It strikes me as odd, 20 years later.

Come with me down memory lane for a moment:

Shoals had one of those school setups where all of the kids from kindergarten through 12th grade went to school on the same piece of property, in one big complex. There was no "Westside Junior High" or "Larry Bird Elementary School" on a separate side of town feeding into the high school - there was Shoals Elementary and Shoals Junior-Senior High School.

Before the extensive remodeling and renovation they did after my graduation from there, there was a room just downstairs from the cafeteria. I don't know if it still exists, or if it met the wrecking ball when the school decided to join the 20th century (just in time for the 21st).

The room consisted of a smallish, non-regulation basketball court, a couple of locker rooms and a supply room. We had P.E. in there, and I also recall some fire safety talks being held there, not to mention dances after basketball games. When the main gym was in use by the boys varsity basketball team, this room would be where the other teams would hold practice. We also occasionally held baseball practice there. (Really.) It had a hard concrete floor and concrete walls, both conducive to concussions, as well as insulation hanging from the rafters about 20 feet in the air (conducive to mesothelioma and asbestosis, I imagine). When someone took a high-arcing jumper, it would hit the rafters and knock down some of that stringy brown insulation.

It was a room that served multiple purposes. It was called ... the Multi-Purpose Room.

I'd rather push Gerald Ford than drive a Chevy.

This coming Tuesday is the National Day of Mourning for former President Ford. That likely means that any sort of government business will be postponed to Wednesday. It kind of puts me over a barrel, since I'm a contractor for the government and not an actual federal employee, and as such, don't receive admin leave for those days like federal employees do. I have to use a day of personal leave instead.

(An aside: It still boggles my mind that, even though I work for a defense contractor, we don't get Veteran's Day off. We're a defense contractor. WE'RE A DEFENSE CONTRACTOR. But, thankfully, if I wanted to take a floating holiday on Idi Amin's birthday, I could do that. Seriously. And I could take it for Veteran's Day, too, but that would shoot holes in my righteous indignation.)

Anyway. Before the edict came down from on high that Tuesday would be the day of mourning for Ford, there were rumors floating around to that very effect - that there would be a day next week that all of the government employees on the base where I work would likely get the day off.

Silly me - I made the joke that, since Ford only served half a term, that the government employees should only get a half a day off.

Silence.

There are some things you just don't joke about to federal employees, (chief among them being their seniority-based, not merit-based, promotion system), and one of those things is the occasional day of admin leave for things like presidents dying. It's a sacrament.

* The headline on foxnews.com the day after Ford's passing read, "America Mourns."

I think that's overstating the case a little bit. I imagine that a more appropriate headline would have been, "America Says, 'Huh.'"

Or, "America Thinks To Itself, 'That Guy Was Still Alive?'"

I confess to having both reactions.

Furnace Follies.

Yesterday morning, both Wife and I separately noted the racket that our normally quiet, energy-efficient gas furnace was making. Neither of us was proactive enough to do anything about it beyond noting that it was making a rather ominous noise.

When I arrived home after work the same day, I made a note of the chill in the air and eyed the thermostat - 62 degrees. Rats.

Made a few phone calls to various heating contractors, none of whom returned the messages I left. Our normally reliable contractor didn't even have their answering machine on. So last night was spent in an ever-increasing chill. Thankfully, El Nino has made the winter generally mild thus far, and last night was no exception, though the temperature in the house had dipped to 59 by morning.

We did manage to get a call placed to our regular furnace-fixer this morning. He arrived within the hour and made a rather sad assessment: the motor to the blower had burned itself up. Swell.

Long story short, there is a new motor on order, but it's not scheduled to arrive ... till Tuesday. Argin' fargin'.

Toys (not necessarily in the attic, but in something else)

Two nights ago, I was putting some laundry in the washer. My little shadow came up behind me and said, “Tractor hot. Tractor hot.”

I thought nothing of it, really – I repeated what he said: “Tractor hot?” And he nodded. Me – I’m just proud when he strings together semi-coherent words. It doesn’t really matter if the context doesn't make sense. (After all, it’s almost winter, and we don’t own a tractor. But I'm quibbling.)

So I’m standing at the washer, minding my own business, putting the rest of the whites in. And he repeats himself and starts tugging at my pants: “Tractor hot. Daddy, tractor hot.”

“Tractor hot? Better go cool it off!” I told him.

Suddenly, my wife SPRINTS down the hallway and starts spouting obscenities like she’d just hit her toe on the end table. I find this a little odd, so I closed the lid of the washer and saunter into the kitchen. The visual inventory I took:

- One (1) chair at the kitchen counter in front of the microwave
- One (1) microwave door, open
- One (1) small metal tractor, about an inch high and two inches long, in the middle of the microwave, with semi-melted wheels
- One (1) small hay wagon, about a half-inch high and two inches long, also in the microwave
- Timer on the microwave read 1:26.

Tractor hot, indeed!

The Greater Susquehanna Valley Chamber of Commerce Person of the Year: You

My son's first swear word.

