disappeared and trying to follow the logic for some of the functions was a butt ugly process, although not as ugly a process as trying to add a new function to it.
It had reached the point where a simple change, one that "should" take a half day or so, took two or three days to make, and I began laying the groundwork for a rewrite.
I had other responsibilities as well, and the person who gave me the requirements for the cowcatcher was one of several Directors in the data processing area, Rick, who was not my boss. Over time I made him see that the rewrite had to be done. Not only was it taking too long to make changes, but I couldn't even give a time estimate on a change for a day or so after receiving the information on it.
Rick and I reached a point where we agreed that I would begin the rewrite on a certain date, and from that time until it was done there would be no more changes to the process, no programming changes to the cowcatcher. I had negotiated with my boss and obtained the time away from other efforts in order to do this rewrite.
Two or three days into the rewrite Rick came to me and said "I need a change made to the cowcatcher." I reminded him of our deal and pointed out that any time taken away from development of the new program put us at risk regarding its completion. I had negotiated two months for it, and had to meet that deadline.
Well, he "really" needed the change, it was "important," etc. I took a couple of days from the development schedule, and made the change.
A couple of weeks later he came to me again, "needing" another change to the cowcatcher.
Donnie: "Good luck."
Rick: "What do you mean, 'good luck?'"
Donnie: "I'm not going to make the change, Rick."
Rick: "What do you mean you're not going to make the change?"
(Cracking myself up internally, not showing it, I thought "Sheesh. There was only one two-syllable word in that sentence.")
Donnie: "We have an agreement and we can't keep breaking it. Soon the new program will be incomplete, the deadline will have passed, and we'll be stuck with the cowcatcher forever."
Rick: "You have to make the change. I'm *telling* you to make the change."
Donnie: "No."
I turned away from him and back to the work I was doing, and then heard:
Rick: "I can have you fired. What then?"
I turned back to face him again.
Donnie: "Then I'll get another job. If I get lucky I'll get a job at a company where people keep their word."
He stomped off and I heard no more about it that day.
The next day he came to me, this time hat in hand, pleading for the change and promising to stop any further attempts to change the cowcatcher. From this I inferred that he had gone to my boss (or perhaps even higher) in an attempt to have me fired and had been rebuffed. Also that he really *needed* the change.
Donnie: "OK, Rick."
Several days later I was a carbon copy recipient of a memo from Rick to all users of the cowcatcher, informing them that it was being rewritten and that there would be no further changes allowed to the existing one.
Just to be clear: I wasn't just defending some noble cause. My resistance was motivated partially by self-interest. It was frustrating and painful to have to figure out how to make changes or add functions to the cowcatcher, spending two or three days to accomplish what should have been a half day task.
********************
As a sort of post script, I can tell you that the new "program" was actually a small system, about eight programs I think, that (for you dinosaur techies) made use of an HDAM database. During its entire production life it never went down except deliberately, at which time it gave the operator a message and built a table of information in memory for anyone who needed to debug the problem.
And I documented the bloody Hell out of it - both in the code and externally, with flow charts at the function level and supporting typed text.
Several years later it was decided to switch from IBM to Honeywell, swapping out twin 158's for a pair of 6000's. I began the process of deserting the sinking ship, but before I got completely away I was assigned to a group to coordinate the transition with Honeywell's software people.
One day the subject of "my" system came up. I was no longer associated with it and the only other person in the room who knew I had written it was my boss, Drew. One of the Honeywell people said "By the way, this is the best documented application software we've ever seen at any site."
Drew, who was a great tease, sucked on his pipe a moment, then said "That can't be."
As you may recall, I was hired as a mainframe assembler programmer at Blue Cross of Massachusetts in 1972. My actual title was Senior Systems Designer, which was shorthand for "I need to pay this programmer more money than I pay some others." To be fair, the job description did have additional responsibilities defined, and one was expected to grow into them.
There was in production a kludge of a program, one that people had nicknamed "the cowcatcher" because when anything related to its function had to be automated people threw it into this program, and the program grew like Topsy.
