I tried this before but didn't know how to get rid of the annoying music.
We had a rainy spring and early summer and the yard has bloomed because of it. Stepping out of the front door under that large English Walnut feels like New England. It has beautiful cool shade and save lots on AC.
Marilyn had really kept up with the garden and like the joke says, "If I do not lock the car door at church it will be full of zucchini" and we have scads of it. Now we have many loaves of zucchini bread.
Enjoy the show.

Rainbow

The rainbow is God's Reminder that he will not flood the world again. Today the heaven's opened up and poured for about 20 minutes. Lightening flashed and Thunder immediately followed meaning a very close hit.
I remembered that I had left the truck windows open so I dashed out to the car, stepped into a 3 inch deep puddle in front of the steps, ran to the truck , observed a 3 ft wide river running down the brand new sidewalk and jumped into the truck. My seat squished and my rear became soaked instantly but I did get the windows closed.
Marilyn glanced out our east facing picture window and said "Look at the beautiful rainbow!" so I dashed out again to take the pictures.
To my astonishment there was a partial double rainbow!. Believe me it was more beautiful than the pictures show. But enjoy it anyway

DAD

Today we celebrated my 50-20th birthday. (yeah that really is 70 but...) The city of Orem has a system of about 20 local parks and we met in Nielsen's Grove on 2000 South. It is well maintained and handy to get to. We had about 35 attend and it was very rewarding to have new friends from the mission and ward, older friends from the earlier mission and old friends from much earlier in life.
At heart I am a little doubtful of my contribution to life and this was a great ego booster for me. A lot of nice things were said. Kristen took pictures and I will post them in a day or so.
Physically it was very tiring as I was on my feet for 2 hours talking to friends.
However, I am very grateful to Melissa who organized the 'potluck' and Mom for the cake and to all who made me feel very special.
Thank you all who attended. I love and appreciate you, your friendship and support. It gives me incentive to want to celebrate my 50-25 accomplishment.

Bowling

Seeing Rachel’s blog about her son Allan’s (my namesake) interest in bowling reminded me about my experience in bowling.

In 1966/67 I was stationed at the Guided Missiles School at Dam Neck, Virginia, located just south of Virginia Beach, teaching computer maintenance. I was participating in the base intramural bowling league and having a ball (pun intended). Money was tight so when I heard about a job opening at the bowling alley, I applied and started right away. At first I was just a cashier but opted to be trained on the AMF pinsetter machines and became a mechanic. Soon they eliminated the cashier position and gave the mechanic double duty. Lucky me! One of the benefits of the job was free bowling so I took advantage and soon built my average from 135 to 165 then tried out for and made the base bowling team. There were those who did not believe I would make it but I proved them wrong.

There are several military bases in the Norfolk /Virginia Beach area and they sponsored a scratch (no handicap) league that toured the bases. The base recreation department bought us fancy shirts and we practiced on Saturday morning’s right after the alley’s weekly maintenance period. Most of the members of the team also worked at the bowling alley so we were already there. Dam Neck being a small base did not have the talent to draw from as the other bases did so consequently we finished at the bottom of this league. But it was a real experience.

The team also joined a local 900 scratch money league. The 900 figure was based on a sanctioned league average of 180 and the total of the 5 members starting average had to be less than 900. This leveled the playing field and there was a lot of very close games. My sanctioned summer league average was 165 which allowed a couple of our guys with 185 and 190 averages to be on the team. In actuality my starting average was much closer to 175. Because it was a money league each participant added $1.50 per week above our bowling fees which went into a pot that the paid out at the end of the season. Our team won 1st place in the league mainly because of my low starting average and better performance during the league.

During the season I had several games near 235 and in the base intramural league I had a 285 game with a string of 9 strikes. I saw one of the other bowlers in the money league string 15 strikes (should be a perfect 300 but…), 3 to close out the first game and then string 9 more. In the first ball of the 10th frame he bowled a strike but stepped on the foul line so it negated that strike but he closed out with 2 more strikes for a 290. The tension of bowling that well builds with each strike and you really have to control your emotions and shut out everything else to continue successfully. Bowling is not just a physical game but a mental game as well as is every sport.

At the end of the season we entered a local money tournament and came in second place. I got real hot in this tournament and bowled a 657 (average of 219) for the three games. That pushed us way up in the score. We actually came out with the high scratch score but due to starting handicaps one other team beat us by a whisker.

