Now that your unpacked and got to test drive the area for a bit, encountered some locals and yokels, and hopefully some actual people that moved to the area from your home town or state its time to list the likes you have of your new or semi-new, or heck if the area is your native home than by all means and ways list what you like! Y'all got it? Well here goes!
Weather! You like or not!
Year round flowers!
Long springs!
Longer Autumns!
Shorts year round! For the hearty ones that is.
Variety of sub divisions to chose from!
Snow is a neat event versus a ho-hum not again event!
No rust on older cars! Amazing if your from the Northeast!
Can fish year round without cutting holes in the water (ice) for us North Easterners!
Pretty country side is usually only 5 minutes or less from where you live anywhere in the triangle.
People R People. No matter what they say!
Day trip to Mountains!
Day trip to Ocean!
And in a lot cases no trip at all to the many lakes, ponds, river, and streams that spot the area!
Good food can be had by all and more is always welcome irregardless if they are called viddles or pickins!
Out away from the city lights the sky at night explodes with the many stars that fill the emptiness of space with the occasional flying star to catch a dream or two on!
Groceries can be cheaper but we all have to eat!
Sure it takes time to get use to this place, remember the place you came from was called home and that is never a easy place to replace! But give it time, explore the area and get involved and this place too will be your new home not only in name but in feeling!
May the triangle, RDU, RTP, Crossroads, the Quay, Wake Forest, Knightdale, Apex, Raleigh, Durham, Zebulon, Oxford, Mossisville, Franklinton, Youngsville, Chapel Hill, Henderson, ...seems like I am forgetting somewhere.
...????......Oh yea! and Cary, be with you!
Oh Tarheels! I forgot to number the above as I did say I would count thy ways!
Weather! You like or not!
Year round flowers!
Long springs!
Longer Autumns!
Shorts year round! For the hearty ones that is.
Variety of sub divisions to chose from!
Snow is a neat event versus a ho-hum not again event!
No rust on older cars! Amazing if your from the Northeast!
Can fish year round without cutting holes in the water (ice) for us North Easterners!
Pretty country side is usually only 5 minutes or less from where you live anywhere in the triangle.
People R People. No matter what they say!
Day trip to Mountains!
Day trip to Ocean!
And in a lot cases no trip at all to the many lakes, ponds, river, and streams that spot the area!
Good food can be had by all and more is always welcome irregardless if they are called viddles or pickins!
Out away from the city lights the sky at night explodes with the many stars that fill the emptiness of space with the occasional flying star to catch a dream or two on!
Groceries can be cheaper but we all have to eat!
Sure it takes time to get use to this place, remember the place you came from was called home and that is never a easy place to replace! But give it time, explore the area and get involved and this place too will be your new home not only in name but in feeling!
May the triangle, RDU, RTP, Crossroads, the Quay, Wake Forest, Knightdale, Apex, Raleigh, Durham, Zebulon, Oxford, Mossisville, Franklinton, Youngsville, Chapel Hill, Henderson, ...seems like I am forgetting somewhere.
...????......Oh yea! and Cary, be with you! Oh Tarheels! I forgot to number the above as I did say I would count thy ways!
Wake Forest, Gosh its a pretty nive place to live!
Posted 03-09-2009 at 08:59 PM by dansdrive
Wake Forest, NC. located in Wake County NC. Some call it Wake's Forest of the Triangle....Ok maybe that's just me. But if you come from the North East, Wake Forest seems to fit. It has some rolling hills and many farming areas.
It has a small town feel but close to Raleigh, you could be down town Raleigh, depending on time of day in about 15 to 30 minutes. You can be at the Virginia border in less than an hour.
It has old Historical homes and some new subdivisions. It certainly worth a look see if your looking and seeing the area. It has transplants from New Jersey, New York, and many other NE State and Mid West and California and....well you get the idea people from all over this great country now calls Wake Forest home!
C'mon down, over, left, or right and check it out you may just like what you see.
It has a small town feel but close to Raleigh, you could be down town Raleigh, depending on time of day in about 15 to 30 minutes. You can be at the Virginia border in less than an hour.
It has old Historical homes and some new subdivisions. It certainly worth a look see if your looking and seeing the area. It has transplants from New Jersey, New York, and many other NE State and Mid West and California and....well you get the idea people from all over this great country now calls Wake Forest home!
C'mon down, over, left, or right and check it out you may just like what you see.
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Tuesday April 20, 2010 and its 39.0 degrees. Lite frost on the grass and glass this am. But temps to reach 64 degrees today with plenty of sunshine. Forecast is for more sun in the shine and less in the shade but we will take it!
Speaking of shine at some point this year or early next I will (may) (might) be in the car market. There are so many choices. But I know I will not buy a new Pontiac, Saturn, or a Hummer, unless its used of coarse. Honda and Toyota top the list of candidates with BMW in a distant third. Distance in affordability not in wanting! My frugal spending and stickler for reliability will ease me into a Honda most likely but will check out the Toyota's as the rush to acceleration seemed to speed its coarse and settle back down. But than again I may squeeze out another 20,000 miles or so on my current vehicles.
Quote of the day by Benjamin Franklin:
“When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.”
He could not have foreseen today or could he?
Happy Tuesday and may your day be filled with radiant sunshine and the best pair of sun glasses one can have!
