8/03/2010

The Cookie Man Makes Ginger Creams

Photo by Uncle Bob


So sometimes you've just got to have a cookie, you know? 

I've been thinking about making these for a couple of weeks -- I found and (slightly) adapted this recipe used by a now-defunct American Bed & Breakfast, the Combellack Blair House in Placerville, California.

I think they're worth making again -- so here's the recipe if you are interested!

Ginger Creams

½ cup sugar
½ cup dark molasses
¼ cup butter, softened
1 egg
½ cup hot water

2 cups flour
1 tsp soda
½ tsp salt
½ tsp ginger
½ tsp cinnamon
½ tsp nutmeg
½ tsp cloves
2 tsp cocoa powder

2 cups confectioner’s sugar
2 TB butter, softened
3 TB milk
½ tsp vanilla


  • Combine the dry ingredients and spices. Mix well.  I use my fingers to crush the little clumps of cocoa that don't break down.  Crush them like little bugs and blend them in with a whisk!
  • Cream the sugars, butter and egg. Mix well with a hand mixer.  Blend in the hot water.
  • Add the ingredients all together. The batter will be thin.
  • Drop by scant teaspoonful onto a prepared sheet ( I used Pam and it worked better than shortening), 2 inches apart.
  • Bake at 375 for 10 to 15 minutes. These cookies were done in my oven at 10-11 minutes.
  • Remove from the sheet almost immediately or the cookies will be difficult to remove. This is especially important if you make them larger. Once they cool they will break apart as you try to remove them from the cookie sheet. Place on a cooling rack.
  • Combine the frosting ingredients and frost the cookies when they are completely cooled.
Notes:
  1. This will make 2 to 3 dozen cookies depending on how big you make them.
  2. Caution – these cookies spread quite a bit while baking!
  3. I made a ¾ batch of the frosting and it was enough.

8/01/2010

Bob sees the newest Boeing jet -- the 787-8 comes to Yuma!

The second-off-the-line Boeing 787-8 is undergoing hot weather testing at Yuma, Arizona. I’ll bet yesterday was a wasted day though (7/31/10) because it wasn’t all that hot in Yuma. There were cloudy skies and all things considered, it was actually quite pleasant. So I don’t think any plans for hot weather testing carried out yesterday would have proved much.

As I drove past the Yuma airport at 6:30 am yesterday morning, I was thinking about it being there and was looking for it – I finally spotted it from a distance, parked down toward the southwest end of the field all by itself. So later in the day when I had some free time, I went looking for it to see if I could get close enough for some photos. My first impression as I drove up was its size – my thought was that it was between the 757 and 767 in physical size, but checking Boeing's web site for the numbers showed the 787-8 is almost identical to the 777-200 in dimensions and weight so it is larger than both the 757 and 767.

N787EX at Yuma, AZ - 07/31/2010

I was able to get within a few feet – separated only by a chain link fence and airport security. I got a couple of photos as best I could, and talked to a Boeing employee, who was arriving at the site while I was peering through the fence. She asked me if I had any questions about it. I wasn’t expecting any hospitality – I thought it more likely that I’d get arrested for trespassing, so her friendliness was a bit of a surprise.  All I could think to ask about was why the trailing edges of the engine bypass fan shrouds were scalloped. She said they were cut that way for noise abatement. After I drove away I thought of about one-hundred more questions I could have asked, of course -- including "was it going to fly today.."  It would have been worth a wait if a flight was scheduled.  There wasn't -- but checking on Flightaware.com later showed a flight on Sunday that spanned southern Arizona almost as far as Tucson in great big lazy loops.

I mentioned I didn’t like the shape of the nose, as it wasn’t “Boeing” enough. Boeing should not be allowed anything new – they should keep designing the same jetliner shapes they have since 1955… so traditionalist viewers like me won’t be offended. I have to say though that this bird is magnificent – and the “new” nose is growing on me in bits and pieces. It is also true that the nose treatment of the 757 and 767 wasn’t the same as the original 7-0, 7-2 or 7-3 series either (which were all three virtually identical), so perhaps I am being overly sensitive about this The young Boeing person told me that the composite construction is plainly visible and would have been obvious if I could have seen the ship without her paint -- this one was already resplendent in her blue and white ANA colors.

The fact remains that I am extremely partial to Boeing products, and I don’t care at all for some of Airbus’s homely jets, advanced as they may be (like the A380). They're not as pretty when parked next to a comparable Boeing, not to mention the sublime beauty of a Convair 990 or a Super Connie from days past... about the only Airbus product that I think is even close to being beautiful is the A330/340. I just can't respect (the looks of) an aircraft with a bulbous nose like the A320 (although the head-on view isn't bad).  About the best I can say about the A320 series is that they are "handsome."  I was looking at a photo of an A340 on takeoff with the larger engines and I would admit that it was beautiful, but like I said... Anyway, if you want to see what I think is pretty, take a look here.

No... it’s Boeing for me, now that Lockheed, Convair, Douglas and McDonnell-Douglas no longer exist as builders of American heavy iron (a fact which causes me no small amount of distress, by the way).  I don't mean to denigrate others -- I have seen some very beautiful Tupolev designs in particular, and who could say that the Concorde was not one of the most aesthetically pleasing aircraft ever --  there are even a couple of other beautiful British jets -- but none of these are common around here so they are not available for me to ooh and ahh over. Here, it is Airbus or Boeing, and as I said... I think Airbus's offerings are somewhat misshapen in terms of beauty. Don't think, all you airlines flying A320s, that this is not important! I actually pick my airlines of choice by the brand of aircraft they fly (among other considerations) -- whenever I can.  I want to fly on an American jet. Long live Southwest Airlines!

