Category: People & Human Interest

A touching and worthwhile essay on Admiral James Stockdale (who died yesterday) from Functional Ambivalent. If you remember Stockdale only as Ross Perot’s vice presidential running mate in 1992, read this antidote.

I insist.

From article in the Los Angeles Times, Hitting the Big Eleven-O

Marion Higgins is very good at remembering. She remembers writing her first book 10 years ago. She remembers moving into Seal Beach’s Leisure World in 1989. She remembers the history of furniture acquired at long-ago garage sales and celebrating the end of the World War — both II and I. She remembers hearing the Titanic had just sunk, and the long railroad ride to her family’s homestead in a new state called Idaho. And she remembers hating sunbonnets.

That would have been in the ’90s — the 1890s.

Mrs. Higgins turns 112 on Sunday. She is the oldest living Californian and is believed to be the 21st oldest living human. She belongs to an exclusive but growing population of super-old folks whose longevity is so much more than a family bragging rite.

Her life has spanned the terms of 20 of the 43 presidents in U.S. history.

HILLSBOROUGH, N.C. – After 35 years in prison for stealing a black-and-white television set, Junior Allen is a free man.

Allen, 65, walked out of prison Friday, ending a case that attracted widespread attention because he remained in jail while other inmates convicted of murder, rape or child molestation were released.

“I’m glad to be out,” Allen told supporters outside Orange Correctional Center. “I’ve done too much time for what I did. I won’t be truly happy until I see a sign that says I’m outside of North Carolina.”

Allen was a 30-year-old migrant farm worker from Georgia with a criminal history that included burglaries and a violent assault when he sneaked into an unlocked house and stole a 19-inch black-and-white television worth $140.

Some state records say Allen roughed up the 87-year-old woman who lived there, but he was not convicted of assault.

Instead, he was sentenced in 1970 to life in prison for second-degree burglary. The penalty for the offense has since been changed to a maximum of three years in prison.

AP via Yahoo! News

PostSecret will make you happy, sad, nervous. It will make you laugh, and shake your head, and maybe cry.

Thanks to Musings from America’s Outback for the link.

According to No, You Can’t Just Dodder in today’s New York Times, the Rolling Stones aren’t just “aging rockers, they are also something else: active seniors.”

Oh, gimme a break. Isn’t it time to redefine “seniors” as an age that makes a little more sense than 55 or 60?

(Though, not before I cash in on a few more senior discounts.)

On the other hand there are those who go along with this remark found in the article: “‘I don’t want to keep my brain particularly active,’ she said. ‘I’d like to piddle about.'”

Paula Roemer knows most people don’t understand her passion for animals.

Some of her North Seattle neighbors aren’t thrilled about the crows she attracts to her back yard with bird seed, she says. When she rescued a scraggly kitten abandoned on a pathway while she was vacationing in Israel 13 years ago, people reacted with disdain.

So when a neighbor’s dog mauled and killed that same beloved cat, Yofi, last year, Roemer barely mentioned it to people she knew. But now she feels that she found one person who understood: a judge.

Last week, Seattle District Court Judge Barbara Linde ordered the dog’s owner to pay $45,480.12 to Roemer for the cat’s death.

Read more from The Seattle Times.

NewMexiKen thinks they should have given the dog an award — one less damn cat.

Ten years ago today NewMexiKen made the round trip from Northern Virginia to Blacksburg to bring Jason, official youngest son, home from Virginia Tech for the summer. It was about a 550 mile drive, so not long after I got home from dropping Jason and his stuff off, I had collapsed in my Arlington townhouse’s second floor bedroom; exhausted, but not really asleep.

As I lay there dozing on-and-off a thunderstorm blew in. I began listening to it, the lightning closer and the thunder right behind and increasingly loud. I was counting the seconds to see how far away the strikes were, when, BAM, the lightning and thunder came in the same instant.

“Wow! That was close.” I got up to look out the back and front windows to see which large tree it had hit. Not the one in the back open space. Not the even bigger and older one across the street. Odd I thought. It had to be that close.

