Foiled by the Converter Box

Last winter, we dutifully sent in for 2 coupons for converter boxes. We got the coupons in time to buy 2 boxes and installed one on our main tv in the basement family room. Everything seemed to work perfectly, and we were all ready for the first changeover date in February 09. Now that the analog signals were finally cut off on Friday, I went to the basement to see what our tv reception is like this morning between loads of laundry. Imagine my surprise to find out that the only stations that come in are channels 32 and above. The regular network channels and the PBS channel are all snow! Back to the drawing board...................

Really Interesting Book

Outliers: The Story of Success is one of the most interesting books that I've read in a long time. Here are some of the questions Gladwell asks:

• Why are people born in the first 3 months of the year generally more successful in life than the rest of us? ("Successful" meaning able to accomplish more in a field of endeavor.)
• Why are men from southern states less able to tolerate aggressive behavior from others than northern men?
  
• Why was it really dangerous to fly on any Asian airline flight until only a few years ago?

His curious answers to these questions kept me glued to the book. It's too late to change some of the decisions I made for my children when they were little, but I definitely would have done some things differently had I read this then.

Polio and Our Family

As if WWII wasn't making life terrible enough, Americans also had to live through many scary years of polio epidemics. One of my uncles, who was in the early years of high school at the time, caught the disease. He suffered some serious effects, but with surgery and rehabilitation, he was able to recover well enough to finish high school. He graduated from college, married and had children, and had a good career in sales. Sadly, in later years, he has experienced disability due to post-polio syndrome.

Knowing all this, I was really interested in finding The Polio Crusade from PBS, which aired a program on the topic last February. I didn't see it then, but you can watch it with a link on the site. By 1950, the Salk vaccine was discovered and I got it as a vaccination shot, unlike the current form of liquid dose. (I'm one of the remaining few who also sport a scar on my upper arm from a smallpox vaccination.) Anyway, just seeing the photos from the PBS promotion is a sobering experience.

Here's to my uncle, who remains cheerful and upbeat despite all. Polio didn't get those good humor muscles!

Rescued Relic of the 60s

Toward the end of my last year of college in 1969, I happened to be in the biggest department store in town, Dayton's (long before it was swallowed by Hudson's, then disappeared forever, a la Marshall Field's, et al). In my impoverished state, my radar only picked up sale signs in the store as I browsed the floors. In the handbag department that day, I found one of my all-time best purchases, a black leather clutch, that, even on sale, cost more than I could really afford. Nevertheless, I became convinced that I had to have it. It is truly the only item in my wardrobe that has not only held up through the years, but that I still enjoy using on occasion.

Not long ago, I pulled it out of the back of my clothes closet and discovered that the curved leather strap that held the industrial-strength snap closure had cracked. The two halves were hanging by a thread. I almost thought I would have to throw it away. A last-ditch search of the Internet led me to Irv's Luggage in a nearby suburb. Their ad said that they specialized in luggage repair of all materials, including leather. I had to wait for a day off from work before I could drive out there to see what they could do. To my surprise, I was told that their "senior repair specialist" would be able to fix the break for $35. Three weeks later, I picked up my purse in fully-repaired condition! I don't know how he did it, but the man must be a genius. I can't see any break and I don't think he made a replacement strap because he would have had to destroy the purse lining to attach it. Whatever, I'm so happy to have it back!


In the second photo, I placed in the clutch the 3-inch high paper doll with extra blue dress that my 6-yr-old granddaughter created for me for my birthday. Two treasures. Now if I could figure out how to replace the stained mirror, the purse would be practically as good as new.

WWII Heroics and Milky Way Candy Bars

After nearly 40 years of marriage, I thought I'd heard all my husband's stories, but it turns out he's been holding out on me! I heard this one after I came home from the grocery store with some Milky Way candy bars that I scored on a buy-one-get-one-free coupon.

Back during the war years when he was 11 or 12 years old, he faithfully listened to the kids adventure serial radio programs that came on every afternoon after school. One program announced a contest for listeners: dream up an escape method for an American Air Force pilot shot down and captured by Nazis near a famous French shipping port (clues given in the program), and name the port.

He said he knew the port was Marseilles, and came up with this idea, which he can never tell without laughing:

The pilot manages to scrounge up enough gunpowder to fill his mouth. Then he asks the Nazi guard for a light. The sadistic Nazi whips out a blowtorch, igniting the gunpowder, and shooting the pilot into the air and out of the prison camp!

After mailing in this entry, he heard nothing for weeks or months. Then a letter came, telling him that his creativity had won him a prize - a case of Milky Way candy bars. He actually felt a little disappointed, since Milky Ways were not his favorites. However, after eating all 30 candy bars over a period of time ("you mean you didn't give any to your friends?!"), he grew to like them so well that they have remained his favorite candy bar to this very day.

Farm Rescue and our Family Farm

My husband is a part owner of North Dakota farmland that was passed down to him from his grandparents who were homesteaders beginning in 1905. He gets a subscription to the Glen Ullin Times, the local newspaper out there, to keep track of what's happening. We were suprised to read in the latest weekly issue that the farmer who rents the land had been sidelined recently by emergency heart surgery, but that Farm Rescue had stepped in to plant his spring wheat. Here's an excerpt from their online log:

Week of May 4: Our volunteers are now in the fields, dodging rain showers, in one of the wettest springs on record!

But the crop is in the ground at Hebron, where Gene, Warren, Bill K., Lowell and Charles spent four days planting spring wheat. They put the last 100 acres in the ground on Tuesday afternoon. After a good home-cooked meal from the family they assisted (the husband had open heart surgery), the crew headed to Flasher.

This is a marvelous organization that has saved many a family farm. Read the stories of some of the farmers - you'll feel good!

Strawberries and Rhubarb - Oh, My!

A lovely sunny, but cool, spring day here - just perfect for planting my newly-arrived strawberry and rhubarb plants. Our yard has about a 3 inch layer of top soil here over a thick tough layer of old lakebed clay. Not what strawberry and rhubarb plants love. So my dear husband has dug holes into the clay to layer peat, cow manure, and topsoil for the new plants. Here they are lolling around in their new digs - get it?

The plants are part of a wonderful gift from someone who knows I love to garden. We are also both North Dakotans, originally, so we both know and love homegrown rhubarb sauce.

I was going to put some of the Chickity-doo that I bought at the local garden center on the new plants, but I figured it might be too much for them. In case you haven't heard of it before, Chickity-doo is an all organic animal manure fertilizer from - yes, chickens. It does smell terrible, however. Much worse than treated cow manure. I was told that we will NOT keep the bag in the garage - it has to go to the back storage shed. Wait until I try it for lawn care - ha ha! We might get voted off the neighborhood.