The Jogger 5k Series

A large number of the people that worked at Convex back in the early days were into jogging. It was very common to see a dozen or so of them stretching and warming up in front of the office late in the afternoon. As time went by, more and more people started doing this, including me.

In addition to jogging around the office, some people went out on the weekends and did the 5k races that seemed to pop up everywhere about that time. Nobody seriously tried to run these things (except maybe Denise’s husband, Ian). We were just doing it for the t-shirt and the fun.

During the summer, a local athletic store sponsored a weekly 5k race near downtown Dallas. It was on Wednesdays, starting around 5:30 in the afternoon. The race followed a small jogging sidewalk around Bachman Lake. It was small enough to where everyone couldn’t start at the same time, so they divided the runners up into groups by age and sex. So, I was in the male age 20-29 group.

On a good day, it took me maybe 30 minutes to finish the run. This meant that I was always last in my group. Even worse, one of the female groups started about 15 minutes behind us and the fastest runners in that group would pass me just before I got to the finish line. It was pretty embarrassing. But, I kept after it, vowing that at some point, not only would I not finish last in my group, but none of the women in the next group would pass me, either.

It came down to the last race of the series. I had slowly improved over the summer and felt pretty good about that race. The first couple of miles went by pretty quickly, but the third mile was really difficult for some reason. I had started losing hope. As I rounded  the last corner, I could see the finish line a hundred or so yards ahead of me. I could also see a guy from my group just up ahead. I ventured a quick look over my shoulder and could see the first of the women runners not too far behind me.

Now, you have to remember that I had always finished last in my group. I usually got a lot of encouragement from my friends, but I also gained a bit of notoriety among the other runners who were usually standing around the finish line, waiting for their turn to race. All of them started yelling and cheering when they saw me. “Run!” “Hurry!” “You can do it!”

I have no idea where I got the strength to sprint to the finish line.

I finished about 10 yards ahead of the other guy and about 20 yards ahead of the women. It was an amazing feeling.

Dad’s stories, chapter 3

EBS, Memories

During this time our three children were born and again I was not making enough money to keep things together. We had moved our family to Sarasota, Fla. where I was managing seven branch stores for a major lumber company. I had the title and responsibility, but simply could not get paid for my efforts. I simply had to earn more money. I was hired by an industrial paint company in Tampa at a better salary. I was fired about a year later. I was 39 years old at this time and without a job. Worst of all we were without assets or possessions after 21 years of effort. Martie and I discussed this at length and decided that a new direction must be taken.

In our great wisdom we decided for me to secure a few good paint lines and sell on my own. That worked but I still could only make about $200.00 a week. Still not good enough. Along about now, Martie decided to make me an appointment with a church member who sold securities. Said we needed a savings plan. Of course I didn’t know how we could save money when we were having trouble paying current bills. As you will know this guy and his wife showed up in spite of all I could do. I wasn’t interested.

Now this guy breezed in, in all his glory. He was 10 years younger, taller than I, had on a $300.00 suit and a new car. I should have been impressed. Instead I was intimidated. Of course church association and common courtesy prevailed. So I listened to his pitch. I was impressed with the plans, stated that they should be easy to sell and wanted very much to buy one.

His closing statement was, “If you like the plan, buy it. If you are not making enough money to buy one, come to work for my company and make all the money you need. Then you can buy plans and enjoy selling them also”. Now there was a new thought. I stated that I would like to work for his company. He stated, “No problem. I will get you the applications.” I received the applications, filled them out, sent them in. I was hired. My question was, “When do I start?” I was told that I could start as soon as I passed a simple security exam. The company would supply the study material. They did.

Upon receiving the study book, I picked it up, read a part of it. Not one Damn thing in the book made sense. I threw the book down and screamed. I knew I couldn’t do it. About this time, in walks Martie. She picks up the book and takes one look at the material and says, “Nothing to it. You can learn it and pass the test. I will help you.” I told her it was easy for her to say, because she had all the family brains. For me it was impossible. The more I insisted, the more she insisted. As you will know, because of her help and assistance, I did exactly what she wanted. I passed the exam.

I sometimes think that she wanted me to do this task because I saw it as impossible. Martie always had a way to get me to do the impossible. I think she saw me as passing the exam. But never saw me working in the securities business. I was informed by the company that I had passed all exams, that I should proceed to the division office and pick up supplies. Along about now Martie says, “You are not going to do this, are you?” (She was afraid of leaving a steady paycheck for commissions.) I stated that I was. We had worked too hard not to try it now. She said she didn’t feel I should leave the paint business. That I knew it and we were getting along fine and could continue. I was determined to give it a try.

