written by ghostsniper; published by Gerard Dec 27, 2020
“Take away a man’s livelihood and he starts to die.”
I saw Jim back in June and he was walking with a cane and had lost considerable weight. His speech was soft but clear and he had nothing but good words to say, as always. I have known Jim for 15 years.
In 1966 Jim Brester graduated from college and set up his own veterinarian office over here on 135 in Bean Blossom, about 1.5 miles from our house. We had 2 dogs and I met Jim shortly after we moved here. People came from hundreds of miles around for Jim’s vet service and the parking lot at his place was always slammed hard. There was always a several hour wait to get in. They didn’t take appointments.
I took both dogs to Brester’s to get full examinations and shots, total cost was $40. Both dogs.
Once, one of our mutt’s had a problem, don’t remember what right now, but after I put her up on the table Jim stood in front of her, outstretched hand on top of her head and the other on her side and stroked her gently. Then he bent down to her level and looked in her eyes.
Before my very eyes, I saw a Vulcan mind-meld occur. As he stared in Lady’s eyes his head turned slightly to the side, like he was reading an unheard message from her. Then he stood upright, grabbed a glass syringe from the cabinet and triple loaded it with some chemicals, bunched up the skin on her shoulders, and gave her the shot.
I asked him what was wrong and he said she had an ear infection. Then he grabbed a cloth, applied a solution, and deeply cleaned her ears out which were full of brownish material. In a few days, Lady was her same ol’ self and Brester had charged $15 for that service.
5 years ago an out of state woman wasn’t happy with the primitive service she received at Jim Brester’s place and lodged a complaint with the state. In hours, through social media, hundreds of people jumped to Doctor Brester’s defense. The state dismissed the complaint.
A year later someone else filed a complaint so the state inspected his place and decided it was not up to par with where it needed to be. They didn’t have a $500k x-ray machine, etc. To do all the things the state demanded meant Brester’s place would never again be his dream.
See, Jim Brester got up early every morning and made the rounds out through the many farms in the area, checking in on sick cows, pregnant horses, immunizing every kind of farm animal and people’s pets. He also supervised all the animals at the 4H clubs in the area as well as judged animals at the county fair for the past 40 years. The care of animals was the reason Jim Brester got up every morning.
Unwilling to “update” his made-from-scratch business to be something he didn’t want or understand, 78-year-old Jim shut it down. Within a month a chain vet company bought the place, filled it with airheads in white coats, and quadrupled the prices and everybody had to have an appointment. I took my mutt Shannon there last year and a basic exam and a rabies shot cost $80.
When I talked to Jim this past summer the shine was gone from his eyes. He still spoke kindly like always but I could tell things were different now. They took away his reason for living and when you stop living you start dying.
— ghostsniper December 24, 2020, 12:40 PM
Dr Brester died 2 days before I wrote this.
Original article here: https://bcdemocrat dot com/2020/12/23/goodbye-doc-well-known-veterinarian-passes/
from a comment on "Silver Banner Mine" by ghostsniper
BREASTMILK
She thought she was studying milk. What she uncovered was a conversation.
In 2008, evolutionary anthropologist Katie Hinde was working in a primate research lab in California, analyzing breast milk from rhesus macaque mothers. She had hundreds of samples and thousands of data points. Everything looked ordinary—until one pattern refused to go away.
Mothers raising sons produced milk richer in fat and protein. Mothers raising daughters produced a larger volume with different nutrient balances.
It was consistent. Repeatable. And deeply uncomfortable for the scientific consensus.
Colleagues suggested error. Noise. Statistical coincidence. But Katie trusted the data.
And the data pointed to a radical idea.
Milk is not just nutrition. It is information.
For decades, biology treated breast milk as simple fuel. Calories in. Growth out. But if milk were only calories, why would it change depending on the sex of the baby?
Katie kept digging.
Across more than 250 mothers and over 700 sampling events, the story grew more complex. Younger, first-time mothers produced milk with fewer calories but significantly higher levels of cortisol—the stress hormone.
The babies who drank it grew faster. They were also more alert, more cautious, more anxious.
Milk wasn’t just building bodies. It was shaping behavior.
Then came the discovery that changed everything.