There exists an anti-Disney bias in our house, mostly perpetuated by me. In the great Warner Bros. vs. Disney debate, I come down firmly on the side of Bugs Bunny, Yosemite Sam, Wile E. Coyote et al. (Although if I never saw a Tweety Bird cartoon again, it'd still be too soon.) I have little use for most of the cartoon characters that Disney created. I like screwball humor; I don't like "cute," and as such, I have a preference for "Merrie Melodies" over "Silly Symphonies."

***

Tonight, one of my tasks upon getting home was to go upstairs, bring down about 6 rolls of wrapping paper and various other yuletide detritus. I managed to bring it all down in one trip, and Son was there to help once I got to the bottom of the stairs. We tossed it all in the recliner, and I came into the office to do some work.

I didn't notice this at the time I brought it down, but one of the unopened rolls of wrapping paper, much to my eternal chagrin, had a Disney Christmas motif on it, upon which the various WD characters were posed in various Christmas scenes. I suppose it got picked up by accident at a past day-after-Christmas sale, at which you can pick up wrapping paper and other gifting items for pennies on the dollar.

Son brings me the roll of Disney wrapping paper, points to a character on it and says, "Mee Mouse?"

"Mickey Mouse?" I said to him.

He nodded happily.

"WHERE DID YOU LEARN TO SAY SOMETHING LIKE THAT?"

Sickness (redux).

Uh-oh.

Today’s been a little more of a struggle than I would have liked. You know how, just before the flu manifests itself into full-blown mode in your body, there is a faint achy haze emanating from your bones and enveloping everything around you? That’s what Tuesday’s felt like.

I can’t decide if it’s actually illness, or if it’s because it’s cold and rainy out and I left my coat at home because it was supposed to be in the 50s today. I can’t decide if the aching is due to American influenza settling into my body, or that old car-wreck injury I aggravated this weekend by sneezing. I’m no hypochondriac, but I fear that it’s the former, seeing as how I didn’t hurt my hands in my accident some three years ago, and they dully ache. (Not to mention duly.)

I’m going to go home tonight and have a cup of Airborne, with a side of Airborne. Too little, too late, I'm sure.

Because our son got out of his routine over the last five days - staying home with me last Thursday and Friday, going to my mom's yesterday - this morning's fight to get him ready for daycare was a spirited one, for he is a spirited little 2-year-old. I guess we're back to square one as far as his eagerness to spend his days at the daycare (or "school," as we sometimes call it) is concerned. Wonderful!

Yes, but was there milk in the toes?

Dumbest quote in this article – and I’m no expert on pit bulls, having never owned one because I value my limbs and appendages too much, but I think that they’re not as gentle and peaceful as their owners tend to say:

"This puppy might have been trying to nurse on the toes of this baby," veterinarian Michael Dale speculated.

Which begs the question: Are animals smart (as their defenders and my mom believe), or mindblowingly retarded (as the “nursing on the toes of this baby” comment might suggest)? Cause, you know, you can’t have it both ways. Either they can reproduce the history’s great works of art or Edison’s myriad inventions, or they are dumb. (That was, of course, a blanket statement about animals that I don’t really believe, but I’m just trying to prove a point. Humans, after all, aren't either smart or not. There are shades of dumbness.)

Oh, and before you ask, “Where were the parents?” – they were sleeping nearby on a mattress on the living room floor. Hippies and pitbulls don’t mix!

I'll have to reign you in if you loose again!

Local media roundup:

The secret lovechild that Wes Unseld and Donald Rumsfeld don’t want you to know about: “Donald Rumseld.” Nice work, Washington Times-Herald!

Minus 5 points to the Bedford Times-Mail’s Bob Bridge for getting on the “Michigan got screwed” bandwagon about a week after most sportswriters. Plus 100 points to the Bedford Times-Mail’s Bob Bridge for using the phrase “shot its wad” in said article.

The Evansville Courier had an Onion-sidebar-worthy headline splashed across the front page of its print edition this past Sunday: “Report: Trouble ahead.” Oh, pleasepleaseplease let it be on their website …….. yes!

Newspaper writes headline: In an effort to convey as little specific information as possible at a glance, the Seymour Tribune continues its long tradition of high-school-newspaper-level “Subject-verb-object” headlines.

A warning to all parents of teenage boys in Jackson County: Tell your sons to stay away from those Crothersville girls – they’re “fast”! I expect the next headline about them to read “Crothersville girls loose.” Will it mean they’re "fast," “relaxed and ready to go,” or would it actually mean that they lost, but the headline writer confused “lose” and “loose”? (Bonus points to the author of the article linked in the last sentence: he not only used “loose” twice when he meant “lose,” but he also said “… leadership must be reigned in.” A two-fer!)

“Hey, man, you drop a 302 into that Metro?”: Speaking of fast teens, the Indy Star reports that a police clocked a Valparaiso teenager at 142 mph. As a teen, I once did 80 in my mom’s Ford Escort, going downhill with a tailwind. Andy Granatelli would have been so proud.

I never met a day I didn't like ...

... though today hasn't been one I'll exchange Christmas cards with in the future.

