Family matters...

I used to really enjoy Valentines Day when I was a kid. At my school, it was like a class project. Everybody gave (almost) everybody a little valentine card or some of those heart-shaped candies. Even boys gave each other valentines. It wasn't a "homo" thing as we used to say, it was just a sign of friendship, that's all. But I really liked getting valentines from the girls. I was so homely, they mostly didn't play with or even talk to me, but they'd still give me a card, and it was always a thrill when they did.

When I got to sixth grade, though, I decided to Go Big with one girl in particular. I thought she was really something, so I talked my mom into taking me to See's Candies and buying one of those heart-shaped boxes of chocolates, like grownups gave to the special ladies in their lives.

Then V-Day came and while everyone else was exchanging cards, I walked up to the girl and gave her my heart. I don't remember the exact moment, probably because I was so nervous I couldn't even look her in the eye and could barely mumble whatever it was I had prepared myself to say. But I do remember it made her happy, so I considered my big play to have been a success... at least for a few seconds.

Then, disaster struck. From the other side of the classroom, handsome Jeff Fisher walked over and gave her an even BIGGER See's Candy heart! I couldn't believe it. If I were a cartoon character, you could have seen and heard my jaw drop and hit the floor with a loud "CLANG!" when this other boy one-upped me. (And yes, even at that age, I was able to grasp the simple concept of "size matters.") 😉 From triumph to humiliating defeat in less than a minute. So yeah, perhaps needless to say, that was a moment and a lesson I never forgot.

But all was not lost! A couple of days later, I received a very gracious note from the girl, thanking me for the candy. I showed it to my mom, and she put it in my "baby book" as a memento, along with one of the notes I wrote to put on the box. (I guess I didn't consider my writing on this one to be perfect enough, so I tore it up and wrote another.)





Anyway, that was my most memorable Valentines Day! And it turned out all was well that ended well. Tracey was never my actual girlfriend, but she was nice to me all the rest of the years we were in school together, and she was even my neighbor up the street for a while. I was happy to see her at our 40-year reunion in 2012, too. She'd barely aged a day, and still had that smile that was as big and beautiful as the day was bright. 😃


Our class picture from 1965-66. Tracey is the tallest girl in the back. I'm the buck-toothed bespectacled boy two rows down in the blue checked shirt. And my rival Jeff Fisher is in the front on the far right.

So Happy Valentines Day everyone! I hope you liked my story. ❤️

 

14 September 1969

This was the last day of the most amazing summer of my young life. Tomorrow would begin my sophomore year in high school, and I would leave carefree boyhood behind me once and for all.

While not the longest in terms of the actual number of days, this summer seemed longer than others, and it was certainly the most eventful – my epic 7 weeks in Europe (I'd never again leave home for so long), men landing on the moon (which to me represented the hope of man's future), the cultural phenom of Woodstock (which supposedly 'defined' my generation, whatever that meant) – and it ended with my father's friend, Arnie Morrow, giving me his prosumer Canon 35mm camera, which kick-started my hobby of photography, and with which I took this self-portrait almost exactly 50 years ago today.



I didn't realize it then, but no summer vacation after 1969 would ever be quite as awesome. Future summers would be spent working, not traveling. And summer breaks in college were definitely shorter than those glorious three months off we got in high school. And after college, of course, no more regular summer time off at all.

So the end of summer in 1969 wasn't just the end of a vacation. It really was the official end of my childhood. My life – and the world in general – did nothing but get ever-more complicated from then on.

 

Another trivial anniversary. :) 50 years ago today, I won First Place in the West Covina novice tennis tournament! It was the only time in my life that I won an individual sports competition.

Here's a photo of me taken the morning of my match, and another showing my First Place trophy, which I still keep in a place of honor today.







Unfortunately, I also made an enemy that day. I slaughtered a kid named Brian Shapiro in our opening round set. I mean I really humiliated him. (I remember I won the first game with four straight aces; he never even got the racket on the ball.) He apparently thought he'd make mincemeat out of the skinny kid, but it was the other way around. Anyway, I'd never met him before that, but less than a month later, we were both freshmen at South Hills, and he got back at me by becoming a real bully. I could never avoid him, either, because through all 4 years at SHHS, he had the locker directly below mine. In his own way, he made me regret that I ever entered that tennis tournament.

I hated being bullied, of course (not just by Brian, but by a bunch of guys, all through junior and senior high), but it was just verbal harassment, nothing physical. No one ever beat me up or anything. And I did learn to take it, so it kind of made me stronger. Life isn't a bowl of cherries, after all. People are going to come after you no matter what, so you better deal with it, and I did. :)

 

I obviously fail as a Californian. :)

I know I don't use my car much, but until I kept track of exactly how many times I drove last year, I didn't realize just how little time I spend behind the wheel (or how much time I spend at home).

Turns out I used my car only 125 times in 2017, which is basically once every 3 days.

Also, last year, I only used 84 gallons of gas, which cost a total of $237.65. (Avg. $19.80/month on a $20/month gas budget.)

I didn't keep precise track of my mileage, but I know my car gets roughly 21 miles/gallon, so using 84 gallons works out to approx. 1,750 miles traveled in 2017.

