My recent Operation and my Diet

This a before and after picture of my aorta anurism.




I have had an enlarged Aorta for years, This is the large vein that runs from your heart down the center of your body and splits into two veins that continue down both legs. It is common in older men for it’s walls to become weak and enlarge like a balloon. For several years it had remained at 5.2 centimeters, a borderline measurement. If this vein ruptures there would be no time to get to a hospital, you would surely die.

During a checkup for back pain an X-Ray showed that my aorta had grown to 5.7 cm. and the doctor said my heart was too weak to survive surgery but suggested I was a good candidate for implant that would line the walls of the aorta that would prevent rupture. I scheduled an operation for January 12, 2009 to have the procedure done, Although it was major surgery It was suppose to be routine and they would probably only keep me for 1 day.

The surgery went well and there were no complications from the procedure. There was the danger that inserting the implant could dislodge some plaque and form a clot that could stop my heart, another danger that the discharge of plaque could lodge in my kidney, (I only have one, I was born with only one) and cause kidney failure.

While in the recovery room I was doing OK until that night when I started having trouble breathing and I was told later that all my vital signs began dropping rapidly. They inserted a tube down my throat and inserted a ventilator which did my breathing for me , They also inserted a tube down my nose to my stomach in order to provide nutrients to my body. I was told I came very close to not making it. And there are two days missing that I remember nothing about.

My daughters were there for me from the beginning and they took turns staying with me around the clock until I started to feel alive again. What should have been a routine procedure turned into a 10 day ordeal. I am a very lucky man to be able to sit here and document my experience.

My next few entries will describe my stay in the hospital and my decision to rehabilitate my body which was falling apart. I am now seeing 5 different doctors and have started an intensive diet plan. I am on the following diet:
· Low calorie
· Low Sugar
· Low salt
· Low carb
· Low food

My Niece Robin asked me about my time served during the Korean war, What Korean war? If you research it you will discover there never was a Korean War! Our government refused to call it a war even though 33,600 American died for their cause and more than 100,000 wounded.

It was know as The Korean "conflict" in Washington and also was known as a "Police Action" in the early days as we were only supposed to help the South Koreans in their Civil War. Let me tell you, It was a WAR!. It started when North Korea launched a massive surprise attack against the South on June 25, 1950. It finally ended in July 1953. I served in the Navy aboard the Battleship USS Wisconsin. We patrolled the coast of Korea in late 1952 and early 1953 bombarding coastal targets. No one won this "War"!

On April 11, 1951, President Truman announced the dismissal of Gen. Douglas MacArthur from his duties as Allied Commander of United Nations forces in the Far East. As commander, MacArthur led U.N. forces north to the Chinese border, but was forced to retreat south as China entered the fight with North Korea in November 1950. By late winter of 1951, the U.N. forces had regrouped against communist forces, and fighting continued along the 38Th parallel. President Truman was furious as he felt MacArthur was exceeding his orders. This was a real shock to most of us in the service as he had been the commander in chief under our presidents since WWI. But that's another story.

I spent many nights at "Battle Stations" as we patrolled and bombarded the shoreline refineries and oil depots with our 16" projectiles which weighed more than a ton and could hit a target more than 20 miles away. I have always been thankful that I served in the navy and not had to endure the hardships that the Marines and the Army suffered ashore. We had a comfortable place to sleep and 3 warm meals a day out of harms way.

When the troops came home from WWI there were ticker tape parades and celebrations as we welcomed home the troops from overseas. There were even bigger parades and celebrations as the troops returned from WW2 to our shores. The Viet Nam war was similar to the Korean one in the sense everyone felt we should never been there in the first place, Nevertheless In all three wars there were honors and accolades bestowed on all the returning Vets. There always seemed to be a program to help with education, welfare, health

In those days men of my age were assigned a draft number according to your birth date. In 1951 I was going to be 20 years old in July and I was worried about the draft.

The Mighty Mo

My daughter asked "Do you know the significance of using the Missouri Battleship to sign Japan's surrender in 1945 for this? I sure do! It is really a very simple answer. At the time Harry S. Truman (Also known as "Old Hairy Ass") was President of the United States. It was he who decided to drop the Atomic bombs on Japan which ended the war, It was tragic for the Japanese people who lost hundreds of thousands of people in the bombings (2) but it would have been much worse if the Allied forces would have to invade the Japanese homeland as the Japanese people had sworn to fight to the last man, woman and child if necessary. There would have been tremendous loss’s on both sides. It must have been a difficult decision for President Truman to make. When it was time to sign the surrender papers President Truman chose the Battleship Missouri as the historic site for the ceremony. The reason, He was from Independence Missouri, Pronounced "Mizoura" in that neck of the woods. It was also a show of force to the rest of the world of the might of the United States, the largest Battleship in the world was anchored in Tokyo Bay and the Japanese Emissaries were forced to come on board and surrender formally to the allied forces. The ceremonies were held on the upper deck next to the #2-16" gun turret, My battle station was #2-16" gun turret on the Wisconsin so I can relate to that. the "Missouri" was one of the Iowa Class battleships of WW Two, There were 4 of them. The Iowa, The New Jersey, The Missouri and the one I served on "The Wisconsin, The largest of the 4 ships.

¿Si Habla Español?

Most people in my family know I do not care for spicy food. Even mild Salsa burns my tongue. I cannot understand why the majority of the population enjoys this taste sensation. Why would anyone put something in their mouth that will cause a burning sensation? I will never understand it. This feeling was fortified when my daughter Diane and her husband & kids went out to dinner the other day. I wanted to go to Texas Roadhouse but when we pulled up to the lot there were at least 25-30 people waiting outside the entrance and another equal crowd waiting inside. Since I know that Mexican food is their favorite I suggested we go the the Acapulco which was nearby, I figured "what the heck, Surely I could find something on the menu I could eat" So we went, You might know they had Salsa and Tortilla chips on the table, I was told they were mild, To me it was HOT!. Any way I saw they had a small steak on the menu with shrimp on top, It said it had a Chipolata sauce on it so I ordered it plain, NO SAUCE! with fries. When it came It also had on the plate some tan colored rice that was bland tasting and there was also what looked like country gravy but I was told it was re fried beans, it too was tasteless and I did not order either but it came with the meal. My steak as it turned out had a white looking gravy on it and I was told that was because the shrimp that came with it was cooked in a sauce. The steak was thin and did not have a lot of flavor but at least it was not SPICY HOT! Or so I thought!



As I was cutting the meat and eating it I came across what I thought was a small piece of meat so I cut it in half and started chewing on it. After chewing on it for awhile it suddenly became apparent to me my lips, tongue, throat, and all the way to my stomach were suddenly on fire. I jumped to my feet trying to figure out what was going on, I was coughing, gaging, trying to get my breath and jumping up and down trying to calm the pain. Eventually it subsided a little as I gulped down my Iced Tea. Ryan informed me that I had probably eaten a Jalapeno or a Habanaro pepper. I thought I was near death. You cannot tell me people enjoy eating these things. It has to be they are showing off by eating them or they have no taste buds left.

If you want to see how I reacted click on this u-tube link. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8ip5oGlMfU

Remembering the old days.

