Author: Paul W. Konopacki

Uncle Vern

When I lived in Wisconsin with my parents, Vern, my mom’s brother, and his wife, Alice, lived in Welch Village, Minnesota.  We would visit each others home once in a while.  I did not know much about his past until after discovering many old photos of him and reading some of my mom’s journals – years after both had passed.

Growing up, Vern was an amateur photographer and built radios from kits.  He joined the Navy SeaBees in the mid-1940s.  I don’t think he saw much action, but I do know he played his saxophone in the Navy band.  Somewhere along the line he learned to play the flute.  After retiring from the service, he rode a motorcycle cross country, working as a mechanic, fished, and learned to fly airplanes.  He retired in his later years from an engineering office job in Minnesota at Sperry Univac.  I remember when I was in high school and contemplating a career in computers, I visited Vern at his office.

I remember the time he visited the Walt Konopacki home in Luck, Wisconsin.  I think it was for Easter, based on the way my sister, Barb, is dressed in the photo of her and Vern playing flute duets on the front porch.  Vern actually grew up in that same house that my sister and I grew up in.

One day we visited Vern at his new house in Minnesota.  It was not complete yet and had no water or electricity.  When I got thirsty, I had to drink coffee from a thermos for the first time!

During visits, his wife Alice was always dressed up and wore a pearl necklace.  This was Alice’s second marriage.  Donna was Vern’s step-daughter.  Alice had a miniature poodle that she doted on, but I couldn’t stand it.  I don’t think it was a nuisance with barking, but she carried it around like a purse!

“Verner did not shorten his name to Vern until he was out in the workplace and others called him Vern.” (per Helga Koch’s memory book written in 1996).

Vern died October, 26, 1990 and is buried in the Fort Snelling National Cemetery, Minnesota, Section U-2, Site #574.

Solo Trip to Wisconsin

In 2018, I was still focused on my genealogy project so I decided to make a solo driving trip that would last a couple of weeks.  First stop would be Kimballton, Iowa to research my Danish heritage, then up to Luck, WI to visit my sister and dig up some history about West Denmark, WI, then over to Vanderbilt, MI to visit my Polish relatives.  The plan was then to ferry across Lake Michigan to visit an old high school friend, then drive back home to St. Louis, MO.  The trip was going well … until I arrived in Ludington, MI.

Kimballton, IA (May 30 – June 1)

I stayed a few nights at the home of with my new friends, Jan and Larry Fajen, longtime residents of Elk Horn, IA.  They graciously allow me to take over their basement when I am in town.  We visit some cemeteries, I record video of a ‘water witch’ finding unmarked graves, visit with the Elk Horn, IA Lutheran minister who happens to be an accomplished drone operator, and meet Scott Esbeck for the first time – he is a relative of a family that knew my mom’s family when she lived in Kimballton, IA.

Luck, WI (June 2 – 7)

Drive to my sister’s home next to Little Butternut Lake in Luck, WI.  I met up with a few high school friends, fixed some technical problems with my sisters computer and printer, do a video interview with a 90 year old woman (Sylvia Hansen) and a video interview with a long-time family neighbor (Robert Peterson) – both who lived in the West Denmark area all their lives.  Digitize photos used as a history exhibit displayed at the West Denmark community hall and share the results with the local pastor.

Vanderbilt, MI (June 8 – 10)

Drive to northern Michigan to visit my Uncle John Konopaski and Aunt Elsie.  I stay in their spare bedroom.  I spend much of the time using my flatbed scanner and laptop to digitize genealogy documents and photos Elsie had saved regarding the Polish family history on my dad’s side.

Grant, MI (June 11)

Grant is a town my grandfather was born in when his family first immigrated to the United States from Denmark.  I suspect there is information about the time he lived there and history about the local Danish Folk School at the local library.  I convince the librarian to open up their archives and allow me to digitize some that were of interest to me.  I visit a cemetery where a Danish relative, Simon Kjems, was buried.

I only spent a few hours in Grant before I decided to drive to Ludington, MI where I had a motel room reserved.  This was just going to be an overnight stay before I took my car on the ferry across Lake Michigan to Wisconsin where I would meet up with my high school friend, James Cruthers.

Ludington, MI (June 11)

My first impression of Ludington was that it was a very touristy looking town.  It was right on the shore of Lake Michigan and had a well-developed port.  I didn’t have time to see any sites, so I checked in at the motel. I tried to pay with credit card, but their verification machine was not working.  Luckily, I had enough cash to pay for one night.  I went through the Kentucky Fried Chicken drive-through, paid with a credit card, then back to the motel room to rest.

Ludington, MI (June 12, Tues. – “Dooms Day”)

Today just happens to be my 57th birthday.  I get up early in the morning so I would be sure to get to the ferry dock with plenty of time to spare.  It only makes two trips a day and I was to be on the earliest trip.  I check out of the motel and was on my way to the ferry dock, when I had the sinking feeling that I didn’t have my wallet. I stop the car and searched it in panic for about 10 minutes.  I rush back to the motel and asked the clerk for the key to my room to look for my wallet.  I could not find it.  Thinking back, the last time I used it for sure was when I bought the KFC food the night before.  Did it drop down the passenger seat and fall out the door when I was packing the car this morning?  Did it slip down a crevice in the motel room and I just can’t find it?

It was getting close to the time I would be late for the ferry.  My wallet had my credit cards and drivers license.  That is when I made the decision to scrap the rest of my trip and head back to St. Louis.  There wasn’t much I could do without money and didn’t want to get myself in trouble driving without a license.  I call my wife to explain the situation, then called the Ludington police to tell them I lost my wallet and to call me if they happened to ever find it.  I call the ferry company and ask if they could refund my deposit.  Originally they said no, but I gave them my ‘I lost my wallet and today is my birthday’ sob story and it works!

One small problem was that I was low on gas and was only able to scrounge up loose change in my car to add one gallon of gas.  I do not have enough gas to get me from Ludington to home.  I figure I would run out somewhere in southern Illinois.  I also did not have any money to get through tollways around the Chicago area, if I couldn’t avoid them.  I suggest to my wife she meet me in Illinois with some cash.  That was an option, but we decided to wait and see what happened.

What is that in the road?

I reprogram my car’s map routing to guide me back to St. Louis.  I take the first Ludington highway exit out of town.  It was early and there were almost no cars on the road.  As I was accelerating to cruising speed, I noticed something in the road directly in front of me.  A split second before I hit it, I realized it was a cardboard box.  I decide not to slow down figuring I would run it over and that would be that.  But when I hit it, it make a loud thud.  Then things started to happen fast.  I felt a vibration in the front right side of the car.  A couple seconds elapsed.  From my rear view mirror I saw something big and black fly into the ditch.  The vibration turned into a shake.  I thought I had a flat tire.  I pull over to the shoulder and got out to assess the damage.  I was shocked.  The plastic molding of the right front side of the car was cracked.  Radiator fluid was dripping on the road.  A piece of the cardboard box was still stuck in the car’s undercarriage.  This was a surreal moment.  I could not believe what had just happened.  First, I lose my wallet, now my car is disabled.

