Thank You For Being Present In The Moment

Was this concert sponsored by AARP?  I looked around the Fox Theater, and almost everyone in the audience was about my age.

We were all at the Fox Theater to go back to 1969, the year of the Moon Landing, Woodstock, and the Vietnam War --- the year when Creedence Clearwater Revival put out three albums.

John Fogerty was on tour.  To set the 1969 mood before his concert began, a large screen at the back of the stage displayed a hippie mantra: THANK YOU FOR BEING PRESENT IN THE MOMENT.

  

I waited to see if the concert really would take me back to 1969. 

The large screen at the back of the stage started a movie.  The movie showed hippies in long hair --- that was not me.  The movie showed hippies wearing beads and bell-bottoms --- that was not me.  The movie showed hippies decked out in tie-dye --- that was not me.

The movie showed people at 3 Days of Peace & Music at Woodstock --- that was not me, even though I had been visiting my parents in August 1969 and I almost decided to ask my parents if they needed their car for the weekend because I wanted to drive upstate to a music festival, but I did not ask them and I did not go.

Then the movie showed a door gunner in a UH-1 helicopter --- that was me.

In 1969, I was in the Army.  I was a 67N20.  This meant that the Army had trained me to repair UH-1 helicopters, which were the work horses of the war in Vietnam.  The Army also trained me to be a door gunner, just like the guy in the movie playing on the large screen at the Fox Theater. 

It was the door gunner image in the movie that took me right back to 1969. 

I fell into the mood of the concert.  The movie ended, and John Fogerty came out on stage. Familiar Creedence Clearwater Revival songs blasted out into the theater.  I stood; sometimes I swayed to the infectious music; I sang out “Down on the corner, out in the street”. 

I looked at the other people in the audience who were swaying and singing out.  Thanks to John Fogerty, it looked like they were remembering what they were like 46 years ago: younger and slimmer, with long hair and wearing beads and bell-bottoms, all decked out in tie-dye.

And thanks to John Fogerty, I was remembering what I was like 46 years ago: younger and slimmer, having short hair and wearing fatigues and wondering if the Army would ship me out to Vietnam.

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Come on and ride the wind! A 4-minute video promoting John Fogery's tour in Canada, featuring a Volkswagen minivan, of course:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lV0-93vaSAk

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NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath.  Price = $11.  Find out more at http://www.puppyoutofbreath.com

How To Donate At The Devil's Elbow

I put my tourguide career at risk and took a bus load of senior ladies have lunch at the Devil’s Elbow.  It was a Continuing Education tour for St. Louis Community College, and typically the people who come on these tours are ladies in their senior years.

The college catalog described my tour as: “Bus tour of the historic Mother Road.  See Route 66 ruins, visit Route 66 businesses, and enjoy a barbecue lunch.”

On the morning of the tour, I stood in the college parking lot watching my tour people arrive, park, and get on the bus.  Then a car drove in, parked, and a woman in her fifties got out and opened the passenger door for a woman in her eighties. 

I found out that they were niece and aunt.  The aunt took a long time to get out of the car.  Then the aunt struggled, even with the bus driver’s help, to get up the four steps into the bus, taking her about three minutes.

The niece then came up to me and griped.  She griped that her aunt had trouble with steps, and the Community College catalog had failed to mention that the tour bus had steps.  I was stunned, and I had a hard time refraining from being snarky and saying: “Hey, the catalog also did not say that the tour bus has wheels, and, look, there are four of them.”

One gripe, and we hadn’t even left the parking lot.  What would the tour people say when they saw the ceiling when we ate lunch at the Devil’s Elbow, 125 miles west of St. Louis?  The catalog said “enjoy a barbecue lunch”; it did not say “enjoy a lunch in a Harley biker barbecue pit”.

At lunchtime, the bus pulled up to the Elbow Inn and let us off, but the bus did not linger because of a sign that said HARLEY PARKING ONLY, ALL OTHERS WILL BE CRUSHED. 

The Elbow Inn is a Route 66 icon.  When Route 66 was established in 1926, this was a family-friendly sandwich shop.  Now it is a place that posts a notice at the front door listing the 800 number for a bail bonds company.

My tourpeople sat down for lunch.  I waited for them to notice the ceiling – the fabric ceiling – the ceiling made of brassieres.  Would these ladies be shocked?  Would they complain, and demand that St. Louis Community College fire me?

One by one, the tour people noticed the ceiling.  And, one by one, they got up and photographed it.  They thought it was a hoot. 

I pointed out my favorite brassiere on the ceiling.  It was white.  The woman who donated it had written “From Akron, Ohio, Brenda St. Clair, 10 years a breast cancer survivor” on her brassiere.

One of my tour people said that she would like to come back some day and donate one of her old brassieres to the ceiling.  I had to tell her that you cannot donate an old brassiere, you have to donate your current brassiere, and it is a public ceremony.  The bartender will give you a free shot after you have donated.

