Archives for May 2017

My wife and I will be on an extended car trip (about 5-6000 miles) for the next three weeks. Traveling out west. So if you happen to check the blog you will note no new postings for a while. Hope to be back around June 22-23rd. As always…thank you to those who look at the blog…

LA
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Just some thoughts:

In 1910 Mark Twain died. He had left so many of his personal writings, letters etc. with  instructions they were not to be opened, read until he had been dead one hundred years. Those years have now passed and  I have been trying to make my way through some of his writings. Why I am not sure.   
 
The man had a way with words.

“Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities, truth isn’t.”
 
“If everybody was satisfied with himself there would be no heroes.”
 
“Don’t part with your illusions. When they are gone you may still exist, but you have ceased to live.”
 
Two quotes I particularly …well they make me smile.
 
“At two o’clock in the morning I feel old and sinful but at eight o’clock, when I am shaving I feel young and ready to hunt trouble.”
                                                 
“Supposing is good……………..but finding out is even better.”

Oh…..yes….I like that last one…. 
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​February 20, 2017
Keep on,
Larry Adamson

Just some thoughts:

                                                                            NO CHARGE

Not long after I retired from my twenty-four years on staff with the United States Golf Association  (changed directions–one never retires) our son, Jay and I took the trip of a lifetime. 

We left our homes in middle Tennessee flew from Atlanta, Georgia to Paris, France. There we met up with a group of twenty or so and along with them, a tour guide and a retired Colonel we spent the next twelve days re-creating the route of the American soldier that would have landed on the beaches of Normandy.

The second day of the trip found us in Mere Eglise, France. Which is just a few miles inland from the Normandy beaches. Early that morning found me up trying to find a cup of coffee prior to our group meeting for breakfast. It was early and the streets of this small French village were deserted. There one does not find a Waffle House, Cracker Barrel, or A Denny’s etc. Also, no Brugger’s.

After walking the village a few minutes I found a small coffee shop. Walking into the shop I noticed the only one there was a young girl/lady standing at the counter. No one else in the shop. I thought “now this is going to be interesting”  Often I don’t even handle the English really well. The young lady smiled and in some way I communicated that  I would like a cup of coffee. Evidently she understood as very shortly she returned with a piping hot cup of coffee. (And not in a paper cup)

I took my billfold from my pocket and as I started pay she said something to me that I was unsure of. I thought she said two words. Surely I misunderstood her. I smiled and said “excuse me.” She repeated her words. “No charge.” “Excuse me, I don’t understand, no charge,” I replied.

“You’re American, aren’t you.” she ask. “Yes,” I said. What she next said to me I will always remember: 

           ” My grandparents, and my parents have told and taught me what you 
                     did here a long time ago,  we have not forgotten, no charge.”

June 6th 1944. D-Day.

Hanging on the walk here in my home office is a picture of the American Military Cemetery, in Luxembourg. There are thirteen American military cemeteries in Europe, I have visited eight of those thirteen.
                                                                 “We have not forgotten.”

So said the young French girl….and this week or today I wonder how many folks here in our country, one—- even know what once happened and two, remember. 

While on that day my coffee may have been free…..but what was done on that day, June 6th, 1944….. was not. Oh my…it was not……..
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May 29, 2017
Keep on,
Larry Adamson ​

Just some thoughts:

This is a well-written article about a father who put several of his kids
through expensive colleges but one son wanted to be a Marine. Interesting
observation by this dad.  See below.  A very interesting commentary that
says a lot about our failing and fallen society.

We are as a country within a few days of what I feel are two very important dates that should be remembered and acknowledged in our country. One is what we call Memorial Day, May 29th. The other date I feel of great historical importance is June 6th–“D” Day. I hope the article below rings loud and clear with all….

LA
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By Frank Schaeffer of the Washington Post

“Before my son became a Marine, I never thought much about who was defending me.  Now when I read of the war on terrorism or the coming conflict in Iraq, it cuts to my heart. When I see a picture of a member of our military who has been killed, I read his or her name very carefully Sometimes I cry.
In 1999, when the barrel-chested Marine recruiter showed up in dress blues and bedazzled my son John, I did not stand in the way. 

 John was headstrong,and he seemed to understand these stern, clean men with straight backs and
flawless uniforms  I did not.  I live in the Volvo-driving, higher education-worshiping North Shore of Boston. I write novels for a living. I have never served in the military.It had been hard enough sending my two older children off to Georgetown and New York University. John’s enlisting was unexpected, so deeply unsettling. I did not relish the prospect of answering the question, “So where is John going to college?” from the parents who were itching to tell me all about how their son or daughter was going to Harvard. 