When a baby nurses, microscopic amounts of saliva flow back into the breast. That saliva carries biological signals about the infant’s immune system. If the baby is getting sick, the mother’s body detects it.
Within hours, the milk changes.
White blood cells surge. Macrophages multiply. Targeted antibodies appear.
When the baby recovers, the milk returns to baseline.
This was not coincidence. It was call and response.
A biological dialogue refined over millions of years. Invisible—until someone thought to listen.
As Katie reviewed existing research, she noticed something unsettling. There were twice as many scientific studies on erectile dysfunction as on breast milk composition.
The first food every human consumes. The substance that shaped our species. Largely ignored.
So she did something bold.
She launched a blog with a deliberately provocative name: Mammals Suck Milk. It exploded. Over a million readers in its first year. Parents. Doctors. Scientists. People asking questions research had skipped.
The discoveries kept coming.
Milk changes by time of day. Foremilk differs from hindmilk. Human milk contains over 200 oligosaccharides babies can’t digest—because they exist to feed beneficial gut bacteria. Every mother’s milk is biologically unique.
In 2017, Katie brought this work to a TED stage. In 2020, it reached a global audience through Netflix’s Babies. Today, at Arizona State University’s Comparative Lactation Lab, she continues reshaping how medicine understands infant development, neonatal care, formula design, and public health.
The implications are staggering.
Milk has been evolving for more than 200 million years—longer than dinosaurs walked the Earth. What we once dismissed as simple nourishment is one of the most sophisticated communication systems biology has ever produced.
Katie Hinde didn’t just study milk. She revealed that nourishment is intelligence. A living, responsive system shaping who we become before we ever speak.
All because one scientist refused to accept that half the story was “measurement error.”
Sometimes the biggest revolutions begin by listening to what everyone else ignores.
Welp, it was 40 years ago today that I started my architectural design business.
Time flies…..
Was living in Fort Myers, Florida at the time, 30 years old, been married a year and a half, had an infant son, and was working at the best job I ever had getting paid more than I deserved, for the largest architecture firm in the state. I was a lead designer and was treated like a king by everybody there. But then, I did work like they never seen before, nor since.
I landed that job in the summer of 85 and they offered to pay me MORE than what I was asking for. I was not yet an architect so my title was Lead Designer and I was doing design work on their biggest projects. Sarasota Justice Center. Tampa Stadium. Sugarloaf Key Elementary School. St Anthony Church restoration (oldest church in Florida), etc.
All of that stuff was a piece of cake and not nearly enough to sate my drive. I was burning hard at both ends and exploding in the middle. Out of our little rented house I was doing side jobs, nights and weekends after working 60 hour weeks at “the firm”. Residential remodeling and additions, single family homes, multi-family buildings, new commercial construction, everything. I turned nothing away and kept trying for more.
Soon, I realized I was earning more money on my own than at my well paid job, so the job had to go. Now I could devote all of my time to my goal.
My wife didn’t work until our son was 5 and started school so she handled the books for my business. It didn’t take long before I realized this wasn’t going to work. Some people can some how work with their wife, I cannot.
I moved my business into an office, expanded my licenses statewide, and hired an accountant to handle all the bookwork. I hired a part time drafter. I aligned (joint ventures) with 2 architects for larger projects. The whole thing was upwardly mobile.
Some of my projects started winning contests and awards. During 1990 I had designed more model home centers in the 3 county area than anyone else and I hired 2 more drafters and a full time administrative assistant and I started attending real estate school.
In 1994 I started getting involved with CAD, Computer Aided Design, and kicked everything into high gear. I was doing some of the largest projects in the area and was attracting some celebrity attention for specialized projects. I did one gov’t project, lost my ass on it, and never did another one.
By 2000 I was realigned with reality, trimming the fat, becoming more specialized. I could pick and choose my projects. I only wanted to design large scale custom homes on islands. That’s where the top quality projects intersected with top quality clients and pay. I was the exclusive designer for the islands of Sanibel, Captiva, Bokeelia, Cayo Costa, Useppa, and Boca Grand. Top shelf material all the way around.
Since 2010 I have slowed down a little, only doing 10-20 projects a year. No office, no employees, just me and some sub-contract associates in Florida. Last year I completed my last commercial project. I will continue to do preliminary design work on commercial projects but all construction documents will be handled by others. I’ll keep designing custom homes too.
