Last night was one of those perfect sleeping nights. The window was wide open to hear the slow steady rain. The temperature was chilly enough to appreciate the pile of blankets on the bed, plus the wife cuddled up beside me, not to mention the small fuzzy blanket stealer snuggled in behind my knees. But not so cold as to go into thermal shock when I had to crawl out from under the covers. It was one of those nights when you sleep so well that you feel really good when the alarm goes off, and you don't have any trouble getting up, although you'd really rather stay in bed for another four hours.

Too, too rare.

Posted by: Ted at 10:29 AM | category: Boring Stories
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1 :-) Nice.

Posted by: Jennifer at October 29, 2003 02:50 PM (zp3wt)

2 I've been having great nights like that up here, too. Still got my window (just above the bed) wide open. The mornings are cool but not cold; perfect after a long, warm repose. Looks, thankfully, like a mild winter a-comin'.

Posted by: Tuning Spork at October 30, 2003 03:41 AM (hkWOV)

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My Uncle Art loved baseball, and he passed that passion on to me. He'd take me to the schoolyard and hit grounders and fly balls for hours. On my birthday he'd take me to see the Giants or A's play. He had a small collection of world series games on cassette tapes that he'd made and let me listen to them. I loved going to his place, because he had his own copy of the Unabridged Baseball Encyclopedia, with the stats of every single player ever to play the game.

Once, he took me aside and told me that the next time my family went to visit Grandma and Grandpa (halfway across the country), that I should go look in the old barn. He described a spot on one wall and told me that whatever was there was mine if I wanted.

A year or so later, we made the long trip during the summer. We always drove, stopping in Reno and Cheyanne and Laramie, taking forever to cross the salt flats in Utah, and finally reaching the home stretch around Omaha, Nebraska. Then it was a whirlwind week of visiting Aunts and Uncles and cousins, catching fireflys, playing badminton and shooting BB rifles and playing in the same places my mom and dad did as kids.

One free afternoon I went out to the barn. It wasn't your classic barn structure, although it originally served the same purpose. Over the years it had become a garage and storage shed, and you could almost read the life story of my grandparents by sorting through the antique treasures inside. I opened the big sliding door and went in, picked my way along towards the spot my uncle had told me about, and there, next to a dusty window, I found them.

On the wall were baseball cards, tacked up years before by my uncle, almost like a little shrine to his favorite players and stars of the day. He had told me that if I wanted them that they were mine, and I did want them. But at the same time I kinda wanted to leave them there forever, to not disturb them for another who-knows-how-long, for another young baseball fan to find them and appreciate them. This was long before baseball cards became collectables and kids became investors who knew the difference between 'mint' and 'very good'.

Their value (or potential value) meant even less to the generation before mine. They were for collecting - for fun - and trading and sometimes clipping to your bike frame with a clothespin so they clattered in the spokes of the wheel as you rode along.

I knew most of the names, at least in passing. Harvey Kuenn and Rocky Colavito and Early Wynn, Ken Boyer (brother of Clete) and Carl Furillo and Al Kaline. There were more, eighteen in all.

I carefully took them down, and did the least damage I could doing so. But these cards were nailed up by a kid and the nails were rusty and the cards mere cardboard, so there was damage done. Once, out of curiousity, I showed them to a card collector, and he was actually angry at the condition of the cards. They were worthless, he told me.

He was full of shit.

Maybe to a collector they're worthless, but to me they're priceless. These were a gift from one generation of baseball fan to the next. They were a gift from my uncle, who I loved very much (he passed away, much too young, a few years ago). I appreciate them, not because they're rare or perfect, but because they are.

I'll post a few pictures of these cards in the next few days. I've got them in plastic sleeves, which makes it hard to take a good picture without glare. For now, there's a couple in the extended entry. more...

Posted by: Ted at 04:59 PM | category: Boring Stories
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1 Whoa!

That's really cool, Ted. (I hope some day my niece and nephews will appreciate my old hockey cards.)

Posted by: Nic at October 25, 2003 09:01 PM (FNHVL)

2 That was an excellent story. I'm glad you still have those.

Posted by: Dawn at October 25, 2003 11:51 PM (0zfIx)

3 Ted,

Take whatever the mint condition book value of those cards are and multiply it by ten or a hundred. Cards with great memories behind them are truly rare and precious. Be sure your kids know the stories before you pass them down.

Great Post.

Posted by: Kurt at October 26, 2003 03:51 AM (pfKfI)

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You guys are awesome! Victor commented about being called ‘sir’ the very first time, at the Bull and Finch in Boston (the television show ‘Cheers’ was based on this bar, but it really didn’t look anything like it). Truly inspirational, and it reminds me of another story. Like the druid tale, it meanders a bit, so once again I ask your indulgence...