My niece Robin was reminiscing about yesteryear and asked me a series of questions about what I remember. Her first question was, How did you survive without air conditioning?
For the most part we never missed it because we never had any, we were lucky to have a bed to sleep in. It was important to have a door and window open on each end of the house so you could get a cross breeze, you had to keep the window blinds down on the sunny side of the house to block the sun. We lived on 2nd. street in what was known as the bottoms in Cincinnati. It was where the coliseum is now close to the Cincinnati Reds baseball stadium. It was a low income or as in our case was a no income brick house. we lived on the 2nd, floor in what was known as a cold water flat. No hot water and no toilet, that was an antique that was out in the hall.

We never had any window screens so we had to keep the fly swatters busy plus the fly paper. There were two types of this, one was just a letter size sheet covered with a gooey sweet smelling molasses like coating that once the fly landed there was no way it could get loose. Every once in awhile I would forget it was lying there and touch it and had to scrub my hands with soap & water to get it off. The other type was a round vial that held a curled up piece of fly paper about one inch wide curled inside it. You pulled on a string on one end and it pulled out of the vial about two feet long and then you would hang it up to trap the flies, usually somewhere near the food. I don't remember any neighborhood swimming pools to cool off in I until was about 12 and we lived on Milton street in Mt. Auburn. When I was very little my mom would put buckets of cold water in a wash tub on the sidewalk in front of the house. This was fun for awhile until the water started to heat up and then it became too much like taking a bath. I remember once on a very hot night my Mom put down a quilt on the fire escape outside our window and we lay there to cool off. There was a week that the temperature was above 90 for a week or more and the house and everything in it heated up so much that even at night it did not cool off. It was like trying to sleep in an oven. One night when it was unbearable my Mom & Dad packed up some quilts and all of us went to Eden Park ( A very long walk from our house) and we spread out on the grass and spent the night there. Later in life when I was in the Navy we never had air conditioning there either, When I was stationed in New Orleans We had screens covering the open windows as the mosquito's would have eaten you alive if they did not. They were so bad there that a jeep used to go up and down every street on the base spraying a thick fog of DDT bug killer every night. I used to breath in a lot of that DDT, it's a wonder I'm still alive.

No one I knew had air conditioning in their cars either, We had what was called a cozy wing, a triangular window in front of the side window that let in plenty of air as long as you were moving. After I married I bought a convertible and I thought I was living High. You had to open both cozy wings and raise the sun visors up to deflect the wind so it didn't mess up your passengers hair. Now that is what I called Air Conditioning. Even in our first house we did not have Air, We had a large fan mounted in the ceiling of the hallway. It was supposed to draw in air through open windows and exhaust it into the attic crawl space. It never did work, it was burnt out when we moved in and I had it repaired once and it burnt out again within a week, I never did get it fixed again, I did not know it then but there was not enough vents in the attic to release the air from the fan and it burnt out from the pressure. Our house we built on Retswood Drive in Loveland was the first time we had air conditioning. I don't remember ever wishing I had it when we didn't. I do remember going to the basement family room in the house on Enyart road whenever I could because it was always cool there as it was below ground level.

Most of us nowadays take the automobile and it's accessories for granted. When I first started driving, it was very different than it is now. My first car was a 1930 Model A coupe with a rumble seat. an exterior seat which opens out from the rear deck of a pre-World War II car and seats one or more passengers. It was originally designed for servants.

One of the things cars in those days did not have were turn signals. These were invented in 1925 but none of the auto manufacturers were interested in them, the first cars to have them were in 1939. One of the cars I had in the early 1950's did not have them either but they were being sold as an accessory you could install yourself. It consisted of a lever that was strapped to your steering column and boxes with lighted arrows on each side you could attach to your doors. there was a lot of controversy when these first came out, people were running into each other because they did not see the signal or did not understand them, some thought that an arrow pointing to the right meant it was OK to pass on the right. Many cities banned them in favor of hand signals.
Another thing they did not have was an automatic transmission. You had to know how to shift gears in order to drive, The first semi-automatic transmission which was marketed by a major manufacturer was the Chrysler. It was an attempt to compete against rivals', although it still had a clutch, primarily to change range. The main difference was the addition of a fluid coupling between engine and clutch, and the shifting mechanism. In normal driving, the clutch was not used.





Another innovation was Power Steering, Again in 1951 Chrysler was one of the first to have it. If your engine ever quits while you are moving in today's cars you realize how much you need it, especially with a front wheel drive car with all that engine wight and wide tires, It is almost impossible to steer. Can you believe all of the following were introduced in the last 50 Years?

How about leaving a comment on what I have forgotten what we now enjoy.

Seat Belts, I installed my own in 1957. You had to drill a hole in the floor on both sides of the seat, and install a large bolt. you needed a buddy to tighten it from underneath. It was just a lap belt, I don't remember if shoulder belts were available then.


Cozy wing windows.

Air conditioning, You had to open the cozy wing windows yo get some cool air.

Power Steering

Power Brakes

Power Seats

Heated Seats, I never did have these.

Leather seats

4 wheel drive

Tubeless tires

Disk brakes

Remote entry

Fuel injection

Sealed beam headlights

Radios CD/DVD Players

Satellite Radio

GPS Navigation

Varible speed windshield wipers

airbags

Rear view mirrors

Spotlight mounted on drivers side, just like the cops had.

Rear view video camera

CB Radio, "Breaker One Nine" (Talk to the truckers)

Dvd player for the kids

I saw on TV that what we call margarine is good for you, This particular ad extolled "Everything's better with Blue Bonnet On It" I wondered about that so I retrieved my tub from the fridge. Surprise, Surprise! No where on the product does it say "Margarine".

It says "Fresh Creamy Taste, "Everything's better with Blue Bonnet On It" ""No Cholesterol, "Homestyle" "No Trans Fat" but no where does it say "Margarine" SO!!! Exactly what is it that I am eating? First of all I discovered that if you put it on hot toast, it does not melt. It just lays there until the toast grows cold if you do not eat it. It seems to melt OK on a baked potato. I read on Snopes.com, to me an authority of what is true or not the following.
Margarine is but one molecule from being PLASTIC..... (This fact alone was enough to have me avoiding margarine for life and anything else that is hydrogenated, this means hydrogen is added changing the molecular structure of the food.)
You can try this for yourself, purchase a tub of margarine and leave it in your garage or shaded area, within a couple of days you will note a couple of things, no flies, not even those pesky fruit flies will go near it, (that should tell you something) it does not rot, smell differently... Because it has no nutritional value, nothing will grow on it, even those teeny weeny microorganisms will not find a home to grow... Why?
Because it is nearly plastic. Would you melt your Tupperware and spread that on your toast?

The ingredients are as follows:

Water, the #1 ingrediant

Liquid Soybean Oil

Partially Hydrogenated Soybean Oil

Salt

Whey

Vegetable Monoglycerides

Soy Lecithin

Propylene Glycol Monostearate (Elmussifiers)

Sodium Benzoate

Potassium Sorbate

Calcium Disodium

Citric Acid

Artificial Flavor (Even That's not real)

Vitamin A Palmitate

Colored with Beta Caradine

Does any of this scare you when you really have no idea what you are eating? I for one am switching back to Butter! It has no Trans Fat. Margarine, very high in trans fatty acids triple risk of Coronary Heart Disease, Increases LDL ( This is the bad Cholesterol), Lowers HDL cholesterol and this is the good one, Increases the risk of cancers by up to five fold, lowers quality of breast milk, decreases immune response, and decreases insulin response.