The 787 “Dreamliner” is revolutionary in so many ways – it is as new and aviation-world-changing as was the DC-3 in 1935, the 707 in the late 50s, and the 747 in the 70s.  Outside of music and film, the art encompassed in the design of beautiful airplanes (and motorcars and cycles, etc) is some of the only art I really care about.  So I cannot wait to personally see this beautiful new airliner fly -- and to fly on it.  It may be the last really new airliner I ever see; another thirty years from now I would be 87 and I seriously doubt I will live to that advanced age -- one can only hope and eat more fiber...  So seeing this graceful new beauty was pretty exciting for me and I am hoping for a long romance between us.

Update December 2014: The 787 has had a bit of a troubled history so far.  Here's hoping Boeing gets those bugs worked out and the aircraft has a long and illustrious service record.  I have every reason to believe that they will.

7/30/2010

Whole Grain Cracked Wheat, Nut and Seed Bread

This is a variation on a hazelnut-cracked wheat recipe... It is a beautiful and tasty bread. I developed this recipe today from another one that I've been making with some success.  It's dangerous to tinker but I'll let you know how it turns out...

Later that same day... Mmmm, this one's a keeper!   The texture is like a soft cracked wheat, but with lots of crunch from the nuts and seeds.  Here's what the finished product looked like.          



Ingredientes

- ¼ cup cracked wheat, steeped for 10 minutes in ⅛ cup boiling water
- 2¼ tsp active dry yeast
- 1 TB gluten
- 1 cup warm milk (110 degrees)
- ⅛ cup honey (or packed brown sugar, or molasses)
- ⅛ cup softened butter
- 1 tsp salt
- 1¾ cups (222 grams) white bread flour
- 1 cup (130 grams) whole wheat flour
- ¼ cup (34 grams) 10 Grain flour (I use Bob's Red Mill brand)
- ⅜ to ½ cup of chopped hazelnuts, sunflower seeds, & flax seeds
- Egg wash (whites only, yolks, mixed, your choice)

PreparaciĆ³n

• Prepare the cracked wheat (as noted above)

• Place the yeast, honey and gluten in a small mixing bowl, pour the warmed milk over. Stir together and let dissolve & proof for 3-5 mins.

• Add salt, butter and about ¾ cup of the white flour.

• Blend until moistened then beat for 2 minutes on high speed.

• Add the whole grain flours and the prepared cracked wheat. Stir together then add in enough of the remaining white flour to make a good dough.  A bit more flour might be necessary while kneading.

• Turn the mess out onto a half sheet and knead for 5-8 minutes until a smooth, elastic, but still-slightly-tacky dough has developed. Place the dough ball in an oiled bowl, roll it over to coat it and then cover the bowl – let it rise in a warm draft-free place for at least 45 minutes or more until the dough has doubled in size.

• Fold the dough down. Sprinkle the dough with the nut and seed mixture, and knead it into the dough. Cover and let rest 10 minutes. Form into a round or a loaf – cover loosely* and let rise for about 45 minutes. If using a loaf pan or other containment, grease it well. Prior to the last rise, brush the top of the formed dough with an egg wash, and sprinkle with any remaining cracked wheat and seeds, etc. I slash the dough diagonally with a sharp knife at this time also.

* Cover loosely means don't cover it up so tightly that it interferes with the rise. I lay a piece of Saran Wrap loosely over the loaf pan, and adjust it (lift it gently) as the dough rises to keep it from sticking to the dough and retarding the rise.

• Preheat the oven to 375 and bake the loaf for about 30 to 35 minutes until the internal temperature registers at 190 degrees or above. Cool on rack. Makes one loaf, great for sandwiches or toast, french toast, you name it.

• Notes: For the 2nd rise particularly, do not overdo the rise time – only long enough that the dough has almost doubled. If you let it sit too long, its structure will weaken and your bread will collapse in the oven.  I typically use a 9x5 loaf pan and this dough will usually rise about 2 inches or so above the rim at 45 mins (these are my results given the conditions in my home -- I let the dough rise in a room that is uncooled, with no drafts, and is usually 85-90 degrees F).

Also, it is important to use all ingredients at room temperature – not cold from a freezer or refrigerator. About 75 to 110 degrees -- optimum conditions for growing mold and fungus, because that's exactly what yeast is... :)  No need to melt the butter, but softened will help in blending.

Update 2013:  I've developed a dislike for hazelnuts -- so I don't use them in this recipe anymore.  I would still use other varieties though.

7/29/2010

The dangers of living to eat

Some would say that what I eat is garbage but I disagree (vehemently)! I only eat good stuff! Like today for example...

I started with a 1/2 roast beef sandwich on my own fresh whole wheat sourdough, with a tomato slice and my home-made cholesterol-free mayonnaise, with a glass of vegetable juice! Then later, I ate an apple and a banana... gotta have my fruit you know. So far so good right?

I struggled with what to get for supper... I was going to make a chile relleno casserole the other day, and I got a bunch of chiles but burned them to cinders because when I put them on the grill I forgot to take them off again... After 45 minutes.... heavy sigh.

So today I thought maybe I'd do that, but then I ran across my recipe for REAL chile rellenos... and I thought... you know... I never made THOSE before and I DO have a little time today so...

I got five more fresh un-charred green chiles down at Eddie's Place and I roasted them for a reasonable amount of time. I stuffed them into a paper bag and let them bask in their own steam for a time, then peeled and cut them each slightly and tried to get the seeds out at least. I de-stemmed all but one -- I thought it might be easier to handle that way.

Then I made little cheese torpedos out of cream cheese, shredded cheddar and jack, and inserted one torpedo into each chile -- dusted the little puppies with flour and put them in the freezer to get good and solid (15 minutes). Meanwhile, I mixed up some egg yolks with flour and salt, and whipped the whites into a frenzy until they just wouldn't frenzy anymore (stiff, stiff peaks!)  And I heated up about 3 cups of canola oil in a cast iron pot.  You dip the almost frozen stuffed chile into the combined fluffy egg batter, coat it muy bueno, then deep fry 'em until golden.