Posted 04-20-2010 at 06:58 AM by dansdrive
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Wednesday April 21, 2010 and its 46.0 degrees out. No frost this AM just some high clouds and sunshine. High to creep up to 66 degrees today and give way to some evening showers. But another beautiful spring day on tap for sure.
On this day in history America got its first ever Vice President, John Adams was sworn into office. Back in those early American days it was the electoral college that chose the President and Vice President. Each electoral college person got two votes for the jobs of President and Vice President. They did not run on the same ticket as they do in today's elections. The other neat thing the framers of the Constitution did was to state that the electoral college voters could NOT vote for anyone in their home state. As state loyalty was far greater and important than country at that time. So it was common in those early years for the President and Vice President to be from different parties and not really like each other. Far cry from today's 'Pal of my Pal' system!
Also on this day in history America lost one of its premere authors, Mr. Samuel Langhorne or better known as his pen name of Mark Twain at 75 years old in Danbury Ct. He died as they say from a broken heart due to his loss of children over the years and finally his dear wife. A man so talented and humorous in his written word yet lived a real world life of tragedy and consequence. One of his favorite books was the 'French Revolution' in fact that is the book he died reading. His stories of Tom Sawyer, "The adventrures of Huck Flynn" are well worth the read in you have never done so. His wit and humor is second to none.
Quote of the day from Mark Twain"
"To believe yourself to be brave is to be brave; it is the only essential thing."
Hard to say more than that. Happy Wednesday and may your journey to weeks end be quick, joyful, and memorable.Posted 04-21-2010 at 06:42 AM by dansdrive
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Thursday April 22, 2010 and its 48.0 degrees outside. Mostly sunny with high climbing to the mid 50's today. So a nice weather Earth day is on tap.
Earth day is 40 years old today. Way back in 1970 we decided to honor the planet. The Clean Air and Water acts were passed. The EPA was created and our plant got cleaner. At least that was the plan. Today the energies generated towards Earth Day seem to be churning more towards Global Warming and Green House Gases. But some simple facts to think about, as they say 'clear the air' is we still have one planet that is getting ever smaller with each passing year and the population is expanding almost exponentially in relationship to the earths shrinkage. Shrinkage not in physical size but shrinkage in terms of communication and one part of the earth having direct affect on another. A volcano in Iceland virtually shuts down air travel in most of Europe! Maybe the future of Earth day is best said in the movie title, "Day After Tomorrow."
Quote of the day from a Native American Proverb:
"We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children."
Happy Thursday on this blue marble we call earth!
Posted 04-22-2010 at 06:55 AM by dansdrive
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Friday April 23, 2010. Sunny and 37.0 degrees out with a lite dusting of frost on the lawn. Full sun today and high of 60. Sweet!
Speaking of sweet its the end of the work week. The beginning of the weekend. Funny how we don't refer to Monday as the weekstart. Its the start of the week. But Friday starts the weekend. Good weekend to explore more of upstate New York. Gas is now over $3.00 per gallon in most stations around the area. They do have a unique thing here with most gas stations and that is one day of the week they have a gas sale. They drop the price between 3 to 5 cents per gallon for a day. Have not seen that in the Wake Forest area when we lived back there. But then again gas was about 20 cents per gallon cheaper in NC than NY!
On this day in 1564 Williams Shakespeare was born and 52 years later on the same calender day he died. Don't think that happens to may times!
In 1789 President-elect George Washington and his wife moved into the first executive mansion , the Franklin House in New York City.
Quote of the day by Thomas Jefferson:
"On every question of construction [of the Constitution] let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or intended against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed.”
It was easier for Mr. Jefferson to make that comment having lived during the time the Constitution was formed. But with each passing year removing us from the framing of the Constitution the interpreted words of what the framers meant get skewed and lost in the modern worlds pressures of wants and needs.
Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness use to be not only our wants but our needs too, so they were in balance, and were fulfilled by the Constitution.
Happy Friday, Happy Weekend, and may the weekend appear to last as long as your work week did. Keep the sun in your heart and the wind at your backs and enjoy!
Posted 04-23-2010 at 07:01 AM by dansdrive
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Monday April 26, 2010 and its 46.0 degrees out a heading to 49 degrees for the high....well there is a steep slope for today's temp to climb!
Taking about steep and climb brings me to this weekends exploration. It was a little town called Ithaca NY. It was named by a famous NY Surveyor in 1804 after of all things a ancient Greek who's home was on the isle of Ithaki. Well Ithaca is not an island, just a town in the southern shores of Cayuga Lake, one of the finger lakes.
For anyone that visits this picturesque sleepy quaint little town its hard to believe way back in the early 1800's it was referred to as Sodom and Sin City. In 1817 that all changed when a former NY State Governor and US Vice President by the name of Daniel Thompkins made it the seat of county government. So what happens in Ithaca in the early 1800's stayed in Ithaca I suppose!
But its a pretty little town with a couple of very good colleges on the hills above it. One being Cornell which was created in around 1865 by Ezra Cornell who made his fortunes in the telegraph industry. Think about that for a second. Telegraph fortune in the early 1800's! Telegraph was just invented and Mr. Cornell made his fortune on it!
Ithaca College is the other college in Ithaca. The town is really pretty as with other upstate NY towns the churches were built in the early 1800's. The towns get started and one of the first major building projects were usually the churches. In fact in most towns the Churches are the few buildings that still stands from when the towns were created. The oldest standing church in Ithaca is St. James A.M.E. Zion Church which helped wayward slaves passing through on the Underground Railroad in the form of food and shelter.