Since I was 11 and in 7th grade I had a pretty clear view of what I wanted to do for the rest of my life as a vocation. Design buildings. There have been many challenges along the way. Heartbreaks. Massive frustrations. Months on end of irritable clients, projects, and gov’t overbearance. More than once I wanted to give up. Throw the towel in. Just go get a job and let others be responsible. But after a few brews, a puff of smoke, and a few hours or snoring, and 6 am the next day I was always back at it. Never giving up.
I’m old now, and I want to work up til I die. But the reality of such a thing is not good thinking. In earlier times this had never occurred to me. Getting old is something you do alone, and you learn alone.
Last Sept my mutt Shannon died and I told my wife I’ll not get another mutt and thrust it onto someone else when I die. Similarly, I don’t want to leave my clients high and dry when I die. Uncompleted projects that would probably be locked up in probate to where other people would not be able to complete them. Such a condition could cause problems for my wife. I won’t let that happen.
I learned how to start and successfully run a business for more than half my life and now I must learn the reverse, how to shut it down, and when. How do you stop doing something that has been so good to you for so long?
Watching the Mourning doves in the yard walking around, their heads constantly bobbing back and forth as they are in motion only stopping when they stop moving. How can they see, plainly, while their heads are bobbing?
Triangulation. Simple geometry.
When the head is in the forward position they snap a picture, then a microsecond later when the head is in the rear position they take another pik. Instantly, their brain compares the 2 images and gives them the info they need.
Distance, height, color, etc. And much more. Their eyebals do not rotate in the sockets, the position of each is fixed, and from different sides of their heads. It can get complicated. To you. To them it is the only life they ever knew. From the day they are born.
To you it may seem a handicap, to them it just is. Imagine flying, through the branches and trees of a forest with eyes like that. They do it well. You, though, would crash and burn instantly.
You think your eyes see continuously while moving them around in their sockets but they do not. They are like a movie camera in that they take many pictures per second and stitch them together in your brain and make you think it is one continuous movie. Movie cameras take pictures rated at number of frames per second. Old skool TV was about 60 frames per second, and if, while viewing, you turned your head quickly from side to side you could catch a glimpse of this reality. Newer TV have a much higher frame rate.
While reading this, if you stop and focus on each letter in each word you will notice that in each position your eye is focused on you will only be able to see a few letters and the rest will sort of blur out. Then, seemingly fluidly, you will move your eyes to the next “group” of letters, that were formerly blurred and they will now be in focus and the previous letters will be blurred. There is no continuous focus. You can see this more clearly at night, with clear night vision.**
With each advancement of your seeing eyes they are doing what the doves eyes do. Sending a signal to your brain that then stitches all of the stops into a seemingly continuous movement. What your eyeball does while rotating in the socket is what takes the Mourning Dove an entire head movement to do.
Fascinating, no?
**If, in darkness, you look directly at something at a distance, it will seem to be in an unfocused cloud. This is because of a blind spot on the rear of the eye where the retina cord connects. (there is a technical term for this but it eludes me at the moment) Therefore, if you want to look at a thing in the dark you need to avert your focus a little to one side or the other. In a way, your peripheral vision is better than your direct vision.
Everyone’s got an old bar-greasy spoon in their background somewhere don’t they? Mine was named “Pete’s Hangover” and it was right on 41 in south Fort Myers, FL.
It was an especially low point in my life, got laid off and had a problem getting employment. I worked for Wicks Component Manuf as a draftsman designing roof truss plans and wall panel plans. Then, POOF, gone. I thought everything was going good, moved into a brand new furnished duplex that no one had lived in before and was just settled in when the rug got yanked. I didn’t do anything wrong, the problem was further up the ladder. 70 people got laid off and I was one of them.
Pete’s was up the road a piece and I had been in there a time or 2 but it was a “biker bar” in the truest sense and I hadn’t frequented it before. But no, times were tuff, money short, prospects vacant, so I started hanging there. Even did a little drink slinging for coin and guzz. I even snagged a few “gurlfrenz” while slinging there. That only went on for a couple months and nothing bad came from it. I was working day labor joints during the days I could get picked up and the rest of the time I was scanning the paper and running down leads, mostly to no avail.