At the private high school John attended, no other students were going into the military.
“But aren’t the Marines terribly Southern?” (Says a lot about open-mindedness in the Northeast) asked one perplexed mother while standing next to me at the brunch following graduation.  “What a waste, he was such a good student,” said another parent.  One parent (a professor at a nearby and
rather famous university) spoke up at a school meeting and suggested that the school should “carefully evaluate what went wrong.”

When John graduated from three months of boot camp on Parris Island, 3000 parents and friends were on the parade deck stands.  We parents and our Marines not only were of many races but also were representative of many economic classes. Many were poor. Some arrived crammed in the backs of pickups, others by bus.  John told me that a lot of parents could not afford the trip.

We in the audience were white and Native American.  We were Hispanic, Arab, and African American, and Asian. We were former Marines wearing the scars of battle, or at least baseball caps emblazoned with battles’ names.  We were Southern whites from Nashville and skinheads from New Jersey, black kids from Cleveland wearing ghetto rags and white ex-cons with ham-hock forearms defaced by jailhouse tattoos.  We would not have been mistaken for the educated and well-heeled parents gathered on the lawns of John’s private school a half-year before.

After graduation one new Marine told John, “Before I was a Marine, if I had ever seen you on my block I would’ve probably killed you just because you were standing there.” This was a serious statement from one of John’s good friends, a black ex-gang member from Detroit who, as John said, “would die for me now, just like I’d die for him.”

My son has connected me to my country in a way that I was too selfish and insular to experience before.  I feel closer to the waitress at our local diner than to some of my oldest friends.  She has two sons in the Corps. They are facing the same dangers as my boy.  When the guy who fixes my car asks me how John is doing, I know he means it.  His younger brother is in the Navy.

Why were I and the other parents at my son’s private school so surprised by his choice?  During World War II, the sons and daughters of the most powerful and educated families did their bit.  If the idea of the immorality of the Vietnam War was the only reason those lucky enough to go to college
dodged the draft, why did we not encourage our children to volunteer for military service once that war was done?

Have we wealthy and educated Americans all become pacifists?  Is the world a safe place?  Or have we just gotten used to having somebody else defend us? What is the future of our democracy when the sons and daughters of the janitors at our elite universities are far more likely to be put in harm’s
way than are any of the students whose dorms their parents clean?

I feel shame because it took my son’s joining the Marine Corps to make me take notice of who is defending me.  I feel hope because perhaps my son is part of a future “greatest generation.”  As the storm clouds of war gather, at least I know that I can look the men and women in uniform in the eye.  My son is one of them.  He is the best I have to offer.  John is my heart. Faith is not about everything turning out OK; Faith is about being OK no matter how things turn out.”

Oh, how I wish so many of our younger generations could read this article. It makes me so sad to hear the way they talk with no respect for what their fathers, grandfathers and great grandfathers experienced so they can live in freedom.   Freedom has been replaced with Free-Dumb.  Please pass this on .
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Well said by the father of a military son. 

I have walked the beaches at Normandy—I have stood and looked up at the cliffs the Rangers scaled..and  walked the graves high above the beaches and heard the taps played at 5 PM…what a price was paid for our freedoms….if it not acknowledged…if it is not celebrated…it will be forgotten…when one or a country fails to knows its history and acknowledges it……sad times can be ahead…..  
​LA    

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May 18, 2017
Keep on,
Larry Adamson

Just some thoughts:

If all goes as planned my wife and I will be in the west this coming June. We are leaving June 1st, taking a three week extended car trip to a number of places and states out west and south.
 
Hopefully say around, Cheyenne, Sheridan, Jackson Hole or Cody, Wyoming we will see a rodeo. A real rodeo with real cowboys. 
 
I have always been fascinated with folks who have given so much of themselves to a sport they love. Such as race drivers, professional golfers, rodeo cowboys would be three good examples.
 
One of the best rodeo cowboy books I have read is W.K. Stratton’s Chasing the Rodeo. The author’s father was such a cowboy. One who never had much success and one as Stratton wrote “his name was on my birth certificate but one I never knew.” He goes further by saying “I’ve call Cowboy Don a rodeo cowboy, but some people would take offense at that.” 
 
