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-Gramps-

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Blog Entries posted by -Gramps-

  1. -Gramps-

    Appreciation

    By -Gramps-,

    Well it is another new year. I am sure that we all hope it will be a good one. This last one was a bit tough for my shrinking household. We lost a grandson, my wife lost her mother, our son moved out on his own (well that is a bittersweet thing). However, there were a lot of things that happened, friends we made, places we visited, and memories that were created this last year that allows me to appreciate 2011. One thing is for sure, I sill enjoy being a part of the motor coaching community. No depreciation there!
    I am working on an idea for my first big blog entry of the new year, which should be posted later today I hope. But the Christmas decorations have to packed away first. So until I can get words down on electronic paper maybe you will find this entry from a year ago worth reading or reading again.
    http://community.fmc...9-depreciation/
  2. -Gramps-

    At Rest.

    By -Gramps-,

    Nickolas is gone to the place where good dogs go. His life on this earth ended just the way he wanted it to end.
    In memory of him I reprise these words:
    The Human Whisperer
    Nickolas, the family pupster here!
    I asked Dad if he would let me post again. Last time, I hijacked his blog and posted on the sly. This time he said okay.
    I wanted to leave him and Mom a note. They may need what I write here one day.
    I am almost 85 years old now, in relative terms, and so I can say that chances are I have a little bit of time left, but only a little.
    I don't worry about the end of my life. Mom and Dad do that for me. They comment on how white my face is compared to how it used to look. They talk about how slow I am to get up from my nap in front of the TV. They don't like for me to wear myself out going up and down the coach steps.
    They concern themselves with how hot I am, because I pant a lot. Mom bought me this slick blue water-filled pad to help keep me cool. I am not crazy about it but I sleep on it, and that makes her feel better even if it doesn't do much for me.
    They really worry about a tumor that is growing on my left side. They talk about how much they hope it isn't cancer, but if it is, what they can do about it?
    Mom and Dad, especially Dad, could stand to learn a bit about life from me.
    Like I said, I don't worry. I don't worry about that lump or much of anything else.
    I don't give much thought to the squirrels that I can't chase around the back yard anymore. Actually, I never worried about them when I was younger, either. The moment one takes off up a tree, that's it for me. I find something else to think about-like breakfast.
    I can say for sure that life is far too short to spend time worrying about anything, except dinner.
    I love both of my people a lot. They have always given me a good life. I still have a good life even if things are changing. I can't hear much of anything anymore. I used to hear the brakes on Dad's old truck three blocks away. Mom was always amazed when I went to the door to wait for him, long before he pulled up in front of the house. Now I am sometimes surprised by him at the door instead of the other way around. But that is okay. I still follow him to his office desk, furiously wagging my tail, and he never fails to give my back a good scratch.
    Sometimes Dad is so tense when he gets home at the end of the day. I know it is my job to do something to help him, so giving the dog a good back scratching does as much, if not more, for Dad as it does for me.
    There was a time when Dad and Mom were saying something about Dad having a kidney stone. Dad was in pretty bad shape. I saw him on his knees next to his bed. He was sweating and moaning. The pain was so intense that Dad was starting to panic. I jumped up on the bed to be near him. I kissed his nose and then lay down.
    He put his hands on me and buried his face in my side. I did what I was supposed to do, I soaked up his pain. It took a little while but Dad calmed down and I could sense that he started to feel a bit better. I usually stick close to Mom, but Dad needed me, so I stayed right there with him for the rest of the day.
    During our last trip out in our coach (I like to call it the Bus) Mom and Dad watched this movie about a person who helps to heal horses. This person is called a horse whisperer. Dad says that I am a Human Whisperer. I am not sure what that means, but if being a Human Whisperer means being there for my people, reminding them that life should be lived mostly in the present and that love and kindness are what keeps us going, then that is what I am.
    I love my people. They are like gods to me. They are bigger and stronger than me and I trust them to look after me. I hope my love for them is a reminder that there is a greater power that is stronger and bigger than they are who loves them, too. I think it does.
    Many years ago we were on a camping trip, in a tent; this was before we got our fancy bus. It was a beautiful fall day and Dad grilled T-bone steaks for their dinner. The smell was great. I knew that they would share the best part of these wonderful smelling things with me.
    They would give me the bones.
    I was so excited to get one. Dad looked at me, happily chomping away, and then he looked at the mountains around us and the woods with all its bright colors.
    "This is just a bone", he said.
    "What?" Mom asked. "What are you talking about?"
    "This life and this world is just a bone" Dad said. "This is just a taste of what God has in store for those who love Him. We should learn to love life and Him more."
    When the end of my life finally comes, just before I take my last nap, I hope the last thing I see is the love for me in the eyes of my people. I hope the last thing I feel is my Mom rubbing my head and my Dad scratching my back. I hope the last thing I do for them is to whisper that I love them and that life is good, keep on living it well, and thanks for giving me such a good one.
  3. -Gramps-
    According to my outdoor wireless thermometer it is currently 43 degrees Fahrenheit. I am sitting comfortably in my motorcoach listening to two things ... a worship CD and the intermittent sound of ice falling inside the fridge. I am defrosting and so is the fridge. As you may have gathered from my previous blog entries, or lack thereof, I have been pretty much frozen in place at home maintaining my business. Our coach has just been sitting waiting for us to come back to it.
    This last Tuesday we finally made it back home to Deer Creek Motorcoach Resort (the One in Galax Virginia!).
    The moment the automatic gate started to open and I had an unimpaired view of the hills, my heart started to melt. We unpacked the over packed car and hauled all our stuff into the coach. The first thing on our list (after putting out the slide outs and water connections and such) was to move all the stuff in the cooler to the refrigerator. I opened it and all the bottles of water and Arizona iced tea that had been in there since July 15th were frozen solid. I didn't want to deal with this right now so I loaded it up and placed some containers of hot water under the coils in order remove some of the ice that had built up around them. Once that was done, and all our other items were put away we headed out the door to explore our home away from home and more importantly to see our friends.
    The place has changed, a lot. There are coaches parked on newly poured pads and new cabins going up almost every day. The golf course has new green markers and the numbers have been changed. It is no longer my private golf course by default. There are plenty of players who use it now. That is a good thing. Golf courses, just like motorcoaches, need people using them. If both had souls they would long for people to use them.
    I sometimes think my coach does have a soul.
    I could have sworn I heard a sign of relief when we came through the door.
    "Finally, they are back, I hope that they have come to take me out on the road !"
    We will be taking the coach back to our stick house when we leave next week. The summer is over for us. It was short and not so sweet. Frankly I am relieved it is over. We look forward to a quiet Thanksgiving including a camping weekend in Williamsburg, celebrating Teddy Bear Day, followed by a good Christmas. We will spend some time with our FMCA chapter over the Holidays.
    New Year's Day plus one or two should find us heading to Florida and Fort Wilderness.
    A long peaceful road trip. It is just what we need. It will unwind the knots in my soul. Just thinking about traveling down the road makes me feel like a motorcoacher again. Once I start feeling like a motorcoacher again, I start thinking like one too.
    When I think like a Motorcoacher my head fills up with ideas.
    Here are a few.
    A clear plastic sewer connection is a good thing to use. That way you will see the juice box that your grand kids dumped in the toilet as it makes its final destination.
    Your tool kit should always include a small volt ohm meter. You can check your battery voltages, check for loose grounds (the bane of most 12 volt systems) and do an accurate check of fuses to see if they are still viable.
    Dental floss will work really well to make a quick repair of broken day-night shade strings.
    I carry a curved upholstery needle, outdoor UV resistant thread and fabric glue. Those three things will help you greatly extend the life of your awnings and slide out toppers. Run a bead of UV resistant Fabric glue along all your topper seams. It will keep the thread from rotting so fast.
    My supply kit also includes a couple of cans of spray-on silicon protectant. I spray that good stuff on my patio umbrellas, slide out toppers and various other cloth things that get exposed to the outdoor sunshine and rain.
    Don't buy cheap self leveling caulk. It doesn't self level but it will crack. I found out that the hard way and now I have to do a couple of roof repairs over again.
    I carry of lot of baking soda. It does wonders to clean out gray tanks and P traps. It gets rid of odors and cleans up the tank sensors.
    If you want to do something really nice for your spouse, buy them a Kindle. You will become a hero.
    A Kindle makes a great gift for the road. I gave my wife one inside a leather case with a built in light. She loves it.
    Satellite receivers produce a lot of heat when in use. Unfortunately most coach cabinets that house them are poorly vented. Add a vent and better yet, add a muffin fan. You just may save yourself a lot of aggravation and not miss the big game because your receiver baked itself to death.
    Note to Self : Cell Repeaters really do work in bad cell coverage areas, except when you don't own one.
    (I need to make an online call to Amazon.com)
    Amour-all Extreme Shine Spray on Detailing works really well on painted fiberglass.
    Hang a small wind chime on your tv antenna handle. That way when you forget to lower it before you pull out of the campsite you will get an audible reminder. You just might save your antenna and your roof.
    You can learn a lot by being a member of a Motorcoaching Forum!
    A cold day in the Motorcoach sure beats a hot sweaty day working in some stuffy, dirty, overhead pulling wires.
    I am back in the Saddle again.
    Man, I sure have missed it.
  4. -Gramps-

    Better than Chocolate

    By -Gramps-,

    It is very quiet around the house. There is no tapping of little doggie nails on the hardwood floor. No tinkling of a metal dog tag against the side of the food bowl. There is no cheerful crunch of the doggie eating his breakfast.
    Life continues to go on. Diane will laugh at a joke, e-mailed to her from one of our friends, when it arrives in her mailbox. She will cry when a sympathy card, snail mailed by one of our friends, shows up in the standard mailbox. She also cries after taking a phone call from family or friends.
    Diane was really moved when Miss Vickie, owner of Salty Dog grooming, sent a card and a dish garden.
    I mostly mope around, feeling sorry for myself.
    It obviously isn't going to be easy to recover from this loss.
    I find myself googling puppy sites, wondering if we should consider another dog.
    Wisdom says it is too soon.
    Exercising wisdom, in and of itself, does not remove the pain of loss.
    I have heard that chocolate makes one feel better when one is hurting.
    If we stocked much chocolate around here, I would eat it all.
    I am hitting the Chips Ahoy pretty hard.
    Prayer is better for me than chocolate or cookies. It is easier on the waistline.
    I look out my office window at our motorhome and I can't help but think how much we will miss our pup the next trip out. Nickolas was such a large part of our life in the coach.
    He spent his last good week with us at a motor coach rally.
    Diane and I hosted the event. It was for the Workhorse Chassis Motorhome Club. WCMC is a FMCA International chapter. The rally took place at Camp Hatteras, in Rodanthe, North Carolina, the first week of October. Fifty nine coaches were in attendance. We called it The Sound and the Sea Rally.
    The rally was a lot of work for me and Diane. Fortunately we had a lot of help.
    We planned all the events for the week, decorated the tables with shells, hung large kites and windsocks from the ceiling and on the wall, provided printed name tags, ran the fifty/fifty lottery and we were a two-person complaint and problem department.
    We catered most of the meals, had lots of seminars, (including a Wi-Fi and computer security Q&A session provided by me) and, on the last night, my son's band "Long Division" played.Their set started out a bit rough, but once they adjusted the volume for a bunch of non-college folks, it ended up sounding really good.
    I booked an absolutely hilarious comedy lecturer who had the audience eating out of his hand!
    I happened to be the lecturer and my subject was my Rules for Owing a Motorcoach.
    Actually, I was pleasantly surprised at how well the whole week went. The formal surveys turned in by the attendees were mostly positive. The last day, I helped some people with coach problems get their jacks retracted, their steps in, and watched them pull away. I then went kite flying, four at once, with Nickolas sitting by my chair.
    Unfortunately, about half way through the week, we noticed that Nickolas was not feeling very well. We were not alarmed, but by the day after the rally, he was not doing well at all. After we returned home he just got worse until the end.
    Sometimes the two of us find ourselves just sitting and staring at each other. We both know what the other is thinking. Diane is holding Nickolas' favorite blanket, I am looking at his favorite spot on the floor wishing that my four-footed special someone could still fetch my slippers for me.
    I don't bother to go fetch them for myself.
    Diane and I continue to move forward. Each day gets a little easier, but our hearts are still raw to the touch.
    Today my daughter Christine is over with our grandsons and Bella the sweet Bulldog. Tonight we will watch Toy Story 3 and have a few laughs. Tomorrow, well, it will just have to take care of itself.
    This weekend we are hoping to return to Camp Hatteras. We will be attending our Good Sams Chapter Christmas/Thanksgiving party campout. Diane and I are looking forward to being with a lot of friends. It always helps to be with friends, especially RVing ones, when trying to get over the loss of a friend.
    I should know. This makes two for me.
    Gramps
  5. -Gramps-

    Better Than New!