The unemployment started in June and ended in Jan when I finally landed permanent employment working as an architectural designer at what was then the best place I ever worked. I had been working there for a month, making decent money, climbing up out of the hole, then BLAM!, I got slammed into the shitcan, HARD!
At least hard for me. This was an environ I was unfamiliar with and didn’t like. I had an old shitty ride, an ocean liner, a 74 Mercury Montego. During my unemployment phase, when coin was non existent, I didn’t pay for the insurance, and that caused the registration to be null and void which caused my license to be suspended. jeez….could it be any worse?
Yes. Much worse. I pulled out from Canal St onto 41 headed south to my crib and no one had notified me that that was now a non legal move. Didn’t used to be. No left hand turn from Canal onto 41. Well, as luck would have it, Johnny Law was watching. woo-woo-woo-woo When he ran my plate he found out everything and I went to the shitcan. No if ands or buts.
The city jail was unbelievably rancid. Built a hundred years before, never cleaned, no air condition, and criminal negro’s as far as the eye could see. jeeziss I spent 1 night/day there then went to the big house in the county, a newer, nicer place with AC and some elbow room. The worst part was shear boredom. Had 4 cellmates, all white doods about my age, for various silly offenses.
The judge had given me 5 days because I had no money to pay the fines. 3 days in and my brand new boss showed up with a checkbook and in an hour he had sprung me. A friend had seen my ride parked in the lot of a beauty parlor (where I pulled in when the cop pulled me over) and thought it was sitting there because I went to jail. He contacted my boss to find out where I was. Instantly the boss said “Liz (his secretary), grab the checkbook and come on, Ghost is in jail.”
Couple weeks later I went into Pete’s Hangover but it was changed, er, I was changed. I was movin’ on up, as they say. The grungyness was manifold and this was no longer comfortable. I never went into Pete’s again after that and life went on.
Just looked Pete’s up on the map and it’s been cleaned up a little and is now one of them rent-a-furniture places. One of these days I’m gonna write book. Maybe it’ll have better spelling and grammer, but prolly not.
by ghostsniper This is probably the longest review ever written on Amazon and I wrote it over 15 years ago.
Reviewed in the United States on January 23, 2009
Get a cup of coffee and sit back in your easy chair for a spell and I’ll tell you a little story called “The Nightmare Before (and after) Christmas”.
My wife bought this PSI Turncrafter wood lathe for me as a Christmas present, wasn’t that nice of her? Quite frankly, I was shocked on Christmas morning, and elated!
30 minutes into it the motor just stopped, didn’t overheat. Unplugged the motor from the speed unit and connected power directly to it, still wouldn’t work.
Called PSI the next day and spoke to Judy who referred me to Joe Roberts and he told me to send the motor and speed unit to them and they would immediately check it out and send me a new one (cost me $15 to send it back). That was lie 1.
A week later I called them to see whats up and Joe Roberts told me the motor hadn’t come in yet but he would call me when it did. Lie 2.
3 days later I called again and Judy told me she couldn’t find Joe but she’d have him call me. Lie 3.
At this point I start documenting this stuff.
I called the next day and Joe said he didn’t remember talking to me before but would check the motor and call me back but he never did. Lies 4&5.
I called the next day and Judy told me they were having inventory so there was no way my motor had been received by them and transferred me to someones voicemail so I left a message, and no one ever called me back. sigh.
I called back and asked to speak to Joe and he told me because it was Friday he’d send me a new motor the following Monday. So on Tues I called and Joe said he sent the motor on Mon and would call me the next morning (Wed) with the tracking number. He didn’t call. Lie 6.
I called the following Tues and Joe said he didn’t send the motor and forgot to call me but he had a new motor in hand and would send it to me that day and call me the next morning with the tracking number.
Now we are up to today, Jan 22, and I spoke to Joe this morning and he said he sent the motor yesterday and would call me back with the tracking number which he did, but the tracking number showed (via the UPS website) that what he shipped only weighed 2.3 lbs and was going to a different state than where I lived.
I called back and Joe said there was a mix up and he’d call me back with the correct tracking number. He never did. I don’t know how many times he has lied to me at this point.