“A rodeo bum. There’s no precise definition for it. It can be a good-natured term for anyone associated with rodeo. But it can describe a character whose soul is infected by rodeo addiction. He can’t make any kind of living from it, yet he can’t turn loose from it, either.” –to quote Stratton. I must say that aptly described a few folks over the years I have known yet there is something inside of me that also respects. 
 
“He batters his body, has no future, and has left a long string of friends some sheets in the wind and some satisfied women behind— that’s a line from a Billy Joe Shaver song–“Ride Me Down Easy.”  He has few possessions besides what he is wearing on his back. He knows the finer points of hitchhiking and sleeping out in the rain. He shows up at a rodeo, looking for whatever work he can find, maybe persuading the stock contractor to give him a job bucking hay or wrangling the cattle and horses, in the pens behind the arena. If he draws enough pay for this, he’ll blow it on entry fees. And he’ll lose his events. Then he off for the next show.”
                                                                          Chasing the Rodeo–W.K. Stratton
 
Who knows maybe this year we’ll see Stratton’s long lost cowboy dad—Don,
 
Well I think not as too much time has now passed….but I bet there will be some who still fit Stratton’s description of “A Rodeo Bum.” 
 
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March 30, 2017
Keep on,
Larry Adamson

 Just some thoughts:
                                                                            
Have you ever wished you could have lived in another era? While I don’t wish to have lived during another time, there are happenings I wish I could have experienced from the past.
 
A few years back my wife and I and another couple were spending some time in the hill country of west Texas; a very pretty area. One day found us in Gruene, Texas. The oldest continuous dance hall is in Gruene, and we got to experience a bit of that history. It is said that dances began at this hall dating back to the 1890s’ and are still going on today.
 
I wish just once I could have been at that hall on some Saturday night in say the 1940s’when the great popularity of the King of Western Swing, Bob Wills, and his band would have been playing. It would have been special to hear his music and see those real cowboys dance their girls around the floor.
 
I have tried to acquaint our six grand kids to a lot of different types of music. This past week our sixteen year granddaughter (now eighteen)  (Sloan) made my day when I was driving her to music camp here in Nashville. She said, “Pop Pop play some music by that guy from Texas, the guy that talks while his band is playing and often you hear him go “Ah Ha.” Immediately I knew who she meant, Bob Wills.

Well the honky-tonks in Texas were my natural second home
Where you tip your hats to the ladies and the rose of San Antone
I grew up on music that we called Western Swing
It don’t matter who’s in Austin, Bob Wills is still the king

Lord I can still remember, the way things were back then
In spite of all the hard times, I’d live them all again
To hear the Texas Playboys and Tommy Duncan sing
Makes me proud to be from Texas where Bob Wills is still the king

You can hear the Grand Ol’ Opry in Nashville Tennessee
It’s the home of country music, on that we all agree
  But when you cross that ol’ Red River hoss that just don’t mean a thing 
 ‘Cause once you down in Texas, Bob Wills is still the king

​  Well if you ain’t never been there then I guess you ain’t been told
That you just can’t live in Texas unless you got a lot of soul
It’s the home of Willie Nelson, the home of Western Swing
He’ll be the first to tell you, Bob Wills is still the king

I once knocked on Waylon Jenning’s tour bus’s door, he answered and invited me in. We talked of Buddy Holly and he also referenced Bob Wills.      
                       
                               “Once you cross that old Red River, Bob Willis is still the King.”

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May 13, 2014
Keep on,
Larry Adamson  ​

Just some thoughts:                                          

                                                  “Would you mind too much if I don’t understand?”
                                                                         Quoting Willie Nelson.

A statement I can once remember particularly  saying… ( also more than once)

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April 4, 2017
Keep on,
Larry Adamson

Just some thoughts:
                                                 
 
“This has really been a good week for me. Really a good week.” 
 
This was recently said by a good friend as he spoke to me and a group of others one morning. He further explained by saying that a number of good things had taken place for him that past week and his work.
 
He followed those two statements by also saying, “And in some ways it has been a difficult week. Twenty years ago today my father was killed in car accident.” His father, a man he thought so much of, was killed returning from a week-end fishing trip. His father had been a passenger in a car riding with a good friend when it went off the road, hitting a tree and his father was killed instantly. No, not a good week. Our friend flew from his home to where his parents lived in west Texas to be with his family and prepare for his dad’s funeral. 
 
On the day of his father’s funeral the funeral director called our friend aside and ask to speak with him. Calling him privately to a room the director handed my friend a blood soaked piece of paper from a writing pad. The director paused a moment and then said “This is something we took from your dad’s person when he was brought to us for preparation.” Scribbled at the top of this piece of paper were these words:

​”Things to do next week”
 
Unfortunately there was no next week for my friend’s father.
 