I went down the two stories to the basement to reset the circuit breakers that had popped. Coming back through, I began the inventory of damaged electronic gear. No phones worked. The TV was screwy and the VCR was blasted. Sitting in the living room I heard a loud static-like sound upstairs and concluded the clock radio had come on, but didn’t work, or maybe the station was off the air. I headed back up, but the noise wasn’t coming from the radio. I started back down again, confused.

Above the stairway landing was a pull-down stepladder to the attic. As I passed—for the third time since the lightning—I looked up. Through the seam around the molding I could see what was making the crinkly sound. Flames!

As it was a townhouse with a common attic I immediately alerted neighbors on both sides and had one of them call the fire department (remember, my phones didn’t work). Foolishly perhaps, I went back in (there was no smoke) to get my wallet and car keys from the top of the bureau in the bedroom. I also grabbed a couple of envelopes with utility payments but not my work ID (which I later thought was an interesting psychology).

The fire station was only a few blocks down the street but they were already out on a call. It was ten minutes before the next nearest engine company arrived. You think waiting for a computer to load a program or waiting for a red light to change is long? Try standing in the pouring rain waiting for the fire trucks when your house is on fire.

The firemen arrived, vented the attic, went out of their way to protect some of my furniture, and stopped the fire just before the slate roof crashed through the burned-out attic and destroyed the place top down. Even so there was water and smoke damage all the way down to the basement (water gets into walls and runs across ceilings that way). It took $50,000 and several months to rebuild the place (I was a renter, but I did return after it was rebuilt). State Farm handled my personal claim with courtesy and generosity. I got a lot of new stuff.

The fire inspector the next morning told me that lightning strikes are about 2000° F. It hit about 20 feet from my bed.

Those who didn’t care much for Pete Nanos still seethed over the comment he made about some lab employees being “cowboys and butt-heads” during an all-hands meeting of Los Alamos National Laboratory employees last year.

From an article in The Albuquerque Tribune.

Not a good choice of words for a staff meeting, but I’ve got to admit that every place NewMexiKen ever worked had its share of “cowboys and buttheads.”

Fortunately for you, NewMexiKen cannot remember dreams very well. But today is Freud’s birthday, so I will make an effort.

Lately I have had a series of dreams — we’re talking a few dreams over many weeks, but a definite pattern. Each of these dreams has featured a woman I have known. I don’t mean that known. I mean women I’ve been friends with, women I’ve worked with or for, women who are ex one-thing or another. It’s like Sundance, only each film features the comeback of some actress who was once part of my life.

There doesn’t seem to be a theme running through these dreams, other than the main character being a woman I knew. But for someone like me who doesn’t remember dreams, the pattern is curious. What does this all mean? Where are the male leads? Why are some of these dreams musicals?

“Percentage of Americans aged 18 to 29 who speak to their parents every day: 48.”

Harper’s Index for April 2005

If you’re old enough to remember Herb Alpert’s Tijuana Brass, go take a look at The One and Only.

Link via Boing Boing

NewMexiKen has learned from a report in The Washington Post that Sarah Jessica Parker, who will be 40 on Friday, has been dropped as celebrity spokesmodel by the Gap in favor of 17-year-old Joss Stone.

Of course, before you shed too many tears for Ms. Parker, keep in mind that she was paid $38 million dollars for her contract with the chain. That’s $38 million for about 13 months, or close to $100,000 a day every day!

I hope Gap isn’t planning on having Joss Stone sell any shoes.

NewMexiKen was on the wrong end of a root canal this morning (my face is still numb all the way up to the right eye socket). And it wasn’t even my fault. It’s my sister’s fault.

NewMexiKen was 7 (I was MichiKen in those days). My sisters were 5 and nine months. The older one was in the back seat of our Nash with me, the younger one in a car seat hooked over the back of the front seat. (No one had seat belts 52 years ago.) Our mother was driving us home from our cousin’s birthday party. It was rush hour and dark in December. The traffic was stop and go.