The first three months were hell on earth. I knew I was a good salesman. But I simply couldn’t sell the stuff. I was not getting training from the company and not much support at home. I was completely on my own. I was frightened and failing. I recall one morning as I was starting to work, I told Martie that I had two calls to make. I was supposed to pick up investments from both. If this didn’t happen, I would drive to Tampa, turn in my equipment and resign. Martie understood that. She was in favor of this action and encouraged me to do it.

Now you must know that I was completely defeated at this time. I made the two calls, bombed out on both. Now I’m ready to leave for Tampa, I had one small piece of service work left to do. I figured to stop by this house, complete it, then go to Tampa and resign. I can still see myself ringing the door bell. The gentleman came to the door to let me in. When he saw my face, he knew I was having a bad day. I will be forever grateful for what happened next.

Mr. Dorsey George gave me a big smile. He said, “I’m sure glad you are here. Come on in. My wife is making sandwiches. I will have her make one for you. While she is doing that I will get my checkbook. The money came, I have a nice check for you.”

These things happened. The lunch was good. The check was better. During lunch, Dorsey George gave me a pep talk. He told me how lucky I was to be working for a great company like IDS. Told me how lucky he was to be investing with the company. Explained how I could help people and help myself at the same time. He said to call on the people. Tell the IDS story, make money, enjoy life. He gave me such a lift that I put off my Tampa trip and decided to work the rest of the day.

I left on Cloud Nine. Picked up another account and made another call. Same results. Between the two calls I picked up $25,000 investments for the day. My commission on the two sales was $1100.00 – not bad for a Georgia boy.

I arrived home late in the afternoon. Knew what Martie was going to say. But I had a plan. First thing she asked, “Did you turn your supplies in and resign?” I said no. Then her face fell. She asked why. About this time I said, “Let me show you.” I pulled out the $5000.00 check. Neither of us had ever seen a $5000.00 check. She asked how much commission. I stated $240.00.

She still was not happy. Then I said, “I have this other check also.” I pulled out the $20,000.00 check. She asked how much commission on that one. I told her $1,000.00. Now Martie said, “You mean to tell me that you made $1,240.00 today!” I said yes. She wanted to know when we would get all this money. I told her.

Now my wife is a practical woman. She knows a good thing when she sees it. So she then talked a while. She said, “Now if these people really pay you this commission, and if the law doesn’t arrest you for stealing money, we are going to make this thing work. You go out to the car, bring all those books and literature in. Let me work on them awhile and we will be in business”. She did and we were. I earned $16,000.00 in the next 3 months. About $32,000.00 for my first year. I am proud to say that during the following years of my working life, I had total family support for everything I did. It was a total family effort. We have all prospered.

My dinner with Al

The UACC autograph show in 2006 was in San Antonio, which is a four-to-five hour drive from Dallas. The show in Burbank was a lot of fun, so I knew I couldn’t miss this one. The announced guest list had several people I hadn’t met or didn’t have in my The Home Planet, which made it even better.

I rode down with Jerry and Mary and their granddaughter Lexi on Friday. The setup for this whole trip is Jerry is known to the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation (ASF) people these days as a “high roller”. He has purchased several things over the last couple of years in their auctions, including dinner with Wally Schirra and a stay on a Sealab-type submersible with Scott Carpenter. Cool stuff.

The first thing we did after getting to the hotel was go to the bar. A cold one was definitely high on the list for me after several hours in the car. In addition, we’ve had a lot of luck meeting astronauts in bars, so it seemed like the right thing to do. We certainly weren’t disappointed. Both Wally Schirra and Al Worden recognized Jerry so we talked with them for a while. We also ran into Sy Liebergot and chatted with him. About this time, Jerry and Mary had to leave for the platinum reception. Not having anything better to do, I stayed at the bar and talked with a few of the other collectors that had shown up.

After the reception was over, Jerry called and told me they were going to supper with Linn LeBlanc and Dee Campbell, both from the ASF. We wandered over a good part of the Riverwalk without finding anything we wanted, eventually ending up at Morton’s Steakhouse where Al Worden joined us. We spent the next couple of hours eating, telling stories and having a wonderful time with them. Al is an absolute hoot to be around. We finally left and ended up back at the hotel bar where we spent the rest of the evening. At this point, it’s maybe 1AM and my trip has already been a huge success. You just don’t get many opportunities like this. In addition, I was on a first name basis with Al, Linn and Dee for the rest of the weekend.