Somehow I became responsible for the cowcatcher's maintenance and for adding any additional functions. "Somehow" is shorthand for "I was junior and sh*t flows downhill."
The program did a lot of things it was not initially designed to do, things that had been added by different programmers over time. As a result, any underlying structure to the program had long since disappeared and trying to follow the logic for some of the functions was a butt ugly process, although not as ugly a process as trying to add a new function to it.
It had reached the point where a simple change, one that "should" take a half day or so, took two or three days to make, and I began laying the groundwork for a rewrite.
I had other responsibilities as well, and the person who gave me the requirements for the cowcatcher was one of several Directors in the data processing area, Rick, who was not my boss. Over time I made him see that the rewrite had to be done. Not only was it taking too long to make changes, but I couldn't even give a time estimate on a change for a day or so after receiving the information on it.
Rick and I reached a point where we agreed that I would begin the rewrite on a certain date, and from that time until it was done there would be no more changes to the process, no programming changes to the cowcatcher. I had negotiated with my boss and obtained the time away from other efforts in order to do this rewrite.
Two or three days into the rewrite Rick came to me and said "I need a change made to the cowcatcher." I reminded him of our deal and pointed out that any time taken away from development of the new program put us at risk regarding its completion. I had negotiated two months for it, and had to meet that deadline.
Well, he "really" needed the change, it was "important," etc. I took a couple of days from the development schedule, and made the change.
A couple of weeks later he came to me again, "needing" another change to the cowcatcher.
Donnie: "Good luck."
Rick: "What do you mean, 'good luck?'"
Donnie: "I'm not going to make the change, Rick."
Rick: "What do you mean you're not going to make the change?"
(Cracking myself up internally, not showing it, I thought "Sheesh. There was only one two-syllable word in that sentence.")
Donnie: "We have an agreement and we can't keep breaking it. Soon the new program will be incomplete, the deadline will have passed, and we'll be stuck with the cowcatcher forever."
Rick: "You have to make the change. I'm *telling* you to make the change."
Donnie: "No."
I turned away from him and back to the work I was doing, and then heard:
Rick: "I can have you fired. What then?"
I turned back to face him again.
Donnie: "Then I'll get another job. If I get lucky I'll get a job at a company where people keep their word."
He stomped off and I heard no more about it that day.
The next day he came to me, this time hat in hand, pleading for the change and promising to stop any further attempts to change the cowcatcher. From this I inferred that he had gone to my boss (or perhaps even higher) in an attempt to have me fired and had been rebuffed. Also that he really *needed* the change.
Donnie: "OK, Rick."
Several days later I was a carbon copy recipient of a memo from Rick to all users of the cowcatcher, informing them that it was being rewritten and that there would be no further changes allowed to the existing one.
Just to be clear: I wasn't just defending some noble cause. My resistance was motivated partially by self-interest. It was frustrating and painful to have to figure out how to make changes or add functions to the cowcatcher, spending two or three days to accomplish what should have been a half day task.
As a sort of post script, I can tell you that the new "program" was actually a small system, about eight programs I think, that (for you dinosaur techies) made use of an HDAM database. During its entire production life it never went down except deliberately, at which time it gave the operator a message and built a table of information in memory for anyone who needed to debug the problem.
And I documented the bloody Hell out of it - both in the code and externally, with flow charts at the function level and supporting typed text.
Several years later it was decided to switch from IBM to Honeywell, swapping out twin 158's for a pair of 6000's. I began the process of deserting the sinking ship, but before I got completely away I was assigned to a group to coordinate the transition with Honeywell's software people.
One day the subject of "my" system came up. I was no longer associated with it and the only other person in the room who knew I had written it was my boss, Drew. One of the Honeywell people said "By the way, this is the best documented application software we've ever seen at any site."
Drew, who was a great tease, sucked on his pipe a moment, then said "That can't be."
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Thoughts That Popped into My Head - II
- Melanie, daughter of a black American and a Thai woman, worked for me at a junk mail company in Virginia. She was in her early twenties and still living at home, and invited me to a cookout hosted by her family one fourth of July.
