Tree Cutting

     An aspen tree in the backyard died last summer.  It wouldn’t have been too hard to knock down except that it was about two feet from the fence / property line, and about eight feet from the house.  And about a foot from its bigger neighbor aspen.  Add about two feet to all those dimensions and it will be about right.

      I enlisted Neighbor Brian and in two sessions, we took it down.  I regret that I neglected to take any pictures of the event.  The tree had two main trunks, forking about four feet above the ground.  We took out the first one in an hour or two.

     I crawled up as high as a sixteen-foot ladder would take me and tied a rope to a sturdy branch.  Brian pulled on the rope when the cut was completed and the top fell fairly close to where we wanted it.  It missed the house, but it whacked the fence enough to break off six inches of one slat.

     I tied the rope in two places on the next section, at the top, and right above where I cut next.  When there was only an half inch or so left to cut through, I crawled down the ladder and together we pulled the looped rope.  The thing fell harmlessly in the yard. 

     The rest of the trunk was easily cut into short lengths suitable for the old stove in the farm kitchen.  That was in January, the days were short, and the temperature fell with the sun. 

     It would be nearly a month before we would have another go at it.  This trunk proved to be a bit more of a challenge.  We decided to try to bring it down from the bottom rather than the top.  To control it, we had the rope and about a half dozen come-alongs strapped to it.  One held it to the neighbor tree.  Two tied the tree to posts on the screen porch to keep it out of the neighbor’s yard.   

     The process worked, but it took about three hours to get it down.  After the initial cut, we shoved the trunk over next to the bigger tree beside it.  Every time I cut off a chunk of the bottom, we had to loosen come-alongs and let it down a few feet.  Then we would repeat the process until there was only the smaller chunk from the treetop.

     That was in February.  I hauled the smaller branches to the recycler.  The burnable pieces went to the farm in two small loads.  Aspen doesn’t prove to be much better firewood than Chinese elm.

The "stump" is cut down to ground level, the one closest to the fence.

      

      The second tree stood on the farm.  It once was part of a row of Chinese elms demarking the old board fence separating the corral from the human farmyard.  Corral and fence are long gone.  All but three or four elms have departed as well.  This old feller was the largest of the survivors.  It towered over its brothers and even over shadowed the shop, chimney and all.

     This was also a two-day job.  The chainsaw still had fuel in it from the aspen job.  I had a bit of a struggle to get the chainsaw to run when I was contemplating the aspen job.  I finally put a carburetor kit in it.  I did it reluctantly, because most carburetor jobs I perform result in performance worse than before the overhaul.

    This one worked and after a bit of tuning of jets, the saw ran well.  Conventional wisdom has it that leaving fuel in the carburetor and the lines lead to carburetor failure.  Thus, I needed to get rid of the gas in the tank after the aspen job.  The dead elm was there.  Kill two birds with one stone:  drop a big branch threatening the red barn and get rid of some fuel.

      So I did just that.  It took some moving of junk, mostly old wheels, some with tires still attached.  I also had to trim some smaller elm shoots in order to reach the tree.  A stepladder put me high enough to make the cut.   

      I had misjudged the reach of the branch.  I thought it would miss the red barn.  Most of it did, but some of the upper most branches struck the eaves trough and resulted in a bit of a dent, but the branches were brittle and broke off with contact.  No real damage.

      I used up the rest of the fuel on some old fence posts that make great firewood.  I took great care to locate nails and staples left in the old posts.  I was using a newly sharpened chain.  The fuel ran out and I put the saw away for another week. 

      I was fairly sure I could drop the tree to the west, but I wasn’t in any mood to take a chance.  So I cut off one more east leaning branch.  The difficulty was the direction of the wind.  It blew sawdust into my face as I cut.  No help for it.  To get upwind, I had to be right under the branch I was amputating. 

      With the last east leaning branch gone, I tied the “well” rope to a branch as high as I could reach.  I tied the other end to the old Dodge pickup and took up the slack. 

  Two down, two to go.

      I went to work on the trunk, cutting a “grin” in the direction I wished the thing to fall.  Then from the side opposite the grin, I began the final cut.