Insignificant: At one point yesterday, had my arms up over my head while trying to put some plastic sheeting up over the windows in the boy's room. Sneezed. Threw something out of whack between my neck and shoulderblade. It hurt momentarily, but I forgot all about it till this morning, when I stepped out of the shower and was drying off. I haven't forgotten about it since then. It's a remnant of a car-wreck injury I had a few years ago.

Insignificant: The Colts made the Jaguars look like one of those high-school wing-T offenses that rushes for about 7,000 yards a game. I don't know why Jax even bothered suiting up QB David Garrard. These are your Super Bowl-contending Colts? Bah - they're barely playoff-worthy at this point. A crash course in the basics of, you know, TACKLING would be opportune before Indy's fanbase should even consider their team playing deep into January.

Significant: The boy was sick all weekend. After sleeping for about 14 hours last night and this morning, we thought he had it licked; he was up bouncing around this morning with a 98 temperature, and we were certain the worst had passed. As a special treat for his courage and bravery in the face of those nasty teeth poking through his gums and making his life generally unhappy for the last week, I drove to town to snag some McDonald's hash browns for him, as well as breakfast for my wife (for her courage and bravery in continuing to be married to me).

When I returned home, my wife said, "We need to run to the doctor. He just threw up." Swell.

Long story short, the fever detailed in my previous post did not stem, as originally suspected, from his teeth, but rather some unnamed viral infection that really didn't manifest itself in any other way besides the low-grade fever, as well as a rash that showed up on his face between home and the pediatrician's. Our daycare had warned of fever, diarrhea, vomiting and chest congestion being present in some of the kids there last week, but since Son showed none of those symptoms (save for the fever), and we could see his back teeth poking through at long last, we were confident that we'd dodged that threat. On what medical basis we made this assessment, I'm not clear.

Anyway, the pediatrician gave him a suppository for the vomiting, and gave us one extra to administer in case he threw up again. But all's well that ends well, we think; at the very least, he didn't throw up again, and was acting more like himself as the day wore on.

(I offered to stay home with him tomorrow if my wife would be on suppository detail today, but no dice.)

Sickness.

Stayed home with the boy today. He woke up around 1 last evening just when I was up getting a bottle of water: "Daddy! I wake up!"

I sat in the living room with him - he requested to watch football on TV (again, it makes my heart swell) - when I noticed that he was a bit warm. I took his temperature under his arm. 99.5. (Add a degree for taking his temperature under his arm, and that brought his real temperature to 100.5. Crap. And football? Well, NFL Network was replaying the Titans-Colts game from this past Sunday. Crap again.)

After they replayed Bironas' game-clinching 60-yarder (yep, he hit it again - crap again), I started to snooze in the chair when Son got up and asked me to come lay down with him in his room. I obliged. We fell asleep to Thomas The Pain Train on the TV in his room.

Wife came to the bedroom door around 4:30 and woke me up; Son had crawled into bed in our room. "He wants Daddy," she said.

Crap again. His bed is so much more comfy than ours. Alas, I got up and went to our room.

He still felt warm when my alarm went off at 5:15. I laid there awake for awhile, dozed off once more, then woke up again at 6:30. His fever hadn't broken, so I called all of the people I have to call - the 4 people I have to report my absence to at work, plus the new daycare, the owner of which informed me that she had sent another child home yesterday with a 103 fever, diarrhea, vomiting and the creeping croup in his chest.

Oh no.

Fortunately, none of the other symptoms manifested themselves over the course of the day, though Son's temperature did creep up to the mid-102s about late afternoon. The fever can most likely be attributed to his back teeth finally starting to come in (seeing as how he's been complaining about his mouth hurting the last few days), as opposed to the exotic germ laboratory that exists when you put together a bunch of small children in a daycare.

Gift-giving ideas for the 65-year-old on your list ...

No offense, but isn't this kind of like giving an algebra book to a beagle?

The loss of a generation.

It's with a twinge of sadness that I read this story about the survivors of Pearl Harbor meeting for likely the last time at the site where almost 2,400 died 65 years ago today.

Couple that with the rash of recent stories about the last surviving veterans of World War I - there are fewer than 15 left - and you start to feel an emptiness, a sense that we are beginning to witness America's golden age disappear into history. In some 25-30 years, we'll see the last of the surviving WWII vets pass on, followed shortly thereafter by the last of the Korean War vets.

And that'll be it. Our last links to a different time and place will be dust. The '60s brought about a change in the perception of how and why wars are fought; the rise of a supposedly "loyal" opposition made Vietnam and all future wars greatly controversial and unpopular. Hanoi Jane, "No Blood For Oil!", Cindy Sheehan ... it's nearly impossible to consider that the whole mess of them could have thrived during the Great Wars and Police Actions of the 20th century. But we're hellbent on giving them "equal time" in the media, and people who are soft of mind and spirit look at them and say, "You know? They've got a point! End Bush's illegal war!"

I don't doubt that there existed an opposition to the wars in the first half of the 20th century, and not just among Quakers. Regardless, I'd hate to imagine how a "loyal" opposition would have undermined those efforts if it had at its disposal in those days the means of communicating its messages that exist today.

Anyway, I'm off-topic. The point is this: Please take a moment today to consider what happened in Hawaii 65 years ago.

May God bless all of those who served their country.