So here it is, exactly 1 month since this lathe was purchased and paid for and all I have is a heavy piece of metal that doesn’t do anything and a severe case of irritation over this whole mess.
If I don’t have a new motor and speed unit by close of business on Monday the 26th of Jan I’m going to box the thing up and send it back to Amazon.
I mean really, have you ever heard of anything like this before?
I haven’t, and I don’t think a customer should have to go through this, especially with a Christmas present. Some gift.
I can’t recommend this machine due to the irresponsible performance of the people that work for PSI.
Oh yeah, one more thing, this Joe Roberts has a nasty little laugh he does almost constantly while talking that just drives you up the wall.
If it was up to me he would be standing in the soup line right now.
And all I wanted to do was spin pieces of wood to resemble visions in my mind……..
Part Deux:
Its now been about 4 months since this lathe was purchased. As stated above dealing with Penn State has been a nightmare, specifically the enormous amount of lying by the guy in charge named Joe. He’s still there and he’s still lying.
Anyway, in frustration I scoured the web and found out there are 2 parts to the Penn Sate industry and up to that point I had been dealing with the part that was mentioned in the User Manual at […]. Don’t call that number unless you are a glutton for abuse.
Instead, call […] and speak to Mark ( […] ). When I called he was the one that answered the phone. You can tell instantly that Mark knows what he’s doing and he is used to getting stuff done, and solving problems.
Mark told me their lathes are made in China and recently they have been having a lot of problems with them as I outlined above and he had no solution for me but he said he would send me a new motor and speed controller which he did and they arrived in a few days. The same problem occurred. The lathe initially worked fine then out of nowhere it stopped and wouldn’t come on again. A few days later it would come on but would then go off again. I called Mark and he sent me a 3rd motor. That motor has worked fine to this day. However, there have been a few times when it would stop for no apparent reason and after pushing the reset button on the speed control unit it would run again.
I still don’t know the reason why this thing acts like it does nor does Mark, however I now have 2 extra motors and 1 extra speed control for backup.
Here’s what I think. I think the issue is in the speed control unit, specifically, the reset switch. It doesn’t has a positive feel to it when you press it. You can’t tell if its been pressed or not when you press it. The button itself seems loose in the housing and its just a matter of luck if it makes a connection or not. One of these days I’ll get around to purchasing an after market push button switch and see if that clears the problem up.
Having said all of that, in the past 3 months I have turned over 300 pens and various other things and am very happy with the quality of the unit except as indicated above.
Last week I decided to turn a small bowl which means using the included faceplate. After turning the bowl I went to remove the faceplate from the lathe and realized that a special tool is necessary to do so and it was not included with the stuff that came with the lathe. The main shaft in the headstock has 2 small holes drilled into it and I inserted a cylindrical drift pin into it while turning the faceplate with a 1″ open end wrench and it came undone.
I called the original Penn State number and requested the special wrench that was missing and that idiot Joe said no problem, he’ll send me one, then he asked if I purchased the lathe from them. I had already given him the serial number and he looked me up in the database. I told him I purchased it from amazon and he said, “Well that's a whole different story, you’re gonna have to send me a copy of your receipt so I can verify it.” So now I have to find the receipt and go somewhere and make a copy of it and snail mail it to him in order to fix a problem THEY created by not including the wrench in the first place. Well, Monday morning I’m calling Mark and see what he says and if he says he’ll send me a new wrench I’m gonna tell him he needs to fire that idiot Joe.
I hope no one else has to go through what I have and if you do have problems I hope the info above helps out. It really is a decent lathe but unfortunately the support is horrendous and its up to pure luck how your history will be with it.
Epilogue
Here it is a little more than a year later and I have no good news to add to this review. In the past year this lathe has brought me ecstasy and agony (kinda like being married) but mainly the latter. It is very unpredictable and that is frustrating. If I knew what was wrong I’d fix it, but I don’t so I can’t.
Just this morning I turned a pen, then stopped to eat lunch. When I came back to finish the pen the motor would not come on. I pressed the reset switch a gazillion times and still nothing. I tried 2 different motors and 3 different variable speed switches and still the thing does not work. Irritating. So I just fired off another email to Mark at Penn State (…), I doubt anything will get done about it.