    When less than an inch remained to complete the cut, I started the Dodge and put it into low gear.  My plan was to let it idle in gear and tug while I finished the cut.

      But when I eased the Dodge into the load, I heard a crack and the tree fell.  The Dodge edged forward, and the tree fell just where I had directed it.

     Nothing left but to cut the timber into stove lengths and clean up the mess.  The northeast wind blew cooler and cooler.

Firewood sorted and stacked, I wore a sweatshirt and a jacket to unload the smaller branches on the trash pile.

      I will have to split the bigger chunks.  That will be another day’s work.       

 

           

Snow Blower--Again

   Oh no, not again, thought I.   I thought I had the snow blower working a year ago. (http://50farm.blogspot.com/2018/02/snow-blower.html)  It ran last spring when I moved it to the back yard.  When I tried to start it this winter, when the weather forecasters all predicted a coming storm, nary a snort would it utter no matter how many times I pulled the starter rope.

     I shoveled a lot of snow this winter.  During sunny times, I pulled the cowling off the flywheel, removed the flywheel, checked the points, everything I could think of.  I lost count of how many times I disassembled, reassembled, and tugged fruitlessly on that starter rope.

     Finally one fine day, I went to the local small engine dealer and got a new coil, points and condenser. I got a new flywheel key, too.  Sometimes a jimmied key can set the flywheel off enough to interfere with the timing.

     There were trials and tribulations, but eventually I got everything right, the correct gap on the points, the correct gap between the coil arms and the flywheel, the flywheel key in correctly (that key isn’t square, I found after several unsuccessful tries one sunny day).  Filled with hope and confidence, I pulled the starter rope.  And again and again, I pulled.  Nothing.

      I tried priming the cylinder by removing the spark plug and dropping  a couple of drops of gas into the cylinder..  I tried a little starting fluid sprayed directly into the carburetor.  Nothing worked.

      Then the thought came, I have fixed the wrong problem.  But how could I be wrong?  It obviously had fuel.  It had to be spark.  During those short days, I didn’t have much time to work on it.  When it go too cold, I picked up my tools, put things away and retreated to the heated space.

     I never quit thinking about the problem.  How could that system work when everything is grounded except the coil and the core of the spark plug?  The condenser is grounded, even the business nipple because it is tied to the grounded part of the coil.  The points remain open except for a quick dip as the piston rises.

      I brought the old coil and condenser into the warmth and went after it with my ohmmeter.  That was the way it worked.

      A new idea entered my head.  Maybe I needed a few more rpms than I could get with the pull rope.  I made a farm trip one cool day.  One of the things I brought back from the farm was an electric motor out of a washing machine.  I threw in a short v-belt, too.

      On another warmish day, I pulled the shield off the drive end of the Briggs & Stratton to find two v-belts, one driving the blower part of the machine, the other providing the ground drive.  It didn’t take much to get one of the belts off, my short belt on the engine shaft, the other end on the electric motor pulley.  It should work.

     But first, I had to wire a pig tail into the electric motor.  I used a couple of alligator clips to hold bare wires to the contact points on the engine.  When I plugged it in, I couldn’t hold the motor still.  When it jumped with the torque, the clips made contact with each other.

      There were sparks.  And a kicked breaker.  At first, I thought it was the ground-fault interrupter that had kicked.  After a few minutes of terminal work, I had correct clips on the pig tail and the clips attached to the spades in the engine.

      I thought I reset the GFI buttons, but when I plugged it in, nothing.  It took quite a while to trace the correct breaker.  I found it, finally, in the breaker box in the basement laundry room.  I reset the breaker, then the GFI outlet.  This time, when I plugged it in, the motor took off.

      Soon I had an extension cord strung out, the electric motor resting on the snow blower housing, the belt on both the electric and the gas motor pulleys.  It took a few tries, but with good timing, I managed to get the electric motor to spin the gas motor a few revolutions. 

     I had to get enough tension on the belt by pulling the electric motor into the belt.  The electric motor didn’t particularly care for this activity.  It would stop until I let off some of the tension, but eventually I got everything going.  The electric motor had the Briggs & Stratton turning quite a few rpms.  Nothing.  Not a pop, not a snort, or cough.  Nothing.

