Bill Beamgard's Obituary

    The following is what the family wrote about Bill.  The funeral home folks abbreviated this a  bit.   

  Billy Pack Beamgard was born on December 2, 1933 in Atwood Kansas to C.W. and Gladys Innes Beamgard.  Billy Pack passed away after a tragic accident on November 23, 2021. He was very proud to live in and be an active member of the  Atwood community most of his life, only leaving for a few years for the military, college and first few years of teaching.  

 

After high school graduation, Bill went to college at KSU, where he obtained his pilot’s license.  Being a pilot was a favorite hobby of Bill’s. Next in September 1954, together with good friend Frankie Chvatal, he joined the U.S. Army, they were stationed in Korea. After coming home from the Army, he returned to his education at FHSU. Graduating from FHSU, Bill taught math in Valley and Elkhorn NE for 7 years before moving back to Atwood, KS to continue his teaching career in math for a total of 30 years.   Bill started teaching math courses at Atwood High School in 1967 and later started the computer science program, building from the ground up. He received his units in Computer Science from KSU during summers. He continued teaching and helping students to learn until his retirement in 1997.  Bill did take one year off from teaching to pursue his other passion, cars.  He worked as a mechanic, as he did many summers, in the family Dodge dealership.  He was a life-long “Dodge Boy”.  

 

While finishing his education at FHSU, Bill met, Jeanine D. Gagnon RN, in early 1960.  They were married on December 26, 1960.  They have three Children, William John (Bill), JoLinda Lee Oberly, and James Patrick (Jim).  They have 4 grandchildren, Austin Earle Oberly, Andrew Austin Oberly, Jesse Pack Beamgard, and Savannah Belle Beamgard.  He is survived by his wife, Jeanine, Children; Bill (Belinda), JoLinda Oberly (Larry), and Jim, grandchildren; Andrew Oberly, Jesse Beamgard, and Savannah Beamgard, 9 nieces and 11 nephews, and numerous great and great-great nieces and nephews. 

 

Billy is the fourth child of C.W. and Gladys Innes Beamgard.  He was preceded in death by his parents, his brothers, Donald and Rodney and sister Patricia Beamgard Makings, sisters-in-law June Argabright Beamgard and Teresa Dozababa Beamgard, and grandson Austin Earle Oberly.

 

Bill was an active member of many organizations, community groups, and school programs.  He was in Lions Club International, District Governor 17K 1975-76, chaired the KS Lions Sight Foundation (a supporter of K.U. Medical Center Ophthalmology Center). Through this he arranged for many children and some adults to be treated by specialist without charge.  Mostly because of the involvement with Lions International, he and wife Jean traveled to most of the states, including Hawaii and Alaska.  They also had the opportunity to travel to (some with Lions Club) Canada, Nova Scotia, Taiwan, Korea, Hong Kong, China, England, Scotland, Wales, Mexico, Costa Rica, the Panama Canal, the Caribbean Islands, Tortola, Columbia, Australia, New Zealand, Russia and 11 counties bordering the Baltic Sea, Germany, Japan, and possibly more. 

 

One especially exciting trip was to the British Virgin Island, Tortola, with Bill's brother-in-law Jim Gagnon and bride Robyn Ray for their wedding.  They prepared for the trip by taking sailing lessons on a lake in Colorado. The foursome set out in October 1998 after renting a 40 foot sail boat in Tortola and heading for a sailing trip around the British Virgin Islands. This was a wild ride, the boat was rocking and rolling and Bill was having the time of his life sailing with Jim and Robin. They rode through a wild storm celebrating Jim and Robin’s nuptials. As the 3 sailors had a great time riding the massive waves, wife Jean was “sicker-than-a-dog” below deck for the entire storm. It was not until they returned to shore a few days later that they learned they had just rode out Hurricane Mitch! Bill thought this was great.

 

He was also involved in the American Legion, VFW, Masons,  Shriners, ODD Fellows, Atwood Flying Club, Silver Haired Legislature, Atwood School Board, KS Teachers Association, NEA, Methodist Church, Eagle Scout Adviser (Bill was an Eagle Scout himself), Atwood  City Mayor (founding Mayor of the Early Rod Run), and Atwood City Council member.  

 

Since Bill was willing to try anything, his kids got to do a lot of activities like go-carts, motorcycles, mini bikes, learned how to change tires and change their oil early in life.  JoLinda and Jim even learned to take a Dodge Colt engine apart and put it back together, even if there were a few parts left over.  He loved teaching his children to drive any type of vehicle and build many things, buildings included! Bill's other love was vehicles, anything with Dodge, especially their military and sports cars.  He worked at C.W. Beamgard Co. whenever possible.

 

Bill loved life, his heart was soft for stray kids and animals.  He wanted to help anyone whether they needed it or not.  He loved the school kids and remained friends with many through life.  It was a highlight for him to have past students stop by, even when his memory was fading.  He always loved to visit with his students.  Bill loved his community and loved being involved and giving his time. Bill wasn't perfect, but he was one of the good guys.

 

 

Acid Jar

       I didn’t pay much attention to the vibration.  Until the jar fell off the wall and shattered on the cement floor of the basement.  It wasn’t a big jar, maybe a pint or quart jar.