In 1978, the legal drinking age in North Dakota was 18. The legal drinking age in Minnesota was 21. This wasn’t a problem as long as I stayed on my side of the state line. It became a problem because the best bars were on the Minnesota side of the line. In Grand Forks, North Dakota you had the Mr. Spud disco and that was about it. In East Grand Forks, Minnesota there were several nicer non-disco places to drink and meet girls. ‘Nicer’ is a relative term here, because it's not the cultural center of the universe. The NoDaks weren’t too fond of us basers either.

I was an Air Force Security Policeman, and as the old military saying goes, “young, dumb, and full of cum”. Definite emphasis on ‘dumb’, although the others certainly applied. Knowing that I’d get carded across the river, I needed some form of identification that would pass muster. I don’t remember exactly when I got the idea, but less than a minute’s work with an x-acto knife, and the date of birth on my California drivers license changed from 1959 to 1956. Score!

I used my altered license as ID for almost four years without problem, even having to hand it over to a Canadian policeman once when pulled over for speeding in Manitoba. One night my best friend and I went to buy beer, and out of habit I used my drivers license when carded. Things quickly went to hell when the worldÂ’s most observant 7-11 clerk detected my handiwork and called the cops. The true bitch of it was that I was 22 by this time and didnÂ’t even think about the license anymore.

Finally the policeman arrived, checked out the license, and invited me to get into his car. He asked me if I worked at the base (as if the haircut didn’t give it away). “Yeah,” I replied.

“What do you do at the base?”

Head hanging low, “I’m a cop.”

“Do you know Sgt. Thomas?”

I was a little puzzled by this question, but I admitted that yes, I knew Sgt. Thomas.

“So what do you think he’d say about this?”

Huh? Why would Sgt. Thomas care at all... and it dawned on me that his Sgt. Thomas isnÂ’t the same Sgt. Thomas I knew. Something like one in three people at the base were cops of one type or another, and Thomas isnÂ’t an uncommon name. My answer was obvious.

“He would be very disappointed, officer.”

So I got a stern talking to, and he confiscated my drivers license. That wasn’t a major problem, because I was of legal age and my military ID sufficed. In other words, I didn’t bother to get another license for about 6 months. Then I got orders to report to Mississippi for computer school. Driving across country (in the short direction) without a license wouldn’t do, so I went down and applied for a new North Dakota license. They got a kick out of California boy missing every ‘winter’ question on the test, but I did well enough to pass. Piece of paper in hand, the new license would be coming in the mail in a week or so.

Except it didnÂ’t. I was ok for the trip because of my DMV paper, and I figured that the license was in the mail somewhere catching up to my change of address. One day I got a notice telling me that I could stop by the DMV to get my picture taken, but the appointment was for about a week previous. I wrote back and explained that I was in Mississippi and couldnÂ’t come in for a picture. They sent back a nice letter apologizing for the short notice last time and scheduled me for another picture appointment, this time about a month ahead. It was comical. Once again I wrote back and informed them that I wasnÂ’t going to return to North Dakota. Since IÂ’d already paid for my license, I asked them to refund my money and IÂ’d go ahead and get a Mississippi license.

Two weeks later I got my North Dakota license, and man it was a beauty! Heavily laminated (tamper-proof), there was big bold lettering on the front where the picture would normally be that said ‘VALID WITHOUT PHOTO OR SIGNATURE”. The back had a big banner stating “90 Day Temporary License”, which wasn’t entirely accurate. North Dakota law says that military personnel can use a temporary license until they return to the state to get their permanent version.

I used my 90-day temporary license (without photo or signature) for nine years as valid ID. Most people would do a double-take, but accept it, and very occasionally I would be asked for a second ID, which is when I would produce my military ID card. It took a while to get my new Maryland license when I got out of the military because I no longer had a military ID, and the only things I could show was my North Dakota license and my European drivers license, neither of which had photo or signature. Both valid and perfectly good while managing to be utterly worthless as positive ID.

Back to the Bull and Finch. We were in Boston for a week of training, and we wanted to do some sightseeing, including the ‘Cheers’ bar. When we tried to get in, the bouncer wouldn’t let me enter because I didn’t have a picture on my license, and he wouldn’t accept our Military ID’s as valid. He wanted to see drivers licenses and that was all he’d take (time to make the donuts). We finally raised so much hell at the entrance that nobody could get in or out and they threatened to call the cops. I wanted that too, until the manager came out and pulled the bouncer’s head out of his ass.

