the college years

I saw a bumper sticker on the back of a truck that belonged to a Vietnam Vet that said, "If you were not here, shut up!" Going to college during the 1960's and part of the 70's was unlike any other time period in the history of our country. Everyone had a feeling of hopelessness, futility, anger, and even rage.  My wife and I, while we were dating, would always stay together to at least midnight, so we could say we started the day together. The Vietnam War was going full blast and the draft was put into force. On your 18th birthday, every young man was required by law to "sign up." Then they instituted a numerical system: every draft age person was given a number.  Supposedly, the higher the number, the less like ly you were going to get that infamous letter in the mail from our local draft board, to report for a physical exam.  The other thing, supposedly, was if you were a full time college student(15.5 credit hours/semester) and your college sent a letter to your draft board, you were exempt.  Supposedly. I made the mistake of carrying over 20 credit hours one semester, which about fried me, so I only took 9 credit hours the following semester. You guessed it, within a week I was called to report for a physical and a school bus load of us young men were driven to Buffalo, N.Y. which was the induction center.  As I said before, the only thing that kept me from coming back from 'Nam in a flag draped box was my short arm gave me an exemption.  Gee, I wonder who won the contract for American flags back then-over 58,000?  And the idea that we had to go into a swamp and kill the country's citizens and destroy their home's to stop the progression of Communism is really stretching it.  Here we are, the richest, most powerful country in the world, who could obliterate any country in the world at the push of a button, sending foot solder's into a swamp-whose shoes fell apart and rifles jammed, was just nuts.  Viet Nam was a political war. Period. "Limited engagement."  In other words, we were NOT allowed to win.  Ask any Army general and he will tell you that the Viet Nam War could have been won in two weeks.  More on the college years later.

put on the boxing gloves

A disclaimer: do I take my own advice?  Usually. Not. But I feel that when two people are in a relationship, like a marriage, there is bound to be differences, some of which push our emotional "buttons" to where we want the issue resolved NOW.  usually not a good idea-a hot head can't make cool decisions.  So here are some things I picked up over the years for your consideration:
1. When you want to settle an issue, do it latter-both pick an agreeable time.  You are not ignoring the problem; just "shelving" it to a better time. Like when you both are not at the boiling point and set aside a time for the TWO of you to talk. No kids or friends or duties to interupt.
2. It's time.  Sounds corny, but sit down, hold hands and have a prayer with both of you offering up something to the God of your understanding.  I would suggest thanking Him for each other.
3 Identify the problem and stick to it, and nothing else. This is not the time to bring in everything else that irritates you about your partner's habits or their extended family.  Example:"While were at it, I want to talk about your mother meddling in our lives, etc., etc."
4. Have a safe phrase and a separate safe place to go to for at least 15 minutes. If either one says, "Time Out," The conversation immediately stops-not another word is allowed to be spoken, and each person leaves the room and goes to a predesignated place: the dinning room, den, wherever.  As long as it is not the bedroom or the same place! And remember, when someone says time out, that's exactly what it means-I need a break and I need it now. AND NOT ANOTHER WORD IS ALLOWED. SILENCE. GET UP AND GO TO YOUR PLACE.
5. 15 minutes is up, time to get back together and try it again-and usually this time, it doesn't seem as bad as it was before.
6.  Always start each sentence or paragraph with the word "I".  Such as, "I feel that the way you sit there and pick your nose during diner really bothers me."  If you start with the word, "You," it comes across as an attack of the other person, such as, You are such a slob, picking your nose during dinner!" See the difference?
Anyway, just a few ideas that might help you at home or even where you work. And remember: you are not going to change your mate-so work on changing you to be a better person-when you do that, you will be surprised at how much better your mate has become!  And if you have not done so, everyone work to make a Mission Statement for your home. Frame it and hang it where everyone in the family(plus guests) can easily read it often.  Just as a suggestion, read "Family. A proclamation to the World," for some ideas.  You can find it at lds.org or just do a Google to find it. kismif: keep it simple, make it fun.

