In my last epistle I mentioned that we would all be going for a massage later that evening. In order to get there, we got on one bus, traveled through the city, got off I don’t know where, and caught another bus to take us to where we were going. I thought the fares were a dollar…they were the last time I was here…I thought. Matt said they were $1.50 so that’s what I took and I put six quarters in the slot. After we had ridden for a while, Matt said, I just remembered the fares went to $2.00 in July. Oops!! If I get sent to San Quentin, be sure to visit me sometime. I suppose when you live here, you get used to figuring out which bus to catch and when you need to make transfers. At any rate, I was with Matt and I just followed him. As it turned out, we went one stop too far and had to walk back six blocks or so to the massage parlor. With one bad knee, we didn’t run, but made it almost on time.

The girl that had me (poor choice of words, I know) took me back to a cubicle and told me to undress and lie down. With a hole where my head should be I was dumb enough to ask “Face down?” She said yes and left the room. There were blankets and a pillow on the foot end and, with where my head needed to go, my feet would either be on top of or underneath the pile. With no clothing on except my tighty whities…they’re actually black…I chose underneath. There were two towels and I got in between them. Apparently I was supposed to get under both, ‘cuz the smaller one on top barely covered my “better left unseen” areas.

I got my face situated in the face hole so I could breathe just as the girl came back in. She spoke a little English, but when she said something, I couldn’t understand her. I said I was hard of hearing (actually I am a little) and would she please repeat. She said “Hard or soft?” I immediately panicked thinking it may really be one of those happy ending massage parlors. Luckily it dawned on me that she meant firm pressure or light pressure. I answered medium hard which, as I think back, could have been the correct answer whether it was or wasn’t “one of those places”.

The cubicles were small, and the walls didn’t go up to the ceiling, so you could hear everyting that was going on in the other rooms. The girl was not very big, so she needed to get all her weight into giving someone like me a massage. As she was pushing back and forth, I seemed to slide on the table a little. The tables were covered with leather (probably not real leather), and you probably already know that a body sliding across leather often makes a sound like (how can I be discreet?) flatulence. I knew she knew what it really was, but everyone else in the building probably thought “Poor Mary…she got another gassy one”. I expected to hear “Dad! Knock it off! You’re embarrassing me”. I guess we’ll know if we are refused another appointment. Hopefully Matt and Heather can go back. If not, sorry! Actually she gave me an excellent massage and loosened up some of the travel kinks. I guess I won’t dump the Jeep after all.

Afterwards we went to a Japanese restaurant. There they brought a plate of vegetables, a plate of beef and a bowl of hot broth. The hot broth went in the middle of the table and the heat went on. When it came to boiling, we were to drop the vegetables in followed by the meat. It was slightly more complicated than that, but the point is that it was all done with chopsticks. With all my down time this past summer, I had vowed to learn how to eat with chopsticks. Well, my vow went by the wayside and I didn’t know anything about how to hold them. Matt and Heather showed me how, and I flubbed my way through the meal.

Actually, Heather helped me fish vegetables and meat from the boiling broth, and it was up to me to pick them up from my bowl, dip them in soy or peanut sauce, and get them to my mouth. It worked, and I didn’t starve, but I’m guessing most of the people in the restaurant just looked at me, rolled their eyes, and got a chuckle out of it. My area of the table was littered with bits of food and drops of sauce. It looked like some students just had a food fight in the cafeteria. I had Sake for the first time ever. I guess I’m enough of a hick to like wine or beer better, but it was good just the same.

Fast forward to today. I had an appointment at 8 AM at the UCSF Sports Medicine Clinic at Mission Bay. For those of you who have been here, It’s just South of the AT&T Ballpark. For those of you who haven’t, it’s way across town from where I am now. Matt took me down and told me how to get back. After my appointment, I walked East toward the bay, just like he said. I found the Muni platform and almost walked onto it when I realized that there is an outbound and inbound platform. I was headed for the outbound platform and would have been going down toward the airport. I walked down a little farther and saw a sign that said inbound.