Help arrives

After a quick cell phone video and commentary about my predicament, I call my wife to explain what happened.  Within a few minutes, a police car pulls up behind me (Deputy Adam Lamb).  Great.  I have no drivers license or proof of who I am.  I grab my car insurance card from my glove box, hand it to the officer, and explain what happened.  When I mention I had also just lost my wallet, he said, “Oh, you’re the guy!”.  Seems he was at the Ludington police station when I called a few minutes ago to say I lost my wallet.  He called a tow truck.  A pickup truck pulls ahead of my car and gets out.  He is the guy who was hauling the plastic gas tank home from a big box store in the back of his truck and lost it on the highway.

Shilander Collision

The tow truck driver asks where I wanted it towed.  Since I was not from the area, I asked him for a recommendation.  He suggested Shilander Collision (5851 US-10, Ludington, MI 49431) which was just a few miles back in Ludington.  He takes me and my car to that location.  I explain my situation with the damaged car and that I have no money. I call my wife to arrange for the old credit cards to be cancelled and a new one priority mailed to Shilander’s address. We try to figure out a way to get me cash right away.  In all our scenarios, proof of ID was required and my lost drivers license was the only proof I had.  I felt like I had lost my identity!

The girl behind the counter (Stephanie Pizana) at Shildander was listening and handed me a $100 bill from the till.  She said I can reimburse the business when I pay my repair bill!  Not only that, when one of the repair guys hears of my plight, he pulls out a $20 bill and hands it to me.  (I eventually pay them both back).

Shildander’s provided me with a car rental, knowing I currently did not have a credit card or a drivers license.  I transferred everything I had in my car into it.  Which was a lot because I had a lot of electronic and camera equipment in the trunk. While they evaluate the damage, I go down the road to the nearest motel to see if I can book a room for the night.  The first place rejected me because they require that I supply a credit card.  I tried the next place down the road.  Kind of a rundown business (Vista Villa Motel), but a country boy came to the counter, I explained I needed a room and only had cash and he had no problem giving me a room.

Shilander gives me a repair estimate of about $3,000.  If I could get it covered my my car insurance, my cost would only be a $500 deductible.  Because they had to replace the hardware with Ford parts from far away, they wouldn’t get them delivered for a few days, then it would take a few days to do the repairs.  And I wasn’t first in line for their attention so they said the work might not be done until next Monday!  since today is Tuesday, I would be stuck in Ludington for six days with no drivers license and nothing to do.  I drove to a Wal-mart to buy some food and booze to forget my troubles.  Even though I had a $100 bill in my pocket, while standing in line at the checkout counter, I mentioned my plight to the lady behind me … and she gave me $40 cash!  I wasn’t trying to solicit money, but I took it anyway – thinking of it like kindness to a stranger and I was the stranger.

Stuck in Ludington, MI (June 12, Tue. – 13, Wed.)

I spent the next day in my motel room.  Since I had a large stack of photo albums of my aunts that still needed to be digitized, I spent hours doing that.  I only ventured out once to go to the beach, walk to the lighthouse, and stick my toes in the sand for a few minutes.  I found it really hard to relax, but I felt so helpless that I had to eventually realize my fate was not in my control.  I tried to pay cash for another night at the Vista Villa Motel, but this time the person at the counter was the owner’s wife.  She was not a nice person.  She wanted a credit card.  I went to the point of calling my wife to verify who I was and that I did not have a credit card.  Eventually her husband showed up and I was able to book another night.  But the wife gave me the evil eye the next day and said housecleaning would have to do their job tomorrow morning, as if I wouldn’t let them in because I was hiding something!

Later today a new credit card came in the mail to the Shilander’s address.  Wonderful!  I was starting to feel like somebody again.

Manistee, MI (June 14, Thu.  – 15, Fri.)

Manistee was a town about 10 miles from Ludington.  I found a decent motel to stay at.  More time doing nothing since I didn’t want to get caught out driving without a license.  I call up Shildander.  The parts are in, but still looks like they won’t get my car fixed and running until Monday.  I so want to just get home!  I think my sadness seeped through the phone lines because Friday morning, the owner calls up to say they gave my car top priority and the work is done.  They just need to test drive the car.

I anticipate picking it up before they close Friday at 5pm.  Otherwise I have to stay the weekend – waiting for Monday to arrive.  The owner calls to say the repairs are complete, but there is a glitch.  The owner test drives the car.  After a few minutes a check engine light goes on, then a warning that the engine is overheating and the car will shutdown!  After stopping for 10 minutes, he started driving again and the warning did not come back.  Since they had to replace the radiator, it is possible there were issues with the installation.

I pick up the car on Friday at 4:30pm, pay my bill, and head back to Manistee for the night.  So far, I do not get any overheating warning.

The Long Road Home (June 16, Sat.)

I start the journey back home.  During hours and hours of driving I am watching the temperature gauge closely.  It remains steady the entire way back.  The anticipation of something else going wrong with the car was excruciating.  I made it home without incidence.  So glad to be home!

Conclusion

I never found out what happened to my wallet.  There were no unauthorized use of my credit cards.

Finding out I lost my wallet and having the car accident within an hour of each other just blew my mind.  Running into a box in the middle of a highway that happened to contain a gas tank and putting me into a scenario where I was not in control of my immediate existence knocked me down, hard.  Honestly the most humbling experience of my life.

On the bright side, strangers were kind, ultimately it did not cost me that much, and was not a subtle reminder that I need to be thankful for what I have and appreciate what is in front of me, rather than what might be over the horizon.

Standardize Everything

A personal project I recently completed was the curation of our music collection.  I worked on it off-and-on for most of 2020.

Digitize Old Media

LPs, cassettes, and CDs that we have collected throughout the years have been digitized and now co-mingle with songs we already had in digital format.  As of February, 2021, we have around 43,000 song tracks by about 700 artists.

Folder Structure

All music is  now organized in a standard computer folder structure like this:

“\Our Music Collection\<album artist>\<album>“

Music File Track Naming Convention

Each individual song file name is in the format of:

“<album artist> – <album> – <track #> – <title>.mp3″

One issue I had to deal with regarding standardization was special characters in artist and album names.  I couldn’t create a valid file name if either contained the following characters, which are not allowed in Windows 10:

<  >   :  /  \  |  ?  *

“AC/DC” had to become “ACDC“.

I also had come up with a solution for foreign character sets.  Windows allows them, but keeping them in the file name would make it hard to do specific name searches.  Luckily, there was always an English alphabet letter equivalent I could use.

André Previn had to be changed to Andre Previn.

Metadata Tags

Every individual song file contain standard metadata tag info – album, artist, album artist, track #, genre, title, composer, disc #, etc.  This metadata is searchable from Windows 10 file explorer.  A great help was the use of a free software application called MP3Tag.  It is an mp3 metadata tag editor that allows you to change info in bulk and automatically lookup album and track information on the internet.  I’ve used it for years.  One of the few free programs I have donated money to.

Artist Poster and Album Art

I placed JPG files of artist posters and album art in the same folder as the associated album.  If there was something like a CD insert booklet, I digitized it in PDF format.  Lastly, I went to www.allmusic.com, looked up each artist in our collection, and placed a URL shortcut to their bio, discography list, and awards.

https://www.allmusic.com/artist/ac-dc-mn0000574772

Music File Format

Individual song titles are all MP3 because many applications can play that format and the file compression algorithm makes the file size very small.  I know that other formats such as WAV and FLAC are lossless and audiophiles will scream at me for choosing the ‘lossy’ MP3 format.  Since Elaine and I listen to our music with earbuds or computer speakers and not headphones, we are perfectly happy with the listening experience we get from MP3s.