Saturday was a beautiful day with lot of sun and temps in the mid 60's but few boats were on the lake. But I have seen the lake in the summer months were there are plenty of boats from fishing boats to larger sail boats and the evening diner cruse boats. Because Ithaca and Cayuga Lake rest in a valley with fairly steep hills on rising up on their sides there are a number of natural waterfalls around the Lake. One such is Buttermilk Falls State Park. Which has walking trails and camping grounds. The trails take you along the waterfalls which cascade down the mountain and eventually into the lake. Really pretty and very cool and refreshing in the summem months.
Ithaca, certainly a place to stop off and explore for a bit if your passing through central New York.
Quote of the day from James Madison:
“With respect to the two words ‘general welfare,’ I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators.”
Happy Monday and remember the world is your mirror and how you reflect in it tells everyone including yourself who you really are!Posted 04-26-2010 at 07:32 AM by dansdrive
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Tuesday April 27, 2010 and its 37.4 degrees out. Cool, nippy, and brisk all come to mind. High today projected to be 46 degrees. So a good day to stay warm on the outside and on the inside with memories of days gone by.
As I have written in an earlier entry I grew up in the 1960's and never rode a bus to school. We had community schools in our city and everyone walked to their community school. Our elementary school sat on the top of this big hill. It was only 6 city blocks from my home but all up hill! Which meant getting home to play after school was all the better because it was all downhill. We had to cross one busy street and we had someones Grandfather who would cross us each day to and from school. He knew us all by name and lived near the corner he was a crossing guard at. Once in school we played in the playground which was 100% asphalt, no grass, no play sets, no swings, just pavement. We survived, some skinned knees and elbows occasionally from running and falling. Games of choice those days were tag, re-leave-o, jump rope, hop scotch, jacks, and marbles.
Once the school bell rand it was into the coat room and hang up the coats, it was also the place the teacher sent you when you did not behave in class. Once in the classroom there was the Pledge of Allegiance and a morning prayer which became a moment of silence to do nothing or say a prayer to yourself. Then the teacher would usually talk about the day before and we would begin our studies, we had math, history, science, English, phonics, and spelling contest sometimes. Our school did not have a cafeteria until we reached the 5th grade and than they started to bring in lunches that one could by for $0.50 and included milk. We also did not get a library until the 4th grade, and to make it they took 1/2 of the schools auditorium. Which meant no more Christmas plays. It was an old school and still stands today not as a school but as an apartment building. For an old school it offered new knowledge to all who attended it. The knowledge came from the teachers who inspired us. The countless generations that went through that little school on the hill went on to be Doctors, Teachers, Nurses, Dentist, Lawyers, Engineers, Politicians, and even Criminals. So its not the facility the teaching takes place in its the teachers and children that make a school a learning institution. Sometimes I think we forget that fact.
But then when the end of the school day bell rings its every child for themselves. Never stand in the doorway of a school at dismissal or you rung the risk of tramp-elation! Its out the door, books carried under ones arms, no backpacks in those days, no iPods, cellphone, gameboys, nothing....just imagination and time on our hands to be kids! We did have a abandoned park in between our school and our neighborhood that had all its trees and grass grown up. This is the park we played army and cowboy's and Indians in. This is the park we could explore far away lands in. This is the park we slide down the snow covered hills on our plastic sheets and cardboard sleighs. This is the park we played hide and seek in. This park is no more, it has been built up into apartments.
It was pretty cool being a kid back than. Never had to worry about being grown up things, we all grew up with about the same household makeups, two parents, three or more siblings, tradesmen or factory workers, all trying to get by. We never fought about clothing, shoes, or jewelry our friends were wearing. In fact we boys never wore jewelry, not just because we could not afford it but it was a girl thing back than. All us boys ever needed was a good pair of sneakers, (2 pair for $5 brand) we got at the end of the school year and a banana bicycle. With those two things we could explore the universe even though the universe to use back then was about a 10 city block area!
Quote of the day from Thomas Jefferson:
"Laws are made for men of ordinary understanding and should, therefore, be construed by the ordinary rules of common sense. Their meaning is not to be sought for in metaphysical subtleties which may make anything mean everything or nothing at pleasure."
Happy Tuesday and may the memories of your childhood shine like beacons into your future!Posted 04-27-2010 at 07:50 AM by dansdrive
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Wednesday April 28, 2010 and its 34.0 degrees with partly sunny skies. Yesterday afternoon the snow was flying, some pretty impressive snow squalls passed through the area, no accumulation but some deflated observers included yours truly who thought snow was but a distant memory! In fact more flurries are forecast ed for today! Saturday's forecast says temps are to climb up to 78 degrees. So what goes down must go up or something like that.