Heather had given me a TransLink card that you prepay. It’s sort of like an I-Pass transponder that goes in your car so you don’t have to stop at all the toll booths in Chicago. I got on the next inbound train, showed the driver my card, and he pointed to his window, or so I thought. Matt told me to hold the chip next to the scanner and it would record the fee. I was searching all over the window by the driver and holding the card to everything that stuck out. He kept shaking his head and I finally realized it was on my left, not on my right by the driver. If I was overly sensitive, I would have thought that everyone was watching me and laughing inside. I guess I’ve been around the city enough to know that they were probably thinking either, “Ah, another tourist”, or “This is a great song on my Ipod. I wonder what I’ll have for lunch today”. Either way, I’m sure they couldn’t care less about my debacle.

Poker tonight. Jean may have to send me money to get home!

Just (Figuring Out How To Embarass Matt And Heather Next) Jack

It’s now Tuesday morning. We made it here last night at around 7:30 local time. A couple of things…after riding over 3,000 miles, I’ve decided I’m not getting in the car again to drive back. I’ve either moved here permanently, or I’ll sell the Jeep and fly back. I used to like my car, but I’ve come to hate it. My back was so sore yesterday from the constant “bouncing” in the car seat, and being in one position, that I forgot about the knee pain (until we unloaded the car). Matt’s girlfriend, Heather, is petite, and she carried more things than I did.

Matt called ahead, and Heather made appointments for massages today at 6:30. It’s about a block from Tommy’s Mexican Restaurant (best Margaritas in San Francisco), so I’m guessing we’ll stop by there afterwards. Matt tells me the massage place is definitely “no frills”, but they give great massages and it’s $35 for 70 minutes. He swears it’s not one of those “happy ending” massages, but when he was telling me that, Heather said “Oh! Yours wasn’t?” I guess I’ll find out tonight.

We has a great time on Halloween in Alberton, Montana. We stayed with John Wilcox and Annie Mead (both from Hastings), and they were excellent hosts. We made a trip to the local watering hole, met some really friendly people, then went back to the cabin for Elk burgers and homemade white chili. Good friends, good beer and excellent food. How much better can it get? I must have had altitude sickness ‘cuz in the morning I had a bad headache. It couldn’t have been the “tasters” at Big Sky Brewing and KettleHouse Brewing in Missoula, a couple of Coldsmoke Scotch Ales at The Sportsman, and a couple of half bottles back at John and Annie’s.

The next day we were off through the mountains. They are absolutely beautiful, but not easy to drive through. We had the car so full of beer from our various stops, plus our luggage, plus my bike and related gear, plus two guys that had eaten way too well (Matt and I…not hitch hikers), that the Jeep had to work hard on the uphills. I could almost see the gas gauge move lower on some of those five mile climbs. I noticed on one of the long downhills (not steep but long) there was a paved bike path on the other side of the freeway fence. Jean would have loved it!! Riding up, of course. We went through Couer D’Alene (sp), Idaho but didn’t stop to check out the Ironman course.

We got into Portland, Oregon around 4:30 after stopping at Full Sail Brewery in Hood River for some tasters and a light lunch. We met Matt’s friend Shannon Fuller (originally from Hastings), her friend Daryl (she grew up in Naples, Florida) and my cousin-in-law once removed, Tina Kimmey (Jean’s cousin Marlene’s daughter) at Horse Brass, a well known beer bar. Again, good friends, good beer and excellent food. I was not all that hungry since we stopped at Full Sail around 2:30. So I got Bread Pudding. You wouldn’t think that a Black Butte Porter and bread pudding would go together, but it did.

After no exercise for weeks due to the knee issue, too much food and no exercise for five days in the car, and tasting our way through all the good breweries along I-90, I feel a little bloated (the understatement of the year). When I look down I can’t see my shoes without leaning forward. So it’s off to the Diet Center and Betty Ford Clinic. Well, I’ll go after tonight at Tommy’s, the California State Homebrewers Competition on the 7th, a party at Aaron’s house on the 7th, and the Barrel Aged Beer Festival in Hayward on the 14th.

Just (Using Today To Recuperate) Jack

A couple of things after I sent last night’s e-mail…

First of all I forgot to mention a sign that we kept seeing in South Dakota. It was for Dicks Auto and Truck Service (or at least I think that’s what it was) and, on the sign, it said 24 HOUR TOE SERVICE. Really!!?? We laughed about it each time we saw it, but after I started thinking about it, I may have pre-judged what I saw. It could have been one of three things.

1) It could have been that Dick had his pre-school child help him with the ad copy and might have used crayons and construction paper.

