Remembering 1959

1959 was a very busy year in my broadcast career, working on an application for a radio station license. As a result, I was frequently out of touch with the news.

The part I am now remembering, is the part about Cuba. For some years (over two separated terms) Cuba was run by Fulgencio Batista. Batista was reputed to be a bad guy - I was never in Cuba, so I can only go by what others said. The U.S. backed Batista and he kept the island wide open to the pleasure business - gambling, partying, prostitution. Reportedly with connections to U.S. mafia crime families.

But, then came "The Cuban Revolution", somewhat headed by a one-time Cuban political activist named Fidel Castro, his younger brother Raul, and the mass murderer Che Guevera. Castro had been kicked out of Cuba, but returned from exile to take on the Batista forces. This was supposedly a people's revolution, an uprising for freedom and democracy. Castro found help in the U.S., but maybe only from Cuban exiles. Eisenhower was the U.S. President and Ike was not one to jump into a fray with his eyes closed.

After The Revolution became successful, freedom loving democrat Fidel announced that he was really a Marxist. Boy, did we feel snookered! We had cheered for someone we knew nothing about.

So, you will forgive this old man if, today, as we again support "rebel" forces we do not know (this time in the Middle East), I wonder if we're about to be snookered again.

That last mistake caused us grief that has stretched 52 years, and still counting! Off the top of my head, I'd say we are slow learners.

A diet that works.

America is overweight. Scores of people have offered a solution... a diet of some sort which they guarantee will reduce your weight. Nearly everyone has tried one or more of these diets. Most people fail to lose weight.

For years, I weighed about 175 pounds. In recent years, thanks to reduced physical activity and the pleasure of eating, my weight increased to 190 pounds. Most of my trousers became too tight to wear. I longed to again see 175 when I stepped on the scale.

One month ago, both my wife and I contracted some sort of stomach disorder which affected our appetites. We almost quit eating for several days. If we forced some food down, our stomachs objected rather decisively. I lost 14 pounds. Wow! The scale said 176! (My petite wife, always a light eater, lost 4 pounds).

When my affliction had passed, I wondered if I could keep the weight off. That, I reasoned would require some adjustment in my eating habits and some increase in physical activity.

I have always believed in a balanced diet and enjoy meats of all kinds, vegetables raw and cooked, along with fruits, bread, etc. My wife knows that if she puts it on my plate, I will eat it. Being a child of the depression, long taught "waste not, want not", I always cleaned my plate.

I decided to begin with smaller portions. Much smaller portions. My wife served a salad, grilled boneless pork chops, baked potato and green beans. I took about one half the amount of salad I would normally eat and added a very small amount of dressing; I cut about one-third of a pork chop; likewise, about one-third of a baked potato with a small amount of butter and no added salt; took a spoon of green beans and ate very slowly. To my surprise, I was satisfied with that meal.

I usually have a glass of wine or a snifter of brandy after dinner. I wondered it I was becoming "hooked" on that daily drink and if I could be happy without it. I stopped drinking daily, just to prove I could. Yes, I'll still drink a beer with pizza or Mexican food - happily I do not miss the daily drink.

Out for a drive last week, we stopped at a hamburger place, ordered a #1... a small burger, small fries and a drink. My wife took the drink, I had water. She cut the little burger in half and we also split the fries. Our appetites were satisfied.

Do I get hungry? A little. But I am not in agony. And now, when I eat with others, I gasp at the way they pile their plates with food!

This morning, one month after this all began, the scale still said 176.

So, here is the secret... quit eating so much!

Every day I find it takes less and less food to satisfy my appetite.

Can I keep this up? We shall see. My "diet" requires that I stay aware - totally aware - of what I am eating (every meal - no more between meal snacks), until my eating habits become more firmly fixed. I once read where some guy said that if he had been diagnosed as color blind and tone deaf, he would have become a painter and a musician out of pure cussedness. Like he, I hope to do it through pure cussedness!

Words.

Once a friend and I were discussing the definition of certain words. He reminded me that a dictionary is more a history book than a rule book. Definitions given are based on how words are being used, so definitions will change.

Sometimes I find those changes amusing.

The German company Bayer is currently airing a TV commercial for their aspirin. In this commercial an airline passenger asks an attendant if she has anything to relieve back pain. She gives him Bayer aspirin. He explains that he is not having a heart attack... he has back pain. She replies that aspirin works for pain.