    By -Gramps-,

    Click on any thumbnail above to see a lot more pictures!
    Gary, Janis, Diane and I are good friends. We travel together and we both own the same coach. It is a Holiday Rambler Vacationer XL, model 38PLT built on the Workhorse UFO chassis. The UFO has the engine in the rear and it is gas not diesel. We get a lot of comments when we pull into a campground together or separately.
    For example:
    "Man, your coach sure is quiet, what's wrong with it?"
    (Nothing)
    "Well, it sure is a funny sounding Diesel."
    (That's because it isn't a diesel, it's a gas pusher.)
    "No Way! Nobody makes one of those!"
    (Well, Holiday Rambler made mine.)
    "Are you sure it's gas?"
    (Well, it was the last time I filled the tank.)
    "Man I have never seen one of these going down the road."
    (You may have, you just didn't know it.)
    "That's crazy, a gas pusher? Where's the engine in it?"
    (Ahhh...I think it's in the rear.)
    Is this that UFO thing I have heard about?
    (Why, yes it is!)
    "What is a UFO anyway?"
    (It is a diesel coach that runs on gas.)
    Jeff Daniels says "Always remember and never forget; you're not a real American till you've been behind the wheel of a Recreational Vehicle."
    I agree with that but let me add this: People sure think you are an odd American when you tell them your Recreational Vehicle's gas engine is in the rear. Even the techs in Elkhart thought we were an unusual group of coach travelers. Personally, I think one of our coaches should be in the Elkhart RV Hall of Fame one day. We have been there and I know just where they can park it.
    Better Than New! Pilgrimage to Elkhart Days 5 and 6
    Tuesday morning came early. It was cloudy and cold. Gary and I had our coaches ready for their short trip to the service bays by seven twenty. Roger and Walt were there to pick them up ten minutes later.
    We told the guys how pleased we were with their work so far. I asked Roger if he would repair the second hole in the bathroom floor, and he said he would. He had cut a piece of vinyl from the floor inside the plumbing compartment next to the washer dryer to fix the first rip. That was a small square. He wanted to replace a whole section this time. I felt sure he could figure out something.
    I also added recalibrating my leveling system, and would they please inspect the roof (another thing I forgot to tell them the day before. It seems I misplaced my list and was going from memory).
    Walt told us that Ed from BAL still had some work to do on the slide outs and that Tim Belle the tech support manager wanted to meet with us in about an hour. I had had a number of very helpful phone conversations with Tim and was looking forward to meeting him in person.
    Roger hopped into the drive's seat. I asked him what he thought of the UFO chassis.
    "Yesterday I almost started it twice. I noticed that the tack was moving so I didn't, it's just amazing how quiet it is." He said
    I told Roger that I often turn up the rear camera microphone to listen to the engine.
    I have almost started the engine twice myself. I can only imagine what kind of terrible grinding noise that would cause. I hope I never hear it.
    Our rigs were moved back over to the service bays. I informed the ladies they would have to wait in the car, if they didn't want to wait inside because we needed to meet with JD and Tim and I wanted to take some pictures as well. That was all right with them.
    Gary and I walked over to the shop to see JD Adams, the manager of ESC. JD had talked to us both on the phone and I meet him briefly the morning before. He met us in the shop and introduced us to Rod and Mike, whom we had not met yet. We then went into Gary's coach where Ed from BAL was hard at work on Gary's main slide out.
    We chatted with him and with the other guys until Tim arrived. Tim told us what they had done so far which included installing new cables, all new standoffs (the bracket on the outside of the slide out that the cable attaches to.) and most important a bigger high torque motor that would move the big slide out much faster. What they planned to do today was change the seals on the outside. We told him how much we appreciated it.
    Walt had some questions about repairing Gary's basement door, and Roger had already started repairing my bathroom floor.
    I could have hovered around there for a long time watching these guys work.
    It is easy for me to loose track of time when I am with a bunch of technical guys. With my wife and the dog just sitting in the car on a cold morning; I could loose enough time to get myself in trouble. I suggested to Gary we take pictures and then rescue the ladies.
    We took pictures and then rescued the ladies. Diane was sitting and shivering with the car engine running. She was looking more than a little cold.
    "You okay?"
    "Yeeesss," she said with chattering teeth. "Can we get going now?"
    "Sure, the museum doesn't open until ten anyway so we would have just been sitting there."
    "I'm okay."
    I was relieved to see she wasn't obviously upset with me.
    Just before we pulled out, our neighbor from Quebec pulled in, truck and trailer. I didn't even notice he was gone. Before he could get more than a few feet off the road his truck died. He had pulled his fifth wheel around to the other side of the service building to fill his water tank.
    Well, Gary and I couldn't just leave him stranded like that so we spent the next fifteen minutes trying to jump his truck and get it moving again. We started it, but it wouldn't run long. He had to unhitch the trailer and move the truck to where he could plug in a trickle charger.
    That was the best we could do for him, so we headed off for the Elkhart RV/MH Hall of Fame Museum and Conference Center.
    Just for your information the MH stands for Manufactured Housing not motorhome.
    When it came to sightseeing in Elkhart, this was the highlight of the whole trip.
    We were the first people through the door that morning. JD had given us three free passes and we expected to pay for one ticket but the two gentlemen curator/guides who met us at the door said that would not be necessary. We signed the visitor's registry and the self guided tour began.
    The museum is divided into four main halls. One is the supplier's hall, the Go RVing hall which has new rigs on display and the RV Founders and Ingram Halls which have a fantastic collection of antique housecars and house trailers.
    Diane and I visited the supplier's hall first. There we found displays of towing equipment, RV appliances, including some that are also residential, along with displays from RV clubs and campgrounds. There was also one from Workhorse. It was a display of the UFO chassis. Of course I had to gravitate toward it. There was a video that I watched that showed some of the first people who drove the chassis and the first owners. I found it fascinating. I had to tell Diane about it so I went to get her. She walked over, looked at the video for about ten seconds.
    "That's nice" she said. "Let's go look for Gary and Janis."
    Feeling somewhat deflated, I followed her to the Go RVing hall. I walked past everything and went straight to the Damon Avanti that was parked near the front window. It is a small Class A with Euro Styling and is powered by a front engine Navistar diesel engine. Nice rig, but we didn't look at it for long. Next we visited the Founders Hall.
    I was amazed at the assortment of Motor Houses. I looked at the older towables but I really wanted to spend more time looking at the motorized rvs. I was impressed the most by the Mae West Mobile and the Tennessee Traveler with its pot bellied "furnace". I know that most of us are used to a lot of comfort. I have to wonder what earlier House Car-ers, who drove with their backsides resting on wooden benches would think of our plush seats and air ride. I bet they would think we are all a bunch of motor homing weenies.
    We left the museum sometime around twelve thirty. I remember because I took a phone call just before we left and I noted the time. It was the only one I had the whole day. A miracle!
    Our next stop was Das Dutchman Essenhaus in Middlebury. It is this large complex with an Amish style restaurant, an inn, shops, and bakery. They serve lunch home style; some may call it country style. We had about a half hours drive to get there, because we planned on taking the scenic route trough Amish country. We arrived forty minutes later and ready to eat.
    The restaurant is a huge place. It must seat three hundred people or more. There was hardly anyone there. I guess the tourist season had not geared up yet. We told our server we were there for the home style lunch. She informed us that would include fried chicken, home made egg noodles, green beans, mash potatoes and gravy, corn and our choice of pot roast or ham. We chose the pot roast.
    It wasn't the best country style food I have eaten. That distinction is a toss up between the food served at the Daniel Boone Inn in Boone North Carolina or a little hole in the wall called Lazy Susan's in Spruce Pine North Carolina. As I said it wasn't the best but is was still very good. For desert I had fresh strawberry pie with ice cream, of course.
    After lunch we explored the place a bit. It had this big meandering country store that took up the four outside walls of the inn. We also visited some other shops and climbed the stairs to the top of a grain silo that had been converted into an observation deck.
    Sometime around three thirty, quarter to four we were ready to head back to Elkhart.
    We took the interstate back so it was a rather quick trip. Once again our coaches were parked in their spots, power connected, jacks down and slides out. Once inside, I soon discovered that my tank was full of water. I would not have been surprised to find mints on our pillows.
    The bathroom floor looked perfect. I went outside the coach to check the main slide sweeps. They had been replaced. I checked the roof and saw that my big bedroom skylight had been resealed. There were a couple of other spots that looked like they had been touched up as well.
    I visited Gary's coach and we inspected the work done on his slide outs. We could tell that Ed had extended a couple of cables instead of replacing them. Gary and I had talked about doing this a couple of times ourselves. However, we were not confident in how to go about it or what type of connector to use. Now we knew, but of course we hoped we would not have a reason to do it. Gary told me that Walt had blocked off a heating vent behind his loveseat. The hot air trapped itself back there and was virtually baking the couch so at Gary's request Walt took care of it.
    We had given the techs a long list of things to do. It appeared they had done them all and they repaired the damage from my encounter with the telephone pole.
    It was obvious that after two days with ESC our coaches were now better than new.
    The four of us visited for awhile, talking about the trip and what we had accomplished so far. We were all in agreement that it had been worth the journey, no doubt about that. The last thing we discussed was what time to leave in the morning. I said we can't leave too early, not until we pay our bills.
    I had my doubts about coming to Elkhart, it was a long way there and I always get nervous about leaving my business for long stretches of time. Of course I never really leave my business; it follows me wherever I go, but I was sure glad we made the trip.
    I knew that I had a good coach, and now with its many problems fixed, I could start to really enjoy it.
    Diane and I ended our evening by driving to the Elkhart Riverwalk Park. The park runs right beside the river, on both sides, and twists itself around for two miles. It is a great place to stretch one's legs and that is just what we did. Nickolas loves to take walks like this and he led the whole time. Diane and I talked Galax. We looked forward to being back there in just a couple of days. We talked about the trip, things back at home, just simple stuff that old married couples, who travel in a motor home, chat about.
    By dark we were back at the coach. After dropping Diane and Nickolas off at the door. I drove to a dollar store to buy some bottled water. While there I purchased a set of sheets, after calling Diane to ask her about them, some snacks and a few housekeeping items.
    While paying for my goods, I struck up a conversation with the young lady cashier. She had seen our coaches come down the street. She also told me her husband was a framer for one of the trailer makers. They were very busy. They had an order for 700 rigs and were working overtime to get them done. I thought that was great news. I hoped that the class A market would soon do as good.
    Back in the coach, Nickolas and I shared a bag of kettle cooked potato chips while watching NCIS. Not long after that it was bed time. Tomorrow it was back on the road. We would be stopping at a KOA somewhere near Canton, Ohio and we hoped to be out of Elkhart around nine.
    Day 6
    As usual Gary and I were up early. We were getting our coaches ready to hit the road. Gary had hooked up his tow car the night before. I was under the hood of my car pulling the ignition fuse which is the last thing I do when I tow the car. As I was closing the hood Roger walked up.
    "Are you guys leaving now?" he asked. "I hope not, because we aren't quite done with your coaches yet."
    They still needed to change my rigs oil. The day before, due to supplier problems the shop couldn't get the correct filter, but it was being delivered this morning. Gary's coach still had a wiper park failure error code. Walt hoped to get that cleared up this morning as well.
    Gary and I both figured that we came here to get things fixed so let the guys keep on working.
    About an hour and a half later my oil was changed and my bill was paid. During the time my coach was being worked on, JD, Gary and I were sitting in JD's office just shooting the breeze. I learned that JD had helped set up the Monaco service facility in Wildwood, Florida, then transferred to Elkhart where he worked for Monaco both in the coach and towable divisions. As the economy started to put holes in Monaco's ship, he was asked to come to ESC and had been there a good while by the time Gary and I first started talking to him. I also found out that ESC shared its facilities with a graphics company that custom painted new coaches. What that meant was that for the most part ESC could take care of about anything.
    Walt came in and mentioned that they were having trouble clearing Gary's wiper park failure alarm. They had done what the Workhorse techs had suggested which was to disconnect the chassis battery, do some kind of ground, and then connect it. I suggested that they call a service manager at Workhorse and ask him for help. His name is Eric and I have him on my speed dial. He knows more about the UFO then anybody I know.
    I think JD was a little skeptical that a regional rep would take his call. I told him to tell Eric that Gramps said to call him. So he made the call and I could tell that Eric answered. JD said that Gramps said to call, and I could tell that JD got a pretty good response from Eric. They talked for awhile and the conclusion was that the coach really needed to go to a Workhorse Service Center where they would have the latest and greatest diagnostic software. We all agreed that would be the best thing to do. At that point Eric asked to speak to me. We had a pleasant catching up kind of conversation. I told him the coach was working great and the guys at ESC were really taking good care of us. Eric was actually going through airport security somewhere and we made plans to talk again.
    Roger let us know that he was finished with my coach.
    We said our good byes. I once again hooked up my tow car and we were on the road again.
    That was it. Our coaches were now in really great shape. Gary had the wiper problem, but that will be fixed eventually. Later there was one thing that Diane wished we had asked the guys to do. She would like to fasten hinges to the solid stove top covers so that they could just be folded back when needed and not be a falling hazard. (See my blog about turkey soup).
    We would like to make a trip to Elkhart again. When we do we will be visiting JD and his crew. I don't think they will have any problem with taking care of Diane's wish.
    We drove until lunch time and stopped at a Flying J's for sandwiches and gas. Not too many hours after that we drove back into the hills behind Canton Ohio and soon we were at the local KOA. It was in a remote spot but it was also a very scenic spot. We sat up camp and Gary fired up his grill. We cooked hot dogs and sausages. We used the coals to start a camp fire. We just sat there staring at the fire and counting the stars. All of us were thankful that it had been such a successful trip.
    The next day would find us splitting up our little caravan. Gary and Janis would head east on I-64 to Charlottesville while Diane and I would stay on I-77 to Galax. I looked forward to that. I wanted to relax and play some golf, actually a lot of golf. I had a new to me set of clubs. Diane and I also wanted to visit with my parents and see our friends again.
    But that is another story.
  6. -Gramps-

    Bicycle Built for Four

    By -Gramps-,

    Last Friday morning I headed out to Lowes to buy a couple of things. I needed a flush valve seal for the low flow toilet in the bathroom next to our bedroom. I put off getting one for days just because I hate anything to do with plumbing. Plumbing is wet and it leaks and it frustrates me. However, a water bill that is bigger than it should be due to a bad toilet frustrates Diane so I found myself at Lowes buying the seal, some light bulbs (the old fashioned kind). I also picked up a Roman Shade for the coach bedroom door window.
    Diane didn’t want me to get one of those yet, not until she could shop with me. I wanted one right away because we were leaving later that afternoon in the coach with our grand boys for a little weekend camping trip to the Virginia Beach KOA. We needed the shade because Teddy Bear tore up the mini blinds that use to hang on the bedroom door. We had accidentally closed the door before we left Teddy alone in the coach while we took a trip to somewhere. He likes to sit in the bedroom chair and look out the window. He tried to open the door and in the process bent the blinds beyond repair. It didn’t matter that much, because we never liked them.

    So I came back with a shade. Diane was going to hang the dog blanket over the window for some privacy but the shade was on sale so I hoped the low price would compensate for a color she might not like. She frowned at me when she saw it, and reminded me that we were supposed to look together but she also said that it didn’t look all that bad.
    So I avoided that problem, and then tackled the leaky toilet. I did manage to fix it pretty quick so we packed up the coach and waited for the boys to arrive.
    Christine, Rob and little Brooklyn along with Carson and Austen pulled up around two in the afternoon. By two thirty, the car was hooked up and we were on our way to the Beach.
    It took about forty minutes to get parked on the site. The boys went exploring while I hooked up the coach and set up our patio. Then I hung the Roman shade. Diane actually thought it looked good. I was relieved.
    Once that was done, I went looking for the boys and found them on the basketball court. We played Cow, then Bird, and no matter what I could not beat Carson. The old man can’t out shoot the eight year old.
    They talked me into trying the giant jump pillow. This is a very large air filled trampoline. I gave it a whirl but I didn’t stay on it long. I figured if my knees gave out my butt would take a big bouncing whack. Actually, it was fun. You can get quite a bit of height, enough to do flips (Not Me!) and there are no springs to trap you and then break your leg.
    I fired up my Char-Griller kettle and I put chicken breasts with rice and mushroom soup wrapped in foil on the coals. Forty minutes later when had tender chicken, with rice and steamed broccoli for dinner. I used the coals to start a fire in the ring. Austen had procured the wood from the camp store earlier. We roasted marshmallows and made smores.
    After all the dinner stuff was cleaned up the boys came into the coach to watch “Back to the Future’ part one. They had never seen it before. It was fun to watch a movie with the boys about 1955 set in 1985. All of it was a trip to the past for them, big video cameras, Sony Walkman cassette tapes and all as well as Mr. Sandman and black and white television sets. The line in the movie “Who the heck is John F Kennedy?” is ironic for a number of reasons. They want to watch part 2. They will both find out the future, now their present, didn’t turn out exactly like the movie predicted.
    Saturday morning arrived clear and cool. It was going to be a glorious day. We all had sausage and egg biscuits nuked in the microwave, except for Teddy Bear of course. Then the boys took off for the jumping pillow on their scooters. I decided to make some minor repairs to the coach.
    I climbed up on the roof with needle and thread and repaired one of the bedroom slide out toppers. Then I waxed and buffed a section of the roof. I had some samples of RV wax-cleaner and I just wanted to see what they would do. Not that much it turned out. That reminds me I need to climb back up their and buff that stuff off.
    After my trip to the roof, I tightened up a loose bolt that holds the bay heater element wire to the snap fuse. I think that it being loose was the cause of the heater not blowing warm air last winter. That resulted in a frozen water pump. I would like to avoid replacing it again this winter.
    Diane and I let the boys set their own schedule for the morning. We figured as long as they were having fun…then we could have some time to ourselves. Both of us opened e-books and read most of the morning. I was trying to get through “Endeavor in Time” a Christian novel about time travel. It wasn’t written very well at all. The author borrowed from the TV series “Quantum Leap” and I think he should have left it alone. I finished the book and parts of it were okay but that is the best thing I can say about it. “The Door into Summer’ written in 1955 is a much better book if you want to read a time travel novel. It too has some predictions about the future that didn’t work out the way the author envisioned. That is part of what makes it fun.
    We read until lunch time which was the same time the boys came back to the coach.
    After lunch, all of us piled into the car and headed for the Virginia Beach boardwalk. After we parked we walked to a bicycle rental stall at 11th and Atlantic. We rented a surrey, one of those four person pedal cars. Diane had a coupon for the rental and we bought an hour for half the normal price.
    Carson and I took the front seats, Diane, Teddy Bear and Austen sat down in the back. We set off down the bike path.
    Pedaling that thing was hard work, plus the brake didn’t function. We could only stop the rig using the Flintstone method.
    I found out real quick that Carson was not much help propelling the coach as he could not reach the pedals. Teddy Bear was not comfortable riding on Diane’s lap so we decided to rearrange things a bit. Carson and Diane switched seats, Teddy went in the baby seat all the way up front.
    That worked out really well. The dog seemed to like being in the basket and he got lots of attention from the people we passed. Carson could stand up on the pedals in the back and so he became more than just dead weight. He became the afterburner. Whenever I called for "Turbo power", he would hit the pedals and give us a sudden burst of speed that didn’t throw us back in our seats but still moved us along at a much faster pace.
    We pumped that thing for an hour. It wore me out, but it was a lot of fun for all of us. As we were pedaling along we watch people horse back riding, and kite flying. We saw one person on an electric unicycle. We passed other surries and gave the passengers a big wave as we went by. We sang as we rode. It was a good hour.
    We returned the bike and then went to the closest grocery store for some ice cream. While there I bought some of those packaged adult juice boxes….Mar-Go-ritas or something like that. You put em in the freezer, until they get slushy and then serve them. You have to squeeze them to get the good stuff out. I bought them for all the adults coming for a cook out that night.
    Once we were back in the coach I served up some pretty good coffee ice cream to Diane while the boys and I had some Chocolate Truffle. Then Carson and I hung a string of rope lights that had been on the ground, from the patio awing. About the time we finished Christine showed up with sleeping Brooklyn. They left her with me while everyone else went back to the bouncing pillow.
    As soon as all were gone, Brooklyn woke up and started screaming at me. I guess she might have been hungry but there was nothing I could do about that. I couldn’t find her always near pacifier either. The only bottle I had was in the freezer and it contained booze. I thought about it but I figured if I drank a Mar-go-rita, it would only dull the pain in my ears for a second or two. So I paced around and patted her little bottom until help arrived.
    Christine took her from me, laid her on the dining table to change her and Brooklyn immediately shut up and began to smile.
    If I had known that putting her flat on her back and letting her kick her feet was all she wanted well, I could have done that.
    We all sat around and talked for awhile and then I fired up a chimney of coals for the grill. Joel and his girl friend Ashley were planning to come for burgers and baked sweet potatoes.
    I threw some Bubba Burgers on the grill, started a camp fire and put the Beatles in the coach CD player.
    When Joel and Ashley arrived I handed them each an adult juice box. Ashley, who had never been in the coach before, got the ten cent tour.
    Dinner was good. The conversation was good. Smores afterwards were good to.
    The evening flew by and soon the boys, Diane and I were left alone in the coach. We hit the bed around eleven.
    Sunday was simple. We packed up and were out of the KOA by noon. Home by one, boys gone by three. A quick weekend but it was really nice. Carson and Austen loved it. Christine got some time to herself, as much as you can get with a newborn daughter. Diane and I got to spend time with our grandsons.
    There is nothing wrong with that. I look forward to taking them out again.
    -Gramps-
  9. -Gramps-

    Compose the Picture!