Standardize Song Volume

I ran each file through a program called MP3Gain.  It sets a normalization level metadata tag that, if a music player knows about it, helps keep the listener from reaching for their volume controls between each song.  It isn’t a perfect solution, but it doesn’t change the song’s dynamic range.  It basically increases or decreases the overall volume by a few decibels.  I set my Target “Normal” Volume to 92 db.

Classical

This genre was a challenge to standardize.  Most of the LPs I digitized were own by Elaine’s aunts.  Many came from the Music Heritage Society collection – No info about the artists on the internet because they were from foreign orchestras or choirs.  Some of the LPs were from Germany so all the album cover printing was in the German language.  There is a metadata tag in MP3 files called composer that I had to spend time with in order include the composers of the classical pieces.

‘Various Artists’

Albums containing songs with many different artists, such as ‘100 Best One Hit Wonders’, were a challenge.  The music community understands this and accepts the name ‘Various Artists’ to be used for the album artist metadata tag.  Each song can still be tagged with the actual artist that performed on it in the artist metadata tag.

Storage Medium

All digital music files are stored on a 500GB portable SSD drive that can be plugged into a USB port of a computer.  Due to its small physical size, the drive can easily be stored in a drawer or pocket.   I have a second drive of the same type I use as a mirror backup in case the source SSD goes bad or I make changes to the source SSD that were a mistake and I want to get the original files back.

As of February, 2021, I have 141 GB free on the source drive.

Plex Server

One thing that helped me clean up the music collection was a free program called Plex.  It has both a server and player component.  It focuses on streaming video, but is good at finding and playing music.  It can use the metadata you added to your music files or it can go to the internet and find it.  It expects your music folder structure to be consistent in order to do that.  As I would use the Plex play and see missing artist or album info, that told me where in my music collection something was not standardized.  The player shows artist posters and album art.

Since there are so many songs in our collection I have not heard in a long time, I created a playlist to include the entire collection, set a filter to play each song only once, then set it to shuffle.  Based on statistics reported by the playlist, I could run the playlist for 6 months without having to listen to any song more than once!

Online Music Databases

This project help me discover that there are web sites where you can find more information about artists and albums.  Many of them are free and allow you to program against an API or download their complete database.  I used my programming and web development skills to run my own database queries against Discogs and MusicBrainz.

Last Modified       Size     File Name
=================== ======== ============================
2021-01-07 11:35:25 331.6 MB discogs_20210101_artists.gz
2021-01-07 15:02:44  56.1 MB discogs_20210101_labels.gz
2021-01-06 09:05:37 356.7 MB discogs_20210101_masters.gz
2021-01-05 10:45:34   8.7 GB discogs_20210101_releases.gz

Discography

Once in a while I have acquired a complete discography for an artist we like.  But I don’t care to have multiple ‘collection’ albums if I already have the songs on the original album.  John Denver is good example of that:

• “The Best of John Denver”
• “The Very Best of John Denver”
• “All of My Memories”
• “Greatest Hits (Vol. 1 & 2)”
• “16 Biggest Hits”

I have no qualm deleting song tracks that are just unbearable to listen to, even if it technically ‘breaks up the collection’.  There are some experimental tracks from Manfred Mann in the 1960s that are ruined by an out-of-tune, squeaky saxophone!  I am mostly interested in studio albums and not live concert recordings.  For some bands, I am happy with just a “Best Of …” albums.

My Genre Preferences

In no particular order, with an artist example:

• Rock – (“AC/DC”)
• Pop – (“Elton John”)
• Blues – (“Buddy Guy”)
• Funk – (“Hot Chocolate”)
• Ska – (“Ace of Base”)
• A Cappella – (“The Nylons”)
• Bluegrass – (“Alison Krauss”).
• Alt. Rock – (“Talking Heads”)
• Metal – (“Godsmack”)
• Folk – (“Gordon Lightfoot”)
• Country Pop – (“Rascal Flatts”)

We have a lot of Jazz and Classical music because a few years back I digitized hundreds of LPs that belonged to Elaine’s two aunts.  I can take a few hours of either genre, but then have to get back to my favorites.  The stuff that is considered ‘Pop’ these days is hard for me to get into.  You won’t find more than a couple auto-tuned songs in our collection.  Rap?  No.  Some Hip Hop.  Even though ‘Christmas’ is not a genre, Elaine likes Holiday songs so I have tagged holiday songs as such to help her create a Christmas playlist.

Conclusion

This project allowed me to revisit my collection.  It gave me an incentive to look for other types of music I might like.  For instance, until lately, I had no “A Cappella” music in our collection.  I now enjoy “The Nylons“.

The Photo Collection

While going through old printed photographs taken by my mom’s grandparents I came across some negatives that were actually applied to glass.  A few were broken, but the rest were intact.  It was thick glass.  I knew that I could put them in my scanner and treat them as regular plastic negatives.

Many of the negatives are of scenes taken while the Koch family was living in Fredericia, Denmark.  However, I recognize the Kimballton, Iowa brickyard and schoolhouse in a couple of them.  This means the Koch family brought the glass negatives with them when they returned for the second time to the United States to live in Iowa in 1908.

I know very little about their life in Frederica, Denmark.  However, my grandfather, Holger Koch, saved some letters people wrote to him after he moved to the United States.  After translation I am able to get some idea of how they lived.  Also, by sharing the photos with people who are familiar with Denmark landmarks, I am able to identify some locations and buildings.

In total there are about 30 glass negatives that I digitzed.  Here are just a few of them:

The Photo Collection

Years ago I decided to digitize thousands of my parents printed photos, slides, and negatives and put them into a ‘family history’ collection.  Occasionally I would browse through them looking for photos of specific events or photos of people who recently passed away that I could share with their family and friends.  I appear in some of the photos; some are from when my ancestors were living in Iowa; some are from when my parents were just married and living in Japan on behalf of the United States Air Force.

Walt Konopacki and Friends at the Bar

A few weeks ago I was browsing the photo collection.  I came upon a nicely posed photo of my dad sitting at a bar table with two other guys.  It looked like a photo taken by a professional.  The decor in the bar and the waitresses uniforms seemed iconic.  There were no signs on the wall or indications as to what bar this was or where it was located.  I have seen this photo many times, but never stopped to really study it.

There are very few photos of my dad when he was young.  Even fewer where he has a genuine smile on his face.  All three guys in the photo look the same age.  Easy to assume they are good friends because they seem relaxed and happy to be together. The date “August 23, 1949” is stamped on the back of the original printed photo.  Since I scanned the photo at a very high resolution, I was able to zoom in to see the beer bottle in front of my dad was labeled ‘Altes’.  There were what looked like xylophone mallets on the table.

I looked through my family history archives.  Based on the date stamp I surmised that my dad was recently back in his hometown of Hamtramck, Michigan (suburb of Detroit) celebrating the end of his first tour of duty with the United States Air Force.  Before coming back to the states, he was stationed at an air force base in Guam. These were work, school, or military buddies sitting with my dad, having a beer, a smoke, and discussing what the world had in store for them next.