Don’t just call when you need something
 
Around the corner I have a friend,
In this great city that has no end,
Yet the days go by and weeks rush on,
And before I know it, a year is gone
 
And I never see my old friend’s face,
For life is swift and a terrible race,
He knows I like him just as well,
As the days when I rang his bell,
 
And he rang mine but we were younger then,
And now we are busy, tired men,
Tired of playing a foolish game,
Tired of trying to make a name.
 
“Tomorrow” I say, “I will call on Jim
Just to show that I’m thinking of him.”
But tomorrow comes and tomorrow goes,
And distance between us grows and grows
 
Around the corner-yet miles away,
Here’s a telegram sir, Jim died today.”
And that’s what we get and deserve in the end,
Around the corner, a vanished friend.

And on a blood soaked sheet of paper my friend’s dad had written:
 
                                                                        “Things to do this week” 

Our friend’s story makes us realize…. Time…tomorrow is guaranteed to no one.
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April 30, 2017
Keep on,
Larry Adamson

Just some thoughts:                                                 

Remember when that word struck fear in the hearts of people?

If you were a kid, a child growing up in the 1950s’ chances are you were acquainted with that word, polio. Much of that changed in the early to mid 1950s’ when Dr. Jonas Salk developed a vaccine to combat that dreaded disease.

Today while I was doing my exercise (I try daily to do the treadmill in the wintertime other times walk a 4-5 neighborhood path) for some reason that word came to me. Polio. So often when I exercise I am made to think how fortunate, blessed one is if they have their health.

Thinking of the disease of polio most of us who were children in the 1950s’ also remember what had to be done to be protected from this disease. Shots. Now that’s a  word that most of us from that time can remember and not with a happy memory.

I remember the day my mom called to me as I was outside playing. I was probably about ten year or eleven years old. “Come in the house and you need to get cleaned up.” Those last two words to a small boy generally did not mean good things. Of course my first question when arriving at the door was “Why?” “Well we need to go to the doctor’s office we have an appointment.” Next question, “What for?”  “You just get cleaned up, now move on.”

The word “doctor’s office” to me never had a good sound or positive results. My feelings about those words were kinda like our old dog Shadow’s reaction when taken to the vets office. That dog normally like to ride in cars but I can remember how when we would pull into the vet’s parking lot ole’ Shadow knew, “this ain’t good.” She would look at you with those pitifully eyes and her legs would start to shake. She was not about to hop out and go with you.  She was saying kinda like my feelings at the doctor’s office, “I have been here before and nothing good ever happens to me.”

A good memory I do have on that day was what the doctor did and he always did this when I had to see him. Doctor Odell was his name. His office was a little white building on the corner of the main street in Farmersburg, Indiana. After doc gave me my polio shot he turned his back to me, took a small pill envelope from a desk drawer, took something from his pocket (generally a nickel–hey remember this is early 1950s’). He then would turn to me and say, “now take this after you leave here,  get yourself some ice cream.” Often he would smile and  then say to me, “I think you’ll feel better.” 

Isn’t if funny what children remember….I still remember his name, yes his office and the day I got my polio shot…………….. but most of all I remember his kindness. 

You know acts of kindness can have long memories……..

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May 13, 2017
Keep on,
Larry Adamson        

Just some thoughts:                                                  
 
I love meat loaf. Meat loaf freshly served or a cold meat loaf sandwich served with a topping of ketchup. Makes no difference. Either way is just fine.
 
I never have meat loaf that I don’t think of my good friend, Mike. The two of us probably ate more meat loaf than any two young guys ever.
 
Today my wife and I were out and about running some errands. About noon we both said that we were a bit hungry and so we stopped to get a bite to eat. We stopped at this restaurant, a national chain, you would recognize the name. 
 
When the young waiter came to take our order I sensed a bit of what I would call  hesitation on his part. He seemed a bit unsure of himself. When asked about something on the menu he did not know. (He did check and came back with an answer) When he brought the drink order he forgot the water my wife had ask for. 
 
When our order came, he apologized to me saying, “I know you ordered a grilled meat loaf sandwich but this is the meal order of meat loaf. I did give you an extra side order.” He looked at me waiting for my reaction.  I told him that the meal would be fine. Cut the young man some slack. One, these days I respect any young person, kid who is working.  Period. It speaks volumes to me. Kid not asking for a handout. Also, our eighteen year old granddaughter, who will be a college sophomore, is working as a waitress to help support her college efforts. So yes thinking of her taking orders, serving probably  that did figure in to my thinking.    
 
