Revisiting Boy's State - Stories fron the Attic

In our great attic clean-out, we came across several boxes full of keep-sakes - old photos and such. I posted most of this blog several years ago, but I did not have the benefit of these photos, newly recovered from the attic.

Between my Junior and Senior years in High School, I was selected to attend American Legion Boy's State, held here in Austin on the University of Texas campus. The Principal at BHS, Jim Wilkerson, selected six of us to join about 700 other boys from around the state and  participate in an exercise of leadership and citizenship by forming and "running" an imaginary state. That's me, in the circle on the far right, uh, on the bottom. Trust me.

Our dorm assignments were "Cities" (Hood City, fall out!) and we elected local and state officials - up to and including the Governor and Lt. Governor. This is the entire population of Hood City. I seem to be the only one who doesn't think this was a good idea.

My hair was not good enough to run for governor, so I campaigned for and was elected to the office of Chaplin of the Senate. I don't remember what the chaplain's duties were, but I do know that those senators and other citizens of that Boy's State needed some powerful praying over. At the conclusion of the week, we all marched from the UT campus to the State Capitol building, sat in the official chairs in the official chambers and invoked a joint session of our elected legislature, and as I recall, passed a few bills (which were immediately squashed by those in charge).

I'll have you know, I'm in good company as a participant in Boy's State - other notables that have attended are Bill Clinton, Mike Huckabee, Tom Brokaw, Jane Pauley (yes, there was a concurrent Girl's State held on a different campus) Nick Saban, Michael Jordan, Mark Wahlberg, Neil Armstrong and my son-in-law, Jason, to mention a few.  And we all wore the famous Tee Shirt. We were given one and had to buy any additional. Did I mention that there was no laundry service at Boy's State? We just kept buying shirts. That's why, when I got to college, I still had several left over. Barb said she always knew when I was at the bottom of the clean clothes - you could see the American Legion logo through my outer shirt.

And it was the shirt that got me in trouble.

We also had a newspaper at Boy's State, and since this group got special late-night privileges (and no PE the next morning) I was quick to join. We wrote up the day's events, interviewed important people (like then-Governor Price Daniels), typed it all up and took it over to the Daily Texan offices each evening for printing. Here's the newspaper staff, marching into the auditorium for talent night, whistling the theme from "Bridge on the River Kwai." I don't remember what else we did, talent-wise. Whistling and marching may have been it. Like walking and chewing gum.

On our last evening, the newspaper sponsor (a college-age counselor) promised us we could go downtown and see a movie after we were done. And be sure and bring a non-Boy's State shirt. The official shirt was to be worn  at all times; this was how they kept up with the boys. Being caught off-campus was a no-no and the shirt sort of gave you away, in that regard. So, of course, we all changed shirts before climbing into our sponsor's convertible and heading downtown. When we got back - way after hours - the building containing the newspaper offices was locked with our official tee shirts inside! Not to worry; see that ledge? If I can work my way over to that window on that ledge, I think I can crawl inside the building.

And that is how I first came to the attention of the University of Texas Police Department. And, no, it was not the last time, but that's another story. I will say that we got in a whole lot less trouble than we could have. I don't think the counselor got invited back the next year, however.

I just wish I still had one of those shirts.

Monday Meanderings - 7.29.2013

Let the count down begin.

 I am not ready to see Back-To-School merchandise in the stores. No, I'm not. Doesn't seem to matter, though, because it's all out there. Why, school doesn't even start until... Oh. Uh, never mind.

Austin has added another big crowd-drawing event to the schedule - the Summer X-Games. The TV program about extreme sports is moving from Los Angeles to Austin for the next several seasons. Most activities will be held at the Circuit of the Americas, but some of it, of course, will be downtown in the "Entertainment District (6th Street).

Speaking of traffic, for three days in a row there were accidents involving overturned 18-wheelers on I-35 and on the Toll Road. Sort of brings things to a dead stop when that happens. One of the wrecks was a single-vehicle accident - no other vehicles involved!

The other day a little old lady got on the treadmill next to me at Silver's Gym. I wasn't sure she was even going to be able to get up on the device, but she managed, and in a minute I looked over and noticed that she was outpacing me! Time to up the effort.