Hamtramck History Museum

Since I had very little info about the photo, I decided to contact the Hamtramck History Museum to see if they could determine if this was actually a Hamtramck bar.  It was a shot in the dark, but worth a try.  I got a response within a few hours from someone at the museum who thought the photo might have been taken at The Bowery Nightclub, which at one time was located at 12050 Joseph Campau, Hamtramck, Michigan.  I asked about the xylophone sticks on the table.  These are called ‘table knockers’ used to either get the waitress’s attention or as a substitute for applause. (The Bowery Nightclub was a famous Detroit hot spot where many famous music and comedy acts performed.)

The Bowery Nightclub

A day or so later I looked at more of the photos I had digitized from my dad’s photo album.  I found one that was an edit of the original photo in question.  It was only of my dad and was surrounded by a vignette (a portrait photograph which fades into its background without a definite border)  Under the photo was written the address of The Bowery Nightclub.  I was extremely happy to have discovered the location of the photo!

Was there anything else I could find out based on what I saw in the photo?  I did an internet search for ‘Altes’ beer.  It was a brand very popular in the late 1940s.  In the spring of 2019 the Altes beer brand was brought back into production in Detroit.

If you zoom into the digital image far enough you can make out the printing on the table knockers.  I found matching knockers for sale on the internet that had the same printings, “THE BOWERY CAFE”, “KNOWN FROM COAST TO COAST”, “NEVER A DULL MOMENT”.  This was another confirmation that the photo was taken in The Bowery Nightclub.

Herman Krieger and the ‘camera girls’

I wanted to know more about The Bowery Nightclub.  An internet search brought me to an article about what the nightclub was like in the late 1940s.  One of the people who posted a reply to the article was Herman Krieger.  He said: “I worked at the Bowery during the later 1940s developing and printing the photos taken by the camera girls.“  According to his web site, he worked at the photo concession from 1946 – 1949.  The ‘camera girls’ went around the nightclub taking pictures of people, having the film developed immediately in a nearby darkroom (by Herman), then brought back to the people to purchase.

Turns out Herman got interested in photography as a teenager, is still alive, and living in Eugene, Oregon.  I found an email address for him and we had this correspondence:

Paul: “I was researching the history behind an old photograph of my dad, which led me to a quote you made in an internet article about The Bowery Nightclub in Hamtramck, Michigan.  The photo was taken in 1949 of my dad with two guys on either side of him who look the same age. I was wondering if you could tell me more about the nightclub and the photo.”

Herman: “I very likely printed the photo. I would print one photo for each person in the picture and then a vignette of each person.  The darkroom was located by the dressing rooms. I had the possibility of getting acquainted with many of the entertainers. Nightclubs went out of fashion in Detroit around 1950 after many people had gotten TV sets.”

I found a YouTube video of an interview of Herman by Stu Levy in 2019.  Here is a clip pertaining to his job of printing photos taken by the ‘camera girls’:

Conclusion

It is most likely the photo in question was taken by a ‘camera girl’ and Herman developed it in his darkroom.  I have yet to find out who my dad’s two friends were.

More about The Bowery Nightclub

• From HamtramckStar.com:

“The Bowery drew major talent who would come to Detroit on tour, and it was not uncommon at any given time at The Bowery to see performers such as Jimmy Durante sitting at a table drinking Pfeiffer beer–which was distributed from 11618 Sobieski Street in Hamtramck–or Sophie Tucker sitting with United Auto Workers (UAW) moguls Walter Reuther and Dick Frankenstein, or Jack Dempsey, one-time heavyweight boxing champion of the world. The emcee was Amos Jacobs (Danny Thomas). An artist would come weekly and paint on the exterior of the building a portrait of the entertainer who would be appearing that week as neighborhood children sat and watched the face develop to see if they recognized the star. The Marx Brothers, the Ritz Brothers, Martha Raye, Sophie Tucker and Tony Martin, who was a very popular singer in the 1940s and was married to Cyd Charisse in 1948, were among the stars who appeared at The Bowery. During the 1940s, before they ever became famous on the Jackie Gleason television show, the June Taylor Dancers made up the chorus at The Bowery.”

More About Table Knocker

These collectibles were popular in many nightclubs in the United States in the late 40s and early 50s.

Looking for a Change

After five years living in Detroit, Michigan (1983 – 1988), I was tired of the gloomy weather, the rustbelt industries, the crime, and where I was at with my career.  One night I sat on the carpet in the middle of my apartment living room and prayed for guidance.  Within a week an opportunity came my way to take a 3-monh contract programming job with McDonnell Douglas in St. Louis, Missouri.  It came by way of my first professional boss, Gary Alexander, who trained me on a very niche computer programming language (PROGRESS 4GL).  There was a need for my experience on a project in St. Louis.  I figured this was the change I prayed for.

I put in my notice with Parameter Driven Systems,  I was QA analyst and was getting very little respect there.  See a copy of my ‘bad-ass’ resignation letter, below.  I loaded all my possessions into a U-Haul and drove straight through to St. Louis.

It was a sub-contracting job for Southwestern Bell with the technology division of McDonnell Douglas, located near Lambert International Airport.  The project was called RIDES. They brought in programmers as far away as Iowa and Georgia.  They would pay for our room (including furniture rental) and board and give us an hourly rate.

A New City

My first week in St. Louis I stayed at a rundown motel to keep my expenses down.  It turned out to be a ‘no-tell motel’.  You know, where you could pay for a room by the hour.  Sure enough,  based on the noise, I had neighbors who were there for a short time to give each other pleasure.  I also had housekeeping use my hair brush one day I was at work and left their hair in it!  I found out that some of the consultants were staying at The Residence Inn, a very nice place to stay for long-term contractors that was more like an apartment.

I signing an annual rental lease of an apartment in Knollwood Apartments in Hazelwood.  I ended up staying there 5 years!  The complex was  directly under the flight path of Lambert Airport.  This was back in the day it was an international airport and major hub of TWA.  Quite often I would have to tell the person on the other end of the phone to hold on for a few seconds while a plane passed overhead.  However, the daily low roar of a FedEx plane every evening around 11:15pm was somewhat comforting and a reminder that I should go to bed.

The New Job

The computer project took place on the McDonnell Douglas campus.  We needed security badges to enter the building.  One person at a time could enter a vestibule from the outside.  You would look at a screen, hold up your badge, and wait for the guard to unlock the inner door.  It was a government project, so there was a lot of documentation and red-tape.  I was assigned to develop a controller module.  It was so simple I had it done in a few days, but the budget had it taking a couple of weeks.  So during my free time, I decided to created Unix shell scripts that automated the process of managing source control and building the application.  It was used by every programmer on the project.

What Next?

The 3-month project was extended for a couple of months.  I half-heartedly tried to get a permanent position with the McDonnell Douglas programming team, but they were not hiring.  I also did not have a clue on how to market myself.  As luck would have it, a project team member who lived in St. Louis was married to a statistician and worked at Citicorp Mortgage.  He had an immediate need for a programmer.

Turned out to be one of the best jobs I ever had.  But I’ll save that story for a future post.