I was being peaceful, mature and totally well-behaved. My sister Martie was — no doubt — encroaching on my half of the backseat. I was keeping Mom well informed about this behavior. Things were escalating. At some point Mom turned around to tell Martie to stop (I being totally innocent). While Mom was distracted, the stop and go traffic stopped. Mom continued to go.

From the back seat I flew over my baby sister and hit the windshield — with my face. My mother bumped her head. No one else was injured; though our car was totaled (it didn’t take a lot to “total” a 1951 Nash, even in 1952). The car in front of us had been shoved into the car in front of it. The car in the middle was totaled. It was being driven home from the dealer’s showroom.

The man whose new car was totaled was kind. I remember he gave me his handkerchief at the scene because I was bleeding. I also believe he gave me the $5 bill I found in my blood-stained jacket’s pocket some time later. ($5 was a lot of money in 1952.) Mom and I were taken to the hospital emergency room where I received three stitches in my cheek. No big deal; end of story.

Except that, more than likely, the impact of hitting the windshield 52 years ago did some slowly evolving dental nerve damage. Twenty-five years ago my right-front-tooth went berserk out of the blue. I had to have a root canal. Long-term trauma the dentist decided. Must be from that accident I realized (I didn’t remember any other facial injuries).

Today, it was the next tooth over (#7 for you dental aficionados). Undoubtedly it was from the same injury 52 years ago.

If only my sister had stayed on her side of the backseat.

Andrew Tobias tells of his friend’s experience training puppies to become guide dogs. NewMexiKen particularly liked this paragraph:

The goal for the first year is to provide a broad base of experiences for the puppy. Guide dogs must be fearless while not being aggressive, and the more things they are exposed to in the first year helps ensure they won’t encounter things that will startle them — and they become confident enough to handle new situations without becoming fearful. Simple tasks like carrying her while vacuuming, letting her meet clowns, watching parades and fireworks shows, walking near traffic, and meeting other neighborhood pets all contribute to success. Sitting on the corner near taxis and other cars in Manhattan, hanging out with the toys in a store at the mall and watching the children playing, and visiting grocery stores also help.

Jon at Albloggerque, on what it takes:

Jeff Diamond is a retired kindergarten teacher. I hang out with a couple more retired men kindergarten teachers: Bob Evans and Pete Ziegler. In fact I taught kindergarten for 9 years myself. We have about 90 years of kinder experience between us. What do all three of us have in common as people that would drive us to such an unusual profession for men?

* We like to play.
* We are pretty even tempered.
* We like to play.

“A college class was told they had to write a short story in as few words as possible. The story must contain three components: (1) Religion, (2) Sexuality, and (3) Mystery. There was only one A paper in the entire class. In full: ‘Good God! I’m pregnant. I wonder who did it.'”

Via Andrew Tobias

Cheeky Prof illustrates why Bill Gates may be wrong:

I had a student give me attitude earlier because (ready for this?) he had to spend 2 hours doing a lit search for his project and still didn’t find enough usable sources. When I told him that, yes, doing a lit search can take time and I go through the same thing he responded, “Well, I have other classes, I can’t be spending all my time on this one.” At that point I reminded him how at the beginning of the semester I had explained that students should expect to spend a few hours per week doing work outside of the class, to which he replied contemptuously, “That’s ridiculous.”

I may have to kill him.

Sometimes you realize you’re worried but you can’t remember what you’re worried about. You know there’s something out there, a thing that was worry-worthy. You ransack your memory. Gone. It has become a stray worry. It’s a worry on the loose, no doubt rambling all over the neighborhood, causing trouble. It may be hours, days or even months before it returns. This REALLY worries you. Because if you want to keep your sanity you need to keep your worries front and center, where you can watch their every diabolical move.

Joel Achenbach

From The New Mexican:

The female is shy and has never met a male. The male has been out of the mating game for quite a while. Then there’s that 29-year age difference.