I am an old man. All my life I have used aspirin as a pain reliever or to reduce fever.

But, some researcher pointed out that aspirin also slows the clotting of blood. Under certain conditions, this fact can help prevent a blood clot from forming and moving into the heart muscle - which event could cause a heart attack. This power of aspirin has been widely promoted of late: "an aspirin regimen can help prevent a heart attack". Why not? an "aspirin regimen" means taking an Aspirin daily... sells a lot of Aspirin!

Does Bayer now actually believe people no longer know that aspirin's first use has always been as a pain reliever?

Gives me a headache. Anyone have an aspirin?

This Day In History...

Today is the anniversary of an event you probably won't hear mentioned today, but one you surely will remember... even if you didn't know or remember the date.

It was on March 23, 1775, in the House of Burgesses. The debate had turned to the rising movement of Independence from the oppressive King of England. One can imagine that some of the members were indecisive and reluctant to declare a position in what would amount to a war against their homeland.

Finally one member grew impatient with the uncertainty and demanded of his colleagues, "Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty god! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death."

Patrick Henry, 236 years ago, today.

Henry's actions matched his words, he left politics to become a Colonel in the 1st Virginia Regiment. Perhaps it was his fiery rhetoric which inspired my own Revolutionary War ancestor to also join a Virginia regiment. Though not Henry's 1st Regiment, my ancestor must have known of the Colonel as they served in General Washington's Army at Valley Forge and beyond.

After the war, Patrick Henry again entered politics and became Virginia's Governor.

I have a special affinity for Patrick Henry's unabashed patriotism. It was with a burst of patriotic fervor that I, 65 years ago, as a seventeen year old private in the United States Army, had the words "Death Before Dishonor" tattooed on my arm.

Never too old to learn!

I re-learned that old lesson once again! It came about when my wife, daughter, son-in-law and I enjoyed an outing in our beautiful desert. We drove our old Jeep Cherokee to a spot along the Rio Grande and found ourselves on very soft, loose, dry sand. As always, my wife shifted into four-wheel-drive and easily moved out of the sand onto firm soil.

When she shifted back to two-wheel drive, the "sound" from the transfer case did not change. The 4WD did not disengage. We drove the 30-odd miles to home, and smoke began to boil from the bottom of the vehicle.

The lesson I learned?

We have all been taught the importance of regularly lubricating our cars, on a specific schedule. This has spawned an industry... "The Fast & Easy Lube & Oil Change Joints". Competition has led them to ever lower prices.

I recently took another car to a Pep Boys outlet in response to an advertised low price of something like a $19.95 lube, oil and filter special. I agreed to an extra $5 for high mileage oil for my high mileage vehicle. I think $24.95 was to be the total price. When I picked up my car, the tab was $37.95, plus tax, about double the $19.95 that drew me in. I objected and was shown that my receipt contained a certificate for a $13 rebate! Wow! All I had to do was package up all the "proof of purchase" information and mail it to a distant address, wait six weeks or so, and I would get the $13 rebate by mail.

Understand, the purpose of a rebate is two-fold. First, a given percent of customers will lose their proof-of-purchase material, or procrastinate past the deadline to apply. At best, the seller will get to use your money for a few weeks. The rebate deal was not revealed up front or I would have walked. Only when I objected to the price did they explain the rebate. Had it not been for this, I doubt I would have examined the receipt to learn of the rebate. If Pep Boys ripped me on price, what other corners may they have cut?

The cut rate instant lube joints cut every possible cost. We may believe that they actually do lubricate every grease fitting... but we can never know how many, if any, they skip.

They do drain your oil, replace the oil filter and refill the crankcase. Do they use the full amount of oil necessary? Better check your oil to find out. Do they check any other fluids? Maybe. Maybe not. Did you verify? Probably not. Did they replace those fluids with quality brands?

Now, the lesson learned. I took the smoking Jeep to a full service garage, run by honest people. You can imagine I was faced with a huge cost to rebuild the transfer case. But, no... the only problem? The transfer case had not been checked for a long, long time and had completely dried up. They just re-filled the thing with the correct transmission fluid and it worked perfectly again. They asked me to drive it for a short time, then bring it back so they could check for leaks.