In the past year, while dealing with an at times severely handicapped lathe, I have managed to turn about 300 pens and 30 bowls up to 9.5″ dia x 5″ deep and various other things like gavels, mallets, candle sticks, finials, etc., maybe 500 items all said and done. But because of the way this lathe works or doesn’t work it took 10 times longer to do all those things. You see, my problem was that I quickly became severely addicted to turning stuff. I can take a piece of raw material, say a piece of hickory from a tree that blew down in our yard, and then in the magical realm of the corner of my workshop convert that old chunk of wood into something everybody just drools over. Serious. Its easy to make bad stuff look good on a lathe if you pay attention, settle for nothing but the best and never quit.
My 3 rules for life. Because the lathe is inherently dangerous you MUST pay attention and stay focused. I’ve had a few minor mishaps, while wiping the shaving off the toolrest my finger got caught against the spinning material and yes I was rewarded with a nice blood blister for that infraction. I was holding a piece of 4/0 steel wool against a piece of wood and it caught and exploded, blowing the flotsam all up in my face and the whole area – what a mess. And I even had a few items fly clean off the lathe, over my shoulder and hit the wall on the other side of the room. I also have a few scars on the backs of my knuckles from rubbing against the edge of spinning bowls. Did I mention how much sawdust these things create? Jayziss. I have 3 60 gallon trashcans full of that stuff and I don’t know what I’m going to do with it. Just one bowl will generate about 5 gallons of shavings. Funny, you put a $20 piece of walnut on the lathe and then about $15 worth of it ends up on the floor.
I found turning to be sort of like therapy. I can stand there for hours working my art and thinking about stuff. You get a certain song going through your head like they do and you start thinking about a certain topic and the next thing you know 6 hours have flown by and you’ve solved all the worlds problems too, and that dam song is STILL going through your head. I can’t tell you how many times in the past year I’ve been late to supper, late taking the dogs out, late to just about everything. Time seems to fly when I’m turning. Its only when the sun goes down that I’m aware that time has elapsed from day into night, meanwhile I keep staring at this spinning object in front of me and observing the minutest of detail, making sure everything is exactly perfect.
I’ve made lots of mistakes, some of them major and cannot be repaired, but most of them have been minor and that’s where the creative mind comes into play – how to take a damaged thing and change it into a thing of beauty. Sometimes I’ll just take it off the lathe and set it aside for a day/week/month before I come back to it, and turn other things in the meantime. Like I said, its addictive.
All in all I am really infatuated with the art / skill of turning materials on a lathe but sadly this is not the lathe to do this on, at least not right now. It won’t work.
So, I am out a couple hundred dollars, er my wife is – remember, she bought it for me as a Christmas present and as of right now it's not a working lathe.
I still can’t recommend this lathe for the obvious reasons and suggest that if you are interested in a lathe of this size to look elsewhere, maybe a Jet.
Me? I think I’m going to move up to a larger lathe by another manufacturer, not sure who yet, and I’ll just set this one in a dark corner of the workshop and maybe someone in the distant future can figure out what to do with it. But when I do get a new lathe rest assured I will come right back here to Amazon and deliver an amazing review for you to enjoy.
PS: I was just over at the Penn State website ( […] ) and noticed they no longer have any version of this lathe available. It appears they have a new lathe coming out in March of 2010 and in their listings it has better specs all the way around than this series I am writing about. It looks like this old series of lathes are being phased out so I’d have even more reservations about buying one as repair parts and service will most likely be scarce. Caveat Emptor.
Good luck and happy turning. The Full Time Wood Wizard
Since writing that review I have continued to turn many things on this lathe. One of the contracted jobs I did was 53 walnut handles WWI era US machine guns for a guy that does military re-enactments.
All together I have turned over 1000 pen and pencil sets, most of which I have given away, and rest were sold on etsy. About 800 bowls, again, etsy. And maybe another 500 odd things like mushrooms, spindles, toys, etc., all sold on etsy and various art galleries.
I was initiated with lathes when I was 11 in 7th grade shop but then went about 50 years without ever touching one again. But when I did, LOOKOUT!
If you’re bored, have a little coin to blow, I suggest looking into turning things on a lathe. You might be surprised to find a part of yourself you never knew existed. You don’t need experience, but you do need aspiration, drive, determination, and imagination, and not take things too seriously.