Anyway, later that morning the autograph show started. There were four separate rooms; a large main room and three smaller rooms. One of the rooms was left empty so the collectors had a place to sit and organize things, which was a nice idea. There weren’t as many people there as there were in Burbank and there were very few lines. I think I was done by noon. I picked up a copy of Liebergot’s book, got Alexei Leonov to autograph my copy of Two Sides Of The Moon, and got several autographs in my The Home Planet: Valentina Tereshkova, Pavel Popovich, Gene Krantz, Brian Binnie, Edgar Mitchell, Buzz Aldrin, and Al Worden. I was absolutely tongue-tied around Valentina Tereshkova, which was okay since she doesn’t speak much English. Neither does Pavel Popovich, but I got the distinct impression that he’s a real character. I’ll bet you’d be in absolute hysterics if you could talk to him in Russian. Gene Krantz is an absolutely class act. Talked to everyone, stepped out from behind the table to take pictures and shake hands, you name it. Brian Binnie was also very nice and took some time to talk about his flight and the upcoming work with Spaceship 2. Edgar Mitchell seemed amazed to see a copy of my book and talked about how the first ASE meeting came to be in France instead of the US. When I first saw Al Worden, he says “hey, Andy, how are you feeling today?” It’s that sort of thing that just really makes your day, you know?

There was still a couple of hours of the show left after lunch and since I had all of my autographs already, I took the opportunity to meet some of the collectors and talk to a few of the astronauts and celebrities that I hadn’t seen yet. As I was standing in a cool spot between two of the autograph rooms (it was quite warm in some of them), I noticed something going on in the far corner of the main room. I walked over to take a closer look and found Dave Scott standing on a chair, trying to tape up an A/C vent that was high up on the wall above a door. He must have worked on that for 15-20 minutes without a lot of luck, probably because all he had was some wrapping tape and a few scraps of paper. The thought I had at the time was he would have had a lot more success if he was using some duct tape and a few pages out of a checklist.

The pre-banquet reception started at 6:30PM. Everyone was pretty well dressed, mostly in dark business clothes. In walks Wally Schirra in his Hawaiian shirt. He stood out like he had a spotlight on him. A little while later, we’re all standing in line at the bar and Al Worden is giving Wally some (good natured) stuff about wearing that shirt. I told Al that he shouldn’t do that because it was Wally’s best formal Hawaiian, which Wally thought was pretty funny. Then he shows me he has his Navy wings embroidered above the pocket. Literally, he has a big set of gold Navy wings sewn onto the shirt. He whispers to me “I wouldn’t put a set of Air Force wings on a shirt this fine.” Good thing I wasn’t drinking anything at the time because he would have been wearing it. A while later, I’m back in line and I see Warren Stevens standing over in the line to buy drink tickets. I had more tickets than I could use (complements of Jerry), so I offered to buy him a drink. Someone else did about the same time, so the three of us ended up in line talking with him. I had studied up on his career so I was able to talk intelligently with him about it and he seemed genuinely impressed. I decided I’d have to go by his table Sunday morning and get an autograph.

The banquet was almost anti-climactic. By sheer coincidence, I had decided to sit at Al Worden’s table over a week earlier. Linn and Dee were seated there as well. However, none of them was really at the table during the banquet. They were off and doing other things as ASF representatives. I would have really been tweaked if I hadn’t already had the Friday night experience. The other people at the table felt a little cheated by the whole thing. I did win an item in the silent auction, an artifact from Skylab 4 from Bill Pogue’s collection. Everyone ended up back at the bar after the banquet, as expected.

Sunday morning, there was no power in the main room. Everyone was sitting around in the dark. Steve was working the hotel staff as well as he could and trying to keep the astronauts informed. Gene Krantz got up at some point, looked around and asked why they couldn’t just move into the room with the empty tables. All of the astronauts agreed that it was a good idea, but nobody did anything about it. Gene looked around, then grabbed his stuff and said “let’s go”. Everyone did. It was nice to see that once a Flight Director, always a Flight Director. Not everyone left the dark room at that point, however. Bill Dana stayed there for a while longer, but it was because he was prepared. I have this great mental picture (the photograph I took didn’t turn out very well), of him standing behind his table, all by himself in the big dark room, holding a flashlight and telling people he was still there.