The bar was a huge letdown. Sgt. Thomas would have been very disappointed.

Posted by: Ted at 08:46 AM | category: Boring Stories
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The flea talks about the Salisbury plain, home of Stonehenge, Avebury and other ancient wonders. IÂ’ve had a fascination with this area ever since discovering a copy of Stonehenge Decoded on my uncleÂ’s bookshelf as a youngster. Too young to understand most of it at first, I could nevertheless sense the romantic mystery of the region. Over the years, I read and reread that book countless times, and checked out everything I could find on Stonehenge in the library.

Common knowledge holds that the druids were the builders of Stonehenge, who held blood soaked rituals involving human sacrifice on the site. As usual, common knowledge has it completely wrong.

Stonehenge as we know it is merely the remnants of a construction that evolved over a long period of time, and was added to, subtracted from, and heavily modified by various peoples along the way. Although the best known of the features in that region today, the entire Salisbury plain is positively littered with archeological treasures and mysteries.

As for the druids, they werenÂ’t so much a civilization as a sort of combination civil service and learned class, performing functions as healers, spiritual guides, accountants and judges. There is absolutely no evidence that they performed human sacrifice. Stonehenge also predates the druids by several centuries.

My long interest in Stonehenge led to my ‘fifteen minutes of fame’, and since the story also involves Halloween, it seems a good time to tell the tale. It requires some setup and meanders a little along the way, so bear with me.

In the late seventies, I was stationed in Grand Forks, North Dakota, serving as an Air Force Security Policeman. The Soviet Union had just invaded Afghanistan, and rumors were running wild that Uncle Sam was going to get involved. After work one day a clipboard was handed around and we were told to list our personal information for dog tags. Name, serial number, date of birth, blood type, and the last column listed “BAP” by the first several guys to fill out the roster. Thinking it meant ‘baptized’, I just put the little ditto marks under the ones above and forgot about it.

When the dog tags arrived, I learned that my religion was listed as Baptist (you saw that coming, didn’t you?). Any inaccuracies were to be reported, so I told my Sergeant that they had the religion wrong. I didn’t tell him that I was an idiot. When he asked what religion I wanted listed, I told him ‘nothing’. He asked me to reconsider, his reasoning being that having a religion listed could conceivably be a good thing if worse came to worse. I didn’t agree, but not wanting to argue the point I told the sergeant to put down the first thing that came to my mind - druid.

It became a pretty good conversation starter, being an official druid. Official, as far as Uncle Sam was concerned. Over the next several years, I would get the occasional survey form (this was the early days of ‘diversity awareness’), apparently looking for the druid viewpoint on issues. I assume Devil worshippers, Wiccans, animists and other pagans all got the same mailings. Since I wore the tag, I did some reading and learned a bit about what druidry was and is.

My next assignment was Montgomery, Alabama – heart of the Bible (thumping) Belt. I’d since acquired cross-training into the computer career field and a wife (I still have both as a matter of fact). Working at my desk one October morning, I was listening to a local radio station where the DJ was taking callers, most of who were rabidly anti-Halloween because of its ‘devil worshipping’ connotations.

Finally one caller managed to push my buttons. Among the yadda yadda about paganism and Halloween, he claimed that Great Britain was collectively going to hell because they weren’t Christian (read ‘Baptist’) and that Druids sacrificed humans at Stonehenge.

I called the radio station and talked to the DJ. Not a local boy, he was loving the nuts calling in for their comedic value. I gave him my rebuttal about druids and Stonehenge, and he asked me if I would go on air with it. I agreed and did my thing, staying on the line afterwards at the request of the DJ. Talk about stuff hitting the fan! For the next two hours, I became a most inexpert on-air expert, arguing my points after every four of five callers screaming for my sacrilegious hide. Eventually word got around at work that I was on the radio, and people started coming by to see me. When my commander dropped in, I wrapped it up and got back to work.

I consider myself a lapsed druid nowadays.

Posted by: Ted at 05:35 AM | category: Boring Stories
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1 Have you been to Stonehenge? Strange place. They give you these listening devices that provide a "walking tour". Upon arrival in the parking lot from the bus, it just looks like masses of people on cell phones walking around Stonehenge in a drugged way. Creepy.

Posted by: Helen at October 14, 2003 11:27 AM (ADrg6)

2 Never been myself, although it's one of my two dream vacations. I think there's a new effort to reduce the modern footprint around the site. If I remember correctly, they want to limit the number of visitors and even want to put the nearest road underground in the vicinity.

I'd probably be one of those walking around in awe, looking creepy. I'd love to spend a night there.