      Mom came hurrying down the basement stairs and grabbed me by the hand.  After surveying things, she led me up the stairs.

      I could not have been more than 4 or 5 years old.  I wasn’t in school yet.  We didn’t have REA electricity yet.  We still relied on propane to cook and heat the small bathroom, on “distillate” to power the floor furnace that warmed the whole house, on kerosene to run the refrigerator, and on a 32 volt DC electric system to power lights, washing machine and iron, plus I don’t know what else. 

      In the basement was a wall of square glass jar batteries that measured about twelve inches square by a little over two feet high.  They stored power from a wind charger mounted on a thirty-foot galvanized angle iron tower about thirty feet east of the back porch to the house. 

     When the wind blew, as it often did, we had power.  The batteries kept the power going for a while when the wind died down.  When the batteries started to falter, Dad had a “light plant” in the shop he could start up and provide some limited amount of power.

      That all went away in the early 50’s.  The REA in the form of Mountain View Electric Association came to us in the early 1950’s.  Again, I hadn’t started school, so that had to be prior to 1953.

      A few things I remember about getting 110-volt electricity:  A narrow-front-end International tractor with a “Farmhand” mounted on it.  The Farmhand was a little different than the one we had.  It was triangular, with the main frame anchored to the back of the tractor and angling to a point in front of the tractor where a giant auger dangled like a great stinger on a bee.

      The tractor/auger combination was used to drill the holes for the line-bearing poles.  All this stuff, equipment, poles, cables, were huge in my eyes.  My attention must have wandered, for I do not remember how they lifted the poles into the holes, or how they tamped the soil back into the hole to anchor the posts, nor how they hung the wires except for one thing.  I remember guys climbing the wooden poles.  How?

      It seemed amazing that someone could mount a pole without a ladder.  When the pole-climbers were on the ground, a thick leather belt dangled from their waists.  I don’t think I ever got close enough to one of them to eye the hooks on their sturdy boots.  I do remember that after the climber got off the post, there were these divots in the pole with lots of chances to get stickers from the splinters the divots left.  The creosote the poles were treated with was also a repellant.

      The folks anticipated the advent of 110 volts into our lives.  They bought a few new appliances.  The one thing I remember for sure was the mangle iron Mom used to iron the sheets.  (Yes, they did iron the sheets in those days!  The mangle resides in the basement today.)  Our neighbors to the north, the Pratts, got live power sometime ahead of us. For a while, the mangle resided in the Pratt’s living room where Mom went to iron sheets and other stuff.

       Another “appliance” was a hair clipper which replaced the old scissor-squeezer clipper Dad used to cut our hair.  He had to squeeze the  handles together to make one set of teeth cross the other set of teeth.  Painful jerks of my  hair were guaranteed with the manual clippers.  (Maybe that’s where I learned to dread a haircut, which I still do, a little bit.)

    So it was that one time I was in the barber chair up at Pratt’s when an airplane landed on the “windmill road” east of our house, and I had to miss it all because I was in the chair and couldn’t see out the window.  That disappointment aside, the electric clipper was a great improvement over the manual clipper, even if we had to go to Pratt’s to use it.

     I also remember Milton White spending some time helping Dad wire the house, the old red barn, the shop, and the milk house.  The cable was the old black cloth (I think) wire treated with some kind of black stuff that left you with dirty hands after you handled it.

      The outlets and probably the lights in the shop, and some of the circuits in the house,  are still using that original wire.  There was supposed to be a wiring inspector who came to see that things were done according to Hoyle before the power could finally be turned on. 

      Dad had to provide access to all wiring, which included attics in the shop and the house.  I remember a plank “walk” he installed in the old red barn so the inspector could get up among the rafters and look at the wire.  I don’t think an inspector ever turned up.  Dad wasn’t too happy about going to all that trouble and not having it used.  On the other hand, there was no rejection of the job, no “punch list” that had to be completed before the power could be switched on.

     I don’t remember changing light fixtures or installing outlets.  I suppose I was shuttled out of the way somehow while all that was going on.  I don’t remember doing without lights during the transition from 32v DC to 110v AC.   

    I do not remember the first time the power came on.  I find it strange that I can remember many of the details of preparation but not the climactic event.

     One event I do remember, trying to pull some of the black wire, which was coiled up in the basement waiting to be installed or left over from the installation, up the basement steps.  I was a little more than half way up the stairs when the wire snagged somewhere and refused to go any farther.  In my impatience (something I have never cured), I gave the wire  mighty jerk.  The wire jerked back, I lost my balance and tumbled backwards down the wooden steps not covered in carpet remnants then. 

 

 

    Why was I trying to drag the wire upstairs?  I must have had some project in mind.  I had to be rescued from a coil of wire and comforted from my traumatic experience.    

     I also remember when the jar fell off the shelf with a crash.  Mom led me upstairs by the hand, very concerned, not letting go of me while she yelled out the back door to Dad who was welding in the shop.  Putting two and two together, I figure his welding caused the batteries in the basement to vibrate, which rattled the jar off the shelf.