Artifacts retrieved from the recent attic clean-out:
According to old W2 forms for the tax year 1984, it was a busy year for the family, employment-wise. I worked for Nash Phillips-Copus and the University of Texas. Barb worked for First Presbyterian Day School, the University of Texas, and Today's Temporary. Julie worked for SoFro Fabrics. Rob worked for Abilene Christian, Nash Phillips-Copus, Bill Milburn Homebuilders, and Scarborough's Department Store.

Yesterday in church, a friend sitting next to me received a word - or several - from on high. He was following along in his Bible App on his iPad as the minister was reading the sermon scripture. One wrong touch, and the App begins reading the verses aloud and my friend couldn't get it silenced. I thought we were going to get all of 2 Corinthians read aloud before he could get up, clutching the iPad to his chest, and flee the auditorium.

And speaking of embarrassing moments, the other day when I was ready to check out and pay for my groceries the cashier said, "Strip down, facing me."

After the shrieking and hysterical shouting finally subsided, I found out that she was referring to how I should position my debit card.

Nonetheless, I've been asked to shop elsewhere in the future.

They really need to make their instructions more clear for us seniors. Man, I hate this getting old stuff.

The Telephone - Stories from the Attic

In our great attic clean-out, we came across a couple of family "heirlooms." This is the story of one of our finds.

Of all the items we drug out of the attic, these may be the only things that actually have any value:

In telephone parlance, this box is a 1940's era Magneto Desk Set. The phone attached is circa 1930, known as the "French" phone. And it still works. Either one is a collector's item - but not in the price range of that Picasso I hoped we would find in the attic.

My father was a telephone man his entire working career, so it was not unusual to have various phone parts and pieces around the house; the U-shaped magnets that are part of the magnetos were among my first toys. And the magnetos themselves provided a lot of excitement as well. More about them in a moment.

The oak box - the "Desk Set" - was actually normally mounted on the wall; its only purpose was to hold the magneto, the bell, and provide mounting points for the phone line, the cord for the transmitter and receiver (which was probably of the "candle stick" design) and for the wires from the battery, which were placed elsewhere, not in the box (telephone systems have always provided their own power, but in the rural areas it was often necessary to boost the signal with batteries).

The low voltage in the phone line was sufficient to power a voice conversation, but ringing the bell was a different story. That of course, is the reason for the magneto; when you give the crank on the side of the box several good turns, you can generate quite a few volts - 50, 60, or more. This current "rings" the operator: "Hello, Central!"

The magneto in this desk set is a "three bar" unit - three U-shaped magnets. Four and five bar units, as well as other designs, were also used over the years. You may be able to see that this unit was made by the Kellogg Switchboard and Supply Company of Chicago, and that provides a clue as to how this particular device might have come to be in my father's possession.

Kellogg was a competitor to the Bell Systems; they provided equipment for many of the independents around the country. Back in the day, anyone with the capital and the equipment could go into the telephone business. My grandfather, my mother's father, had just such an exchange located in his home in Johnson County, Texas. The older children in the family worked as operators and repairmen! Here is a picture of my mother's sisters, my Aunt Lou Amma and Aunt Elna "manning" the switchboard.

So it is possible, if not likely, that my father installed a Western Electric (manufacturing arm of the Bell System) telephone in some rancher's home as Southwestern Bell began to provide service in an area previously serviced by just such an independent. He pitched this "off-brand" unit in the back of his truck and it eventually ended up in his garage. I think the penciled-in date, 3/14/1946, is in his hand writing; it is perhaps the date that he took this unit out of service.

The attached telephone, however, is genuine Bell System. Designated the "D1," it was an early 202 model, a series introduced in 1930, and was among the first telephones in the United States with the receiver and transmitter in one piece. It was called the "French" telephone because it was modeled after similar European units.

So why did these two unmatched components end up connected to each other?

The bell. The 200 series hand sets did not have an internal bell - they depended on a smaller, external (usually plastic) box, or "subset" to house the bell. I have no doubt that my father needed a phone somewhere around the house - perhaps an extension in the garage. He had the old D1 hand set (Bell was replacing them with the new, improved, internal-bell 300 series by 1938), and he had a bell unit with the old Kellogg desk set. The magneto was an unneeded part of the equipment at this point.