2) It could have been a stroke of advertising genius. Spell a word incorrectly and people will not only remember it, but tell all their friends about it. If this is the case, it worked.

3) Dick could be a Podiatrist who lost his medical license due to Medicare fraud and resorted to auto and truck repair, the job that got him through med school, and actually does toe service on the side. Diane…want his number??

Some people find the toes erotic, and I suppose there’s an outside chance that he has a back room brothel where they do your toes for 24 hours. I think that idea has just a smidgen above zero possibility. Looking back at my younger, best days, 24 hours of anything isn’t even a remote possibility.

Secondly, the room and the shower in last night’s motel was much better. Although, the shower head was a little loose and squirted water everywhere until I tightened it. Also, it atomized the water, but kept it in the shower enclosure. The one negative thing was that the shower water created a slight vaccuum in the enclosure, so the shower curtain kept clinging to my wet body, which made it hard to lather up. For a couple of you, get your mind out of the gutter. We didn’t pick up any bimbos last night, so it’s the only thing that clung to my wet body!

Just (Getting Ready For Another Fun Day Of Driving) Jack

Just a short addendum to yesterday’s e-mail about the Walker Boys road trip. First of all, the motel room we got in Albert Lea had to be the smallest I’ve ever been in that had two beds. And secondly, it had the worst shower head I think I’ve ever seen. It squirted water in all directions, which was bad enough, but it atomized the water so that everything in the bathroom got wet. Matt said he was a pair of underpants short for the time we’ll be on the road (he’ll have to turn one pair inside out), and was almost two pair short after his shower. They may have been slightly humid, but not too wet to wear, or so he says.

If that wasn’t bad enough, I had the handle cranked over to full hot, and it was just a tad cooler than I like it. In order to rinse off after lathering up, you had to find the one spot in the middle that was gushing a gallon of water a second. I would say something like “You should have seen it”, but if I had been in there at the time, you would be calling your therapist and trying your best to erase the image from your brain.

We ran into a bit of snow as we crossed over from Minnesota to South Dakota. It wasn’t exactly a blizzard, but as close as you can get to the real thing. I couldn’t see anything as I passed semi-trucks with all the slush and water they were stirring up. We ran out of it close to noon, so the rest of the day we were just fighting the wind. We went through several areas where the snow was drifted along the sides of the road and was plowed into piles in some of the towns.

We stopped at a restaurant for lunch in a town called Murdo, South Dakota. It wasn’t much of a town, but the restaurant had quite a few locals so we figured it was OK. Matt and I both ordered Buffalo Burgers with fries. One plate came first so I gave it to Matt. The waitress said the other one would be up soon. Matt finished his entire sandwich and all his fries by the time mine came. Getting up and walking out was not an option. When they say “wide open spaces”, they mean just that. If you miss a meal or a gas station, the next one might be a hundred miles down the road, so I ate it. The burger was good…I couldn’t tell the difference between that and very lean ground beef.

With all the complaining, the views are starting to get spectacular. I know they’ll be even better tomorrow as we head into the Rockies, but the Badlands and the Black Hills in South Dakota are something to see. I saw my first small herd (10 to 15) of Pronghorn Antelope. I know that doesn’t mean anything to most of you, but I was excited.

I’m tired so I’m signing off for now. Can’t wait to go trick-or-treating tomorrow at The Sportsman in Alberton, Montana and Big Sky in Missoula.

Just (I Know I Have One Spot On My Body That Doesn’t Hurt But I Can’t Find It) Jack

I’ve been off the airwaves for a while, for no particular reason. But I’m back, at least for a while.

Many of you know that I’d been talking about spending three weeks or so in Northern California, searching the area to see if Jean and I would be interested in spending a month or so spring and/or fall. My thoughts were to drive out, stay across the Golden Gate Bridge in Marin County, and spend some time going from town to town checking things out. Many of you also know that Matt offered to fly back to Michigan, spend a week or so with family and friends, and ride back with me.

So that’s where we are…on our way to San Francisco. We got kind of a slow start. Without going into a lot of detail, we planned to leave at 2 PM yesterday, left Hastings at 3:45 (my fault), and had to stop at the cottage. We made it as far as Munster, Indiana which, luckily, is the home of Three Floyds Brewing Company (what a coincidence). We had dinner and maybe, just maybe, a beer or two, then called it a day.

