My Best Friend in High School

I actually had two best friends when I was going to high school, one was Bill and the other was Jack. Jack  and I were more adventurous than Bill and I were. That didn't make me like one or the other any better, we just enjoyed different things. Jack and I loved the outdoors and we loved to go out and get into a little mischief, while Bill and I enjoyed movies and other things that were a little less adventurous. 

Some of the things that Jack and I would do was off road driving, target shooting, racing and even bull riding. I remember Jack had a 1955 Ford station wagon and he raised the springs so he would have more clearance under the car when driving off road. He didn't care where he drove that thing, anywhere he thought he could go, he tried. He loved to drive up past our lake in the area called Stevens Creek Reservoir. The lake was fed by Stevens Creek. It was a little creek that was mostly runoff from the mountains. It would have water most of the year but as the summer wound down it started to dry up. There was an asphalt road that followed the creek into the mountains for about 12 miles until it became a dirt road and continued for about 6 more miles where it ended at the creek. After that, there was a dirt road, if you want to call it a road, that went up the mountain. It was not very steep, it went up the side of the mountain at about a 20 degree embankment. 

One day Jack decided he was going to go up this road and see if he could get up to the top of the mountain. He started up the road and he was doing pretty good until he got to a section that was full of deep ruts from others going up the road when it was wet. Jack's station wagon was not four wheel drive so he didn't have very good traction. It was, after all, a 1955 Ford station wagon: not exactly built for off-road mountain climbing. If he hit a deep rut on one wheel it would spin and the other one did nothing. He tried and tried to get up past this very rutty section of the road but to no avail. He finally gave up as it got later in the day. We got in the car and he had to back down the road since there was no room to turn around, luckily it wasn't that far. Once he got  down the road where it was a little wider, he turned around and home we went.

Jack was pretty stubborn and he was not ready to give up climbing that mountain. He thought he needed more clearance so he jacked the car up at least another 3 inches. After getting more clearance he and I went back up the road. This time I drove my own car, a 62 red Ford Fairlane, my first car. I decided to bring along my dad's 12 gauge double barrel shotgun. I was going to do some shooting while Jack tried to conquer the mountain. I parked the car and got the shotgun out of the trunk and loaded up both barrels and started to shoot some cans and bottles. Jack revved up the Ford, popped the clutch and peeled out in the dirt and went up the road. I heard him slow down and then he revved up the engine again and I could hear him spinning the tires. He was stuck again, but he kept trying. Pretty soon I heard him go up the mountain a little farther. After a while, he was up so far that I could barely 

hear the car any more. A little while later, I heard the station wagon getting closer and I assumed he was coming back down. When he got to where I was, he stopped the car and got out. I asked him, "What happened?" He said, "The road ended." So we spent the rest of the day shooting the shotgun until we ran out of ammo. Then we got in our cars and drove back home. Since Jack had reached the end of the road, he gave up trying to get to the top of the mountain.

Another of our adventures was this place called Mosebee's. It was a place where you could pay a small amount and ride a bull. Actually they were steers, but I tell everyone  bulls because that sounds more macho than steers. Other friends that Jack and I hung around with were Dave and his brother Lynn. Lynn, who was 2 years older than the rest of us,  told us of this place and said "Let's go and we can ride the bulls." Now they did have a couple of bulls for the very brave, and in my opinion, the VERY BRAVE! So there was me and my brother John, Lynn and his brother Dave and his friend Glenn and Jack. We got  there and we watched some of the other fools that where dumb enough to pay their money to ride. Finally Jack said, "I'm going to ride one of those steers." I looked at him and said, "Are you serious? Come on Jack, you'll get killed." "No I won't," he replied. Lynn spoke up and said, "I'm going to ride one, too". I looked at John and then at Dave and said, "Are you two going to ride?" They looked at me as if I had a hole in my head. John said, "No way am I getting on one of those steers, are you?" I replied, "I'm thinking about it" "What about you Dave?" I inquired. "Not in a million years!" Dave said to me. Glenn spoke up and said, "I'm going to ride." Jack looked at me and said, "Come on man, let's do this together." I'd fallen for that line so many times, I  said, "Sure let's do it." 