       It was dark this time when I put everything away, both externally and internally.  I must have fixed the wrong problem, but what could be the real problem?

      Eventually, I turned to the internet.  I had been there before with not much success.  I stumbled upon a guy who had essentially the same problem I did—all new parts, all carefully installed.  I followed the year-old conversation.  The expert said if he had everything in there, it either had to be a faulty coil or condenser or spark plug wire.  The victim insisted that he had checked everything with his ohmmeter.  They were all good.

      The expert came back with, maybe you installed the coil upside down.  The next response, the victim was ecstatic.  Yes, you are a genius!  I removed the coil, turned it over, remounted, regapped, and voila! The thing started on the first pull.

     Well, on the snow blower, it couldn’t be upside down, because the coil is mounted vertically.  But it could be inside out.  I had nothing to lose.  I pulled the coil off to see if it would fit going on the other way.     

      Yes it would.  What do you know?  Could this be it?  I reinstalled and regapped the coil.  With everything in place, I jerked the starting rope.  It didn’t start, but there was more than a nothing.  It kicked back and tried to rotate backwards.

      I checked the throttle, pulled out the choke, and gave the rope another pull.  Vroom!  It was running!  Yay, I did it, folksies!

     It’s March.  There could be another snowstorm bad enough to require a snow blower.  I think I might have jinxed that, maybe.  I didn’t pull the machine around to the front.  If we do get another heavy snow, even then will be some scooping.  I will have to dig out the back gate to get it open enough to get the snow blower through.

      Now I have second thoughts about my second thoughts. The original problem must have been a faulty coil, because the old coil wasn’t on there wrong-side-out and it wasn't working.

     I didn’t fix the wrong problem.  I fixed the problem wrong.

Health Insurance

         Sometime in late November or early December, I got a couple of unpaid doctor bills.  When the third one arrived, I began to believe something had gone amiss.  Then I got notice that I had a new Medicare statement, so I decided I had better look at it.  When I did, the claims were all denied.  The footnotes told me that Medicare was not my primary insurer, that I needed to submit these claims to my primary insurer.

      A vague memory began to stir in my brain, a rather strange incident I had shrugged off.  In late September or early October, I got a call from the secretary of the grade school in the district where I used to work.  She asked me where she should send my health insurance cards. 

     What?  I haven’t been on Kansas Blue Cross/Blue Shield for six or seven years, ever since I signed up for Medicare.  “Oh,” she said.  “I’ll check it out with the superintendent’s

 office.”

      I never gave the incident another thought.  Until I started getting doctor bills.  I called Medicare.  They had a wait list.  Would I like them to call me back?  I left my number.  I hadn’t taken ten steps down the hallway before my phone rang and it was Medicare on the line.

     The young man asked for my particulars to prove to himself that I was who I said I was.  He looked into my account and informed me that my primary insurer was Kansas Blue Cross/Blue Shield.  “Since when?” asked I.

       “Since October 22,” said he.  That insurer informed Medicare that I was on their policy since that date.

      I put in a call to the superintendent’s office in Kansas to try to begin solving my problem.  It was between Christmas and New Year’s.  I doubted anyone would be in the office, but it didn’t cost anything to try.

     The superintendent himself answered the phone.  Before I could get two sentences into telling him my problem, he put me on hold.  There I stayed for three or four minutes.  I hung up and tried the number again.  No answer.

     I fumed and fussed a brief while.  I consoled myself by assuring myself he wouldn’t know anything anyway.  He was a former superintendent who had been on the school board.  He gave up that position to become superintendent again, this time as interim,  when the district could not find a suitable candidate for the office.

     Some things never change.  Enough said.

     I called a third time and left a message for the secretary who wouldn’t get it until into January when school started again.  She wouldn’t know anything either, because she replaced the former secretary who had resigned in September.  I can guess why she resigned.

     I went next to Kansas Blue Cross/Blue Shield.  Amazing enough, I only talked to two people, the first one turning me over to someone who could help me with my problem.  The second lady said I was on the policy but I wasn’t on the policy.  The school district was not paying my premium.  Obviously, neither was I.  But somehow I was on the list.

     She said she would check it out further and notify Medicare that it was a mistake.  I should not have Blue Cross/Blue Shield as my primary insurer.