      The jar contained acid used to replenish the batteries.  Mom inspected me.  I was pretty sure I suffered no injuries.  Nothing hurt.  I was free and clear.  Later, Mom found holes eaten into my jeans and my shirt.

     I have no recollection of the battery bank being removed.  I vaguely remember a jar or two crashing on the basement floor and the broken glass being picked up and put in the trash.

    Mom used one of the two surviving jars for pickling a few times.  She would put the cucumbers in the brine, put a plate on top of it all, and weigh the plate down with a good-sized rock which we had rescued from the roadside where the maintainer had pushed it.  The jar would sit for some time on the basement shelf before the pickles were canned.

    The jars sit, empty now, where they have sat for a long time, probably longer than they served in a battery “pack.”

         The etched and deteriorated spot on the basement floor is the only other reminder of that spill 70 years ago.

 

 

 

Coincidences

      Six degrees of separation.  We can connect with anyone on the planet by going through six other humans.

 

     You aren’t going to believe this.  I don’t blame you.  I hardly believe it myself.

     It began two weeks ago when Rex answered a call wanting a quartet to sing Happy Birthday to a 100-year-old lady in Greeley.  When all four of us agreed to do it, he accepted the job.

      Today was the day.  But Rex’s daughter saw on Facebook this morning that the party had to be cancelled because the birthday girl, the centenarian’s daughter, also the arranger for all the party details, and  her daughter (centenarian’s granddaughter) all had COVID.  Ouch!

     Rex called to confirm the Facebook report, and alas, it was true.   The 100^th birthday party was cancelled.  We had also planned to take our ladies out for supper at Biaggi’s when we returned from the party.  We had reservations for 6 o’clock.  No reason to cancel that, so we all showed up around six.

      We were having a good time and bantering with the waitress.  One of our number mentioned that we were a barbershop quartet.  She lit up and said, “Great!  We have a birthday guest who would appreciate you singing Happy Birthday to him.”

      We agreed to do that.  Ten or fifteen minutes later, two of the restaurant officials came to the table to ask if we were still game for the job.  When we answered in the affirmative, they led us to a back room.  We stepped in and Dick hit the pitch on his pipe and we launched into Happy Birthday.  “Happy Birthday dear Artie, Happy Birthday to you.”

      As we sang, I looked around the room and saw a guy who looked familiar.  I couldn’t remember his first name, but the last name was Hiltner and I immediately began looking around the room for anyone else that might  confirm my suspicion. 

      We ended that song and they stated yelling, “Encore!  Sing another!”  Rex asked if there happened to be a Mary Lou in the room.  Sure enough, there was a Mary Lou in the room.  So we launched into the barbershop version of “Hello Mary Lou” made famous by Ricky Nelson.

      Again as we sang, I looked around, and not six feet from me sat Jim Hiltner.  When we finished, I took two steps over and shook hands with Jim.  I asked him if he was related to everyone in the room.  He explained his relation to the birthday boy, Artie, and confirmed his brother Gene was also there.  He also said they had moved to Loveland and lived on the north side. 

     We didn’t have much time for a conversation since the host of the party was wanting to make a speech, so I left and returned to our table.  I had not been seated a minute or two before the hostess who had led us to the birthday party brought a bottle of wine to our table and said the birthday boy wanted to thank us for singing to him.

     That should have been the end of it.  It was surprise enough to run into two guys that I used to know from Eastern Colorado.  But in a way, it had only begun. 

     In another ten minutes, the birthday boy himself, Artie, came to our table to thank us.  And that should have been the end, but no.  He then asked me if I was the one from Genoa.  Nobody had mentioned Genoa.  I said yes and he said, “I’m from Flagler.  Are you Ottem?”

     Okay, he could have got my name from Jim.  But why had he bothered?  Why was he interested?

      I had to dig my eyelids out of my forehead and close my mouth a little to say “yes.”  When I said yes, he launched into a story about being in Greece back in the seventies when there was a coup with tanks roaming the streets, etc.  He was hanging out at the American Express office where many Yankees conglomerated to visit with their own kind when a girl with the name Ottem struck up a conversation with him.

      I quickly wracked my brain to think who would have been in Greece in the seventies.  Then it hit me; it was sister-in-law Michelle who was a foreign exchange student in Greece in the seventies.  I remembered her story of running into a guy from the Limon area and asking if he knew any Ottems.  He thought he did, from Genoa.

     I told him the story as I remembered it.  The girl wasn’t named Ottem.  It was the girl’s sister who was married to a guy of that name.  Patti and I remembered the story, the coup, the tanks, and we swapped remembrances for a minute or two.  Everyone was marveling at the coincidence, the implausibility of it all.

     After Artie left us to return to his birthday party, we shared stories of marvelous coincidences.  As in The Music Man, the barbershop quartet abandoned our ladies to go sing.       

     First, we sang for the waitstaff near the bar.  We returned to our table, but before we sat down, the hostess asked us to sing for the kitchen folk.  We followed her back to the kitchen and sang for chefs and their helpers.  We returned to our table and sang “Let Me Call You Sweetheart” to a lady at the table next to ours.  Our ladies suffered their embarrassment stoically.  Finally, we sang a tag, “Goodbye” to the front desk ladies and we left.