Later, I spent a bit of time with Warren Stevens and I have to tell you, he’s an amazing guy. We talked for quite a while. He’s almost 90 years old and he did everything himself. No helper, no nothing. One collector wanted him to autograph a scene from an Outer Limits episode he was in and he didn’t remember it. The collector started telling him a bit about it and it all came right back to him. Pretty amazing. I’m not sure I could remember that sort of detail from something that happened to me last month.

The 2007 show was at KSC, but I didn’t go. There really wasn’t anyone there that I needed to see…

Dad’s stories, Chapter 2

EBS, Memories

As previously stated, we started our life’s adventure in a one room in Jacksonville, Fla. We soon branched out to a regular apartment. Things were improving. At least we had more room. We were enjoying each other. When you are in love, you don’t need much room. As time moved on, I started to seek easier and better-paying work. I was very satisfied with my wife and married life. Somehow I was not satisfied with my work and the discipline required to plug away at a steady job. I decided that our future would be better served in Georgia. We moved there and lived with relatives. Of course that didn’t work and we moved back to Jacksonville.

When we came back to Jax, we lived with Martie’s family. That was not a good solution. Work was scarce. I didn’t know how to do anything anyway. The only qualification I had was driving a truck. Not much demand for truck drivers. Jacksonville became a big problem for me. No matter what I tried, I couldn’t make things work out. We felt the need for a change. I simply could not make it in Jax. We decided to try St. Augustine.

I drove to St. Augustine, Fla. about 40 miles away. Found a job. Pay was $25.00 a week. At least I had a job. Hurried home and told Martie about it. She seemed satisfied. She and I went to St. Augustine. We were able to rent an apartment above a grocery store on credit. Bought food on credit. Did a lot of fishing, ate a lot of fish. We made it. We were very happy for a while.

We were to live in St. Augustine twice over the next few years. During these times my father became sick and died. His sickness and death really depressed me for a while. Our lives were difficult. I wasn’t helping it much either. Martie found a job and worked for a while. I broke my hand and couldn’t work for a while. We had moved back to Jacksonville during my father’s sickness. After his death we eventually decided to go back to St. Augustine for another try.

I had found a friend in St. Augustine upon our first time living there. He was still a friend and still there. I contacted him. He helped me find a job. He borrowed his company truck and helped us move back. We were able to get another apartment and started over. Things improved. They improved because I was beginning to get my act together. I eventually got a job with a laundry and dry cleaning company. Believe it or not this company supplied me with my first training class in sales.

During this second trip to St. Augustine, I came to realize that I must have more schooling if I was to secure a better job. Martie checked out adult education and found it offered only at a community school in Sanford, Fla. We prepared ourselves for the move to Central Florida.

Shortly before leaving St. Augustine for central Florida, I was baptized and became a member of the Presbyterian church. I felt much better about my life after that. Something seemed right. Things were more settled and stable. I had made the correct decision. Upon arrival in central Florida, we became closely associated with the Presbyterian Church and built relationships that still exist today.

The pastor of our church recommended me to the owner of a retail paint store. I secured the job and worked there for the following four years. During the second year on this job, the owner came down with a heart attack. Martie immediately came in and ran the store. She knew a little about paint and stores and in about a week she had things under control. She ran the inside, I, the outside having to do with sales.

The owner was in debt to the paint factory. Of course, the factory rep came down to secure their investment, figuring with the owner out of action, their investment was at risk. We were able to convince them that the operation was in good hands. We assured them that we could continue the operation, pay off the debt and be a credit to the company and owner. These things we did. We paid off the loan well ahead of time. The store was well into the black and profitable upon the owner’s return. I followed this line of work for the next 16 years, loved it, simply could not make a decent living doing it.

It should be evident by now that my wife could do anything. And do it well. She had guided me through about 10 years at this time. Kept me warm, dry, and happy. She hadn’t made me successful financially at that time but she was working on it. We had been able to buy our first home, had some furniture, were working hard and building a stable life. The thing missing was a child. We really wanted a baby. I wanted a boy. We decided to do some serious work on this problem. Shortly thereafter Martie became pregnant with our first child.

Now as the story went, one of the neighbors in Martie’s old neighborhood said that Martie and I had to get married when we did because she was pregnant. Now it is 10 years later and by golly, she is. Never could figure how she kept it from me that long.