‘Badass’ PDS Resignation Letter

Top Part of Innovative Solutions Employee Contract

Sample Timesheet

My First Project Expense Report

“A Year in Brazil”

In 1999, I was scouring the world-wide web for interesting stuff and stumbled upon a simple blog written by a man from England who had decided to try something new in his life. It turned into a collaboration between the two of us where I was able to help him publish his notes on the internet during times when he had no access to web development tools.

Michael P. Redbourn, a professional sound editor, decided to leave show business in 1999 and spend a year in Brazil.  Our collaboration started when I posted a note on his blog about how I found it and was now living vicariously through it.  He compiled the blog into an e-book called “A Year in Brazil”.  Unfortunately, I cannot find any of the emails we exchanged where he includes pictures while in Brazil.

A version of the journal with no images can be found here: A Year In Brazil

I am in the Book

November 19, 1999 

A Surprise 

An uneventful but pleasant birthday evening (couldn’t say party) with the few friends that I know here arriving with presents. Mostly clothes which caused me to wonder if they didn’t like mine, and Amazon scented soaps etc. which is probably because of the garlic hair restorer that I’m using 🙂

More interesting was an e-mail that I received this morning :- 

Paul Konopacki wrote: 

I stumbled upon your site with the help of a link in a Netscape newsgroup message.  I have subsequently been living vicariously through you the past few days, as I read your journal of your experiences in Brazil. What makes it even more interesting is that I don’t know why  you are there or what you might be seeking. Well, I have to go to bed now.  I will be reading a printout of your November journal, in anticipation of what will become of your new  apartment and the model! 

November 30, 1999 

One More Step 

If instead of struggling and racing all over town, I had just held on to the idea of the things that I’d wanted for a few moments and then released it, I’m sure I would have got all the things handed to me like I did today. 

In a sense Paul K. the first unknown person to respond to this page, also arrived right on cue. 

This whole web site thing is all pretty new to me and he’s been extremely helpful in giving me all kinds of technical advice, without which I would have had all kinds of problems. 

June 5, 2000

Leaving Town (No Work Permit)

The partner Carlos seems a nice and honest enough guy, but whether he has sufficient work ethic is highly in doubt. If the place starts to open just now and again, all of Bergmann’s seven day weeks and long hours will have been in vain.

I would of course be the obvious person to step in and fill the gap but could only do so by marring Herika or someone else.

My ticket to England expires on Thursday so I have to be out of here too, or throw it away. 

Paul Konopacki, who has been doing such a good job maintaining and improving the site for me whilst I’m without my system, definitely has his views on the subject and feels, I’m sure, that Herika should be given the email address, herika@run.from.

Not Downbeat And Not Critical
(I hope)

Paul Konopacki has indicated to me that after reading back through my diary, he feels that the old entries were ‘more observational, without judgment or analysis or spiritual interpretations’.

I hope that this is not the case, as I’m actually attempting to become less judgmental about things that surround me. 

I would suggest that it’s merely that I’m now seeing things far below the surface that weren’t immediately apparent, and that now it may appear that I’m attempting to find fault.

You Still There?

I decided to get back in touch with Michael in 2008.  I sent an email to the old address I had for him. In a few days I received a reply:

Paul
I gave up promoting the book a 4-5 years ago because it requires so much time and effort to sell books on the Internet that it wasn’t worth it.

I tried running the book in Win98 compatibility mode and it opens but then “no cigar” so I will have to remove either the site or the purchase option from the web.

Am having a lot of fun now learning Photoshop, DreamWeaver and Fluid Mask and got paid for building a website for someone last week – first time!

My local store offered to recommend me to people that want websites built and I’d love to do it as it’s a nice combination of the technical and the artistic.

I told him to wait a couple of months however until my Dreamweaver skills are better.

I bought a nice Nikon and some lenses a few months ago and went back to something that I used to be very talented at 45 years ago.

How are you doing?

Mike

Just a few days ago I decided to see if he had a Facebook account … and he does!  So I sent him a message to catch up once again.

It Happened 100 Years Ago

“The horrific scale of the 1918 influenza pandemic—known as the “Spanish flu”—is hard to fathom. The virus infected 500 million people worldwide and killed an estimated 20 million to 50 million victims.”

This particular story about a friend of my grandfather happened a few years after the start of the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic, however indications are that even in 1920, strains of the flu were still being spread across the country.

Friendship: Holger and Frede

My grandfather, Holger Koch, was a teenager when his family immigrated in 1908 to the U.S. from Denmark.  They moved to Kimballton, Iowa where his father started a brick yard.

Holger made friends with a boy his age, Frede Nissager.  The Nissager and Koch families socialized and worked together in Kimballton.  During WWI, Holger was in the infantry and Frede was an army airplane pilot.  In 1919, after the war, Holger went back to finish seminary classes at Grand View College.   In January, 1920, Frede decided to visit Holger at college and play some basketball.

The Letters

What follows are excerpts from letters written to Holger while he was at Grand View College in Des Moines, Iowa.  Those writing are:  Ane Koch (his mother), Dora Lauritzen (his girlfriend), and Esther Nissager(Frede’s sister).  It shows the timeline of Frede catching the flu in Des Moines, dying in Kimballton, and subsequent grieving.  The letters were written in old Danish.  I had them translated into English.  The dates are what were written at the top of each letter.

January 11, 1920 – Letter from Esther Nissager

… Frede said the Kimballton team may come down and play the  Grand View College basketball team on Saturday.  Maybe soon you will have Kimballton company, if that can be arranged.  Will you greet all I know at college.  There are quite a few kids from Kimballton there …

January 12, 1920 – Letter from Holger’s mother

… I hear that there was influenza down there near you in Des Moines.  Hope though that it will not get in to the school, and especially not you , you are vulnerable to that …

February 4, 1920 – Letter from Holger’s mother

… Frede is sick, and it has been said a little while ago that Mr. Nissager is also sick.  It is unfortunate that Esther (Frede’s sister) is not home.  Maybe she will come tomorrow …

February 5, 1920 – Letter from Esther Nissager

… I will just let you know that I came home alright, but found Mother, Father and Frede in bed.  Mrs. Dr. Soe had been there at night.  Today Mother and Father are a little better, but it is bad with Frede.  We hope it keeps away from pneumonia.  His temperature has been 104 all the time and last night he was wild part of the time … Sigrid (Holger’s sister) was at the depot to get me yesterday.   I hope also that you are all well …

February 9, 1920 – Letter from Holger’s mother

… Down here in Kimballton there is so much sickness nowadays.  Until now it has not been bad, but it is bad the way it spreads.  Frede Nissager is very sick, and has been now for several days.  Esther goes alone with it all, since both of her parents lay in bed, they were sick all three when Esther arrived at home, the night before there were three doctors with Frede. If it has become pneumonia I don’t know, but that is what they fear …  All is closed here in Kimballton—no church service, schools are closed, there are no meetings of any kind …

February 11, 1920 – Letter from Holger’s mother

… Yes, it is very hard.  It is so sad the Nissagers are quarantined and we must not come in to see them.  Frede was not well on Monday after he had come home from Des Moines.  That day I talked with Mrs. Nissager, but they thought not at all that it would be anything bad.  Tuesday afternoon Mr. Nissager got sick and  Wednesday evening Mrs. Nissager got sick.  Thursday, Esther came home.  Sigrid (Holger’s sister) was at the station and met her and brought her up.  Then they were quarantined and Dr. Soe was in the house to help.  She had been there most of the time since …