At this time in my life I did not understand the Words of Wisdom however I did learn an allied lesson. I learned that just the slightest bit of alcohol would alter my timing and throw off my score by 10 to 20 pins. Just like booze and driving do not mix, booze and sports do not mix. Bowling is a mechanical sport requiring one to repeat your delivery accurately every time. Then knowing the mathematics of the angles of delivery of the ball will get one to the 175 average easily. Better bowlers then learn to read the physics of the lane to predict what the ball will do each time it rolls down the lane and alter their delivery angle and speed to compensate. The best bowlers also learn to control their emotions so that their performance is repeatable. Adrenalin does funny things to you and the excitement of stringing strikes together raises the tension significantly. Learning to handle the emotions in those kinds of situations tells the difference between a good player and a very good player. Physical conditioning also plays a part so that you do not tire altering your consistency.

However, I have probably have been bowling 5 times since then because of ships schedules, growing family needs and much different priorities in life. I had a great time that season and learned some life long lessons. Now I am just too far out of shape (round is a shape) to bowl again.

New Calling

In the Mormon Church we have a lay leadership and almost everybody serves in one way or another. I have had mostly leadership positions starting with Cub Master with the responsibility to form a new cub pack in a Navy Housing area in Charleston, SC. Currently I serve a part time Church Service Missionary position of providing telephone support for the church's genealogy computer products. In that position I supervise 8 missionaries.

Today Marilyn and I were called to be Primary Nursery workers. This is the class for 18 mo to 3 yr old children. We get to play Grandpa and Grandma on a big basis. We get to "Play"! I hope that I can physically handle it but I know Marilyn can. My daughter Rachel is also a Primary Nursery leader so we will get lots of help and tips from her.

Pray for us and give us tips.

At least it is a blog entry.

See I already am displaying my ignorance and my daughter corrected me and I have edited it. so Monday we will purchase the Nursery manual at the distribution center which is 2 blocks from home.

When we had to stoke the furnace

I was surfing the net and ran across an article in the Norwich Bulletin http://www.norwichbulletin.com/billstanley/x497795835/Once-Upon-a-Time-There-was-a-time-when-winters-were-colder about times when winters were colder. It started me thinking about how we heat our homes. Today we take no thought as to where our heat comes from until it is absent. All we do is turn the thermostat up or down when we are cold or hot. It is like magic. Electronic sensors read the temperature and turn the automatic furnace on and off when it reaches the selected temperature. It is the same process with the air conditioner. It was a lot different when I was younger.

When I lived in Norwich in 1950 we had a coal fired steam heating system. There was a rudimentary thermostat to adjust the temperature in the house however, the furnace required banking at night and lots of work in the morning and attention during the day to keep the fire going to heat the water to make steam. It was a laborious task. I do not remember the processes in previous homes but assume it was similar.

Early in the morning Dad would start the ritual by shaking down the ashes from the previous nights burning. This process consisted of placing a handle on the outside connection of the grates at the bottom of the fire box. Then turning it back and forth so that the burned coal ashes and clinkers (unburned impurities left over in the burning process) to fall through the grate into the ash pit. This allowed room for fresh fuel to be added. One had to have enough experience to not allow the hot coals to escape yet remove enough ashes that they did not retard the fire. You also had to pick out the "clinkers" (residue from low quality coal that wouldn't burn.) That way you had something to start the next batch of coal burning. It took a careful eye watching the process and then also avoiding getting the ash dust all over you.

The next step was to shovel out the ashes into a 5 gallon paint pail for later discarding, close the ash pit door and adjust the intake damper, shovel in some fresh coal, check sight glass to gauge the water level in the boiler and add more as necessary. Then came the patience of waiting for the fire to build up to heat the water to make steam and for the steam to heat the radiators and the room to warm. This process would take about 20 minutes before the room became comfortably warm. In the mean time as the steam came out of the boiler the pipes would create a cacophony of clanks and groans from heat expansion or the pipes with the final hiss of the release valve at the end of the radiator pronouncing heat has arrived.

Adding more coal during the day usually fell to my mother as she was the only on at home and if heat was needed there was no one else to do it.

