Saturday, February 24, 2007
MIL. ED.It just may be that the “high tech” knowledge has, over the years, been rather slow in getting a firm foothold in our military groups. Among the technical papers I have among a collection of such writings I have saved is a half-page, typewritten, mimeographed sheet which detailed “DIRECIONS FOR CONNECTING STANDARD TELEPHONE”. I quote the entire missive so you can get a good grasp on the fundamental method of instruction used by the army back when the telephone was "in." "1. CONNECT: Red wire from telephone to red wire of telephone line. Yellow (or white) wire from telephone to yellow wire of telephone. Green (or black or blue) wire from telephone to green wire of line. If your telephone does not ring when your number is called, reverse the red wire from telephone green wire of line, and connect the green line (or black or blue) wire from telephone to red wire of line. IF THE ABOVE DOES NOT WORK, THEN: CONNECT: Yellow (or white) wire of telephone to the red wire also of telephone. Connect these two wires to red wire of telephone line. Connect green(or black or blue) wire of telephone to green wire of telephone line. ( The yellow wire of the telephone is not used.) If you are unable get the telephone to work as per above instructions , return phone to: TELEPHONE ENGINEEERING COMPANY, SIMPSON,PA. 18407. Give also the markings on bell from inside of your original telephone and the state the name of the manufacturer." Certainly, that qualifies as a "colorful" piece of technical writing. and I have to say how grateful I am that was never called upon on install many telephones using such guidance. Business, industry and our military services all need qualified technical writers today. The proper functioning of a product is of the secret of prosperity in that it retains old customers and develops new ones. Andrew McCaskey Sr amccsr@comcast.net 2-24-07 [c335wds]
Friday, February 23, 2007
NEW WAYS Some years ago, I recall, I needed a blotter and said so urgently. I had spilled a bit of art-coloring on the desk surface. My fellow worker, young and innocent, in the ways of office routine, looked puzzled and quickly replied: "What you need is a paper towel!" She turned away and promptly returned with several paper towels and hurriedly wiped way the stains. "There!" She said proudly. "Like new! You didn't hurt a thing. It won't show at all." She glossed over the area with a clean towel and held it up to reassure me. I had no idea she, and most of the other young workers in the area, would not know what I had meant when I demanded a "blotter." I, suddenly, realized they were gone! Blotters no longer exist in offices anywhere today. Not too ago the blotter was an essential part of the office setup, along with rubber bands and thumb tacks. We used pen and ink for many office jobs before typewriters and, then, ball point pens came into style. The blotter was usually about the size of a dollar bill - which was a tad larger than those in use today, as well. Most would have been, oh, perhaps 8-1/2 by 4 inches, as I recall. They were mainly made of a thin sheet of very absorbent paper covered with a slicker sheet on which advertisements were printed. Most towns had small print shop which specialized in such advertising, match book covers, calendars, key chain tags of heavy cardboard and a stock of signs for utility purposes. I have seen the working side of some blotters take on a design of reversed writing in blue, red and black which formed a pattern such as Jackson Pollock, the painter, might well have been proud. But the use of the blotter went out of existence with Penmanship, I suppose. The pencil, for some reason, was always there and it has been vastly improved but the fact that its work could be so easily erased and edited made it useless in keeping company books and other records. Occasionally, the stained blotter would turn up as clue in detective stories. The sleuth and present a written confession from the vile criminal. There must be, somewhere, a museum of blotter designs. They had other not-intended uses, as I remember. I have used them as bookmarks and know of others and during the days of the Great Depression I can remember them being used as inner shoe soles where a hole had developed. If any blotters exist today the must be treated as curios more-and-more as the years go by. Andrew McCaskey Sr. amccsr@.comcast.net 2-23-07 [c448wds
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
LIFE'S CONTRASTS Unless he or she choose to make it so, no one's life need be completely “blah.” Much of what our lives turn out to be can be cataloged as being "acquired" rather than "native". If you find your advancing years weighting more toward the dull side you must remember who may have engendered much of such a fault. We should expect contrasts and changes on our lives as part of normal growth leading toward to better conditions. Rather than any attempt to quell them; trying to prevent history from happening, is wind mill you tilt against with unlimited futility. Changes are going to come into your life regardless of what you may do, and you need to be prepared, in a way, as they arise. You need to be prepared to activate them properly, as well and as soon as they arrive. I think of this situations so often during the month of June when our newspapers seem to almost overflow with specifics concerning engagements and weddings. Many of them are based on promises made one to the other. Promises, I feel, are properly shared - not given. Turn to any other page in the same newspaper reporting all those wedding reports and you will find l - far too easily, that promises, agreements, binding words, and such are not listed among merits in newsworthy events of the day. Promises are not exactly what one might call "negotiable securities". They are treasures to be shared with your future progeny not your immediate "now" of your. You are not the sole person on Earth who has creation-given plans, hopes, hopes ,intents - aims and aspirations. Your share in their leaps forward, too. It is your lifetime job to glorify your Creator. If you should choose to make all of life your very own you make it a "task", a deviant duty of-a-down-bound type, a weird worship of a false God - almost totally of your own making. Share your many blessings. Life in such a manner that you can stand in front of a mirror; look into your mirrored eyes and say - aloud : "I am what I am!". If you find you have to close your eyes to get away from that examination spot -some changes are in order. Now. Andrew McCaskey Sr amccsr@comcast.net 2-20-07 [c392wds]