This past November my wife and I were on a Viking River cruise traveling in Germany. She and I have had the good fortune to travel in Europe on other occasions. One of the things I like to do when traveling anywhere is talk with the natives.
 
One afternoon we were on a tour in Budapest. While taking a break sitting with the young tour guide in a coffee shop I ask her a question.  I will often ask a native what their thoughts are regarding America and Americans. Seems these days the U.S. media would tell us that America and Americans are not thought of that highly. She smiled, hesitated a moment and said, “I love Americans I hope some day to visit your country.” “You are very diplomatic in your answer but is there anything in particular you noticed about us Americans?” She replied, “You must remember we lived under Communism well into the 1990s’, terrible conditions, and now things so much better.” She again smiled and said, “But I do notice on occasion Americans seem to, well I think your word is complain about matters that we would not think that important to talk or complain about.”
 
You know sometimes getting something not quite as one requested really is not that big a deal. Some would say “well you ordered a sandwich and that was not what you got.” True. “They should make it right, and the meal would cost you a bit more than a sandwich.”  That also is true.
 
But I thought about the young ladies words…”But I do notice on occasion that Americans seem to complain about matters that we would not think that important.” You know I had ordered meat loaf, I got meat loaf. True it did not come to me in the “form” in which I had ordered….but was it really that big a deal? 
 
Remembering the young ladies words….the meal was fine…. and maybe it would be good for us to remember….that sometimes we don’t have to have “everything just like we ordered it.” You know after all…………. meat loaf is meat loaf.
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May 6, 2017
Keep on,
Larry Adamson

​Just some thoughts:  
 
I have been doing some reading regarding the old west, cowboys, rodeos, etc. in preparation for our upcoming extended (3 weeks–at least) out west trip. Beginning with South Dakota, across Wyoming, Utah and looping back through Arizona, New Mexico, Texas car trip my wife and I will be taking this June. 
 
In Dirk Johnson’s book Biting the Dust he makes a description of what he feels describes various places in the west or what he calls the Great Plains. I would agree with his statement but I feel it could also fitly apply to areas I have known traveling back in my home state of Indiana.
 
“In so many forgotten towns on the back roads of the Great Plains, people sit on their front porches, gazing into the twilight, as if keeping watch before something else vanishes : another store, another church, another family.”
                                                                          Dirk Johnson–Biting the Dust 
 
On one of my last trip’s back home I decided I would drive somewhat out of my way, drive something other than the usual highways I take when driving back home. I guess to quote a line from an old SStatlerBrother’s song maybe it was cause “I had time on my hands and memories on my mind” that I did such.
 
Where I normally would have headed north when coming into Indiana I decided to turn and head a bit east crossing the Ohio River at a place called Rockport. From there I  drove west on highway 66 driving to Tell City on to Cannelton.
 
There I stopped a bit and drove where literally one can park their car within a few feet of the Ohio River.  Leaving Cannelton I drove to or through the very small hamlet of Rome. I smiled when doing such.  I had been there once before. Don’t think much had changed. From there on to Derby. From Derby I continued to travel back roads stopping at a convenience store (one of them places where they sell velvet Elvis”s) and got me a diet Dr.Pepper. Sitting on a bench outside was a teenage couple who had no clue  there was another person anywhere in the world. Uh….they were rather taken/ smitten  with one another. 
 
On to Jasper, then up the road to Ireland. The Ireland Spuds. Made quite a splash in 1963 with their high school basketball team.  They had one of the craziest coaches ever, Pete Gill. He once told the student body at a pep session that if they won the sectionals he would take his pants off at the pep rally. They did and he did.
 
Someway or another I made my way a bit west and went through Petersburg. Just outside of Petersburg I saw a church which had a sign, “Revival–every night—Come and hear the Gospel.” I smiled and thought “I’d like to show up there one of the revival nights and just see what does happen.”  From there on to Monroe City then up to Bruceville.  Shortly after Bruceville I hit highway 41 and was somewhat back in known country. 
 
My point is in all due respect to Mr.Johnson  there are a lot of places in this U.S. where folks are sittin’ on their porches and gazing into the twilight and keeping watch as many things they once knew…..have and are vanishing and they are not all out west.
 
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April 30, 2017
Keep on,
Larry Adamson