We stayed at a motel near the expressway. When we took the exit, we drove about a mile down the road, so I thought to myself, at least we’re far enough from the road noise to get a good night’s sleep. Not so!! We turned to the right, made another quick right, and drove a mile back on the service road to I-94, I-80 and whatever other highways intersect there. We could have thrown a rock to the Eastbound lanes, and I thought Matt was going to do that this morning. The traffic never stops, and it was 99% “big rigs”. To say it was loud was an understatement. But the trials and tribulations don’t end there. We stayed at a Motel 6 and paid three extra dollars for Wi-Fi which did not work. I spent 15 minutes this morning getting the three dollars taken off my credit card.

When Motel 6 says in their ads “We’ll leave a light on for ya”, we didn’t think that meant right outside our window, shining through flimsy curtains. Between that light, Matt having to put his hat over my phone ‘cuz my phone light kept blinking, and having to put on his head phones on to drown out my snoring, he didn’t get much sleep. He hasn’t shot me yet, but if I disappear, check Matt’s luggage.

To help break up the trip, we drove to New Glarus Brewing Company near Madison, Wisconsin. We planned to get there by 10:30 but that didn’t happen. The Tom-Tom doesn’t like it when states change road names and addresses, so it took us to Madison, out to Verona, and told us we were at our destination as we passed the bike special needs area for Ironman Wisconsin. We had to drive 16 miles back South to get to the town and another mile South to the new brewery. We took the self-guided tour, Matt sampled a beer, and we bought around three cases to go. We had to unpack and repack the back of the Jeep to fit it all in. Many states have laws against bring beer into or out of the state, so we may be calling for bail money.

After leaving New Glarus, the quickest way to get back to I-90 is through Madison. Luckily we went right by Ale Asylum Brewing Company, so we stopped there for lunch. As it turned out, Ale asylum is less than a mile from where we stayed last month for Ironman Wisconsin.

Needless to say, we didn’t make much headway, so tomorrow is a full travel day. We’re spending the night in Albert Lea, Minnesota and will get into South Dakota a couple of hours into the drive tomorrow. It started raining when we left Madison and it rained on and off all the way here. The wind is blowing quite hard. Hopefully the storm that is going through will pass by us in the night and it won’t be bad tomorrow.

So I’ll sign off for now. I’m tired and my brain is working way below its normal 50% level.

Just (Bloated And Tired Of The Drive Already) Jack

I’m sure many of you know I went to Florida this past few days to see my Mother and Brother over Mother’s Day weekend. You probably think that the title means I had a good trip, and I did. We talked a lot about the “old days” and talked a lot about family, both living and not. We went out to eat at our favorite places and I even had my Mother going along to try and find a new beer bar on State Road 54 near the Suncoast toll road. We went through a bunch of boxes looking for Dad’s doctorate diploma and sorted through dozens of photo albums, but still couldn’t find it. We went to JD’s in Indian Rocks Beach on Sunday so Mom could get Chicago Style Oysters, one of her favorites. So we did have fun.

The title actually refers to my run last Thursday. I got to Florida on Wednesday and the weather was really warm, in the high eighties. I planned to run on Thursday, so I got up early and was out the door by 7 AM. I could go into a science lesson here, but some of you would soon lose interest and I’m sure all of you know anyway. But this time of the year, it gets light earlier and stays light later in Michigan than it does in Florida. But by 7 AM it was plenty light and I headed out the front gate of the condo complex. I waved to the guard at the gate and was headed for the public street when a girl came out of the house near the entrance, hopped in her car, and looked to be headed for work.

I was concerned that she might back out as I ran by, so I was watching to see if she did when, all of a sudden, I was on the asphalt skidding on my right knee, my stomach, and the palms of both hands. I didn’t see the speed bump, but it saw me. My water bottles went flying and skidding down the asphalt as well and I knew it wasn’t going to be good. You would think I would be concerned about possible injury, but the only two things going through my mind were 1) I’ll bet that guard is laughing so hard he’s fallen off his chair in the guard shack and 2) I bet when the Trilanders hear this they’ll be trying to stifle even bigger laughs. Many of our running group like to do a trail Marathon or Half Marathon over near Pinckney. They’ve asked me to come, but I don’t like trail running because I don’t see my feet very well. Almost all of them have fallen over tree roots at one time or another and I’ve kidded them about it, shaking my head, wondering why anyone in their right mind would do that race. This last time I told them I could think of better ways to get hurt and everyone got a chuckle.