I am openn to any comment and would welcome feedback as to what you and your family use.

The Land Of The Rising Sun

My Granddaughter Lauren just returned from visiting Japan. While there she was part of a concert in which 10 pianists performed playing 10 Grand Pianos all at the same time. We are all very proud of her.

This brings back a few memories of several visits I made to Japan 55 years ago. I can't believe it has been that long. We visited several port cities there during the Korean War. I was mainly in Sasebo and Yokosuka both of which are south of Tokyo. My memories are vague on most things except for a few things I do remember. I awoke one morning and went out on the main deck and realized we were anchored off the coast of Japan. Our ship was so large that we could not tie up to a dock. This was true in most cities we visited throughout the world. The USS Wisconsin, a Battleship of 987 feet long was one of the largest in the world. That's longer than three football fields laid end to end. We had to anchor about 1/2 mile off shore from the port. When we got liberty we had to ride an LCI (Landing Craft Infantry) boat to shore, also know as a Higgins boat. This is a very interesting story you might want to read http://www.history.navy.mil/danfs/a8/andrew_j_higgins.htm

You really have to hold on tight as these flat bottom boats ride the top of the waves and constantly slam from the top of one wave to the bottom of the next. I remember thinking how good these boat drivers were, they were also known as Coxswain's in Navy terminology. They would drive the boat at full speed at the dock and you were sure you were going to crash into it but at the last second they would throw it into reverse and stop it instantly just inches from the dock. When we disembarked at Sasebo, immediately to the right is a very large Navy Base, to the left is a road leading into town. Also on the left was a restaurant that most guys stopped at to get a steak that was the size of a dinner plate. I wonder how all of us knew to go there, One of the first things we did was to convert our cash into Yen.

At the time one dollar would get you 360 yen. A very common price for a lot of things was "1000 yen" That seemed to be the price for everything but you soon learned that most prices were negotiable. I'm afraid I never had much money to spend on anything. It was a great place to buy cameras and watches if you could afford it. My monthly pay at the time was $75, Out of this I sent home to my mother an allotment of $20 which the government matched and she received $40 a month. This only left $55. We got paid every 2 weeks, The navy always paid in cash and the bills and coins were always brand new. We had to stand in long lines for everything in the navy and a common term everyone would reiterate was "Hurry Up And Wait" The pay table was no exception. It took 4 people to pay you, one to look up your name and pay amount, another to count out my pay of $26 which is what I got after taxes, another to count it again and another to count it into your hand as a final check. This amount had to last me for 2 weeks.

Another thing about cash is that you were not allowed to carry actual cash on you while you were ashore, You had to buy Military Script which you could use the same as cash. Even the coins were in paper script. I suppose they didn't want American money in the hands of the black marketeers.

I was a very naive young guy from the poor section of town in Cincinnati who had never been anywhere or done anything outside of Cincinnati, Ohio before joining the Navy. I was really excited from the first time I got on the overnight train which took me to the Great Lakes Training Station near Chicago. (Training will have to be another blog) Anyway here I was in Japan with Japanese money about to embark on a self guided tour. The first thing I remember were the girls and the way they dressed. I never saw anything like this back home. Most were young, slim and very pretty. The thing that really caught my eye was the slit in the side of their skirts that went from the hem line almost to the waist leaving most of the leg exposed. The girls I knew back home wore peddle pushers or shorts. I stood on a corner and carefully surveyed the passing scenery. This dress style had not yet caught on back home. One of my biggest surprises was when I had to go to the bathroom at the home of a friend of one of my shipmates. First of all when you enter the home of a Japanese family you have to take off your shoes and put on slippers that they keep at the front door. When you go to the bathroom, Surprise! Surprise! You have to put on "Bathroom Slippers to enter and there is no toilet there. Only a small trough on the floor. One is expected to squat. something I never got used to.

I took a train from Sasabo to the town of Nagasaki which is the town where the second atomic bomb was dropped in August of 1943. There was still evidence of the bomb damage while I there. One thing I thought about at the time was it was 1953, It had only been 10 years since we almost obliterated the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with Nuclear bombs killing hundreds of thousands of people. Yet. all the people I met or interacted with were very cordial, polite and friendly. I stood at this site of a church and wondered if I could forgive the horror the people must have suffered in those days but from what I have read the Japanese culture taught that to surrender during war is a disgrace and death was preferable to save one's honor. To invade Japan and end the war would have involved millions of men from all over the world and would have resulted in many more deaths than the bombs caused.

It wasn't long before the Japanese agreed to a conditional surrender of their country and all of its people with the condition that their emperor Hirohito could remain as Emperor and leader of the Japanese people. The surrender was signed in the deck of the USS Missouri Battleship (A sister ship of the battleship I was on, the USS Wisconsin) in Tokyo bay, My ship arrived 3 days after the signing.

Photo of General Douglas McArthur, Commander in chief of the armed forces and Emperor Hirohito,

You can read about him at http://broadband.zoomtown.net/google/redirect.php?to=aHR0cDovL3d3dy5zcGFydGFjdXMuc2Nob29sbmV0LmNvLnVrLzJXV2hpcm9oaXRvLmh0bQ%3D%3D&context=results.1&count=2&_LT=GRLK_GBARGLBLX_OGRSR

He actually did have a part in the war when he supported the invasion of China prior to WW2. This is one of the events that led to the war. Japan has no natural resources to speak of and when they could not buy or trade for a commodity they needed they felt compelled to invade a country and take it by force. I didn't mean for this to be a history lesson.

While in Japan I traveled to Sasebo, Yokusuka, Nagasaki, Tokyo and a ski resort somewhere up north, I think it was called Kobe. Tokyo was extremely busy with wall to wall people on the sidewalks. I don't remember where we went or what we did but at least I can say I was there. One thing I remember was the tiny Taxi cabs and the bicycle powered Rickshaws which wound in and around the traffic, There didn't seem to be any traffic laws, it was every car for itself. and everyone else stay out of the way.

One thing that needs no explanation I believe is that every sailor who came back on board the ship after a visit to a Japanese city was required to swallow two penicillin pills by a Navy pharmacist who was on hand to meet every LCI which brought sailors back to the ship after their liberty.

Our ship was the flagship of the Pacific 7th. fleet which meant we always had the commanding 4 star admiral on board whenever we were at sea. If any global emergency arose were ready for it. The ship was also a showpiece that impressed people all over the world with it's 16" gun barrels that could hurl a projectile as heavy as a Volkswagen car a distance if 24 miles and hit a target with accuracy. We also carried 20-5" gun turrets, 20-Anti-Aircraft guns. 20-40mm guns, 40-20 mm Twin barrel guns and 49-20mm Single barrel guns. The sides and the deck were 12" thick. It's hard to believe something that big and heavy could float. Not only could it float but it could speed up to 32 miles an hour at sea. I know that's more that you wanted to know but I needed to tell you.

Maybe more later on other countries I have visited.

How many remember this?