      When we were alone, we got to thinking about all that had just happened.   The cobwebs and rust didn’t disappear entirely, so I called Michelle to see if she could refresh my memory.   

        She thought she and Artie were standing in line together and struck up a conversation.  “Where are you from?”  When Michelle learned he grew up near Limon, she asked if he knew anyone by the name of Ottem.  He thought he did.

       The rest of the story as we recalled it:  Michelle’s mother was visiting Michelle in Greece when the coup occurred.  She got up that morning, looked out the window, saw the tanks and the soldiers, packed her bag and headed for the airport—leaving Michelle there to fend for herself.  (Not as harsh as it sounds.  Michelle was safely ensconced with a Greek family who knew the ropes.)

     In the end, I am surprised Artie knew our name in the first place.  He chalked it up to sports competition among small town schools.  I am even more surprised that he would remember that name, that incident, and that girl he met briefly fifty years ago in Greece.

      Artie has a good memory, I think.  Mine, not so good.  I didn’t remember to get his last name or a phone number.  Darn!

 

      Six degrees of separation?  I think it must be down to one degree, two at the most.

    

 

 

 

Halloween Get-Together

       The raw product:

     

The personnel and the process:

 

    The results:

 

     The Guests:  (The Goodwife’s sister, sister’s school friends, the cousin, as well as our family).

 And Neighbor Tom.

     The tricksters:

 

     We survived the spooky night.

 

     

 

Mini Miracles

      Miracles come in different sizes, maybe.

     One of my miracles involves two or three days of work.  The other involves Mother Nature.

 

      It hasn’t been exactly bone dry, but it has been dry, and what moisture we got through the summer came in small and spotty doses. 

      The biggest storm came in August, at fair time.  If there is rain, it is guaranteed to fall at wheat harvest time or fair time.  We were out of town during the fair, on the western slope visiting friends and picking up some delicious peaches.

      It was up to the daughter and the grandchildren to attend the fair.  In her report, the daughter said we got nearly an inch of rain.  “Great,” I thought.  “I will be able to get wheat up and growing.”

     When we arrived at the farm, there were no mud puddles, no standing water to breed mosquitoes, nothing that would indicate we got an inch of rain.  Dust kicked up as we drove down the lane into the yard.

     Digging around in the summer fallow didn’t show much in the way of moisture, either.  The only indication that it had rained could be found in the garden, where in the shade under the leaves of the pumpkin vines and the tomato plants, I could see some damp soil.

      “Was the tube in the rain gauge nearly full?”  I asked. 

      “Yes, point ninety-seven one-hundreths of an inch,” the daughter replied.

      “Not just a tenth of an inch?” I asked.

      “I know how to read a rain gauge.”

       Par for the course, neighbors north and south reported much lesser amounts.  It was another hit and miss storm, and the moisture didn’t last long.

       In September, I determined to ”dust-in” the wheat seed.  Which I did.  And some of it actually came up!  Miracle!

      Unfortunately, most of it looks like this:

 

      North of us a mile or two, the wheat is up and looks great.  That’s farming on the high plains of Eastern Colorado.

 

      The second miracle:  the old 55 John Deere combine.  It has sat five or six years in the shed.  Time to move it.  What to do with it still to be decided.  First, it has to be awakened from its sleep and backed out of the shed.

     Getting it started proved a little difficult.  Day one:  Fill the cooling system with water.   Somehow, I lost the block drain plug.  After a futile search for a replacement, I whittled a small elm twig and jammed it in the drain.  That worked fairly well.

      Next, install a battery.  I took one out of the old tractors, a six volt one.  By that time, it was quitting time for me, which comes a little earlier every year.  It used to be around 7 p.m.  Now, it’s 5 p.m.  Still plenty of daylight, but not so much energy.

       Day two:  I have electricity, but it needs fuel.  A couple of gallons in the gas tank should suffice.  I had trouble getting any up to the carburetor.  The fuel pump has a lever that allows me to manually pump (try to pump) gas from the tank to the carburetor.

      The pump seemed to be working because it filled the glass bowl that forms the top of the fuel pump.  Time to give it a try.

       A few grinds of the starter produced nothing.  The engine was turning over, thankfully.  It wasn’t frozen by rust or other causes. 

       A little shot of gas in the carburetor throat produced one good kick and I thought I was on the road to success.  Then the starter refused to work.

       I removed and cleaned the battery cables.  Still nothing.  I worked on the starter contacts.  It worked for another round or two, and then it went dormant again.

      My work was then interrupted by the need to water trees before we took a little trip home.  It was four or five days later when I returned to the project.  The starter had to come off.  Which it did. 

      I found a gap in the post that goes into the starter windings.  A judicious use of some copper foil filled the gap and created good contact.  It worked perfectly when I hooked it up to a battery before reinstalling it.

      Reinstalled, the starter worked.  The only “fire” I could get from the engine was from the prime gas I put in the throat of the carburetor.  I tried helping the fuel pump by putting air pressure on the gas tank. 

      The air pressure trick requires an air bubble and the fill stem from an old innertube.  I was able to get enough pressure in the gas tank to make the sides of the tank “clink” as they “oil-canned.” 