For many years, old telephone magnetos were highly sought after by fishermen; attach a couple of wires, drop the ends overboard into the water and "telephone for fish" by cranking away on the magneto. The voltage temporarily stunned nearby fish, particularly cat fish, and they floated to the surface to be scooped up. And yes, it is now illegal to do so. So old telephone magnetos are now useful only for practical jokes, and as collector's items. And family heirlooms.

Monday Meanderings - 7.22.2013

Rain in July is a rare occurrence around here, but we enjoyed several inches of rain over a four day period this past week. It is amazing how quickly the landscape can turn from brown to green, if only for a little while. Now it's back to watching for something to come ashore from the Gulf of Mexico. But not too big a something, please.

I'm sorry. The middle of July is just too early to start advertising back to school supplies. Why, school doesn't start until... until... wow!

And speaking of school, we frequently pass an athletic field at a high school in the wealthier part of town. Like most fields, there are signs on the fences, posted by businesses. At this school, just about every other sign has been put up by Orthodontists.

A treasure from the attic: I am a published playwright. Here's the certificate to prove it.

Unbeknownst to me, my roommate in college entered a play that I had written in the TIPA competition one year. Skeet, my roommate, was a journalism major and editor of the Optimist, the school paper, and he said that the school needed entries in a lot of categories to make a good showing, so he gathered up anything that he could find. Notice the First Place part!

Supposedly, winning First Place meant that the play would be published by Samuel French and Company - the dominant publisher of theatrical properties. Not sure that actually happened, because I'm sure my little one-act play would have gone straight to Broadway, or maybe Way-Off Broadway, and since I never heard from the company... Oh, well.

High School days - Stories from the Attic

In our great attic clean-out, we came across several boxes full of keep-sakes - old photos and such. From those, I have mined some blog stories.

During my senior year in high school, I was on the Annual staff. I don't remember how I got that assignment, but it was a demanding position - here we are, hard at work.

We had the last period of the day for Annual staff duties, we were often away from the campus on assignments, and best of all, the entire staff enjoyed a yearly trip to Austin to attend a conference and workshop. More about that trip in a moment.

My official title was "Art Director." That meant I was responsible for the art in the book. Here's the art. Somehow I ended up with the original, scotch tape-stained drawings, stored away in a box in our attic.

The character is a "Nebbish," based on a comic strip drawn by Herb Gardiner that was popular in the day. I drew them to use on the divider pages introducing the various sections of the book; Sports, Personalities, Classes and Organizations. Here's the the finished product.

About that trip to Austin - I have mentioned before that the UIL and extra-curriculum trips to Austin were highlights of the academic year, and we worked hard to get in on as many as possible. Here's the Annual staff, in front of the venerable Driskill Hotel, waiting for our chariot.

 Burk and I seem to have some kind of weapon in hand. I guess what happened in Austin should stay in Austin.  At least the UT campus police were not involved. Not on this trip.

Monday Meanderings - 7.15.2013

One of the regulars at Fran's is a fellow everybody calls "Coach," because he was for many years a coach at Reagan High, just across the highway. He has retired from active coaching but evidently his expertise is still in high demand: the other morning he received two phone calls while he was eating breakfast, both were complicated questions - judging from the half of the conversation we heard - about rules and regulations governing the game of baseball.

After he hung up, he said the two calls were from umpires at a youth baseball tournament. I asked him if he could explain the offside rule in soccer. And he could.

July is service month for Barb's Honda. After our visit last week for dealer service, we got new tires, and the other day a fellow from church who has a mobile brake service came by to check her brakes. She's good to go, but then it looks like August will be service month for the Highlander.

Reading at Learning Ally is heating up. I mentioned that I had taken a break while they were trying to get the AC repaired at the studio. Turns out that getting the place cool again is easier said than done. The architectural genius who designed the building placed the main AC unit in an attic space, but did not plan for adequate access to it.

There is not a door to the attic big enough to get the old, broken unit out and a new working unit back up there. To compound the error, the room with the access door to the attic was converted into a server room, and there are racks of computers and miles of wiring strung through the space now.

While they try to figure out how to deal with this double delima, they are limiting readers to morning sessions only. I read mornings, so I returned to duty this week. If you dress appropriately (read: hang a sheet over the window to the booth and slip into something comfortable) and you take frequent breaks, it is doable. Toasty, but doable.