I served them atop some smoky white beans simmered with tomatoes, onion and garlic, with sour cream and chopped cilantro on top. I ate two of the damned things. So much for limiting quantities today. And I was doing so well, too. But they were SO good!  The egg batter fried up very light and the sour cream on top with just a touch of fresh chopped cilantro -- I am convinced that in a former life I must've been a Mexican farmer (although I doubt they had chile rellenos like these).  There's always tomorrow I guess. Guess I shall go wash all the dishes I dirtied up...

Hmm. I was looking at what I wrote here. I am always struggling with my diet -- I live to eat you know, rather than eat to live. Just eating to live would take some of the fun out of living I think. Maybe if I put this where I can see it on my blog whenever I look at it, it can be a reminder of "My Struggle."   I really need to get my diabetes under control.  I didn't mention I had some home-made vanilla rum pudding too...  Sigh.

By the way, los rellenos can be reheated the next day in a toaster oven -- and they're great the 2nd time around too!

7/20/2010

Railroad Ties

The Southwest Chief @ Albuquerque
I wait for the train. At Chicago’s Union Station, the Southwest Chief will soon be ready to leave. The journey will take the better part of thirty hours or maybe a little more; it often runs late.

I've ridden trains before; the Santa Fe Super Chief tracked these same rails forty years ago. I remember that first train journey.

Amtrak’s Southwest Chief with its two steel and blue locomotives has backed underneath Union Station’s shed and is standing in deep shade, bleeding jets of high pressure air, hisses and rumbles emanating from under its stainless steel sides. It is all active readiness. Passengers begin to climb on for Kansas City, Lawrence, Newton, La Junta, Trinidad, Santa Fe, Albuquerque. For me, it is Flagstaff. Others will travel beyond that to reach Los Angeles the next morning. I am not sure which sleeping car to get aboard, but with help from a car attendant I soon figure it out.

My Dad rode this same train, a few years before he died. He had memories of trains from his boyhood, too. His father was a station manager for the Chicago, Attica & Southern back during the depression years so Dad grew up around trains; his first job was around the CA&S train yards and roundhouses at Attica, Indiana where he lived and where he met my mother. Circumstances have changed as years passed, but trains are not so different even now, some seventy years later. My Dad never lost his feeling for trains; he thought a world with more trains was a better place. His stories and his feeling for trains and railroads make me nostalgic for them, and bring a desire to experience them the way he did.

But things are different now. Amtrak’s first class service is a mere shadow of the service that characterized a mid-twentieth century Santa Fe streamliner. Even in the leaner last years of the Santa Fe’s passenger operations, I remember the Super Chief’s linen table cloths, superb meals served on china, and porters and stewards whose seeming sole purpose was to ensure that boys of thirteen had journeys never to be forgotten, on trains that were beyond their family’s means. Today, Amtrak’s car attendants consider the name “porter” an epithet, with no remembrance of days when it was an honorable title, a term of respect in a time when a black man had fewer opportunities. Black men rendered proud service fit for princes on the trains of my boyhood; in my memory they are all dignity and grace. “Porter” is a title of which few today are worthy. Perhaps for others, that memory is different.

I board, and my car attendant shows me to my roomette. I settle in while he bustles, providing pillows, telling me about seating for dinner, bringing bottled water. He hangs my coat and lets me know he will be there if I need anything. And he is. The train’s accommodations are mostly all on the upper level of double-deck cars, so we look down on everything outside; the view is lofty. I watch the last few passengers on the platform outside as they prepare to board, assisted by the conductor and the car attendants.

Back in 1966, we left Lafayette, Indiana around lunch time on a Monon intercity train that ran between Indianapolis and Chicago. I was amazed at its approach – gliding down the middle of a Lafayette street on tracks that took the place of the center-lines! I had never seen such a thing. Grandma had driven us the twenty-five miles or so to Lafayette. We had a submarine sandwich for lunch – my first. Saying goodbye to Grandma was always hard. I didn’t know when or if I would see her again – we didn’t have the means to run back and forth frequently, and at thirteen, I was beginning to understand mortality as well as how important Grandparents are.

Once in Chicago, we had a couple of hours – not enough time to do much. Mom, sister and I spent our afternoon trying to see a show at the planetarium, then a museum. We swept in and out of the museum. Maybe we saw the lakefront too, but little else. We boarded the Super Chief late in the afternoon; we had reserved chair car seating. The Super Chief was normally all-Pullman sleeper service, but this one had a coach car or two attached. At the time, I didn’t know this train was an American legend.

The train begins to move and as it passes from underneath the shed that backs Union Station, the afternoon sunlight reaches my window and I see the Chicago skyline. It is a beautiful city. We pick up speed as we roll along boulevards filled with commuters’ cars. Rush hour trains pass us, and we pass them. Soon, we are in farmland and headed southwest toward the Mississippi. On a train, you are part of your surroundings, not separate from them. People stand beside the tracks and wave. A train, especially a passenger train, is an event.

It’s time for dinner. I pitch and sway down to the dining car, grabbing at seat backs, door frames and passengers’ shoulders for balance; I don’t have train legs yet. In the dining car, tables line the windows on each side, with a server’s station at mid-car. The galley is below at track-level. Each table has a vase with a couple of flowers in it. The color scheme is grey and western sunset; the overall effect bespeaks quality. Dining is with strangers at your table – the few tables available make it necessary to share. I’m not much good at small talk but for the most part the strangers are pleasant company.

In 1966, the Super Chief left Chicago headed south. After dinner in the Fred Harvey dining car, we settled into our reclining seats with blankets and pillows, and eagerly waited to see what would happen next. For me, it was the journey more than the destination. As it got dark, we passed through Joliet, Streator, and Chillicothe then streaked toward the Mississippi at Burlington and Fort Madison, Iowa. I drifted in and out, but sometime shortly after Fort Madison, I faded completely off to sleep. When I awoke, it was June-green wheat fields and Newton, Kansas in the golden early morning sunlight.