Posted by: Ted at October 14, 2003 12:14 PM (bov8n)

3 My wife and I went there in '80 or thereabouts. We walked from the village of Amesbury to the site. A pleasant approach because the road winds and rises and falls, so that every time you crest another hill, you're a little closer. It was almost like we discovered it. When we arrived, we didn't even bother with the tour. We just looked at it a while and walked back to Amesbury in time for a nice pub dinner.

In summer '02, we returned to Britain with our two teenage sons for a walking holiday in Wales. We spent 3 weeks hiking various trails, including ascents of Sugarloaf, the Blorenge, and Snowdon. On the way back we spent one night in Salisbury and took the bus to Stonehenge. Interesting, but kind of anticlimatic after all the castles and ruins we'd visited in Wales.

Still, a very cool place. Some rock band should figure out how to incorporate a scale model stonehenge into their show :}

By the way, there's a 1/3 scale model of stonehenge at the University of Missouri at Rolla. There are some problems with scale and with latitude differences, but it's also a very cool place.

Posted by: chris hall at October 15, 2003 05:32 PM (zH1Gw)

4 As an alternative to Stonehenge, check out the Avebury stone circle. Few people around (in October, at least), no fences. In the same area of England as Stonehenge, near Newbury.

Posted by: jessy at February 26, 2005 08:11 AM (us3EW)

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I've added a couple of pictures in the extended entry to "Sometimes words just aren't enough".

Posted by: Ted at 01:38 PM | category: Boring Stories
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(Serenity - warning, paooki story)

This morning we did fall cleaning on the bedrooms, and all the pillows and bed linens and rugs were hauled downstairs for washing, which is my job.

Mookie came upstairs at one point and mentioned a "big ol' giant" spider hanging from the ceiling in the basement. I was busy doing something at the time and it didn't really register.

I made a couple of trips downstairs to rotate the washer and dryer without even thinking about the "big ol' giant" spider. Then, coming out of the basement with a stack of folded blankets, I finally saw Mookie's spider. I almost swallowed my tongue and dropped the laundry when I noticed it, because it was indeed hanging from the ceiling. Specifically, it was sitting in the middle of a web about two feet across stretched between a chair and the ceiling, about four feet off the floor.

I've admitted that I'm extremely arachnophobic, and Mookie is probably almost as bad. That's why I'm impressed with her description of "big ol' giant" spider, which showed great restraint and maturity. In contrast, my description was loud, obscene, contained many more words (several which rhymed somewhat with 'truck') and was accompanied by a cry of fright. Yeah, I screamed like a girl.

Let me describe the spider. This wasn't one of those bulky hairy things that look like an overdeveloped weightlifter denizen of spider-hell. Nope, this was one of those alien hard-shelled beasties with little a huge bloated abdomen and long slender legs. Did I mention that this paook's body was an inch across, and the legs added another inch all around. This was one huge freaking spider!

Ok, now I'm bigger, smarter, and in my instant adrenalin rush (flee or fight) I realize that I have access to a basement full of household chemicals. After making sure that the spider wasn't going anywhere, I retreated to find something that the military would describe as 'nerve-agent, aerosol'.

Selecting a nice spray can of gloss-coat (he died, but had a beautiful finish - old joke) and a piece of cardboard to catch the overspray, I sealed that paook with a nice long burst. Then I reversed the cardboard and spraycan and did his other side, just for good measure. The spider curled up a little bit and tried to retreat but was rather quickly overcome. Because of the glossy spray, I could see just how extensive (and beautiful) the web really was. I went for a broom and swept up the web and spider, and took it out back to get rid of it.

I wasn't ready for the little ReAnimator moment that came next. This spider came back to life and scrambled up the fence, startling me all over again. Then it crawled into a crack and disappeared. I gave the crack a shot of clearcoat, more for myself than for him.

Update: The extended entry now has two pictures of the paook taken before I sprayed it. I wasn't sure if they would come out, so I didn't mention them before. The first is a closeup, the second is farther away to give some context to the size of it and its web (the paooki is just low right of center, the web stretches beyond the top of the picture if you look closely). more...

Posted by: Ted at 05:12 PM | category: Boring Stories
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1 At the take-the-carcass-outside point, this is when I usually set them on fire... just to make sure.
And because I LIKE it.
Fire pretty.