I picked myself up, dusted off my hands which had been scrubbed raw, picked up my water bottles, and continued on the run. I could tell that my knee was bleeding a little, both hands were sore, and my right elbow and right shoulder had been jammed. By the time I got back, the sweat was running into the bleeding knee and it was starting to sting. I cleaned myself off as best as I could and took a shower to get the rest of the dirt and sweat off. Mom brought me some antibiotic ointment so I wouldn’t get an infection, and I didn’t do much (athletically) the rest of the day. By bedtime I was starting to hurt all over and the elbow and shoulder pain had crept up my neck. My left hand throbbed all night and I was more sore by morning (I knew I would be).

I’m pretty well healed up by now but my left hand isn’t quite right yet. The right elbow and shoulder pain were OK until I came home yesterday and had to carry my bags through the airports. As for the run, it was the same old story. Left hip was sore at three miles and I stretched it enough to finish four. On Sunday, I planned to run seven miles but was only able to do six. And that run was a three mile run, two minute stretch, one mile run, two minute stretch and a two mile run followed by a limp back to the condo. This getting old isn’t what it’s cracked up to be. Muncie Half Ironman is in eight and a half weeks and I’m not anywhere near where I should be in training. If things don’t drastically improve soon, I may drop down to either the AquaBike or the Sprint Triathlon and call it good.

The Sunday before I left for Florida, Becky and I picked a whole lot of dandelions for dandelion wine. We tried to pick off all the stems and I picked the petals from half the heads before I got tired. We poured in boiling water and soaked them for a couple of days. On Tuesday night, we cooked the juice, added the zest of four oranges, the juice of four oranges, and three pounds of sugar. We added yeast nutrient, yeast, and let it ferment while I was gone. It will be ready by December, so those of you who come to the 3rd annual beer, wine, and mead tasting party can try it. The stains from cleaning all those dandelion heads is just now coming out from under my fingernails. All that for a gallon of wine that we may not even like.

Just (Getting Ready To Put In The Dock At The Lake) Jack

If you actually read this drivel, and I know a couple of you have, you’ll remember me whining several times about my aches and pains. I guess everyone who trains for athletic events runs into some injuries from time to time, but it seems like I’ve run into more than my share. You can attribute my fragility (is that a word?) to being undertrained in the first place, doing more than I’m capable of doing, or any one of many other good reasons. But I really think a lot of it has to do with the way I’m built.

I have a lot to thank my parents and grandparents for, but athleticism isn’t one of those things. I can’t remember anyone on my Mother’s or Father’s sides of the family being athletic at all. Part of it was the era that many of them grew up in. Part of it was that women didn’t participate much in athletics for many reasons. But even if they weren’t involved in athletics, they would have passed on those natural instincts. Those things that make good athletes great are usually size, body composition and great hand/eye coordination. I have size but not height where I need it, and my body composition puts things in the wrong places. Plus, I have very little coordination of any kind (want to see me dance?).

I’ve always liked sports and have been active in many different things, but I’ve never really been what you would call “good” in any of them. I actually wrote a series of chapters in a book I call “I Am Not The Greatest”, a takeoff on Muhammad Ali’s claim “I Am The Greatest” throughout his boxing career. I chronicled my forays into many different sports from childhood on up through now. If I ever get over the fear of criticism, or I get arrogant enough to think that anyone would be interested, I may let a person other than me read it (it’s password protected).

Last fall it was plantar fasciitis. Recently it’s been my hip. When I run more than three or four miles, my left hip starts to hurt. I’ve laid the blame on old age and being overweight, and I’m sure that has a lot to do with it. After a crappy run on Wednesday, Jean and I rode the bikes on Thursday. It was a really nice day and the wind wasn’t blowing that hard (until we got out there), so we rode the time trial loop. From our condo it’s about 23 miles, so it wasn’t all that far for a third ride of the season.