Dinner on the Southwest Chief is included with the price of a first class ticket. I sign my check for the server and head back to my sleeping car. The attendant, Vic, has already prepared my berth. He offers the use of an empty nearby roomette since I am not ready to sleep. I sit in the darkened compartment and stare out the window at the Illinois farmland as it rushes past at eighty-something miles per hour. Passing trains are a sudden roar as they blast past us on closely-adjacent tracks. They are there, and then they are gone. I wonder how many know the Santa Fe line was one of the first railroads to build a double-track system, running trains in both directions at once. Not many others ever did it that way. Finally, there’s not much to see in the dark and I cross the aisle to my bunk. I sink in and sleep until dawn, waking once or twice when the train stops to wait for passing freights or stops momentarily in towns along the way. We pass through Kansas City in the night but I don’t wake up.

On the Super Chief, morning was all golden in western Kansas. The train stopped in Newton and Hutchinson and then rolled west toward Dodge City and Colorado. My sis and I rambled back and forth through the train; after breakfast we spent time in the lounge car, and in the domed observation car. We seldom sat still for long. We played cards with other passengers – and crewmen. A steward named Peter, a student from Greece working the train for the summer, paid as much attention to us as he did his other duties. We got a postcard from him later reminding us that as a true Greek, he would never forget “true friends.”

I awaken in western Kansas, and take a shower to wash off the sleep. The tiny shower compartment makes this a challenging proposition, but I successfully complete the job. I have to wait awhile for breakfast; the dining car has not opened yet. My car attendant provides coffee and juice meanwhile. He is never there until you want something; then like magic, he appears. How does he know? Breakfast is a “Bob Evans Special” – a combination of eggs, sausage, onions, peppers, potatoes and cheese. I have more juice and another side of hash browns.

Now, stuffed and sluggish, I watch the passing scenery and wait for the train to reach the Colorado line. The train parallels roads and highways, and crosses an occasional creek or ravine.  I wonder how many passengers realize the fame and the history of the lands we are passing through -- America's westering adventure, west of Independence anyway, began here, on this land we crossed into from Missouri about midnight and will be traversing all day long.  This is the route of the legendary Santa Fe Trail; we are seeing lands and scenes almost as the earliest teamsters did in the 1820s.  We are practically in their wagon-wheel ruts. The face of this land has not changed all that much.  About the only thing missing are free Indians and buffalo.

I read a newspaper. I drink the railroad’s rich ever-present coffee and even I appreciate its robust quality. I don’t usually drink coffee, but I don’t want to drowse off and miss something. I listen to music I’ve brought along. I figure times and mileages from maps and Amtrak guides, and match them against sign posts along the tracks that mark switches, waypoints and junctions. I calculate this train is running about eighty-two miles per hour. A nearby passenger has a satellite global positioning receiver plastered onto a window; his device confirms my estimate. Years ago, the Super Chief ran these same rails at almost one-hundred, but these decades-old steel ribbons aren’t up to that kind of speed anymore. I do fade into a short nap.

In the afternoon, everyone waited in anticipation for the ascent of Raton Pass. Window seats in the lounge and observation cars were claimed and camped on early. After leaving Trinidad, the Super Chief began the slow climb up the hill with a couple of added engines for extra power. Not too many years ago, this added power was still provided by steam locomotives. Even at a crawl, this long uphill grade was pure railroad excitement and we all watched so we wouldn’t miss any of it, especially the tunnel at the top.

Emerging from the tunnel into New Mexico and picking up speed on the downhill grade, the train followed the old Santa Fe Trail, through Raton, Las Vegas, past Ribera and around the end of the Sangre de Cristo range. After a stop at Las Vegas, we reached Lamy in the late afternoon. Lamy was presented in the AT&SF literature as a fabled waypoint on their line. Those destined for Santa Fe left us at Lamy. The Super Chief continued on to Albuquerque, where there was a longer stop for servicing the train. We were allowed a short time on the platform while the crews did their work. Somewhere along this stretch, Mom, Tina and I had our last meal of the journey in the dining car. I carried away a Fred Harvey menu as a souvenir and still have it in a box somewhere.

Now, Raton Pass is uneventfully behind us. Sometimes wild animals can be seen alongside the tracks but there are none today, only a few cattle. The valley along Interstate Highway 25 is green and lush. This controlled-access highway didn’t exist when I last rode these tracks. Cattle graze everywhere, the snow-capped mountain peaks of the Sangre de Cristos are our western horizon. From my first memory of it, I’ve always loved this valley. It is an ancient land in a cultural sense, with evidence of its native, Spanish and Mexican past in view everywhere. It is quintessential cowboy country.

The air conditioning in a coach car dies. Coach passengers are shuffled around and combined into a car where the air is still functional, leaving some in sour moods. I sit in my roomette in the afternoon sun as the Southwest Chief glides around the famous horseshoe curves and continues on toward the narrow defile between them and Lamy. We slow to a crawl for the passage of the tight, sinuous canyon and arrive at Lamy shortly after.

In the evening, the Super Chief left Albuquerque and rushed on toward Flagstaff. Beyond that some 25 miles, we got off at Williams, and boarded another very slow train that took us through Ash Fork, and down through Congress, Kirkland Junction and Wickenburg, to Phoenix. This 160 mile trip took all night, but we almost missed the train altogether – the station staff never bothered to announce it. Mom, Tina and I tried our best to sleep in that jerky old train, without much luck. In the morning, I woke up as we rolled along Grand Avenue between Wickenburg and Phoenix, with the morning sun beating through the windows and the glass-transmitted heat reminding us we were almost home to a Phoenix summer day. Our neighbor met us at the depot with a ride home.