I had taken a risk to have lunch in a barbecue pit with brassieres on the ceiling.  No tour people had complained, so I was happy.  I was also happy that I got to explain to someone how to donate at the Devil’s Elbow.

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This man has 98 tattoos of Route 66 icons.  Where is his Devil's Elbow tattoo?  On his elbow, of course.  (Note the Japanese Route 66 tourists taking his photo):

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NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath.  Price = $11.  Send an email to ParadiseDouglas at gmail.com to find out how to purchase a copy by mail.

Everybody, Stop Breathing

The sign on the wall said: “Maximum capacity 14 people”.  In the silence of a stuck elevator, someone read the sign out loud, then counted the number of people on the elevator: “-12-13-14-15-16”.  Since we were over the maximum, that person issued a command: “Everybody, stop breathing.”

It was 1962, and we were in the control tower at JFK Airport, and the elevator was supposed to take us up to the observation deck.  Nobody stopped breathing, but the elevator suddenly started moving again.

The next time I was trapped on an elevator was at Wells Fargo Advisors here in St. Louis in 2004.  I was the only person on the elevator when it shuddered to a stop.  

I pushed the button to tell Security what had happened.  Over the speaker, Security told me that help was on the way, and then asked me what I thought about last night’s Cardinals baseball game.

The Security person was extremely chatty; he wouldn’t shut up.  Then I realized that he had been told not to shut up.  Security was afraid that I would freak out being trapped by myself on an elevator.  Actually, it was much freakier to talk baseball with a voice that was coming to me remotely via a speaker.  Eventually, the elevator doors opened, and I stepped out.

Last month, I was leading a walking tour in downtown St. Louis with eight tourpeople: two Canadians and six Americans. 

Halfway through the tour, I took them into the Security Building, which has a splendid lobby built in 1890.  As I was showing off the lobby, Steve Smith walked into the building. 

Steve Smith is the CEO of the Lawrence Group, a major company that rehabs historic buildings.  They have branches in Austin, Charlotte, and New York; their headquarters are on the tenth floor of the Security Building in St. Louis.

Steve asked the tourpeople if they would like to see the tenth floor.  In the early Twentieth Century, that was the location of the Noonday Club, a gentleman’s club where Charles Lindbergh went to ask for money to finance his solo flight across the Atlantic.

Oh, yes, we would definitely like to see the tenth floor.

We piled into the elevator.  Steve Smith pressed the button that said "10".  Nothing happened.  Steve Smith then pressed the button that said "Open Door".  Nothing happened.

But Steve Smith’s cellphone did work when he dialed 9-1-1 from inside an elevator inside an elevator shaft inside a building built in 1890. 

As we stood trapped in a hot and humid elevator, I was convinced that my tourpeople were getting angry, and I envisioned them going home and telling their friends what an ordeal the tour was.  After 25 minutes, the elevator doors flew open.  Cool air gushed in, and we saw eight St. Louis City Firemen smiling at us.

The firemen were more than smiling, they were beaming at us.  They were dressed just like the firemen on TV: rubber coats and pants, big boots, and a helmet.  One guy was even holding an axe.  The firemen were beaming because they had rescued us. 

I announced to the tourpeople that I was willing to refund the cost of the tour, but they were not listening to me.  They were all busy taking selfies with the firemen.

I led the tourpeople outside, and announced that I would cut the tour short and take people back to the start point, but they were all busy taking photos of the three fire engines that had come to rescue us.

I envisioned the tourpeople going home and showing their friends photos of the firemen and the fire engines who rescued them.  And maybe a photo of the fireman who was holding an axe.

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A 3-minute video showing Nicholas White trapped in an elevator (Car 30) in the McGraw-Hill Building in New York City for an excruciating 41 hours...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_bMhNI_TY8

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NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath.  Price = $11.  Send an email to ParadiseDouglas at gmail.com to find out how to purchase a copy by mail.

One Year Of Fishing, And Then You Die

Otto von Bismarck looked at the typical German working man, and decided that Germans who worked hard all their life should be rewarded.  The reward would be retirement.  In 1889,  Germany became the first government to provide a pension so that a working man could spend his golden years relaxing and fishing.

Actually, it was to be one golden year of relaxing and fishing.  At the time, German life expectancy was 66 years.  So, Otto von Bismarck figured that Germans would work until they were 65, and retirement would give them one year of fishing before death.

Nowadays, people who stop working at 65 can look forward to many years of retirement.

I used to envision retirement as being immersed in free time.  

Free time would be abundant, and I could do all the projects I did not have time for when I was working: filing papers and organizing drawers and cleaning out cupboards.  

Free time would be unbounded, and I would be able to read lots of books and bake lots of cookies and travel to my heart’s content.

