Friday, June 23, 2006
FAMILY REUNION TIME There is decided difference in attitude when you realize you are going to be one of the oldest - if not the oldest member of the family to be present. Much depends on which of the oldsters actually get there. My family - centered more or less, at that time, in Eastern Virginia and North Carolina seemed to have a summer-time "Go Home Week" so each summer time after school was out most of us showed up at 728 East 26th Street, Norfolk, Va. Often those who could not make the summer trip planned to be there around Christmas time. ,I think that, actually we got together more often than a great many families ever did but without an formal "reunion theme. We had one of that type ,however, much more recently at Staunton, Virginia - in Gypsy Hill Park - when McCaskey family members turned up from everywhere. That was the last big one we had and since that time Father Time, Mother Nature, Arthur Ritus, and a lot of other forces have moved in on us - which, I think we all understand well enough is more or less par for life's course. Some reunions tend to endure longer than others. So much depends on older members keeping the young people interested in who they have been, who they are are, who they may be! This is a reunion of the Herman family - my wife's mother's kin. It is, in a very real sense also a reunion of of the Arndt family as well, because many of the Hermans married Arndts or close kin thereof. The focus of the two families has long been the piedmont area of North Carolina. We are part of the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia branch of the families and we will be meeting with those from the Hickory-Newton-Conover area - where we will gather this week-end. You can bet there will be food aplenty for the throng, too. That's a major feature and among of my prime memories of such events caloric capabilities of cooks is a prime point. There's a serious side to such sessions...always and in as many different ways as there are people present. You can sense the binding thread of love which make it all possible. In one sense you can say we are honoring family members of the past for their accomplishments. That's true. We do that by our very presence. We always reflect, as well, on what these moments together might mean to our lives and to the future well-being of our children and grandchildren. Andrew McCaskey amccsr@adelphia.net 6-23-06 [c445wds]
Thursday, June 22, 2006
BAGGY BRITCHES The style setters are saying that pants are going to thin down this Fall. That would promise, then, that we are going back to thin-as-a-rail, tight-fitted, all bone and flesh-less inside, and ready to split at any moment with the slightest bending motions. I hated those,too and I have always been thankful that I grew up in an era of "in-between-Ness" when fashion experts did other things than worry about the tightness or looseness of men's and boy's pantaloons. I did experience male living when so-called "knickers" - so-called rhyming easily "snicker" - were a strongly set fad largely due, I suppose, to Scottish game of golf which gained both fame and notoriety in that curious phase in our tonsorial history. I think of it now, but it never occurred to me at the time, that we went about as close to the style-edge as possible when we agreed to be seen in public dressed in those knee-length bloomers. They could, just as easily have convinced us we should have donned genuine Highland clan kilts together with such attachments as might seem necessary to keep everything proper and decent along the Fairway as in the Rough. After the changes of 1929 we growing boys saved 'knickerbockers", as golf- garb came to be classified. We saved our golf-garb for Sunday and other dress-up times and returned to our favorite overalls - pronounced most of the time, as "over hauls" - with bibb, shoulder straps, and plenty of pockets. The legs of the pants were roomy enough to slip over usually bare feet. When shoes were worn, a bit tighter, of course. If, indeed, sensible pants styles for men and boys are tor return to public display areas such as Mall parades , maybe we can hope some of the current sag-and-drag designs will fade away. Some have the back pockets nipping at the walker's heels with every step. Some seem to be swinging on a belted suspension at about knee level. The fore and aft sway of the legs keep a rich patina on the murky surface of signatured sneakers intermittingly displayed. Hurry, style-shifters...hurry, please. Andrew McCaskey amccsr@adelphia.net 6-22-06 [c386wds]
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
THINGS I HAVE LIKED I enjoyed seeing and hearing our Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice stand up promptly and tell North Korea's clown prince Kim Jong il that his announced test firing of a missile which could reach the continental United States "could be viewed as an act of war." We need more direct statements such as this by our leaders. Beware of any politician who even alludes to the idea that he is telling the truth. That's like hiring a fox to protect the chickens. You are, beyond all doubt, going to love your all-new "Smart House" as designed and furnished to provide shelter for you plus well-being and happiness for the rest of your normal tenure of time. Dr. Robin Felder, Professor of Pathology and his staff at the University of Virginia's Medical Automation Research Center (MARC), at Charlottesville, Va. are getting it ready for you. Dr. Felder describes his "Smart House" as being "in essence, a live-in medical