      I disconnected the gas line going into the carburetor.  No gas.  I removed the fuel line underneath the tank and put air pressure directly on the line.  That sent gasoline flying.  Unfortunately, I was standing on the ground beside the gas tank.  I got a brief shower of gasoline when the line cleared.

       With the gas line back on the fuel tank and still off at the carburetor, I tried the lever on the fuel pump again.  After two or three pumps, gas flowed out of the line.  The old pump was still working. 

      When I reconnected the line into the carburetor and pulled on the fuel pump lever a few times, I could hear the fuel pulsing into the carburetor.  The carburetor got full and the float shut off the pump.

     It took two more tries shooting a little priming gas into the carburetor, and the old gal was running.  In about a half an hour, I had the 55 backed out of the shed.

 

              The shed stood empty for the first time in quite a few years.

       Well, it felt like a miracle to me.

      I contacted Neighbor Jim to see if he needed to get my “new” combine out of his hair, but he said it was okay to leave it where it is over winter.

     I then put the “new” tractor in the shed.  There was room for the other old John Deere combine, the 95, so I put it into the shed as well.

     The problem now:  what to do with the 55?  Sending it to the “knackers” is like sending an old trusty work horse to the glue factory. 

      Maybe I will find a museum interested in keeping it, if not alive, at least in one piece?

     Maybe it will rain.

 

 

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

The RIF Policy

 R.A.P.E.D.      S.C.R.E.W.E.D.      S.H.A.F.T.E.D.

 

     Nobody was saying the three words out loud.  But that is what they read as the paper made its way around the table.

 

     It was in the seventies.  Inflation deluged the country.  (Remember President Gerald Ford’s WIN button—Whip Inflation Now?)

     In 1969 when I began my teaching career, teachers were in demand.  A few years later, changes in population had reversed things.  It was difficult to find a teaching job.

     Because of population losses in rural areas, rural schools began to lose students and needed to reduce the size of their faculties.  That was a difficult problem because faculty members were farmers’ wives and local boys who wanted to live in the community where they grew up.  Thus, the RIF policy, Reduction In Force, was a hot topic of the day.

     Randy (the names have been changed to protect the guilty) was a hometown boy.  He was gung-ho teachers’ organization (it wasn’t referred to as a union yet).

      He was good at filling our mailboxes with flyers, often humorous ones.  One example was a cartoon showing a dying teacher, a nonunion member,  with his wife at his bedside.  “Why do you want the NEA members to be your pall bearers?” she asked.  “They have carried me this far.  They just as well carry me the rest of the way,” the dying man utters.

      Randy was the apple of his mother’s eye.  She put on two or three suppers for Randy’s male teacher friends, a group in which I was fortunate enough to be included.  The main fare was rocky mountain oysters along with pork and beans, coleslaw, carrot sticks as well as a dessert of some kind.  Delicious!

     One time we were talking airplanes, it was my flying days, and Randy’s Mom allowed that we should be talking about education instead of flying.  Afterall, we were all teachers.  Randy assured her it was all right to talk about other things, flying in this case.  Then it was all right with her too.  If Randy said it, it was so. 

       Randy did eventually leave his hometown community.  He got his master’s degree in administration and spent a few years as a principal in a mountain town in Colorado.  Apparently, that was not to his liking, because he returned to his hometown and worked as a seed salesman.

      I seem to remember that he applied for principal jobs with the local district, but I don’t think he ever got one.  He may have rejoined the faculty, because I do remember that he was very, very anti-union.  He wanted nothing to do with the NEA.

    The paper that was making its way around the table was also a Randy handout.  Mervin Bird, the grade school principal, had brought it to the school board meeting.  I was the teacher rep who “got” to attend board meetings.  I don’t remember whether my dislike of any kind of meetings was before that or because of that role. 

     I didn’t get to see the copy that board members were looking at.  It was only for those seated at the table.  It took a while, but I figured out what the paper contained.

     Here is a version of the joke, although not the original:

 

RIF Policy  (Reduction In Force)

 

     As a result of the reduction of money budgeted for the Department areas, we are forced to cut our number of personnel.

     Under the new plan, older employees will be asked to accept early retirement, thus permitting the retention of younger people who represent our future plans.

     Therefore, a program to phase out older personnel by the end of the current fiscal year, via retirement, will be placed in effect immediately. The program will be known as R.A.P.E. (Retire Aged Personnel Early).

     Employees who are R.A.P.E.D. will be given the opportunity to look for other employment outside the company. Provided they are being R.A.P.E.D., they can request a review of the employment records before actual retirement takes place. This phase of the operation will be called S.C.R.E.W. (Survey of Capabilities of retired Early Workers).

     All employees who have been R.A.P.E.D. or S.C.R.E.W.E.D. may file an appeal with upper management. This will be called S.H.A.F.T. (Study by Higher Authority Following Termination). Under the terms of the new policies, employees may be R.A.P.E.D. once, S.C.R.E.W.E.D. twice, but may be S.H.A.F.T.E.D. as many times as the company deems appropriate.

 

      Tension in the room was high.  Would hometown boy Randy get into trouble for putting that flyer into every teacher’s mailbox? 

