Everybody Has a Mother

Today is my mother's 100th. birthday.

She's not still with us, however, she died quite a while ago. She died of complications from a perforated ulcer. Now, of course, we know that ulcers are caused by a virus and not the stress caused by raising two recalcitrant children. But we didn't know that then, so my brother and I figured that we had driven her to an early grave, or at least I did. If not for the stupid ulcer, she might still be alive. Sixty-six years old isn't very old for our family, everybody lives into their nineties. Except my father who died at eighty-nine after smoking and drinking his whole life. Sixty-six, boy, that's only a few years older than I am now! That's a sobering thought, huh?

That's Mom on the right with her younger brother Richard who has on almost as nice a dress as she does. She was born Sophia Eleanor Pawlak on May 1, 1909 on a farm in Silver Lake, Minnesota. These folks weren't well-to-do genteel farmer types, they were Polish farmers in a Polish community. And that community had most of their roots from a couple of small towns in Posen, Poland and they all grouped together and continued their lives in the United States.

So, she grew up working and that's what she did her whole life.

In this photograph, that's Mom on the right with her mother Wanda (Pokornoski) Pawlak, her brother Richard and her sister Delphine. Her youngest brother Edwin hadn't been born yet.


She did jobs like pick strawberries for extra money, but mostly, and for the rest of her life, she was a maid. I look at the photographs of her when she was a child and she's never smiling. In this shot of her at her confirmation, she's very serious with those eastern European eyes looking at us. What was she thinking? Was she making plans? Was she glad to be alive? Or was she already feeling old?

I can't ask her, because I never had the sense to when she was alive.

<sigh>

So, as soon as she was old enough, she got a job as a maid for a well-to-do family in Saint Paul, the von Neida family. At one point, all three older Pawlak children Sophia, Richard and Delphine all worked for the von Neida family. The family began wintering in Miami and that's where my mother met my father and you know how that turned out. Isn't it something how a seemingly small decision becomes a pivot point and everything that happens after that was dependant upon that one turn?

Here's Mom at twenty-one, she's very fashionable with that hair, huh? Remember, in 1930, they were very much in the Depression, I'm REALLY glad she knew enough to get some photographs taken.

But she also knew there wasn't going to be any college for Sophie. There wasn't going to be any 401(k) money to lose, there wasn't going to be any money, no trips to Tahiti, no ball gowns stuffed into the waiting limo. Actually, she never even learned to drive. No car, no reason to drive. Simple reasoning, huh?

But she came into her own, that's for certain! Perhaps I'll write about that tomorrow, you can't stuff a whole life into one post.

So, I'll leave you with a photograph of the four Pawlak childen in 1934. From the left is Edwin, the youngest, Delphine, Sophia and Richard. It might bore you almost to tears to learn that I was named after my Uncle Richard. They were going to name me either Richard or Kenneth. And that was one of those pivot points I spoke about, because Kenneth would never have lost his hair!

Semi-Tropical

I grew up in Miami, Florida.

And yes, it is very much semi-tropical. Actually, if you left the place alone for any length of time it would revert to the swamp it rose from with little or no trace of humanity. When I worked as a surveyor's assistant, we had occasion to travel to parts of south Florida that showed us what would happen.

Scientists have theorized what would happen to the Earth if humans suddenly dropped out of the picture. In the Arctic, things would be preserved for a long time. In temperate zones, the breakdown would be faster. In South Florida, things would be faster still. An accidental experiment has demonstrated that. There are cases where developers would bulldoze some land right down to the ground, (that's what they do, it's cheaper) lay down streets and utilities and then lose their funding or have some sort of financial setback. Nature would take over and in ten years, you couldn't tell anyone had ever walked there.

Nature is very resilient. The buildings will rot and fall down. Shoot, they were rotting and falling down around us while we lived in them. Take a look at the buildings in New Orleans that have been abandoned. They won't have to tear them down, they'll tear themselves down. The ownership of the land would revert to the snakes and land crabs and cockroaches that I grew up with.

Boy, those memories stay with you, too. Yesterday, I saw a dried oak leaf skitter across the road in front of me and I swerved to avoid hitting it because it looked so much like a land crab. For those of you who are unfamiliar with them, land crabs are not the good eatin' kind.

No, these are hard shelled, nasty buggers that would bite your toe off given half a chance. Growing up next to a canal as my brother and I did, we fought them constantly growing up. They lived in holes in the ground - yes, crab holes - and they had a natural barometric pressure gauge. When a tropical storm was coming, they would come out and seek higher ground, for example your house. As soon as you opened a door, they would try to run in. What fun! We'd hit them with a stick or a shovel and then fling them into the weeds.

But if you're going to do that, you'd better make it FAR into the weeds, because, my friends, there is nothing on Earth like the smell of a dead land crab. And they look bad, too.

I mean, really! They run sideways, their mouth opens sideways and their body is their head. Give me a break! I'm not pretty, but even I'm better looking than this freakish horror. And the death smell stays with you, good grief, I can smell it now!