At night the process was nearly the same except you “banked the furnace” with several shovels-full of coal and the damper in the exhaust flue was nearly closed and the dampers on the ash pit door were tightened down to reduce the air flow. This slowed the burning of the coal, lowering the temperature of the water, lowering the temperature in the house and keeping the fire going for the next eight hours with little or no attention.

The process of getting coal to the coal bin was also labor intensive. Because there wasn’t an access to the coal bin delivery was by hand from the street. A 10 ton dump truck brought a load of coal to the front of the house. Usually there were two people to deliver the load, a driver and a loader. Once parked the driver would elevate the dump body enough that the coal would gravity feed out the dump gate in the rear of the dump body. The loader would shoulder a container and place it under the dump gate and the driver would open the gate and fill the bag with about 100 lbs of coal. The loader walked up the steps, to the side of the house where they had slid a coal chute through a small window right over the coal bin. After about 20 loads we had a ton of coal which would last about a week in the winter. Cost was about $5 per ton delivered when $100 per week was very good income.

Be very grateful that all you have to do is turn up or down the thermostat.
Next issue is the kerosene oil fired kitchen stove.

Memories of Norwich, Connecticut

Memories

I grew up in Norwich, Connecticut and I have many memories of how it was in the nostalgic good old days. I was looking for some material for this blog and was surfing Google and ran into some stories by Bill Stanley in the Norwich Bulletin. He is a writer for the Bulletin and has been, along with his brother Jim, an ardent supporter of Norwich. I recommend that you follow these links and read some of these stories of how it was in good old Norwich.

Kids don’t play in the street anymore http://www.norwichbulletin.com/billstanley/x84119579/Kids-don-t-play-in-the-streets-anymore

There was a time when winters were colder:
http://www.norwichbulletin.com/billstanley/x497795835/Once-Upon-a-Time-There-was-a-time-when-winters-were-colder

Norwich’s beauty has faded: http://www.norwichbulletin.com/billstanley/x408977635/Once-Upon-a-Time-Norwich-s-beauty-has-faded

Growing up in the 50’s was a good time of my life. These stories bring back memories

Allan

OK. What would you like to know about me and my life? Send me an email or comment to this blog and let me know.

Dad

My most memorable automobiles

CARS

I have owned many cars in my life time but there are three that are most memorable. Well maybe four. Or five. To a young man his car is an important thing. It is a statement of his personality. Sorry but this is a long blog entry.

The first car that I owned was a 1946 Ford Coupe. I never registered it but owned it just before I joined the Navy. I worked at an Esso service station in Norwichtown, Ct and stored it on their lot for a while and tinkered with it there. I did some real dumb things in those days. I would drive my dad’s car a 1956 Dodge 4 door sedan to work. After work I would take the plates off the Dodge and put them onto the Ford and go for a joy ride. The real dumb thing was that my dad’s plates said “HALE” on them and dad was very well known in the area. IF I had even been noticed I would have been in real trouble!

One night I was chasing my girl friend who owned a 1955 Chevy ( overhead valve V8 boss car) in 1957 and she went one way and I went the other. I braked, slid sideways into a Church parking lot; slammed it into reverse popped the clutch and an awful grinding noise came up from the transmission! I had torn out the cluster gear which is used to change first gear into reverse. I pushed the car around with the help of a buddy who was with me and limped back to the garage using second and high gears. A few days later I got dad to tow me across town to the house and parked it in the one car garage we had and started to change the transmission. I got the old transmission out and the new one part way in when I went into the Navy in October 1957. Dad sold it to the neighbor for $75. I was not very responsible in those days. I never did date that girl but wanted to.

After boot camp I went back to Great Lakes, IL to Electronics Technician School. Two buddies and I decided we needed transportation and there was a notice on the bulletin board for a 1947 Buick 4 door sedan. It was powered by a straight 8 engine and had nice cloth seats and lots of room. We could and did crowd 8 guys into it. We each put up $25 and were told that we could register it with an insurance man across town. He gave us a receipt for the $30 which we taped to the rear window and drove it for next four months with no plates or insurance. We were in a Navy town with the ‘honest folks’ just hanging around to help us. We would go to the trolley station just outside the main gate and pick up 4 or 5 boots from the recruit training center and for $5 each, give them a ride to Chicago about 40 miles down Rte 41 from Training Center in North Chicago, IL. That way we had money to blow and they got into town much quicker.