Speaking of going up. A kite and about a mile of string and a fairly windy day can add up to hours of fun. It started as a simple go fly a kite challenge and ended up with a coating of string on the roof tops and streets of our neighborhood. It all started with a simple paper and stick kite with maybe Batman or Superman printed on it. The spool of string it came with had maybe 100 yards on it. It was a fairly windy day so we decided it was a good day to fly our kite. We launched the kite and we were right the wind took that kite ever higher and higher and further away from us to the point we were almost out of string. We could not let that happen so one of us jumped on our bikes and headed home for more string. Digging through their Dads tools and things in the basement they came across another roll of string. Peddling back to the scene the the great kite flying saga as fast as they could and presenting my cousin, the master kite flyer at the time, the additional string. He quickly tied it onto the end of his role and our kite was given new life to flutter and sway and soar into the puffy white cloud sky. This went on for several more minutes and a cry was uttered for more string. We all check our pockets for some coins and were able to muster up about 50 cents, mostly pennies with a few dines and one nickel. Just enough to buy another roll of string from the local corner store. In the 1960's almost every street corner had a family owned grocery store that sold just about anything and everything. Talk about your small businesses that have all but disappeared. Anyway back to our quest for more string. We got another roll of string and fled back to the scene of the great kite adventure. Another roll of string added and again the kite followed the path of the wind and went ever further west and higher but at this time it was traveling more horizontal than vertical. Lucky for us it stayed high enough to see.
At this point more kids from the neighborhood started to come and see what was going on and some people in the neighborhood got curious on what we were doing. We were just having fun! But the crowd help as we never ran out of string again, some kids would go get some from their houses or some of the adults watching would give us some. We flew that kite for over four hours on that summer day. Each passing hour and roll of string and the kite would get further away from us and higher and higher. To the point where it was hardly visible unless you fixed your gaze upon it. It was over roof tops and streets and fields and even a school! At this point we really did not control the kite it danced and fluttered in the sky like a break dancer and sometimes even appeared to moon walk across the sky. It was really cool!
Right up to the breaking point. Somewhere between us and our voyager in the sky the string had broken, maybe in one of the countless knots that were made or maybe just within the string itself but it had broken. The kite quickly went out of sight as the string slowly fell back to earth. Our kite was gone, it was floating somewhere over our neighborhood. So without a word spoken we all jumped on our bikes and headed to find it. We must find it, like NASA recovers the Apollo spacecraft, we must find our kite! We peddled between city streets following the fallen string path across roof tops and trees, over street electrical wires and antennas. We followed it until we could not see any more string, this must have been where it broke. We searched and we searched for our sky explorer to no avail. It was gone, we never did find that kite again.
What will never be gone is our memories of the day we flew the kite further than we had ever flown a kite before or ever again for that matter. Just another day in the life of a kid in an era gone by!
Quote of the day by Dwight D. Eisenhower :
"Every step we take towards making the State our Caretaker of our lives, by that much we move toward making the State our Master."
Happy Wednesday and put down the computer and game station or IPOD, or cellphone, or whatever is keeping you from your children and go buy or make a kite with your kids and 'Go Fly It' as far and as high as you can! The height the kite may get up to will be no match to the height of time you spent with your child!Posted 04-28-2010 at 07:16 AM by dansdrive
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Thursday April 29, 2010 and its 41.0 degree in route to 62 degrees and sunny! NO more snow flurries in the foreseeable future. So we got that going for us.
Quote of the day from James Garfield in 1877. BTW he was our 20th President!
"Now more than ever before, the people are responsible for the character of their Congress. If that body be ignorant, reckless and corrupt, it is because the people tolerate ignorance, recklessness and corruption. If it be intelligent, brave and pure, it is because the people demand these high qualities to represent them in the national legislature.... If the next centennial does not find us a great nation ... it will be because those who represent the enterprise, the culture, and the morality of the nation do not aid in controlling the political forces."
Happy Thursday and the choice is solely ours to make.Posted 04-29-2010 at 06:22 AM by dansdrive
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Friday April 30, 2010 and its 51.1 degrees outside heading up to 70 degrees today! Sweet nectar on the peach tree blossoms its nice outside this morning!
Its Friday and its nice out and folks its only gets better when its nice out and its Saturday and than Sunday! Trees up here in upstate NY are in full boom and the hills are turning from drab gray to green, yellow, and white shades. Like an artist paints on their canvass the colors of nature are brilliantly reflecting off the suns rays!
Did have a problem-o with the ole lawn mower this week. As I was cutting the lawn the engine made a loud boom and abruptly stopped! I knew it could not be good because loud booms are best heard during firework displays or the closing of the old garage door we use to have in one of our homes. Well once the booming noise had subsided I seen blue smoke billowing out the side of the lawnmower. I knew the exhaust for the engine was on the other side of the engine so I quickly decided this was not a good sign. Bending over to take a closer look at the engine and the now blue smoke generator I seen clearly and decently my big boom generator. The side of the engine was blown out, looks like a rod came through the engine wall. The engine gave one last boom and was no more! No duct tape, epoxy in the form of a rope, or glue, or a weld, or something else on TV for $19.99 could fix this lawn mower engine. As I once heard in the lawn mower engine folk lore, this engine has just ****-ton into the wind!
Quote of the day from Thomas Jefferson in 1821:
"Were we directed from Washington when to sow, and when to reap, we should soon want bread."
How did he know in 1821 that the bread lines have formed?
Happy Friday and may the days of your weekend be like sand in the hour glass, steady, moving, and when the last speck of sand has dropped the weekend is over!Posted 04-30-2010 at 06:52 AM by dansdrive
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Monday May 3, 2010 and its 64.9 degrees out with overcast skies. Was a warm weekend. How warm one may ask. Well in the town I grew up in there was a local AM radio station that was named the mighty 590 WARM. Their catch phrase was, "Its only WARM for me!". So this weekend was; Only warm for me!