      A few days later, I called Medicare back, a different number this time, the one the first Medicare guy gave me for problem resolution.  This lady grilled me for my personal information, then opened my account.  It showed that Blued Cross had notified them of the mistake and they were taking steps to rectify it.  It could take up to 45 days to happen.  What do I do about my unpaid bill.  “You will have to resubmit it.”

       Next, I called CU Med where I had the unpaid bill.  I told the lady there what happened.  She asked me when the problem would be resolved.  “If” it will be resolved, I amended her question.  She laughed and I told her about the 45 days.  She said okay.  Should I pay the bill?  No, we will resubmit it.  OK.

      About the second week in January, Secretary Emily, a former student, called me from the superintendent's office.  After chatting a bit, she asked me why I called.  I told her the whole story.  She didn’t know anything about it.  She hadn’t handled the insurance business.  I told her not to worry about it, that I had contacted Blue Cross and I thought we were on the way to solving the problem.  I refrained from saying anything about her boss.

        February arrives.  I get a notice from Medicare a new statement is available.  I jump through the hoops and get access to my statement.  Two claims, one paid (“yea!”), one denied (“boo!”).  One more call to Medicare.  Some serious hold time on the phone in this case.  The answer, when I finally get it:  the blood lab has to resubmit the claim.  Head slap:  “I should have known.”

     I don’t have a bill for the lab work yet.  I am waiting for my March claim statement.  

      Mark Twain defined an innocent bystander as someone who doesn’t have sense enough to get out of the way.  I wonder if I qualify.      

Carlsbad Caverns

      Vast.

     That may be the best word for Carlsbad.  To get there from here, you cover a vast amount of territory.  You will be about 170 miles from El Paso, Texas.

      Passing through the town of Carlsbad to get to the caverns, after crossing about 20 miles more of the endless flatlands, you pass through some pretty good-sized hills, though nothing near the Rocky Mountains we know.

     The entrance to the cavern sits on top of a hill.  The view to the south is vast.  (Not unlike the view to the south from the Genoa Tower, to use a universal reference that everyone will understand!)

      From the visitor center, you make a choice of walking down the pathway to the caverns, or you can opt for an elevator ride of some 750 feet.  Forty years ago, I took the walk.  I find I didn’t remember much of the caverns from that first visit, excepting their vastness, of course.  I do remember that my knees complained from the downhill trip.

      This time, we chose the elevator.  Before entering the elevator, a ranger goes over the rules of the cavern:  get rid of your gum, don’t leave any trash, don’t touch anything, bring a flashlight (for sale at the gift shop), whisper if you must talk because sound carries all over the caverns, etc.

     For $5, you can rent a telephone that comments on things all the way through the caverns.  When you come upon a sign with a number on it, you push that number into your rented phone and listen to the commentary.  It’s probably worth the money. If you walk down, there are 50 talking points.  If you ride the elevator down, you do numbers 20 through 50.

       Getting off the elevator, you can visit the restrooms for the last time, buy a snack or drink, which you cannot take with you as you enter the touring area, or sit a spell before taking the tour—especially helpful to those who have make the trip afoot.  You can buy a flashlight, too.

     Another thing I did not remember from my first visit was a way to walk back to the surface--estimated time, 45 minutes to an hour.  About ten minutes into the cavern, you can choose to short circuit the main route and head back to the elevators if you have had enough.  We took the long way.  After all, we had to get our money’s worth.  (Actually, our admission was free via our national parks pass.) 

      The voice on the telephone tried to give the listener an idea of how big the caverns are by comparing the number of football fields that could be fitted into the space.  It is huge.  The roof or ceiling in places is several feet high.    

     It would be difficult to fit one football field in there, practically speaking, because there isn’t much flat space.  Stalactites and stalagmites appear everywhere along with crevices and fissures and small pools of water.  Words can’t do the place justice.  Neither can my pictures.  I couldn’t see well enough to turn on the camera’s flash.

   Without the telephone guide, we would have missed a lot, including the history of the discovery and development of the place.  One thing we would certainly have missed was a rope dangling from a dome several feet above us. 