… Yesterday at 2:00 Esther got a call.  I was called up there by Esther.  She could not hold out any longer without  talking with me.   I could not come in, so Esther and I sat just outside the door on the kitchen steps and talked.  Poor Esther, she was all beside of herself, complained and complained.  “Poor Father, what shall become of him if Frede dies.”   At that time lay Frede with a high fever, so death could come at any time.   It can be over any moment.  Father and Mother sit on both sides of the bed and hold his hands. …

… When I had been home for 2 hours, Mrs. Soe called and said that Frede was dead.  You remember well New Year’s Day when they were here.  It is lovely memory we have of Frede …

February 12, 1920 – Letter from Holger’s mother

… Yesterday forenoon I was up by the Nissagers.  They sent an automobile after me at 8 o’clock in the morning; it was especially good  for me to be a little with Esther.  Both Mr.  and Mrs.  Nissager lay in bed and Esther walked so alone down.   Mr. Nissager could not get any rest when poor Esther walked down here and cried and complained.  Esther had so much to tell about Frede, from his light moments and all under his sickness.

And so the flowers started to stream in.  That was a beautiful wreath you sent there down at the school and it was so fresh.  That there were flowers in volume can you well think, large wreathes of a light red rose.  There was a laurel wreath from friends.  Legion—there was a rose wreath from D. M. Klub that was pretty.  Friends had asked about whether Frede could not be dressed in his uniform.  And that became a very ceremonial funeral.   I was not there.  Right at noon I was driven home.  I was a little nervous and not really well, the day before I was more nervous, and my heart had it not all best.  As soon as I came home I went to bed. 

This forenoon was Sigrid (Holger’s sister) up with Nissagers with a little fresh baked cookies and a Citron fromage.   Sigrid helped Esther a little with fixing up in the living room and they walked and talked about the day yesterday.  And Sigrid said she had never been together with fixing up for a funeral.  That was the highest ceremonious funeral I have been to.  Almost always, it used to be that there is much that is uncomfortable or offensive; but not at all once when the three shovels of dirt fall on the casket, it used to be that it cut me in the heart, all was so subdued, so soft. 

The friends had given an American flag and asked if it might be wrapped around the casket before it sank into the grave.  Both Mr. and Mrs. Nissager followed at the cemetery and they were unusually strong.  They were driven up there in a Sedan automobile and there they could sit and be along with it all.  It was driven right to the grave.

It was all done with Military honors.  Edvard Esbeck led them, there were about near 50, but that you can later read about in the paper I think. But it was beautiful.  Peter Jensen, he performed something unusually fine on bugle.  The last tone hovered long, they hardly knew if it was instruments or the air that sounded out …

February 14, 1920 – Letter from Holger’s girlfriend

 … That was so sad that Frede must die!  That makes me ache for Nissagers.  We have just had a funeral here from the city – a 16 year old girl, daughter of Chris Skoven who worked for us in the past year.  She had pneumonia, had had a cold, then played basketball in school and got worn down by running out from the warmth.  She was also so fresh and sound, had never been sick before and was only sick four days this one time …

February 20, 1920 – Letter from Holger’s mother

… Yesterday I was up at Nissagers.  Esther will today send you a picture of Frede.  That will probably be the one in civil clothes just before he moved to Wyoming, it is serious but I think that it is a good picture of him, if someone wants to write about his airplane work they can use the picture with the uniform.  Alma Madsen has written about Frede and sent it to the paper Ungdom.  Mrs. Jorgensen said yesterday she had written to “Echo”.  Nissagers  are fine.  Their biggest joy at this time is to talk about their dear son Frede …

March 5, 1920 – Letter from Esther Nissager

… Many, many thanks for your letter and picture, it is really outstanding.  Ah, yes, Holger I think I almost feel the loss more and more, the more I think about it, the more I realize how big a loss I have had.  Ah, no person knows how much Frede has been for me, and therefore what I have missed.  But we must humbly bow to the Lord’s way.  We short-sighted people know so little, so little and must say “Thank, God.”   Thanks, Holger, that we have that beautiful piece in “Echo”.  Ah, I think that was so beautiful, the fine, even way Pastor Jorgensen always writes.  Ah, Holger, when you some time come home you shall have the right to read some of the letters I have received from Frede’s friends in the Army, they are some of the finest, one can also see from that, that Frede always sought the good comrades, all can one see are good Christian people, who have the solid belief that Frede has gone to the place far holier than this life.  Yes, Holger, that friendship of all shows how cared for Frede has been helps to lessen the sorrow, but the loss, that depressing loss, ah, is everywhere.

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Every kid in my public high school class who was 15 years old took in-classroom training from our shop teacher, Mr. Kinzler.  I considered him a typical shop teacher – cut off a piece of a finger while using power tools and had a dry sense of humor (easily mistaken for being a mean man).   Those of us whose birthdays fell on a day during the summer break were scheduled to take our in-car driver training after the school year was over in late May.

By passing the written and driving test, a high school student in Wisconsin 16 years of age could get a probationary license that came with it restrictions on when you could drive and how many passengers you can have in the car with you.  Once you turned 18, you could then get a regular Wisconsin drivers license.

The car used for training was a 4-door car carrying three students and our instructor, Mr. Marg.  He sat in the front passenger seat with his own steering wheel and brake pedal.  I don’t know where he was from and I never saw him again after the training.

The three of us all wanted to be the first to drive during the day.  That was because the first always got the longest time behind the while.  The last person might get cheated if we ran out of time out and had to get back to where we started.  We mostly drove around the town of Luck, but were thrilled when he let us drive onto country roads and Highway 35.   Mr. Marj only messed with one of us trainees by slamming on the brakes on his side of the car.  Luckily it wasn’t me.

On June 29, 1977, I took my driving test in my parent’s Plymouth Fury.  We usually had two cars in the household and the Fury was what I was allowed to drive.  I don’t remember the details of the test, but I passed.  I could them use the Fury to get to my night job as a busboy at a steak house near St. Croix Falls.  It wasn’t long before I bought my own beater car so I could  stop taking the bus and drive myself to school.

Today where I live, many kids drive themselves to school.  The parking lots are huge!  All those kids on the road lead to a lot of congestion before and after school hours.  Most of the local schools charge the students for a parking space. There was an article in the paper just the other day that was about kid wanting to ‘personalize’ their space by spray painting designs and graffitti!  The parking lot next to Luck Public High School in the 1970s was free, could hold about 30 cars, and it was first-come, first-served!

Growing up, my sister, Barb, and I had dozens of stuffed animals to keep us occupied and assist in our creativity.  Any time a picture was taken of her on her birthday, she was holding “Ginger Cookie”.  Of the dozens that I had, “Boy Teddy Bear” was my favorite, followed by “Winnie-The-Pooh”.  My favorite that was belonged to Barb was “Flipper”.  It was soft and fluffy, and could be used like a pillow.  It had a zipper pouch where you could store things.