I was fine on the way to Middleville, but as I got as far away from home as the ride would take me, my left hip started to hurt. It hasn’t done that on the bike…only when I run…until now. I got to squirming on the bike seat and just couldn’t get comfortable. I think I kinked my body to make it as comfortable as possible and that’s what strained my back (shades of Jean at the Hawaii Ironman). It’s muscular (back spasms) so it isn’t serious, but it’s really sore. I can’t get comfortable sitting, standing or laying down. If that wasn’t bad enough, I’ve fought with PVCs (premature ventricular contractions) for several years and they aren’t a serious problem, but they do cause me to tire easily. That, and turning into the wind that the weather channel said would be 5 mph but was actually 10-15 mph, and it made for a long ride back.

I think I’ve figured out that my brain, my muscles, my bones and my joints are all working against me. I think they’re sitting around drinking coffee, decaf of course, trying to decide what to torment me with next. Since I don’t have any natural ability, but I go out and do all these things anyway, they try to figure out what will make me stop and sit in a rocking chair like I should. A few years back they ganged up and made me take a couple of dives off the bike. After the third, and most serious mishap, they figured out that I wasn’t going to quit until I croaked, and that wouldn’t be in their best interest, so they gave up.

This past couple of years they’ve decided that the only way it will work is to keep throwing things at me, one right after the other, until I can’t take it any more. My only saving grace is that I have someone on the inside of the group as a spy. As much as my brain wants me to stop, it realizes that if I do, and I do sit in a rocking chair the rest of my life sampling homebrew, I will gain way too much weight and things will get worse. So “Brain-Jack” goes along with the other parts until I’m almost ready to throw in the towel, then eases up, thinking that, by doing that, I will get out of my long distance training and into a more sane lifestyle. Maybe I will, but I’m still signed up for The Muncie Endurathon Half Ironman, so I can’t back off yet.

Once my body realizes that I’ll walk that race if I have to, it may ease up the injuries to let me get through the race with a modicum of dignity…or not.

Just (Laying on A Tennis Ball To Loosen Up The Muscles) Jack

I went to the office and did our taxes yesterday. This has to be latest I’ve ever done them. For some reason I just couldn’t get fired up about taxes this year. Maybe, when you get older, you have lower levels of taxtosterone, so you just don’t get cranked up like you used to. At any rate, I wasn’t looking forward to it and I got a real surprise. Most would say surprised in a good way. As for me, I don’t like surprises, so I’m in a slight funk.

Without bragging or complaining, I’ve woked hard through the years, made more money than average, and paid a lot more taxes than average too. I knew that there had been some changes on how capital gains and dividends are taxed, and did expect some benefit. What I got astounded me. Again, without going into a lot of detail, much of my income is from capital gains. None of it was taxed at the federal level. My state taxes are higher than my federal taxes this year.

So how could I possibly be “surprised in a bad way”? I’ll tell you why (you knew I would). I believe we live in a great country. I grew up learning that if you work hard, you will make a good living. And if you make a good living, you have to pay taxes to help pay for all the benefits of being a United States citizen. We all grumble that we don’t get paid quite as much as we’re worth. And we grumble that we pay too much in taxes. But, deep down, we’re thankful we’re speaking English (or something that resembles English) and not Chinese, or Russian, or German or ________ (if I haven’t offended you yet with the ethnic slams, fill in the blank with your country of origin). It gives us the pride of living in a country where the fortunate will help the unfortunate, the wealthy will help the poor, and those who have bounty will feed the hungry who have nothing (I sound like a TV evangelist…send money, send money).

So if I believe all that I’ve just said, and I do, I should be concerned that I and others in my same circumstance aren’t shouldering our share of the load. I do understand that the decision to lower taxes on capital gains was done to stimulate investment in our capital markets, and I won’t second guess the economists as to motive. But in fairness, why should I pay less in taxes than a young couple with two children who make the same amount as we do? And not just a little less…a lot less. It’s just not right!

After having said all that, don’t expect me to send a few thousand in “voluntary taxes” to make things right so I can sleep at night. But I am sure I’ll send more money to charities this year. Probably not to political action committees and probably not to the “build the casino now” campaign.

I’ve had new carpet put in the hallways, master bedroom and stairs at the cottage. I’ve been trying to come up with some wallpaper for the end wall in the master bedroom that used to be red. But I can’t come up with anything that doesn’t look cheesy (even cheesier than red). So I think I’ll have Jean and Stacy Anderson help me pick out a color and I’ll paint it, again. I’m thinking about giving them my credit card and sending them to Grand Rapids to buy things to help decorate. The thing that holds me back is that it has an $18,000 credit line. Knowing the two of them, they may max it out and there goes the tax savings. The hungry and homeless are out…the shoppers are in.