Did manage to do a little traveling this past WARM Saturday. Headed down to northern Pa and went to a Arts Festival. It was pretty cool. Lots of live entertainment, food, and arts of all kinds. Few booths there had historical books and information on the area when it was controlled by the Indians. The Susquehanna River flows through that area in route to the Chesapeake Bay. The Indians used the river heavily for food and travel. The river was a major source of commerce back than. Pretty cool reading what life was like when the Indians controlled the area and the early settlers started to move in. The Indians were very smart because they always stated their conversation with a question, "How!". Hey its Monday!
Quote of the day from Benjamin Franklin in 1768:
"Be in general virtuous, and you will be happy. "
As in 1768 and now in 2010 the words still ring true!
Happy Monday and may your historical roots run deeper than the future could ever uproot!Posted 05-03-2010 at 06:48 AM by dansdrive
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Tuesday May 4, 2010 and its 54.0 degrees outside. Overcast skies and chance of thunderstorms today. Temp to steadily climb up to 69 degrees today.
As summer approaches like the express train into the station I can't help but to think back into a typical summer day growing up. In the 10 to 15 year old range. Old enough to venture out of the neighborhood but not old enough to drive. A pre-teen and teenager timeframe. What was there to do?
For starters it was get up have breakfast and there usually was chores to do around the house. Mow the lawn, trim along the edges, no power trimmers back than. Later some battery shearers came out but the batteries never lasted long enough to finish. Vacuum the swimming pool. Than there was pulling weeds in the garden, sometimes some painting or cleaning out the shed. Than about 10 o'clock or so the gang would form to decide what to do. It typically meant hopping on our bikes and heading to a park a few miles away to play baseball. Almost everyday in the summer a group of us would go play baseball until about 2 or 3 in that afternoon. Had to be back to head up to the corner and get the daily newspaper so it could be nicely folded and place in the delivery bags. Plus it gave us ample time to boast about our days baseball stats!
The ball games were true sandlot games. Rules by negotiation and debate and constantly changed depending on the number playing that day and who was on who's team. Determining doubles and triples and fair or foul balls seemed to take longer than the game itself did. We had sets of brothers that played who rarely agreed on anything let alone their batting averages and home runs! For the years we played the arguments got louder but never came to fights. At the end of the game we are always friends. Hopped on our bikes and headed home. We never had money in our pockets, rarely had anything to hydrate ourselves with nor did we care. We always knew where the public drinking fountain was in the park and sometimes even took a dip in the towns public fountain. We also had a Pepsi bottling plant in the neighborhood and guys that worked there were always good to us by giving us some free bottles of Pepsi. Real glass bottles back than. To us playing baseball was all we ever needed at least that was until football season came along!
Quote of the day from Thomas Jefferson:
"One man with courage is the majority"
Back in our baseball playing days that was true especially when the one with the courage was twice as big as us cowards!
Happy Tuesday and may the memories of your childhood summers always keep your life fully charged!Posted 05-04-2010 at 07:32 AM by dansdrive
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Wednesday May 5, 2010 and its 55.0 sunny degrees outside. Heading up to a picture perfect 78 degrees. If one can build a weather day today is that day!
Speaking of building. During our summer Hyades from school we passed some of the time by building forts or bunks or hideouts or whatever they were referred to back than. Something you don't see kids do today and one of the reasons is all the other things they have to pass the time with today and most Home Owner Associations do not allow them to be built anymore.
All I can say about that is to bad. For creativity, problem solving, negotiation, teamwork, and being able to use tools to design, build, and admire ones work are all gone. In their place is the game stations and cell phones and TV's! Its hard to find kids just riding bikes today.
But back to the forts or what we called bunks and hideouts. They always started out with an idea, a dream, and never quite made the dream a reality but we got close. Our early ones were very primitive and poorly constructed. There was not a level surface to be found, the eye was our level and Joe or Gary or Dom was our material handler! Our bunks rarely if ever had windows or proper doors but it did not matter, as to us they represented a place to call our own. Building them were more fun than actually using them. They were always something we could show to our mutual friends that were not part of the inter 'BUNK' building society we belonged to or at least had the dream to be. The materials came from our dads or from the neighborhood on trash day. We would hunt high and low for the good lumber, the wooden skids, the homes in the neighborhood that were getting work done to them.
Once we had all the materials assembled it was time to put the nails to the wood as they say in the carpenter business. A lot of trial and error took place. Fitting this board to that one and that wall to the other. One year we even built the bunk of all bunks, today we would of called it our Mc-Mansion bunk. It had two stories with a ladder between floors. A two story bunk who would of thought, no way, how did we do it? Luck I say pure and simple luck and a lot of wood! As we got older our bunks grew better constructed to the point of our last one really being basically a shed complete with a real door, aluminum siding, crude electrical (extension cord from house), electrical heater, a real floor that was carpeted, paneling on the inside not just studs. A shingled roof compliments of a friend who wanted in and did a midnight requisition of sorts. In fact the joists came from some boys that wanted to impress my friends sister and brought us a bunch of lumber. They were older than us and we were just happy they didn't beat the crap out of us to impress his sister! Timing is everything and as they say and a watch without hands is timeless! But bunk builders we were, none of us went on to be carpenters or builders and maybe that was a good thing. What we did go on to be was Engineers, a Doctor, and company executive. Not bad for a bunch of lower income city kids that happen to build bunks!
Quote of the day from Charles Carroll one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence:
"Without morals a republic cannot subsist any length of time; they therefore who are decrying the Christian religion, whose morality is so sublime and pure (and) which insures to the good eternal happiness, are undermining the solid foundation of morals, the best security for the duration of free governments."