This will be an article about many things I remember in my past which are no longer with us. I was riding and elevator the other day and my thoughts went back to my childhood. In those days there were no shopping centers, If you wanted to "Shop" you had to get on a streetcar and go to downtown Cincinnati. Usually women would make it an all day excursion and hit every department store with a stop at the "Mills Restaurant" on fourth street for lunch. Some of the stores I remember were The John Shillito Co. store on 7th. Street where I once worked and met my future wife there, There was also the H. & S. Pogue Co. on 4th. street where I always considered the upper crust shopped. There was the Mabley & Carew store located at 5th. and Vine in the Carew Tower Skyscraper building. Across the street from there was the Rollmans department store. There was also McAlpins located on 4th. street. A long way from there at Main St. and Central Parkway (known then as the Erie Canal) was the Alms & Doepke store, it was a huge 7 story store. By the turn of the century, Alms & Doepke was the second largest mercantile establishment west of New York City. With the decline of the Over-The-Rhine which was the major source of customers for the store, profits fell and the store closed in 1954. The building now houses local government and court system offices. There were many other stores downtown such as Woolworth's or Kreske's both of which had lunch counters. There were many others I will not bore you with but the original point of this story was not the stores but the fact they were multi floored with each level dedicated to a certain type of product. The only way to get to these floors were the stairs or take an elevator.

AhHa! The whole point of this story, I guess I babel on too much. In those days the elevators were not automatic. Each one had an elevator operator!!! When you got on you had to tell him what floor you wanted or what type of product you were looking for. As you went up or down the operator would announce what could be found on each floor you came to such as " Second floor, Ladies dresses, underwear, millinery, coats and accessories. To operate the elevator there was a large round brass hubcap looking device with a handle on it. To go up he pushed it one way and another to go down. The trouble was stopping the darn thing. When he got to a floor it usually stopped 6 inches too high or too low. He then would have to jiggle it up or down until he got it close enough that he felt you would not trip over it on your way out, it was never exactly even. To open the door he had to manually pull down a handle which opened 2 sliding doors to allow you to exit. There also were no escalators and no shopping carts. everyone used shopping bags.

More to come later, Anyone remember these days?

In the Raw!

I did something yesterday that my 3 daughters will give me a lecture about but is was something I thoroughly enjoyed. I stopped at the supermarket and bought a pound of freshly ground sirloin and a loaf of German rye bread. I then went home and fixed a sandwich that my father first gave me when I was a small boy. A Raw Hamburger Sandwich! This is a very common sandwich in Germany where he is from.

Recipe:

2 slices German Pumpernickel Bread

1/3 lb. ground sirloin, must be freshly ground and bright red.

Diced Onions

Generous sprinkle of salt.

For those of you who have not tried it you probably never will, I think it's something you had to taste as a small child when your inhibitions were less. There are all kinds of fears spread about salmonella and other germs and toxic substances in our food but I can tell you that when I was growing up the sanitary conditions of where you bought meat were not the best. You only had a choice between the corner grocery store and a butcher shop if you were a city kid like me. In either case the butcher usually was a guy with a mustache and a blood stained apron cutting meat on a huge wood chopping block which probably only got cleaned once a week if that often and then it was not sanitised . Ours had a hand cranked meat grinder that was used to make hamburger and sausage. The sausage by the way was stuffed into the intestines of a hog, tied with string and cut into links. There were usually flies swarming around and I would not be surprised that some found their way into the grinder while it was running. There were sticky fly strips hanging from the ceiling. The reason the butchers apron was so bloody was that he did not wash his hands between customers, Our butcher did not even have a sink available to do so. He did however have a small galvanized bucket which held about a quart of beer which he made sure was always with him. After griding the meat he put it in a tray which he put in a refrigerated meat case with the meats displayed toward you, I often wondered how long some of them lay there before you bought them?

The conditions today are much more sanitary than they were then and the problems you read about with recalls are found it monstrous plants that process millions of pounds of beef with meat usually imported from other countries such as Argentina, between there and your table are many opportunities for contamination.

Anyway, The sandwich was great and I have enough left for one more RAW! sandwich and one grilled on a bun with pickle and onion, another one of my favorites. You are all invited for lunch.

"Gay Cats"

Some of you know that my daughter Diane and husband Joe and kids deserted me Last Thursday and took off to the sunny shores of Florida where Joe is fishing an FLW tournament. I think they will be gone until Sunday or Monday. They deliberately picked this week to go as starting the day they left we have not had a day that it was not snowing, sleeting or freezing rain. I was marooned for the first few days until Diane called a neighbor to plow the snow off the driveway and free me from my isolation.

Before Diane left she hired a couple of teenagers to come every day and feed and water the big dog "Skeeter" and the chickens and get the mail. I am babysitting the little dog "Cookie" and the two monster cats, I do not know their names, I think they now weigh more than the dog. I also feed the fish every day. I am trying to fatten them up for a fish fry. I have to keep the cats food up on a table because the dog likes it better than her own food. I also need two water bowls. Diane left one that is self filling from a reservoir that releases water when the level gets low. The first day as Cookie was getting a drink it started to refill as she was drinking with a loud gurgling, bubbling sound and Cookie jumped a foot in the air and started barking at it. She would not go near it again. I discovered the next day she was really thirsty when I put down a bowl of fresh water.

The cats are another story, They think that this is their house and I was put on earth to serve their every need. I am the cleaning lady, the food server, the poop cleaner and water boy. They like to lay on top of any high place in the house and any thing lying there is a toy to paw at and of course knock it to the floor. They have knocked 2 plants to the floor and killed the one Diane entrusted to my care, Sorry, Diane. I have cleared off the top of most surfaces. One morning when I came into the living room The Large picture screen which is a three panel wood frame about 5' high by 3' wide which holds 8' X 10' pictures was on it's side leaning on the recliner.

Every time I walk anywhere they think it is big fun to walk in and out between my steps to see if they can trip me. They have not succeeded as I gently kick them out of the way as I walk. They have been on top of every piece of furniture I have no matter how tall it is. They are great fun and keep me company, I just may keep them after Diane & family return.

One thing that really bothered me one morning as I awoke I noticed the tiger cat was astride the rear of the white cat and biting it's neck. I had visions of more cats running around the place. I separated them and locked one of them in the bathroom until I could contact Diane later in the day. It never occurred to me to check their sex before the family left. I then wondered if they might were brother and sister. Would that be incest? Later in the day Diane assured me they were both male. My daughter Cathy thinks they might be Gay!

Tornados of 1974

In 1974 we were living on Enyart Road in Loveland Ohio. at that time Loveland was a small town about 25 miles from downtown Cincinnati. There were no Interstate Expressways then and we had to travel on what was then called the Mill Creek expressway (Now part of I-75) until it dead ended in Springdale Ohio in front of the General Electric plant that makes Jet Engines. This road was constructed during World War ll to make it easier for workers to get to the "War" plant" as it was located "out in the country". After getting off the expressway in Springdale we would take Kemper road, a two lane Road, East about 10 miles until it dead ended into Loveland Maderia road, turn left and one mile down the road was "Loveland". There were actually two Loveland's and still are. Coming into Loveland you entered the newer part of town where the small shopping center and Becker Discount Drugs where I worked were located. You could cross the bridge and you would be in "Old Loveland" Where all the old time store fronts were located.

On April 3rd. 1974 I was at a meeting at The Becker Drug Company offices along with nine other managers and the owners in Avondale in the heart of the black community. I was always a little apprehensive about going there. Mr Becker owned several businesses on the corner of Woodburn Ave. and Chapel Street including a Drug Store, and a carryout. The carryout manager was the father of Mr. Beckers secretary. One morning as he was opening the store someone followed him into the store, made him open the safe and then shot him in the head, killing him instantly. This was always on my mind when I went there for a meeting, especially when the meeting was over and we had to go to our cars in the dimly lit parking lot late at night. I remember once when the race riots were going on and mobs were roaming the streets breaking out windows and looting stores and setting buildings on fire. Mr. Becker's store was not bothered as he knew everyone in the neighborhood plus he stood guard at the front door with a baseball bat and a shotgun to keep strangers moving who didn't know him.