Saturday, February 17, 2007
RETURN TRIP Even with all of the countless nostalgia magazines and papers now appearing on news stands and make positive favoring a return of our national culture base we seldom see any more photographs or at work showing letters from readers and correspondent asking what has become become of them. To many Americans the "barns" early settler's built to store their native-grown wealth in whatever particular phase of the burgeoning economy they chose to compete. More and more barn were built when we were a growing nation barns of many styles of many of occupationally specialized barns were built in just about every section of the nation. They were often symbolic of how the world was to be led to see the success an individual seemed to have made of his holdings. The number and size of barns a man could afford to build told the world of that time who had the money in- hand and was willing to spend it to enhance his social standing. That's one way in which the barns have become such fine story-tellers describing how human lives were both helped and harmed over many years...living, loose-ends poorly tied, and entire dreams of large family groups - men, women and children - entire generations - forever destroyed. Very often, today you can learn a great deal more about how a man lived by visiting his barns rather than his house. The home environment reflected some of elements and sentiments of other members of farm family of those days. It was larger, more comprehensive group than we might find it to be today although that, too, can be fantasized in even more colorful ways today. The one barn with which I have had a close relationship was a more practical one as was the family farm on which it was located. The barn was, to me, of the finest types of such structures in this Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. It had both English and Germanic features in it, as did the family who lived in the nearby, native-made brick brick home nearby. It could have been said the barn had "just grow'd" there - like Lil' Eva in"Uncle Tom's Cabin". It was built of coherent pieces over years of dreaming and planning and the total cost - a remarkably styled bridge barn a dream realized by farmer Irving Driver when he was just a lad. I have the paper on which he liked the total cost of materials and of labor hired at less than five hundred dollars. I might have been a good thing that he died before the boom of the wreaking rig took it away from us - the old 1844-'45 brick house, as well, to make room for the housing development in which we, as some of his descendent's, now live. It's foolish, some people would tell you, to waste your time even thinking about a building which is no longer in existence. That barn on I. D. Driver's old "Lofton Farm" just west of Weyers Cave, Virginia, on the historic Keezletown Pike, was a dream a young farm boy brought to practical perfection in his own lifetime. What kind of structure are you building today in which you might plan to store your accomplishments and achievements for others who follow you? Yes, and for those who will stand in their shoes! Those buildings we used to call barns are disappearing fast these days; getting more and more scarce. Where and how are you saving the good things of your life? There are far more of them, too, than you have thought there could be. Build big. Build to preserve such wealth for others, not to brag about having it. Andrew McCaskey Sr amccsr@comcast.net 2-17-07 [c628wds]
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
ABSENT WITH LEAVE A vacation can be a good thing. I have taken a few days from these in recent weeks and I like to think they are happening because of my "advancing age level" bringing widely accepted "slow down!" notices - some of them, purposely turned in my direction. I can take a hint. I am not one of those persons who needs to be beaten over the head with a wide board to be reminded o take better care of myself. I've been told to "get more sleep." Playing it sly, I try to comply. I, immediately find how difficult it can be to shift from a well-established habit of arising at six o'clock each morning to a "more civilized hour". Years of office schedules taught me that I had to get up by six to get my outside "farm" chores done, feed my face, shower, shave and hie myself off on the daily commute. That travel-time routine served often as a personal "quiet time" - both early morning and, again in a kind of "Thank You, Lord", or ,"Now, what do I try to do next?" session as the sun seeped into the colorful strip along the western edge of the world. The advice, now that I think about it, was largely: "Sleep on it!" I usually did. I found that as television programming declined it was far easier to lop an hour or so from one's evening plans than morning. And - I must, at least, mention another inroad which has been taken on my way of doing whatever it is I am not, at that moment, doing "correctly." This new-found trait of "going to sleep early" became..."always sleepy"..."sleeping his life away!" ..."can sleep standing up!"..."sleeps too much" was the point of packaging me up for two nights of "sleep studies" at a nearby snore center. I, more or less, flunked. I haven't been invited back and hope that condition might continue. Meanwhile...back as the keyboard - I will be writing erratically. I still write daily but I do so in long-hand emulating J.K. Rawlings, no doubt. If my keyboard happens to be out of it's usual whack I depend on long-hand writing. It can be said that is is just a matter of typing those scribblings...right? Partly. My handwriting (now that I am said to be aged) has changed somewhat and not for the better, I will concede. Typing my hand-written copy is not all that difficult. The translation from some form of ancient Urdo street language seems to be somewhat more troubling. A soon as I get my bits and bytes back, I'll fill in the holes. Okay? Time for a short nap on this end. Andrew McCaskey amccsr@comcast.net 2-13-07 [c470wds]