I went into Circle K last evening. As I was looking around I noticed this older gentleman kept looking at me. He was a customer also.
I was waiting for the coffee to finish brewing as he walked up. He had a tear in his eye and he proceeded to tell me that I looked like his son that was killed in Vietnam.
I told him that I was sorry to hear that. He talked to me for about 5 minutes. He told me how he and his son were fighting before he shipped out. And that he never did say good-bye to him.
I felt bad for the guy. He asked me if I would say good-bye to him as he left the store. I said I would. As he was going out he yelled “Good-bye son”, I yelled back “Good Bye Dad”.
Well the coffee had just finished and I went up to the counter to pay for it. The clerk told me the total was $58.65.
I said for a cup of coffee? I think you made a mistake. She said “No a carton of Marlboro’s and a 6-pack of Bud, your dad said you were getting his”.
NOW my blood is boiling.
I rip out of the store, the old man is just starting to get into his car.
I grabbed him by the arm and tried to lead him back to the store.
He fell to the ground and I got a hold of him and started pulling on his leg.
Nigh on 8 years ago I wrote something and Gerard published it. Then in the comments section I wrote the following.
Bean Blossom bridge, you did that one right Gerard! Been across it many times, most recently to test the 4×4 capabilities on my Blazer.
The road to the rear of the picture taker is pretty arduous and shouldn’t be undertaken by anything lesser.
This picture is facing north and I live about 1 mile to the west of that bridge. It spans Bean Blossom Creek which meanders around like a snake and comes close to our house. A stream across the rear of our property feeds into that creek.
That road, that goes thru that bridge, was once the mainline from Indy to Louis many years ago. The northen most end of that road terminated at what was the longest same-family continuously run business in the state, McDonald’s Shopworth. The original owner was what was called a Huckster back in the late 1800’s, brung his wares by horse drawn wagon from the big city to sell and later established the store. Then in the 50’s his son aligned with the IGA chain and built a brand spanking new building, leaving the old dilapidated red wooden structure standing right out on the corner, sort of a landmark over the years. In the 70’s Jack, the grandson took over and was running the place with 3 of his grown kids when we moved here almost 12 years ago.
60 years later the IGA building looked very dated but like an old pair of shoes, was very comfortable. 3 cash registers but I never seen more than 2 open at 1 time. Along all the perimeter walls on the inside, up above the shelves and coolers, were momento’s collected over the years. One of them was a large, maybe 4′ long, wooden model of the Bean Blossom covered bridge. Bottles, cans, a large Singer thread display, many old products I had never heard of. There was a small deli at the rear and we would often get a 12″ pizza there on Fri evenings and while waiting for it to get done I’d wander the store looking at all the thousands of items up high on display. A veritable trip back in time, all times back to the 19th century, all at one time. Going to “Jack’s”, as everyone called it, was not just a place to go to spend money. As the community is small and there is no other business venture close by, everybody went there. I always seen somebody I knew when I went there. It wasn’t unusual to see someone and start yappin and someone else would jump in, then someone else, and soon 10 or more people are standing around running their jibber, jokes, etc. It was a place to “connect” with others in the real sense. “News” was transmitted, like when the bridge construction at Morgantown would be completed, or Jim Bond was bringing 200 blue watermellons back from Vincennes, Dr Brester (the vet) was doing better with his ailing foot, or Jr Cody bragging about his new tractor and all the stuff he could hook up to it.
Jack’s shut down about 3 years ago and I felt it in my bones, and still. Jack was in his mid 80’s and started suffering from alzheimers and it was painful to try to communicate with him, though I always did try. I knew Jack before the disease and he was a fun guy to talk to. Every year the store would hold a birthday party for Jack in the store with cake and ice cream for everyone and hundreds showed up. I remember the last one, Jack was out of it most of the time, sitting there with ice cream all over himself. Jack’s funeral was like nothing I had ever seen before. The line for the viewing was unbelieveable. My wife and I stood in that line for over 3 hours til we got up to the casket. The family members coming back thru the line shaking hands and conversing with everyone. Amazing.