During the meeting in the afternoon some one came into the office and told us there was a tornado WARNING! just issued for Hamilton County and it was spotted in Indiana headed East. It was decided to end the meeting so we could all get home before the storm. I remember as I drove North I kept an eye to the west as storm clouds became darker and darker as the wind picked up. And then I spotted it, A funnel in the distance, still pretty far away but it was without a doubt a Tornado. I wasn't sure if it had touched down or not as I sped up the car exceeding the speed limit in an effort to get home as fast as possible.



As I pulled into our driveway my wife Marlene and our 4 kids Cathy, Teresa, Diane, Georgie and our dog Banjo were all in the front yard looking at the ominous sky. They had been following the weather report on television. As the wind picked up I believe the Weather report warned us that the Tornado was headed in our direction. That was enough for us as we all headed for the basement of out split level house. I had aways heard that during a Tornado you should always go to the lowest place in the house which for us was our basement, I remember that if you didn't have one and some of the houses we lived in did not, you should try to get in a bathtub and cover yourself with a mattress or some other protective covering (How do you get 6 people into a bathtub?) . We had a good basement with cinder block walls but in an effort to be even safer we turned the couch over to form a tent and the kids got under it. I remained upstairs keeping an eye on what was going on outside. I opened the front door to an eerie scene outside as the sky became a yellowish orange and the air was suddenly completely still. It was completely devoid of sound and not even a leaf fluttered on the trees. It was as if we were caught in a warp where time and movement ceased. That environment did not last long as the wind started to pick up. The wind was howling and it was raining so hard in a horizontal direction that I could not see the car in the driveway. It continued to get stronger as Marlene and I joined the kids in the basement. I'm sure most of you have heard that when a Tornado passes close by it sounds like a freight train. I have only been in two actual Tornado's, this one and one in Owensboro, KY. where I had gone to find a house for us to live in as I had accepted a job at a discount store located there. I was in a motel when the Tornado passed just a few hundred feet from me and leveled a concrete movie screen at a drive in movie theater within sight of my front window.


It did roar like you would imagine a freight train would sound passing close by. The frightening thing was wondering if it would come crashing over you or pass on by. In both cares I was spared with no damage to me or property. the storm probably took only five minutes to pass by and when we went outside thankful we had suffered no damage or injuries except for the tree in our backyard that suffered a split between the two branches that formed a Y from the main trunk. We later wired these together with cable and the last I heard it was still there. Everywhere you looked twigs and leaves covered the ground.

After the storm passed it headed north towards Dayton Ohio and then veered towards Xenia, Ohio. It's strength increased to an F5 category. It tore right through the heart of town causing catastrophic damage and loss of life. This storm was part of a system that produced a record number of tornado's that day known as Super Outbreak. 148 Tornado's with 34 people killed. The next day we took a sightseeing trip around the Montgomery area and Fields Ertle Road which was not too far away. There were a lot of trees and telephone poles down and a few business's had lost their roofs. That day we gave thanks that like the biblical passover the night of the Tenth Plague, when the Angel of Death saw the blood of the Passover lamb on the doorposts of the houses of Israel and "skipped over" them. Although we weren't Jewish and there was no blood on our door we did have a Red door.

Limerick

I think it would be fun to create a limerick! Each week or month or whenever I will give you the first four lines and you give me the last one. Get the kids involved. I will then send all our friends and family the results and post them on my blog. I think I will rate them with Stars, 5 being the best.
Here is the first from my daughter Cathy.

There once was a girl from La Grange
with habits exceedingly strange,
she woke up one day
and I heard her say...
I think that my mom is deranged.


There once was a girl from La Grange
with habits exceedingly strange,
she woke up one day
and I heard her say...
I think that my dog has the mange.


There once was a girl from La Grange
with habits exceedingly strange,
she woke up one day
and I heard her say...
My underwear could sure use a change.

There once was a girl from La Grange
with habits exceedingly strange,
she woke up one day
and I heard her say...
You smell - please move downrange.

****************************************
And my neice Robin wrote:

There once was a girl from La Grange
with habits exceedingly strange,
she woke up one day
and I heard her say...
What a mess - I must rearrange!

****************************************
And my daughter Diane wrote:

There once was a girl from La Grange
with habits exceedingly strange,
she woke up one day and I heard her say...
I'll go crazy, if something don't change.

***************************************
Fatcat Paulanne said...

There once was a girl from La Grange
with habits exceedingly strange,
she woke up one day and I heard her say...
I'll cook soup on my new kitchen range!

***************************************
Mark Creamer said:

There once was a girl from La Grange
with habits exceedingly strange,
she woke up one day and I heard her say...
My yen I must now go exchange

***************************************

Say it isn't so!

As most of you know my daughter Diane and I live side by side in the same house, I Have my own private suite attached to hers. Yesterday, Diane was out on an errand and I went over to her house to get something, I forget what and I noticied 3 books on her counter.

"Before you Conceive"
"What to expect when you're expecting"
and "A child is born"

I felt a certain apprehension and a small knot in my stomach as I knew that her husband Joe had told me "Enough" when it came to kids. Is there something I should know that she hasn.t told me yet? I assumed she had just gotten these books from the Library. I must admit It was on my mind all day until I was able to talk to Diane. I didn't even wait till she got home

"Say it isn't so" I said on the phone, "I wish" was her reply!

It seems these were her own books she had bought when she was expecting and she had loaned them to her friend who was expecting and she had just returned the books befor leaving for Outer Mongolia (No Joke)

Confessions of an addict.

I am ashamed to admit it but I am a recovering addict. I was hooked on the habit for close to 45 years. When I was about 12 years old I also stole for the first time. My Father used to leave his pack of 20 Grand cigarettes (It was named after a Race Horse), laying around the house. Some of my buddies confided in me that they have tried smoking and assured me it was a really big deal and you were a coward if you didn't try it. A couple of friends and I had tried substitutes such as the cigar shaped bean of the Catalpa tree. It burned and stunk to high heaven but you could not get any smoke out of it, We used to go up and down the street and retrieve old cigarette butts from the gutters until we had enough to "roll our own" We carefully unfolded the paper surrounding the tobacco, cut off the burned end and added the tobacco to our stash. Occasionally we would find a cigar butt but they were usually disgusting and covered with saliva. A favorite tobacco at the time was called "Bull Durham" which came in a small cotton sack with yellow draw strings at the top and cigarette papers on the side. I'm sure you have seen cowboys in the movies who rolled their own and then closed the draw string with their teeth. I'm here to tell you that rolling your own is not as easy as it looks. You hold the cigarette paper curled around one finger and fill the paper trough with tobacco and then try to roll the paper around the tobacco into a cylinder. I Usually made them too big or too small and not enough tobacco at the ends so when I licked the glued edge the ends were usually pointed. I soon tired of this method of getting a smoke so I sneaked a cigarette out of my fathers pack and retreated to a large corrugated metal shack that was located in the back yard next door to ours. This was our unofficial club house and secret meeting place away from the prying eyes of our mothers. This was an all around great place to hang out as there was a patch of clay there perfectly flat where we could draw a circle and play marbles, for keeps. We also like to play Mumbly Peg with our pocket knives. I'm sure you all know what Mumbly Peg is, If not let me know and I will tell you how to play it.