    By -Gramps-,

    I think photography is in my DNA. One of the things that fostered my interest in becoming a shooter is the fact that my Dad was one for many years. He shot thousands of pictures of places he traveled to while serving in the U.S. Navy, both at sea and shore duty. His pictures also included travels at home, to the mountains of North Carolina and Virginia as well a trip to Canada in 1967. Dad’s camera was always recording images of birthday parties, holidays, and trips to the beach.
    Now my daughter is learning as much as she can about digital photography. My brother shoots, as does Charity his daughter. Charity happens to be a really good photographer of children, in my opinion.
    I think that when you go to a studio and have a portrait of yourself or your family taken, you have a record of what you looked like at that time.
    When you capture a picture yourself, you create a record of what your life was like at the time you took it. You also create a record about what you are like as a person.
    A photograph says as much or more about the photographer as a painting says about the artist who puts brush to canvas. Just as a painter leaves his work behind, so does the photographer.
    Just something to think about.
    Lesson Five, Compose the Picture!
    This lesson will expand using depth of depth and the rule of thirds. We will also learn how to use framing and take advantage of diagonal and converging lines.
    First though, let us shake things up a bit and talk about breaking the rules.
    I will, on occasion, break the rule of thirds by the way I use lines.
    I talked earlier about how the rule of thirds adds interest to a picture by using points of interest that can have natural lines. Lines can also be man made. Multiple lines that converge together or come close to one another can be a great way to lead the eye of the viewer into a shot. These lines can cross the dead center of the frame, which technically breaks the rule.
    Look at the following picture. What line or lines of the picture does your eye automatically go too? Does the location of that element break the Rule of Thirds?

    The placement of the lines of the railroad track breaks the rule but takes advantage of it at the same time. What makes that possible?
    Is the rule of thirds still used in this picture as well as being broken?


    The position of the butterfly blatantly breaks the rule, however I used a shallow Depth of Field to create a final effect which I think makes the picture better than if I had kept the rule.

    Whether you adhere to the rule or not is determined by the total picture and how you frame it. Framing is composed of two parts. First is the extreme edge of the picture itself ...where it ends. Second is also what is in the picture along any edge. You see a picture before you take it and you think it will make a good image to capture, but have you really looked at it from the best vantage point? Can something be added to "frame it" and make it more than just a good shot.
    I believe you will see what I mean with the following two pictures. The first one is a good picture. It incorporates the rule of thirds. Notice the position of the four lines in the picture, the rock in the foreground, the fence line, the path in the distance, and the mountain ridge. Notice, too, the little bit of tree on the left side of the picture.

    In this next shot I kept the same four lines but I moved my position, which added an object to frame the original image, and the whole picture changes.


    I told you that back in my film days, making a really good picture took two exposures. One in the camera and one in the darkroom. Well I still have the opportunity to make that "second shot."
    I can do that using my computer and a good photo editing program. I will show you what I mean.
    This picture was originally supposed to be a shot of the geese. I was just learning to use the camera at a William and Mary cross country event, and while I was playing with the focus I saw the Georgetown girls track team come over the hill. This is the final product.


    This is the original shot before I edited it.

    The original image placed the girls almost dead center of the frame. The edited picture made better use of the rule of thirds, which creates a more dynamic picture even with the track team out of focus. This also exhibits once again how a shallow depth of field contributes to the picture.
    Knowing how to use lines, the rule of thirds, depth of field both wide and shallow and looking at the framing of your shot is going to help you create a good, and sometimes great, shot. You never know when you might need to use knowledge of all the above to create one special picture.


    Did I use convergent lines? Did I use the rule of thirds to position my subject? How does the depth of field of my wide angle zoom contribute to this shot?
    Not bad! Right?
    Next time we will learn how to use the brains behind the camera to help us capture that still moment in time.
    http://community.fmca.com/blog/62/entry-1400-when-things-are-still/
    Gramps
  10. -Gramps-
    The kids have grown up. They are doing other things now...working, raising kids, taking pictures, playing music.....
    http://www.myrandomviews.com/blog/2015/5/9/couch-cushion-fort-musical-interlude
  11. -Gramps-

    Daniel

    By -Gramps-,

    I have enjoyed being part of the motor home community. It means a lot to me. More than I can possible say. At this moment I am at Deer Creek Motorcoach Resort in Galax. It has been my refuge for the last few days. I am surrounded by my friends and I have needed them and they have been here for me. Yesterday I lost one of my grandsons. I never got the chance to meet him. Diane had to fly down to Florida to be with our daughter and her husband after we learned that her unborn baby boy who was going to be with us in just a few weeks was not going to be with us for long. I couldn't go with her and so I have been leaning on the community here and hugging the dog. I guess it has been Teddy's job to wash away my tears...and there has been a lot of them.
    As usual when I and my family are going thru a tough and emotional time I pray and I write........
    Daniel, my dear grandson:
    You were with us for such a short time today and then you were gone. Your life was a sunset, here for a moment and then no more. Now your Mother, Father and Grandparents are left with memories of what we hoped you would bring to our lives. We looked forward to hearing you laugh, seeing you smile, holding you in our arms.
    You are loved by your Mom and Dad and your brother and the rest of your family. I hope you know that.
    The Bible tells us that you are wonderfully made, designed by God Himself. The book of Psalms says that God knew you before he placed you in your mother's womb. You must be something really special for God to change His mind and take you back to be with Him. I know you are special. You were so small and only hours old when you had to leave us. But I promise you, you have already done what only a child of loving parents can do. You have brought your Mom and Dad closer together. You have made them love your big brother all the more. You have made us all draw closer to God.
    There is a time to be born, a time to die, a time to laugh and a time to be sad and a time to morn. Only God knows why the time between those things is short or long.
    Daniel don't be sad for us, don't morn for us, we will survive.
    Daniel, I want you to laugh!
    I want you to shout for joy because you are with your Heavenly Father!
    There is one more thing I want you to do. When Jesus comes to your room, and I know you have one, because the Bible says so, and he offers you His hand to hold and says, "Let's take a walk," go with Him.
    When He shows you all the wonderful Heavenly things He has made including the planets and the stars, remember that all of us, your Mom and Dad, your brother, and your grandparents will be looking at them too. Daniel, we will be thinking of you and looking forward to the day that we can take that walk together.
    With all my love,
    Your Grandfather.
    In Memory of Daniel Thomas Wheeler
    Born 5/4/2011 Died 5/4/2011
    .
  12. -Gramps-

    Depreciation

    By -Gramps-,

    This subject pops up every now and then in the Internet forums where I hang about on a regular basis. It may be a post titled "Is your Class A a Money pit?" or "A motor home costs a whole lot more than you think it does!" The people who post these kinds of entries may or may not really have a problem with what a coach or any other large RV may cost. They might just be bored. It's Sunday night and the DW is watching "Desperate Housewives", so there is nothing better for them to do than post some sad story about how broke owning a coach is making them.
    The last time I saw one of these threads, I responded to it. I said that owning a motor coach is like having kids. You make a huge financial investment, with no return, but they make lots of good memories, are good for the soul, and will greatly improve one's life if you let them.
    I believe the RV lifestyle is underappreciated by most people who are not part of it and also by some who are. Becoming a Motor Coacher has been one of the best things that has ever happened to me and my wife. Has owning one depleted my bank account? I suppose it has, but then, maybe not.
    I might have put away the money that I spend each month paying for my coach. I might have put away the money I spend on trips, including gas and food and camping fees, but I doubt it. I would have spent all of my trip and fuel money on airplane tickets, hotel rooms and cruise ships, or something else. The chances are that even if I did save it, a lot of the money could still have disappeared without me spending a dime of it.
    The present economic situation has poked a whole lot of holes in a lot of financial balloons. I just try to take advantage of what our coach can do for us. I may have to spend money on gas, a new water pump to replace a squirting frozen one, new wiper blades to replace frozen ones, a new water filter to replace a cracked and frozen one, but considering what our coach does for us it is worth it.
    I can tell you this that minus the monthly payment, the two weeks and two days I just spent in Florida, which included eight nights at Disney World, didn't cost us much at all. Not when compared to what two weeks would have cost staying in fancy hotels and eating out. I wish I could have stayed there a lot longer. Responsibilities called me home.
    Home is a very subjective word when you own a motor coach. Home is where my coach is. I felt quite at home in Fort Wilderness. As a matter of fact, the guard who checked us in said, "Welcome home, Mr. Parker."
    It was home. We spent New Year's Eve in Saint Augustine and the next day climbed a lighthouse. My daughter was there and my son-in-law and my grandson. My wife was there and so was Teddy Bear. I had my favorite DVDs, my favorite beer, my favorite books, some of them anyway, and the things I like to eat the most. I also had great cable TV.
    At night we listened to music coming from the Disney Parks. We also heard the fireworks and, if we walked a little ways from our site, could see them, just over the tops of the trees. If we wanted to ride the monorail, we did. If we wanted to take a boat ride, we did that, too. We went to one park, and saw Cirque Du Soleil, followed by sushi at Wolfgang Pucks. We pin traded, we took Teddy to the Waggin Tails Dog Park. We basked in the 70-degree sunshine. We even had the pleasure of spending time with our friends Gary and Janis. What could be better than that?
    It was wonderful. It was wonderful until we had to say good-bye. We had to say good-bye to the warmth of our surroundings, our friends and our family. We said good-bye and then made our way back north. We came back to the cold, to work and to our son, daughter and grandsons, whom we missed a lot.
    It won't be long before we take our motorhome back out on the road and enjoy another great trip. We will make new friends and see new places.
    So, I don't worry about "depreciation" I try to appreciate the emotional and spiritual return I get from my poor financial investment. I hope that all my fellow Coachers and RVers do the same.
    Gramps
    1/23/2011
  13. -Gramps-

    Depreciation

    By -Gramps-,

    Here is something worth posting again from my blog here, now moved to my own blog page

    Depreciation:

    This subject pops up every now and then in the Internet forums, rv.net, IRV2.com, FMCA.com, where I hang about on a regular basis. It may be a post titled "Is your Class A a Money pit?" or "A motor home costs a whole lot more than you think it does!" The people who post these kinds of entries may or may not really have a problem with what a coach or any other large RV may cost. They might just be bored. It's Sunday night and the DW is watching "Real Housewives of xxx", so there is nothing better for them to do than post some sad story about how broke owning a coach is making them.

    The last time I saw one of these threads, I responded to it. I said that owning a motor coach is like having kids. You make a huge financial investment, with no return, but they make lots of good memories, are good for the soul, and will greatly improve one's life if you let them.

    I believe the RV lifestyle is under-appreciated by most people who are not part of it and also by some who are. Becoming a Motor Coacher has been one of the best things that has ever happened to me and my wife. Has owning one depleted my bank account? I suppose it has, but then, maybe not.

    I might have put away the money that I spend each month paying for my coach. I might have put away the money I spend on trips, including gas and food and camping fees, but I doubt it. I would have spent all of my trip and fuel money on airplane tickets, hotel rooms and cruise ships, or something else. The chances are that even if I did save it, a lot of the money could still have disappeared without me spending a dime of it.

    The present economic situation has poked a whole lot of holes in a lot of financial balloons. I just try to take advantage of what our coach can do for us. I may have to spend money on gas, a new water pump to replace a squirting frozen one, new wiper blades to replace frozen ones, a new water filter to replace a cracked and frozen one, but considering what our coach does for us it is worth it.

    I can tell you this that minus the monthly payment, the time I have spent in Florida, which included eight nights at Disney World, didn't cost us much at all. Not when compared to what two weeks would have cost staying in fancy hotels and eating out. I wish I could have stayed there a lot longer. Responsibilities called me home.

    Home is a very subjective word when you own a motor coach. Home is where my coach is. I felt quite at home in Fort Wilderness. As a matter of fact, the guard who checked us in said, "Welcome home, Mr. Parker."

    It was home. A few years ago we spent New Year's Eve in Saint Augustine and the next day climbed a lighthouse. My daughter was there and my son-in-law and my grandson. My wife was there and so was Teddy Bear. I had my favorite DVDs, my favorite beer, my favorite books, some of them anyway, and the things I like to eat the most. I also had great cable TV.

    At night we listened to music coming from the Disney Parks. We also heard the fireworks and, if we walked a little ways from our site, could see them, just over the tops of the trees. If we wanted to ride the monorail, we did. If we wanted to take a boat ride, we did that, too. We went to one park, and saw Cirque Du Soleil, followed by sushi at Wolfgang Pucks. We pin traded, we took Teddy to the Waggin Tails Dog Park. We basked in the 70-degree sunshine. We even had the pleasure of spending time with our friends Gary and Janis. What could be better than that?

    It was wonderful. It was wonderful until we had to say good-bye. We had to say good-bye to the warmth of our surroundings, our friends and our family. We said good-bye and then made our way back north. We came back to the cold, to work and to our son, daughter and grandsons, whom we missed a lot.

    It won't be long before we take our motorhome back out on the road and enjoy another great trip. We will make new friends and see new places.

    So, I don't worry about "depreciation" I try to appreciate the emotional and spiritual return I get from my poor financial investment. I hope that all my fellow Coachers and RVers do the same.

    Derrick
    aka "Gramps" 
    http://www.myrandamviews.com
  14. -Gramps-

    Depth of Field

    By -Gramps-,

    I really enjoy photography. It is the art of capturing a moment in time. Like any art form it is subjective and therefore what constitutes a good picture is really a matter of opinion. I learned that really fast from the people judging the very first contest I entered. What I thought were my best pictures received no mention and one that I entered as a lark in the still life category, almost took best in show.
    The most important thing is to know how to use your camera in order to take the picture you want at the time you want it.

    http://community.fmca.com/blog/62/entry-1378-a-bit-about-digital-photography/ Lesson one.
    So let’s continue.
    What is Depth of Field or DOF? Manipulating the DOF can change a picture dramatically and turn a simple shot into a really good one.
    DOF determines how much of the subject or scene you are looking at through your camera’s viewfinder is in sharp focus. Let’s change that to say acceptable focus. The area outside the part of the picture that is acceptably focused is known as the “Area of Confusion." The DOF focus range depending on the lens, can be from a couple of inches in front of the lens to infinity.
    Depth of field is determined by how far the lens aperture is open at the time of exposure. The smaller the aperture opening the greater the area that is in acceptable focus. The larger the opening the smaller the area in focus. f-22 provides a much greater DOF than say f-2.8. That is why shooting in low light makes shallow DOF easier to obtain or harder to avoid.
    When you look through the viewfinder the aperture is always wide open. If the f-stop, which controls that opening, changes automatically or by you because the amount of light reflecting off the subject increases or decreases, that f-stop change does not physically happen until the shot is taken. The reason for this is so while you are composing your shot, the image on the focusing screen will be as bright as possible so that you can focus. If the camera were to stop the lens down say to f16 while you are looking at the subject, the screen would go very dark. However, you may want to see the effect of the depth of field before you take the shot so many DSLR cameras have a DOF preview button. My camera has one. I focus on my subject, depress the button which allows me to see just how much of the picture is in focus, and if I like what I see I release the DOF button and press the shutter release.


    When taking a picture you really only focus the lens on one point, perhaps a person’s eyes, the center of a flower, a snowy peak in the middle of a mountain range, a rock formation in the Grand Canyon. Depending on the lens, and the aperture setting, the person’s face will also be in focus, but the background or the foreground, or in some cases, both will not. At the same f-stop a wide angle lens will have a greater depth of field than a longer lens. When shooting very close up shots with a high magnification lens, also known as a Macro lens, the depth of field will be very small.


    I now need to give you a small review. I told you in our first lesson that digital photography is based on film photography standards. It is important to remember that. Film cameras were and still are available in different sized formats. As I stated most DSLRs are built along the same design as a 35mm SLR. I didn’t tell you that also like film cameras, a DSLR is available in different formats. They are based on two different sized digital sensors: The full frame APS and the smaller APS-C
    APS stands for Advanced Photo System, An APS-C or compact sensor is smaller than a 35mm frame by quite a bit. This difference in size is called the crop factor. The 35mm format makes the angle of view larger (wider) by a factor of 1.6 as apposed to an APS-C camera. The crop factor leads to quite a bit of confusion when understanding lens focal lengths, which leads to confusion about the depth of field range of that lens. It gets even more confusing when you learn that APS-C cameras can use lenses designed for 35 mm cameras as long as they have the same lens mount. Lenses made specifically for APS-C cameras still use the same angle of view scale as they would if they could be used on a 35mm camera body, which they cannot. Well, they will mount, but if you did use one on a film camera it would cause vignetting, a darkening around the edges of the picture. Here is the really interesting part of all this. If you want to spend some big bucks you can purchase a full frame APS camera. The sensor will be the same size as a frame of 35mm film.. If you did that then you would need to also purchase lenses designed for use on that full frame camera. Those lenses will usually work with the same manufacturers APS-C camera, but remember, not the other way around. Confusing ain’t it?
    Here is a quick summary of the above. My Minolta 35mm auto focus lenses will mount and work on both my Sony Alpha DSLR cameras because Sony purchased Minolta in 2005 and kept the same lens mount. The auto focus lenses that came with my Alpha DSLR cameras will mount on my 550si 35mm camera but they cause the vignetting effect. There are other auto exposure limitations as well; in other words they are not a good fit. I own two full frame APS lenses that will fit and work on all my SLR cameras. If I were to purchase a professional APS full frame DSLR from Sony (I would love an A99!), those two lenses would work just fine with that camera. I can only hope to find out just how good one day.