Out of Albuquerque, I have my last onboard meal of the trip as the Southwest Chief rolls along the valley floor with western rim-rock framing the high ground on each side; I know it’s there, but I cannot see it in the dark. But this land is like my back yard. Through Grants and Gallup, we rumble on to Arizona and Flagstaff. Train service between Williams and Phoenix ended years ago when the Santa Fe abandoned passenger service, so I catch a bus home from the Flagstaff depot. This will take only two hours or so; I will sleep in my own bed tonight. On arrival in Flagstaff, Vic carries my luggage onto the platform and guards it until I can get to it. His service has been first rate – attentive, yet unobtrusive. If he wouldn’t be offended, I would call him “porter.”

As I gather my thoughts and belongings, the long silver train hisses and puffs a few times, then hums and glides almost silently away into the night toward the Mojave Desert and its morning arrival at Los Angeles. As it leaves, it looks almost the same as the Super Chief did forty years ago. I watch it go, and think of my Granddad, my Grandmother, my Dad, my Mom, my sister, and of the memories that tie us together. Some of these memories are of trains. Dad grew up around trains and he never lost his feeling for them. He thought a world with more trains was a better place. I remember, and I agree.

7/13/2010

Summer of ‘65

The Road Trip

In summer of 1965, I set out from home without my mother for the first time in my life. I was 11. My dad was living in Dollar Bay, Michigan that year, owner and operator of a gas station. He arrived back in town just before Memorial Day weekend, and in the course of visiting, asked whether I would be interested in spending the summer with him. That was like asking a sailor if he wants a beer or a tattoo…

We left from my Grandmother’s house late in the afternoon on Friday and stopped for the night in Flagstaff, only two hours up the road. We stayed in one of the “neon” motels along Route 66 –the kind of motel that doesn’t exist much anymore except maybe in Tucumcari. We left early next morning and headed north across the Navajo Reservation, with a stop at Cameron where I was treated to a piece of chocolate cream pie (probably the first I ever had) and a sack of "Candy Corn" for the road.
I shared the back seat with the dog, an extremely intelligent Cocker Spaniel named Tootles.  She occupied the top of a very large square suitcase, turned flat on the back seat of Dad's big Chrysler land-yacht.  Tootles sat on top of the suitcase, surveying the passing landscapes just like the rest of us.  I haven't changed much over the years; my baseball coach (pee-wee league) called me "Gabby." My step-mother always insisted I stop talking while chewing my food -- but that is probably the only time I ever shut up. So I'm in the back seat with the dog, and she is in the front seat turned sideways so she can keep an eye on things and talk to me.  She is smiling at me and I am thinking "she really likes me" but what was really happening is that the dog is nipping my candy. I am in the back seat with the dog on the other side and she is in the front seat, turned sideways so she can participate with me in the rather one-sided discussion that is ongoing at length, and on and on. She was grinning at me and I was thinking that it was because she really likes me (I always got along well with her). But what was actually going on was that the dog was nipping my candy…

I was talking so much that I did not notice that as I held the candy in my fingers (next to the dog), and before I could get them into my mouth, the dog was very gingerly biting the tops off the candy corns, leaving me only with the base. I didn’t notice as I ate them without looking at them that I was the victim of highway candy robbery by a hairy black and white bandit.

Driving out across the Navajo lands, we stopped long enough to take a photo of a herder and his sheep as they crossed the road, and later, made the obligatory stop at the Four-Corners Monument so I could get a foot (or a hand) in four states at once. Only in recent years have I heard that the marker was actually in the wrong place, so I have never actually been in four states at once. I shall rectify this as soon as possible and visit the re-located marker at the first opportunity.

We drove on through Durango and up into the San Juan Mountains above Pagosa Springs on Highway 160. This was my first-ever view of the snow-capped Rocky Mountains. As we climbed into the mountains, we were overtaken by a thunder-storm, which became a snowstorm by the time we reached the summit of Wolf Creek Pass.
Storm over Wolf Creek Pass

I remember it as being a very beautiful drive, dramatic, wet and cold outside of course but we were snug and warm on the road in that big black sedan. I’ve loved that kind of road-trip weather ever since. The highway followed a tumbling river down the eastern slope – a river that becomes part of the Rio Grande farther down-slope. Down the other side, we stopped at Del Norte for supper in a cafĆ© and then made it up the valley to the Salida and Buena Vista area before stopping for the night. I don’t remember too many meals on that trip, but that one I do – it was in a little roadside cafĆ©-type restaurant, a Mom and Pop kind of place. I probably had a hamburger – that was always my favorite meal in those kinds of places.


The next morning, we left for Denver and Wyoming early and we were in Denver by early afternoon. As we drove from Salida to Denver, we listened on the car radio to the Indianapolis 500 race – it was Mario Andretti’s rookie year and he came in third. The winner was Jimmy Clark of Scotland. My Dad probably never missed that race if he could help it. We drove north along what became I-25 into Wyoming and somewhere just north of Cheyenne the afternoon thunderstorms overhauled us once again. Wyoming in early June was green from horizon to horizon – there isn’t much out there even today; a few cattle grazing here and there, maybe a windmill or two. As the rain turned quickly to hail, the landscape as far as the eye could see, turned white as snow and just about that quickly. I don’t remember how long the white-out lasted, but before long the hail had melted and all was green once again
We were headed toward the Black Hills and eventually ended up in Deadwood or Lead for the night. As we drove into South Dakota and into the Hills, there were deer everywhere – my memory is of dozens of them if not hundreds – all grazing beside the highway in the early-evening shadows.

On Monday morning, we headed north to Belle Fourche, then east across South Dakota on what is now Highway 212. I don’t know what number it was then. But we encountered the Missouri River that morning and we all stopped to see it and stretch (especially since I was excited to see that river for the first time). While we stretched our legs, Tootles ran along the river for a frolic and she found something very dead – and rolled in it. She must’ve rolled in it a couple of times at least… She came back to the car all happy and everything and smelling worse than if she had encountered a skunk. Whatever it was could not have been deader or smellier – it was in some advanced state of putrefaction and emulsification. The stench was horrific. We couldn’t stand to ride in the same car with her – but we had no choice. We stopped in Gettysburg (SD), and at a filling station Dad and Vera tried everything they could think of (vinegar, tomato juice, etc, all the old home remedies for stink) along with a water hose in the service bay to get that smell off the dog, to no avail. We could still smell it on her a couple of weeks later.
'56 Windsor - Dad's was ALL black.