I was the first to pay my money and risk my life. I was about to climb onto the steer when that crazy animal literally climbed up the side of the chute and up and over and ran down the arena area and back to where the herd was. I looked at that steer very close to see if it had any special markings, because I sure didn't want him again. Well, I noticed that he had a white star on his forehead. So when it was my turn again I told the guys that were helping us get on the steers and wrapping the rope around our hand that I didn't want the same steer that I was supposed to ride earlier. As I was putting on my leather gloves and getting ready to climb up the fence to get on the steer I saw that same star on the steer's forehead. I said, "Wait a minute, I don't want that one, he's crazy, he just climbed out of the chute". One of the guys helping us  said, "No that's not the same one." I said, "Yes it is." "No it's not!", he said very sternly, and told me to get on him. Well I gave in and stood on a rail on each side of the chute and slowly sat down on the beast. As soon as he felt me sit down on him he tried to climb up the side of the chute again. He didn't make it this time and I climbed up off him. We waited for him to settle down and I sat down on him again. He stomped around a bit, he moved back and forth what little he could. Finally he settled down a little and they were able to wrap the rope around my hand and then they put the flank strap on him and waited for me to give them the signal to go. 

The signal was to raise the opposite hand that wasn't wrapped with the rope and then nod my head. They would open the chute door and pull the flank strap up tight, this would encourage the steer to buck harder. Let me tell you, IT WORKED. The steer spun to the left as he came out of the chute, my hat went flying to the right. I held onto that rope as tight as I could. I really don't remember much about that rope. I do remember the steer bucking up and I went up with him. He went down and I started to come down just as he was going back up. We hit in the middle and that was it, I went sailing up above the steer and flew about 3 feet higher than the steer had bucked. Now my hand had come loose and as I came down there was no steer for me to land on. But there was some very hard ground to hit, and hit it I did. I landed on my tailbone and bounced. Talk about hurt! I was in such pain that my friends had to help me up. Jack had my hat, he stuck it on my head and said, "Way to go, cowboy!" The steer made a bee line to the holding pen. He just wanted to get back and wander around his pen with his buddies and eat. He didn't seem to care at all about me or my tailbone.


I went over to the fence on the other side of the arena and waited for Jack to make his ride. He got on  his steer and when he came out of the chute the steer just wanted to spin, trying to get Jack off his back.  We all were yelling and whistling for our friend. I'm sure they all yelled for me but I sure don't remember hearing anything except that steers snorting and hooves beating the ground. Eventually, the steer Jack was on threw him into the air and took off out from under Jack. It took about 4 seconds of the 8 seconds your ride is supposed to be. Lynn was next, he stayed on a little bit longer, about 5 1/2 seconds. Glenn chickened out. Mosebee's policy  was no refunds, but you could let someone else have your ride. Glenn asked, "Does anyone want to go again"? Jack spoke up, "Yeah, I'll go again". So we all sat on the fence and watched and cheered Jack on for his second ride. He didn't do any better but he had fun and avoided any injuries.


 It was time to go home. So we got in our cars and headed home. Me, John  and Jack were in my mom's 1960 Chevy Belair. And Glenn, Dave and Lynn were in Glenn's Studebaker. I don't remember what year he had but it was cool. Now, Mosebee's was in San Jose and we lived in Mountain View. Mountain View was about 12 miles north of San Jose. We had to drive on freeways, 101, 80 and 280 to get home. Being kids we thought we were invincible, so of course, we were going to race. As we made the transition from 101 to 80, that's when it happened, Glenn floored his Studebaker and passed me and I kicked that 283 into passing gear and took off. It didn't take but about 2 to 3 miles to catch him and pass him. When I did pass him I looked down at my speedometer and it read 102 MPH. John was in the back seat and he yelled at me to slow down and to put both hands on the steering wheel. I was soooo cool, I had one hand on the steering wheel and my other arm was out the window just as if I was out for a Sunday afternoon cruise. I wasn't about to slow down now, I had just passed them and I was staying in the lead. John yelled at me again to slow down. "Do you want to get caught by the cops?!?" John yelled in my ear. I didn't want to get caught, Mom and Dad would ground me for the rest of my life if I got a ticket for speeding and racing. I had promised them that I would not race on the freeways. How many kids made that promise?  By now we had traveled about 5 miles and Glenn had slowed down so I slowed down too. We had proven ourselves. After that it was an uneventful ride home, with no tickets and no accidents. 


Within a week I was feeling the effects of my bull riding adventure. I could hardly sit down or bend over, the tail bone area was very sore.  I had some other muscles that also were very sore. I went to the doctor and he said I had damaged my tailbone and I needed a shot of cortisone. The shot helped and it never bothered me again. Jack had some sore muscles also, but he didn't hurt anything like I did. We talked about that for weeks upon weeks. We never did go back but it sure was a special thing for some high school kids to do. It's a memory I'll have forever.