No matter, officials at Albuquerque’s Rio Grande Zoo are hoping that hippos Moe and Karen become friends and maybe even soul-mates when they meet later this year.

Karen, a 3-year-old female, is considered on the cusp of sexual maturity. Moe is a 32-year-old bachelor whose last experience as a sire was more than two decades ago.

“Moe has been out of the game for 25 years,” said Rio Grande mammal curator Rick Janser.

The article goes on to say “if the couple are to mate, it will probably have to be Karen who sends out the right signals.”

Amy, official niece of NewMexiKen, was in a minor traffic collision yesterday. A gentleman Amy describes as “this ancient, tiny, little, old man” was let into traffic by a good samaritan and, while waving to his benefactor, he ran right into Amy.

As Amy tells it:

The funny thing was there was an ambulance right next to me in the 2nd lane. They saw everything (even though there was no damage, my car was quite jostled at the time – it was apparent that something had happened). So they turned on their lights and pulled over and jumped out to make sure everything was ok. You should have seen everyone’s reaction when I got out of the car and they saw my belly. [Amy’s baby is due in May.] They were all hustling around, “Do you need to sit down? Do you need a drink? Do you want us to call the police? Maybe you should lay down.” I thought the little old man was gonna have a heart attack right there. I was amused. Sometimes the belly comes in handy.

Well since there was no damage we exchanged info and such and I sent [the man] on his way. He was very grateful that I was nice about it but really I guess he caught me in a non-hormonal moment.

A good friend’s mother was prescribed a new painkiller Monday. That night she thought she heard a burglar, then saw a woman sitting on her porch. She called the police. A grandson came over as well to make certain everything was OK.

The second night (Tuesday night/Wednesday morning), the mother heard the morning paper arrive before 5. She went out and the same woman she’d seen on the porch the night before went past her into the house and sat on the couch. Then the stranger went into the bathroom. The friend’s mother called the police. When they arrived the stranger was gone. It was clear to the police my friend’s mother was seeing things.

Turns out that one reported side effect of the new painkiller is hallucinations. The mother stopped taking the pills and no strangers arrived last night. Certain as she was that the stranger was there when she called the police (something she may never have done before in 80+ years), she now recognizes it must have been the pill. She’s fine.

NewMexiKen is thinking however, of getting a presecription to this drug. I figure after three or four nights I might be able to hallucinate someone coming in and cleaning the bathroom.

Or just not think?

“This is Officer Such-and-so from the Albuquerque Police Department. Are you the father of …?”

“This is Officer Such-and-so of (your parents’ residence). Are you the son of …?”

Your heart clinches. Only the worst is imagined.

How about if when it’s not an emergency the police begin the call with: “This is not an emergency. I am Officer Such-and-so ….”

The carpet installation was completed yesterday, 11 days after is began. It looks good.

The ceiling still leaks. Probably not the fault of the roof, but rather rain water seeping through cracks in the stucco and working its way across the ceiling. Sigh!

It’s already nearly the wettest January-February in Albuquerque history, with a week to go in the month. The forecast for this week is rain and snow resuming tomorrow.

Is Miles an alcoholic? “Is a Wine-Soaked Film [Sideways] Too, Er, Rosé?” An article in The New York Times addresses the subject.

Stephan Gonzalez, coordinator at an adult treatment program of the Council on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse in Santa Barbara, Calif., said Miles reminded him of some of the council’s clients. He said Miles’s stealing from his mother, drinking while driving and going on binges shows a lack of control that makes him, if not an outright addict, an alcohol abuser, “all under the wonderful guise of sophisticated social drinking.”

What’s an alcoholic?

Alcoholism is generally characterized by compulsive drinking, preoccupation with drinking and tolerance for alcohol. “What makes people an alcoholic is not how often they drink or how much,” Mr. Schwarzlose [of the Betty Ford Clinic] added. “What makes somebody an alcoholic is repeated use despite the consequences. The alcoholic will keep drinking anyway because he’s addicted.”