    I leave you with this last bit of info. There is a scale etched on any DSLR lens I have ever seen. The scale is exactly the same for full frame lenses or APS-C only lenses. The scale is equal to the scale etched on a 35mm camera lens. The lens could have a depth of field scale that also matches a 35 mm camera lens of the same focal or zoom length. A 24mm wide angle full frame or a 24 mm APS-C lens mounted on an APS-c digital camera is no longer a 24 mm wide angle lens. The crop factor of 1.6 converts that lens to a 38.4 mm lens that has a slightly narrower depth of field. A 100mm portrait lens mounted on an APS-C camera becomes in effect a 160mm telephoto lens with an extremely narrow depth of field at just about any f-stop you use. Like you I don’t know why lens manufactures don’t have a lens scale specifically for APS-C cameras. They have chosen to leave 35mm numbers as the standard and we must learn to deal with it.
    That is the purpose of this posted lesson, to help you deal with it.
    If you reply with a question I will be more than happy to answer it.
    My next entry will deal with the various types of lenses, including zooms, fixed focal length and macro. Oh, don't worry, DOF will come up again!
    Gramps
    http://community.fmca.com/blog/62/entry-1390-every-lens-tells-a-story/
    Lesson Three
  15. -Gramps-
    Last Saturday I roasted two 17-pound Honeysuckle White All Natural Turkeys to provide the main course for 30 people. The event was an open house at Deer Creek Motorcoach and Golf Resort that my wife and I are now the latest residents of here in Galax, Va. We had six coaches visiting and I wanted to make a fine impression. So after a quick morning round of golf with some of our guests, I started on the evening meal.
    I cooked one bird in an aluminum roasting pan on a large hooded gas grill over indirect heat (flame on one side of the grill) with a packet of Jack Daniel's white oak wood chips over the flame. The second bird went into a Rival electric smoker/roaster with the same chips and white wine in a water tray. I started the second bird an hour before the first because I intended to slow smoke it for almost eight hours. Both birds were stuffed with onion quarters and lots of celery and covered with olive oil and Montreal Chicken Seasoning.
    I started around 10 o'clock in the morning with the first bird. The second around 11 o'clock. I made a mistake with the bird on the grill. I should have put it in the middle of the grill, not on one end like I would do with my Char Griller. I caught my mistake in time to rotate the bird and even out the cooking.
    The second bird came off the grill when the breast meat reached 175 degrees and still very moist. I let it sit for about 30 minutes. The dark meat inside the pan was not quite done yet. Diane and I then carved the bird up and put the legs and thighs back on the grill for about 10 minutes over high heat until they were just right. Then the wife and I finished slicing it up and keeping all the meat warm in a Crock-Pot.
    Next, it was time to take the first bird off the grill. This one was really good, almost steamed in the white wine and smoked at the same time. The skin didn't get crispy as much as the one on the grill, but that didn't matter considering the taste. The breast meat was so tender you could cut it with a spoon. And what a good taste it had -- a hint of smoke and a hint of wine flavor.
    Both turkeys went fast along with all the other goodies provided by the residents and guests: baked white beans with sausage, two kinds of scalloped potatoes, sweet potato salad, cranberry chutney, broccoli salad, baked zuchinni casserole, stuffing, sourdough bread, peach cobbler, pumpkin pie with whipped cream and all kinds of cookies. Oh, and we had live bluegrass music, to boot. The evening was a hit.
    Its now a few days later, Tuesday as a matter of fact.
    Now comes the sad part of this story. We took the carcasses of those happy birds, along with the wings and giblets, and cooked them in a very large stew pot on the side burner of the gas grill for hours. Into the pot went celery, onions, lots of fresh garlic and more Montreal Chicken spices.
    It was a windy day and after about six hours you could smell this concoction all over the resort and the golf course. It was maddening. Everyone wanted to know when it would be ready. About 90 minutes before dinnertime, I took the pot off the grill, and took it into the stoveless kitchenette in our clubhouse. Diane picked the meat off the bones and put it back in the pot. Then we moved it to the gas stove inside our coach. The wind was getting a bit strong and I didn't want to fight with a burner going out just before this stuff needed to be done. We planned to add carrots, a bit more onion, green beans, tomato and celery along with rice to this rich broth.
    We took the Corian cover off of our stove and propped it up on the back of the stove like normal. Almost. Diane turned it around backward, so it didn't fit exactly where it belonged. Then she needed to leave the coach for a minute. She shut the door hard, and the Corian cover slipped and caught the pot just under the bottom. Off the stove the pot went.
    The noise the cover made forced me to turn around in time to see this great big pot of soup fly across my coach. I tried to catch it but all I could do was grab a handle just after it hit the floor on its side. Turkey soup everywhere!
    My dog was lapping liquid as fast as he could get his tongue to move. Diane heard the pot crash, so she rushed back in to see the disaster -- the carpet getting soaked, turkey broth rushing toward the front of the coach, and my mom desperately pulling up the area rug.
    Well, we cleaned it up while my parents, who were visiting us, drove to the store to purchase some good old-fashioned burger fixin's as a quick substitute for what would have been some mighty fine turkey soup.
    The incident at the time seemed pretty bad, but it did make for some funny dinner conversation.
    Didn't I post a rule about having to be patient because things can go wrong?
    To add to my rule number 4:
    Sham Wows do work.
    Awning Cleaner also cleans carpet really well.
    If you find that new coach smell to be a bit overpowering, you can cure it with 2 gallons of turkey soup!
  16. -Gramps-
    I promised some RV stories. Well I found a few. I doubt they are true, but they may bring a smile.
    A couple from Minneapolis decided to go to Florida to thaw out during one particularly icy winter. They planned to stay at the very same RV park where they spent their 15th wedding anniversary a decade earlier. Because of hectic schedules, it was difficult to coordinate their travel dates. So, the husband left Minnesota alone with their fifth wheel trailer. His wife would fly to join him the day after his arrival.
    The husband checked into the RV park. To his surprise and delight there was a cyber cafe next to the recreation room, so he decided to send an e-mail to his wife. However, in doing so, he accidentally mis-typed one letter in her email address
    Meanwhile, somewhere in Houston, a widow had just returned home from her husband's funeral. He was a minister of many years who had died of a sudden heart attack. The widow decided to check her email, expecting messages from relatives and friends. After reading the first message, she fainted. The widow's son rushed into the room, found his mother on the floor and saw the message on the computer screen:
    To: My Loving Wife
    Subject: I've Arrived
    I know you're surprised to hear from me. They have computers here now and you are allowed to send e-mails to your loved ones. I've just arrived and have been checked in. I see that everything has been prepared for your arrival tomorrow. I look forward to seeing you then. Hope your journey is as uneventful as mine was.
    P.S. Sure is hot down here!
    Ray, an RVer from Omaha, travels in his motorhome with a talkative but foul-mouthed parrot. One day in a campground near Gila Bend, Ariz., the bird's swearing got to be too much. So Ray grabbed it by the throat and yelled "Stop it!" But only minutes later, the bird was swearing again.
    The next day, the bird yelled so loudly that the couple next door in a big fifth wheel stopped by to demand its silence. Desperate, Ray locked the bird in a kitchen cabinet. But it didn't help: the bird kept right on swearing. The next day, the bird was even worse. So, as a last resort, Ray tossed it into his spacious Dometic freezer. After five minutes, all was quiet. Worried the bird might be freezing, Ray took it out.
    "I'm sorry," confessed the suddenly polite bird. "I promise to never swear again."
    Ray was astonished. He couldn't understand the change in attitude.
    "By the way," asked the parrot, "what did the chicken do?"
    Getting away from their high-stress jobs, a couple spends relaxing weekends in their motor home at a local RV campground at a nearby lake. When they found their peace and quiet disturbed by well-meaning, but unwelcome, visits from other campers, they devised a plan to assure themselves some privacy.
    Now, when they set up camp, they place this sign on the door of their RV:
    "Insurance agent. Ask about our term-life package."

    There was once a lady who was rather old-fashioned, always quite delicate and elegant, especially in her language. She and her husband were planning a week's vacation in Arizona, so she wrote to a particular RV campground asking for a reservation. She wanted to make sure the campground was fully equipped, but didn't quite know how to ask about the toilet facilities. She just couldn't bring herself to write the word "toilet" in her letter. After much deliberation, she finally came up with the old-fashioned term BATHROOM COMMODE. But when she wrote that down, she still thought she was being too forward. So she started all over again, rewrote the entire letter referring to the bathroom commode merely as the BC: "Does the campground have it's own BC?" is what she actually wrote.
    Well, the RV campground owner wasn't old-fashioned at all and when he got the letter, he just couldn't figure out what the lady was talking about. That BC business really stumped him. After worrying about it for awhile, he showed the letter to several campers, but they couldn't imagine what the lady meant either. So the campground owner, finally coming to the conclusion that the lady must be asking about the local Baptist Church, sat down and wrote the following reply:
    Dear Madam:
    I regret very much the delay in answering your letter, but I now take pleasure in informing you that a BC is located nine miles north of the campground and is capable of seating 250 people at one time. I admit it is quite a distance away, if you are in the habit of going regularly, but no doubt you will be pleased to know that a great number of people take their lunches along and make a day of it. They usually arrive early and stay late. It is such a beautiful facility and the acoustics are marvelous...even the normal delivery sounds can be heard. The last time my wife and I went was six years ago, and it was so crowded we had to stand up the whole time we were there. It may interest you to know that right now a supper is planned to raise money to buy more seats. They are going to hold it in the basement of the BC. I would like to say it pains me very much not to be able to go more regularly, but it surely is no lack of desire on my part. As we grow old, it seems to be more of an effort, particularly in cold weather. If you do decide to come down to our campground, perhaps I could go with you the first time you go, sit with you, and introduce you to all the other folks. Remember, this is a friendly community.
    Sincerely, (RV Campground Owner)

    An RVer in a motorhome got hopelessly bogged down in an unexpected muddy hole along a dirt road. After a few minutes, a passing farmer drove by on his tractor and offered to pull him out for only $20. After the motorhome was back on dry ground, the RVer said to the farmer, "At those prices, I bet you're pulling vehicles out of this mud day and night."
    "Can't," replied the farmer. "At night I haul water for the hole."
    A national park game warden stopped a man who was heading back to his motorhome with two buckets of bass . He asked the man, " Do you have a license to catch those fish?"
    The man replied, " No sir - Don't need one. These are my pet bass."
    " Pet bass?" the warden asked.
    "Yes, sir. Every night I take these here bass down to the lake and let them swim around for a while. I whistle and they jump back into their buckets, and I take them home."
    " That's crazy! Bass can't do that!" said the warden.
    The man looked at the game warden for a moment, and then said, " It's not crazy, I'll show you."
    " OK." said the warden, " do it!"
    The man quickly poured the bass into the lake and stood and waited.
    After several minutes, the game warden turned to the man and said " Well?"
    " Well, what?" the man responded.
    " Well, when are you going to call them back?" the game warden asked.
    " Call who back?" the man asked.
    " The BASS!" yelled the warden.
    " What bass?" the man asked.

    While on a road trip, an elderly couple stopped at a roadside restaurant for lunch. After finishing their meal, they left the restaurant, and resumed their trip.
    When leaving, the elderly woman unknowingly left her glasses on the table, and she didn't miss them until they had been driving about forty minutes. By then, to add to the aggravation, they had to travel quite a distance before they could find a place to turn their motorhome around, in order to return to the restaurant to retrieve her glasses.
    All the way back, the elderly husband became the classic grouchy old man. He fussed and complained, and scolded his wife relentlessly during the entire return drive. The more he chided her, the more agitated he became. He just wouldn't let up one minute.
    To her relief, they finally arrived at the restaurant. As the woman got out of motorhome, and hurried inside to retrieve her glasses, the old geezer opened his window and yelled to her, "While you're in there, you might as well get my hat and the credit card."

    Gramps
  18. -Gramps-

    Don't Forget to Laugh.