The counterpart to my “Boy Teddy Bear” (in blue cloth) was “Girl Teddy Bear” (in pink cloth). That was Barb’s.  We considered them brother and sister.  They were very nice to each other.  Looking back, I considered them as representative of myself and my sister.

A couple of the stuffed animals belonged to our mother when she was a child.  As ours were torn during play, mom would sew them up with pieces of cloth she had laying around the house.  She also sewed and knitted clothes for some of them to wear.  My sister and I would write up skits for them to perform.  This was encouraged by our mother.  Her parents were musicians and local theater performers.  I think she took enjoyment in our creativity.

There was a big tree in our front yard.  I climbed it as a kid.  A few times we took all our stuffed animals and threw some up in the tree to get them stuck.  Then we threw the remaining stuffed animals at them to knock them down.

For years, the stuffed animals were kept in the house I grew up in.  As an adult, I decided to take a few of them home with me as keepsakes.  Last year when I visited by sister and brother-in-law at the house we grew up in, I was cleaning out one of the rooms that had been left is disarray.  Part of the cleaning process was to burn old documents that no longer served any purpose.  My sister had kept our stuffed animals in a trash bag.  Reluctantly, she agreed that it was time to ‘recycle’ them along with the old documents. I didn’t even look in the bag to see which ones were in it because I was afraid I would change my mind on discarding them.

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In the 7th grade at Luck Public School, I remember being taken into the old auditorium for the first day of the Junior High band class.  There were tables set up with  various band instruments on them.  I think I was talked into selecting the clarinet as my instrument of choice.  I don’t remember giving the choice much thought.  There were many more girls that chose to play the clarinet, than boys.  It was considered a sissy instrument by my peers. My mother ended up buying me a new clarinet with an orange, cloth case.  I liked the color because it was easy to identify which instrument was mine from within a pile.

Clarinet and flute players sit in the front rows of the concert band configuration because they do not play as loud as bass instruments and drums, which fill out the outer and back rows.  If you’ve paid attention as a marching band passes you on the street, the sounds of clarinets and flutes are overwhelmed by the sound of trumpets, trombones, and drums.

What I hated most about playing the clarinet was spending 5 minutes in preparation before playing to wet the wood reed.  You would take it out dry from the case and have to work your spit into it to make it vibrate properly.  I always had about three reeds to pick from.  As the wood would split or crack, the reed would no longer produce the sound desired and had to be thrown out.

Trying to get sounds out of the clarinet that were not squeaks took some practice.  I got to be pretty good after awhile.  I played in concert band, marching band, and pep band.  I participated in solo and ensemble contests with other schools.

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Growing up in the upper Midwestern United States, one of our winter activities was ice skating.  Minnesota is called the “Land of 10,000 Lakes”.  I lived in Western Wisconsin and we had a lot of lakes, too!  They froze during the winter and provided an annual playground for kids and adults.

Duluth, Minnesota

My dad was in the United State Air Force during the 1950 and 1960.  Typical of a military career, my parents, sister, and I moved from base to base.  One stop was at a base near Duluth, Minnesota from 1964-66.  I was 3-5 years old.  I don’t remember many details except a few triggered by looking at old photos that my mom took.

It was rare that we would ever leave the base, so ice skating rinks in the winter were created by the grown ups so they could easily keep an eye on us.  One year they made a skating rink in the center square where there were base housing units surrounding it.  All I had to do was step outside our front door and I was right there.  I don’t remember learning how to skate.  One advantage of it being so cold outside is we dressed in layers.  That helped cushion the fall on the ice.

Luck, Wisconsin

When my dad retired from the Air Force in 1968, we moved permanently to Luck, Wisconsin.  He bought the house from my mom’s parents.  It is situated 100 yards north of a small lake called Little Butternut.  At its deepest the lake is 23 feet.

Water flows into it from a small creek coming from Big Butternut Lake in the town of Luck, a few miles to to the east.  Water leaves via Butternut Creek and meanders for miles until it reached Long Trade Lake.

In the summer, I spent time in Little Butternut swimming, boating, fishing.  In the winter, it was ice fishing and ice skating.  Most years, when the lake would freeze, the surface would be rough with uneven ripples.  Wind blowing during the freezing process would cause the surface to be uneven for the rest of the winter.  Not long after freezing snow would fall and not melt for the rest of the winter.  For us to skate, we had to shovel out our own rink.

(Side note:  if you have ever heard ice crack on a large body of water – it is very eerie.  As ice cracks and shifts, sound waves echo under the ice.)

I eventually outgrew my black figure skates.  My parents bought me a well-worn pair of hockey skate.  Not only were they way too big for my feet, but the blades were so tall that my ankles got sore within minutes trying to keep them from slipping sideways!  If we really ice skated a lot, I’m sure I could have asked for a proper pair.

A few years after my sister and I graduated from high school, we came back home to visit our parents for Christmas.  The ice had frozen smooth and there was no snow.  You could skate almost anywhere on the lake, except for a few well-known spots where the water entered and exited the lake because the ice was thin.   You could see how thick the ice was by looking at it closely.  Occasionally you could see things float by underneath it.

As a Kid

When my sister and I were pre-teen, we would go door-to-door in the neighborhood for trick-or-treat.  I don’t think we went more than three houses in either direction along Highway N.  When I was older, I also did “Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF”.  I had an orange cardboard box that people could drop in coins.  I only ever gathered a couple of dollars.

One year the local movie theater in Luck, Wisconsin held a costume contest.  My mother sewed together a Snoopy costume out of spare cloth.  The kids would stand on the theater stage to be judged.  I was one of the winners.

As an Adult

When I worked for Citicorp Mortgage at the Mason Ridge location in Chesterfield, we had a Halloween costume contest between departments.  The year the Credit Policy Department won (1989), a co-worker and I dressed up as Hans and Franz, two characters that appeared in skits on Saturday Night Live.  I already had the gray sweats.  I stuffed mine with cotton stuffing we had laying around the house.  Tied rubber bands around my joints to make the cotton look more like muscles.

When I worked for Ferguson Consulting, Inc., we had a company party.  I went as Gene Simmons in his KISS rock band makeup.  That’s a cheap broom I spray painted gray and added black dots for knobs and fret bars.  Elaine found a stick-on tattoo.  I bought black grease paint especially mean to make up a face, lips, and fingernails as one of the members of KISS.  Costume jewelry courtesy of Elaine’s collection.  For some reason, we already had the black wig.

Subdivision Hay Ride

Every year a farmer gathers the kids together at the end of our subdivision road.  They and their parents sits on a hay wagon as he drives them along the road from one end to the other.  People giving out candy can see the tractor coming and get their candy ready.  This is convenient because within five minutes, all the candy is handed out and there is no longer a need to wait for the doorbell to ring.  After the hay ride is over, everyone gathers at the farm maintenance shed for hot chocolate, hot dogs, and visiting.

As a child growing up in northwest Wisconsin I played in fields that contained poison ivy.  I am sure my mother told me the memory trick, “leaves of three, let them be” to help identify what was poison ivy, but I do not remember specifically looking out for it, or getting a bad case of it.