Just (Earning Pluses To Offset Past And Future Minuses) Jack

I’ve been off the air waves for a time and have some catching up to do. Jean and I have talked with many of you about the New Orleans Mardi Gras trip and we joke about the “what happens in New Orleans stays in New Orleans” stories. But, actually, nothing happened there that I wouldn’t tell my own mother. She gets these e-mails so I’m telling the truth. I sent a link to the Trilanders about some pictures I posted on picasa and that link is http://picasaweb.google.com/justjack1946 . Many of the Trilanders’ e-mail systems didn’t include it as a link so they weren’t able to see the pictures. If it doesn’t come through in a different color and underlined, and when you click on it nothing happens, you can always copy and paste the link in your web browser window or type it in the space where you would type any other webside address. If you still have trouble, ask your kids for help.

As I look back at the pictures, son Matt isn’t in many of them. It wasn’t that he stayed away from me but he was often sitting next to me, so the pictures didn’t include him. The pictures from Europe had lots of pictures of Matt so, I guess, the girls and Rocky and Robert deserved some equal time. There are a couple of pictures I didn’t get that I wish I had. One was of Matt, Jean and I in Jean Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop. It’s a bar down Bourbon Street away from the chaos. I visited and spent some time there on my last trip to New Orleans in 1964. It really hadn’t changed all that much and it was much as I remembered it.

The second was at the Endymion parade. We were standing along Canal Street in the center island where the streetcars go. The crowd was about thirty people deep and we were about eight people back from the front fence. To our right, a guy had brought a stepladder, and his “heavier than average” girlfriend was up on the third step. We couldn’t see past her and right next to her was a lamp post so we couldn’t see past that either. A guy about 6’1″ was right in front of us and a short, young Asian girl came along and got on his shoulders. She was wearing a fairly short skirt, so six inches in front of my face were her underpants staring right back at me. I put my camera down on front of me as if I was going to take a picture, but I didn’t have it turned on.

She was quite self conscious and kept trying to cover her rear end, but it wasn’t working very well. She was wearing a sweater so Rocky’s girlfriend Nina suggested that she take it off and tie it around her waist. We told Nina she should mind her own business which got a big laugh from all the dirty old men standing around us.

The third, and the one I regret not getting the most, was at some random bar where we had lunch. A couple of nights before we had all gone out on Bourbon Street and the booze was flowing freely. Jean left at around 10:30 ‘cuz Robert had just gotten in and was on his way to the hotel. Before she left, she was ragging on Rocky for having a couple of shots with the other kids (although I think I had a shot of Jaegermeister and a “Red Headed Slu#”, whatever that is, so it wasn’t just the kids). I left a couple of hours later but the kids stayed until quite late. Rocky had a bad case of the brown bottle flu the next day (Friday) and vowed to never drink again. So when we stopped at the random bar for lunch on Saturday, he came walking out of the bar area into the back courtyard with what he said was a shot of vodka. He drank it right down saying he wanted to put the fire out and get back to having some fun. I looked over at Jean and she had a look on her face (shock and anger) that only a Mother can have. I knew it was water but Jean didn’t. Her eyes could have burned holes in Rocky’s shirt and I missed the picture. Where’s Judy when you need her?

With all the stories and the pictures, what really impressed us is that it was the first time in about six years that we had all the family together. It wasn’t cheap, but it was worth every penny. The kids all had fun together and caught up on each other rather quickly. After the first night, Jean and I were back in the hotel by 10 or 10:30 and the kids stayed out later. We’re already thinking about where the next family trip should be. It was never easy to get all nine of us together to do anything, but we did have a “family dinner” the last night we were there. Anna was the only casualty ‘cuz she can’t stand the smell of seafood and we went to a seafood restaurant. But she hung in there like a trouper and I don’t think she’s permanently scarred.

We didn’t run while we were in New Orleans but we walked about 10 miles a day, so I guess we got our exercise. I guess I missed a few things here in Hastings. You’ve heard me mention Diane before, and we know her as quite prim and proper. So I’m quite curious about the conversation down at the coffee house last Saturday that started out with one of the guys saying “So Diane, I know you like to go “au naturale”…” I’m quite shocked and want to hear more about the story.

Just (Having Visions Dancing Around In My Head) Jack