    By -Gramps-,

    One of my rules for owning a Motorcoach is Rule Number Two, which contains the following: Patience is not only a virtue but a necessity.
    Rule Two and Rule Five (my latest rule) work very closely together
    Rule Number Five: When owning a Motorcoach Don’t Forget to Laugh.
    You must be able to laugh even if it kills you.
    When you are an RVer, having a sense of humor and the ability to laugh at troubles, is as much of a necessity as owning a spare sewer hose.
    For example; I related a story about the first accident I had with our first coach when it was new. I bumped one corner of the coach into a tree. That upset me considerably, of course. Another RVer, who witnessed the accident, had some words of advice for me.
    “Hey, just go ahead and hit the other seven corners and get it over with!”
    The humor and the logic of this sarcastic statement was hidden from me at the time it was spoken, but I have owned a coach long enough to completely understand it’s meaning now.
    I should have understood it then; after all, I have used humor to get through life for as long as I can remember.
    I have been told I am a funny guy. I appreciate that, even if the person saying it did not mean it as a compliment. One of the first persons in my life to tell me that I was funny, even when it might not have been the best time, was my mom. She knew better than anyone.
    For example: One Wednesday afternoon when I was in the second grade, I brought home a note from my teacher. It was one of those notes composed with red ink, like the teacher wants the parent to think it is written in blood. The note said: “Derrick is still not working up to his potential. He daydreams constantly, and when asked questions during class responds with a joke or other inappropriate remark. I would appreciate your attention to this matter. Sincerely, Mrs. Mather.”
    Well, Mom read the note, and got a bit upset with me. I don’t know why, it wasn't like this was my first red note. I brought more than a few home the year before.
    “When are you going to quit goofing off in class?” she asked. “I am so tired of getting these notes. I should just knock you into next week!”
    “I wish you would,” I said. “I have a test on Friday and I ‘m not ready for it.”
    And that is when the fight started.
    Now that reminds me of another story, emphasis on the word story.
    One day a few summers ago I was driving down the road in my truck when one of those quick hard rain showers hit. The road quickly had pools of water and people were stopping short all over the place. A big black Escalade, in front of me, slammed on its brakes when it hit one of these slick pools of water. I could barely see with the hard rain coming down. I stopped just a bit short and tapped the rear end of the car.
    I got out of my car just as the other driver got out of his. He looked very mad, but that was no problem, he was a dwarf. He walked to the back of his car and saw his busted tail light.
    He looked up angrily at me.
    “I AM NOT HAPPY!" he said.
    I looked at him and replied: “You’re not? Then which one are you?”
    And that is when the fight started.
    What is humor, anyway? Where does this uniquely human ability come from?
    Wikipedia defines it this way:
    Humour or humor is the tendency of particular cognitive experiences to provoke laughter and provide amusement. The term derives from the humeral medicine of the ancient Greeks, which taught that the balance of fluids in the human body, known as humors (Latin: humor, "body fluid"), control human health and emotion.
    People of all ages and cultures respond to humor. The majority of people are able to experience humor, i.e., to be amused, to laugh or smile at something funny, and thus they are considered to have a sense of humor. The hypothetical person lacking a sense of humor would likely find the behavior induced by humor to be inexplicable, strange, or even irrational. Though ultimately decided by personal taste, the extent to which a person will find something humorous depends upon a host of variables, including geographical location, culture, and maturity, level of education, intelligence and context. For example, young children may favor slapstick, such as Punch and Judy puppet shows (I preferred The Three Stooges) or cartoons such as Tom and Jerry. Satire may rely more on understanding the target of the humor and thus tends to appeal to more mature audiences.
    Many theories exist about what humor is and what social function it serves. The prevailing types of theories attempting to account for the existence of humor include psychological theories, the vast majority of which consider humor-induced behavior to be very healthy; spiritual theories, which may, for instance, consider humor to be a "gift from God"; and theories which consider humor to be an unexplainable mystery, very much like a mystical experience.
    I certainly believe that laughter and humor come from God. He obviously has a sense of humor as well; after all He created human beings. I can’t image that He was only looking to have a pleasant conversation. He has rules and doesn’t want us to misbehave but He must want to have some good guffaws along with all the tears his human children can provide.
    We are the same way with our children are we not?
    That reminds me of another story: (this one is true)
    When my daughters were very young I caught them playing with a few dollar bills that they lifted from my wallet. They were drawing beards and mustaches on the president's faces. Instead of getting mad at them for taking my dough without asking (the answer would have been no) I acted shocked that they would be defacing US Currency.
    “You can go to jail for defacing money! Diane what are we going to do about this?”
    “Maybe I should call the US treasury and report them!”
    At this point the girls started to tear up and begged us not to call. They tried to give the money back to me but I told them I couldn’t carry damaged, defaced money around with me.
    I left their room. A few minutes later I heard water running in their bathroom and whispers coming from behind the closed door.
    I walked into the room and found them with a sink full of soapy water trying to wash the ink off the bills.
    “OH NO, NOW YOU ARE MONEY LAUNDERING?!”
    They burst into tears…I can be so mean sometimes but I found it hilarious then and still do now. Of course the girls hate it when I tell this story.
    The Bible has many references to laughter. Most are about laughing at one’s enemies as opposed to laughing at some joke or circumstance, but there are examples of that in a few places.
    Ecclesiastes 3:4: A time to weep, and a time to laugh, a time to morn and a time to dance.
    I don’t like to morn. I am not much of a dancer, but I love to laugh.
    Jesus once said in reference to how we judge others that how can you remove the speck from your brother’s eye when you have a plank in your own?
    I have always found that funny….a board sticking out of my eye.
    The story of Balaam’s donkey is humorous. The Bible uses the more ancient word for donkey but it will not work here. Anyway, Balaam does not want to curse the Israelites for this very rich enemy King, but changes his mind when the price to do so gets to be so big he can’t refuse. He rides out to do this dirty dead. He and his ***, sorry, donkey, are going down this tight mountain path when an angel with a very big sword appears and blocks the way. The poor beast sees the angel but Balaam does not, so he starts to beat the unfortunate animal when it runs the other way. The donkey moves back to the path but is so afraid of the angel that he starts to cringe against the mountain wall which traps Balaam’s foot. He starts to beat the donkey once again. The donkey has had enough so she lays down which really ticks the prophet off so he beats her once more but much harder.
    This time the Donkey speaks up…”Hey what have I ever done to you that would make you hit me three times?”
    The donkey not only talks but counts as well.
    The first book of Kings Chapter 18 tells the story of Elijah and the prophets of Baal. Elijah and the prophets get into a contest over whose God is real. They meet on Mt Carmel for a fire from heaven shoot out. The prophets go first asking their god to send down fire and consume their pile of ox parts. They dance around, cutting themselves with knives and making an awfully loud racket at the same time. They did this for hours.
    Elijah makes good use of sarcasm and hurls taunts at them.
    “Hey shout louder! Surely he is a god! Maybe he is deep in thought or busy or traveling somewhere! Maybe you just need to wake him, or he stopped alongside the road!
    In other words the god of the prophets of Baal has stopped to take a pee.
    Elijah was not one for political correctness, that is for sure.
    And that reminds me of another story.
    Many years ago I told what I consider to be the best joke I know to a bunch of tired people on a plane in Chicago. We were stuck on the runway during a snow delay. I got bored with just sitting there so I decided to kill some time. I jumped up out of my seat and moved to the front of the passengers
    “Hey I want to tell you this story!"
    I had everyone's attention so I made the best of it.
    During World War One there was this private in the trenches waiting to be issued a rifle. They ran out of guns and bayonets before he could get his so he asked his sergeant what he was suppose to do.
    “Here take this” the sarge said as he handed the private a broom handle.
    “What do I do with this?” the private asked.
    “You point it at the Germans and go Bangity..bangity…bang!”
    The shocked private replied “That isn’t going to work!”
    The sarge said "you’re right" and he took the handle back and tied a string on the end of it.
    The Private said "what does that do?"
    "You point it at the Germans and go stabity..stabity ..stab, now listen to your Sarge and go out there and fight!”
    "Yes Sir! says the Private….he hits the trenches and there is a big bloody battle, bodies everywhere. The private points his weapon: Bangity Bangity Bang!….The private is amazed. Many Germans go down and as he Stabity Stabity..Stabs! and Banigity Bangity Bangs them over and over again.
    For hours they fight until the private thinks he is the only man left alive. Then he sees one German rising out of a trench on the other side of the dusty, smokey, battlefield The German comes towards him. The private takes a shot at him…. Bangity bangity bang!. The German keeps coming. Bangity Bangity Bang!. He still keeps coming and then he is on top of our brave private.He lunges at the enemy with all his strength...... Stabity Stabity STAB!.... Statbity Stabity STAB!
    It doesn’t work. The German plows over the poor private. The German breaks the private’s arm, his leg, and his back. As the private is lying in the mud and the German moves away, he hears the German saying:
    TANKITY...TANKITY...TANK!
    The Passengers all laughed until it hurt.
    Man I kill myself sometimes.
    My next entry will include Motorcoaching stories that you just have to laugh at. When that will be? I have no idea. The stories don't have to be mine. If you have a good one, send it to me. I promise to tell where it came from, unless you don't want me to.
    Gramps
    .
  20. -Gramps-
    This part of my past is very hard for me to write about. I guess that is why I haven't blogged for over a month and it has been even longer since I wrote the previous part of this story. I guess I am afraid I run the risk of having people read this story and think I am crazy, just like the people in our church, close friends, and eventually family thought my whole family was crazy. They all thought we had "gone off the deep end." I am not sure what good, if any, these words will accomplish. But like my father, I am a writer, and as such I feel compelled to continue typing and let the reader be the judge.
    From Wikipedia:
    A miracle is an unexpected event attributed to divine intervention. Sometimes an event is also attributed (in part) to a miracle worker, saint, or religious leader. A miracle is sometimes thought of as a perceptible interruption of the laws of nature. Others suggest that God may work with the laws of nature to perform what people perceive as miracles. Theologians say that, with divine providence, God regularly works through created nature yet is free to work without, above, or against it as well.
    A miracle is often considered a fortuitous event: compare with an Act of God.
    In casual usage, "miracle" may also refer to any statistically unlikely but beneficial event, (such as the survival of a natural disaster) or even which regarded as "wonderful" regardless of its likelihood, such as birth. Other miracles might be: survival of a terminal illness, escaping a life threatening situation or 'beating the odds.' Some coincidences are perceived to be miracles.
    I have heard the word miracle tossed around a lot. It is used to describe someone surviving a bad car crash (I used it myself after I was in a fiery car wreck in California-but that's another story) or a plane crash. I have heard someone talk about the miracle of surviving cancer. I remember the Miracle Mets and the USA Hockey Team and the Miracle on Ice after the 1980 Olympics, but how many people have experienced a "see it with your own eyes" miracle of Biblical proportions and suffered the consequences of such a miracle? Not many in this land. When I was a child I wished for one, I prayed for one and I got one. I had no idea what would come along with it.
    The morning after Penni was healed I floated off to school. I figured I could tell everyone about this life changing event. I believed that all who heard my words would believe me and would be just as excited to find out that God is real, just as real as I knew Him to be.
    I, being naive, could not have been more wrong.
    As I was walking to school, my Dad was struggling with his own thoughts about the night before.
    I think it is told best with his words.
    I remember the night, every bit of it. I lay facing one wall and Catherine lay facing the other and we didn't say a word to each other all night. I don't know if there was any sleep or if I froze in one position and allowed my body to rest a bit, but I managed to get up the next day and go on to work.
    At work, I tried unsuccessfully to bury myself in whatever I was doing. My mind was preoccupied and I don't know what I did. I'm a metal smith and I might have made cornbread that day, I don't recall. In my mind was a turning and churning of "what if, what if? and if it isn't?, if it isn't?" and how to handle it. This went on until about 10 o'clock in the morning.
    Finally, I couldn't take it anymore. I got to a telephone, called home, and when Catherine recognized my voice, in tears she said, "It's healed. And it looks great!"
    I don't know what my answer was to her, if I answered her at all. I managed to get through the rest of the very long day.
    I managed to get home at my usual time about 4:00 P.M. and as I pulled in the driveway, the screen door opened and this little 18-month-old girl came running out. Because of her foot, it had not Penni's nature to run on cement--she had always walked very cautiously. But she came running out and when she got to that little step in front of the house, she just passed right on down, past me and around the car, back up the step and over the door, turned around and came back down the step and around the car and back up a couple or three times before I could get hold of her. Finally she just came running up to me and I picked her up. I don't recall saying anything to her. I just remember picking her up and realizing then a kind of peace--that it really had happened, that this was no fantasy anymore.
    I walked into the house and I don't even know what conversation went on between Catherine and me. All I can tell you is that we were realizing that we'd had a visitation from the Lord in our home. It was Wednesday and we were going to church that night.
    We only lived four blocks from the church. We would often walk, but most of the time we drove because of Penni. That night when we started to get in the car, Penni said, No. She wanted to walk. As usual, I reached for her finger, but she shook her head and started running on down the street ahead of us....all the way to the church. I saw a whole new personality in the child. She was trying out new feet.
    I knew that one of the things we had to do was deal with Derrick about it because he didn't totally understand what had happened. He had seen us through the hassle of Kam's leg in a cast, for the same situation. He had also seen us ministering to Penni with corrective shoes, putting them on the wrong feet, and always helping her across the sidewalk, and holding onto her finger and so forth.
    When we did sit down to talk, Derrick explained in detail what had taken place when he had gone in that night to pray for her. He related that he had picked her foot up in his hand. Penni's foot had had no instep at all; it was twisted in at almost a 90-degree angle toward the other. He held her foot in his hand, which was similar to the therapy we had done before. In his hand he felt the muscles shape and move back where they were supposed to be. As he held Penni's foot firmly in his hand, he said it was almost like it wanted to force his hand open. He knew it was God because he had been exposed to a healing a few moments before on television. For a fourteen-year-old child this was a tremendous experience.
    We talked about it, and yet we knew we had to put it into perspective. We had to figure out what we could do with this, what we were supposed to do. I guess my question was Why? Why me? What had I done to deserve this? What was God looking for in my life that He would come and visit my home? What was it all about? What was my obligation now?
    I had not been taught this; I had not been exposed to this type of thing. It was not something that one could just get up before the church where we were going and testify about. I realized that there would be some problem with their accepting it, and yet there would also be a lot of problems with my denying it.
    I finally said to Catherine, "I don't know why, but God wants our attention and we'd better give it to Him. Above and beyond all other things that might happen in our lives at this point, we'd better give God our attention."
    So we pledged to do that.
    I found out real quick that some people didn't want to hear about this miracle. I found out at school the first time I tried to tell my friends in study hall. Some looked at me like I had gone crazy; some told me to shut up. One said he didn't believe in God so he could not possibly believe my story of a miracle. After telling me this, he got up and moved to the other end of the table.
    It wasn't long till the word got around the ninth grade that Derrick Parker was now some kind of religious nut. It was like being back in Denton, sharing stories of my traveling to Washington and being told "No one has ever been to there, it's too far away!"
    The hardest part was being cold shouldered by my friends who knew my sister, who could see for themselves but still said there is no such thing as a miracle.
    I didn't get it. How could one deny what one could see with one's own eyes?
    Apparently it was pretty easy to do, even if you attended church with the people who "claimed" to have had a miracle. It was even easier to deny what your eyes told you if the pastor of that same church didn't believe in miracles either.
    I wish I could tell you all the things that transpired after the people in the church saw my sister running up and down the hallways, climbing steps and being a normal, active eighteen month old. The things that transpired were shocking to me. We became the epicenter of a controversy.
    This controversy erupted out of the maelstrom of questions this miracle created. These questions were about the power of God and what our church believed.
    Let me some up the questions this way:
    Is God real or does the church just give lip service about him? Does God use His power through His Son Jesus like it says in the Bible or are we coming to church every Sunday for a Mythology-History lesson?
    The church split into two groups, those who believed what we told them and believed their own eyes. The second group, unfortunately the larger of the two, was composed of those who thought we were some kind of troublemakers and denied what their "lying eyes" told them.
    The pastor of our church was the leader of the second group as my Father soon found out.
    We were totally aware that God wanted to get our attention, so we were leaning in that direction like we never had before. Above and beyond anything that our church was teaching, above and beyond anything we had been taught in our lives, we were seeking the will of the Lord. By doing that, we were getting involved in home meetings in our house where we had prayer and studied the Full Gospel. We could feel the tension in the church growing like an epidemic. It wasn't just us, but we seemed to be the center of it.
    The word was getting out about Penni's healing. Anytime something like this happens, there's an aftermath. In an aftermath, there is some good and there is also some onslaught from the enemy. Our little Baptist church was very conservative in its doctrine with gracious, lovely people; but this was not a part of their program.
    Peggy Stewart, (one of our church Bible study friends) came to me one day and said, "Clay, you must tell the pastor." Well I knew already that I had to tell him because the evidence was there. I knew he was not the type of person who would understand with a lot of sympathy what was going on with us, so this was not going to be an easy task. He and I saw things a little differently and he knew anytime that I approached him that "Here comes the thorn in my flesh."
    I sought the Lord and prayed, Lord, You know where I'm coming from and You know what I'm facing, so if You really want me to tell him, tonight when we go to church, let him be available. This was not normally the case; he was very reserved and did not come out and mingle with the people a lot.
    That night when we went to church, we started down the hall and looked into the Sunday school office and there sat one person: the pastor, looking through a new Sunday school quarterly. It didn't seem like he was too engrossed in anything, so I stepped inside and said, "Pastor, may I talk with you a minute?" He said, "Sure you may." I imagine he already had some idea of what was taking place.
    I started from the beginning. I didn't hide any of the terminology and I didn't pull any punches. I told him that we had been watching The 700 Club with Pat Robertson and we saw a healing take place before our eyes on the television. Without taking a breath, I added, "and Jim Bakker turned and explained to the audience what God had done and we all heard. Derrick then went down to Penni's room and prayed for her and her foot was healed. We don't know why, but God has visited our home and we know it's real and we're gonna lend ourselves to Him and we're concerned about this church. I would like to have an opportunity to stand and tell the whole thing to the church so that there will be no rumors". I just spit all this out without giving him a chance to make any comment in return.
    Finally, when I gave him the chance, the pastor said, "We've not known your little girl that well, so we can't be sure of wha's happened. Since you haven't received a confirmation from the doctor and we plan our services quite a ways in advance, there's really no time or room for this type of thing, so I couldn't allow it to happen. And another thing, I need to talk to you further about what's going on at your house. We don't want any trouble in this church, so I want you to make an appointment when we will have more time to talk about this."
    That was the end of this conversation. I still had a lot to say. I made an appointment to came back.
    I thought that I was prepared to take my stand and to be firm about what I was going to say to this Baptist minister. It didn't take courage; I was anxious now. I wanted to go in and tear things up. When I got in his presence, I was ready to take my stand.
    The pastor has his own stand to take.
    "Clay, you know we're a Baptist church around here. I don't know how much you know about our denomination's background, but the Baptist church is a well-established church, one of the largest in the nations, led by men of many years of Bible research with many degrees and awards, men that stand strong and tall and are well-versed in their field. They are heroes of our time in the entire church world. They've set up the bylaws and the doctrines and of them we can be proud. They're our heritage."
    He continued, "What you are saying to me is not for us today. The healing as you've described it, is not a part of our doctrine. We Baptists, of course, believe in healing, but through the modern means that God has provided in this day. You see, in earlier times, doctors and hospitals and nurses were not available, so certainly Jesus intervened and He met the needs of His people just like we're meeting the needs of our people today, but through modern medicine means."
    He was very polite, very precise. He had done his homework, no doubt about it.
    "So, you see, Brother Clay, you're being swept into an emotional fantasy which is not for us and it will bring trouble, not only to your family, but to the church. And I will not allow it to disrupt things herere while I'm the pastor. It will bring nothing but trouble, and I'm asking you to be careful if you want to continue as a part of this church."
    I was starting to boil a little bit, I guess, because I knew what I was after and I was being careful what I was listening to-very careful. I was finding things in the Bible that confirmed all I was hearing from Pat Robertson and other Full Gospel ministers, so I was waiting for my turn to lash back. Just before I had a chance, the telephone rang.
    The pastor turned and talked for a few minutes and when he got off the phone he said, "That phone call requires me to leave. But we'll pick up right where we left off in a few days."
    A few days, a lot can happen in a few days. You can loose friends, your church, maybe even your family.
    I have to admit that of all the thoughts that could go through the human mind, I was battling with "What have you gotten your family into? What is all this that you have done?"
    I was getting letters from my family saying, "It's okay to be religious, but you can go off the deep end." I was getting letters and calls from Catherine's family that said, "What âre you two into? What's going on? What's happening?" I was trying to be very discreet in my explanations to them. They were Baptists too, you see, and I knew I had to be very tactful in any explanation that I gave. Fact and truth are always the best measures to take, so I wasn't denying anything, but I was being very careful in the way I approached my explanation.
    Catherine called me one day at work and I knew something was not right. She said, "We've got to go back and see the pastor."