Two months ago, I retired.  Yes, free time is different now --- free time is elusive.

I wake up with a to-do list in my head, and at the end of the day, the list is about the same length as it was in the morning, in spite of my not having to drive 18 miles to an office, put in 8 hours at a desk, and drive 18 miles back home.

Is my to-do list too ambitious?  Is there too much on my plate?  Am I dawdling instead of being focused?  Are tasks expanding to fill the time allotted for their completion? 

Why is it hard to feel like I have accomplished much?

I am puzzled that retirement is not what I expected.  But I am not alone.  When I talk to other people who are retired, they have the same situation---their free time is elusive, it is not abundant and unbounded. They also have unfiled papers, disorganized drawers, messy cabinets, and buy their cookies at the supermarket. 

So, when people ask me “How is retirement going?” my answer depends on the person who is asking the question.  If that person is still working, I say that retirement is wonderful and I am enjoying my free time.  If that person is retired, I say that I am still adjusting to being retired.

But maybe I am living my retirement the wrong way.  Maybe what I should really do is heed Otto von Bismarck, and go out and buy a fishing pole.

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Here is a QuickHistory video about Otto von Bismarck.  
(2 minutes).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRcNoegrINk

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NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath.  Price = $11.  Send an email to ParadiseDouglas at gmail.com to find out how to purchase a copy by mail.

Big Things, And They Are Far Apart

I got off a Delta Airline flight at the Detroit Airport, and was greeted by a sign: "To get to the center of the terminal, take the train".

The Delta terminal is so big that it has a train inside it.  No, not like the Dallas or Atlanta Airports, where trains take you from one terminal to another.  The train in Detroit took me on a half-mile journey from the north end of the terminal to the middle of the terminal ---- and there is a second train that takes you the remaining half mile from the middle to the south end of the terminal.  Yes, a mile-long Delta terminal.

I had been invited to Detroit to teach a Scottish country dance workshop.  I arrived on a Friday, and the workshop was on a Saturday.  When my host and hostess met me at the airport, they asked me what I would like to see.

First on my list: Elmwood Cemetery.  As my hosts headed down the Interstate, we passed an enormous tire.  It had to be a Guinness Book Of World Records tire.  

After I oohed and aahed at the big tire, my hosts gave me the sad news: Detroit once had the world’s largest stove, but it had been dismantled.

At Elmwood Cemetery, someone in the office directed us to Lewis Cass' grave.  I wanted to visit his grave because I have impersonated Lewis Cass for my employer, Cass Information Systems. 

Approaching the gravesite, I expected a gravestone.  Instead of a gravestone, there was a towering monument.  I figured that there had been an outpouring of public grief at Lewis Cass’ death in 1866, and the grief was expressed in this big monument.

Next stop was Cranbrook, an art school with a 319-acre campus – a mighty big campus for an art school that only accepts graduate students.

I wanted to see Cranbrook because its campus is dotted with sculptures by Carl Milles.  I walked around snapping photos of his sculptures, including Jonah And The Whale, which featured a big Jonah, who was half the size of the whale that swallowed him.

I decided to go into the Cranbrook Art Museum, but it was not easy to do: the museum’s big doors, in all their art-deco splendor, were cast of bronze and weighed a couple hundred pounds each.

Once inside, I chatted with the museum’s receptionist, who turned out to be from Missouri.  She asked me what I thought of Detroit.

I said, “Detroit has big things.”

She added, “And they are far apart.”

Now I had a mantra: Detroit has big things, and they are far apart.

Whenever a local asked me what I thought of Detroit, I would use my mantra.  But the locals would then look disturbed.  I realized that the locals were disturbed because they thought I had said “Detroit has big things, and they are falling apart.”

I may never be invited to Detroit again.

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Take a tour of Detroit's urban landscape, with this rap video called "Detroit Vs. Everybody", produced by Eminem.  (6 minutes).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCdgDxQbW_U

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NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath.  Price = $11.  Send an email to ParadiseDouglas at gmail.com to find out how to purchase a copy by mail.

Four Footprints In The Sand

When I was a kid, I was self-conscious about my feet.  Everybody else had normal feet, but I had feet with high arches. 

My unusual feet were evident whenever our family went to the beach and I walked on the sand at low tide. Everybody else who walked on the sand had two footprints.  I had four footprints --- each time I took a step, the front of my foot did not connect to the back of my foot.

My feet not only have high arches, they are wide.  

So wide that whenever my mother took me on shoe-shopping excursions, she would have big consultations with the shoe salesman.  However, I did not mind these shoe store excursions because I got to stand on a wooden box filled with radioactive material and watch my toe bones wiggle. 

These boxes were called Foot-O-Meters, and were supposed to show if shoes fit properly.  They had periscope tubes for Mom and the shoe salesman to peer into and see the bones in my feet glowing green from the radium below them. 