1,750 miles divided by 125 = 14 miles round-trip on average.

Farthest distance I drove from home: 18.5 miles (the mall, which is a 37-mile round-trip).

I paid $1,600 for my car 8 years ago. (Cost of ownership: $200/year.)

No repairs at all in 2017. (For a 25-year-old 'beater', my Volvo 240 is a -very- reliable car.)

One oil change: $40.
Two new tires: $185.
Total maintenance: $225.

Insurance: $245. (Basically $2 to the insurance company every time my car leaves the garage. Ridiculous!)

Registration: $135. (Going up $25 in 2018, I understand, for a car my age.)

So, all tolled, excluding the per-year cost of what I paid for it originally, operating my car cost me $842.65 last year, or $2.30 per day. :)

Finally, it takes me about 2 hours on average to do my chores, so 125 x 2 means I was out in the world about 250 hours give-or-take in 2017, and with 8760 hours in a year, that translates to being at home about 97% of the time: a fact I'm sure my dogs appreciate. :)

 

Well, it's been 50 years now since "the happiest night of my life."* For Halloween, 1967, me and my best friend, Richard Rudolph, staged a "House of Horrors" where we scared the daylights out of at least two dozen groups of trick-or-treaters. The previous Halloween, a mutual friend of ours had put on his own "Haunted House"-type thing which was a huge success, so we decided to do one of our own the next year.

First, we rigged up Rich's front door so it would appear to open all by itself. Then, a shrunken head would drop down and swing back and forth in the doorway, right in front of people's faces! That was good for some really great shrieks from the girls! Then we had this tape recorded message that boomed out, "Wel-come... to... the... House...... OF....... HORRORS!", followed by the sound of maniacal kid laughter played at half-speed. It was actually pretty scary sounding! Then, when the trick-or-treaters approached the candy bowl, another tape message said, "You have desecrated the spirit of the candy bar! NOW... YOU... MUST... DIE!!!!" At that point, most kids just ran away, forgetting all about the candy. Rich and I laughed at the end because the candy bowl was almost as full then as it had been when we started out.

My only disappointment about that night was that I had previously asked my dad if we could borrow one of his caskets to use as a prop. We wanted to put it in Rich's garage with one of us inside, and we'd raise the lid and sit up like we'd risen from the dead. But Dad said no. "It would be unethical," he said. I felt really gypped that he didn't want to go along with our plans, but as it turned out, we had more fun than we could handle with the other pranks we thought up.

I loved Halloween back then, but I haven't celebrated it at all as an adult. I know a lot of grownups like to dress up and party, but I think it really is meant to be a special time for kids. So tonight, the front gate will be locked and the porch light turned off. No trick-or-treating here. It's not that I'm mean or anything, I just don't think it's appropriate for a single man living by himself to interact with other people's children. If I had kids of my own, it might be different, but things being as they are, I think it's just better to sit the whole thing out. Or sleep through it. I do kind of feel like taking a nap right now...

-----

*At least it was my happiest up 'til that age. The happiest DAY of my life had been my last day of primary school, the year before. I was in the same school for all of K-6, and it seemed like it took forever to get out of that place. I didn't care that there were six more years to go before I got out of school altogether, I was just exhilarated that I was going on to junior high and I wasn't a 'little kid' in primary school anymore!

Remembering my father on the day of his birth, 102 years ago.


First portrait, c.1920.

 

Last portrait of him and me together, March, 1985.

I miss you so much, Dad–every single day–and I'll love you always...

–Scott

 

Before we begin, some introductions are in order.

 

There is definitely something wrong with my throat.

Swallowing is malfunctioning. Sometimes I have to swallow two or three times for the process to complete. There's almost always food stuck there after a meal, too, and I can't dislodge it, even by drinking water. The food just stays stuck in my throat. Sometimes a piece of dinner is still there when I go to bed at night.

I'm also hoarse a lot, and clearing my throat constantly, like two or three times a minute. There's always mucus around my vocal cords, and it's pernicious. Coughing, throat clearing doesn't work – I just can't get rid of the stuff.

The heart is also extremely erratic sometimes, and my feet ballooned up with edema two days in a row last week, so from now on I'm going to sleep with my feet elevated.

My weight loss continues, too. I now weigh only 159-1/2 (I'm 6'0" tall). I haven't weighed in the 150s since I was in high school. I'm down 58 pounds now from my maximum adult weight in the late 1990s.

And so it begins. I don't really give a shit, though. Everybody's gotta die of something, sooner or later. Sooner suits me just fine at this point.

 

I got to ride Angels Flight again on my recent trip to Los Angeles. It was the first time I'd been a passenger on the old funicular railroad in almost 50 years.




Here are two videos I took during my visit there. Going up, and going down!

It's actually a fairly rough ride! When the cars are in motion, you really feel like you're riding in an early 20th century rail conveyance.

Here are a few more photos of Angels Flight (which was built in 1901) in its 21st century context...

( +4, small file sizes. )

Hope you enjoyed the ride! It's much more fun doing it in person, though. ^^