We stayed that night in St Cloud (MN) – it was the last night on the road. The next morning, the drive continued on up through Minnesota and I remember the green pastures, the small lakes and lots of cattle as part of the beautiful view. Vera and I were having a great time, laughing and joking around, and at one point we were wrestling around and I ended up over the front seat-back, sprawled with my head in the open glove box, both of us laughing like idiots. The drive started to get a bit tedious for me in the afternoon, probably because we were so close to being there and I was excited to see my new summer home. You know... "Are we there yet?" The last few hours between Duluth and Dollar Bay we were driving through heavy deciduous forest –there isn’t much to see when you are in a tunnel of leafy trees – and I got very bored and just wanted it to be over. I, of course, had no realization of how much I would treasure the memory later.

I have always wanted to retrace the route of this trip – but have not yet succeeded in doing so. Of course, even the highways have changed a lot since 1965, not to mention that virtually none of the roadside businesses would still exist today – even if I remembered them. But we arrived in Dollar Bay that afternoon, and the next morning I promptly set out to explore my new surroundings.
Life in Dollar Bay
First was the gas station… my Dad’s station was on the highway that ran past the town. It was a Standard Oil of Ohio station (today’s Amoco) and it was old even by 1965 standards. I remember a couple of things about it.
Where Dad's station WAS...
First, was the candy vending machine. It was a wall-mounted unit, probably 1 or 2 feet by as much – and it operated by conveyor belt and window. You rolled a knob on the side up and down, and the candy moved inside on a conveyor belt past a little window – you centered your desirable in the window, slid your nickel into the slot and pushed down on a side-lever to eject the delicacy. Soon, I discovered that if you didn’t let go of the lever, but held it about halfway, the mechanism would not engage and you could keep rolling the conveyor belt device and pump out candy bar after candy bar, all for the measly sum of that first nickel. Talk about 11-year-old heaven! I think I emptied that machine at least once, maybe twice. My Dad thought his employees were stealing his candy, and it took a savvy step-mom to put the kid’s suddenly diminished meal-time appetite together with the theft problem at the station and arrive at the obvious conclusion. I remember getting spanked for that one, but what would you expect me to do, eh? Just not FAIR at ALL!
I was allowed to “work” at the gas station. The rule was full-serve in those days, and usually the job was held by teenaged or young men, or retirees. They’d pump your gas, check your oil and wash your windshield clean. They were often named “Bob” so I fit right in. I probably was not allowed to check anyone’s oil, but I did do a lot of windshields and pumped a lot of gasoline, especially for older ladies who seemed to know what a tip was and who deserved one. I thought I had found my life’s work, there at that Standard Oil station in Dollar Bay.
My step-mother’s young adult daughter lived there with them while her husband (Robert Braesch) was in Army OCS. We all lived together in a trailer (a single-wide of pretty good size). Janice was pregnant at the time, and already had a toddler… named Bobby. So we had Bob my dad, we had Bob Braesch, we had Bobby “Thumper” (the little guy), and then there was me, Bobby Louis (Thumper could only say Bobby Boo for Louis) or sometimes I was Robert Louis when they were upset about some inconsequential thing). We had all kinds of Bobs going on. I remember playing card games with them pretty frequently -- probably gin rummy because I remember playing that game that same summer with a Grandmother-type (not mine, someone else’s) named “Moms.”
Our trailer sat behind the main street (no one called them “mobile homes” back then), on a lot about one street in (although that street did not exist). So between us and the main street (to the north) there was one row of store fronts (and backs). We could walk through the back and side lots to the main street – and between us and the main street was an old cheese factory. The new cheese factory was farther north out of town in what was then a large field or meadow. It is still there today, but closed some years back and is boarded up. Also along the main street I remember an IGA food store, and Sebas’s Bar. I can remember being sent (or perhaps accompanying Vera) to the IGA to get ring bologna.
The old cheese factory was used for storage of packaging products, cans, lids, etc. I can’t remember what else was in there, maybe old equipment. But I could skinny-in through a window and explore it. It was cool and dank smelling in there, like an old attic.
The old Sebas's Tavern
Dad and Vera’s favorite hang-out in town was Sebas’s Bar. It still looks pretty much the same today as I remember it then – although it has changed hands and the name is different. It was similar to a pub in a small UK town – everyone seemed to congregate there. Even Tootles liked it and spent some time there. She was a popular character around the bar – always available to listen to your stories or troubles – it was all the same to her. And Tootles fit in at Sebas’s, ‘cause she was a beer-drinkin’dog. She even had her own dish, an ash tray someone had washed up and set aside for her.
I remember one particular evening when we’d spent quite some time at the bar, and Tootles with us, drinking and socializing with the rest of them. We had driven to the bar, which entailed a two or three-block drive around the neighborhood, as you couldn’t drive straight there from the trailer. Upon arrival home at the end of the evening, Vera let the somewhat inebriated dog out to tinkle – and she disappeared. She ran back to the bar, of course – while Dad was done drinking for the evening, Tootles, apparently, was not. No control, that dog. When a concerned Vera couldn’t find her dog, just on a hunch one of them called the bar and inquired, “Was Tootles there?” The reply… “Yep, she’s over here havin’ a beer!”
In 1965, the Soo Line (railroad) operated two trains along the Keweenaw Peninsula each day, in my recollection. First, in the morning, a freight consist came through, took a siding and stopped at the cheese factory to load. The factory had a large set of train-sized sliding doors, and the train would“drive” right through the factory to an all-weather loading dock. They’d load the train, or unload the train, and then it would go on north, back to the main tracks, and proceed to the end of the line wherever that was. Later that day, a faster train would come by without stopping, headed north. I remember this train as a mail train, or maybe passenger. It wasn’t a long one – 4 or 5 cars maybe – and it came through fast.
A retired railroader lived in a shack by the switch and threw it (and the other one too, presumably) twice a day for these trains. As things were fairly sleepy and calm in northern Michigan towns in 1965 he usually didn’t bother locking these switches as he was supposed to do. This was a mistake, ‘cause there was a new boy in town. The local boys didn’t pay much attention to the trains I guess, having grown up with them and probably having been warned repeatedly to stay away from them. But the Arizona boy, not having seen too many trains, was fascinated by them and by train appurtenances… like switching devices. Finding one unlocked one afternoon, he threw it over to one side, and then the other, and when the game grew old, left it wherever it was at the time. Other boys helped him with this mischief, as the switch was too big for one small boy to handle, but these lily-livered poor-excuses for adventurers-type boys denied this later… It happened to be left on the cheese factory “position” but the next train was not the cheese factory train.
So that day, a lazy summer day in June of 1965, the fast mail train went to the cheese factory. It is my recollection that the train finally stopped just a few feet from the closed doors of the dairy. Town meetings were held, chests were thumped, but the perpetrator was never apprehended – no one ratted me out I guess. Years later, I told my father of that event and he allowed as how he had thought at the time that I might have had some part in it.
One of my best memories of Dollar Bay was its 4th of July celebration – it was a typical small town party – economical in scope, but full of small town fun of the best kind. There was probably a parade, and games like sack races, egg tosses, pie-eating, etc. I remember it today as one of the most fun times I ever had on the 4th of July. A few months ago, I visited Dollar Bay and Sebas’s bar (now Partanon’s). I slipped a little cash into the jar on the bar for the Fourth of July Celebration – I hope it helped them have a great time again this year.
Along with the station, my Dad acquired an old 1950s model Chevrolet pick-up. It was faded and battered (barn red), but was probably the most reliable vehicle in town. Dad told me stories of how the previous winter, when the snows were heavy and deep and the winds cold, that old truck would start when nothing else in town would and then he’d have to go around and help everyone else get their vehicles running. It was the ugliest truck I’d ever seen, but it ran and ran and ran.
One last little bit of “trouble” I got into that summer was mostly smoke and mirrors – a friend or two and I “planned” to build a raft and float ourselves out into Portage Lake (which opened onto Lake Superior).  This was just boyish dreaming – we really had no sure intention to do this. We really had no way to accomplish it – and I certainly lacked those kinds of construction skills at age 11, but the “plan” was discovered somehow and we were sternly admonished not to even consider such a plan.