Driving to her house at around noon on the appointed day, I saw a greenhouse that was open. On a whim I stopped in and picked up two roses, one for Melanie and one for her mom.
Good move. Mom adopted me on the spot, although I was at least her age and possibly a year or two older. But I *needed* a mother while I was there because excepting only Melanie, her father, and yours truly, *everyone* - about twenty-five or thirty people - was Thai, and that's what they spoke. Only the three of us, and to a small extent her mother, conversed with each other in English.
For all I knew they were plotting to overthrow the government, but my mind was soon set at ease in that regard when in the midst of unintelligible chatter I would hear something like "slot machine" or "jackpot."
I chatted with Melanie's dad for a while, and when Melanie told us that all the food was ready and laid out on the deck, we grabbed paper plates and headed that way. I stopped when Mom snatched the plate from my hand and signaled that *she* would fill the plate for me.
I'd had a few things at Thai restaurants, but really didn't know much about Thai food. Most of what I'd had was in any case an Americanized version.
Mom filled the plate with some of the most delicious home cooked food I've ever had.
Her dad was an interesting man, retired from the Army and retired from Civil Service, and working at a local school. But I write this anecdote just to tell the charming story of how he resolved unhappy situations with his wife. *He* never argued, although she would occasionally attempt to provoke him into it. He would sit down on a sofa and watch TV while she stood over him berating him for one thing or another, really just letting off steam. When he'd had enough, he would stand up, wrap his arms around her and give her a big hug, and go upstairs and turn on a different television set. She'd vented, he'd shrugged it off, and both were happy. - As you know, Debbie and I stayed in touch after we split. Although hundreds of miles apart we saw each other several times, sometimes called each other, and frequently emailed.
One day sometime around 2003 or 2004, seven or eight years after the last time I saw her, she began a curious line of conversation during a phone call. She asked me whether I thought her sister was attractive.
Umm, yeah, not spectacularly so, but certainly not actively repulsive.
Did I think her niece was attractive?
Umm, yeah, a little heavy, but nice looking.
Well, did I think a certain girlfriend she'd introduced me to was attractive?
I had no idea why she wanted this particular information, but I saw right away where it was headed.
Cutting to the chase, the most attractive woman you ever introduced me to was Paulette.
(Paulette was a long-time girlfriend of Debbie's, and married to Bobby. Both were strangers to me, but Debbie and I visited with them one Christmas vacation. They were friendly, and before long Bobby and I were upstairs doing one thing or another while Debbie and Paulette chatted in the kitchen. This was the *only* time I ever met either of them.)
Debbie and I finished our phone conversation and resumed emailing. Several months later we chatted again and at some point she said "I told Paulette what you said."
Oh? What did she say?
"She said 'I always did like Donnie.'"
Ever after, when Paulette's name came up in conversation, it was as "the lovely Paulette."
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Thoughts That Popped into My Head
- When Ginny and I were in Denver on business for a month (the same trip during which I took her to see a stripper and to see the movie Carrie) we drove down to Las Vegas for a weekend. (No, no, separate rooms, you swine). Ginny had never been there and had never gambled. I promised to teach her to gamble at craps.
You need to know that Ginny was thrifty. She could pinch a penny until Old Abe begged for mercy.
I took her to a table somewhere where she could make two dollar bets, and taught her the basics. As chance would have it, the dice were very cold and soon she was down six or eight dollars. Now even though that was perhaps one meal on her expense report, she became very crabby over it.
"I don't like this. I don't feel good. My stomach hurts. I've got cramps."
Sigh.
"OK, let's go somewhere else."
We walked to another casino, and as I guided us to another craps table she asked grumpily "Craps again?"
I told her "I'll teach you a little system. Unless we get very unlucky, you'll win a few dollars."
Please understand that there are no betting systems which will win at casino craps over the long run. There are, however betting systems with different approaches and goals, which make profits at varying paces until disaster strikes. Knowing that Ginny was never gonna let enough money slip through her fingers to qualify as a disaster, I taught her a little system that might bring in a few dollars.