Jack moved back to Phoenix, AZ. which is where he was originally from. He went back in the middle of our senior year. We were devastated, we didn't want to be separated, but we had no choice. After I graduated from high school I flew to Phoenix and spent two weeks with Jack and his parents. What a great time we had;we went shooting, off road driving, just all kinds of things that 18 year old boys do. Jack's parents wanted to show me Phoenix, so we went sightseeing. About two years later I got a call from Jack's mom. He had passed away from leukemia. This was my first loss of a good friend, and it broke my heart. I couldn't afford to fly to Arizona for the funeral but I sent flowers. I sure do miss my friend Jack Graham. But he is not forgotten. RIP my friend, love ya always.


My next story won't end so sadly, I promise.

Fearless Boy Scout Camper

I joined the Cub Scouts when I was 10 years old. You normally join Cub Scouts when you're 7 and earn your ranks as you get older.There were certain ranks that you have to earn as you go through Cub Scouts. You start with Bobcat, then Tiger Cub, on to Wolf , then Bear and finally you advance to Webelos. These are ranks that I managed to make in my one year before I advanced to Boy Scouts. These ranks  are normally reached as boys are growing up and enjoying Cub Scouts between the ages of 7 and 10.  But I was already 10 and I was planning on going into Boy Scouts when I turned 11, so I wanted to earn my ranks as fast as I could. I learned the requirements and studied hard so I could earn all my ranks before I turned 11. I made it! I received my badges. I was now officially a Boy Scout.

My brother, John, was already 13 and had  made his Tender Foot Badge, his Second Class Badge, First Class Badge and was working on his Star Badge when I joined the Boy Scouts. I joined the same time Danny joined. Danny was the scout masters son and his birthday was the same as mine and we became best friends. We did everything in Scouts together; in fact we were inseparable. As we grew up and continued in Boy Scouts we got our badges at the same time. When I made Tender Foot so did Danny, all the way up to and including our Star Badge.


My father, John Sr., was the assistant Scout Master and he did a lot for Troop 103. He did a lot of camping with the troop. If we were planning a camping trip he was always one of the adults to go along and camp with us. He was very knowledgeable about camping. That came from his days in the army. He was also a very good cook.  He was very good at teaching the scouts things out in the wild. How to start a fire without matches, how to track wild animals, how to make an oven with aluminum foil, and how to use a dutch oven. My mom did a lot to help, especially in transportation. She would load up the car and drive us to the camp site and if needed, she'd go back and pick up another load of kids and bring them. If we were camping far away where it wasn't convienent to drive back home, she would camp with us. She was a real asset to our Scout Troop.


I became a Boy Scout just after my 11th birthday in April. Camp came due in July and our troop had plans to go. My brother and I wanted to go to camp, so to raise money, we sold candy. We didn't make enough to pay for camp but mom and dad agreed to pay the rest. The camp was in northern California. I don't  remember the name of the camp or the lake it was on. The camp was on the far side of the lake and the only way to get to it was to use a power boat and drive across the lake to the camp. The camp was beautiful, secluded and  very good for teaching the scouts about camping and outdoor life.


We had all the activities of any camp; canoeing, row boating, swimming, diving, baseball, fishing, etc. Danny went to camp also and we had a great time. We did everything together except swimming. At 11  years old, I had not yet learned how to swim. The camp leaders tried to teach me, but no luck. But, I could dog paddle and keep myself afloat. Danny and I loved to canoe. Every free time we had ,we would check out a canoe and off we would go. I remember one time we went across the cove that the camp was on and when we got to the other side, we planned to beach the canoe and do some exploring. As we got close to the shore I looked into the water and it was so clear, I could see the bottom. It appeared to be about 3 feet deep, so I assumed it was safe to jump over the side of the canoe. WRONG!!! I jumped over the side and when I hit the water, down I went! My feet never touched the bottom, it was so deep. When I came up, I gasped for air and grabbed the side of the canoe and pulled myself up into it. Danny was laughing and as I calmed down I, too, started to laugh. By now I was soaking wet and had to go back to camp and change. That ended our adventure for the day.


