Out With the Old...

and In With the New...

Kenny G.'s Auld Lang Syne --This One's for You, Mom!

Here we are..we've lasted another year! Each year, I'm beginning to feel a bit more triumphant at that, as though it should somehow be enough..yet I can't help feeling a stirring of excitement as the New Year presents an opportunity to....Do a Better Job of It!

This is the year that I will become perfectly organized, slim, exercised, healthy, go vegetarian, write that novel, (or at least those stories), post here every day, spend more quality time with my Mom, and with Eeyore..my Children, my Grandchildren,my friends..paint(well-stencil) that mural at the end of the kitchen..pay more attention to what's going on in the world and to take more positive action where I can.... Uhhh-huhh....

Maybe I'd better pick just One! I think I will try my best to maintain a positive attitude and to bring that positiveness into everything that I think and do and into listening to the ideas and viewing the actions of others. There!

Here are some examples of people who didn't have a positive attitude and ended up looking a bit foolish....


"Man will never reach the moon regardless of all future scientific advances."
-- Dr. Lee DeForest, "Father of Radio & Grandfather of Television.

" "The bomb will never go off. I speak as an expert in explosives."
- - Admiral William Leahy , US Atomic Bomb Project

"There is no likelihood man can ever tap the power of the atom."
-- Robert Millikan, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1923

"Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons."
-- Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of science, 1949

"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers ." -- Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943



"I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won't last out the year." -- The editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall, 1957

"But what is it good for?" -- Engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM, 1968, commenting on the microchip.

"640K ought to be enough for anybody."
-- Bill Gates, 1981

This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us," -- Western Union internal memo, 1876.



"The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?"
-- David Sarnoff's associates in response to his urgings for investment in the radio in the 1920s.



"The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a 'C,' the idea must be feasible,"
-- A Yale University management professor in response to Fred Smith's paper proposing reliable overnight delivery service. (Smith went on to found Federal Express Corp.)



"I'm just glad it'll be Clark Gable who's falling on his face and not Gary Cooper," -- Gary Cooper on his decision not to take the leading role in "Gone With The Wind."

"A cookie store is a bad idea. Besides, the market research reports say America likes crispy cookies, not soft and chewy cookies like you make,"
-- Response to Debbi Fields' idea of starting Mrs. Fields' Cookies.

"We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out,"
-- Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962.

"Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible," -- Lord Kelvin, president, Royal Society, 1895.



"If I had thought about it, I wouldn't have done the experiment. The literature was full of examples that said you can't do this,"
- - Spencer Silver on the work that led to the unique adhesives for 3-M "Post-It" Notepads .



"Drill for oil? You mean drill into the ground to try and find oil? You're crazy," -- Drillers who Edwin L. Drake tried to enlist to his project to drill for oil in 1859.

"Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau." - - Irving Fisher, Professor of Economics, Yale University , 1929.

"Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value," -- Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre , France .

"Everything that can be invented has been invented,"
-- Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, US Office of Patents, 1899.

"The super computer is technologically impossible. It would take all of the water that flows over Niagara Falls to cool the heat generated by the number of vacuum tubes required." -- Professor of Electrical Engineering, New York University

"I don't know what use any one could find for a machine that would make copies of documents. It certainly couldn't be a feasible business by itself." -- the head of IBM, refusing to back the idea, forcing the inventor to found Xerox.

"Louis Pasteur's theory of germs is ridiculous fiction."
-- Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology at Toulouse , 1872

"The abdomen, the chest, and the brain will forever be shut from the intrusion of the wise and humane surgeon," -- Sir John Eric Ericksen, British surgeon, appointed Surgeon-Extraordinary to Queen Victoria 1873. And last but not least...

"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." -- Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977

A Happy, Healthy, and Prosperous New Year to All!

A Different Dog's Tale

I've been wanting to tell the story of Samantha, my Basset Hound for quite awhile, but it may one that completely stretches your credibility.. Although I'm afraid you'll think mine a smaller even than Pooh-brain, or worse me an ex-sniffer of hallucinogenics, I'm driven to tell this tale.

I was about twenty-three, mother of two young children, and working full time. It was no time to get a puppy, but I had always wanted a Basset and the add said they were reasonably priced, so we drove out to a beautiful area past Granite Dells to find that the pups were sold and gone except for one little female with one white eye. We could have her for half-price, and so Samantha came to take over our household.