My Dad had spent some time and money restoring an old classic Jaguar – it was a model from the 1940s [an XK140 “Silverstone” (?)] that he had restored to pristine condition from not much more than junk. In fact, the story was that he had found the hulk in a junk-yard. It was a very rare automobile. It had been left in Phoenix when he departed and at some point in the spring he had returned to Phoenix to get it. He had hauled it behind his car back to Dollar Bay and upon arrival stopped in front of the station to show it off to the employees. So the Jag on its trailer was sitting beside the highway in front of the station. The station was just beyond the broad curve that exists between Hancock, Michigan and Dollar Bay, about 5 miles away. A little old lady in a VW came flying around that curve, lost it on the icy road, and slid the last 500 feet or so right into the Jag and its trailer, destroying them both. All my Pop could do was stand there and watch it happen. He said he’d never even gotten to drive it.
Farther north from Dollar Bay there was a little town named Lake Linden. We’d go there to get groceries (usually in the old Chevy truck), and I remember at least once going there to see a movie at the drive in theater. Another town in that direction was Calumet – and Calumet had an airport that North Central Airlines served, flying venerable old DC-3s. I remember watching them fly by on their way to land there.
We had dinner once in the Hotel Houghton (?) in a very fancy dining room, as hotel restaurants tended to be in 20th century America. Vera and I soon began cutting up and started a food fight with the butter "pats" that came with the bread. My Dad could only shake his head and try to stay out of the line of fire – and we very nearly got thrown out of the restaurant. Hotel dining rooms were fancy places -- and we were not acting respectable.
Moving to Detroit
Sometime right after July 4th, my Dad lost the gas station (reportedly because of crooked behavior on the part of a partner, a man named Bob Crutherds) and we moved to Keego Harbor, near Pontiac and Detroit. Dad got a drafting job with Bendix in Royal Oak and that was his first step on the journey to becoming the mechanical engineer that he later became. He had completed a correspondence course to prepare himself for the drafting job. We stayed in Keego Harbor with a sister of my step-mother.
Cass Lake, MI
While there, I remember riding around in a Corvair Monza “Spyder” with a “cousin” who had only one lung but had served in Vietnam, having slipped past the Army doctors without notice. I had the very first Big Mac I’d ever had – we didn’t eat at McDonald’s at home in Phoenix. I went on a summer field trip to Detroit for something (I seem to recollect that it was Ford’s “Dearborn Village” but I cannot now remember ever being there) and I remember playing in the water and on the beach of the little lake that Keego Harbor is situated on (Cass Lake). And checking out the local girls.
The trip from Dollar Bay to Keego Harbor was a fun day – although a long one. We drove all the way across the Upper Peninsula – stopping long enough to tour a USCG icebreaker on open house display at Marquette and we crossed the Mackinac Bridge in the late afternoon or early evening. I had never seen anything like it, and was a little bit skeered to be up on a huge suspension bridge over ocean-type waters! We made the trip in two vehicles – the Chrysler and also a Pontiac Dad had picked up for the trip. The old Chevy pick-up stayed in Dollar Bay somewhere. But it was a great drive that evening in that old Pontiac as we made our way south toward Detroit – road-tripping on dark highways has always been a favorite adventure of mine.
Getting Back Home

