Football Team Photo

As long as I have it already scanned for Bleau's birthday picture below, I might as well put up the full scan of our high school football team photo. This was when I was a senior so it would have been in 1984. All four boys in my class were on the team and we were co-captains. I remember it was not a good year for wins. I weighed in at 215 lbs. and I think the next closest weight was Mark (#85) with 185 lbs. My number was 69.

1976 Pontiac Trans Am

And I continue with my series of old photos I found while digging around for other old photos.

This 1976 Pontiac Trans Am was my first car, believe it or not -- a sort of hand-me-down from my oldest brother Duane. Here I am posing before either my junior or senior prom. I don't remember which. The important part is the stylish clothing on that young man. I do have better pictures of the car somewhere and maybe I'll look for them someday so I can scan those too.

I wish I still had that car. My brother Harvey actually does have both of his cars from high school. His 1974 Ford LTD 2-door sits out on the farm by Strasburg and his 1973 Pontiac Firebird is in a storage unit. When I owned my Trans Am it had the 400 motor (6.6 liter). Recently I found the owners manual and the Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) was written on it. I checked it out online and found out the car originally had the 455 engine.

In the past basically any person used to able to do a title search and in so doing find the current owner of a car and where he or she lives. I think all you needed was a current or past license plate number or the VIN or the title number or a combination of a couple of those. I don't believe a private citizen can do that anymore because of current privacy laws. Makes sense I guess. It would be tough to administrate, but it would be nice if there were some way for a person to find the location of a classic car previously owned.

Dress Up Time!

I've been remiss in posting this picture, i.e. I forgot. These are the girls that were here for Aleah's birthday party. After going swimming, they came home and had cake and ice cream. Then they played dress up. Nancy took this picture. It sure sounded like they were having fun.

The whole sleepover event went very well. The girls watched the Alvin and the Chipmunks movie and were all asleep by 12:30 am. They slept downstairs. When Gerrit got up at 8:30 in the morning he walked past them and they were all still sleeping.

One bright spot for me was that I made caramel rolls again. This was for breakfast on Saturday morning. They turned out well - I seem to finally have it down pretty good.

The girl in the red dress didn't want to go home - she hid in the basement when her mom came. Apparently she has told the other girls that her parents fight all the time and are probably going to get a divorce. That is sad.

Where's The Bread?

This is a reprint. I've had another personal blog since early 2004. It was pretty much just for the entertainment of Nancy and myself. This past Sunday, after church, we ate at the Asian Buffet in Kirkwood Mall. Of course, we were reminded of the following story - copied in its entirety from a blog post in June of 2004. The buffet does have garlic bread now.

Oh, I almost forgot to tell this funny story. It's one I'm sure I'll remember for the rest of my life.

Nancy's parents took us out to a local Chinese buffet restaurant this weekend. We are eating and Nancy's dad goes back for more. I see him talking to one of the employees, asking, "Where is the bread?" He had to repeat it because I assume her English wasn't the best. She summoned another employee to talk to him. He asked for the bread again. The answer was, "Oh no, we don't have bread." To this Nancy's dad said, "Well, you should. This is a farm state and we need to support the farmers." It wasn't really embarrassing because he often says stuff like that, it was more amusing than anything. He really is big on his bread. Not happy unless bread is on the table. If you think about it, first of all, there is breading on most of the food in the buffet, and secondly, the farmers really don't get that much from a loaf of bread. Every little bit helps though, I suppose.

Maybe someone else wouldn't find it funny, but it was to us. We'll most likely mention it every time we go to an oriental buffet.

German-Russian Heads

The photo in the post below highlights pretty well my big "German-Russian" head. I mentioned that before but have never explained.

I don't remember the fine details but our family was at Duling Optical in Kirkwood Mall for new glasses. I'm pretty sure both Doug and Lisa, my brother and sister, were there - but I'm not positive. I was looking for new frames and must have been having some trouble finding the right one for my noggin. The manager knew we were from Strasburg and assumed we were of a certain heritage. I think he said he was of similar heritage and he had a big head, too. At one point he said something like, "Must be that big German-Russian head." I think we let it go and didn't mention we were 100% Dutch. We thought it was kind of funny at that time and on occasion after that would reference my "big German-Russian head." I still say that to Nancy - about my head, not hers.