So, yeah, it was great growing up in south Florida. No snow. All the species of poisonous snakes in the US, all in one spot. Gators. Humidity in the summer at nearly 200 percent. And land crabs.

But then again, there was no snow, the dry season was very mild, not much pollution, and the puffy white clouds in the piercing blue sky - fabulous! All that other stuff, you got used to. Except the damn crabs.

Secrets to Success

Years ago, I wrote some advice to the people who worked for me.

I happened to dig this old advice out recently when I was scavenging for presentation ideas. It occurred to me that our current economy makes these ideas seem almost relevant.

So, for what it's worth, here are my Secrets to Success.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What Should I Do to Succeed?

Let's get right down to specifics. You want the respect of others? You like your job and you want to keep doing it? You want recognition and a shot at those really cool opportunities? You want the raises and promotions you so richly deserve? There are no real secrets involved; I'm going to tell you exactly how to do it.

1. Choose your role models carefully.

Watch who is succeeding, who has respect, who is getting recognition and then emulate them. You can also learn a great deal from avoiding the stupid things done by those you do not wish to emulate.

2. Be friendly.

Arrogance is annoying, sullenness is tiring, being mean gets meanness right back - usually to an elevated degree. Hey, people like to help their friends. Build a network of contacts throughout the company and industry, and nurture that network by being friendly.

3. Take responsibility for your actions.

Have some insight into what you can and cannot do. Be honest with yourself and forgive yourself if you make a mistake. But if it's your mistake, acknowledge it, learn from it and work hard to prevent repeating it.

4. If someone else makes a mistake, forgive them.

It's not as if we've never made one!

5. Take pride in your work.

Your work has your name on it, my friend, it's as much 'you' as anything can get! Review what you've done before you send it out. Take some time with it; make certain that it is a quality product. Get people to think of quality when they see your name.

6. Watch out for surprises.

The only good surprise is when the news is good. Don't surprise anyone with bad news; convey the informational message as soon as you're sure of what's happening.

7. Whatever you can do yourself. . . do yourself.

Don't try to get others to do the nasty work or the boring work, if it's your work, then do it, nasty or boring as it might be.

8. Be loyal.

Be loyal even if it seems at the moment not to be in your best interest. Always be loyal, it gets noticed, it gets remembered and it gets repaid.

9. Follow up.

And then follow up again. A phone call today may save eighty hours of rework later. Think of it as an investment.

10. Watch for patterns.

Wake up! Heighten your awareness. Watch what's going on around you. There are patterns in the events at work, patterns in what people do, in the whole atmosphere around you. Watch and learn from all of it and react accordingly. Wake up!

11. Fix it and then fix it for good.

When something is broken, fix it and forget about doing any blaming. Then fix the process or whatever it was that allowed the mistake to occur in the first place. Shame on us if we have to fix the same mistake twice. Shame!

12. Do more than what is expected.

Whoa! Did I say 'more'? Oh, yes! You have a due date for your project? Beat it! Beat it by a mile! Do the documentation early. Follow up with the team leader. Automate the tool. Figure out a way to do it faster. Improve communication. Suggest new ways of doing things. Surprise your project leader in that positive way I mentioned earlier. Surprise your manager. Surprise yourself! When you finish your work early, go ask for more! Do whatever you can to stand out from the crowd. Strive for people to associate you with terms like "exceptional", "professional", "high quality" and "energetic"? Good heavens. . . think of the alternative!

13. Volunteer for the tough ones.

You want to stand out from the crowd? Then stand out! Go in to your manager and ask for trouble!

14. Act like it's your company.

Make your decisions based on the presumption that everything you do affects your bottom line. Guess what? It does!

15. Never give up.

So you do all this and things don't move as quickly as you want. That's right, they probably won't. You have to build a track record that's different than your previous modus operandi. People need to see consistency. That takes time, but don't give up! Following these rules will work.

Are There Any Things I Shouldn't Do?

Of course, and you already know what they are. Here are a few examples.

1. Don't abuse the flextime privilege.

You made a deal with your manager to start work at seven AM? So be in at seven AM! Even if nobody else is in at seven, don't be late.

2. Don't abuse your working hours.

Don't come in on time and then go down and have breakfast. Have your breakfast at home or come in early to have breakfast. Work during working hours.

3. I finished my work for today, so I'm going home.

You finished your work? Excellent! Go ask for more! See numbers 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 and 14 listed above.

4. Don't abuse the lunch break.

Long lunch? Have some errands to run? Make up the time; it's your company!

5. Take care of serious issues that run late.

Serious issues sometimes extend past the end of the work shift. You know when you need to stay and complete the task, but when it's 'iffy', then ask for guidance. If you have commitments that require you to leave, make sure you provide turnover to someone qualified. Don't abandon a problem.

6. Provide warnings for things that will be late.

Don't keep it to yourself. Provide early warning, the earlier the better. The earlier the warning, the more chance for forgiveness.