     The last school board member to look at the paper lowered it and looked around.  He had been a teacher, a coach, a principal, and had retired to make a decent living as, you guessed it, an insurance salesman.  He was a pillar of the community who had served in many ways, as a city councilman, and now as a school board member.

       With a smile he asked, “Well, is this our policy?”

      Everybody laughed.  The tension was broken.

      Well, everybody laughed except Mr. Bird.  Mr. Bird’s near-permanent scowl grew more severe.  He was a pipe smoker.  I think he must have held his pipe in the left side of his mouth because when he was really upset, the left side of his mouth retracted as if to join his left ear.  It moved back and forth, almost a half-smile that couldn’t last.

      Mr. Bird had “retired from farming to teach” one of his teachers said of him.  He was a nice man who really was not a good administrator.  Did he suspect he was about to be RIFFED?  Why did he bring that paper to the board meeting?  Wouldn’t it have been better to bury the thing rather than attract attention to one of his recalcitrant teachers that he had failed to control?  Did he expect the board to discipline Randy, since he didn’t have the guts to do it himself?  Would the board censure Randy for using school paper and copy machine to distribute such stuff?

     At this point, the superintendent, who pretty much controlled the meetings, suggested they move on to another agenda item.  And so they did.

      It was my job to report at the Wednesday morning faculty meeting which followed the monthly Tuesday night board meeting.  I always trod carefully on shaky ground, as my principal and boss was always in attendance, at board meetings, too.  I don’t remember if I reported on that incident or not, but of course the word got out.

       If Randy ever suffered anything for his transgression, I never heard.  Both he and Mr. Bird would eventually leave the district, Mr. Bird to retire, and Randy to become an administrator himself.  Neither was subjected to the RIF policy.

     Here endeth another tail from, “It happened in the Teachers’ Lounge.”

      

 

LadyLedLuxury and Elevare Products

    How hard it is to tell this story.

     I learned something.

     I always wondered why a rape victim would not report the crime.  Afterall, it is a horrible crime and the perpetrator should be stopped to protect others, if not punished, for it.

     There is shame.  Plenty of shame.

     There is the overpowering feeling that it could have been avoided, that I could have, should have done something to stop it.  But I didn’t.

     It was an ill-fated weekend.  The Good wife was scheduled, at least we thought she was scheduled, to help out at the Sculpture in the Park event on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.  We reported to the park at 2 p.m. on Friday as the schedule that we received directed.  She also had times on Saturday and Sunday.

     But when we got there, they had no badge for her.  A lady took her name and left for the tent housing the bigwigs.  In about five minutes, she returned, saying the Goodwife was not scheduled, that her application had been received too late.

     Why did they send her a schedule?  She couldn’t answer that one.  Oh well. 

     On Saturday, we returned to the park, paid our $20, and wandered around among the artists and the wealthy who can afford to buy sculptures.  I turned down the opportunity to drink a Bud Lite for $9.  (Budweiser should be paying folks $9 to drink the stuff.)

      Since our presence on Sunday was unneeded, I suggested we take in the county fair.  All was well.  We strolled along the pathways, observing the food vendors, the carnival rides.  We noted that some of the rides would certainly separate us from recently-eaten food.

     We even took in some of the 4-H kids participating in the swine show.  It was reminiscent of the old shaved-ice days at the county fair.

      We had about finished our stay when I saw the building where the vendors were demonstrating their wares.  According to the fair schedule, there was a water-skiing squirrel appearing there.

     “Want to go see what the vendors have to offer?” I asked.  Boy, do I wish I had swallowed those words.

      When we went in, the local paper had a booth.  I stopped to chat with the representative, since our subscription had expired.  Maybe they  had a good deal.  The Goodwife didn’t stop when I did. 

     I panicked a little.  Did she have her telephone?  Would I be able to find her?  I interrupted my conversation with the newspaper guy long enough to see that the Goodwife had been sucked in by skin care products booth, one LadyLedLuxury, selling Elevare products.  

      Oh dang.  I knew it was going to cost me something.  I just had no idea how much.

     By the time the newspaper guy and I had established that there would be no good deal for a current subscriber, and walked the short distance to the LadyLedLuxury booth, the salesman had already applied the wrinkle cream under her left eye.  “See how the wrinkles under the left eye have disappeared compared to the right eye?”

    Yes, yes, yes.  How much?  After taxes, $213.40.  Okay, if it makes the Goodwife happy.  But wait, there’s more.  The Salesman, Leo, turned us over to David, the real pro. 

     Because the Goodwife such a good person and good customer, she was entitled to a “free facial”.  “Boy, they saw us coming,” I muttered to the Goodwife.  Truer words were never spoken.

     As we were sitting there, the two salesmen were having a whispered conversation behind a barrier.   What were they saying?

     David, the pro, used this cream on this spot and that cream on that spot, and treated the spots with some kind of light gun.  He threw a carton of this and a carton of that into a fancy bag.

    How much?  “Mumble, mumble two thousand mumble.”

    “No way!’ I exclaimed as I stood up.  “Two thousand for that?!”  David laughs as if I am making a joke. 