I believe the next nine months were the most exciting months of our lives. Every single day was a new experience. I couldn’t wait to get home each day. She would tell me every single thing that happened. How she was feeling, how the baby was growing, how big she was getting, if the baby had moved. We had our home. We were going to have our own baby. What a happy time.

During the normal course of events, the baby did grow. Martie did grow. As a matter of fact, Martie grew to the point of exploding. I didn’t see how she could continue. Now the baby grew, and grew, and grew. He not only moved, he was all feet and elbows. We used to watch him move around inside. I didn’t know if she would survive all that kicking and jumping. Anyway the day arrived. A Saturday afternoon. Martie called me, said this is it. The time is now. Let’s go to the hospital and bring our baby home.

We arrived at the hospital. I checked her in. It took about 30 minutes. I finally made it to the waiting room. Was welcomed by the hospital staff. Told I was ready now. Trouble was – Martie was not ready. About 17 hours later, Andy arrived. The nurse came and told me that we had a fine boy. She said if I would follow her that I could see him as they brought him out of the delivery room. She said that Martie was fine. The baby was fine. All was right in my world.

Now the reader should remember that all these things were new to me. First time, only time up to now. Picture this. I am standing there waiting to see my first-born son. Proud Happy Daddy. The nurse comes out of the delivery room with this baby. He hasn’t been cleaned up. The birth was difficult. I didn’t understand any of these things. The nurse held him up for me to see. She asked, “isn’t he a beautiful boy?” I had never seen anything like that in my life. Now nurses know about these things. She said, “Let us get him cleaned up. He will look better then.” Not much I could do. He was the only one born at the time. Like it or not, I had to claim him. He was mine.

The nurses took the baby away and allowed me in to see Martie. She woke up enough to ask if I had seen our baby and if it was a pretty boy. I told her that I had seen the baby. But that we might be in trouble. He wasn’t necessarily a beautiful baby. She said that I didn’t know what I was talking about, and went back to sleep. Of course, Martie was right again as usual. He cleaned up well. He was a beautiful baby.

Most people could not understand how I felt at this time. I took my wife and my baby boy to my home on Outlook Street in Orlando, Fla. Martie and I were 30 years old. Life was sweet, life was fine. How great it was to be alive. How great it was to be me.

Dad’s stories, Chapter 1

EBS, Memories

Today’s date is January 26, 1995. Time is 8:49 am. I’m just sitting around thinking. I have some heavy duty decisions to make today. The big one is, Which day is best to go fishing. Of equal importance is, Should I buy a new boat. Then again, maybe I will just take out the trash. On the other hand, I think I will write something about my past experiences. It’s still pretty cold outside.

I am currently 68 years old. My wife is 69. I retired at age 65. Martie and I have enjoyed our retirement. We continue to enjoy good health and are planning our 50th year anniversary celebration. We are fortunate to have a very nice home and ample cash resources to enjoy our retirement.

I am the fifth son of Minnie and Ander Sheppard. The first-born child died at age 2. I have three surviving brothers; Elmer Clifton, 79, of Jacksonville, FL; George Washington, 76, of Melbourne, FL; and Winn Chester, 72, also of Melbourne, FL. I am the youngest of the group, possible the most handsome and intelligent.

As the story goes, I was born in Helena, GA on September 5, 1926 at home, and as I understand, my mother was fortunate to have a doctor present. My birth weight was 13 pounds. If my mother ever forgave me for that, she shouldn’t have. I grew up as most south Georgia children did. Nothing special about that. These years of my youth were Depression years. Times were hard, no money and no jobs. Everyone did the best they could. The election of Roosevelt in 1932 probably saved the South and the nation.

I attended McRae-Helena Grammar and High School. I was able to complete seven years and about half of my eighth year of formal education. I was not a very good student. Always loved the outside, and wanted to be somewhere else. I don’t believe I ever really understood why I had to go to school. However, I did find out later.

My mother was the main force in my life. She supplied the discipline and made things happen. My father was part Indian and as Indians are prone do – love children with little or no discipline. Mother died when I was twelve years old and in the sixth grade. I completed that grade and the seventh. But lost interest and dropped out about halfway through the eighth.