Inside the shed we would take turns tossing baseball cards at a wall and if your card landed on top of another card you got to keep all the cards thrown. I wish I had those cards now, they would be worth a fortune to collectors. Whenever I was able to get a cigarette I would retreat to this shed so no one would know I had it but mostly so no one could see me coughing and wheezing trying to learn to inhale the smoke. I don't remember if I liked it or not, I just remember everyone else I knew was smoking and if it was good enough for them it was good enough for me.

I remember the first time I had a full pack of cigarettes of my own. Before I left the house I purposely put on a white shirt with a pocket because I knew that anyone who saw me could see the pack through the pocket and tell What a big deal I was as I had my own cigarettes. It was like badge of distinction for all to see. Whenever I had some money to spare I used to go to downtown Cincinnati to a tobacco shop on the corner of Sixth and Walnut street. I remember they always had a display of old gold jewelry in an big black kettle in the window with a sign that announced they would pay $35 an ounce for old gold. In those days that was a fortune. I liked to go there because they had cigarettes from all over the world. I liked to experiment with such as brands such as English Ovals that were about three times in diameter the size of a regular cigarette and oval in shape and about six inches long. Each came in a small glass tube with a cork sealing them in. Another one I tried but didn't like was Clove cigarettes which came from Turkey. This was also the time I tried my first cigar, I almost threw up. From these humble beginnings I went on to become "A Smoker!"

The first cigarette which became "My Brand" was Lucky Strike which had a slogan "L.S.M.F.T." This stood for "Lucky Strike means fine tobacco!" It came in a white pack. It used to be in a green pack but they changed it to white in 1942 because of World War Two. It seems the green dye was needed for camouflage and olive drab uniforms. In those days there were no filters on most cigarettes and most brands were of the short variety. Filters were first introduced in 1860 but were mainly used to keep tobacco out of your mouth, the first major brand to use them was Parliament Cigarettes in 1931. Winston Brand was the first Major brand to be successful with a filter in 1954. But to us guys filters were for women and Sissy's. Most of us smoked non filter brands. Even my Mother smoked King size "Pall Mall" brand. She said she smoked them because they were longer and she got more for her money. This also became my brand for many, many years.

Over the years I continued smoking non filters with no seemingly adverse effect. I think I increased my consumption while I was in the Navy and we could get non taxed cigarettes for about 10c a pack. After I became a civilian I continued smoking about 2 packs a day. I had tried to stop smoking many times, This usually lasted just a few hours as the urge overcame me. Once I quit for an entire six months but then started gaining a lot of weight. I used that as an excuse to light up again. Once on a business trip I ran out as I was entering a trade show and there was no where to buy a pack there I got back in my car and drover several miles to a store because I knew I could not last the entire day without a cigarette. Another time I remember I was in bed late at night and reached for a cigarette and realized I had run out. After an hour or two of cravings I got up and dressed an drove to a drive thru at 2 o'clock in the morning. I even started a fire once by dumping what I thought were extinguished butts into a waste can and then leaving for work. My daughter was home and awakened to a house filled with smoke. We had smoke damage throughout the house.

Wouldn't you know it that later in life I started working as a buyer for a Candy & Tobacco wholesaler. One of the perks of working there was that I received FREE cigarettes. This is probably when I noticed I had developed a hacking, rasping chocking cough. I ignored warnings like "Those things are gonna kill you" or people called them "Cancer Sticks or Coffin Nails" I kept coughing and wheezing until 1995 when visiting my daughter at her house I had my first heart attack. While in the hospital I was informed I had a blood clot which had blocked the veins to the right side of my heart and had in effect turned half of my heart into scar tissue. I was now pumping on just half a heart. Quiting smoking now would have to be a "Half Hearted Affair" (Ha Ha!) but quit I must warned the doctor. I assured him I would. Smoking then was permitted in hospitals. Somehow I still had cigarettes with me and once while hooked up to an oxygen tube on my nose I attempted to light a cigarette, A blue flame erupted in front of my face and I suppose I was very lucky the whole place did not explode. After a period of recuperation at home I suppose I quit smoking dozens of times without success. I now know how drug addicts feel when they try to kick their habits because nicotine addiction is as powerful as any drug known to man, the big difference it does not seem to alter the mind like chemical drugs do. But what to do? I had to quit.

I realized that abstinence does not work for me. The first thing I tried was substitution. Hard candy, mints, gum and any thing I could carry and pop in my mouth when the need arose. These had varying degrees of success. I tried a pill that had no effect at all. I bought some nicotine patches at the drug store and about the same time I started chewing Wrigley's Extra Bubble Gum flavor chewing gum along with wearing a nicotine patch. I could tell they were helping some but that old nicotine desire kept raising it's ugly head. There came a day when I said to myself, "Self, this is the day you will quit smoking!!!" I realized that if I chewed a few sticks of gum, not just any gum, it had to be Wrigley's Extra Bubble Gum flavor chewing gum I had tried every other brand and flavor on the market and this one seemed to be the only one that worked. The greatest single thing that helped me to quit was realizing that when I got that overwhelming urge to light up, if I could just hold out for about 15 minutes and not yield the urge would subside. Soon the urge only came about every 20 minutes and then 30 minutes and the an hour. This is the secret to quiting smoking. "Realize the urge will subside if you can only wait it out" When I had gone a week without a cigarette I was really proud of myself, then a month and when I had made it to a whole year my kids gave me a giant greeting card about 3x4 feet that announced "Congratulations" I still have it, framed in a poster frame with my last pack of Pall Mall cigarettes attached to it. I still get the urge to light up again occasionally, of course I never will again as it has been 12 years since that last cigarette but there are still times I have been known to stand close to someone who is smoking to smell the smoke once more.

"Gone Fishing"

My son-in-law Joe Thomas and my Grandson Ryan are in Mexico filming a TV episode on what is probably the best Bass fishing lake in the world, El Salto. It brought back memories of when I used to go fishing as a teenager. When I was about 13 years old a neighborhood friend named Eddie Nastold who had a very bad Red birthmark over his eye and cheek about the size of Saucer. Eddie is the one who first introduced me to fishing. I did not have a rod or reel or any other fishing equipment. The first time we went he lent me a Rod & Reel. We lived in the middle of the concrete jungle as it was known on Milton Street located in Mt. Auburn. We usually went to a “Pay Lake”. To get there since we has no transportation we went by Streetcar, the old fashioned kind which ran on rails and overhead wires. Our favorite place was an old gravel pit in Elmwood Place someone converted into a “Pay Lake”. After we got there we still had to walk about a mile to the lake. After fishing we would get home the same way we got there with stringers full of catfish. Everyone would stare at us in amazement as we stood in the aisle of the streetcar with the stringers resting against the floor. We were close to a black community and Eddie would take his catch to their community and sell them. It seems fried Catfish was a favorite there. I took mine home and Mom would fry them.