     “Oh, you want your wife to be happy.  You want the best for her.”  Not at that price, I don’t.

     At that point, I might have escaped, but the Goodwife chipped in.  “You have been spending a lot of money for things you want”—a reference to the machinery I have been buying.  “Why can’t I spend some?”

     The salesman jumped right on that.  When I still refused, the Goodwife says, “I’ll use my own money.”

      My doom was sealed at that point.  She began rummaging around in her purse for credit cards.  She pulled out a debit card, but I nixed that.  “It’s not activated,” I told her.  I told David, “These products will only gather dust on the bathroom shelf.  She’ll never be able to figure out how to use them.”

    Undeterred, he took her Discover card and began the process of running it through his little handheld machine. 

     And now, comes the regret, the feeling that I could have, should have done something at this point to stop the whole process.  I had other opportunities before that, too, I can see now, to avoid the sale.

     I could have taken her purse and given her her phone and told her to call me when her “free” facial was done.

      I could have asked her to wait fifteen minutes.  If, after 15 minutes, she still wanted to pay $2k for those products, I would buy them for her.  But none of those things occurred to  me.  It’s only in retrospect that I thought of those things.

    I did ask David for an address where I could return the products.  He laughed off  my first couple of requests, but after a third time, he gave me a business card with a Las Vegas address on it.

      “Is this where I send the stuff?”  I asked.

     “Yes,” he said.  He never mentioned once, oh yes, you won’t be able to return any products because of fear of COVID contamination.

      After the Goodwife signed her name on the little handheld machine, he whipped out a form and asked her to sign it.  “It’s just an agreement that you won’t resell these products.  You got such a good deal on them, you could make a lot more than we are charging you if you sell them.”  Yeah, right.

     I didn’t read the agreement.  I should have.  Among other things, it stated that we would NOT be able to return products due to COVID restrictions.

     But then, it would not have mattered much.  The credit card transaction was done.  There would be no reversing the transaction.

     Truthfully, at that point, all I wanted to do was slink out of there, to try to deal with the shock of spending $2K in less than 30 minutes for products of questionable effectiveness, to try to hide from. . . . from what?  From myself for having been taken to the cleaners?

     No, I didn’t want anyone to know I had been taken.  I just wanted to leave that miserable booth.  And we left.

     With our bag of stuff, we wandered around the place.  We did get a glimpse of the water-skiing squirrel, but I had little interest in it.  There were several quilts hung on display.  I tried to divert my attention to other things, other than the high-pressure sale we had endured, by looking at the name of the quilter attached to each quilt to see if I recognized any of them.

     I did see a name I knew, the wife of a brother of a Methodist preacher we knew in Kansas.  We left the fair grounds and returned home.  I sat the sack of goodies on the counter, a reminder of our afternoon’s experience.

      Eventually, I looked at the credit card receipt.  $2987.60.  What!  Over three thousand dollars when you add the first $200.  When I showed the credit card receipt to the Goodwife, she went ballistic

      In desperation, I called Discover card.  The lady was sympathetic, but no, they could not cancel a transaction.  I must work that out with the merchant.  Discover would help if I wished.

     I have been down that road before.  It amounts to a conference call with a credit card representative and a representative of the company.  The company man stonewalls, and in the end, the only satisfaction is a chance to vent your feelings about the company.

      That was Sunday evening.  Monday morning, I called customer service to see if we could return the products for a refund.  The first thing I had to do was send a copy of the receipts.  I scanned and sent the receipts. 

      Then the salesman, David called.  He was sorry, he said, but the company can’t accept returns due to COVID.  They got sued by someone claiming they got COVID from products that had been returned.  Therefore, no more returns.  But he gave us such a good deal, a lot more products for the price than other people got.

      I was using speaker phone.  The Goodwife jumped in and told the guy she had cancer and we couldn’t afford to pay that amount.  Well, a little stretch of the truth on our side.   Oh, David was sorry but there was nothing he could do.  COVID.  He would call us tomorrow.

      After the call was ended, the Goodwife started putting on her coat.  She was headed back to the fair to get into David’s face.  I managed to talk her out of that.  Why?  I didn’t want to be part of a scene.  Let’s go through the proper channels to try to right the wrong, I told her. 

     Shame and guilt.  Let’s not expose our shame and my guilt in public. 

     I took her to Walmart to lay in jelly-making supplies.  We were planning a trip to the western slope to visit friends and get some fresh peaches.  Soon, she had forgotten all about it.

      Later, she would burst into tears and tell me how sorry she was that she had allowed that bunch to talk her into spending that much money.  I consoled her and told her to try to forget about the whole thing.  She pretty much has forgotten it, too. 

      I removed the bag of products out of sight in the spare bedroom.  I found it one morning near her bathroom, so I hid it my clothes closet.  She has not mentioned the products or the experience.  I think she does not remember anything about her experience.

      Tuesday came and no word from David, so I tried calling him two or three times during the day.  No answer.  Then came a text saying,  “Hello Steven, your case is under review and investigation in our office, don’t worry we did not forget about.  Please allow us up to three business days to return a call.  We will do our best to help you guys, as we do with all of our customers.”