     The story is that some intrepid spelunkers wanted to climb up into the dome, so they floated a helium balloon up with a rope and some sort of anchor.  They managed to get the rope hooked to something up there, not sure how, and one brave guy then proceeded to climb the rope and hook it firmly so other explorers could climb up and take a look.

     Another marvel is the lighting.  The telephone voice said a Hollywood lighting specialist designed the lighting.  When you look at where the lights are stationed, you have to wonder how they ever manage to change a burned out bulb.

      In the olden days, there was a point on the guided tour where the Ranger could shut off the lights and the visitors got to experience total darkness for a few moments.  They don’t do that anymore.  If a power failure occurs, an emergency generator takes over.  If it fails, some lights have their own battery and can take over for a long enough time to get everybody out of the cave.

      The caverns were formed by water.  Water still infiltrates, allowing the formations to continue growing, and pools of water to remain.  It takes eight months for surface water to percolate down into the caves. 

      Now, the biggest changes to the caverns are caused by people.  The visitor center and its paved parking lot cover up a lot of territory where water once could soak in and down, for example.  A surprising thing, lint from people’s clothes, has to be removed occasionally.  I shouldn’t be surprised.  Melvin, our deceased school janitor friend, once said that judging from the lint and hair he swept up at the end of the day, he wondered that the students weren’t all naked and bald.

      A couple of things occurred to me during our visit: what would an earthquake do to the caverns?  The Ranger lady said the caves would be the safest place to be in an earthquake.  The shock waves get transmitted through solids, like earth and rock.  When the waves hit the caves filled with air, they dissipate rapidly, air being more flexible than rock or earth.  I would still prefer to be on the surface if a quake comes.

     The second thing I thought about was a sinkhole somewhere (Florida?) that swallowed up several Corvettes on display some years ago.  If a fissure developed on the surface above the caverns, several cars dropping through the gap wouldn't amount to a morsel in the cavern's maw.  Maybe I should quit thinking.

     Our trip took us the better part of two hours, stopping to listen to thirty-some explanations. Not once did the caverns stimulate my claustrophobia, they are that vast.  We rode the elevators back up and headed for the cafeteria.   

     Having refreshed ourselves, we headed home.  North we went through Roswell (sorry, I couldn’t revisit the UFO museum) and onto Fort Sumner where we overnighted.  We rejoined the rat race (also known as I-25) near Las Vegas, NM and on home.

      

Beyond Words

     It is somewhat like pictures of Salt Flats I have seen, the place where daredevil drivers try to break land speed records, except that Salt Flats are, well, flat.  White Sands National Monument has snowdrifts.  Make that sand drifts.  Make that gypsum drifts.

     The National Park has hills, too.  Perhaps the most amazing thing is that things grow, plants grow, in the gypsum drifts.

     It’s possible to tour the white sands without ever leaving your car.  The paved road from the visitor center gives way to sand roads that for all the world look like roads in snow country complete with ridges thrown up by snowplows.  When the wind blows above 16 miles per hour, if I remember correctly, the gypsum sand drifts.  Snow plows clear the roads in the wake of the windstorm and the park is back in business.

     I am not sure if they close the park under windy conditions, but I would not want to be driving my car if the sand was drifting.  If you have ever dealt with sheetrock or cleaned up after a sheetrock project, you know how clingy the particles can be, though the sands aren’t as fine or powdery as sheetrock gypsum is. 

     The word is that the gypsum washed down out of hills surrounding the park.  Then the wind blows the flakes and particles.  The sifting tumbling action breaks the bigger particles down into the fine sand. 

      You could drive around and never get out of your car.  But you are encouraged to get out.  There are walkways and a few trails, a place to unload your horse trailer, for instance.  They even sell the disk type sleds in the gift shop so you can take a ride down a sand hill.

      We watched a camper slide down a good-sized hill.  As I watched, the thought upper most in my mind was how to get the sand out of my clothes, particularly out of my underwear.  What a wimp I have become in my old age.

      We stuck to the walking paths constructed with recycled plastic decking.  It was a beautiful day with only a light breeze and plenty of sunshine.  The winds wipe out all the tracks left by creatures.  We only saw tracks made by humans, but if you get there early after a windstorm has erased the desert, you should be able to see tracks left by insects, birds, snakes, lizards, and rodents that call the place home.

