I mentioned recently that I had to attend a funeral for an old friend. He was a retired Sergeant Major, an organized and responsible man, who knew he had just a few days left. He called in his kids and gave them instructions on how to take care of their mother after he was gone. He had arranged things to a "T" and gave them all the information they needed to take care of his affairs. He told his wife the night he died that she would not have to worry about anything, the house and the car...

Last year Ted showed off his guitar room.  I was not only impressed, I was totally jealous.  I don't get a room.  Best I can do is a corner in the basement office.  (Sigh).  So here's my corner.    

I just wrote about Lampasas and being surprised to find racism previlant there. I guess I should have expected to find that kind of thing but I really thought of Texas as a western and not a southern state. But the faulty logic at play there didn't account for the fact that racism is not territorial or regional. I learned as I got older that large towns and small are populated by large minds and small. Still, some of the experiences I had while traveling around the USA were surprising to me. F...

Same age, almost, same desert almost, same last name.  Makes a daddy proud.

I was watching some congressmen grilling the CEOs of several banks the other day, lecturing them and attempting to embarass and ridicule them in front of the world...in part because they traveled on private aircraft. I have some limited experience with congressional travel overseas and you might be interested in some antecdotal information on how frugal your congresspersons are with YOUR dollars. When they travel overseas, congress is paid per diem (a daily subsistance allowance based on lo...

Don McClean said it was the day the music died. I don't know if he meant ALL music...I doubt it...probably Rock and Roll music or at most popular music. Even narrowing it down a bit, I am pretty sure it didn't all die. But it was a day that impacted popular music in some profound ways. The plane crash that took the lives of Buddy Holly, Richie Valenz, and the Big Bopper created a void in the rock and roll world. There are a couple of side stories from that night that are interesting. Buddy ...

I know it is a silly little story. I also know that among you there are similar stories that won't mean much to anyone but you. But my best friend in high school was Charlie Smith. He only went to school for one semester because he had nephritis and was tutored at home most of the time. After high school he attended computer programming at a trade school. There was a girl in his computer class who had gone to high school with us named Cheryl. I never knew her very well, but every boy in the...

I see from national news organizations that our own Pastor Ted has become "news" again. Actually, it isn't news, it is "olds" but is getting press time now because the "new" leadership of the huge church/business that Pastor Ted founded chose to suppress it at the time the "good pastor" was disgraced. Claiming now that they suppressed the story then because they wanted to protect the "flock" after such a devastating scandal. At the time, a male prostitute/drug pusher claimed to have had&nbs...

Forty some years ago I used to listen to the early morning country music show on AFN while I got ready for work. I heard a song by Johhny Cash often, it was about a streamlined train coming through a small Texas town and all the folks coming down to the tracks to see it...something like they ain't never seen before. It was a great song. I never knew the name of the song and even many years later when I Googled it, I couldn't find out. Well, after some searching through Johnny's song lis...

    It was dark and the snow was coming straight down in big "goose feather" clumps. We had been indoors and preoccupied and had not seen the snow start or we might have left sooner. As it was, there was at least three inches on the ground and building fast. I had to get from where I was in the little town of Weilimdorf to Patch Barracks in Vaihingen. Not a great distance, but the route I usually used involved a short stretch up a tall hill with a winding road. Looking ...

Sometime in the late summer of 1967 I found myself at odds with the local Selective Service Office (Draft Board). Almost a year previously, I had received a notice to appear for physical evaluation at the induction station in LA. I had let my dad, The Chief, know about the notice and he said he would let them know why I wouldn't be there. But a year later they were concerned that I hadn't shown up and wanted me to know what a serious offense it was to blow off their notices. So that is how I fo...

Unseasonally warm today, maybe that is a good omen for the rest of the year, I hope so, cause another one like 2008 would do me in.  Here's to ya, hope the new year is a good one. 

The house is trashed, the kids are home burning off a sugar rush and adrenaline high from candies and cookies and sugary ham and presents galore.  MamaCharlie is soaking her feet, the dishwasher is churning on its last load of the day, and I sit here with no ambition to move an inch.   Perfect Christmas Eve.  We had a ball.  Hope you are with someone you love and are full of good cheer and hope for the new year.  From the House of Stone to yours, Merry Christmas.&n...

  Last month my little sister gave me a bit of a fright. We were bound for Phoenix to attend the funeral of MamaCharlie's mom when we got a call from San Diego telling us that Roddie had some bad test results and it looked like scary surgery was on the horizon. So we included a two day extension on our trip so we could "swing by" San Diego on our way home to Colorado from Arizona (we use the same map that HBW & LH use). It was a fun two days and we had a great visit and were a...

It was the winter of 1968. We were visiting with some friends in the village of Viernheim, near Mannheim. There was about three inches of snow on the ground and things were pretty slickery. Talking about the weather and winter fun and games got some of those present to get nostalgic for a sled and a hill. The problem was that we didn't have a sled, and between Weinheim (about 6 or 7 miles east of us) and the hills on the other side of the Rhein River west of us (12 to 15 miles), there just wer...