The year I left school 1941 was the year, our country entered WW2. In early ‘41 I figured that the army was the place for me. My older brother was in the army. He was doing great. Why not me? Trouble was I was only 14. Had to figure something out about that. Answer – I advanced my age to 17. Changed my birth year. No problem. They took me in and seemed glad to have me. About a month after my induction, the U.S. entered into WW2. At the time I didn’t worry too much about that. Figured since I was in the army I might as well save mankind from Germany and Japan. As I was to find out later, that task was somewhat more difficult than I imagined.

I received my training in Ft. Knox, Kentucky. Big guns, heavy armor. I thought those 30 ton tanks were about the greatest thing around. Couldn’t wait to get my hands on one of those. Got my chance. Qualified as a driver. Off to liberate the world.

Our first stop was Northern Ireland. Then on to England. Then on to the invasion of North Africa. Didn’t get killed in Africa so onto Italy to try again. Didn’t get killed there either. But the Germans came closer, much closer. Was hurt on the Anzio Beachhead. Was sent home and discharged one month before I was old enough to be drafted.

To sum up my service time. I served 37 months in the army – 34 months overseas. I saw this time as a great adventure. I enjoyed it all except the time actually spent in combat. I wouldn’t want to do it again.

Life is a funny thing. A person dreams about how things will be. They don’t work out the way you dream. And you are very disappointed. Many times I am glad that God runs our lives.

Left up to us, we sure wouldn’t do such a good job of it. As most soldiers, I dreamed of returning home, marrying the childhood sweetheart, settling down, and raising a family. That didn’t work for me as I’m sure it didn’t work for most other people.

Anyway, I gave it a shot. Couldn’t get a decent job. Couldn’t get along with girlfriend or her family. Swore off women and Georgia. Left town to visit my sister-in-law in far away Jacksonville, Fla. For some unknown reason I was accompanied by my brother Chester on this particular trip, which probably wasn’t one of his better ideas.

Upon arrival in Jacksonville, old Chester and I were directed to meet our sister-in-law, Thelma, as she got off from work. We were to get supper downtown and see some of the city. Since there were two of us and one of Thelma, she decided to bring along a friend. This friend being Martha Hurlbert. Now this friend, Martha, was a pretty young girl. Remember now, I was through with women. So I took Thelma’s arm and left Martha to brother Chester. Over the next week we were together several times. I didn’t think I was paying much attention to Martha or she to me for that matter. Time marches on.

The time came to leave. I decided to get a job in Jacksonville. Chester decided to return to Georgia. I found a job in sales. This job required traveling over much of the Southeast USA. I thought this was a good job and I especially liked the traveling part. I was scheduled to leave Jax on a Sunday and Chester was to return to Georgia the same day. Late Saturday afternoon I decided to make one last visit to my sis-in-law’s home to say goodby. I made the trip but upon my arrival, found my brother and Thelma had left for a movie. No one knew which one. While I was sitting around feeling sorry about missing them, this Martha Hurlbert girl came in looking for them also. Keep in mind now, I had sworn off women.

As it happened, we discovered that she was there, I was there. You know, girl and boy stuff. We decided to pool our money and go to the movie on our own. Seemed as if it would work out. The idea was so great we decided to try it. We walked to the movie. Then I walked her home. During this time, I discovered that she was not a girl. She was a very healthy young woman. Lots of fun to be with. Highly intelligent. I felt that she had all the good qualities a man could find in a woman. Especially the qualities my mother told me to look for in a life mate. Also I found that she had sworn off men. For two people who had sworn off everything, we were more or less complicating the sworn off situation.

During the course of that evening we talked of many things. Her life. My life. Where we wanted to go. What we wanted to do. And apparently liked what we said to each other. She asked why I was leaving. I don’t remember my response. She said she would like for me to stay. Pointed out that I could find a good job in Jax. Said she would help me find a place to live. That was the only slight push I needed. I retrieved my belongings. She supplied that assistance and encouragement as promised. Six weeks later we were married in her home and started our life in one rented room off Park St. in Jacksonville, Fla. On April 7, 1995, this year, we will have been married to each other for fifty years. She was everything I thought she was and more.

Martie and I were married by a Presbyterian minister. This minister was pastor of the church she attended. So he was the natural choice for the wedding. I really liked the Presbyterian church and the preacher. This was to influence my Christian activities for the rest of my life.

I was brought up in the Baptist church. The Baptist preachers were always screaming at me, telling me I was a sinner, and was going to Hell. I couldn’t understand this philosophy, still don’t. The Presbyterian minister didn’t scream at me. Taught Christian logic and said if you wanted to believe in something – know what it was and then proceed. This seemed the right way for me.