Back in those days, radioactivity was nothing to worry about.

When I was old enough to buy shoes on my own, I did not have big consultations with the shoe salesmen.  The widest any shoe came in was an E width.  E width was not wide enough for me, so I simply bought shoes that were too sizes too long so that my wide feet could fit in them.

This meant I walked around in shoes with a couple of inches of empty space in the front.  I walked around expecting that someone would ask me why the front of my shoes never looked worn down. 

Then the running shoe burst upon the scene, and athletic shoe stores started popping up all over.  

I went into one of these stores.  The salesman saw how wide my feet were, and brought me a pair of shoes with a width greater than E.  The shoes were E-E-E-E-E-E.   They were white athletic shoes made by New Balance, the company which had broken the width barrier.

At age 40, I finally could buy shoes that fit me perfectly.  And I could wear my white athletic shoes without being self-conscious about wasting space in the front of the shoes.  Life was good.

Well, life was good until I turned 70 years old. 

I was watching a basketball game on TV, and noticed that none of the players were wearing white athletic shoes; they were wearing colorful athletic shoes.  

Then I went to a barbell class at Gold’s Gym, and looked around at people’s feet.  No one else in class was wearing white shoes – their shoes were so colorful that they sometimes matched the color of their shorts or t-shirts.

I can’t go colorful, because New Balance shoes with width E-E-E-E-E-E only come in white.  Now I feel self-conscious about my feet again, just like I did when I was a kid walking on the sand at low tide. 

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The US Surgeon General in 1927 produced a hygiene movie showing you how to buy good-fitting shoes, with the help of a Foot-O-Meter (1 minute):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jN7oqMw6ipo



A pair of colorful shoes take a tour of Miami (1 minute):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOEcgadlRf8

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NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath.  Price = $11.  Send an email to ParadiseDouglas at gmail.com to find out how to purchase a copy by mail.

Get Your Ticks On Route 66

St. Louis Community College asked me to write up a proposal for a bus tour of Route 66 this summer.

I am up for the task.  Route 66 passes through the town we live in; so, I went exploring the route as it goes west into central Missouri.

I found Route 66 ruins: buildings that barely stand and are no longer in use.  

Surely people on a Route 66 bus tour will want to see ruins, such as John's Modern Cabins, which were modern in 1941. Some of John's wooden cabins still stand.  Some lean.  Some lean further, and the rest are just piles of timber now.

Surely people on a Route 66 bus tour will want to see the ruins of the Stony Dell Resort, a place where Mae West once stayed.  

These ruins do not lean, because they are made of stone.

In central Missouri, Route 66 follows the Cherokee Trail of Tears for many miles, and people on a bus tour will want to see Larry Baggett's Memorial, which is now slowly turning into ruins because Larry passed away in 2003.

Many years ago, Larry built a retaining wall in his yard.  After he built the wall, he started hearing people knock on his door in the middle of the night.  He would open the door, and find no one there.  Oddly, his dogs, who slept near the door, did not notice the knocking.

Then Larry was visited by an old man.  According to Larry, this man looked like he was 150 years old.  He informed Larry that the retaining wall was built across the Trail of Tears.  Because so many Cherokee died on the Trail, the spirits still walk the Trail at night.  However, the spirits cannot get over Larry’s wall and they are knocking on his door to complain.

Larry built a set of steps over his wall, and the knocking stopped.  Larry was so impressed, that he went on to build a Trail of Tears monument at the end of his driveway:  

People on the bus tour will want to see these Route 66 ruins, and they will clamor to get off the bus and photograph them.  I cannot let this happen.

The main reason to keep people on the bus is timing.  

The tour will be eight hours long as it is.  If I let people get off the bus to photograph everything of interest on Route 66 --- not only ruins, but a giant rock in the shape of a frog, the Wagon Wheel Motel which is still in business, the bridge over the Big Piney which had so many accidents that the route earned the nickname of Bloody 66, the cafe where Jack Kerouac had lunch --- then the tour will be eighteen hours long.

Somehow I must convince people that they do not want to get off the bus.

I have a plan, based on summertime in central Missouri.  I will canvas the people on the bus: 

How many people would like to get a painful poison ivy rash?  

How many people would like to have parasitic chigger larvae feeding on their skin?  

How many people would like to get bitten by a snake when the bus is an unknown number of miles from the nearest anti-venom?  

How many people would like to have ticks crawling all over them?

Aha, that should do the trick.  People will be glad to stay put and take photos out the bus windows.

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Pixar's animated tribute to Route 66 is called Cars.  The Cheetah Girls are on the soundtrack of the movie, and here is the Cheetah Girl's video showing that they know how to get their kicks. (3.5 minutes):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8R8SOuusFc4

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NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath.  Price = $11.  Send an email to ParadiseDouglas at gmail.com to find out how to purchase a copy by mail.