A few years ago when I got a new motorcycle helmet I had to special order because they didn't have my size in stock. It is a good thing I have such wide shoulders, as they sort of disguise the issue.

I get to the mall so infrequently that I don't even know what is presently in the old Duling Optical spot, which was right next to JCPenney in the mall. There is now an Arby's across from where Duling used to be. I know at one time it was a Sterling Optical. I can still picture the guy, though. Wonder where he is now. Boy, now that I think about it, that was a long time ago - for sure over twenty years. Where does the time go, people?

Oh, and I don't mean to imply that I myself think that either German-Russian or Dutch people have big heads in general. Just this Dutch boy.

Killer Bees and VW Beetles!

After my post from a bit back about our game of counting VW Beetle sightings, I was reminded of a TV movie about "killer" bees I saw when I was young. I did some internet research and found out the title of the movie was "The Savage Bees" and it came out in 1976. I would have been nine or ten years old. I suppose that was about the time of the scare of africanized bees moving up from South America.

I don't remember much detail about the movie but I do remember the final scenes involved a car covered with bees. Of course, a woman was trapped inside the car and I suppose the bees were trying to get to her. I recall her having to deal with some that were finding their way into the interior, and toward the end she was getting more and more inside - creating a greater urgency to the situation.

She either drove the car or someone else pushed the car into the Superdome. They then kicked in the AC to cool the stadium and at some point the bees were chilled enough to be immobilized (at 45 deg., one web site said), saving our lady in distress.

I had an aversion to or fear of bees/wasps back then and I still do. I suppose that is the reason the movie made an impression in my memory.

The car covered with bees was a red VW Beetle. I found some captures from the movie on a web site and have included them here. The site appears to be French and the web address is on each photo.

Anyone else remember this movie?

Courtesy of Wikipedia, here is an animated graphic illustrating the spread of africanized honey bees up through 2003. I don't know, I'm pretty sure they are also in Florida and some other southern states by now too.

Doyle Munn

It is strange how memories just pop into your head at the oddest times. Last night Nancy and I had just gotten into bed and were discussing the events of the day when the memory of Doyle Munn came to me for no reason at all. Doyle had worked in the cheese plant in Pollock, SD for about one year. I am guessing it was 1993 or 1994-ish because I had not yet gotten the safety coordinator position at the plant and was working on the floor making Muenster cheese. We worked together on the same shift and were work acquaintances. I didn't know him away from work. He was a fairly quiet guy, seemed pretty jovial most of the time, and was a good worker. He had come from Oregon with his wife and family to live in Linton. They had one child. His in-laws lived (still do, as far as I know) in the Hazelton area and his father-in-law also worked at the plant in Pollock.

Came to work one day and got the news that he had severely beaten his wife with a garden hose and then ended his life with a large caliper handgun. Pretty heavy stuff to absorb coming back to work from days off. I'm sure it was shocking to everyone, but probably more so to those of us who were his co-workers. One of the rumors that came about was he had a bad drinking problem away from work. I don't know if that was true or not, as it didn't manifest itself in his work life. I think I might still have his obituary saved somewhere.

I was telling Nancy this story last night but she kept falling asleep. I think her last comment was "nice bedtime story." Sorry, Nancy. Anyway, I laid there thinking for a while about this, about how sometimes you think you know someone but you really don't and about the bad things people can sometimes do to each other. Good times, right? After that was over, the memories from my time at the cheese plant kept flowing. These were all good memories. I really did enjoy my time working at the cheese plant and it was a great bunch of people to have as co-workers. I was there from 1992 to 1999.

All this kept me awake for quite a while, so I have been really dragging today from lack of sleep. I realize this is a somewhat dark/morose post and I struggled a little with whether or not to put it up, but I decided that life has the good with some bad and that it is all right for this blog about our life and times to reflect that fact on occasion. Have a great weekend, everyone!