fighting to stay married

there must be a 100 books written on how to have a happy marriage and raise your children.  And they are all wrong because the only worthwhile knowledge is for the person who wrote the book-for himself(her) and one child.  Children don't come with an owner's manual, so we do the best we can, hopefully adding improvements from the way you were raise;   or, sometimes it is best just to wipe the slate clean and start fresh, especially if you came from an abusive household. I know that some of my ancestors were big on capital punishment; a childhood friend's dad was a barber and the belt was not used just to sharpen his straight razor; so it would be wrong of him to find ways of improving the belt's use.  As I said, sometimes better to just start fresh and a good way is to have a family proclamation, one that is based on gospel principles.  If you recall, Jesus drove the Jewish ruling class nuts because they followed a strict Moses's Law of an eye for an eye.  Next:  what every relationship needs to know how to do: and that is how to fight. Fairly. All couples are going to have disagreements and some can make or break a marriage.  But if both of you agree 100% of the time on %100 of everything, it would really take all the flavor of bringing two people living together.  Don't take this the wrong way: men and women are not equal, they are different-so they can complement each other and grow in equality.Who of us want to marry ourselves? Boring.  More, later.

AGE

i would often joke with people that age seems to bring some stability and "wisdom" into our lives, but it would be nice to have that 20 year old, or so, body, at the same time!  But, I guess the Lord has other plans, and we can't have both at the same time!
Just some info of some of the "specialists" I have been to see, so far, the last being a neuro-ophthalmologist, is most of these conditions that seem to being coming out of nowhere, I've had most of my life-its just that now, it's time for them to get in the way! One of the problems the eye doctor (I am not going to write out that big title again) said I am seeing manifest, is convergence. You can look at the tip of your nose-I no longer can, which is why I have to type with my right eye closed.  That's the close-up part of wearing bifocals.  Long distance wise I have to be careful as I see double out of my right eye.  Naturally, if I close it, I lose depth perception.since  I have been driving since I was 16, I am not sure how to judge not having it and it is causing me problems trying to adjust. 

Still no answers yet about hand tremors or losing feeling in my right leg.  Well, little by little, I will get this figured out-but right now, not being able to see, write, and sometimes I have to move my leg with my hand-like while driving, picking up my foot from the gas to the brake pedal, is a little scary.
 I just want things to work well enough to go back to work. But, like one guy said to me, it's a good day if you wake up without dirt on your face!

Just Ducky

Tom, Jr., was our 1st to get accepted to a college and it was BYU.  Things fell in place;  someone down the street had a used blue 12 passenger van that we could afford and got us there and back.  We decided to pitch our tents along the green river in Provo.  This was unlike any park we were familiar with in Pa. or IL.The camping season was over and there was only one other family camping out.  The grass was 3" thick and a lush green with auto sprinklers to keep it that way.  The bathrooms were not the "pits," but were modern with flush toilets, ceramic walls, and hot showers.  During the night, I could here the sounds of fish splashing all night, and envisioned large bass, just waiting for me.  They were large carp, and while we did not eat them, they gave up a heck of a fight-one even broke a fishing pole in two!
for breakfast, we had bacon, eggs, toast, and milk or OJ to drink. Realizing they were carp, i would take a piece of bread after breakfast, and dip it in the cooled bacon grease, working it into a ball on the hook. A carp will run with it, drop it, and come back to get it.  Time to set the hook.  one chance. Crapy to eat, but a good battle, landing it.
Amanda, who was a tot, said, "Daddy, you said you would teach me how to fish."  So we got everything ready(as above), and with both of us holding the pole, made the cast. No sooner did the bait hit the water, a duck flew down like a bullet and grabbed it, swallowed it, hook and all and began flying away.  We reeled the poor bird to shore and i held it down with a shoe while using a pair of pliers to cut the line, hoping its gastric juices would eventually dissolve the hook.  Looking back it was quite comical seeing the scared duck flapping to escape!  End of story-Amanda's first fish was a duck!  What a story.  More about our first experiences in Provo, UT. later.