    So we had another conference with him one evening and in that conference the conversation that Catherine had with him was not connected with reality and I finally reached over and asked her to be quiet and I said, Pastor, we'll end it here. We won't bother you anymore. We'll just do what the Lord wants us to do."
    He made some request that we not bring this back to the church anymore. I said, "Well, if the Lord asks us to stay here, we won't have any choice."
    The next night the deacon board came to our house.
    "Can we talk to you for a while?"
    I said, "Sure, sit down and make yourselves comfortable."
    "The pastor has asked us to come and to make sure that you not bring any more of this Full Gospel issue you and your wife are involved in back to our church. If you can't get yourselves uninvolved with this and just be a good Baptists,"
    One deacon would start to talk for a minute and he'd ask another one to explain. It was like they had a final blow, a package, that they were to deliver and no one had the courage to lay it on us. Three or four of them talked. I had asked them to sit down but only a couple sat down and the others were kind of pacing around.
    They continued to gave me a pretty good spiel about how much trouble we were causing....followed by "we may have to ask you not to come back."
    Finally I said, "Are you trying to tell us that the pastor has sent you asking us not to come back to the church unless we deny what has happened?"
    They said, "Well, that's pretty much the story."
    "Go tell the pastor he has no problem, we won't be back."
    They left our house.
    I can't exactly describe the realization that this was God. It was a heartbreaking experience but at the same time there was peace.
    After the deacons walked out, Catherine and I didn't discuss it a whole lot, but we went on to bed.
    It was now about Thanksgiving week and my wife's family was coming up to visit. I think what was bringing them to visit was curiosity more than need to visit with us. To be perfectly honest, I dreaded this visit, because it was not a time when we needed outsiders. There were many things that we needed to face.
    A few days efore the family was to arrive, Catherine called me from work and she said, "I need some help, I can't handle it. I don't know how to clean up the house."
    I came home and realized that, emotionally, she was not able to handle the very basics. I knew something was seriously wrong. I started relating back in my mind the break that she had had in the pastor's office and I realized that she had not been herself since.
    I took her to the emergency room at Boone Clinic and we got no consolation at all. I took her to see our friends Bob and Peggy Stewart and they prayed and Bob called me upstairs and said, "Clay, you need to get some professional help. We can't do anything. I didn't want to admit that there was something wrong, but yet I knew there was. I called and explained the situation to Pat Robertson and he said, "Get her out of town. Take a trip, go somewhere."
    My car was in trouble, so a neighbor let us have his car. We went up to Richmond and it was a night of horror. I had not slept Friday or Saturday night because I was attending to her. She locked herself in the bathroom. She attempted to somehow open the windows of the Holiday Inn on the sixth floor. Driving home, we came through Williamsburg and the boys wanted to go in and see a movie. While Catherine and the boys were watching it, I slept through the whole thing.
    It was a terrifying time in Richmond. The trip there was mostly quiet, the kind of eerie quiet before a storm. We checked into the hotel and then went next door to a Chinese Restaurant. I loved Chinese food, and I still do, but that dinner was without taste that night. We went back to the room and Dad gave me some change and told me to take Rod downstairs to the game room.
    We played some pinball, and some kind of computer quiz game, roamed around the lobby for awhile and then went upstairs. I don't remember sleeping much that night. The next morning I woke up to my sound of my mother screaming.
    "The world is gone!....Open the window and you will see that there is nothing there!"
    I ran and pulled back the drapes from the big window and told Mom that everything was just the same. Rod started to cry.
    "What's wrong with him?" Mom wanted to know.
    "He had a nightmare Mom, don't worry about it."
    We were all having a nightmare.
    After we checked out of the hotel, we walked down the street to a breakfast place. I knew I needed to eat something, and thinking this may be my last good meal for awhile I ordered a big omelet. We said a prayer and I ate with gusto, like I was worried someone would take it away before I could finish. Dad reached across the table, grabbed my hand and told me to slow down and taste it. I looked up at him and with a shaking hand grabbed my glass of water. I knew it wouldn't help anything if I lost control
    The drive home was not so quiet as the trip up. After we left Williamsburg we crossed the James River Bridge. As we reached the high drawbridge, Mom screamed that the bridge was out and dove to the floorboards.
    That was it, for me. I burst out in tears and then Mom became calm.
    "What's wrong with him?" She asked.
    What was wrong with me? I was watching my whole family come apart.
    After we came back home, I took Catherine over to Portsmouth Naval Hospital on the pretense that we were going to visit a friend who was there. I went in first to the emergency room and pleaded with the doctor.
    "We've got a problem. My wife is having a nervous breakdown and I need some help bad."
    "Well, bring her in."
    I don't know whether or not you've ever dealt with someone who's going into a total nervous breakdown, but one moment they're perfectly normal and the next moment they're someone that no one knows and the next moment they are normal again.
    In the emergency room Catherine talked with the doctor and she seemed perfectly fine so he looked at me as if to say, what are you trying to do to your wife? I walked up the hall and prayed, Lord, there's nobody else that can help me but You.
    At that point, Catherine made a statement to the doctor that was totally disconnected from reality and he said, "Wait a minute." He started making some arrangements and gave her some medications and said, "Take her on home. This medication will cause her to sleep. If you need to sleep, you take some also." I said, "I don't need a thing."
    "If you have any problems, call me back." said the doctor.
    We went home. Our folks came and it was a horrible two days that they were there. I cooked the Thanksgiving dinner and I wouldn't have wanted to eat that turkey because it might have had the marshmallows inside and the stuffing in the banana pudding. We got through the days but our relatives couldn't communicate with Cathering...They realized something was seriously wrong.
    On Saturday morning they left, didn't say a word to me, but on Monday afternoon two of her sisters were back with a whole different attitude. They didn't come back questioning and trying to slaughter me, they said, "Clay, something is wrong and we came back to help." In the meantime, I had already called the hospital and made arrangements to have Catherine admitted.
    One of the sisters stayed with the children and the other sister and I took Catherine over to the Naval Hospital on a Monday afternoon during the peak of the rush hour traffic. It was rainy and foggy and a setting for a mystery movie is the best way I can describe it. They gave me the paperwork and we headed from Portsmouth Naval Hospital to the psychiatric hospital.
    Bayberry Psychiatric Hospital sat way down in the deep woods of Queen Street and there was moss hanging down all around and a swamp that surrounded three-quarters of it. Its physical surroundings couldn't have been worse. It was the longest, hardest trip of my life through all of the traffic and the rain and every red light was red in my favor. I finally pulled up to this great, big steel-barred door and rang the bell and somebody came out and opened it his deep low voice said, "Y-e-e-e-s-s?"
    I gave him my papers and he said, "Come on in."
    They talked to us and finally they completed all the paperwork. When they asked Catherine if she would sign herself in, she looked at me for direction. By now, she would do almost anything I said and nothing else. If I said, "Comb your hair" she would comb her hair. If I said, "Put a little lipstick on she'd put a little lipstick on. I wasn't always sure where she'd put it, but she'd put it on. If I said, "Wear this" she would put on her dress. She might put it on backwards, but she'd put it on. So I was tending to a person who was almost a robot. So when they said, "Mrs. Parker, will you sign yourself in?" She looked at me and asked, "Is that all right?" and I said, "Yes, sign your name right there. Sign yourself in."
    They took her back to the back and came out with all of her clothes, her hairpins and everything, and handed them to me. That was my darkest hour.
    To be Continued of course.
  21. -Gramps-
    I said that 1968 was a tough year for my family. It was. It was also a tough year for the whole country. The Vietnam War was going badly. Bobby Kennedy was killed. Martin Luther King was killed. There were riots, anti-war demonstrations. Everything and everyone seemed stressed out. Some say the only thing that saved 1968 from being a total loss was the Apollo Eight mission around the moon. I will always remember the Astronauts reading from the book of Genesis and reminding us, me, who was, who is, still in charge.
    Eighteen Months Part Two.
    I could name this entry Fish out of Water (in more ways than one) because that is exactly what it felt like.
    It didn't take long to realize that we came from a different world and that we would not fit into this small town.
    I got along fine with my Denton cousins and their families, but that is where it ended. It is always hard to come into a new school halfway through the year, but to come from a school with twelve hundred students to a school with less than a tenth of that amount was more than rough.
    I caught it from every member of my class. I didn't think like them, I didn't dress like them and I certainly didn't talk like them and they constantly reminded me of those facts. They didn't believe that the school I left was as big as it was and that we changed classes six times a day. They had no concept of large grocery stores, shopping malls, large airports, aircraft carriers, or anything much outside of their community. The biggest thing for some of those kids was to visit Thomasville, a somewhat larger town nearby that made lots of fine furniture. There they were awed by the Big Giant Chair, in the center of town. I told them I had been to Washington DC and seen the big giant capital and all I got in return was a bunch of boos, calls of liar, and some line like "No one has ever been to Washington, it's too far away!"
    Worst of all they called me a Yankee. I hated that. I told them they had no sense of history. I reminded them Virginia was the home of Robert E. Lee. I also reminded them that during the War Between the States (Lord help you if you call it the Civil War), Richmond, Virginia was the capital of the South! But that didn't stop them. They didn't seem to know anything about the Mason-Dixon Line or Petersburg, or Cold Harbor, or much else. I became the official Yankee of the class and there was nothing I could do about it.
    I didn't make things better for myself when I said that when General Sherman made his march to the sea, he took his army around Denton instead of burning it down because he didn't want to do the South any favors.
    I was sent out to the hallway for that remark.
    Things were no better for my brother. One day he took a large piece of lava my father picked up when visiting Mt Etna in Sicily, to school for his fourth grade show and tell. He showed it, told them about it, and the class ridiculed him. They said something to the effect that he was nothing but a story teller cause that stupid old rock could not have come from Mt Etna, "Because No one has ever been there, it's too far away!"
    Some kid in the class said in his best southern drawl, "Now I bet you will be telling us your old man has been to that big Volcano in Hawaii, what's it called Mt Killawhale or something?"
    "You mean Mt Kilauea? Sure, he has been there a bunch of times."
    That did it. With shouts of "Liar, Liar pants on fire!" my brother found himself at the wrong end of a ten year old fist.
    For show and tell at dinner that evening, my brother's exhibit was a black eye and a note from his teacher saying that my Mom's son was being a class distraction.
    We were The Yankee and the Class Distraction. The boys on the Porch.
    It didn't help that during this time, our father was rarely seen by either of us. He found a factory job in Salisbury with a company called Fiber Industries. They manufactured polyester thread, which they sold to numerous other manufacturing companies, such as Hanes, Burlington Mills and others. Polyester pants were popular in those days, so the factory ran twenty four hours a day; seven days a week and my father worked the swing shift. Some days he worked noon to nine pm. Some days he worked three to midnight, or midnight to nine am, but never nine to six. During the evening, when we were home from school, he was either working or sleeping.
    We saw each other on the weekend a few times, but on those days we were usually on our land clearing trees, trying to get the spot ready for our new home. Living on the front porch and in one bedroom of my Grandfather's house was becoming old really fast.
    Once our terrible school year (we had the grades to prove it) was over, things improved some. Dad was still working strange hours with lots of overtime, but now that we were out of school we did see more of him. The family savings was growing, but the nest egg was not allowed to get too big because it was necessary to make a couple of trips back to Norfolk to repair broken pipes and a broken bathroom wall, courtesy of our renters.
    Rod and I were starting to turn into country boys. We ran around barefoot, raised chickens, got ourselves a big dog and I bought a rifle. It was only a bb gun, but who knows what I would have wanted next. I was starting to adapt to my surroundings, but I am sure Dad was not. His peace of mind was starting to wear out. He wasn't comfortable with how our lives were changing. Five months and no new home, and it would not be long before another school year would be upon us, and being a long distance land lord only added to his unease.
    In late June of 1967 we made our big trip to Montreal, Canada. It almost didn't happen. A few weeks before we were scheduled to leave, my brother came down with a case of viral pneumonia. It wasn't his first time, quite the contrary. This was something he got quite often. He would cough, and hack, run a fever and his lungs would get so full of fluid that he had to stand on his head to drain them. It took him about two weeks to recover from this episode. I was afraid our trip was lost, Mom and Dad said not to worry, but I could hear them at night, discussing the very strong possibility that we would not be going.
    A few days before the trip Rod's illness seemed to get worse, and then I got sick. I suppose it could have been the stress of the idea of not making the trip of a lifetime that caused me to get ill. I had a blazing headache, a terrible sore throat, and plenty of nausea. One hot night, I couldn't sleep, and my head hurt more than it ever had. Dad, having two sick boys to deal with, figured that if one of them was unconscious, maybe we would all feel better, so he gave me a Darvon capsule. It did make me quiet, but it may have mixed with some cold remedy that I had also taken, or I may have been allergic to it. I don't know. I do know I had a terrible reaction to it. It didn't start out so terrible, but something was wrong. During the night I felt like I had water running down my face. It was really strange. I ran a hand over my face in the dark. My cheeks felt large and spongy and I could feel bumps on them.
    I got up, ran to the other end of the house, to the back porch and then to the bathroom. I turned on the light, looked in the mirror and starting screaming my head off.
    I looked like something from a cheap horror movie. My face, arms and chest had broken out with large hives. Big red welts with white bumps covered my face as well. My cheeks had swollen so that only the end of my nose was visible. One eye was swollen shut; the other was red as an apple. I looked, in a word, hideous.
    Dad reached the bathroom first, took one look at me and went white as a ghost. Mom came up behind but he wouldn't let her see me. She insisted, pushed around him, saw my face and started to laugh. I know now that it was hysterical laughter, but at the time I could not figure out what was so funny. I told her so too.
    "It's not funny!" I wailed. "Look at me! I think I'm dying!"
    "You aren't dying" Mom responded, "You look like you stuck your head in a bee hive."
    Actually, that was a pretty good description, but I didn't appreciate its accuracy.
    I threw up.
    Not a pretty picture, a big red swollen head spewing all over the bathroom.
    Mom stopped laughing. "Clay, I think you better take him to the hospital."
    Dad, thinking the same thing, got me cleaned up and half carried me to the car.
    It was thirty miles to the nearest hospital in Lexington. I had my head in a trash can the whole way there. Dad drove like a mad man.
    If we had lived in Norfolk, a trip to the hospital, civilian or navy would have expected results. You would go to the emergency room, see a nurse, then a doctor, be poked, prodded, a thermometer jammed under your tongue, blood pressure taken, what ever. The main thing is you would just walk in and see somebody.
    We arrived at the Lexington hospital. There was no emergency room. We had no choice but to go to the front door. By this time I was feeling very dizzy and light headed, and my heart was racing a mile a minute. Dad had to carry me.
    The door was locked. No one in sight but there was a door bell. Dad pushed it and finally someone came to the door. The person was a janitor not a doctor. He said can I help you, and before anyone could answer, he took one look at my face and well, seemed to get sick himself.
    He pushed open the door, grabbed a wheelchair that was close by. I ended up in it and found myself being pushed down the dark green hall to a desk where a nurse was sitting looking over a clipboard. She looked up. My face sure could produce a powerful reaction.
    I looked at her. She stared at me. Along with the big nasty hives, she saw something in my face, because she quickly opened a drawer and pulled out a plastic container and handed it to me.
    Yes, I threw up again.
    "Oh my stars honey, you sure are a mess, let's see what we can do to help you."
    Her kind voice seemed so distant.
    She asked my dad some questions, about what medications I took, what I had to eat and so on. She took my blood pressure, and stuck a thermometer under my tongue, which wasn't all that easy considering how hard I was shaking and how stiff my jaw was. Then she picked up the phone and called the doctor on call. After about a minute, she got up went to another room and came back with a tray on which lay a syringe and a cotton ball. She rolled up my pajama sleeve, dabbed the alcohol soaked cotton ball on my arm and then stuck me with the needle. Whatever was in that syringe started working almost as soon as she squeezed it.
    My heart rate dropped, my nausea went away, and at that moment I just wanted to go to sleep.
    The rest of the night is just a blur. I remember waking up the next morning, feeling well, a bit hung-over, and hungry. I made my way to the breakfast table where I proceeded to frighten my sisters, which tickled my grandfather. Obviously I was still a handsome sight, as handsome as Quasimodo. It didn't take long for the cousins to hear about the new face in town. The two oldest girls, Dawn and Pam, decided to look after me. They told everybody else to have a look and then leave me alone. They fed me lemonade, and iced down my ugly fat face. In a few days I was a good as new.
    At the end of June we left for Canada.
    I will tell you right now that our vacation was absolutely great. We stayed in hotels, rode Monorails, and trains, roller coasters, a Hugh Ferris wheel, ate out, went shopping in large malls, saw, heard, touched and experienced things at the Expo that were fantastic. We concluded the trip by staying with old Navy friends in a cabin on the shores of a beautiful lake, Otter Lake, in Ontario to be exact. We went boating and fishing. The only bad thing was the kids we met, thought that Rod and I talked funny, like real Southerners. They would come over to our cabin just to hear us speak. I found it amusing, but I don't think my parents did. Well, Dad didn't anyway. The trip gave him time to think. He was thinking it was time to make the trip home. Home to North Carolina, but ultimately back to Virginia.
    Our Canadian adventure ended all too soon. We headed back to North Carolina.
    July soon ended. We did have some good times. We hiked, fished, and went swimming. Papa killed some of my chickens and we ate them, well that part wasn't so good.
    Dad gave notice to our renters that we would be coming back. We gave notice to our relatives that we would be moving back to Norfolk. None of them wanted us to leave. Papa, my normally strong grandfather, broke down and cried. My Mom was miserable. She knew it was the best thing to do, but she didn't want to give up her dream of being close to her family while living in her house in the woods.
    Sometime around my birthday, in August 1967, Rod, Dad and I went back to our home in Norfolk. We would spend the next two weeks scrubbing floors, cleaning out cabinets, painting walls in order to get our home back in order for the girls.
    It was a tremendous amount of work. We cleaned during the day, slept on the floor at night, ate off paper plates. It was a male bonding time. We made the house ready and just before the start of the new school year, Mom and my sisters arrived. At the same time, the moving company that back in February, moved all our stuff out and put it in storage, now moved it all back in.
    It took us some time to unpack boxes, get settled in, enroll in school and try to pick up our Norfolk lives where we left off. It wasn't easy. Dad spent a lot of his time looking for employment. He was hired by a commercial heating and air conditioning supply company but it wasn't much of a job. In late November he found a Civil Service position. He went back to working on navy aircraft. He would speed the rest of his working days in Civil Service employment, driving to the same base that he retired from, and happy to do it.
    Christmas 1967 is not a time I remember many details about, except we were broke, again. I remember participating in my high school Concert Chorus Christmas cantata wearing dress shoes I borrowed from Dad. We drove past the ships on Christmas Eve; at least I think we did. I am sure Dad put out presents for the girls. The old glass ornaments were on the tree. 1968 looked like it would be a good year, nice and quiet. We were back in our home, had our old friends back, we were back in our neighborhood church, same neighborhood schools we could walk to. All seemed right with the world.
    February ... Soon it was one year from the day Dad retired from the Navy.
    We received a call from Denton. Papa had a stroke.
    We rushed back to Papa's house.
    It was so sad to see my Grandfather, who had been so active, looking after his farm, his animals and all his grandkids, including us, not able to do anything for himself. We had to leave after just after a couple of days.
    He would only live a few weeks. It just didn't seem real, another trip down to Denton for another funeral. My Mother was devastated. It was crowded but quiet during the drive down. Mom quietly cried almost the whole way. When we pulled into the driveway of Papa's home, our home just a few months earlier, she broke down. There was nothing I could do except hug Penni, who just didn't understand what was happening.
    We were there for about four days and it was time to leave again.
    My poor Mom now had lost two parents, her dream house and her family all in less than eighteen months. We had also pulled up roots twice during that same time. All of us were sad, exhausted and not sure what our future would bring.
    My grandfather's death was a sad time made even sadder when it was discovered there was no will and as a result the family decided to auction off everything he owned with no exception. So in March we made another trip to Papa's farm to help with the auction. I asked for a birdhouse that Papa helped me build that I had left hanging under the eves of one of his barns. No, that had to auctioned off as well. I tried to buy it myself but three dollars wasn't enough.
    Something happened to us as all of Papa's possessions were being carried away by strangers. We all felt like a part of us was leaving as well.
    We made our way back to Norfolk and once there a dark cloud settled over our family, over my Mom and over me. Mom struggled with grief and guilt. I struggled with her and with school, I argued with my teachers and both my parents and my siblings. I became impatient and angry, and Mom didn't know how to deal with me and became even more depressed. Dad tried to hold everything together but it was almost impossible. From March to May things got really bad.
    We truly needed a miracle.
    We received one.....
  22. -Gramps-
    I have been suffering from a bad case of the blahs, so I have not made a blog entry for some time. You could call it a case of the blags. Today, however, I seem to have a sudden burst of energy. I am looking out my office window at my snow-covered coach and at the 10-inch-thick white blanket that is covering my front yard as well as the rest of the neighborhood and I feel inspired to write something.
    What, I don't know. I have not done any RVing lately. Nothing except trying to keep my coach warm, so that the batteries and the tanks and the water heater won't freeze. I have been successful so far, although I think I may have a damaged ice maker solenoid. I forgot to disconnect the water supply line and let everything drain. It's not a big deal; we don't use the ice anyway.
    I suppose I could write another chapter about my past Christmases. Seeing all this snow makes me think of that time of the year, even though it's the last day of January. Why not go ahead and tell you about one of them? It might do us both some good. It's a Christmas that I love to remember, the events leading up to it ... well, not so much.
    Christmas 1968 was the end of a very rough time for my family. That rough time started some 18 months earlier.
    In February 1967 my father, George Clayton Parker, at the rank of AMHI (for you non-military folks, that translates to Aviation Metal Smith first class), retired from the Navy. He had a distinguished career that spanned twenty one and a half years starting in July 1946. A few days after his 18th birthday, he enlisted.