     We began our exploration of National Parks at the Grand Canyon.  That really is beyond words, or even pictures.  The sheer size of the canyon challenges the imagination.

      We took a tour package, which was good and not so good.  We stayed at the Railroad Hotel in Williams, AZ, which included four meals at the Harvey House. That was all good and well, with the possible exception of the fact that our first night at the Harvey House, the beer machine was out of order.  I managed to survive.

     On the morning when we checked out, I realized I should have delayed my supper on that first night and spent a little time in the hotel bar.  It was magnificent with all the old-time fixtures such as a gigantic mirror behind the bar and the grand woodwork everywhere.

     In addition to hotel and meal accommodations, our package included a train ride to and from the canyon.  Once we arrived at the canyon terminal, we were entitled to a bus tour of the canyon rim.  I wouldn’t take that bus tour, if I had to do it again.

      During the train trip, each car had a tour guide.  Not everyone in our car had the same tour.  Some would stay overnight in the cabins at the park’s headquarters area.  Some would wander around for the three hours before the train returned to Williams.  Our guide was making suggestions for all of us.

     For the ones returning on the train, she suggested about an hour walk along the rim of the canyon.  That’s what we should have done.  On the bus tour, we stopped at two parking sights along the rim and we had about 30 minutes to wander around at each site.  Our tour included lunch at one of the three or four places to eat at the park headquarters.  Then we had another 45 minutes or so to wander around before the train left.

      So we spent a little over an hour actually looking at the canyon.  The rest of our time was on the bus, in the cafeteria, or “ta-dah”, the gift shops.  I would do things differently if I could.

     A free shuttle takes you out to a far point.  You could ride the shuttle back or pick it up at a few other places along the line.  Or you can walk the rim trail back to park headquarters and the railroad.

     It was a cold windy day the day we were there, but it was tolerable.  We stayed warm on the bus.  Plus the bus driver/tour guide was a rather roughhewn lady who could handle the Greyhound-sized bus and talk. at the same time.  She regaled us with stories of people going over the edge of the canyon to their doom.  It was all in the name of keeping us safe, of course.  But it pandered to our interest in death and dying by accident.

     She said the Park tries to keep a lid on the deaths as much as possible, but they have to acknowledge that people do go over the edge.  The canyon is a big place, a huge place, and it isn’t possible to fence or wall off every bit of it.  As she said, there are fences and rails, rock walls, and unprotected raw edges to the canyon.  There was also ice and snow on some of the pathways the day we were there.  Stay back from the edge.

     No problem for me.  I can’t bring myself to within two or three feet of a drop-off that plunges straight down for feet and yards.  One lady who held some important position but not identified by name stood by the edge of the canyon when a gust of wind took off her hat.  She tried to grab her hat.  She is no more.

       She also told about cars going over the edge.  As she said, those had to be planned.  The roads and parking lots are all hemmed in pretty well.  A driver has to have knowledge beyond what a normal tourist would have to get a car over the edge of the canyon.  She didn’t say, but they must all be suicides.  What she did say was that hardly anybody used their own car.  They all went over in a rental from Hertz or Enterprise.

    

     The train ride to and from the canyon was entertaining.  Our hostess was a fount of information.  Before we boarded the train, at 8 a.m., four cowboys put on a show that involved real live horses, real live six guns with blanks for ammo, and a spoofy shootout.  After about a ten-minute show, they herded us onto our train car.  The Marshall in the shootout boarded the train and went along to “protect” us.  We also had two guitar players who sang western songs, one going and a different one coming back. 

    On the return trip, nearing Williams in somewhat forested terrain, we were notified there was “trouble ahead.”  Outside the train, two guys on horses, the same guys in the morning shootout, rode up beside the train and fired their six-shooters in the air.  We couldn’t hear them, but we could see the smoke from the gun barrels.  No fear, the Marshall was on board to protect us and the train wouldn’t stop.

      But then the train did stop.  The two handkerchiefed bad guys boarded the train and “held us up”.  We all tossed a few tips into the short guy’s leather bag.  A little later, after the train began to move again, the Marshall entered our car and said he had the bad guys in custody and we could reclaim our lost items by reporting to his office, three blocks from the train station.  And by identifying bills by serial number or photos of lost property plus affidavits pertaining to those losses.