Later in July, we started thinking about how I would get home for the school year. Originally, it was thought I would ride to Phoenix with my Grandmother and Grandfather (Pampaw and Mammaw Mills). They had spent the summer in Indiana and would be driving back to Phoenix in late August or early September. But Pampaw (Ernie Mills) was very ill by that time – and their return to Arizona was complicated as a result. Eventually, they decided that Grandma and Uncle Tim would drive to Arizona, but Pampaw would fly from Chicago. His doctors said he wouldn’t survive if he tried to do it by car. But Dad and Vera could drive me down to Indiana, and I could ride to Arizona with Mamaw and Tim.
Meanwhile, a friend or perhaps neighbor of my step-mother’s family named Vera Ott planned a flight to Los Angeles to visit her family. If I accompanied her, then Dad could send me home (cheaply) on the plane to Los Angeles with her, and then a 2nd airline (Western) would take me home from there. I was given the choice. Life lesson number one: if given the choice of something fun, versus something that involves seeing relatives, especially OLD relatives, always choose the “seeing relatives” thing. I gave up that chance to see my Grandfather for what would have been the last time, unknowingly of course, but still. He died while on his plane trip to Arizona a couple of weeks later. I treasure these memories, perhaps you can tell; but I wish I could change that one.
I was taken to the airport in Detroit in my “Aunt’s” 1956 Chevy Bel-Air– and boarded an American Airlines Boeing 707 with Vera Ott – we flew to Los Angeles via Chicago O’Hare – right over Lake Michigan, in clear skies. I wish I knew what model of 707 it was – it could have been a 720B also, I suppose – but I do remember it was a new fanjet-equipped model, not one with straight turbines. Later, I saw the Rockies and the Grand Canyon from somewhere around 34,000 feet. This was in the infancy of the jet age – jet travel had only begun about 5 years before and piston engine aircraft were still common in U.S. skies. The 727 was a brand-new jet in 1965, only flying at that point for a year or two. I had airline food back when airline food was something. Breakfast, for example, was corned beef hash with baked eggs on that first flight.
Western Airlines Electra
I flew home from Los Angeles that same day, on my sister’s wedding day (July 29, 1965), on Western Airline's Flight 54. It was operated with a Lockheed L-188 Electra and the stewardesses spoiled me rotten. I sat in first-class where they could keep an eye on me. That Electra floated in and around the fluffy cumulus clouds and landed me back in Phoenix on a hot July day. The aircraft was working its way from California all the way north to Calgary by the time it ended its journey that day. That was a memorable and great trip – my first of many on the airlines and airways of America.

7/04/2010

The 4th of July

On this holiday, my mind is always drawn to thoughts of America and what it means, as well as how we got here.  This nation has so many challenges. Today, I think that these challenges are more related to who we are and who we want to be as a people, as a nation, than perhaps at any time in our history.  While I certainly can see that there are many specific problems facing us, I think that this national identity crisis (or more correctly, how it is resolved, if it is resolved) is going to have the most profound effects on how we deal with the rest of the issues -- or even our ability to deal with them at all.

Right now, I see this nation's government and related political and social discourse as a broken system.  It is not functional.  I am sure that it has always been somewhat this way, but we always seemed to find a way to muddle things together (historically) -- but it also seems that in the last 20 years it has become dysfunctional to the extreme that it doesn't function at all.  We have lost so much of what made us "great" -- and if we are to survive in our present form we need to be able to see this for what it is, and also figure out how, exactly,  to fix it.  Our economy is in trouble, our government is in trouble and our people are in trouble -- not just in what is happening right now, but long term.

I had lunch with a "conservative" friend the other day (acknowledging that most folks today have absolutely no clue what a true conservative is or was -- they ascribe meanings to the term that it never had, meanings that describe the symptoms of some conservatives but which have no relationship to the traditional political description of conservatism).  This friend vilifies anything he considers "liberal" -- rabidly attacking not only the political positions of anyone who disagrees with him, but their character, including the character of our current leader.  Excuse me, but wasn't the almost-universally revered Thomas Jefferson a liberal? While we can certainly disagree with our political opponents, and should voice those disagreements, in the end, it is our ability to work together with civility and in compromise that is the only way a two-party system can effectively function and actually solve the problems that face it.  This bitter, hating divisiveness (on both sides of the political spectrum) is crippling our country.

I don't know about you, but I don't see much civility and brotherly love happening presently.  We need a modern-day Henry Clay.  We need to realize that our political opposites are not Satan incarnate. George W. Bush is not the anti-Christ, and Barack Obama is not evil; so please shut up, all of you, and let our government work for a change! The inability to deal with our differences and the descent into personal attack on folks who have those differences is a function of ignorance.  This is what is most frightening to me -- the evidence I see all around me that the American people are by and large ignorant and place no value on becoming less so. Since when should the unwashed ignorant have such a widespread and significant public voice?  Right now, when the extreme radical fringe speaks, we listen and we often accept their nonsense as truth.  And then we elect them.  Why?

If that does not change; if we do not listen to those who can intelligently think through the problems we face; if we cannot put aside our philosophical differences and work together to find real and workable solutions to the problems, solutions that are somewhere between the extremes -- then the Grand Republic is lost and perhaps the world as well. I still believe my country is the world's best hope, but more today than ever, we need to take our place within a framework of global cooperation and understanding; we must recognize the rights of all peoples to exist and to be free, the same rights we vehemently voiced for ourselves in 1776.

So today, on this 234th anniversary of our Declaration of Independence, I wish for my country and my people a new birth of good will and tolerance for each other and for our differences, and for others as well, in the sure understanding that our inalienable rights are, in fact, universal.  I wish for us a new dedication to knowledge and education and a renewed appreciation for its over-arching value to a self-governing and informed people.  Let us make ourselves worthy of the gifts of peace and freedom that we have been given, let us support these gifts for all peoples, and let us hand them down undiminished to our descendants. This is our birthright, our privilege and our responsibility.  Happy birthday, America! I love you.