fiah stories

since i am awake, some fish facts. NO ONE in Brackenridge would even think of eating carp or catfish, except those living on 4th avenue, the "colored," street.  Just about everyone considered them garbage food since they ate garbage from a polluted river.  When we moved to the Midwest, I was amazed how many restaurants served breaded catfish and that social clubs advertised catfish dinners on a Friday night basis. Here, catfish was THE fish to eat!  The "finer" restaurants would stress their catfish was "pond raised." Lise Dixon's Fish Shop in East Peoria.  When I worked for Ruth Industries, selling maintenance chemicals, one of my accounts was the park district in El Paso-and there were 50 lb bags of Purina Catfish chow.  So it was not a lie after all
Carp is another story. There are 2 rows of red bitter flesh, that, if removed, make it edible. Suppository.Carp is considered a white fish and I have a story to tell of Amanda.s first fish-a duck caught on the green river in Provo.  To me, if you can throw a stone across the other side it is a creek, not a river. The green river emptied into Utah Lake and I asked the Park Ranger what the big boats were throwing out nets to catch-he said carp to be sold in New York as a Jewish delicacy and they are also made into fish sandwiches  for Hardee's and other fast food places.  So the next time you order a fish sandwich, it  is not some cold water fish from the north.  It is carp.  And what ever you do, don't buy fish or chicken from Wal-Mart.  The fish are very polluted and the chickens have been dead for some time and after skinning them,(the workers usually throw up), they are put in a pool of yellow-orange colored water to look fresh. And then sent from China, Side note:  all fish have small, live worms, living just under the scales-even trout!  So just get a good variety of Omega 3 for your vitamin, and when you fish, catch and release.  Good night:)

bread+carp=money

Today, Pymatuning Lake is financially dead-The largest lake(part in Ohio) is a ghost town.Even though it has over 35 miles of shoreline and has the largest fish hatchery in the state of PA., no one, meaning tourists, visit, let alone fish the lake.  In the 60's  and 70's is was a booming area whose postcard's boast"where the ducks walk on the fish." The area known as the Spillway, where a circular dam let water from one side of the road (game and fishing a no-no), spill under to the other side-fishing and fowl hunting allowed-the carp were so large and thick trying to eat a slice of bread thrown in by the tourists,, the ducks could literally walk on the carps backs and grab some bread.  a concession stand, rented by the State. besides selling "made in China" souvenirs, sold, on average, 4000 loafs of "day old" bread a week for the carp to eat-besides other places that sold the bread.  The carp were over 2 and a half feet long and had to weigh about 25-30ilb each.  When their population became to much(the carp also fed on trophy fish eggs,) the stat state would net them up then grind them up for the farmers to use as fertilizer.
Today, even game fishing is a rarity, and it is not uncommon to hear of a 40"+ Musky being caught on a hook and worm-no one fishes the lake anymore.  My parents home on the lake would easily go for over a half million 10 years ago: now they would be lucky to get 90,000 for it.
The other main road is the Causeway,which separates that part of the lake from PA. to OH.-the road is a dam in itself. The Lake is shallow: one could walk across the causeway in the water, and not go over their head.
The demise:  closer lakes and tourist attractions near the big cities such as Pittsburgh, Youngstown & Cleveland, OH.,  The big "killer" was the new Moraine Lake, outside of butler, PA. It offered so much that the boy scouts used it for one of their national jamborees.  My parent's biggest mistake was building a brand new drive restaurant, "the Duck Inn."  They should have gotten out of the business years before.  But I still feel the reason we moved to Pymatuning Lake was my dad's love of Musky fishing. Side Note: Before Fishing/ depth finders, dad would order a set of maps showing the depths and terrain of all the lakes he fished from the Army Corp of Engineers-he new that large fish, like Musky's, preferred deep and/or hiding places in the water-so that is where he would fish!