     The train ride was fun.  The beer machine in the Harvey House was back in working order.  All was well.  We did have to go to three gift shops because the tour package contained two $20 gift certificates.  No sense leaving cash on the table, eh?

      Snow from Flagstaff to Williams—not warm desert in this part of Arizona.

Using the site locater

     We went from Williams to Tucson where we interviewed at the airport for our “Global Entry” pass.  We couldn’t get in at DIA for an interview until next July, more than a year after our application was accepted.  You only have a year from the application date to get the interview. We originally applied in June, thinking to use Global Entry when we came back from Italy in October, but we couldn’t get into DIA until the end of October at that time.  No problem scheduling an interview in Tucson.

     We spent a week in Tucson, then on to Carlsbad, New Mexico.

Flatulence

     Folks find flatulence funny.  Think Monty Python, or Victor Borges—“the familiar departing sound of his horse, ptht, ptht, ptht.”

     Or, what is the difference between a draft horse and a warhorse?  A warhorse darts into the fray.  (“a truck or cart for delivering beer barrels or other heavy loads, especially a low one without sides”, just in case “dray” sends you to your lexicon)

     Or the Granddaddy of them all, "Blazing Saddles".  (What would happen if Mel Brooks tried to produce something like that movie today?)

      “Bob” was a colleague in the brain factory.  He apparently suffered from gastro-intestinal distress as he was always fully charged with excess gas.  Or else he was a bachelor cooking for himself.  He was a bachelor at the time he worked with us.

      It was our custom to host bachelor teachers for supper once in a while before we were parents.  Bob was one of the callers.  We got to know him pretty well during the year or two he was on the faculty.

     Bob was looking for his life’s partner, which in those days meant he was looking for a wife.  He created discord when he dated two junior high teachers who were single, best of friends, and roomed together.  When he dated the first one, she thought he was hers.  When he dated the second one, jealousy created enough controversy between the two that they ended their roommate status.  Later they would each marry and remain good friends.  Bob wasn’t the husband of either.

      On one of his last visits, Bob could hardly contain his excitement.  He had something to tell us.  “I think I’ve found the right one!” he said.

     “How do you know, Bob?  What makes you so sure?”

      “I passed gas in the  kitchen and she didn’t say anything!”

     Sure enough, she was the right one.  They married and left for greener pastures.  She wasn’t a local girl.  I’m not sure where they met, where she was from, where they went.  I’ve lost track of Bob.

      Bob had a rather annoying habit.  Early in the morning before school started, before any kids arrived, he would stop by my classroom, and the classroom of others, stick his rear end in the door and fart.  Off he would go, leaving a contrail in his wake.

      One day I stopped by Harry’s room on my way to my classroom.  Harry was the chemistry and physics teacher.  His room was next to Bob’s.  Bob was a biology teacher.  Harry was a victim of Bob’s momentary early-morning visits, too.

      As we talked, I spied a vial on Harry’s desk.  I picked it up to read the label: “hydrogen sulfide”.  Our conversation stopped.  Harry and I looked at each other.  He took the vial from me.  Neither of us said anything.

     We walked into Bob’s room.  Bob was busily grading papers or preparing his day’s lesson plans.  He barely looked up as we entered.  I made a “phtht” sound with my mouth.  As I was doing that, Harry set the vial on a counter behind Bob and removed the stopper.

      Bob shrugged and groaned.  He knew he had it coming.  Without a word, Harry and I left to return to his classroom.  We could barely contain ourselves.  Musn’t laugh out loud, not yet.

      In about thirty seconds, Bob came storming into Harry’s room.  He pointed at me as he said, “YOU are ROTTEN inside!”  

      Harry and I followed Bob, laughing all the way.  Harry stoppered the vial, picked it up and showed it to Bob.  He didn’t laugh much.  He knew he had it coming.  Harry and I laughed, not just then, but for several days thereafter, when we met and reminded each other how cleverly we had served old Bob.  I have lost track of Harry, too.