Happy Wednesday and dream big but make reality lasting!Posted 05-05-2010 at 06:47 AM by dansdrive
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Thursday May 6, 2010 and its 53.1 degrees. Had some rain over night and some possible early morning showers than party sunny until the next installment of rain tonight. Mid 60's today with tonight's low to be around 40. So that's the highs and lows for today.
Highs and lows growing up were plentiful also. When we weren't playing hide-N-seek we would hop yards. Living in the city everyone had pretty much the same yard. One city block in our neighborhood had longer yards than most and this block consisted of about 20 homes. Their back yards back up into the backyards of their neighbors on the other street. So we could enter on one street and come out a block away. This was a real challenge.
We would usually be in teams of two or three and race each other for the best times. We had to climb fences, walls, go through hedges and bushes. All in the darkness. Some people had garages in their backyards so we had to cross in front of them. We also knew who had dogs and what kind of dogs they had. The real challenge was crossing ones yard when they were on their deck, this required crawling on our stomach's until we crossed the yard. The other challenge was crossing a yard and seeing the headlights of their car turn into the driveway, we were all just a little bit faster on those days. Once we got to our final destination it meant climbing a five foot wall and up and over a four foot fence. Once that was completed we were in a church parking lot. Time was always of the essence, losing was not an option yet only one team ever won. There were some ties that got debated but were quickly resolved the next time we jumped yards.
Once the goal was achieved it was to the corner store for some penny candy which was all we ever really could afford. Some Bazooka Joe bubble gum with the funnies inside, some red silver dollar candies, some pixie 'sugar' sticks, all were a penny each back than. In fact this store was on the way to school each day and they sold #2 lead pencils 3 for a nickel, penny a piece erasers ones placed on top of those pencils and matched the holiday season we were in. That was cool! They also had a slice of pizza for 10 cents!
After we got our candy and took turns telling the stories of our yard hopping experiences we usually headed back down the block and went our separate ways home to await another night to be the best darn yard hoppers we could be!
Quote of the day by Benjamin Franklin:
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. "
Happy Thursday!Posted 05-06-2010 at 06:54 AM by dansdrive
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Friday May 7, 2010 and its a brisk 43.0 degrees. In the words of Sylvester Stallone, "That's Brisk Baby!". But its Friday, end of the work week. The week is about ready to be place in our back pockets and tomorrow is wash day so if I may quote another actor Arnold Schwarzenegger its "Hasta la vista baby!" to this week!
In current events this week has been all over the place, from Greek Debt, Gulf full of oil, Country Music City flooded with 500 year flooding, DOW losing 1000 points by the flick of a finger, $6B given to Cash for Caulkers, and the list goes on and on! Certainly a good week to get behind us and move to the hope that a new week offers us.
But on a happier note on this day in history in 1789, America had its first ever Presidential Inaugural Ball was held in New York City. Each lady in attendance received as a gift a portrait of George Washington. Actually, the ball was the first such event held for the incoming President of the United States.
Wonder how many of those portraits still exist, if any? Wonder what the men who attend got? ......the 'BILL' lol
OK its Friday time to put a smile on your face and enter into the weekend state of mind!
Quote of the week in honor of George Washington in 1755:
"By the all-powerful dispensations of Providence, I have been protected beyond all human probability and expectation; for I had four bullets through my coat, and two horses shot under me, yet escaped unhurt, altho' death was levelling my companions on every side."
Thank goodness or we would not have had our first Inaugural Ball lest not with George Washington! So there is always hope and with hope comes courage and with courage come accomplishments and with accomplishments comes greatness! Strive for greatness but always be grateful for the ones that got your were you are.
Happy Mother's Day to all the great Mom's out there!Posted 05-07-2010 at 06:50 AM by dansdrive
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Monday May 10, 2010 and it currently 46.9 degrees and cool!. Sunny but cool! Snow flurries yesterday hitting the wind shield as we drove and drove around the state(s). Way to many miles were logged this weekend visiting northern PA and south eastern NY state. Some beautiful country I shall say. From the Pocono Mountains to the Catskill hill tops! Pretty cool well in fact Sunday was so cool it was down right cold!!!!
Turn of the century farms were spotted around the hills and mostly valleys we drove through. Complete with their worn out barns and equipment all next to their old farm homes. Fields grown over as well as ones that were recently plowed awaiting their endless corn seeds spewing from the back of the tractors. Many fields were also spotted with cows, cattle, horses, goats, and donkey's/mulls. Some were complete with an assortment of broken down cars,trucks, and stone built walls, each with a story I'm sure on how that got to the condition they were in. Maybe these old farms are a great metaphor for today's America. Days of shiny and new has lapsed into dull and old. Long days of manual labor have passed into Farming on Facebook not to collect the harvest but to collect a coin or some imaginary fuel so you can continue your virtual farm.
If these old Farms could only speak, the stories they would utter of settlement, hardships, joys, morals, passed from generation to generation in some cases. Unfortunately those stories or threads that wove States into United are being lost at an alarming rate. One only has to pick up the local newspaper and see the many farm 'lands' for sale. The farm part is long gone and now just the land is for sale. I'm sure its progress and that drives our economy but at what cost?
Quote of the day by John Adams in 1800 to his wife:
"I Pray Heaven to Bestow The Best of Blessing on THIS HOUSE, and on ALL that shall hereafter Inhabit it. May none but Honest and Wise Men ever rule under This Roof!"