I bet you're wondering by now where the "fearless" part of this story comes in. Ok, I'll get to the reason I am writing this story. While in camp we had a hike and camp out. We were going to hike about 2 or 3 miles and then pitch our tents, start a fire, cook a meal and spend the night. When it was time to go to bed I crawled into my pup tent. My dad was sleeping just outside of the tent because Danny was in the tent with me. My dad was along as one of the four adults that chaperoned us. It doesn't take too long to fall asleep in the wilderness. It's so quiet, dark and after hiking you are usually tired. Well I was very tired and fell asleep almost immediately. At about 1 AM I woke up because I had to pee. But I heard a buzzing sound outside. It sounded like a huge bug or a bat or   a Scout-eating monster, or who knew what else. I was so scared that I just pulled my sleeping bag up over my head and  forgot about my other needs. I slipped back into slumber until my bladder woke me up again. I still had to 'go', but I was too afraid to get up and go outside and relieve myself. The monster was still out there, making his scary sound. It was now about 3:30 AM. I knew I had to wait about 3 more hours before it was daybreak and it would be safe to go outside and answer nature's call. Finally, when it was light enough to see, I got up and peeked through the tent flaps. I could still hear the scary buzzing sound. At first, I couldn't see anything, but I was finally able to figure out where the sound was coming from. There is my dad, laying there just outside the tent, snoring up a storm. I was afraid to get up and take care of business because of my dad's snoring.. How brave is that? What can I say, I was only 11. Not the bravest time in your life. So when I knew it was safe to exit the tent. I went and found a nearby tree, and I mean I found it quickly because I had to goooo!


After making some breakfast and packing up our stuff, we hiked back to camp. What a great time I was having at camp. I never wanted to leave. I think every kid that goes to camp feels that way. It was a great experience that I will never forget.


What will my next story be? Maybe you'd like another scouting story, or it could be about my Corvette, maybe gold prospecting. Could be about my pin collections, or maybe my beloved 49ers. You'll just have to wait and see!

I do collect pins

My niece, Char, said she was patiently waiting for the pin collection blog. Well, here is some of that. I have been collecting pins for about 32 years. I have over 2000 pins in my collection. I collect anything and everything. There are three basic production methods for enameled lapel pins:  Cloisonné, fine (or soft) enamel, and photo etch-plate.  My favorite of these is the Cloisonne. I think they are a much  better quality and they just look nicer. They are also the most expensive. I collect any pins, even those made of plastic. 

My pin collecting started one night when my mom and dad and I went to a CB break. A CB break was a dance that a CB radio club would put on and everyone that was interested would go. It was a dance with a live band, held in a hall where they had a bar or they would set up one of their own. A lot of the clubs used the Moose hall or the VFW (Veterans of Foreign Wars) hall or some other organizations hall. This was a way for the club to make money for their club. All of the clubs gave to charities so they wanted to raise money. They usually had a break once a month and usually on the same day, like maybe the first Friday of the month or the second Saturday. At this break we went to, there was a vendor who made name tags and sold other things and one of those things were hat pins. 

A hat pin is a pin with what we call a tack back. It's a pin that has a little round clasp on the  back that you squeeze two pieces of metal together and that releases it and you can pull the back off. Nowadays a lot of the backs are plastic or rubber and they just push on and pull off. Anyway my dad saw a pin and bought it for me. It's been so long now that I don't remember which one he got for me. But I put it on my hat that night and that started it all. I kept that pin on my hat for so long. My hat was a black Stetson that I wore all the time and now I was going to have pins in it just like Bud (John Travolta in "Urban Cowboy" 1980). After that first pin my family was very good at getting pins for me and on the hat they went. After my first six months I had about 300 pins and over half of them were given to me by friends or family.

One my mom gave me

When I got more pins than I had room for, I would take an old pin off and put a new pin on. And to keep track of this I had all my pins listed in my computer using a database program. I would have a name for the pin, who gave it to me, when they gave it to me and if it was on or off the hat. When I took old ones off I had a framed pin holder that you could buy that was about 11x14. It could hold a lot of pins.  Over the years I've received so many pins and so many are special or have special stories. I have some of those for you.

One of the pins I have came from my boss when I was working for Metermaster, a company that sold meters and test equipment. My boss came up to me one day and asked me, "Dave, will you put any pin on your hat?" I replied, "Yes, why do you ask?" He said, "I have a pin that I'm going to get the next time I go to Sacramento and give it to you." I said, "Okay". This was on a Friday and come Monday morning my boss had a pin and handed it to me. I looked at it and laughed out loud. He had found a pin that was a hand flipping the finger. It showed the palm side of the hand, as if someone was holding up their hand to you. I thought that was so funny that I put it on the hat and it stayed on for some time before it was cycled to be taken off. My boss was surprised that I would wear this on my hat, much less, front and center. When this pin was ready to cycle off, I put it a special pin holder that you can get from  Hard Rock Cafe, Disneyland or other touristy places.

Another special pin stayed on until I stopped wearing the hat entirely. Whenever people would say "I'm going to steal this pin", I would reply, "First read this pin" and I would point it out. It said " WARNING! If you value your life, as much as I value my hat. Don't F*** with it". And that would  stop them from stealing any pins. 