New articles on the way…

Shortly before he passed away a number of years ago, my dad wrote several stories about his life. He couldn’t type and really disliked the general idea of computers, so he wrote them out in long hand on legal pads. My mom eventually transcribed them onto her computer and sent them to me.

Well, I’ve decided I’m going to post them here.

I’ve read through them and there’s nothing too risque or embarassing, and Mom said it was okay to post them.

It should be obvious that I didn’t write the stories, but I’ll identify them appropriately anyway.

Stay tuned.

Avatar!

This is, without a doubt, the most amazing movie I’ve ever seen.

I remember sitting in a movie theater years ago, watching this new movie named “Star Wars” and thinking there couldn’t ever be a movie as mind-blowing as this one was.

I was wrong.

If “Star Wars” was a quantum leap beyond the movies of it’s time, “Avatar” is ten quantum leaps beyond the other movies of today.

I can’t wait to see it again.

everQuest design

Several years ago, I saw an article on collectSPACE about a company that was making messenger bags that incorporated a piece of a parachute that had been used to land a Soyuz space capsule. The company was everQuest design and they were located in Montreal. The bags looked very sharp and weren’t too expensive, so I ordered one right away.

It took a couple of weeks to get my bag, mostly because they were absolutely swamped by questions and orders because of the publicity. When they shipped it, I got a very nice email that included a tracking number and all.

The bag was very cool. As an added bonus, I discovered it was big enough to carry my copy of “The Home Planet”, so now it wouldn’t get (even more) beat up when I took it to get autographs. As everQuest suggested, I also used it every day as my briefcase. It’s quite durable.

After a couple of months of use, I began to notice that a piece of Velcro in a back pocket was beginning to separate from the bag. A closer look revealed that the stitching had actually missed that edge of the Velcro during the construction of the bag and it was now beginning to unravel. I sent an email off to everQuest and asked about it. Their response was quick. They said my bag was unconditionally guaranteed against all defects/normal wear and tear, and all I had to do was send it back and they would fix or replace it. So, I sent it back.

Sending the bag back to everQuest was interesting all by itself. Since they’re located in Canada, you can’t just send it to them; you have to fill out customs forms and all that happy stuff. The Post Office knew exactly what to do, however, and in just a few minutes it was on it’s way. I promptly forgot about it.

A few weeks later I got a very apologetic message from everQuest. They had just received the bag because it had been held up in customs. I’m sure it was because I had forgotten to mark some checkbox or other on the customs form. Anyway, they had taken a look at the bag and decided to offer me a replacement. I could have had the old bag back, but it would have taken a while and they could ship a new bag immediately. They made sure I knew it was a slightly different bag and the parachute piece was from a different mission, which was fine with me.

The new bag showed up just a few days later. I think I actually like it better than the old bag. The important thing, though, is it still fits my “Home Planet”.

I have to say I’m very happy with both the product and the service provide by everQuest. I’d recommend them to anyone.

New black & white play!

I previously talked about the black & white plays at the Pegasus Theater. These are some of the most amazing things that I’ve ever seen. Anyway, I just got an email that says they will be doing another one this year! You can always find out the latest information at the Pegasus home page, but here’s the email for those of you who just can’t wait:

Dear Pegasus Theater Friend:

We’ll have more information on this soon but I wanted to let you know that Pegasus Theater will be returning to the Eisemann Center this season with another “Living Black & White” Harry Hunsacker adventure! Preview performances will begin December 29, 2009 and we’ll have performances through January 17, 2010.

Two new things this year–we’ll add Saturday matinees to our performance schedule and the performance on New Year’s Eve will start at 8pm (rather than 9pm as in the past.) This earlier curtain time will allow our patrons, who wish, to easily attend the New Year’s party of their choosing and still be able to attend our production. Tickets will go on sale in the very near future!

Kurt Kleinmann
Artistic Director

I can’t wait!

Does anybody really know what time it is

Benjamin is a Pittsburgh Steelers fan. That’s not a popular thing here in Dallas, but that’s not the point. He’s more a fan of the current Steelers quarterback, Ben Roethlisberger. Why? I think I’ve mentioned once or twice just how big Benjamin is getting. Well, Roethlisberger’s nickname is “Big Ben”.

Benjamin really likes that nickname. A lot.