Fifteen minutes later she had recouped her losses, was perhaps ten dollars ahead, and was all smiles. "Oh, I like this, Donnie. Where are we going next?" - BTW, that was a *long* drive, and we left late one Friday afternoon. Ginny asked if she might drive the first leg (we had a rental car, courtesy of our employer) and she drove until perhaps 9:00 PM.
She made me crazy.
The details are hazy now, as this happened more than thirty years ago, but in my mind I see three or four lanes on our side of the Interstate, and virtually no traffic.
And Ginny driving at fifty miles an hour.
Unless we came up on another vehicle going even slower, in which case she would pull in behind it and go slower still, until I reached over and turned the steering wheel about five degrees to start getting her into the next lane on the left.
It was probably 8:30 or so, and pitch black in the Rockies. We were the only vehicle on either side of the Interstate. Doing fifty. This would be about a 750 mile drive and I was wondering whether we would get to Las Vegas in time for my funeral when Ginny saw headlights in her rear view mirror. Immediately she slowed down. Can you imagine?
The headlights closed rapidly, as they would have if they were being carried by a pedestrian. Soon enough Ginny said in a panic "It's a police car!"
He stayed behind us for a minute or two, then lit her up and she pulled over. A Colorado State Trooper walked up to the window and said "Good evening. Would you tell me why you're driving so slowly?"
My body jerked slightly as I fought to contain the laughter, and the trooper looked at me suspiciously.
Ginny, indignantly: "Well you made me NERVOUS, following me like that!"
Now there were two of us struggling to contain ourselves.
For the sake of the drill he asked a question or two - "Where are you going?" type questions, then smiled and said "You have a good time," and walked back to his vehicle.
He probably thinks we're still on the way to Las Vegas.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
When You're Hot You're Hot
It was going on quitting time on a Friday night somewhere around 1982 and I was still a vice-president at Blue Cross in Chicago. The staff was making getting-ready-to-leave noises and my secretary was away from her desk when the phone rang. I answered and it was Betty, a former girlfriend, calling for one of the women in our department.
I went looking, but she had already left. I asked Betty "What's going on?"
Betty: "Well, it's my birthday today."
Donnie: "Happy birthday. What are you doing to celebrate?"
Betty, in a deliberately long, drawn out, despondent voice: "Nuhthhhhhinnnn'."
Donnie, taking the hint: "Well, why don't you head this way? I'll round up a few people, we'll have drinks, then I'll take you to dinner."
Betty, instantly: "OK, I'll be there in about a half hour."
I notified everyone and headed for the ground level at Illinois Center to make my way to a jeweler's shop at the Hyatt. I bought a Calibri lighter for Betty, one of those butane jobs. This was before I knew they were worthless.
We had a couple of drinks with the group, then hit the sidewalk. I asked where she'd like to have dinner and she said "Anywhere, Donnie."
We walked to a fine dining restaurant called Artists & Writers. It's gone now, but my memory says it wasn't far from Water Tower Place. I think that several restaurants followed one another at that location, and one might have been Here's Johnny.
Drinks, dinner, champagne, some catching up, lotsa fun.
On the sidewalk again I spotted one of the horse-drawn carriages plying its trade and asked Betty if she was up for a carriage ride. Yes indeed.
We engaged one, and it was being managed by a trainer and a new driver, both young women. We hit Michigan Avenue for a couple of blocks, turned toward the lake, headed south, and circled around to our starting point. It was quite chilly by the lake, and we made use of a blanket that was stowed on the floor. This was much fun, and when we stopped I asked Betty if she wanted to go again.
She did, and added "Well Donnie, I think it would be nice if we had some more champagne."
I headed for a liquor store a block away, but it was after nine o'clock and the store was closed. I walked back to the carriage, told the driver to hang on, and headed for the elevator to the Ritz-Carlton. I believe their first floor at Water Tower Place is the eighteenth, but in any case I knew there was a small restaurant and an even smaller lounge there. I went to the bar, put a hundred dollar bill on it, and told the bartender "I need a bottle of champagne and four glasses."