Another pin that was on my hat forever, came about because of one of the CB clubs whose breaks I attended every month. My CB handle was Baby Huey. Sometimes for a joke and to fool some others, I dressed like Baby Huey, diaper, little blue shirt, bonnet and baby bottle. It was pretty funny. One club, The Hot Peppers, had their own pins and the only way to get one was to be a member of the club. I wanted one but I didn't want to join the club, because I was already a member of another club. So one night at one of the Hot Pepper breaks one of the members knew I wanted a pin. So he came over to me and sat down at the table and said he had a proposition for me. I said,"Okay, what's the proposition?" He said, "I'll give you a Hot Pepper pin on the condition that if you ever come to our break without the pin on your hat you have to come and dress as Baby Huey". I thought about it for a minute and said, "Okay, I'll do it". So he handed me the pin and on the hat it went. It was on the hat forever and I never dressed as Baby Huey for the Hot Pepper club.

My brother and his wife would get me a lot of my pins. Mostly they got me sets of pins that they would buy at a gift shop down at Knotts Berry Farm. Usually I got those for my birthday or for Christmas. One of the first ones they gave me was a set of Coca Cola and flags from every country that went to the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, CA. It was a set of 150 pins. What a beautiful Christmas present, I loved it. I have so many favorites and I don't have pictures of all of them but I'll try to find some as I write more stories about my pin collection.

Hope you like the story Char. Love ya.

GOLD!! We're back to get some.

Gold Pan

As I told you in my first story about going gold panning, a drive to the Mokelumne river is a day trip. And if we were going on a day trip, Mom would make some sandwiches and maybe potato or macaroni salad. John and I were armed with our gold pans and our fishing equipment just in case we wanted to fish. Dad always brought his fishing equipment because he wasn't going to pan for gold. Mom would just bring her crocheting and would sit and crochet. We'd load up the car and head out to the gold country.

This time John and I were more prepared. We had done some studying, or I should say John did some studying. He had done some reading since our last panning trip and we were ready to try our luck again. One thing different was, the first time we went out,  we were only armed with our gold pans. This time we had small spoons to get gravel and, hopefully, gold out of the cracks and crevices and screwdrivers for getting in the very narrow gaps. So now we could dig up the sand and gravel and then scrape out the crevices in the rocks collecting the gold that is trapped in them. Gold, as it moves down a river or stream, will roll along the bottom and, being one of the heaviest metals in the world, will fall into cracks and crevices and settle down to the bottom. This is called Placer Gold and is found loose in sand or gravel deposits. You need something to get the gold and gravel out of those crack and crevices. Small spoons and screwdrivers work well for this. You can scrape down in the cracks and get the gold out. Something you have to be careful about is mud sticking to rocks or mud balls. You have to make sure the rocks are washed off and the mud is broken up in the pan so if any gold is in the mud it will be in your pan. And then mud balls you have to break up in your pan full of water. If there's any gold in the mud it will settle to the bottom of the pan and then when you pan it down, if you do it right, it will stay in the pan and you'll have some gold.

Sluice Box

As you pan, almost every pan is empty. Gold is not an easy thing to find unless you get lucky and hit a pay streak, which is a vein of rich ore or layer of rich gravel.  You don't find much gold just panning. To find a lot of gold you have to move a lot of gravel. There are many ways to do this. One way is to use a sluice box. They can be made out of metal, wood or plastic and they are designed to be put into the river. You put it in an area of swift moving water and anchor it down, usually with some large rocks that you put on top of it. Then, what a lot  of miners do, is fill a 5 gallon plastic bucket with gravel and then get a garden trowel and pour the gravel into the sluice box. The river will make the dirt and rocks flow through the sluice and the riffles, which look like ridges, that are part of the sluice will trap the heavier stuff. What happens is, as the water flows over the riffles there is an eddy just behind the riffle and that slight calmness in the flow allows the heavier material to drop down. There are usually 5 or 6 riffles, size of the sluice also determines how many riffles. Also under the riffles the sluice has what they call miners moss,  Miners moss is very similar to indoor/outdoor carpet and it will trap the very fine gold, or what miners call 'flour gold'. Flour gold is very hard to trap and very hard to see but since we get a lot of flour gold it adds a lot to your poke, as they would say in the original 49ers days. A poke was usually a small leather bag with a draw string and that's what miners kept their gold dust in. Another word used by miners, dust. Again a word that is self explanatory, the gold being fine like dust.