A time when homes (farms) were passed from Father to child........
Happy Monday!Posted 05-10-2010 at 12:25 PM by dansdrive
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Wednesday May 12, 2010 and its 39.9 degrees out and raining. Been a cool breezy week. Hard to believe its Wednesday already. Tuesday went by faster than a cat in a dog pound!
This is the time of the year when the as a kid the school day seemed to get longer and longer. You approach the end of the school year and the days are nicer and the sun stays up longer. You know another 4 or 5 weeks and the school bell will ring for the last time.
Once summer hits the days go by almost as fast as my cat analogy above did! But that end of the school year was always special. It was a time our grade school had its yearly Festival where they had games, good food, and children plays or musicals. Than as sixth graders it was time for the school trip. Planned, managed, and chaperoned by adults and us kids just went for the ride and fun. Our school trip took us to Hershey PA and its chocolate factory, that was when the tour was actually through the chocolate factory and onto Harrisburg Pa. Don't remember much of Harrisburg but do remember the chocolate factory. Then at the end of the chocolate factory tour we got to hit the chocolate factory store. The only thing better to a 11 or 12 year old child than a chocolate factory tour is being on a big league baseball field playing catch with ones favorite star!
Lessons learned on that sixth grade field trip. School buses don't have bathrooms on them. Some kids can eat to much chocolate and do get bus sick! Six graders and some of their parents can sing a Tom Jones song or two and not sound half bad! Whoa Whoa Whoa she's a lady........
Quote of day or sort of, from the tomb stone of Thomas Jefferson:
It reads that Thomas Jefferson was "Author of the Declaration of American Independence, of the State of Virginia for religious freedom, and Father of the University of Virginia," and, as he requested, "not a word more."
Happy Wednesday and may your day never go by fast enough not to remember the moments of joy and love.Posted 05-12-2010 at 08:30 AM by dansdrive
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Thursday May 13, 2010 and its freezing out....literally, its 32.0 degrees under cloudy skies with fog. Perfect, if your a migrating Canadian snow geese I suppose. But for us that traded our wings in for arms millenniums ago its not so perfect!
Closest to perfect may have been the two weeks a year camping trips we use to take to a local lake. It was real camping too! Just a tent and the place had no electricity, no lights except for out trusty coleman lanterns. Coleman stoves providing our cooking surface. We had to bring our own water and it is amazing how little water you need when you know its limited. We always had a perpetual fire going the two weeks we camped. All wood was cut and split by hand. No power tools.. Rarely anyone else would camp at this lake. We did meet some interesting people over the years that would come and fish and camp or just sleep in their cars.
The fishing was never great but the experiences were life lasting. There is nothing quite like fishing on a dock on a quiet summer night when there are no back round city lights to dull up the sky. The lake became like a sheet of glass right at dusk. When the catfish were not biting it was a great time to star gaze and imagine what was really up there. The adults would have their conversations and us kids would just take in the sights and sounds of various birds, frogs, owls, and sounds which we could not identify.
We also had ample ways to have fun. Back than most of the soda was bottled. With our perpetual fire burning we always wanted to melt a Coke bottle and have it cool without breaking. Never accomplished that one! We also had flares we would ignite and walk the shore lines to see all the frogs and fish along the shores. Nothing like the smell of phosphorus. I'm sure the oder was not good for us but back than it was just cool!
As we grew older we use to walk the lake and wade into fish in areas of the lake that few had ever fished. This is where I learned things were not always as they appeared. I'll save the wadding stories for a future installment.
Quote of the day by John Adams:
"Government is instituted for the common good; for the protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness of the people; and not for profit, honor, or private interest of any one man, family, or class of men; therefore, the people alone have an incontestable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to institute government; and to reform, alter, or totally change the same, when their protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness require it."
Happy Thursday!Posted 05-13-2010 at 06:28 AM by dansdrive
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Friday, May 14, 2010 and its 55.0 degrees out and sunny. What a difference a day makes. Some rain in the forecast today but the temps will climb up to 72 degrees today and that is a climb I can enjoy one step at a time!
Speaking of one step at a time. The one sanctuary as a kid growing up in the city was an abandoned park in our neighborhood. It provided countless hours of adventure and in the winter it provided cool hills to slide down on cardboard and sheets of plastic. But somewhere in our just about teens time frame someone decided the ex-park was a great place to build an apartment building.
So in came the bulldozers and down came the trees and forts, and secret hiding places. Down came the imagination of a few generations. The park set on the side of a hill, so the front of the building was at ground level and the back of the building was dug into the hill. In fact it looked like the perfect rock climbing hill and this was long before rock climbing walls was even thought of. So a few of us tried our hand at rock climbing without ropes or nets. The dug out wall was maybe 50 feet high and had to be conquered it just had to be. So we started out accent up from rock to rock. 50 feet did not seem so high from the ground. Half way up it seemed like the empire state building. Now for anyone that climbs the up part is a whole lot easier than the down part. None of us made it to the top that day and it came close to calling for help to get some of us down but as we started to fall like icicles from a roof we learned things are not always as they appear.
Well they went on and finished that apartment building and it stands today providing shelter to the ones that live in it but we remember that land provided us a lifetime of memories and adventure!
Quote of the day from Ben Franklin in 1758:
"He that goes a borrowing goes a sorrowing."