Okay! Here is my advice! The cheapest thing you can do for a car is to keep it properly lubed on the manufacturer's schedule. That is savings enough. Don't look for a quick and cheap lube job. Find a good, honest operator of a full-service garage. Ask them to specify that they check all fluids, and lube everything properly. When you pick up your car, you may ask some questions, like, "How was the water level in the battery?" "Was the transmission fluid low?".

Don't worry about the price. Whatever they charge will be less than a new transmission.

One more scream!

I get a little tired of hearing young TV pundits state that "seniors" want to cut spending until you mention Social Security, then they scream. Well, friends, they have a right to scream.

We didn't ask for Social Security. When I turned 13 and took my first job away from the family farm, I was told I had to have a social Security Card... and, it was FREE! So the government tapped into every paycheck I ever earned... for fifty years. As employers most of our adult life, my wife and I paid both the employee and the employer half to FICA.

"But, you are drawing more than you paid in!", they insist. My friend, the dollars we paid in were closer to real, unlike the dollars we're being paid today. In 1941, one of my dollars would buy over six gallons of gasoline. It would buy 12.5 quarts of milk. Or 24 White Castle hamburgers. Or 3 hot roast beef sandwiches.

And we worked hard for those dollars! My first job was pruning and tying tomato plants for 8¢ per 100 plants. Then I worked a dairy delivery route (5:00 a.m. until 3:00 p.m.) for $2. a day. Until I entered the Army, no job ever paid more than 42¢ an hour.

Also, as an employer, I paid thousands out of my pocket in state unemployment compensation. The only time I ever drew unemployment pay was when I was discharged from the Army. They offered me $20 a week for a maximum of 52 weeks. Today people get 99 weeks - almost two years at something near their last full pay.

In 1941, it took $33.85 to buy an ounce of gold. Today it will take $1,430 to buy that ounce. That is how much the government has devalued the dollar. If my monthly Social Security check were divided by that same ratio, it would be about $28.! Still sound like I am drawing more than I paid?

All those dollars we paid Social Security were supposed to be safely locked in an interest-bearing account. We trusted the government to invest those dollars wisely. Instead they stole our money to buy votes. Then they borrowed trillions more, to buy more votes. Now they want us to "sacrifice" to pay back their debt.

I know it is not going to happen, but I would like to see hundreds of politicians thrown in jail for armed robbery. Yes, armed! Refuse to pay your taxes and see who comes to call! They will be armed.

Beans.

An elderly friend was recently released from the hospital following surgery. One of his daughters drove him home and offered to cook dinner for him and for her mother. His choice? Beans and cornbread. That made me smile as my request would have been the same! I love beans!

Years ago I heard someone interview Louis Armstrong. Asked to name his favorite meal. In his husky, gravely voice, Armstrong replied, "Red beans and rice".

Rice was not all that common where I grew up in Missouri, beans certainly were. Plentiful, cheap and delicious. And dry beans are so easy to store and transport.

A friend once told me a story from the depression era. When he and his wife were married, they found a job on a large farm. The job was for the entire year and part of the job was a small cabin in which to live while employed. The cabin had rudimentary furnishings, a wood-burning kitchen stove, a few pots or kettles and some dishes. Someone gave the newlyweds a big sack of beans, and my friend had a dime. 10 cents! He walked several miles into the nearest town and bought 10¢ worth of salt pork. The couple lived on beans, flavored with the salt pork, until their first payday when they could buy some additional groceries.

As a kid in a country school, I and other farm kids, often brought cold bean sandwiches for lunch. A big pot of beans, kept overnight in the icebox would become stiff enough to spread on a thick slab of homemade bread to make a sandwich.

When I started my first business, a businessman mentor advised me not to worry if success was not immediate. "You grew up on beans", he said, "you can always go back to beans if things get slow." They did get slow at times, and I did go back to beans. But, I still love a big pot of beans, even when things are going well!

Today my preference is for pinto beans, soaked overnight in cold water, then cooked all day in a Crock Pot with some ham hocks. Serve them with lots of fresh, chopped onions and a couple of spoons of hot salsa! Cornbread tops off the meal. Wow! I truly feel sorry for people who never learned how much simple pleasure is found in a big bowl of beans!