Only 34 more days until Hatch Green Chili Festival, for those of you who are interested.

After setting aside the Attic treasure that we wanted to keep, and sorting out the ten boxes of Goodwill-worthy items, the rest went into the trash, or recycling bin. If you have more trash than fits in your bin, you have to buy "tags" to put on the extra bags or the city won't take them.

So far, in the great clean-out we have used five tags. There is no tag requirement for recycling - just put it out in recyclable containers and flatten cardboard boxes and tie them into 2X2 bundles. The only problem is that they only pick up recycling every two weeks. In the mean time, we have a garage full of items to be recycled. Looking forward to Wednesday!

Found in the Attic treasures -- a to-do list with only two items:

• Take car to mechanic
• Get marriage license

And speaking of cleaning out things, Barb has moved from the attic to the kitchen cabinets. Nothing is safe. In fact, I catch her watching me with a "Do we really need that anymore?" look. I'm getting nervous.

The treasure in the attic has been found!

I mentioned on Monday that my plan to get my children to empty the attic of 45+ years of accumulated stuff in search of some fabulous treasure that might have been inadvertently stored up there was not panning out. I guess I should take pleasure in knowing that my kids are smarter than their old man.

So Barb said Enough! and she crawled up there during our unusually cool mornings last week and dropped handed more than 2 dozen boxes full of stuff down on to me. With the garage floor covered in boxes, we then began the process of sorting through them, trying to determine what was of value and what might be disposed of. Let me just say that after going through a few dusty, crumbling boxes, our standards of what might be valuable dropped to an amazingly low level and we now have an empty attic and a garage full of bulging trash bags!

Goodwill will get a couple of boxes of useable items, and there were some things possibly of value to a teacher of little people, and enough dinosaur material to make up an entire year's curriculum. Barb insists that we did NOT recover any actual dinosaur artifacts, but I'm not so sure.

A number of boxes had old Christmas paraphernalia and Easter baskets and stuffed animals and such. Each item evoked a memory or two, and there were even a couple of misty-eyed moments, but thankfully, these were in the latter boxes and all our nostalgic moments were just about spent, so none of it escaped the trash!

And then there were the boxes of letters and keepsakes and old yearbooks and such. These we have set aside to cull through more carefully. Almost all of it will go into the recycling bin, but it is interesting to look at and comment on. Like pictures of old girl friends. "Why, no, honey - I don't even remember her name."

The big treasure? Okay, I admit that we did not find a long-lost Picasso original, or the violin from the Titanic. But we do treasure an empty attic, and I have a ton of blog material that you will soon see in a new series entitled "Stories from the Attic."

Monday Meanderings - 7.8.2013

After a wickedly hot weekend, last Monday brought low(er) temperatures and very little humidity.We had some running around to do; left Barb's car for service, enjoyed some Eggs Benedict at Mimi's (well, I did, anyway), went by Home Despot to look at some shrubs, and shopped for a 4th of July Tee for Barb. I even spent a few minutes with coffee on the patio after we got home. A fine morning (as long as one could get inside by noon).

With the cool morning, Barb was inspired to go through some of the boxes we have stored in the attic. I keep insisting that there is a treasure worth millions up there - say, a long-lost Picasso painting -  and someone should get all those boxes down and go through them all. So far, the kids are not falling for it, but we will have the last laugh.

Thus far, among other things, Barb has uncovered a stuffed Easter Bunny that belonged to Rob at, oh, about age four, a box of candle wax (no, not candles, just the wax after it all melts in a puddle), and most of the papers she wrote in college. But I'm positive that treasure is still up there!

I have had an extended vacation from reading at Learning Ally. The A/C went out there last week, and the sound-proof booths that we read in are NOT the place to be when the temperatures are in the triple digits. In fact, they are uncomfortably warm when the A/C is working. Repairs are slow in coming - looks like I will have this week off as well.

Barb's car is the original "owned by a little old lady who only drove it to church on Sundays." Low, low mileage, but getting high in years, so it's a hassle to figure out what kind of service should be performed. Even the service tech had to ask his boss about the spark plugs - replace based on mileage or time?

He told Barb that he had a car back on the lot that a guy brought in to have the plugs changed and it has been more than a year and he hasn't been back to pick it up. Maybe he's saving up his money to pay the bill.