As John and I panned we loved to talk about the things that we wanted to get, a sluice box, a dredge to use in the river and a metal detector  These are some of the things that we would love to have and they are some of the ways to find gold. Dreaming costs us nothing and so much fun. Back to reality, John  and I were panning pan after pan and finding nothing. But we knew it would not be easy and that we probably wouldn't find much gold. As we were panning and digging in the river I saw on the edge of the river a plant that had some moss at it's base. So I took my pan and put it under the moss and I took my spoon and scraped through the moss and collected the dirt that was trapped there. Then I took the pan and filled it with some water and I stirred the water around. This broke up any clusters that might have been in the pan and it allowed the heavier stuff to settle on the bottom before the lighter stuff. Then I shook the pan very vigorously, not so hard that anything spills out but what I wanted to do is get the water and gravel into a kind of liquid state. (This allows the heavier stuff to get to the bottom.) Then I started swirling the pan around in the process of panning the stuff down. I got down to where there was nothing but the heavy material, which is usually black sand and  gold. Now I needed to see if I had any gold. What I always did when I got this far in my panning process,  I would bring the pan up a little closer to my eyes so I get a better view and then start swirling the water around the pan. Not too swift, but enough to move the black sand around. What will happen, if you do it correctly, the water will wash the black sand away and expose the gold. Well this time as I was  swirling the water around, I saw it. There it was!  My first flake of gold, this very tiny piece of gold. No where near a nugget, but it was GOLD! So to make sure, I called to John and said "Come here and look at this". So John set his pan down and walked over to where I was and I handed him the pan. He was standing there looking in the pan and he said, " Jake, you found gold." (Jake is what John called me since we were kids and sometimes he still does.) John handed me back the pan and said, "Now you have to put it in a bottle." We had some little bottles for the gold. One of the first ways we would pick the gold out of the pan was to lean the pan so all the water ran off the gold, and then just touch my finger to it. Then when you lift up your finger, the gold would stick to your finger and then you could take the bottle and put your finger over the opening of the bottle and turn the bottle upside down so the water in the bottle would release the gold flake and it would settle to the bottom of the bottle.


How exciting! I found my first flake of gold in the wild. Out in a river, not in a controlled setting. So I had to take the gold and show my mom and dad. It was so cool showing off the first flake of gold that I had just panned. There would be more coming but I don't think that the gold we would find later would ever compare with that very first find. I returned to the moss and looked for some more moss and sure enough as I  panned out the moss the more flakes I found. That day I probably found about a dozen flakes. John found a few. All and all what an exciting second trip out prospecting. We now had reason to come back.


More gold... stories to come.

I'm supposed to be going to Texas

In the Spring of 2002, Cyndi, my online girlfriend, flew from Ft. Worth, Texas to San Jose, California to meet me for the first time and see how things went and if we wanted to take our relationship to the next level. We had a wonderful time and spent our first night together at a very nice hotel that my brother paid for as a birthday gift to me. Cyndi made the trip for us to meet but she also flew out to surprise me for my birthday. John told me I had to pick up his wife's friend at the airport. But from him telling me to pick up Sue's friend and she wasn't going to pick her up herself that made me suspicious. With that and some other things that were clues I figured out what was going on. I surprised Cyndi at the airport instead. I had a sign and flowers. I loved her expression when she saw the sign and the flowers. After 4 days together we decided we would move forward and the next step would be for me to fly to Ft. Worth and meet her sons and her friends. In another post I'll go into detail about her visit to California.

I was able to get a good price for a flight to Ft. Worth over the July 4th weekend.in 2002. It was a 4 day weekend because July 4th was on Thursday. I had Thursday through Sunday off from work. I was able to get a ticket to leave San Jose airport at 6:00 pm on Wednesday July the 3rd and I was flying back to San Jose on Sunday. When I was ready to go I had John drive me to the airport. I went through airport security and after removing my shoes and so on, I went to my gate to wait to board the plane. You have to remember this was not long after 9/11. As I was sitting waiting to board, there came an announcement. Our flight was now delayed by 30 mins. Okay not a big deal. Just about 6:30 pm there came another announcement over the airline's P.A. system that our flight was now delayed an hour. So now we're scheduled to leave at 7:30. Now I am wondering what's wrong and I go up to the check in counter and ask the lady why the delay. She said that our plane coming in from Texas was having delays because of weather. So I sat back down and started to read a book I had with me. As it got closer to our departure time there was another announcement saying that our flight was now delayed another hour, so now we're scheduled for an 8:30 pm departure. This is getting ridiculous, but I am not about to miss seeing Cyndi and meeting her boys. Now I'm bored with my book so I go to the gift shop and buy a deck of cards. As I return to the waiting area I pick up a soda to drink and some cookies. After each delay I am using my cell phone to call Cyndi on her cell and keep her informed.