     Not too many incidents in the past 50 years have a date or time attached to them.  This incident I can clearly remember both: February 3, 1979, about 7:45 a.m.

     Uncle Bill is a great Lion.  He served as district governor.  He went to places all over the world to attend Lions’ international conventions.  He was the driving force that developed “Sight Busses” that travel all over Kansas checking people for glaucoma and other eye problems.

      Thus it was that when Herndon Lions sent an invitation to our Lions club to attend their Ground Hog Day ham and bean supper, Bill rounded up a station wagon full of Lions to go to Herndon and partake of ham and beans.  It was a fund-raiser as well as a chance to put a little fun in our lives between New Years and Valentine’s Day.

      There were five or six of us in his vehicle. It was an icy treacherous day.  Bill drove somewhat sanely for him and we arrived in one piece, made our way into the hall and partook of the ham and beans.  The Goodwife and I were two of the number.  She would give birth to or daughter on March 17 of that year.  She was seven months pregnant.

      Sometime during the evening, we would find out that another Lion, who did not attend, had become a father again on that day.  He had a daughter who would be our daughter’s classmate for twelve of their thirteen years.  We returned home without incident, no one having slipped or fallen on the ice or anything.

       The Goodwife spent a miserable night.  She was up and down, tossed and turned, trying to find a comfortable position that would help pass the gas through her system crowded with the fetus she carried.  For her, the ham and beans had not been a good idea.

       The next morning, we both went to work as usual.  At my school, an early-riser always put on the coffee.  When we arrived, the first stop was usually the lounge where the coffee was freshly brewed.  On February 3, four or five of us gathered, as usual, to share a moment or two together before we set off to develop young brains.  Bill arrived.  Only moments after his arrival, the rest of us arose as one and headed for the door.

     Bill had used his underwear as a very unsatisfactory air filter to refine the vaporous final product of the previous evening’s ham and beans.  

     As we departed, Gary, the band teacher, arrived.  Gary was not an early riser.  He often arrived bleary-eyed, in need of a caffeine stimulant to get his day going.  He would drink a cup of coffee, if he had time, before heading off to band practice, which was always first thing in the morning.

      This February 3 was no exception.  Gary courteously held the door while we rushed out.  He failed to notice that we were gagging, holding our noses, muttering curses at Bill, each of us reacting in our own way to Bill’s foul breach of manners.

      Bill was the last one out the door.  Gary stepped around the door and into the small room that constituted the teachers’ lounge.  The door closed behind him.  Bill thoughtfully rested his 260-pound bulk against the outside of the door which swung outward. 

     The rest of us halted to see how long it would take Gary to realize he had walked into a deadly trap, a trap that at the time, we thought, rivaled the trenches of World War I.  In a very few moments, the door handle flew down and the attempt to push the door open was foiled by Bill’s weight holding it shut.  The handle flew up and again the futile push.  Up, down, the handle worked, but alas, nothing availed.  The door would not budge.

      Then there came a pitiful and urgent knocking on the door, not with a fist, but with an open hand, rather high up on the door, as if the supplicant were begging for help.  One of the observers standing in the hallway outside the lounge door said, “Let the poor b****** out, Bill.”

      Bill stepped aside and the door flew open.  Out staggered poor Gary, now more teary eyed than bleary eyed.  This one morning, Gary decided he could face the morning without the caffeine.  Off he trundled down the hall towards his band room.

     It is human nature to enjoy the discomfort of others.  How else do we explain the horror stories of torture and death and the vast audiences that observed them from earliest histories even into modern times?  Enjoying another’s discomfort or embarrassment is, after all, the point of all practical jokes.  We pull them on our friends.

      I confess, we laughed.  And laughed.  Poor Gary notwithstanding.  I excuse and forgive myself.  It’s human nature. 

     Later that day, in the lunch line, I heard one male student say, “Stay away from Mr. B today.  He’s got it bad.”  I needn’t ask what he had bad.

      Still later, we would discover that Bill’s daughter had hitched a ride with her Dad to get to an early morning cheerleading practice that day.  After about three blocks, she insisted he stop the car.  She got out and walked the remaining five or six blocks in the chill February morning, facing some pretty treacherous footing.

      Torture knows no boundaries.

     Neither does low humor.