    Just months after the official end of World War II, my father, then a member of the Military Police, soon found himself in the Philippines as part of a combined service task force whose assignment was finding and apprehending Japanese soldiers hiding in the mountains around Manila. He also had to do the same in Guam. These desperate men had either refused, or in many cases didn't know how, to surrender. This was a dirty and potentially a very dangerous job with no glory attached to it at all. Like many vets of the War, he has never talked at any great length about that time.
    My dad's last position in the Navy was as a career counselor, and his job, ironically enough, was to try to keep people in the Navy. The Navy couldn't keep him. Our family was growing faster than his military paycheck could keep up with, and Dad came to the painful conclusion that he could support his family only if he became a civilian.
    That wasn't all of it, though. My mom wanted to move back to Denton, North Carolina, to be closer to her father. To that end, Mom and Dad purchased four acres of land from my grandfather for a very low price. The plan was to move in with Papa, and live there while Dad and my Uncle Hubert, who was in the home construction business, built our family dream home.
    It was not a bad plan, I suppose. Dad could find a job in the area. There were many booming textile factories in Salisbury and other towns around Denton. All of us would pitch in to clear our new property and start building. At the same time, my mom would be near her dad and the rest of her clan. My brother and I would attend school in Denton. My sisters, too young to attend school, would have all kinds of female cousins and aunts to fawn over them. When summer came my brother and I would be living on a farm with mountains and lakes and cousins close by. It would be one big vacation! Or so we thought.
    I remember the day my dad retired. The ceremony started at 7 a.m. and took place inside the enlisted men's gym. I sat nervously on a hard chair, with my hands under my backside because they were shaking so hard. I watched my dad, wearing his starched Dixie cup hat and in his crisp Navy Blue dress uniform, with lots of gold hash marks on the sleeves, walk between the ranks of Navy Men also in their dress blues. He was making a final inspection, a privilege usually granted to retiring officers. My dad, however, had an exceptional career and was given a retirement ceremony that recognized his service. Before the inspection a Navy band played the National Anthem and the Navy Hymn. The Commanding Officer of the Norfolk Naval Air Station made some complimentary remarks; my dad, at times choking back tears, said some farewell words.
    He finished his inspection, was piped out of the building and his days as a sailor were over.
    I was no longer a Navy brat with trips to the base theater, the bowling alley, the exchange and all the other perks that I took for granted. It was now time to go to our no-longer home, pack up our lives into various-size boxes, rent the house to strangers, then say a lot of goodbyes, and head to a small town where everybody knows everybody else.
    My grandfather's house was a two-bedroom place with a large glassed-in front porch, a dining room, formal living room, den and an enclosed back porch. It was built long before indoor plumbing was in style and so the bathroom was an ad-on that you got to by way of the back porch. The house was heated by an oil circulator in the den and there was also a potbellied wood stove sitting on a stone slab on the front porch. I would get to know that stove very well.
    We moved in during a bitter cold spell sometime around Valentine's Day 1967. My sisters shared a bedroom with my parents. Rod, my younger brother, and I, we moved into the enclosed front porch.
    The porch was divided by a curtain to give Rod and me some privacy. We had a couple of twin beds with electric blankets, a desk, and some shelves. Underneath the shelves we fastened some iron pipes to hang our clothes. We also had a chest of drawers and on top of that our own television set. It was black and white, of course. The antenna was attached to a 10-foot pole just outside one of the porch windows. One of us would go out there and stand on an overturned wash tub so we could see the television. Then we would turn the pole until we got a picture that was viewable. We did this every time we changed the channel. It's a good thing that there was only two or three of them.
    I remember twisting that pole on Friday nights, so that Emma Peele of the Avengers could be viewed without being in a blizzard of electronic snow. We twisted it on Saturday mornings in order to watch the Three Stooges. There were times when my fingers froze to that pole. There would be other times when it was too hot to touch.
    It was quite an adjustment to learn how to live in the dead of winter in a porch room heated by a wood-burning stove that went out in the middle of the night. Having no heat was not good. Some of our first nights, the temperature dropped down into the low teens.
    I liked to shower before bedtime (my grandfather didn't have a tub) and many a night I would wake up with my hair frozen to my pillow. Rod wrapped himself up in his electric blanket. In the moonlight shining through the windows, it looked like a white body bag in the bed next to mine.
    Not long after we moved in, Mom took us in to town to register us for school. Denton had one elementary school, one junior high, middle school as it is called now, and one high school. So we knew where we would be going, it was the same school my mother attended, her brother and sisters, and most of my cousins. We would be riding on the bus with one of our first cousins and a distant cousin was the driver. The bus picked us up in front of my grandfather's gas station and country store at seven am on the dot. Rod and I were the first ones on the bus and the last ones to get off. It took one hour to get to our destination.
    The day Mom registered us we took the car into town. That took only twenty five minutes. The principal was in charge of all three schools and he had been there forever. My mom told me that Principal Harper (not his real name) was known, without affection, as The Frog.
    Everyone in the school office knew us, and knew we were going to register that morning. I think they knew it before I did. That is just the way it was in that town. As a matter of fact, later that summer my parents planned a trip to Expo 67 in Canada. They wanted to surprise my brother and me, but the surprise was spoiled by the local barber, who told me about the trip while cutting my hair. How he learned about it is still a mystery.
    Let me get back to my story. Mom registered us without a hitch and just before we were to go to our new classes Mr. Harper commented on how we would like our school here more than the big city schools we had moved away from.
    "Why is that?" I asked.
    Mr. Harper's response was totally unexpected.
    "Because young man," he said with a smile, "we have no coloreds here in our school."
    I didn't know what to think about that. I was a Navy brat. My former school was mostly Navy kids, so it was integrated. My family had lived in Navy housing, it was integrated. Our church was integrated. My dad's second floor Navy office was integrated, so was the enlisted men's club that was on the first floor. The Navy exchange and the Marine exchange, the theater, the commissary, all of these were integrated. I knew about people being separated by rank. The house in Norfolk we just left was in a neighborhood of homes owned by mostly Navy officers. I went to school with their kids, but I had never been in the officer's mess or in the officer's club. I was used to that but this statement by the principal didn't seem right to me. Not right at all.
    I looked up at my Mom.
    Something seemed to come over her. She lifted her chin up, stood up straight and looked the principal right in the eye. In her best "you better listen to your Momma" voice, she responded.
    "Mr. Harper, I have no choice, I have to enroll my boys in your school, so I am going to ignore that remark and I will hope that in spite of the fact that there are, as you so proudly put it, no coloreds here, that my boys will still manage to get a decent education."
    She grabbed both our hands and jerked us toward the door.
    "Now would you be so kind as to let me take my boys to class."
    Mr. Harper's mouth flopped open and his eyes bugged out. I knew then why they called him The Frog.
    Once outside Mom started walking so fast toward the Junior High School across the street, that she pulled Rod off his feet. As she was helping him back upright I said to her:
    "Way to go Mom, you sure let The Frog have it!"
    She turned and glared at me. I had seen that look before. That look could kill flies in mid air. "Mr Harper is still your principal and don't you ever forget that, do you hear me?"
    "Yes, maam," I answered meekly. "I hear you."
    "Okay, now let's go to class."
    It seemed like the best thing to do. I had a lot to learn. As it turned out, we all did.
  23. -Gramps-
    I went into the waiting room and had a good cry. My wife's sister held me tight and she said, "It's all right. We don't understand, but we love ya and we'll see you through it and it will all be all right. Clay, you're a good person. We don't always agree, but you're a good person."
    She had come on my side enough to minister to me. The sisters went back home with the two girls and left me with the boys. The doctor said, "Make your arrangements to care for your family for several weeks, several months, maybe forever because this is a very serious case."
    I believe that it really would have been easier to take my wife to her grave than to leave her at that hospital. If that had been the case, I would have had no choice; it would have been a decision that was finally made. But the unknown and the wonderings and the whys of reality were very difficult.
    I remember thinking this as I sat by myself for a few minutes afterward. The house was quiet and the boys and I got together and had a talk. I remember Derrick, age 15, and Rodney, age 13, saying, "Don't worry, Dad, we'll make it. Everything will be all right."
    I called the pastor of the church because I knew it would spread throughout the neighborhood very rapidly. I told him what had happened and he said, "I was afraid it would come to this" He made some effort to tell me how he had warned me. I just made the conversation as short as I could, tried not to be rude, and got off the phone.
    Catherine's sisters agreed to keep Kam, and Penni, as long as necessary. I am sure that when they finally arrived in Denton, North Carolina it was a chance for the whole family to come by and examine Penni's new foot. They knew about the healing, so I have no doubt that they questioned everything. Whenever the Lord has done something, it will stand up to questioning. If the Lord has moved in my life and I have been healed or delivered or set free of something, I can bear the brunt of the questions because when His glory is manifested, it will stand the test.
    The boys and I tried to start putting things together a little bit in order that we could just live. They saw the predicament that I was in and they were very good. I would go over each night to visit Catherine and they would stay home and do dishes and fold laundry. I would come home from work and we would all pitch in and start cleaning and try to keep things as near up to par as we could. I just felt like this was necessary. The Lord was good even in times like this, because I didn't have the physical strength to face people at work or anywhere.
    I was a metalsmith and, as I recall, an expert welder. As it happened, I was the only welder around and there was a big project at work that required my skills. For the first several days, they put me back in a welding booth to do some work. It was an opportunity for me to be by myself and hide my face behind the welding helmet and cry inside. God just allowed that as a hideaway for me for a while.
    As the word passed through the church, a dish garden came to my house on behalf of Catherine's illness and was left on our steps. The doorbell rang and no one was there when I answered it, just the dish garden. I supposed it came from the ladies of the church. We kept it around for quite a while, or pieces of it, as a reminder to pray for them.
    We had a few friends that kept calling. Of course, Bobby and Peggy came over each day to check on me and she pitched in and helped prepare food and so forth. But I was numb, I couldn't pray, I couldn't read my Bible. There was just a numbness inside. There's no other way to explain it. I just kept going step by step. I tried not to ask "why?", I tried not to ask "œwhen?", I just tried to keep the things that I had to do done and somehow or another I would sleep. It was almost like I would turn everything off and I'd finally go to bed and sleep.
    The only thing I could do was watch the 700 Club. They called me and said brother Pat wanted to see me. He pulled me into an office and we sat and talked for about forty minutes and cried together and prayed together. He gave me a ray of confidence, of hope, and said, "God will not allow these things to end up in this situation" He's a Deliverer."
    Though I was still numb inside, I kept hearing this from a man who I respected. "God is a Deliverer and He will not allow things to remain in this state." Pat was a very precious friend.
    On the 700 Club each night, if I had not called in to give a report, Pat would ask, "By the way, have any of you counselors heard from the brother whose wife is in the psychiatric hospital?" If there was no report he'd say, Brother, if you're listening, give us a call. We want to know how she's doing." So I would call and he would read it back over the air. This was encouraging. He said, "I want you people to fast and pray for this sister."
    I remember one night Pat came on strong against pastors who were mistreating their people who were filled with the Holy Spirit and believed in the Full Gospel. He poured it out heavy-real heavy. By realizing that there were some people on my side, it didn't change me within, but it gave me a ray of hope. I continued to just hold on.
    I would go over to the hospital to visit Catherine and, of course, they wouldn't let me in to see her. The first few trips I could hardly find anyone who knew she was there. I would go over and tell them I was there to see Catherine Parker and they would say, "Who?" I'd say "Susan Catherine Parker." So the lady would go back and say, "Yeah, she's here." And I'd say, "Well, may I see her?" And she'd say, "No, you can't see her. She still in solitary."
    "What's the report?" I would ask.
    "Well, no change," would be her response.
    I finally had a session with the caseworker that, I suppose, was the psychologist. He took down a history of the troubles that we'd had in our marriage, and the troubles Catherine had had as she was being raised as a child, and what might have brought this on. He asked me an awful lot of questions. I didn't get a chance to ask him any.
    Finally I had a talk with the doctor who happened to be a very devout Methodist Christian. He had some understanding and I felt freer in his presence. He said to me,
    "Except for what God can do, make your plans for your wife never to recover because it's one of the most serious cases I have ever seen that has come on without a history. Many times there will be a history and you will see it come and go, but there's no history of this in her family, no history of it in her life."
    I said, "How long?" He would give me no estimate of how long she would be confined.
    She was not in a coma, but she was totally unaware of reality; all of her talking was disconnected from reality. They had asked me for pictures of the family, so I took pictures of our kids. They did what passed for a brain scan in those days and they showed her those pictures among other pictures that they had. There was no reaction, no change, when she saw a picture of her own children. I found out later that she saw no difference between pictures of her own children and those of a stranger.
    One night that I was there, a little nurse who heard me ask about Catherine asked, "Are you Mr. Parker? Come with me."
    She called me back to her desk and she started telling me, "There is something different about your wife. I'm not supposed to tell you this, but I just have a feeling that she's going to be all right."
    Whenever I would come there for a visit, she would always meet me, call me back, and give me a little briefing. All of this took place over a few nights, but it seemed like months.
    One night sometime during the first week, I came back home from the hospital, laid across the bed, and cried out, "Lord, why?" I cried--not with tears, but with a total spiritual effort and said, "Lord-help me! He heard my cry and spoke to me and gave me a clue as to when she would come out of this "coma" or whatever it was that she was in. And then He clearly told me when she would come out of the hospital. It was so clear that I got up, turned the light on, and marked it on my calendar. As I recall, I marked a Tuesday.
    The next time I went over, they said, "Your wife came to today; she called for some help and said she wanted to know where she was."
    Catherine realized what was taking place around her. She related to me later that when she came to, it was like she had been asleep and woke up. Although she had been in the same little room now for five or six days, she said she did not recognize her surroundings. She thought she had been kidnapped and that I didn't know where she was.
    The nurse said, "She came to, she knows where she is, she's answering questions," I said, "May I see her?" The doctor told me I could see her tomorrow.
    Well tomorrow was her birthday, that's what the Lord had told me: that I would see her on her birthday. I asked if I could bring the boys.
    On December 10, 1968, we went by the supermarket and got her a little cake and some cards. We knew we couldn't take her any gifts but we could do that. They gave us a room where we met and she just seemed to be so much herself. I thought, "Well, praise God, it's all over."
    We talked and had a real good visit.
    The next day I went back to see her knowing everything was going to be all right, but she did not remember our visit the day before. It went on this way for quite a while. I could see her, but she wouldn't remember my being there the day before. All she would know was just me at the time I was there.
    In the middle of all of this, there was a flu epidemic taking place. First Rodney then Derrick and then I came down with the flu. We had to call for some help, so my sisters came up and helped us a bit, and they went over to see Catherine. I look back now and see that the Lord was exposing so many people to what was taking place.
    After the Lord told me when Catherine was going to get out of the hospital, it brought hope. When I would go back day after day and see that she didn't remember, it brought discouragement again. I don't remember if I said, "Lord, but You promiseed!" There didn't seem to be eneough improvement.
    It was getting close to Christmas. Holiday cheer and our present situation seemed mutually exclusive. I couldn't think about Christmas trees, presents or anything like that. I was having enough trouble just getting Rod and myself to school on time.
    One morning I just felt terrible. I couldn't think straight and I was an hour late to school. I think I should have stayed home because at the end of the day I was sick as a dog. I kept the flu for two weeks and missed a lot of school days. My brother came down with it also and poor Dad had his hands full. I remember one night after work around bedtime, he lost his temper over something simple and used words I had never heard him use before or since. It shocked both Rod and me. Dad apologized and we said our good nights. I could have sworn I heard him crying in his bedroom.
    As the days went by, and Christmas was just a couple of days away, our Aunt Hazel, who had been nursing us through our sick days, left before she came down with it herself. We boys managed to put up a tree, hang a few decorations on it, including the old antique glass balls. Dad and I made a wooden model of the Apollo Eight Command Module and I hung it from a string that was tied to the top of the tree across the high peaked ceiling of our living room to the top of a closet where I had placed a globe of the moon. Each day as the mission got closer to the moon I moved the model to mark the occasion.
    Christmas Eve came and my Mom was allowed a visit home. I am not sure she knew where she was, but we tried to make the best of it. I like to think it was a new beginning, for the Parker Family. I held on to that hope while I listened to Astronauts Landers, Lovell and Frank Borman read from the book of Genesis.
    "In the Beginning, God created the heaven and the earth...."
    The Lord and I are talked and I said, "Lord, send her home in her right mind and I will do whatever I have to do to make sure this never happens again."
    I guess I had been somewhat of a chauvinist as a husband and had stood my ground "this is your job" and "that is mine" and so forth. I don't think I was too hard-nosed about it but....
    I needed to receive mercy. In order to receive mercy, I had to give it. I had to learn mercy, learn compassion, and learn sympathy and patience and many other things.
    The doctor had talked to me about what they were doing for her and then told me about the treatment they do for mental patients. He said, "We don't know how to treat mental patients yet, we're just doing some ball-park guessing as to what we can do. We're going to try some shock treatments electrical shock and insulin shock."
    One day I went over there to visit and she came out with all of her get-well cards in her hand and she told me some things that had happened to her while she had been in the hospital a few days before. I saw that she had moved into a new state, that she was starting to stack up one day on top of the other. When that happened, they allowed her to come home.
    I brought her home for a few hours one Sunday and when I did, it was like she had never been there before, because on the way over she kept saying, "What's the name of our street? What does our house look like?" and asking questions. As as soon as she saw our house, it snapped back into her memory again.
    On one of the visits she said, "Let's get in the car and drive around to all of our friends' homes so I can see their houses and that way I can remember what they look like." We had a picture album of our church, so we sat down and she would read and look and say, "Oh, yeah, I remember,I know them!"
    Once when I went over to visit her in the hospital, she and her roommate (who was about in the same state) were laughing and they said, "You know we can't even remember our children's names?" So I took pictures her pictures of the kids, and went over each one's name, and how old they were.
    I took pictures of her sisters and showed them to her and told her who they were and which getwell cards were from whick sister. The shock treatments had totally destroyed all memory. It had to be fed back in. It's like a computer where someone has pushed the delete button and then you've got to put all the software back in. I believed we could do it together.
    The doctor was encouraged and said to me one day, "She is responding 100% more than we expected to these treatments, so you're going to be able to take her home."
    He gave me a date. I don't recall if he said "a week from Saturday" or "next Saturday." I felt like she was ready to come home. Of course, I was anxious and I could see that she needed me and I needed her and the boys needed her. I felt like if we could just get back together again, that everything would be all right.
    The day came when I was to go pick her up. I made some quick preparation and went over there to find that no one knew that she was supposed to be discharged from the hospital. The doctor had signed no papers, left no word, and he was out of town until late the following Monday night. This was the first time they had really let me down on things they had promised. I was so despondent. They wouldn't even let me see her that night. I came back home and had a tough weekend.
    Early Tuesday morning I called and said, "Dr. Pyle, you promised me I could bring my wife home this past Saturday and I went over and..."
    "No, no, I didn't. It was Saturday..."
    He gave me a date that was for the next Saturday.
    "No, you told me last Saturday." I was getting a bit frustrated.
    "No, it's next Saturday. Let me pull her chart."
    He went and got her chart and said, "you're right...I did tell you last Saturday. I am so sorry. Why don't you come get her today?"
    I was at work and as soon as he said that, I hung up the phone, went and told my boss, got off and headed home. I started straightening up the house a little bit and looked and realized that I hadn't turned my calendar. When I did, I noticed it was Tuesday and there was a big red circle around today's date! So I knew that God was the Deliverer and He was working it out.
    I got everything ready and went over after her. The traffic was heavy and I stopped at a stoplight. I looked over at the Bible lying on the seat and read Mark 19:2 where it says "Now go and tell your friends what great and mighty things the Lord hath done for you."
    God is a Deliverer. When I look back and see all the things that we went through and then remember the moment when I looked at the calendar and saw the mark around the day, I knew Who was in charge and that He had made available to us the strength to go through the trials. And I know when He said, "Go and tell your friends what great and mighty things the Lord hath done for you." that he was talking to me.
    It was good to have Mom home but it wouldn't be easy. I spent many hours trying to figure it all out. I take that back. I have spent years trying to figure it all out. I believe that the loss of two parents, a bunch of stressful life changing moves and then this wonderful, inexplicable miracle and its aftermath was just to much for the mortal mind. But all is well that ends well isn't it?
    That's it. Part Four done. Why, why have I felt the need to write about these things? I don't know. Maybe I have thought about my own mortality a bit more after losing my close friend a year ago this week. And when one thinks about one's mortality, then memories come flooding back. Or like my Dad it is just Mark 19:2 talking to me.
    Hopefully there will be nothing but rving related stuff posted here from now on. But don't bet on it.
  24. -Gramps-
    Lenses:
    To quote Sony.com “Every Lens tells a story!”
    That is not true. Not completely anyway. A lens does no good unless it is attached to a camera, and the camera is only as good as the eye looking through it.
    Then again it is true if you remember that an eye is also a lens; a lens attached to a photographer.
    It is up to the photographer to tell the story.