And speaking of autos, just so you'll know, if I had my leg hanging out the window while I drove, it would be because it had become unattached, and I was headed to the ER to have it put back on!

Noticed a small item in the Optimist

Last week in the ACU campus newspaper:

    "A smoke machine in one of the dorm rooms in Mabee Hall caused the fire alarm to go off on Thursday night. ACU Police responded to the incident.

    Jordan Bunch, area coordinator of Mabee Hall said, the smoke machine was included in a party in one of the rooms.

    The ACU Police responded to the alarm at 9:30 p.m. Thursday night and showed up to Mabee Hall before the fire department...“There wasn’t any kind of illegal activity going on other than the fire alarm being activated,” said Chief Ellison from the ACU Police Department.

    There isn’t a rule against smoke machines in the dorm rooms, however, Bunch said the smoke machine itself wasn’t the issue, it was the smoke. ACU is charged $250 every time the fire department is called.

    “It wasn’t that big of a deal except for the fact that the fire department had to come out and we had to evacuate the building because we thought there was a fire,” said Bunch.

    The residents who were involved took responsibility for their actions and wish to remain anonymous.

    The consequences for those involved remain unknown. The incident is still being processed through judicial affairs."

Really? There are so many things of interest in this story, I don't know where to start.

First, the idea of having a party in a dorm room! I lived in Mabee dorm and the rooms are about 12X12. Put 2 beds, a desk and a footlocker or two in there and you could squeeze in about 5 guys. And if it's a party, there's a stereo, oh, and don't forget the smoke machine.

A smoke machine? Just what mood were were we trying to evoke here? I can't figure what a bunch of guys would do in a room full of smoke that they didn't personally create. Do you suppose there were girls at this party? It would make sense to fill the room with smoke if that were the case, but I don't even want to go there.

There isn’t a rule against smoke machines in the dorm rooms? How did that slip by the administration? I think it's in the same section as the nuclear weapons.

They evacuated the dorm because of a little smoke? I can't tell you how many hall trash cans were set on fire during my dorm life. I'm not sure we ever had a drill, let alone evacuate the dorm!

The residents who were involved ... wish to remain anonymous. Really? Everyone on campus knew the names of  "the residents who were involved" within two hours!

The incident is still being processed through judicial affairs? When I was there, I knew guys who were dorm residents at 4pm and were catching the bus home by bed check.

Some time I need to tell you about bowling in the hallways. Real bowling balls, real bowling pins. Now that was a party.

Monday Meanderings - 7.1.2013

You know how, when you place an order at Chick-Fil-A, they ask you for your name so that they can call it when your order is ready? Did you know that in addition to your name they record other information about you?

Yes, I was wearing a blue button-up shirt. The NSA would be proud. BTY, that MlkShk Pch (peach) Lg is totally worth it. You won't find it at Sonic, 25 flavors or no.

You may find it interesting that Apple ear-buds are washable. It is my understanding that iPhones are not. Glad it was the ear-buds I left in my pocket and not the phone.

It was hot this weekend, dear hearts. It reached 106° on Friday and 108° on Saturday. That's hot. The good news, according to the weatherman was that it felt like it was 106° and 108° - none of this phony temperature business. When it's that hot, you do your errands early in the day and then then go home and bunker up. We even flipped a coin to see who had to go out and get the mail.

Spent more money this week on a pair of shoes than I have ever spent on any shoes before - and they were walking shoes. You know, what we used to call "tennis shoes." Found out the hard way that you can't cheap out on your shoes if you are serious about spending time on the treadmill. Barb said, "I told you... oh, never mind."

Almost weekly Austin seems to be on some top 10 list: best place to start a family, best place to start a business, best place to start a list. Saw one recently that listed Austin as one of the top-10 Terribly Overrated Destinations. The author listed popular vacation sites such as Buenos Aires, the Caribbean, San Francisco and Chicago, but placed Austin as the #1 overrated spot, "a city whose entire purpose for breathing is to not be like everything else around it." He then suggests traveling instead to (wait for it) Houston, which he calls an “impressively creative and very fun town” despite being, in his words, “so ugly that sometimes you may be tempted to put a bag over its head.”

Yes. I agree. Visit Houston instead. Please. Then maybe we won't have to stand in line to get good BBQ.