      I got a call on Friday, but we were on the western slope and had no cell service much of the time.  It was Sunday before I realized I had missed the call from customer service.  I called, on Sunday.

     I got a man who said he was the manager and not customer service, that he only answered the phone on weekends.  So I stated my case and asked to return the merchandise.  He would only say that they couldn’t accept returns due to COVID. 

      I told him that was an outdated policy, that clothing stores now allow shoppers to try on garments, and if they don’t purchase the clothes, the clothes are hung in a store room for a few days to be sure that any COVID viruses are dead.  He would have none of that.  Nope, can’t accept returns, period.  That lie would be revealed later in email exchanges with the real (I guess) customer service.

     As the conversation went on, I got angry. Besides hiding behind the COVID policy, he kept telling me how much he wanted to help me.  I told him, no you aren’t trying to help me.  If you really wanted to help, he would assist me in getting my money back.  Can’t.  COVID.

       Apparently, I waxed foul.  In exchanges with customer service,  they asked me to be more civil.  The only thing I remember for sure is telling Mr. Manager at the end of the call that after dealing with him, I felt that I had been screwed twice, once when David used high pressure tactics to foist a bunch of products that are useless to us because the Goodwife would never be able to follow the use instructions, and again after all his “help.”

      There followed a series of email exchanges with the company in the next few days.  Here is the main one:

   “ Dear Steven  after investigating and talking with the representative even though he deeply regret and wanted us to help first of all we would like to apologize about how you felt and the representative david gal will be invited to a hearing in this matter 

“Unfortunately due to COVID regulations we cannot accept any returns we extended your exchange policy from 14 days to one year if you have any concerns plus your life time warranty is already registered and cannot be reversed 

“With more investigation we understand you signed three times for the products and return policy of the vip membership stating you know the COVID regulations and

"We also got a picture of you with the products received  happy 

“You can still contact Elevareskin.com and ask for reverse from your hand but it's up to them register  the life time warranty 

“we deeply regret for your unhappiness and will be available to you 24/7 when you need us for guidance or help.”

      I asked for an explanation of their explanation, but I didn’t get much.  There is indeed a picture we took after the $200 purchase.  I asked them to identify the salesman in the picture, who was not the one who sold us the nearly $3000 worth of “goods.”

      I also asked for a copy of the warranty.  Customer service only replied to the warranty request.  I must contact the salesman  After three or four exchanges with David, via text messages, I gave up ever getting a copy of the warranty.  I still don’t have one.

     Eventually, I filed two complaints, one with the Colorado Attorney General’s office ( a waste of time), and one with the Better Business Bureau.  The Better Business Bureau sent the company my complaint.

       They responded with the usual garbage about COVID and an outright lie.  My email to customer service:

“I have a quote from your reply to my BBB complaint.

 ‘At no time did our customer exchange or attempt to exchange the purchase. We are willing to exchange this purchase.. .’

Are you willing to accept a return for a refund?”

      Their reply:

    “Of curse me ottem will be happy to exchange you the products in points or other products you choose for no extra charge ! 

“Please give  us the chance to help you !

“And we do ask if you can please be more easy with the representative you talk on the phone we got some complaints on disrespectful tone and language to some of them thank you !”

     So, now it’s okay to return products for other products or “points” whatever they are?  Wait a minute.  What about the COVID policy?  No returns? 

       So I sent an email and apologized for using offensive language and asked once again for a refund in exchange for merchandise, since it had been established, at least to my understanding, returns were accepted after all.

    I received no response, so after four days, I asked, “May I have the courtesy of a response?”  I got the following reply:

“Yes, of course you can.

Our company lawyers advices us to not contact you until your bbb compliant will

Be closed and fir the tone our representative experience with you mr otto

Thank and have a great day 

בתאריך יום ג׳, 31 באוג׳ 2021 ב-11:51 מאת:”

 

       I copied and emailed the notice from the BBB that the case had been closed, and I got this response:

	Aug 31, 2021, 2:24 PM (5 days ago)
“Dear mr ottem for our understanding till the case will be deleted and fully resolved in the bb system  we Cannot continue to respond by our lawyers advise   t we can not help please contact bbb  please  this is first time we have a complaint there in 15 years all of our costumers   are happy and satisfied

בתאריך יום ג׳, 31 באוג׳ 2021 ב-12:52 מאת ”

 

     My response:

 

to Customer

“I would like to be  happy, too.  Would you please refund $3201.00.  I will gladly return the merchandise.  And I will leave you alone forever.”

 

     Lest you think I exaggerate, please know that I changed nothing in the emails.  I have the entire record of our emails quoted verbatim.

      As of now, I am resigned to the fact that I will never get my $3000 back.  I have few options at this point.  I should give in to the urge to hide my shame and guilt and let this entire experience die.

      But there is one other emotion I am experiencing that I wonder if rape victims experience.  It is an overpowering, sometimes uncontrollable anger when I think of how we have been treated by LadyLedLuxury.   Can I let that go? 

      Should I be doing something to see that no other old lady suffering from dementia doesn’t fall victim to the same treatment we have had from this company? 

     Or is it merely a selfish motive compelling me to seek revenge?