We literally ran the H… out of that car. When I got transferred to Connecticut in August the one remaining buddy drove us to the Indiana Turnpike and we hitchhiked home leaving him our share of the car. The car’s muffler had blown a hole in it and the local police told us that if they ever caught us with the car they would throw us in jail! We used to spend the weekends in Chicago enjoying the sights and would roar up Rt 41 and then on the road leading into town and to avoid the cops and coast into the parking lot where we stored the car. We did have one close call when the cops pulled in to the parking lot just after we had arrived. That is when the warning about catching us was issued. Oh well we only had a couple of weeks to go and didn’t care what happened after the transfer. Life as a single sailor had few goals in mind and responsibility for a dying car was not part of it.

One Saturday after spending the night at a flop house in Chicago at $3 a night each we went to the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. We were standing on the front steps in our whites with our Dixie cup hats on the back of our heads and our neckerchief pulled up high looking real cool when up pulled 3 bus loads of college students from Northwestern University. Two of them were full of girls. We were working out how we could meet up with them when 3 girls (just enough to go around) came up to us. One of the girls said that her brother was in the Navy. He was stationed on the USS Forestall (only 5,000 guys on that tub) and did we know him? Righttttttt. We had some fun dating them a couple of times and discovered that she was an only child. But I digress.

One weekend, as we were leaving Chicago we turned right onto Rt 41 and went through a yellow light. A cop pulled us over. The first thing out of his mouth was “I didn’t pull you over for no plates but for going though a red light. Do you guys have enough to pay the fine?” We had met one of Chicago’s finest “honest” cops looking for a few bucks by hitting on some sailors from the training station up the road. Well we had about 4 bucks between us so he disgustedly told us to get out of there. Nice to have such upstanding honest cops to protect us.

I was stationed at the New London Sub Base, (actually in Groton, Ct just across the river) as my first duty station out of Electronics Technician School in 1958. At first I lived in the barracks on the base and went home to Norwich, Ct on the weekends (12 miles up river from the Sub Base). That became a real drag quickly. No home cooked food and I had to make my bunk as soon as I got out of it. I looked around for a car and a ‘dealer’ in Preston, Ct had a 1951 Ford Crown Victoria hardtop convertible 2 door at a very reasonable price. So I purchased it. Nice, top of the line automobile. I drove that car for about 2 months when it developed a shimmy in the front end. A friend put it up on the lift and told me that the steering box was broken loose from the frame! Bad news! My dad knew the dealer so ‘discussed’ the deal with him. It turned out that he only had a junk dealer’s license and could not legally sell cars. I got my money back and they got the car back. This dealer also owned an orchard so dad had dealings with him. Dad said that he cheated on selling apples too. Apparently the car had been in an accident and been sloppily repaired. No wonder I got it at such a cheap price. I learned that price doesn’t mean everything and to really trust ‘used car dealers’. I went car shopping again.

The next car was the most memorable one. The local Ford dealer had a 1954 Mercury Monterey convertible, canary yellow with tan leather upholstery, three speed standard shift with over drive. Another very nice car with lots of trimming. It had a 256 ci 161 hp flathead V8 and I quickly replaced the muffler with a Hollywood glass pack muffler that gave a nice rumble to it! I traveled all over Southeastern Connecticut and even to Burlington, Vt in this car.

My first ‘incident’ with the car was pulling up onto Rt 184 the main road from RI to New London across the Gold Star Memorial Bridge which crossed the Thames River between New London and Groton. I pulled up on to the 4 lane highway and a car started to pass me in the left lane so I gunned it. With the motor blatting thru my glass pack I thought I was something! However, right behind us was the local Groton cop! As I pulled ahead of the car on my left the cop turned on his siren and light. I got a ticket for passing on the right and thought I was lucky not to get nailed for racing and speeding. I paid the $50 willingly.

My second incident taught me a very significant lesson. I had been at a dance on the other side of town and was coming through downtown Norwich at about 1 AM. I was a little fast and noticed a cop going the other way. I gunned it and beat feet home. Thinking I had got off scot free I parked the car in the drive way and was walking into the house when the cop pulled into the driveway behind me. He opened the door and leaned across it and said, “Allan! Don’t do that again!” got back into the cruiser and took off. I stood there stunned! I did not know him and he couldn’t have seen who I was. However, that canary yellow Mercury convertible was the only one in Connecticut and they knew the car and knew who owned it. If you own a distinctive car it will get noticed. Especially by the cops! Lesson learned!