When we bought our house in 1999, there was some yard work to do.  Washouts had to be filled, weeds removed, and trees to be trimmed.  Up one tree was a thick vine that looked dead to me.  I put my gloves and hat on and hacked away at it with a hatchet.  Dust and debris fell on me from above.  A few days later my arms started to itch.  Followed by red welts from my hands to my shoulder.  The vine was poison ivy and it was definitely NOT dead!  I tried to treat it with home remedies.  One day my arms were so swollen that I had to go to the hospital.  You know your case of poison ivy is bad when the doctor winces at the sight of it.  Wearing my gloves had made it worse because the plant dust accumulated inside them.  The doctor gave me a shot of prednisone, then some pills and salve to take home.  For a week, both arms oozed.  It was so bad, that I taped paper towels around them during the day to prevent the ooze from soaking through my work shirts!  From that point on, I was constantly looking out for ‘leaves of three’.

A few years ago I wanted to take photos of fireflies around my yard.  There were many across the road from our house in the neighbor’s farm field.  It was a warm evening, so I was wearing shorts and a short-sleeve shirt.  I briefly stepped into the tall grass and started pointing my camera around, looking for fireflies.  My glasses fell off and into the grass.  I searched for them a short time and found them.  I wasn’t getting any good shots of fireflies, so I aborted the project, went back in the house and took a shower.  A few days later I noticed poison ivy on my arms, then my waist, then neck, face, and legs.  Obviously there was poison ivy in the farm field grass, but I was only standing in it a short while.  While was it all over my body?  Turns out when I took a shower, I spread it all over!  I had it in places that should never have poison ivy!  I went to the doctor and he gave me the usual medicine.  I was able to take a couple of days off from work because my face looked awful.

As a kid, poison ivy did not affect me very much.  As an adult, my immune system did not take kindly to it.  I have had a number of breakouts since, but am very careful to avoid the plant and know to immediately wash exposed areas and put on ointment.

I was thinking the other day about the longevity of consumer products.  What do I have in my house today that has lasted longer than I or the consumer market expected?  I gathered a handful of items, took photos, and wrote up this post.

Vacuum Cleaner (31 years)

This was a purchase made in my ‘bachelor’ days.  I did not do any research on what would be the best vacuum for my lifestyle.  I had just received a Sears debit card so I bought a cheap one at a mall in St. Louis.  A Hoover Spirit 3.1HP with no retractable cord.

Today, we have a more sophisticated and powerful vacuum to clean the house.  But when we need something simple that we can bang around without worrying about breaking it, we pull this vacuum off the shelf in the garage.  It is great for vacuuming cars.  It still has all its accessories and takes generic waste bags.

Stereo (28 years)

My first major purchase after I moved from Detroit to St. Louis was a stereo.  I went to Circuit City and bought a Kenwood system that consisted of a receiver, amplifier, cassette tape deck/dubber, phonograph player, CD player, and stereo speakers.  I no longer have cassette tapes or records and all my CDs have been digitized so I can play them on an mp3 player.  I almost never listen to the radio.  The amplifier and stereo speakers are currently integrated with our DVD player, digital TV, and Amazon FireStick.  As much as it would be nice to implement surround sound or even Dolby 5.1, we are happy with our old-fashioned stereo.

One thing I acquired from my parent’s estate were a pair of Pioneer console speakers.  They belonged to my father who bought them at discount through the U. S. Air Force and had them shipped to the U.S. from overseas.  I had them hooked up for years in parallel with the Emerson speakers, but they produced weak sound.  The Emerson amplifier just didn’t have the wattage to drive four speakers in a stereo configuration.

Earlier this year I got a hold of a GPX woofer/amplifier for $20.  I wasn’t sure if it would work, but I hooked it up to the Emerson amplifier output and … YES … I now had enough power to drive the Pioneer speakers on their own circuit!  So even though it is still just stereo output, I can fill more areas of environment and better reach the far reaches of the room.

Air Cleaner (25 years)

We bought this to help keep the dust and dander out of the air when we had two cats living with us.  My allergies are easily triggered.  This was one of a handful of ways used to allow both me and the cats to co-exist in the same space.  (The passed away from old age many years ago).  It currently runs continuously in the master bedroom at the foot of the bed.  It has developed a vibration if the top works itself loose, but you just have to tighten it back up.  Obviously the filter has to be changed a couple of times a year.

Laser Printer (21 years)

While everyone sells color ink-jet printers these days, we’ve been able to hold on to this black-and-white HP LaserJet 6L toner cartridge printer.  It had a slot to upgrade the memory, which we did that right away.  We originally used a parallel printer cable to connect it to a computer.  When that cable technology went away on the PC, we were able to add a USB dongle and continue to use it.  It doesn’t have a network card, so one of the PCs on our home network ‘owns’ it and then shares it with the rest of the workstations on the network.

Once or twice we had it serviced because of issues with feeding paper or strange squeaking noises.  Refurbished loner cartridges are still available, but it is a matter of time before that technology is obsolete and ink cartridges will rank supreme.

Lawn Tractor (20 years)

For years Elaine and I lived in apartments and condos.  There was no need for me to do landscaping or mow a lawn. When we bought a house on a couple of acres of land in Eureka, Missouri in the summer of 1999, that changed.  We bought a heavy duty Sears Craftsman lawn tractor with a three-blade deck.  Besides mowing, it could be used to haul landscaping material around.

Just like with our cars, we make sure do do regular maintenance.  Once a year I change the oil and filters.  I think it is on its fifth battery.  The current one might last the rest of this year, if I am lucky.  We used to have three sets of three blades and rotate them as one set got worn out.  We only have two sets now because the third got ground down by sharpening so much there was no more cutting edge left to it.

The belts have been changed a couple of times.  It is usually never preventative maintenance.  When they break, we have to have the mower picked up by a repair shop and returned a couple weeks later.  The mower deck is beat up and I can not get it leveled as good as I used to.

Over time, I’ve had to put duct tape over rips in the seat.  The steering gear is worn out, so there is a lot of play in the wheel.  At the end of every year, I tell myself, “Let’s see if it will make it one more year …”

Tennis Shoes (20 Years)

This is the only clothing item listed.  I hate shopping for shoes.  I don’t have feet that fit the standard sizes.  When I find a pair that fits, I try to make them last.  This pair is a bit wider than other shoes I wear.  They definitely do not support my ankles.  But they clean up easy, do not give me blisters, and have taken a beating without falling apart.

Mp3 Player (10 years)

I consider any consumer electronic device that lasts for over 10 years must be good quality.  The advantage here is that on the Apple iPod, there are few moving parts.  The MP3 audio file format seems like it is going to last awhile.  The quality is good enough for me because I mostly listen to audio podcasts of the spoken word.  I can still download podcasts from the iTunes application and sync them with the Nano.

This model has long been discontinued and there is no longer software upgrade support.  It has many features that I don’t use: video and audio recording, radio, timers, games, and contact lists.  The battery is slowing losing its ability to keep a charge.  But it hardly ever runs out of juice during a walk or exercising before I can get it charged up again.

I had a scare a few days ago when it appeared to have died.  I spent three hours researching a new brand on Amazon and was about to order ti, when I did some more troubleshooting on the iPod and got it working.   The click wheel is a bit finicky when trying to back out of menus.  I have found a third-party attachment that has a clip I use to mount on my shirt collar or waistband.