Back in the summer of 2001 I added Cyndi on my cell phone account and sent her a cell phone. This way we were on the same service and all calls from my cell to her cell were free. The time difference between California and Texas is 2 hours. So 8:30 pm in San Jose would be 10:30 pm in Texas and with a 4 hour flight to Ft. Worth that now means I would be landing around 2:30 am, Texas time. Now just before our scheduled time to leave at 8:30 we got another announcement that now we would not be leaving until 10:30 pm. Another call to Cyndi, telling her that I wouldn't be there until 4:30 am. Also we have been informed by the airlines that they could accommodate any of us by booking us on a flight at 8:00 am Thursday morning. I called Cyndi to see if she wanted to wait until the next day. This would mean that we would lose half the day on Thursday due to travel time. She didn't want to lose this and neither did I. So I sat in the waiting area waiting for my flight. Pretty soon another announcement, oh no not again, yup we are now scheduled to leave at 12 midnight. I'm supposed to be going to Texas, people!! All this time I've been going to the restroom and getting something to drink. It's not been the best time waiting, because it's July and it's been pretty warm in the airport but what can you do. I was just getting back to the waiting area when I find out that they changed my gate number and I almost missed my flight. I was one of the last 6 to board the plane. The nicest thing about this flight to Texas was that a lot of the people flying decided to wait until the next day so we had room to move around and sit where there was no one sitting next to you. It was great, especially being large like I am. The stewardess was very nice and she got me a pillow and helped me lift up the arm rests. After she got everyone settled and a lot of the passengers took a nap she also took a nap. It was a long flight for her and she was exhausted.  The flight was uneventful and we got into Ft. Worth around 6:30 am.

Texas Longhorn

Cyndi, with her best friend Yvonne and Richard, Yvonne's boyfriend, picked me up at the airport and we went to Yvonne's house. Cyndi was renting a room from Yvonne. On our trip to the house Yvonne said that we could use her brand new truck to get around. Since Cyndi was not able to drive a stick shift I had to do the driving. Yvonne had no problem with me driving. Very sweet of Yvonne. We would be  much more comfortable in her large air conditioned truck than Cyndi's non-air conditioned small car. It was really unusual that anyone would let someone that they just met drive their beautiful new truck. After getting home and getting settled we got in the truck and went to Dos Gringos for Mexican food. It was really good, I especially liked the flour tortillas. Yvonne was taking care of them, she was putting a lot of butter on the tortillas as they brought them out hot from the kitchen. The butter melted all over them and they were just wonderful. That evening we watched some Tv and then hit the sack so we could get some sleep I was so tired from that trip. I slept very little on the plane and that made for a long night. And we had plans for the next day. As tired as I was, I did make an important discovery. There is a vast difference between a king sized bed and a queen sized bed. All it took was one mis-timed roll over and this boy was on the floor. But no harm, no foul.

When we got up in the morning and got dressed and ready to go we got in the truck and we drove around to see Ft. Worth. We had a lunch date with Robin and Debbie, who were a couple of internet friends that lived close to Cyndi and I wanted to take the opportunity to meet them. We had a very enjoyable lunch and spent a very wonderful couple of hours together. After lunch we went to the  North East Mall. Cyndi was looking for a charm for her necklace and she was showing off the mall. It's a very nice mall.

On Friday we were scheduled to meet Cyndi's two sons, Gary and Joe. They came over to Yvonne's house and we sat around and chatted for awhile. After spending a couple of hours together the boys had to leave.

They were very nice and I wanted them to like me. This was very important that they did. After they left I asked Cyndi how that went, she said that she thinks that they liked me but she would know more when she could talk to them privately. (ps: they liked me)

The next day we were heading out to The Stockyards and Billy Bobs. We arrived at The Stockyards and started to walk around. There are a lot of gift shops and shops that sold western wear. They had a cattle drive through The Stockyards twice a day. One in the morning and one in the afternoon.. There was a guy dressed as a cowboy who was riding a long horn cow. After walking around The Stockyard and looking at the western shops we walked over to Billy Bob's. This place has nearly 3 acres that has a rodeo arena inside for live bull riding. Plus it has a stage and plenty of room to dance. All kinds of sitting room and arcade games. And if you want to drink, I think you can belly up to any one of the 32 bars they have. A casino if you want to make a donation. Capacity for over 6000 people. A restaurant if you're hungry and what else, actually I'm not sure you need anything else. While we were at Billy Bob's we had a couple of drinks and Richard and I played some video games. I love this picture Cyndi took of me on a Harley riding it on a video game. 

Had a great time. I'll finish the rest of this story another time.

