Family Archives

August 29, 2013

Haunting the Mailbox

I loved to get mail when I was a kid. I’d order a ring that would shoot popped wheat, then spend the next six weeks waiting for it to arrive. Even today, I like ordering from online companies so I can have the anticipation of the FexEx or UPS truck pulling up in front of the house.

Rarely, though, does a box arrive unsolicited. When one does, I remember back to my employee with a stalker ex-husband who terrorized her. One day a box with no return address arrived at the office. When she was afraid to open it, I made a big deal out of putting it on the counter, carefully slitting the taped sides and easing the top up while staying as far back as possible. I peered into the darkness and two black eyes and a forked tongue met my gaze. Even though the cop who took it to the zoo for ID said it was non-poisonous, I look upon strange packages differently these days.

When Wife Lila dropped a small package on my desk this morning, I had those same bad vibes.

THIS box had a return address, but it didn’t make much sense: GFJ + ST L; S. Sprigg / Good Hope (Around Back).

There was a watch inside

Inside the box was a rather nifty watch and the letter above. When I saw the name “McClard,” I remembered a Facebook exchange with one of Wife Lila’s Class of ’66 Classmates, Dick McClard. He had sent me a birthday wish when he confused me with another Ken he was actually friends with.

When I pointed out the error of his ways (quite a list, by the way), he countered by writing, “I bought you a really nice diamond studded watch for $25 from a fella on South Sprigg and he said he would get it to you but I don’t know which carrier. Let me know if it doesn’t get to you by March. I’m not going to risk a trip to Florida with the temp and humidity you described. IT….IS….BEAUTIFUL here today.”

Nefarious plot

Dick and I are on opposite sides of the political fence. I, of course, am a rational, pragmatic thinker and Dick is, well, he thinks Attila the Hun had the right idea, he just didn’t go far enough. He’s a nice enough guy despite that and I treat him like the funny uncle you keep locked in the attic.

When I tried on the watch, however, I was disappointed. It was so small I couldn’t even get the thingie through the first hole.

Either he had underestimated the manly size of my wrist or he more likely hoped the tight band would cut off circulation and cause my left wing to fall off.

Wife Lila has an idea

When the watch was too tight even for Wife Lila to wear, she had an idea. She’d hang it on the wall of the kitchen next to other decorative doo-dads.

I didn’t ask for elaboration

After she finished pounding a nail in the wall to display the watch, I thought I heard her say, “Well, at least something of Dick’s will be well-hung.”

I didn’t ask her to elaborate.

Thanks for remembering my birthday

So, Dick, you were either seven months early or six months late, but I’ll overlook the timing. It is the thought that counts.

I’ll be sure to send you something on your birthday. Oh, by the way, just for your information, snakes get really cranky in transit. That’s something you may need to know.

August 28, 2013

Cat Whiskers and Transistors

F.R. Richey was a tailor I photographed in 1968 in Athens, Ohio. He was in his 80s when I met him. He died at 96, after spending 70 years patching and sewing. This detail shot of his spools and a transistor radio got me to thinking about early radios I remember. If you sew or are interested in radios, click on the photo to make it larger.

I wrote earlier about having a transistor radio that looked a lot like this one when I was delivering newspapers. Looks like Mr. Richey’s radio was a later model that actually had a speaker instead of making you listen through an earphone.

Cub Scout Crystal Radio

My first electronic project was to build a crystal radio set from a Cub Scout kit bought at Buckner-Ragsdale.

A crystal set consisted of an antenna to pick up the radio signal and convert it to electric currents; a tuning coil; a galena crystal that you touched with a fine piece of copper wire (the cat whisker); a ground and a pair of earphones. I used a gutter for the antenna. After getting everything hooked up, I would sit around carefully poking the pebble-sized crystal with the cat whisker until KFVS or KGMO would come flowing in. I don’t remember if I was ever able to pull in the St. Louis stations.

They could be made even simpler. During World War II, soldiers would make “foxhole radios” from a coil of wire, a rusty razor blade, a pencil lead and a pair of headphones. Because they were “passive” receivers, they couldn’t be discovered by German radio detection equipment.

Dad had a suitcase-sized “portable” radio that would shock the bejeebers out of you if you touched any of its metal parts when it was plugged into the wall.

August 27, 2013

I Hate Cursive Writing

Reader Madeline DeJournett posted a link on Facebook to a Psychology Today story entitled “What Learning Cursive Does for Your Brain.” The story whines that schools are phasing out the teaching of cursive writing.

Madeline, a former school teacher, opines: “Can you imagine that they would give it up? It is a sad state of affairs, when our dependency on technology and machines cause us to abandon basic traditional skills like writing!”

“Good riddance,” says me. I started typing in the first grade or thereabouts. By the time I was in the third or fourth grade, I was a proficient hunt ‘n’ peck typist. I tried to learn touch typing by doing exercises when I got high school age and got where I can mostly type without looking at my hands, but it ain’t pretty.

Dad had the most beautiful handwriting you would ever want to see. It appalled him to see my chicken scratching, so he embarked on a campaign in the fall of 1960 to improve my writing. I had to do several pages of drills every day. They started out with curves and lines.

Then we moved on to words

Dad would write an example, then I would have to copy it for three lines. His letters weren’t formed exactly like we were taught in class, but they were like artworks. Mine were more like modern art.

Long about that time, I was in Pastor Fessler’s Confirmation Class. His standing Monday assignment was for us to hand in a 150-word summery of his Sunday sermon. That turned out to be the most useful thing I got out of Confirmation. I learned how to take good notes in my own personal scrawling, then go home to the typewriter where I would bang out exactly 150 words. Not 149, not 151. Exactly 150. I have no idea if he actually counted the words (or even read them), but it was a point of pride to hit the number on the nose.

Building a vocabulary

When I complained about the finger exercises, Dad gave me a new assignment: he’d write a word out of the dictionary, I’d have to copy it, then define it. My handwriting didn’t improve, but my vocabulary certainly did.

I found only one notebook of writing practice, so I suspect that Dad finally gave me up as a lost cause. I think I didn’t make an effort because I knew I’d never be able to write as well as he did.

How did my writing turn out?

I got into a business where you had to write quotes all the time. I developed my own shortcuts and abbreviations that probably nobody else could decipher, but worked for me.

A couple of days ago, I stumbled across a box of my old notebooks from the late 60s and was amazed at how some of those scrawls transported me back in time. I saw a quote from an old man describing a big coal mining disaster in Southern Ohio. “It put black crepe on every home in the valley.” Even if I didn’t have a physical photograph of the man, that sentence popped him into my mind. He’s long dead, but his words live on in my notebook.

Probably the best answer to the question, “How did my writing turn out?” would be answered by comparing Dad’s signature with mine. (In case you can’t quite make it out, the second line reads “Kenneth L. Steinhoff.)

Sorry, Dad.

August 10, 2013

Parting, Such Sweet Sorrow

This will be the last family post for awhile. Sons Adam and Matt left Mother’s house in Cape Friday for parts north and south, eventually to wind up back in Florida. The house is a lot quieter tonight, but it also feels empty.

I have to have my car serviced on Tuesday, then I need to think about breaking down my computers, packing up and heading back to Florida. I THINK I still live there.

Photo gallery of the goodbyes

These are mostly for our family, but you’re welcome to click on any photo to maker it larger, then click on the sides to move through the gallery.