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Thursday, December 05, 2002
Tight Fit
Another day, another bomb scare. Today the physics building
was evacuated, surrounded by police and checked out by a bomb sniffing
dog. As usual it was a false alarm and later a student was arrested for
making the threat. He had called from a pay phone in the cafeteria and was
even captured on video making the call. I thought physics students were
smarter than that.
Another student was having a bad day as well. He tried to drive his truck
and camper through the parking structure. Can you say tight squeeze? That
was good for about an hour of entertainment till the campus police let the
air out of his tires so he could back out. No damage to the parking
structure.
At home we’ve been dealing with the routine domestic events that everyone
goes through. Picked up a new stove from Sears and installed it last
night. Since we live in the boondocks I don’t bother trying to get them to
deliver. If it can fit on the back of my pickup, I can haul it myself. The
hard part is getting Catherine to carry it inside.
We lost power to the north side of the property today. That’s the side
with the main well and freezer so I’ll be staying home tomorrow to track
down the problem. Most likely it’s a bad circuit breaker and I’ve become
quite handy at replacing them. Before we moved to the country I didn’t
know circuit breakers could go bad but over the last ten years I must have
replaced at least six. We have three wells and several out buildings, all
with separate sources of power. I handle electric and plumbing repairs and
Catherine does the carpentry. No kidding. I couldn’t drive a nail straight
if my life depended on it. My motto is measure three times, cut three
times, get pissed off and force it.
I’m still mourning the loss of Clancy. I can’t stop looking for him at the
back door. Clancy came to us when his original owner passed away and I did
my best to spoil him over the last 5 years. I liked to refer to him as
“the cat who can do no wrong.” No more cats for us. It’s too dangerous up
here. I suppose a dog could handle himself against the coyotes but we’re
not here enough and I hate leaving pets by themselves all day. No matter
what anyone says, they get lonely.
__________
Didn't have a chance to get a
photo of the camper jammed in the parking structure. Had to settle for an
interesting picture of my desk at work
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July 2, 1966 – Saturday
I realize it’s been a long time since I wrote last but too many
disappointing things have been happening. I’ll start from the beginning.
On June 25 my sister was married. It was a great wedding with Barry as
best man and me as the usher. I was more nervous than the bride groom.
Everything went ok during the wedding and afterwards we went to the
reception. I had a great time there talking to friends and snitching a
little Champaign when possible. I must admit that I had a better time than
I thought you could have at that type of party. After the reception Barry,
Noel and I went to the Del Coronado (a fancy hotel where a lot of movie
stars and rich people hang out) dressed in full tuxedos. It was fun to
walk around making people think we were movie stars. Three people thought
Barry was getting married and they congratulated him. We then went over to the officers club on the base and had a great dinner.
Dick Van Dyke was in town for a movie premier and he went to the club but
we were too early. Mother saw him later on that evening.
Well, here’s where things get bad. When I got home that night I could
hardly sleep because I was so excited about the trip to Japan. When I got
up things began to crumble. I overheard father, who had returned from
Japan a few days earlier, talking to mother about Japan. It seems it’s no
different from what Mrs. Nixon said it was, in fact even worse. After we
came home from church father told us the whole trip was off.
You can imagine how I felt. After months of preparing and looking forward,
it all crumbled. I’ve never been more disappointed in my life. The reason
we didn’t go was because the country is a mess. The houses are tiny, the
weather terrible, the job no good and a thousand other things I don’t feel
like talking about.
That’s it. Everything is over. Barry got his old job back in the forest
service, Sheila’s gone and I’m left here, sitting in Coronado with a whole
summer ahead with nothing to do.
After father told us we weren’t going I was sitting in the living room
feeling miserable. Then Barry brought up the idea of me helping some
friends of ours pick avocadoes up in Santa Barbara. The fact of a trip to
Japan being lowered to picking avocadoes in Santa Barbara sounded so
ridiculous that I couldn’t control myself. I laughed like I’ve never
laughed before. I must have spent a half hour walking around the house in
complete hysteria. After calming down I went to my room and cried for the
first time in years.
continued next entry |