Sunday, February 11, 2007
WITHOUT HATE Is it possible for Man to live in times of war and not to hate his enemies? Our religious faith demands that we “love our enemies” and, I suppose, other faiths set forth a like urging. Fortunately or unfortunately there are several useful definitions of the term “love”.One such use,in particular, can be used to justify some rather cruel patterns of demonstrated “love”. The domineering Father of fictional families - and far too many in real life – is often shown as a vicious tyrant who beats his wife and children with the strap he ,normally, uses as a belt during his steadier moments. Often. As he does so while proclaiming his love for each one of them. He beats them to drive out the sin which is condemning them to endless shame and agony. He cites precedent showing how previous believers had been made to suffer before they won through to blessing untold! Any time of War is a time when it is not at all difficult for one to learn to hate. Right now is a special time because so many people have not yet decided to approve of the idea that the present, unusual conflicts in which we are engaged are, indeed, to be called “wars”. They do occupy a place “outside the envelope” used to contain definitions of usual warfare, but the victims – nearly four thousand of them in the Twin Towers tragedy alone. Our basic principles of life have been denied. Each, added day we spend trying to decide petty points to define “war” our men and women – whom we have placed in harm’s way are dying or being maimed. It is a common tactic to some groups to stress this idea of urging peace above all else...including our integrity, honor and common sense. I am sure we can sustain our good concepts of good wishes to the many “peoples” led astray by their amok leaders. Think back over the times we have been asked not to hate our enemies: "Do not let yourself hate the British during our Revolutionary War; the Native Americans, the French, the English ,England again in 1812 who actually burned our capital city. Then ,how about the pirates off of Tripoli or the members of own families during our Civil War, Mexicans on each end of it, and the Spanish as a new century of fears came to be. Then, "Kaiser Bill's" Germany and Hitler's tragic re-run of the whole mess, aided and abetted by Russian, Slavs and others by names out of the of the Balkan Mountain area and the Japanese on the other side of the Pacific rim. That's a pretty long list, for a bare four hundred years. It could be even longer by including those little wars Panama, Granada, Whiskey, and a few familial set-taos in the Appalachians and other areas from time to time. Hate was an active part of each of them. I have been amazed at how much dislikes endure, too. If you look for them, you can find remnants almost anywhere. Maybe it is time we issue some proclamation or writ or bulls..whatever it might require to soften, delineate or legally obscure our present definition of "war" to allow "hate" to exist. After all, the abiding strength of the Christian faith has been the ability of adherents to hate all sin. Andrew McCaskey Sr amccsr@comcast.net 2-11-07 [c574wds]
Saturday, February 10, 2007
THE OTHER WAY We are, being American, often accused of somewhat piously claiming that we always give fair and equal treatment to everyone concerning our political differences. Most individuals who have never taken a meaningful role in a major election would, I think, agree with that statement and see our participation in political affairs more as if it were a sportsmanlike interlude in our normal activities, rather than a dog-eat-dog , life-or-death confrontation. I have been in a foreign country during a major election period and I can be pursued ed to agree it is not a pleasant time to be around persons who, otherwise, meet average criteria for being worthy friends and associates. I witnessed to people to be understanding, fair, loving, appreciative human beings upon which one might depend in social and in business affairs. In politics? No. With us, I thing, we are convinced we are willing participants in a series of meetings, demonstrations, innings, quarters or turns or whatever terms we might wish to use to describe our actions as to both quality and quantity, a time. I have never, really, come to understand how an individual ,of his desires, so places the finer elements of living at jeopardy by entering into a political confrontation of any large size or scope. Certainly sufficient evidence exists at ,or near, the point of entrance for such an extravagant departure from saner pathways. To put all that one has gained at such risk is not exactly a recommendation concerning personal management, much less , any attempt to do so for an entire nation of people such as yourself. The affirmative view can take over if you promise to run a clean campaign in the race ahead. You feel that, if you are proper, an opponent will be forced to accept such a level of conduct for his own actions. Anyone who believes that could be the case is far to busy tracking down astronauts asking why they brought back moon dust and rocks from the Moon rather than some of that good, usable green cheese! We have many possible candidates in the field at the moment. Dark Horses" are reported to be stomping around in the backwoods, too. All - save one - will be going home. Years from now a few of them will insist they could have made it had they just been given give half a chance. Some will tell of how much better they could have done than he actual winner had done. In their view, that's where our future candidates come from - because some people believe events which never happened can be those of our future. Andrew McCaskey Sr amccsr@comcast.net 2-10-07 [c455wds]