We've had lots experience with dogs, and most of them have been well behaved, but Samantha, while eventually housebroken, refused to try to please us in any way. When she came in heat, male dogs gathered around the perimeter of the fence when she was outside. I gave her some chlorophyll tablets ( a difficult task in itself..a tablet in some hamburger seemed to go down the hatch then, much, much later, when she thought I wasn't looking..phttt..out it shot) and low and behold, the male dogs quit coming around. Sam, hormones in gear, missed her would be lovers and when I let her out for a few minutes sat in the middle of the yard calling "woo..oof..wooo...wooo...oofff...," in the best imitation May West voice that you can imagine.

The second heat got her with pups. Remember this was a time when people weren't so aware of how important it is to spay female dogs, so it didn't occur to us at the time. The thing is, Samantha hated being a mother. She had her little crate of pups and when they started squirming and mewling with hunger she would sadly approach the box. Step, stop..big sigh, step..stop..big sigh until eventually she reached it, climbed in and dutifully nursed her pups.

That was the preface, if you're still with me..this is the story.

We were living in lovely, heavily wooded Groom Creek about six miles from Prescott and about a thousand feet higher in elevation. We had found homes for all but one of the pups. He was about half grown and followed his mother everywhere. It was early in December when the pup disappeared. There was snow on the ground, so we all booted up and searched through our subdivision of mostly empty summer homes and through the woods beyond. Coyotes had gotten it, we finally concluded.

We had milk delivery and one day the milkman, after intrepidly chaining up the snowy driveway asked me if we'd lost a pup. Yes indeed, I replied.

"Ther's a lady over on Friendly Pines road who's really angry with you," he said laughing. "She has the puppy and she swears that when it was snowing, your dog came up on her porch and scratched on her door. When she heard the scratching, she opened the door, and your dog shoved the pup inside and ran away through the snow as fast as she could go. By the time it dawned on her what had happened, the dog was gone. She said the puppy seemed just as confused as she was!"

When we retrieved the pup, the woman swore the story was true, and I believed her because I have some other pretty unbelievable stories to tell about that dog. After that, we did wise up and have her spayed!

Indulgence Day!

Today, I'm reading....and...

reading...Yummmmm...

Aint' it Funny...

How Time Slips Away..

Thanks to everyone who expressed concern for me during the period I didn't post. I was down with a respiratory virus for several days, and when I got on my feet felt I had to focus on the business of Christmas. I sincerely apologize to anyone who was concerned for me.

I just felt I couldn't open the box..

With apologies to Forest Gump as well, I have to say that blogging is a lot like a box of chocolates. But, I have to differ with Forest in one aspect. You do know pretty much what you'll get.At least in one of your favorite big boxes, the kind that you know just by looking at one of those beauties nesting in it's own little paper cup pretty much what melt in your mouth treat you hold in your hand when you pick it up. You know the light chocolate with the little swirl has a fudgey center and the thin rectangle has crunchy toffee.

Here's the thing I've found, blogging is exactly like eating chocolates. It's addictive... it's impossible to read just one. I can happily lose track of time when catching up on my favorite blogger's lives, their pictures, their silly (or scary) stories, their interests, and their ideas. And I know pretty much what I'm going to get as I indulge in one after another....

So, when I got on my feet I I knuckled down and buckled down to the business of Christmas. I couldn't open the computer box, because I am admittedly addicted to my fellow bloggers and their stories. I'm so looking forward to December 26 when I plan to Binge!

I saw this on Granny Annie and couldn't stop thinking about it. For any of you who missed it on her site, Fools Rush In, enjoy!

Riding on Trains

In the 1940s it was all about train travel and that's the way my Mom and I made our way about the South west. We clambered up the steps of the hissing beast at Omaha with a white jacketed Conductor standing by to lend a hand if necessary. Mom would find our seats and we would settle ourselves for the journey. Soon, we'd hear the Conductor call out "All Aboooaard," and I experienced a little shiver of excitement as, with a great deal of clatter and hissing, the wheels started turning, slowly at first then gathering momentum until we were rocketing through the vast farmlands and prairies of the Midwest. I remember playing a game of what if..what if I lived there... in that white farm house under the shade of those big trees... what if that bay horse in the field was mine and I could ride it every day....what if I lived in that little house so close to the railroad track that I could wave to the train passing by every day..

We were usually in a Pullman car. That meant while we sat in the dining car at a table resplendent with white tablecloths and napkins, selecting from a full menu, the porter would be busy making our seats into sleeping berths.