I got the bug for a new car when I saw a 1961 Triumph TR3 2 seat sports car. I made the deal to trade the Mercury and took off for a weekend in upstate NY. While there a friend had a 1955 Mercury 4 door sedan that I thought was about an even swap and he wanted my car. We swapped pink slips and I traded the 55 for the TR3. The dealer was a little put out as he could have made more money on the convertible but wanted to sell the TR3 so it was a done deal.

The TR3 is the sexiest car I have owned. I had a ball with this little car zipping around curves etc. Vauxhall Road Extension winds and twists as a back road from New London to Waterford and I got pretty good at “heel and toe” shifting and driving. That is a technique where you stomp on the brake going into the turn with your toe and push the gas with your heel to down shift and match the engine rpm with the lower gear and accelerate out of the corner rapidly speeding up through the 4 speed transmission gears. Very exciting!

I let my dad drive the car on a back road when another car approached us from the front. Dad pulled to the right sharply then overcorrected to the left and back to the right again. The car zigzagged about three times until I grabbed the wheel to straighten it out. Dad sure was not used to that quick positive steering that almost moved by thought rather than deliberate action like the big Ford he owned.

The TR3 had a tonneau cover that covered that passenger seat, leather and plastic side windows that were removable and a canvas top for a combination of configurations. I stored these items into the ‘boot’ (trunk to the uninitiated) which had little room for anything else. If I needed to haul anything it had to fit behind my seat in the little cubby there. Really only a 2 passenger car meant for short hauls. I did go on a few dates when I owned this car but it was in her car. No room in the back seat for….

One night a friend and I went out to have a couple of beers and had a few too many. I knew that I was not in a condition to drive so I asked Tom to drive. He said “I used to own a Jaguar. Let me take it through the curves.” My judgment was a little damp so I acceded. Big mistake! We barely made it through the first curve by 3 feet and slid off into a ditch. I ended up on my fanny out the door in a mud puddle while still hanging onto the chicken bar (a grab handle on the dash on the passenger side and no seat belts.) To this day I do not know why that car did not roll over on top of me and kill me. I have an idea now that the Lord had future plans for me and preserved me from my stupidity. The wire wheels were caked with mud and Tom had busted the windshield with his head. We pulled out the fenders, hosed out the wheels and replaced the windshield and I started looking for another car.

A place like Costco in VA Beach had a deal with the local Ford dealer so I checked it out and ordered a 1962 Ford Hardtop convertible, chestnut brown with a cream top, three speed on the column (I had plans to replace it with a 4 speed on the floor) and a 390 V8. They found a car like it but had to paint the top. I nixed the deal. The salesman said “Take my car for the weekend to see if you like it.” It was a 1962 Ford Galaxie convertible. So off I went to Virginia Beach with the car looking for girls. I told the dealer that I would buy it if I picked up a girl with it. Would I ever admit I couldn’t pick up a girl? Well I did pick up a girl but it was several months later and I married her which is another entire story. We kept the car until it became a necessity to transport a son and later a daughter so it got traded for a 1965 Volvo 122 S Station wagon. Big Change.

The day I got home to Norwich with the 62 convertible Dad offered me a deal. Mom and Dad were on their way to Arizona for a County Agents convention and wanted to trade cars for the duration. I said sure no problem. I guess that they had a good time as when they got back Dad told me that Mom got sunburned on the thighs as they were driving along with the top down and she had her skirt pulled way up. Learned her lesson quickly that the sun is stronger in Arizona and that the top really did provide protection.

We took this car on the ferry to Long Island to attend the races at Bridgehampton,. The ferry was full so if I wanted to go I had to load it in the back of an empty trailer truck. If not, then I could wait for the next ferry. I put the top down so I could get out of the car and drove it in. 2 inches to spare on each side and got out over the trunk. We had a great time at the races that day but decided that we would take the long way back through NYC. No more trailer truck parking for me.

While I was dating Eleanor she lived in Andover, Mass and I spent a lot of weekends there. Monday mornings were tough driving back as it was before the Interstates were built and it was a long way home. I used to put the top down in the winter so the wind could keep me awake at 3 AM.

I have had many cars since then but these were the most memorable ones. It sure is fun to remember those good old times.