In those days there weren't any push button spinning reels like they have today for beginners. The reels we used were called Level wind reels. They would wind your line from side to side on a spool when you retrieved your line after a cast. I don't think Nylon had been invented yet because the line we used was braided cotton. Casting was another matter altogether. When you cast you would hold your thumb lightly on the spool of line just enough to keep the weight of the sinker from unspooling your line. As you casted you had to hold the spool tight during the cast and release slowly as the line spilled loose towards the water. This was almost an art as if you did any part of this wrong you could wind up with a gigantic “Backlash” with your line so tangled and twisted it was difficult to untangle by repeatedly pulling on the loops till you got it untied and could once again reel it onto the spool. You learned quickly not to do this as you would spend all your time untangling instead of fishing. Usually I fished with 2 Rods & Reels, One I used for Bottom fishing with 2 or 3 hooks and a heavy sinker so I could get to the middle of the lake. The other one was used with a floater which would suspend the hook about three feet below the surface. When you fished with a floater sometimes the wind would move it causing the line to be slack and laying on the surface, Eddie taught me that when you got a bite on the line with the floater to pick up your rod and run about 20 feet away from the lake to take out the slack and set the hook. The first time I tried this I fell flat on my Butt. It took a long time to get out of this habit.

In order to fish you first have to have bait. In those days I don’t know of anyone who actually bought bait. Our favorites were
1. Night Crawlers and/or worms,


In order to catch the very large Night crawlers you have to go at night after it had rained. We used to go to "Eden Park" On hand and knees with a flashlight. You had to creep slowly and silently on the wet grass until you spotted one and clamp your hand down on it. They are always half in their hole and half lying on the grass. You had to gently pull them out of their hole, sometimes massaging their belly to get them to release otherwise they would break in half, OOPS!. Your pants got very wet from the knees down.



2. Giant Black Roaches.
This is one bait I disliked catching or using, It gave you a creepy crawling feeling when you were catching or using them but they were very good bait! These were not the common brown roach that seemed to be in every one's kitchen. Three things everyone seemed to have in our neighborhood were Roaches, Bed Bugs and Head Lice. Mom used to kill the Bed Bugs which hid in the creases of our mattress with Kerosene. In Mt. Auburn just off Liberty Street hill their was a small cobblestone alley which ran between some houses. People in that neighborhood weren't very sanitary. There were overturned trashcans and garbage strewn everywhere but at night this was Roach heaven. YUCK! They were shiny midnight black in color and were about an inch long and 1/2 inch wide. They were pretty easy to catch and put in a half gallon pickle jar we brought with us. I wonder if that alley is still full of Roaches.

3. Fresh Chicken Guts.
This is so disgusting I don't even want to post a picture. Years ago there were poultry shops that sold live chickens or would slaughter one for you. There was one at Findley Market that was within walking distance (A long walk!) and they would give us all the chicken guts we wanted free. Naturally only Black people and us would ever want them. We used these when we fished the Ohio River and it was an old black man who taught us how. We did not use our rod & reels there or our lead sinkers because they were round and would be swept downstream by the swift current. He showed us how to use a Bull Durham Tobacco bag filled with sand as a sinker. Bull Durham was a cigarette Tobacco for old timers who rolled their own cigarettes. When the sack hit the river bottom it stayed there. Two hooks and some freshly cut chicken guts and you were ready to ready to relax on the river bank if you could stand the smell of the chicken guts oozing in the sun. It smelled like an old out house. To cast you coiled the line carefully in a circle at your feet and hold the line in your right hand dangling about 3 feet with the hooks and Bull Durham bag and swing this in a vertical circle as hard as you could and then release it towards the water. The other end was tied to a stick in the ground with a bell tied to the line to signal a bite. Sometimes we used night crawlers and worms at the river also.

Stuffing The Ballot Box

Stuffing the ballot box

In 1957, I was 26 years old and fresh out from a tour of duty with the US Navy. My friends and I used to meet at the corner of 12th. and Main street in what is now known as the Over The Rhine neighborhood. Over The Rhine was so named because of the German immigrant population which inhabited the area in the early 1900's. It refers to the Rhine river being compared to the Ohio river. There were about 12 breweries just west of Over The Rhine area. They produced more beer than any other area in the United States. The 12th. and Main street area where we hung out was mainly an Italian neighborhood and a lot of my friends were of Italian decent. The evening usually started out with "What do you want to do tonight"? followed by "I Dunno, what do you want to do"? There were 6 to 8 of us hanging on a steel rail that lined and swung around the corner from Main Street to 12th. Street. Sometimes we would drift away from there to a store front about 6 doors down Main street to a store known as Al's Smoke shop. It was a very small business only 12 foot wide by about 50 feet long. There were magazine racks that lined the right wall that held all the latest magazine issues and newspapers. There was no such thing as Playboy or any other dirty magazines. I used to think looking at the underwear pages in the Sears Roebuck catalog was looking at dirty pictures. The left side were glass display cases that had a display area of only about 12" high and they stood about waist high with a hinged window pane with glass panes that opened to reveal boxes of cigars from all over the world. There was always a cigar lighter that somehow always had an open flame like a Bunsen burner ready to light your purchase. These cases covered the entire left wall and led to a small room in the back which we had commandeered for our unofficial clubhouse. We all sat around the perimeter of the room with a table and chairs in the center which was used for the favorite pass time then, A game of Chess. We also played poker and checkers among other things and used coke cases for chairs. There was an ever present cloud of smoke which hung over the whole place.

Al, who was always there was a very pleasant old man with grey/white hair and large mustache to match. He wore a black vest and string tie but no jacket. He always had a smile and a pleasant word to all who came in. Now that I think back on this store I think it must have been a bookie joint because I don't see how it could have ever earned enough to stay in business, I remember my best friend, Bob Boles drove a 1950 ford coupe, kind of a small car when we all piled in to go somewhere. someone else had a car that the floorboard was missing and you could see the ground rushing by as you drove. Another time a friend had a car that had no brakes at all, he needed to get it home to Norwood Ohio but everyone was afraid to drive it without any brakes. I told them I could do it, No big deal! So I drove from 12th. and Main street by shifting gears )It was a stick shift) from high gear to second and then to low gear causing it to slow down when I cam to a stop sign or light I used the emergency brake to stop. The owner followed in another car to bring me back home. I made the trip without incident. While checking out the used car lots on Reading Road one day I spotted a very large 1939 Cadillac Limousine. To me it was a beautiful thing. 4 doors and jump seats in the back that folded down for extra passengers. To me at that time the brand Cadillac was a magic name that meant those who owned one was special. I bought the car for $295 on installments. I really enjoyed chauffeuring the guys around town. Our cars were not always reliable and one evening a tragic thing happened to one of our own. There were several of them pushing one of the cars from the back trying to get it started when out of nowhere a car slammed into the back of the car being pushed and trapped one of the boys between the cars. I'm sad to report that he lost both legs.

It was All Star time in the Baseball World and Cincinnati fans were excited as they really had a good team that year. The fans decided who were the most popular players by filling out a ballot and voting their choice for each position on the team for both the American and the National league. The Cincinnati Enquirer had printed extra ballots besides those found it their paper and were available at different stores around the city. There was a rule that you could enter as many times and you wished. So someone in our group decided we should try to get as many Cincinnati Reds elected as possible. So there were at least 10 or 12 of us who sat around the backroom of Al's smoke shop filling out hundreds of ballots night after night for weeks before the game. You were supposed to select who you thought was the best player at each position from all the teams in the league. We of course thought our Reds were the best, so we continued to fill out ballot after ballot as long as we could.

