MacRamblings
Have been going through the ordeal of moving,
so unpleasurable that at times I have almost wished I were back in Nam!
Only benefit was getting rid of Thanksgiving poundage around the waist.
Short move as I'm still in the same subdivision which the developer
chose to name West Point. Accordingly, streets are named Thayer Hall,
West Point, Cadence, Cadet, Armory and Infantry. Another development in
town is called Dunes West. (Don't know why they call it that because
it's devoid of sand dunes and is miles from the ocean. Actually, it's
close to the deep woods where General Francis Marion, known as the Swamp
Fox, blew away lots of Redcoats during the American Revolution. Probably
using tactics similar to those we used. No gunship support though!) It
has streets called Pignatelli Crescent and Colonel Vanderhorst Circle.
Had a flashback on the latter, recalling that there was a guy named van
der Hayden in the unit early on. Didn't make it through our first
training class and was sent to a line company where he was KIA. Was one
of the large number of guys drafted right out of Old Reliable Academy in
October 1968. Quite a few LRRP's did not volunteer!! Anyway,
there are other places with relatively odd street names. There is a
Wolftongue Road in Colorado and a Shades of Death Road in New Jersey.
Wouldn't be caught dead living on that one! Then there's a Lizard Head
Lane in Arizona. Didn't find a Lantern Head Lane anywhere but maybe
Kenneth Marze knows of one. Finally, there's a Zzyzx Road in California.
Ironically I saw a sign for it back in 1969 when I celebrated my return
from Nam by touring the country. It was on the road from LA to Vegas.
Funny how the mind recalls certain things but not others. I'm positive
I'd get considerably lower test scores on high school history or algebra
exams than I received 40 odd years ago. At least I'm adding a few things
to replace those that flitted away.
Picked up a copy of "The Big Book of
Geography" by Maxwell at a local bookstore. Learned that El Paso is
closer to San Diego than it is to Houston. Bristol, TN is closer to
Atlantic City, NJ than to Memphis. Harpers Ferry, W VA is closer to
Stamford, CT than it is to Huntington W VA. St. Johns, Newfoundland is
closer to Prague, Czechoslovakia than to Vancouver.
Did you know that Iowa has the most golf
courses per capita of any state? Ranks high in the number of bowling
alleys too. I guess people there play with balls quite often. New York
has more ski resorts than Colorado. There are even ski resorts in
Algeria and Morocco which is hard to imagine. Maybe this global warming
stuff isn't all is cracked up to be. If you don't like the heat, move to
Leadville, Colorado where the temperature has never hit 90 degrees.
While there, have lunch at Subway and dinner at Pizza Hut and you can
say you've eaten at the highest store of both chains (over 10,000 feet
in elevation).
Want to feel like you're back in Nam? Move to
San Jose, CA where some 67,000 Vietnamese live. Their language is now
spoken in as many homes as is Italian. If you actually do return to Nam,
a dollar now gets you over 15,000 dong. Have an aversion to
foreigners? Move to East St. Louis, IL where 99.75% of the population
was born in the USA.
Don't buy stock in the phone company that
serves Newark, NJ as 8.9% of the households there have no phone. That's
for a city, for the town of Houck, AZ the figure skyrockets to 79.1%.
The first day of Winter is still a few days
off as I write this from near Charleston, SC but I've already seen a low
of 23 degrees. Damn cold for here in the Fall! Surprisingly, both Miami
and Freeport in the Bahamas had snow flurries in January 1977. At one
point during that month, there was snow on the ground in every one
of the 48 states. Bakersfield, CA got hit with snow in 1999 for only
the second time since 1932. Amman, Jordan of all places got over 2 feet
of snow in both 1992 and 2003. El Paso really got whacked with 22 inches
in 1987.
So where ever you may be, whether it snows or
not, have a MERRY CHRISTMAS!!
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