Posted by: LeeAnn at October 12, 2003 06:47 PM (HxCeX)

2 Ewwww.

Posted by: Jennifer at October 12, 2003 11:36 PM (rZmE1)

3 Geez, Louise. You people are in trouble if God has eight legs.

Posted by: Victor at October 13, 2003 10:22 AM (L3qPK)

4 That's not a spider--that's a freakin' monster!

Posted by: Susie at October 13, 2003 02:25 PM (0+cMc)

5 Thats my thinking Susie

Posted by: Mookie at October 13, 2003 05:56 PM (2sKfR)

6 Between Bill Cimino getting a gun and your monster spiders...I'll stay safely out of Virginia, thankyouverymuch.

Posted by: Jennifer at October 13, 2003 06:02 PM (rZmE1)

7 Wow! OK, OK...I'm by no means an arachnophobe, I'll get that out of my system now. I'm more wowed by the pics. That's one impressively-proportioned arachnid!
I can see where it would scare the living daylights out of my arachnophobe friends...Serenity would have probably sprayed an entire can of Raid on the thing! ;-)

--TwoDragons

Posted by: TwoDragons at October 13, 2003 07:43 PM (4d5iT)

8 Man, she was beautiful!

Posted by: Victor at October 14, 2003 12:21 PM (FNHVL)

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Bill, Paul, BlackFive and others have been talking about drinking stories. Thanks for the inspiration guys, hereÂ’s my take on it.

Got a favorite drinking game? Quarters comes immediately to mind for a lot of people, and there was a board game whose name IÂ’ve forgotten. It was in a bright pink Monopoly-sized box, and it seems that everyone bought it at Spencers in the mall.

Then there were the group participation games, keyed to a television show or movie. A local favorite was Chug Boat, where each player took a Love Boat character and each time your character appeared on screen you took a drink of your beer. When three or more characters appeared together, those players had to chug the remainder of their beers, and when the whole crew showed up together, everyone chugged a full beer. A variation was "Oh, Bob" using the Bob Newhart Show.

For those living at 78rpm in a 33 1/3 world, try the same game watching the movie Clue.

Nothing like a game of Guts Checkers to get roasted in a hurry. Each checker is a shot glass, dark liquor on one side, light on the other. Twelve shots if you clear the board. Being a wuss (highly recommended) meant you used mixed drinks instead of straight shots. This had the advantage of letting you play more than one game before the world went away. Screwdrivers vs. Vodka Sevens works well, but any contrasting drinks will do.

Feeling cerebral? Try Shot Glass Chess. Many suggested variations too.

Up in the Great White North, where winter runs from September to June, drinking is practiced often and continuously. The drinking game of choice is Chug Hockey, played with a deck of cards. Chug Hockey is the penultimate drinking game because itÂ’s simple and quick playing. Hands last all of about, oh, thirty seconds, and the loser of a hand immediately downs a shot. Two people will get thoroughly trashed in twenty minutes on as little as two six-packs, and have fun doing it.

Here’s the rules. Deal three cards to each player, stack the rest of the deck in the middle of the table. Turn over the first card from the stack. Players take turns laying down their cards and add the numbers to the total. So, for instance, a five is showing and you lay down a seven, you call ‘twelve’. The next player lays down a queen, calling ‘twenty two’, and so on. You take another card from the stack so that you always have three cards in your hand (and if you forget, oh well). The idea is to stay under 99. Simple, eh? Suits don’t matter, and aces are ‘1’. There are a few special cards. A ‘4’ reverses the order of who plays. A ‘9’ is a free card and doesn’t add to the total. A ‘10’ subtracts ten from the total. And finally, the King means the total is automatically 99. That’s it!

If more than two people are playing you can go quite a while without having to drink, which occasionally leads you to intentionally losing just so you can wet your whistle. It also leads into a drinking story.

My wife and I once had the best babysitter in the world. One night we had a party at our place, and our babysitter was invited to, well, babysit while the adults partied. She brought along her new boyfriend, a young military kid full of attitude and the ability to make people immediately dislike him.

We decided to play some Chug Hockey. There were eight of us sitting around the table to play, including boyfriend. We explained the rules and he understood them soon enough. ItÂ’s wasnÂ’t long before the babysitter came in and saw what was going on. She just rolled her eyes and walked back out, because weÂ’d already told her that her boyfriend was a dick, and she knew what was coming.

It didn’t take long before he was buzzed enough to be distracted (here, have another shot). A short time later we were stacking the deck right in front of him before we dealt (wow, another shot for loser boy). When he was almost comatose, we decided to add insult to injury and played three hands in a row where the loser had to eat a raw egg. Wanna guess who got ‘em all? When he passed out, we dragged him outside and let him sleep it off on the grass. We had a great babysitter, but she had lousy taste in boyfriends.

Posted by: Ted at 08:38 AM | category: Boring Stories
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