252 years later and it was true than as it is now.
Happy Friday and may you be indebted to friendship and not your enemies!Posted 05-14-2010 at 06:30 AM by dansdrive
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Monday May 17, 2010 and its 48.9 degrees and sunny. Was a very nice weekend. Got some fishing in this past weekend on a lake near Syracuse NY. Fishing sometimes is like life where you never know what you are going to catch.
Saturday fished in the afternoon and evening hours. Was a overcast sky and windy, winds were cool out on the boat. Always follow the catch & release rules when fishing. Caught some Bass, Northern Pike, and Rock Bass. Lot of fun! Yesterdays forecast was sunny and warmer so with that going for us we took the boat back up to the same lake to try our luck.
it was a picture perfect day. Lot of homes around the lake and many of the people were out enjoying the nice day working around their homes and yards. Some even tossed their lines in the water to try their luck. Today was different, the fish were not as active as Saturday. In fact they must of had the day off. But it did not matter as it was just a great day to be outside and enjoy the picturesque scenery around the lake. There were several boats out on the water, from pontoon to high speed Bass boats. There were a number of kyaker's on the lake just having a great time. But as I said earlier you never know what you are going to get fishing. A couple of Kyakers went by us as were fishing, waved hello and they kept paddling up around a bend. It looked like a father and daughter in nice new Kyaks having a grand old time! As we came around the bend in front of us we saw the girl paddling and the other Kyak upside down in the water. Then we saw the Dad swimming around trying to get a whole of her Kyak. I saw he did not have a wet suit on and it was not that warm to be swimming. In fact the water temp was 61 degrees according to our fish finder... So right about that time we heard the yell for help. We rushed over and told the gentleman to hop onto out boat and we will pick up his capsized Kayak. We got him on board our boat and proceeded to pick up his paddle and capsized Kayak. Let me tell you its not a easy thing to pick up a half sunken Kayak. But with three of us now pulling on this Kyak we were able to flip it over and get most of the water out and places it on our boat. The poor gentleman was shivering like a butcher in his meat locker. So we ask where he came in at and it was at the other end of the lake. We said best bet is for us to take you back there as he would of froze trying to paddle back there on his own. So we picked up his daughter and her Kayak and slowly headed back to the public dock to drop them off.
Couple of things saved this guy and his daughter. One, he had his life vest on. Two he did not panic as he could of easily capsized his daughters Kayak. Three, he picked a lake with usually a lot of people and boats around. He knew enough to go hang onto to his daughters Kayak till help arrived. The other interesting thing was it was his maiden voyage in a Kayak! Just bought them. And his daughter said it best as we where heading in to shore, she said, "guess we won't forget this trip for awhile".
Also wanted to take a minute to THANK all that read my Blog. Just passed my 10,000 view this past weekend!
Quote of the day from Benjamin Franklin:
"I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth--that God Governs the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid?"
Happy Monday!Posted 05-17-2010 at 07:12 AM by dansdrive
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Tuesday May 18, 2010 and its 52.0 degrees outside and rain in the forecast today. How much rain? Not sure just periods of rain today with heavier rains in the afternoon.
Speaking of rains, if you never experienced camping out in a tent in a heavy thunderstorm you are missing the real experience of camping out. When we use to camp out over our two week summer vacation we would inevitably get some stormy nights and a few days. But the nights are really something. The inside of the tent lights up like daylight. The wind blows the trees and in some cases a lot of our camping gear into the night. One night the winds got so intense we were afraid some limbs or trees were going to come down upon us. In fact that morning when we got up our campsite looked like a tornado went through it. Outside of our tent we always had a 12x12 foot canopy we put our table and chairs under and our cooking stove and all the other items like pots/pans, coolers, water, lanterns, etc. under. On this morning the canopy was in the woods and so were our pots/pans and everything else the wind could pick up the blow away. We never did find some of the stuff.
Over the years we learned how to keep the water out of the tent. We would start with a plastic tarp under the tent floor. We would always waterproof our tent each year and then we would drap a plastic tarp over the top of the tent. Out tent also had flaps over the windows. These flaps would flip up on the outside onto the roof of the tent. If it got cool or rainy one would just have to tap on the ceiling of the tent and the flap would drop down. Well that was the theory. On some of those stormy night theory went our the door no matter how hard you tapped on the ceiling. This one night we got a storm in the middle of the night. The flap on outside the tent dropped down with one tap on my Uncle's side of the tent no luck. He tapped and he tapped, he hit the ceiling to the point I thought his hand was going to go through the roof! So he went outside to grab the flap and pull it down. It was raining pretty good at that point and he was getting pretty wet but he soon got soaked! He grabbed the flap and it was being held down with a lot of water that accumulated on the roof on the tent. In the dark of night he was not aware of this until he grabbed the flap and pulled. The pulling was enough to have a wall of water that was on top of the flap come pouring out at him. The flap came down and in came our Uncle completely and utterly drenched in water. Not only was he soaked but some of the wall of water came in through the screen the flap was closing and his sleeping bag got soaked. It took a couple of days to dry that sleeping bag out.
for many years after that my Uncle caught a lot of flack about that flap! Those were the things that made camping special!
Quote of the day from James Madison in 1822:
"A popular Government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy; or, perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance: And a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives."
Happy Tuesday and may your flap of life come falling down with the tap of a hand and the knowledge of learning.Posted 05-18-2010 at 06:40 AM by dansdrive