A year later the kids decided they wanted out and shut the store down and put it up for sale. A year later “Dollar General” bought the place, and re-did the whole thing in their style – just opened a few months ago. It looks out of place. Many people seem to like it but I don’t. I have been in it and can see the convenience but what I really see is what has been lost. Funny, last week I stopped in there and lo and behold, Jack’s daughter was there and I hadn’t seen her since the old store shut down. I asked her how she liked this new dollar store and she said she did like it. I told her I didn’t and that I wanted the old comfortable store back. She looked at me and I could see the wispfulness in her eyes. Or was it regret? I know she seen regret in my eyes. Then without another word we both sort of walked off in different directions.
Yes, that shiny new store with all it’s thousands of items is a convenience to many and like a mushroom it will most likely cause other such things to spring up close by and little by little the meaning of life will be replaced by things that are easier. I’m not happy about this stuff but realize that there is little I can do about it. Back in 2006 I had a conversation with my FIL about my disappointment with the same thing occurring where we lived in Florida. I had spent a lifetime and a fortune procuring what I thought was my own personal paradise and the last place I would ever live. A home I had designed and built myself in a place 2 miles from the closet neighbor and the last people to live there were the Calusa indians a millenia before. A year after we moved in the largest builder in the state bought all of the property around us and started erecting cheap pieces of junk and inserting all the misfits of society into them thanks to free gov’t money. I told my FIL I was very disappointed and my wife (his daughter) and I were searching for another place to live, a place where we can find peace of mind. He asked me, “Where are you gonna go? Where ever you go they are gonna find you and in time you will be right back where you were. You can’t outrun change.” My FIL is now dead and I can’t tell him he was right. I see the changes going on around here and again I am not happy.
My wife and I are looking at property to purchase in distant lands though still in the US. But we’re not spring chickens any more so staking a claim on the northside of the rockies is probably not in the picture though that is what I want more than anything. More though than for my own sanity, I am thinking for my wife. She loves her woods and her wild animals and can’t imagine living anywhere else, and never back in society. But I won’t be around for ever doing the heavy lifting that she cannot. So I have to find a balance between peace of mind for us, and a path that is struggle free for her in the future. Can this be done without having neighbors with long noses right up against you on all 4 sides? I don’t know but if it’s possible I will figure it out and I’ll not stop trying, until I no longer can.
The name-letter effect is the tendency of people to prefer the letters in their name over other letters in the alphabet. Whether subjects are asked to rank all letters of the alphabet, rate each of the letters, choose the letter they prefer out of a set of two, or pick a small set of letters they most prefer, on average people consistently like the letters in their own name the most. Crucially, subjects are not aware that they are choosing letters from their name.
Discovered in 1985 by the Belgian psychologist Jozef Nuttin, the name-letter effect has been replicated in dozens of studies, involving subjects from over 15 countries, using four different alphabets. It holds across age and gender. People who changed their names many years ago tend to prefer the letters of both their current and original names over non-name letters. The effect is most prominent for initials, but even when initials are excluded, the remaining letters of both given and family names still tend to be preferred over non-name letters.
Most people like themselves; the name is associated with the self, and hence the letters of the name are preferred, despite the fact that they appear in many other words. People who do not like themselves tend not to exhibit the name-letter effect. A similar effect has been found for numbers related to birthdays: people tend to prefer the number signifying the day of the month on which they were born. Alternative explanations for the name-letter effect, such as frequent exposure and early mastery, have been ruled out. In psychological assessments, the Name Letter Preference Task is widely used to estimate implicit self-esteem.
There is some evidence that the effect has implications for real-life decisions. In the lab, people disproportionately favor brands matching their initials. An analysis of a large database of charity donations revealed that a disproportionately large number of people donate to disaster relief following hurricanes with names sharing their initial letter (e.g. Kate and Kevin following Hurricane Katrina). Studies that investigate the impact of name-letter matching on bigger life decisions (where to live, whom to marry, which occupation to take on) are controversial.
I do not consider it necessary at present for me to discuss those matters of administration about which there is no special anxiety or excitement.
Apprehension seems to exist among the people of the Southern States that by the accession of a Republican Administration their property and their peace and personal security are to be endangered. There has never been any reasonable cause for such apprehension. Indeed, the most ample evidence to the contrary has all the while existed and been open to their inspection. It is found in nearly all the published speeches of him who now addresses you. I do but quote from one of those speeches when I declare that–
I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.