When the results were announced fans of the Cincinnati Reds stuffed the ballot box and elected 7 Reds players to start in the All-Star Game. It shocked the baseball world, it seems other Cincinnati fans were busy voting also but I'm sure it was our group who made the biggest impact.

The players were:

Johnny Temple, Second base
Roy McMillan, Shortstop
Don Hoak, Third base
Ed Bailey, Catcher
Frank Robinson, Left field
Gus Bell, Center Field
Wally Post, Right Field

The only non-Red elected to start for the National League was St. Louis Cardinals' first baseman Stan Musial. While the Reds were known to be a great offensive team with many outstanding position players, most baseball observers agreed that they did not deserve seven starters in the All-Star Game. An investigation showed that over half of the ballots cast came from Cincinnati. The Cincinnati Enquirer had printed up pre-marked ballots and distributed them with the Sunday newspaper to make it easy for Reds fans to vote often. There were even stories of bars in Cincinnati not serving alcohol to customers until they filled out a ballot.

Commissioner Ford Frick decided to appoint Willie Mays of the New York Giants and Hank Aaron of the Milwaukee Braves to substitute for Reds players Gus Bell and Wally Post. In addition, Frick decided to strip the fans of their voting rights. Managers, players, and coaches picked the entire team until 1969, when the vote again returned to the fans.

To guard against further ballot stuffing, since 1969, each team has been given the same number of ballots to hand out. In 1998, that number was roughly 400,000 ballots. Since the dawn of the Internet age, online voting has again raised fears of ballot stuffing. Major League Baseball assures its fans that they have taken precautions to guard against this. Similarly, popular players who are injured often garner many votes despite their inability to play in the game.

I am proud to have been a part of making Baseball history from our little group on 12th. and Main street in the Over The Rhine neighborhood.

A streetcar named "Entertainment"

Most of us move about the city in automobiles, before that we generally rode in transit busses but before that there were the streetcars. Steel street car tracks (Rails) were embedded in the streets; originally these cars were pulled by horses but the routes were short and they mainly operated in the downtown area. The conductor moved the car forward by turning a wheel in front of him which supplied more current to the motor. Notice I did not say he drove the streetcar because he could not steer it, it just went wherever the tracks led him. If a conductor came to a fork in the road he had to stop and change the switch in the street manually to go in a different direction, there were concrete platforms in the middle of wide streets, one car width away from the curb where you could stand and board the streetcar. There was traffic whizzing by on both sides of the platform. The electricity was delivered to the streetcar by long poles at the rear of the car which had small rollers that rode against the overhead wires, Sometimes when a car crossed an intersection that had had wires going in both directions one of the poles would jump off the wire and thrash about wildly with sparks flying everywhere. The conductor would have to stop and go around back and pull on the rope attached to the pole to put the roller back in contact with the wire.

Streetcars ran to all parts of the city and beyond. Sometimes you would have to transfer from one line to another to get to your destination. There were routes along the way that crossed all routes from east to west such as the one called “Cross-town” You could get a small slip of paper called a “Transfer” and get off your car and get on the ‘Cross-town” without paying another fare, sometimes you might transfer several times to get to your destination. When I first started riding them they had woven cane seats and backs, There were advertisement signs about 12” by 24” telling you the wonders of different places and products. These were located near the ceiling in a curved holder that ran the entire length of the car on both sides. There were hand stirrups hanging from the ceiling that you could hold on to in case the seats were all occupied and you had to stand. The streetcar swayed quite a bit when traveling about 30 miles per hour. Can you imagine that people could ride in this manner with today’s seatbelt laws? In later years these hand stirrups were replaced with chrome poles that ran from floor to ceiling. You had to watch your surroundings as you looked out the window to determine when you were close to where you wanted to get off, you would then pull on a cord located just above the windows and it would sound a loud buzzing noise. The conductor would stop at the next corner that was designated as a “Bus Stop” which had an orange ring around a telephone pole. I don’t remember what they called these stops before there were buses. Streetcar stop? If something was in the way the conductor would stomp on a large button rising out of the floor which would emit a loud clang from a bell located from the floor. There was a flip down seat behind the conductor but he usually stood while we were moving. There were no women or African American conductors then. Above the driver was a box that contained a roll with all the routes printed on it, when he started out he would crank it till the rout name showed such as “Price Hill” this way as the street car approached you could tell if it was the one you wanted. There were more cars which passed by on the same street but were going to different destinations. When the streetcar came to the end of the line there were two ways the car was readied for its return trip to the city where they all originated from. Sometimes there were “loops” which were areas where the track looped around a teardrop shape and rejoined itself. On some streetcar routes the tracks the rails just came to an end, on these cars the seat backs were hinged so the conductor would go through the car and flip the seats in the opposite direction, the rear of the car became the front as the car could be operated from either end. The poles leading to the wires were also reversed.


On of the things I remember most from those days was the “Sunday Pass”. For 25c you could buy a pass that would allow you to ride any route from beginning to end for as long as you wanted. You could get on or off as you choose if you wanted to stop at the zoo or the Conservatory or some other point of interest. Me and one of my friends use to ride from morning to night. This was a big deal as we did not have a car or even knew anyone who did.

On of the things we enjoyed most were riding the inclines which was like a giant escalator of ski lift. They ran from the bottom to the top of the hills which surrounded Cincinnati, these hills were too steep for the streetcars to climb. The streetcar drove onto the platform which was level with the tracks at the front but was about 15 foot tall at the rear which made the track surface level. This platform was pulled to the top of the hill with giant cables where it docked and the streetcar was able to drive forward on the level street beyond. To us this was as good as going to Coney Island Amusement park and riding the roller coaster or the carrousel.


In the early 1940’s the transit company bought a fleet of streamline streetcars, I haven’t been able to find a picture of one of these but they were very sleek looking and seemed to glide quietly without the noise of the old streetcars. They only last a couple of years until they switched to Trolley busses, These were also electric and were connected to the overhead wires with poles, the same as the old streetcars. They eventually converted to Gas guzzling busses which were diesel powered. And the magic died when they appeared. There are still streetcar tracks buried under most of the streets where they ran, especially downtown. They simply paved over them.

Your tax dollars at work

Some of you know that I have an electric scooter that the Veterans administration provided for me because I cannot walk very far without my feet and legs hurting and I get tired very quick if I have to walk. They originally gave me a weird looking thing that attached to a receiver under my rear bumper that was exposed continually. It lifted the scooter and then swung it into the trunk of my Chevy Impala. It was such a tight fit and labor intensive that I only used my scooter 3 times in the past year. Can you imagine standing outside in freezing weather or in the rain trying to get that thing out of the trunk? This limited my excursions and shopping trips to stores which provided electric scooters. Most of these are in pitiful condition, either they are extremely slow or they go dead about half way through your shopping. I told my story to the vets and they told me if I had a van they could install a lift that could pick up the scooter and slide it into the van.

So I went out and traded in my Chevy on a 2006 Chrysler Town & Country van, It has electrically operated rear hatch as well as electric sliding doors on both sides. Yesterday they came and installed my lift. It is a very big sturdy iron piece of machinery that will take it's toll on my car battery and my gas mileage. but it will be worth it. Today I think I will go to a shopping mall and just take in the sights. The only downside is that it is not removeable so I lost the use of my 3rd row of seats so it is now a 4 passenger van instead of 7. Here are a couple of pictures of the lift.