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
Wanton Winds It does not seem proper to speak of "high" winds when we are viewing the intense devastation wrought by malicious, uncontrolled tornado- style winds which pounded the middle portion of the State of Florida this past week-end. We tend to associate tornado type storms exclusively to Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma and other parts of what we call "Tornado or Cyclone Alley." There are many types of such storms, too. They do not follow set p;patterns or put on the same wild stunts a every place they choose to visit. The can come in complex packages too. A number of vicious storms can be grouped within a large 'some times rather slow-moving cover cloud.. We have witnessed such a compound set of storms - each pounding away on its own hellish course under, over, beside, within or wrapped around others of the same style. The usual rule books can be set aside. As each such storm descends it may well impede one already in place or it can assist in the destruction under way. The path of the cannot be estimated; torn, as it may be, between two or more dominant influences. Such combination storms can be even more devastating than Single ones. The debris you see after the storms have passed will have, literally, been torn to shreds and smaller pieces will have been thrown far from their original placement. Such storms afford less time for study and evaluation. They have some characteristics of single storm but when they do move their path is even more erratic. Due to the warmer climate found in Florida it is only natural they might favor architecture which, many of us in other geographic areas might call "flimsy". The house trailer as been a favorite mode of household for a long time from a simple box-with-mattress on wheels, to elaborate exaggerations of the same concept today. Not all of Florida , however, is sub-standard. Builders have learned a great deal from hurricane studies of the past, and much progress has been made. I noticed one church pictured on TV this last week built thirty years ago to "withstand winds up to 150 m.p.h.". The only comment was a super-imposed card showing that the official wind velocity the previous Friday night had been "155 m.p.h! Very little of the church remained. Right now, at a time when large areas of Central Florida are available for new construction we have a special oppotunity to see that the building which is done are in tune with tempests which are likely to strike at any time. The prospects of a steady real estate growth here are different from those we encountered along the Gulf coast. Many of these were "second" homes and retirement "Get-a-ways. One such owner when interviewed concerning his rather complete loss said: "I've got another one just as good, or better on a lake in Michigan!" He, and others, are looking for profitable real estate opportunity rather than new homes in which to live. They are going to be constructing home to sell to thousands of people - such as you and me - people who have never lived in Florida and think they could enjoy years of serene retirement in "The Sunshine State!" Andrew McCaskey Sr amccsr@comcast.net 2-6-07 [c590wds]
Thursday, February 01, 2007
KEY WORD Most certainly the one word which is going to control so much of the current presidential election in which we are currently becoming involved. The actual "forthcoming" voting event is set for well in toward the end of 2008. The key word, it seem, is going to be: "elect-ability." That seems to be the critical term in use at the moment. One's ability to get a majority to favor their views. It tells us it may be more important to affect a "landing" in the political area as a prelude to the actual campaign or the office at stake. It is being given attention at two levels: conventions where party people make the nomination and name a candidate they can be assured will prove to be best at pulling votes to their party's banner. Only after that choice is made do the actual voting citizens - usually just a bit over one-half of our eligible voter population - will take part in the choice to be made. This question of just who can be nominated with real confidence in their ability to garner in majority votes in the national election. Imagine yourself to be a V.I.P. in the coming Democratic Party convention. You realize, by this time, that it is no longer a monolithic organization but that you may well be- as are the others - a member of a group - even a minority segment. within what you may think of as being a firm entity with immutable guidelines. Take, for instance, tonight's poll favorites. There's Hillary Clinton - Senator, New Yorker- with undertones of Chicago and Ozark elements, perhaps, and she is very much a former First Lady with an ex-President as sidekick and manager. Is the Democratic Convention ready to name a woman as their main candidate? You have watched her moving gradually to the political center and admired her skill in doing so, but will the public buy such a modification? It is important to remember, too, that the name used f now is "Hillary", but the ballot will hit them with the cold word "Clinton." The others, quickly and then I'm going out and sit on my limb. Barack Obama - Senator, capable, eager,a good speaker, a people person and, obviously one we will,hear from in the future. The fact that is black does not disturb me, but I a not at all sure of the attitude of the nominating panel nor of that of the voters. I don't think they are quite ready to accept an Afro-American in the nation's top office. I think we can skip the others...with one exception. That brings me to my very own, personal opinion: If the nominating group has courage enough to name him and commonsense enough to support Senator John Edwards (D) of South Carolina when he names Senator Joe Lieberman (I)of Connecticut as his Vice-Presidential running mate..their problems are on their way o being solved, at at least, lessened in severity. Andrew McCaskey Sr. amccsr@comcast.net 2-1-07 [c513wds]
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