He looked around quickly and in just a few seconds produced them. Now a bottle and four glasses with stems make an awkward combination to carry, particularly if you're trying to conceal them. I stuffed the glasses in pockets in my suit jacket and pants, put the bottle under my arm inside the jacket, and headed for the elevator. Halfway there - CRASH!
Back to the bar, another twenty, another glass. But this time I was intercepted on the way to the elevator by the tuxedoed maitre d' of the restaurant and lounge, who was quite insistent that I could not do this. He lectured me all the way to the elevator, telling me that the beverage must be consumed there or delivered to my room. I assured him I was taking it to my room, got on the elevator, and pressed the button for the lobby. The trickiest part was carrying the bottle under my arm inside the jacket, as I had taken the precaution of having the bartender open it.
All three women were happy to see me with a bottle and four glasses. I climbed back into the carriage, poured champagne for four, and off we went again.
I do believe I was at my best that night, and that might have been my peak.
I went looking, but she had already left. I asked Betty "What's going on?"
Betty: "Well, it's my birthday today."
Donnie: "Happy birthday. What are you doing to celebrate?"
Betty, in a deliberately long, drawn out, despondent voice: "Nuhthhhhhinnnn'."
Donnie, taking the hint: "Well, why don't you head this way? I'll round up a few people, we'll have drinks, then I'll take you to dinner."
Betty, instantly: "OK, I'll be there in about a half hour."
I notified everyone and headed for the ground level at Illinois Center to make my way to a jeweler's shop at the Hyatt. I bought a Calibri lighter for Betty, one of those butane jobs. This was before I knew they were worthless.
We had a couple of drinks with the group, then hit the sidewalk. I asked where she'd like to have dinner and she said "Anywhere, Donnie."
We walked to a fine dining restaurant called Artists & Writers. It's gone now, but my memory says it wasn't far from Water Tower Place. I think that several restaurants followed one another at that location, and one might have been Here's Johnny.
Drinks, dinner, champagne, some catching up, lotsa fun.
On the sidewalk again I spotted one of the horse-drawn carriages plying its trade and asked Betty if she was up for a carriage ride. Yes indeed.
We engaged one, and it was being managed by a trainer and a new driver, both young women. We hit Michigan Avenue for a couple of blocks, turned toward the lake, headed south, and circled around to our starting point. It was quite chilly by the lake, and we made use of a blanket that was stowed on the floor. This was much fun, and when we stopped I asked Betty if she wanted to go again.
She did, and added "Well Donnie, I think it would be nice if we had some more champagne."
I headed for a liquor store a block away, but it was after nine o'clock and the store was closed. I walked back to the carriage, told the driver to hang on, and headed for the elevator to the Ritz-Carlton. I believe their first floor at Water Tower Place is the eighteenth, but in any case I knew there was a small restaurant and an even smaller lounge there. I went to the bar, put a hundred dollar bill on it, and told the bartender "I need a bottle of champagne and four glasses."
He looked around quickly and in just a few seconds produced them. Now a bottle and four glasses with stems make an awkward combination to carry, particularly if you're trying to conceal them. I stuffed the glasses in pockets in my suit jacket and pants, put the bottle under my arm inside the jacket, and headed for the elevator. Halfway there - CRASH!
Back to the bar, another twenty, another glass. But this time I was intercepted on the way to the elevator by the tuxedoed maitre d' of the restaurant and lounge, who was quite insistent that I could not do this. He lectured me all the way to the elevator, telling me that the beverage must be consumed there or delivered to my room. I assured him I was taking it to my room, got on the elevator, and pressed the button for the lobby. The trickiest part was carrying the bottle under my arm inside the jacket, as I had taken the precaution of having the bartender open it.
All three women were happy to see me with a bottle and four glasses. I climbed back into the carriage, poured champagne for four, and off we went again.
I do believe I was at my best that night, and that might have been my peak.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