monitor." The vast major of seniors today would like to live as long as they can but and a much lower cost than it takes to do so today. The baby bloomers who are going be paying for sch care are also concerned about costs as well as quality of care given. Felder's "Smart House",as i is taking shape in Charlottesville,Va. seems to be one, good, sensible solution. The house is wirelessly outfitted in accordance with the statistical requirements of each medical specialty area. A bed monitor,for instance, takes a series of sleeper movement during the night, measures pulse, breathing, position, temperature, humidity and other such conditions which are, in turn,forwarded to a central, remote computer for viewing by a staffer or by the doctor checking on his patients condition. At no time is the patient called upon to answer questions, push buttons, take pills or cause charts to be created. "The technology is completely passive," observes Steve The work is closely incorporated with research work being done with by the University of Missouri at Columbia. They have forty-one such units outfitted and in residential use. The "Smart House" is for both seniors and caregivers. Get with the idea now. If you stood on your front porch to review a parade of the entire population of China marching past in single file you would be there for ever. They%
Monday, June 19, 2006
LAUNDRY HILL If you can't get excited about the costly erosion of our farmlands, you are, I'd say, a flatlander or from a asphalt street, guttered, with street car tracks and car lying in wait to cross your path at the intersection half-way down the snow laden incline. Remember that one time, perhaps, when ought to do some real belly-floppin', show-off speed runs down the steepest hill in the county! We had such a hill when I was a pre-teener. It was located along Arlington Avenue, in a part of Radford, Va called "Central" The hill was located a block or so up the paved incline of Arlington Avenue at the point where dirt-and-graveled 2nd Street crossed the avenue westward bound toward our school house. Now, that - lemme-tell-you - was steep hill! The run started with a eight-ten foot drop off which gave us a good start and the ran about fifty feet a, perhaps, a 20% downward slope. At that point the path disappeared entirely and our sled was riding on air alone until we hit the deep drift of snow. That was the end of the ride until we got i packed down with heavy use. The ravines lower exit end had just a low wall and, with when packed down well we could take a deep dive or jump the hole entirely and continue on the gentle slope which ran a good hundred feet or more to paved First Street and the street car track. That was a hill! We often built a bonfire at the top but the walk back up was a doozie. We went around the sink hole on the way back up from First to Second Streets. Years later, when I returned I made it a point to stop at "Laundry Hill"- so-called because the building along the west edge of the First Street end was the towns leading laundry. The building is gone . The hill is still there, but a strange thing has happened. It has shrunk. I wonder if the rest of our lives - and of our memories - are subject to that same type of erase-ive erosion? Andrew McCaskey amccsr@adelphia.net 6-19-06 [c379weds]
Sunday, June 18, 2006
POPULATION TALK We are, suddenly aware of and concerned with the sheer millions of inhabitant who live on this Earth which we call our own. Really, it is not mine or ours; but rather being-place of every one of us regardless of how you may happen to classify us - as tall, short, fat, or by color; wealth, upbringing, by physical traits, by religious ideas we profess, or scores of other attributes or demerits. In recent months it has become apparent that we are going to be pushed to make some vital decisions concerning the nature of citizenship before long. How long that time might be depends on many international factors and not on just our own feelings. That flex-time condition makes it, more than ever, important tat we agree on our lineal defintion of smoothness bing used so loosely. Citizens have rights and citizens have obligations and they had best be firmly established prior to any testing by competitive forces worldwide. For the first time in many years, since trouble of the Depression on "foreigners"...strangers, immigrants... and you have certainly noticed that is a favorite housewifely topic at the super-market or discount store. Many areas are feeling the pressures of a second language in the market place. Objections have been too intense to be ignored and ways of meeting the need are suspect. We are seeing a repeat performance of all of the ill-considered tactics used against our grandparents when they came as immigrants to these shores speaking German, Yiddish, Central European dialects, Slavic tongues as well Nordic, China's strange way, Japanese and other Asiatics. The United States is woefully unaware of the fact that other people speak other languages. Token smatterings of fashionable French and Castilian Spanish for a mixed SA-Mex-Carib-PR-Cuba mix have been considered sufficient since the death of Latin, Greek and Hebrew as classical freaks. Many Americans insist that immigrants take positive action to learn English. Good. That's just common sense. A sobering after-thought: my next door neighbors - immigrants all from the Ukraine - speak far better American English than I do Russian. Andrew McCaskey amccsr@adelphia.net 6-18-06 [c366wds]
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