Changed into our pajamas, we would crawl into the berths, snuggle down and sink into sleep in the swaying car as the clickity-clack of the wheels sang a rhythmic lullaby.

This is the Santa Fe Super Chief. We got to ride on this train to Albuquerque. New Mexico.

Do yuh hear that whistle down the line?

I figure that it's engine number forty nine,

She's the only one that'll sound that way.

On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe.

See the ol' smoke risin' 'round the bend,

I reckon that she knows she's gonna meet a friend,

Folks around these parts get the time o' day

From the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe.

Here she comes! Ooh, ooh, ooh,

Hey, Jim, yuh better git the rig!

Ooh, ooh, ooh,

She's got a list o' passengers that's pretty big

And they'll all want lifts to Brown's Hotel,'

Cause lots o' them been travelin' for quite a spell,

All the way from Philadelphiay,

the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe.

From the 1946 Movie, The Harvey Girls with Judy Garland

This picture of a train crossing Canyon Diablo northeast of Superior, AZ is south of Prescott, so I'm sure we never traveled across it, but I was taken with the shot.

We did cross Johnson's canyon southwest of Williams, Arizona to get to Prescott were we disembarked at this train depot. This photo was taken around 1934, and we arrived in 1947, but it looked much the same and did until the railroad eliminated Prescott as a stop in the 1960s. The old depot still stands as part of a shopping center.

We walked a couple of blocks up Cortez Street to check in at the Head Hotel. This photo was taken a long time before we stayed there as a promotion for the hotel when it was new, but it didn't look much different in the forties, and doesn't look much different today.

December 7, 2007

My Daughter-in-law called me this morning to tell me that my son would like to smoke a turkey for Christmas dinner and that she has some fancy sauce recipes she'd like to try, if it was all right with me!

I had to laugh because I awakened this morning from a dream that the family came for Christmas dinner, we all sat down around the table and then I noticed that I'd forgotten to cook any food. I'm sure it was my subconscious trying to tell me I'm falling behind in the Christmas preparations! How lovely to know that they will be bringing the main course, and how lovely that they want to do that!

On December 7, 1941 my Uncle, my Mom's brother and his wife and their baby daughter were living in Honolulu. My Uncle Irvin was a Doctor, a pathologist, and he and his family had been living there for at least two or three years when the bombing occurred. My Mom's sister, Doris, a school teacher, was also living there. Their home was on a hillside above the city and they watched in helpless disbelief as Japanese planes swooped in overhead to dive down and release their bombs, bringing death and destruction to the ships of the American fleet gathered in the harbor below.

During the war, I remember my Grandparents listening intently to the radio at night to get the latest update on the war, and I remember rising to my feet, as they rose to theirs, to stand proudly beside them in their own living room, hands over hearts, each time the National Anthem played on the radio. It's no wonder I'm such an old Patriot!

I remember too, my Grandmother fretting at my Grandfather for picking up hitchhikers and him saying it was the least he could do for the brave boys who were fighting for our country. He was proud of my Grandmother for being the person to coordinate supportive war efforts for the block they lived on, and referred to her with much affection as the Block Head.

Newspaper cartoons showed Japanese pilots zooming around in little planes with those leather helmets with ear flaps, goggles, and big smiles with lots of big white teeth showing. As a child, I had a reoccurring nightmare that squads of these planes were swooping down over the trees to bomb us in the front yard of my Grandparents home. My Grandmother and I were trying to run and hide, but couldn't seem to get away. The pilots all had those cartoon faces.

I found a National Geographic site with lots to offer anyone interested in the bombing of Pearl Harbor, including personal accounts.

Here's an amazing picture of the Statue of Liberty made by Arthur S.Mole and John D. Thomas using thousands of World War I Military personnel. You'll find more pictures made by them here.

Moose Baby

I got these photos via email this morning, and just had to share...

They were taken by Jim, of Jimmie and Debbie Auchinleck who live in Flatrock Newfoundland.

Jim had this to say:

In my whole live in Flatrock, I have never seen a new born baby moose. This one was not even a half a mile from my house. The mother picked a small quiet neighbor in Flatrock and had her baby in the front yard just off Deer Marsh Road ,at 5:30 am. Debbie and I (Jim) were out bike riding when we came upon the pair. The lady across the street from this house told us she saw it being born. We saw them at 5:30 PM. So the little one was 12 hours old. What an awesome place we live in,

I agree with Jim...it is a wonderful world..we just have to keep our eyes open!