True Life and Fiction

  A h yes, memory take me back to a time. Back to those days of my youth where innocence and sweet ignorance protected me as much as my kaleidoscope memory now blurs the edges and shields me from the pain in my past. Memories, funny things. My memories seem to change over the course of time, kind of how an ice cream cone gets that slick sheen just before it deforms and melts down the cone. Time has a way of smoothing the edges and refining what is kept, and what is lost. But, isn't that a good thing? I mean, who would want to remember all the bad times, all the pain given and received in the process of becoming an adult. I remember back to when I attended high school. Yes, a trying time for most, I'm sure. Some recent writing research forced me to remember those times. Not just the good times but all of them; some quite painful. I must admit that in my high school days, I was something of a fly on the wall. I didn't really belong to any particular group or cli

If you ask folks who Helen Thomas was, most would simply shrug their shoulders and cast a blank stare. Helen Thomas had a larger impact on our world than most would understand. She was born in 1920 in Winchester, Kentucky. Her family moved to Detroit, Michigan when she was four years old where her father opened a grocery story. Her family came to America as immigrants from Lebanon, and neither of her parents spoke English upon landing at Ellis Island. Yes folks the story of Helen Thomas and her family is one of a true American-an immigrant family who contributed to our society. I'm sure that Helen will be missed by many. If you recall, I met Helen Thomas years ago while on a military mission.  I'll refresh your memory with this picture of me taken beside her inside a helicopter. Keep in mind that, when this picture was taken, Helen was 74 years old and still the most alert and energetic passenger. Although, I must say, she was not too keen on the idea of skirting acro

 I guess it is official. With four typewriters now, I must be a collector. I must be obsessive. But in my defense (psychotic, obsessive, narcissistic, people often try to defend themselves) my last typewriter was one I chose to refurbish. No, I went a little further than simple refurbishing and pimped that baby out! What once was a drab desert sand colored artifact from the late fifties is now a sleek shiny metallic hot rod serving as the pride of my otherwise stock collection. Here's the typecast from this new beauty with the old-possibly original-ink ribbon still installed. Just received a new ribbon in the mail today but haven't put it in and taken it for a test-drive yet. In case the first picture was not enough to get you as excited as I am about this wonderful clockwork machine, here's more: I must say, mere pictures simply cannot provide due justice to the finish and metallic reflections on this typewriter. I brought this

W ell friends, it has finally come to fruition, this weekend I'm on my first furlough for the year. Yes folks, while you were all pinned to the television watching IRS scandals, the country of Egypt disintegrating, and a court case that should have never made it to trial, your Department of the Army civilian employees are being furloughed due to a three percent reduction in the proposed annual increase to the government's budget. I digress. The point here is that, due to my furlough days all falling together to give me basically a five-day weekend, I have time to work on some projects around the home. For years, my wife has been gently prodding me to take action on our garage that has turned into a Sanford and Son style storage facility with no real remaining function and basically a fire hazard allowing no path to safety if calamity should come upon us. Of course, I've been procrastinating on this for as many years as her gentle prodding. Well, this weekend,

Well, it's confirmed. I'm on my way to another unhealthy addiction. Received my third and fourth typewriters from the post man the previous week. I have a fifth vintage typewriter on the way but it doesn't count toward this addiction because it is the same model as the fourth machine and will be used to create a refurbished super (read, franken) typewriter. Here's my typecasting for this post. Note the difference in font between this new Olympia and my original Smith-Corona typewriter. The font on the Olympia is a courier 10 and is all business--just what I would expect from a German-made machine.    A beautiful Machine, if I do say so.