I also got a smashed penny at Billy Bob's. Smashed pennies, now there's some stories to tell.....

I joined a Corvette club

After I had my 1987 Corvette for about  2 years I decided I wanted to join a car club. I started looking in my area which was San Jose. I was able to find Santa Clara Corvettes. I went to a meeting to check them out. I was impressed with the things the club did during the year. They had a social every month and a membership meeting once a month. And they had three major events during the year. This was in September and when I was at the meeting I got all the info I needed to join the club. There were things that had to be completed to become a member, things like filling out an application, go to a social event and some others. So after the meeting in September I decided I was going to join. At the meeting in October I took everything I needed to join and I became a member of the Santa Clara Corvettes car club. 

Elections were coming up and they were taking nominations for offices and they were having trouble filling the office of Publication Director. Their Publications Director had the task of putting the club newsletter together. Also making membership cards, and makeing up the budget for the newsletter. At the November meeting they still did not have someone to be the Publications Director. Well I had a computer at home and I had a general idea how a newsletter was put together and with a computer and a publications program it would be easy. So at the November meeting I said I would run for Publications  Director.  The members at the meeting were surprised and thankful that I had stepped forward and after the meeting many of the members came up and introduced themselves  and thanked me and said hi. I have to admit that I sure was getting to know the members. It helps being on the board of directors. You have the directors meetings to go to and the board sat up in front of everyone during the general meetings so people in the club saw all the board members and learned who was who quickly.

The three events that The Santa Clara Corvettes put on are a car show, a rallye and autocross. The rallye that we put on was a gimmick rallye.  A gimmick rallye is an event that is where you have a team of two people, one a driver and one is the navigator. The team is given a set of instructions that you are required to follow. Your instructions will be something like, turn left out of the parking lot. You almost always left from a parking lot where we had everything set up. And you may return there or somewhere else but it will be another parking lot. Then your instructions might say turn right at your first state street and that might be down the road you may come to a street named Colorado Ave.You are timed on your way out and clocked in when you get to the finish line. The time is in case there is a tie in points of the gimmick part and time is the tie breaker. The gimmick is part of the directions as your driving around and following the instructions you have questions to answer. Questions that might be like, The house at 2375 has what kind of animal on the roof? The answer maybe a horse and that is found out by observing a weather vain on the roof with a horse on the weather vain. Or another type of question might be, Where does the cat live? The answer has to have the number of the house where you find the cat. Now the cat would probably be some kind of artificial cat on the porch, door or in the window or somewhere else.

Another event for the year is an autocross. An autocross is basically a car race. But you only race the clock. A course is set up in a large parking lot using safety cones to lay out the course. You also need a set of timing lights at the start and finish. lines. We have spotters on the course so everything is done safely. Sometimes the course is large enough to have two cars on the course at the same time. This is accomplished by starting the second car after the first car has passed the half way point. This is why the spotters, their job is to wave a yellow flag in case one of the cars spins out and the other car can slow don and stop before coming close to the other car. We want to race our cars not wreck them.

Our last event for the year is our car show. It has always been called Corvette Spectacular. It was a two day event when I joined the club  but later because of expense and location the club changed it to only one day.Corvette Spectacular was two shows, we had the car show and we had the concourse. The car show is  a show were the judges can only look at the car and judge it with the point system. I don't remember now how the point system worked..  Now the concourse show is a lot different. In this show the judges are allowed to touch the car, in fact the judges are given white gloves to wear and also armed with a white towel, They are looking for dirt and they are allowed to put their fingers in a lot of little hoes and if they find dirt points are deducted. In both shows, cars with the highest points win. Both shows were also broken down into different classes by the years of Corvettes..

I was in the club for 8 or 9 years and 7 of those years I was the Publication Director. I also was President and of course member at large (that is the previous president). At the time I was in the Corvette club I was not dating anyone so I took my mom to all the club meetings and club socials and events. When we would go on outings we had friends that we always sat with and spent most of our time with. When I introduced my mother to any of the club members I would always say, "This is my mom Anna". So everyone in the club knew her name but most of them called her mom. In fact one of the coolest things happened to mom on one of the club soccials. We were having a bowling social and we were bowling and having a great time and about half way through thge second game they stopped everything and said they had a presentation to make. They caslled mom over and handed her a gift bag and when she opened it and reached in and found a club jacket in the bag. She was excited and surprised but when she opened it up to looked at the name on it she just started to cry. Those people had taken up donations and bought the jacket and had them put MOM on the jacket for her name. When I saw what she waws crying about I cried too. What happy tears.

More stories about the Corvette club to come.