    It can be a story about love, or friendship, history, the beauty of nature. It can be sensual.
    A lens is a tool to make that story visible.
    I want to remind you that if you are using an APS-C sensor camera the focal length of any compatible lens is based on the 35mm film and APS full frame equivalent times the crop factor of 1.6.
    http://community.fmca.com/blog/62/entry-1382-depth-of-field/
    Lesson two.

    There are three basic types of lenses:
    Fixed focal length; which includes wide, fisheye, normal or prime, and telephoto lenses.
    Zooms, which can also be wide or telephoto or a combination of both.
    Macros, which are also known as, close up lenses. These are also fixed focal length lenses. Any zoom that claims to be a macro lens, well it isn’t.
    Fixed focal lengths come in various lengths and f-stop configurations. First is the normal lens. The term “normal” refers to the angle of view that the human eye sees when looking straight ahead. This normal angle of view is pretty close to a full frame 50mm lens. When using an APC-C camera normal would be approximately 35mm. (35 times 1.6 equals 56). I mentioned 35mm because that is a very popular focal length. A 30mm lens is also available from some manufacturers.
    If the normal angle of view of the human eye (which is a lens) is equivalent to a full frame 50mm lens, than any lens with a greater angle of view is a wide lens and any lens with less is a long lens. Once again depending on the sensor, a normal or prime lens, as some call it, can be 28 to 50mm in length. A fast normal lens with a large aperture of f-2.8 or more makes a great lens for shooting pictures in low light. I own a 35mm f-1.8 lens.

    A 50mm lens when used with an APS-C camera makes a really good portrait lens. A 50mm prime lens can bring a person close enough for a head and shoulders shot without standing on top of them. If you set the f-stop at 3.5 or lower you will create a nice bokeh effect. Bokeh is the blurred image behind your subject. My 50mm f-2.8 Macro prime lens creates a very pleasant bokeh which I take advantage of for both portrait and close up nature shots.
    A wide angle lens pulls into the frame and focuses what a human sees with their peripheral vision. Wide angle lenses have a very wide depth of field, meaning that the foreground and the background will be in focus at just about any f-stop setting of the lens. Wide angle lenses have the ability to make an object or person that is close to you look farther away than it really is. Ultra wide angles, such as a 12mm fish eye lens, which can have a 180 degree angle of view, will also distort what you are looking at. This is the peep-hole effect and depending on the lens and sensor size, it can be very pronounced.

    I enjoy using a wide angle lens for landscape and scenic photography. I can capture all of a waterfall or a stream, a big wide sunset over the Grand Canyon. I am not a fan of fish eye lenses for a couple of reasons, one; I don’t like the extreme distortion, and two; a good fisheye lens cost as much as two good prime lenses. I also use my wide angle lens for taking group, architecture and interior shots. I happen to own a Sony 11-16mm wide angle zoom. It was expensive but well worth it.

    The primary function of a telephoto lens is the same as a telescope, to bring distant objects into closer view. The too technical definition of a telephoto lens is that the physical lens is shorter than the focal length and that the lens is constructed of groups of lenses called elements to bend light in certain ways to prevent fringing and distortion and make the image as sharp as possible.
    I don’t own a telephoto lens. I used to. A medium telephoto is between 85mm to 135mm in 35mm format (film again?). A super telephoto is over 300mm in 35mm format. The most common telephoto lenses manufactured by camera makers or lens makers are 85mm, 100mm, 135mm and 500mm lenses. Along with being fixed focal length, these lenses have something else in common, they are very expensive. Telephoto lenses are usually fast, they have a maximum aperture of 2.8. This gives them a physically large size and price tag to go along with it. The longer the lens is, literally, the bigger the price. It is my opinion that unless you need one for a very specific application, like shooting sports at night for example, your money is better spent for a good telephoto zoom lens.
    I mentioned that I used to own a telephoto lens. It was a really nice Minolta MD 135mm f-2.8 that I traded a zoom lens for. This was over twenty years ago when I had my own darkroom. At that time, I didn’t care for the quality of the shot from, or the physical size of, a zoom lens. I found that fixed focal length lenses produced a sharper image that was much better than a zoom set at the same focal length. Fixed focal length lenses were lighter, and faster. That is somewhat true today, but zoom lenses are much better constructed than they used to be, and they are more versatile than a fixed focal length lens. That is why I own four of them. In my bag is an 11-16mm wide angle zoom, a 55-200mm zoom, a 70-300mm zoom. Normally attached to my camera is the kit lens that came with it: an 18-55mm zoom lens. The last lens has an aperture of 3.5-5.6. Why two f-stops? That is because it is different at the minimum and maximum zoom setting. At 18mm the maximum aperture opening is 4.5 and at 55mm it is 5.6. All my other zooms have a maximum f-stop range of 4.5-5.6. This is rather typical of any manufacturer’s zoom with the same focal length.

    So far we have learned that fixed focal length lenses tend to be faster than a zoom so they are better for low light shooting, especially so if you want to hand hold the camera. That is why I own a 35mm f-1.8 “normal” lens. A 35mm APS-C lens is equivalent to a 50mm full frame lens. I also own a 50mm full frame f-2.8 lens which I use for portrait shots. My fixed focal length lenses are not as versatile as my zooms when composing because if I want a tighter shot, I have to move closer to the subject, and if I want a wider shot, I have to move back. Zoom lenses allow me to change my angle of view without moving as much. However, zoom lenses do not usually have as large an aperture as a fixed focal length lens, not without paying a huge amount of money. They are bigger in size so not easy to hold steady when shooting in low light. Using a tripod when shooting in low light with a zoom is a good idea.
    Last but not least is the macro lens. As I stated earlier, a zoom lens is not a photomacrography lens, even if the manufacture says it is. It simply does not have the 1:1 reproduction/magnification capability of a true macro lens. A zoom lens cannot produce an extreme close up shot resulting in a greater than life size image on the sensor. Of course, it is possible to produce a greater than life size image when viewing or printing an image.

    Sony has three macro lenses, a 30mm f-2.8, a full frame 50mm f-2.8 and a full frame 100mm f-2.8. The 50mm and 100mm lenses both have the advantage of allowing you to be farther away from your subject (we are talking inches) than the 30mm and still capture a 1:1 image. When shooting live subjects from farther away, even if it is only half a foot, is not a bad thing.... it keeps the butterfly from well, flying away. Both the 50mm and 100 mm lenses cost quite a bit more than a 30mm lens. I choose to purchase the 50mm lens (used) because I also wanted to use it as a medium telephoto lens. The 100mm, when the crop factor is applied, made it a 160mm lens which was a bit longer than I wanted.

    Remember that a Macro lens needs quite a bit of light to take an extreme close up picture. The depth of field will be very narrow and moving the camera a very small amount either closer to, or away from, the subject can dramatically change the DOF. A larger number f-stop setting helps to increase the DOF, but the shutter speed is going to be longer (slower) so mounting the camera on a good tripod is highly recommended.
    This was a very basic lesson about lenses, but my hope is I supplied enough information for you to make a wise decision about which lenses you want in your bag.
    Next lesson:
    Using the most important lenses you have: Your eyes!
    http://community.fmca.com/blog/62/entry-1392-the-rule-of-thirds-using-your-eyes/
    Gramps
  25. -Gramps-

    Family

    By -Gramps-,

    I believe that I am a pretty good motor coach pilot. I still believe that, even though I hit my mailbox while making a sharp turn into our driveway. Obviously I didn’t pull up the street far enough and turn sharp enough, but no real damage done, except to my pride.
    My car driving skills while making service calls … that is another thing altogether. I tend to talk on my cell too much while driving. I get distracted by the radio, the voices in my head, and the vehicles in front of me. The last thing really bugs me. I can be behind a dump truck, or a bus carrying seniors, while talking to a customer on the phone and I will blindly follow the bus down some street and then wonder how I got there.
    If you were to ask Diane about it, she would say that I followed it because I couldn’t help myself, that I did it instinctively, like a salmon swimming upstream.
    “You think so?” I would say to her.
    “Yep,” she might reply. “You are an old man and subconsciously you know you should be on that bus.”
    “Very funny. So how do you explain my following a dump truck?”
    “I can answer that. Because when you have rocks in your head you are magnetically attracted to trucks hauling large quantities of the same material.“
    Well, I don’t make stupid driving decisions when driving the coach. Not many, anyway. Our first year as owners of a motor coach was the worst getting into scrapes which included hitting a fence (actually the fence hit me), a mailbox, a tree, a tree, (no that is not a typo) a rock or two (they hit my coach windshield). I think that is about all. Oh, I ran over a low rock wall with our second coach, the one we have now, and I hit a telephone pole (actually the pole hit me).
    If I were to list all the mishaps including bangs, bumps, holes, rips, and things that make you say, “What the heck was that!” along with all the things that break on their own … I might have to ask myself the following question:
    What in the world has kept me in the RVing (motor coaching) world for the last seven years?
    That question is easy to answer.
    Family.
    It is the people we have met, the friends we have made that keep me looking forward to hitting the road again even though I might hit something else or it might hit me.
    We RVers, we motor coachers, are a rare breed. I don’t know how to explain it to people who don’t do what we do how easy it is for us to make friends.
    Just the other day I was at a Sonic Drive In next to a Lowes. At the edge of the Lowes parking lot was a good -looking 36 foot motor coach. It had its jacks down and its slideouts extended. Sitting in a lawn chair on the grass was a man named Bob and his black lab. Bob was taking it easy, smoking a cigar and seemed to be without a care in the world.
    I walked over and started talking to him. When I told Bob I was a coacher as well, he gave me a big smile and started telling me about himself. Bob was visiting his daughter, a Navy officer, who was soon to be deployed to the Middle East. He and his wife had traveled from Arizona to see her. I told him about myself, my family and my coach. We talked for over an hour and parted as friends. Something tells me I will see him again one day.
    I think we have the old American pioneering spirit still living in us. We are descendants of the people who loaded up their covered wagons and headed west. They would rally up at some fort on the trail. They shared food, and drink and stories.
    These stories were about their journeys and the friends they made along the way. They would make new friends as they would travel together. If someone’s wagon broke down, or a horse died, they would pitch in and help their fellow traveler in need.
    We do the same thing now. I have helped repair a stuck Workhorse or two. My wife and I have been to lots of rallies and fed lots of people. People have looked after us. Our coaching friends on the forums, at campouts and especially at Deer Creek Motorcoach resort helped us though some tough times this last year.
    I don’t think that Barry and Mario had any idea what kind of community they would be giving birth to when they conceived the idea of building a motor coach resort. Deer Creek is more than a resort with clubhouse, golf course and a lot of handsome coaches parked on pretty lots. It is not just a resort … it is a refuge. It is a fort full of good people.
    We are family. I would not give up this life for anything. I will continue to hit the road and take the risk that something unexpected might happen. Most of the time that unexpected thing is good, like meeting someone like Bob and making a friend, possibly for life.
    That is the best thing about being a member of the motor coach Family.
    Hopefully I won’t have to buy a new mailbox anytime soon.
    Gramps.
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