7. Don't get defensive.

If someone provides you feedback, suggestions or council, listen to them. Honest feedback is a treasured gift.

8. Don't hold back that great idea.

If you have an idea for a technical improvement, process change or new invention - anything - bring it up. Submit it as a company suggestion. There's no down side to making suggestions. Even if they aren't accepted today, their time may come tomorrow.

9. Don't hold back comments to your peers.

If you see someone harming their own career by their actions or inactions, tell them. And hope like crazy that they would do the same for you.

10. Don't fool yourself into thinking nobody notices.

Everything gets noticed! Everything: extra effort, lateness, loyalty, long lunches, high energy, laziness, professionalism and unprofessionalism. You can tell yourself nobody notices, but they do! Everything gets noticed!

Dreaming Dreams

I have very vivid dreams.

No, not every night, but frequently enough that it's a little odd. Not unlike myself. Some might call them lucid dreams, but I describe them as 'vivid' because they are detailed, colorful, intense, well sequenced and sometimes I can remember them very well. If they were lucid, I probably wouldn't be having them.

I've spoken to friends who say they 'never dream', but I'm pretty sure everyone dreams even if they can't remember them. I've read that people have three to five dreams per night, others say eight to ten. For sure no one knows why we do it. Personally, I think we're just sorting through stuff and filing new stuff accordingly. We get a lot of input all day from our senses, so we have to clean out our temp files and cookies and junk like that. But if that were true, where would new ideas in dreams come from?

So, in this dream, my wife Deb and I were driving west on Route 202 North. Right away, you might think, "Obviously, it must be a dream, you can't drive west on a North-South road". Ah, but you have to remember, I live in the Philadelphia area and the way roads are laid out here makes NO SENSE to ANYONE. Some roads circle aimlessly or loop over themselves. It probably would have startled me awake if I saw myself driving north on Route 202 North although there are places where you can do that.

It was night and it was clear and the full moon was hanging at about 3 o'clock. We noticed two other bright lights approaching the moon from the right. The larger one, about one quarter the size of the moon and about the same brightness was coming down from the right and a bright pinpoint of light was coming up from the right converging toward the moon. The other cars were slowing down and stopping because of this little show so I did as well until we were stopped right in the roadway.

I thought to myself that due to the laws of perspective, if the lights were close enough, I was seeing an illusion that someone even a short distance away could not see in the same way. But while the show was going on, I heard the announcer on the radio say that we were experiencing a very unusual weather event. There were no storms, no clouds, just calm weather all over the Earth. That's impossible, of course, that's not the way the world works.

Meanwhile, the two lights had begun to circle the moon, chasing one another about a half-moon-diameter away from the disk of the moon. So, I'm thinking furiously, "This must be extra-terrestrial, and THIS is how they choose to get our attention?" But then, I thought, "Well, what would YOU do, knucklehead?"

Then the voice on the radio changes, "We're going to select someone to speak for us, you should pay very close attention to this person." (The actual quote was '...close attention to him' but if you think I would post such a sexist alien remark in this blog, well, you have another think coming.) But I recall thinking, "No preamble? No 'Hello, Earthlings'? No 'So, how's it going?' Boy, these guys are terse!" It could be they had a lot of places to cover, you know? They were too busy for pleasantries. And I thought to myself, "This is the night side of the Earth, what's going on over on the day side?" But I never found out.

Now my dream does a quick cut, a scene shift just like in a movie, and a very relaxed, unassuming guy is addressing a room full of very important people. He's sitting in a chair on the stage, with his fingers laced together behind his neck and he's got the ankle of his right leg crossed over on the knee of his left leg (what they call 'four square'). This guy hasn't got a care in the world, he feels safe.

And he's talking to these VERY important people, religious leaders, politicians, money people, you know the type. And he's telling them the straight scoop. He's telling the religious guys, "Hey, some of you had some good ideas but you're all wrong. Some of you wronger than others and some of you really wrong. So, stop abusing the people and stop taking advantage of them." And then he told off the money people and he told off the political leaders and everybody else in the room. Everybody. And the end of the movie was that he turned to me (the camera) and smiled.

Now, I ask you, where did this stuff come from? Do I have a little tumor growing and pushing this stuff out. Or is it just random delusions created by synapses cleaning up their loose connections? But then, why the symmetry? Why the beginning and end, the (sort of) plot? Boy, I wish I knew what dreams were all about.

I can tell you that when I woke up after this dream, the image of one of my photographs popped into my head. It was in the park called Craters of the Moon in Idaho. It's a desolate, rocky place with precious little vegetation, but if you look really closely in the foreground, you'll see that even in a landscape like this one, there is the chance for rebirth.

Maybe the economy will pick up after all.

A Sense of Smell

It's remarkable how smells can be so evocative.

As we walked the garbage out to the curb this evening, our hyacinths were blooming and when I bent to smell them - bang - there I was on my grandmother's farm fifty years ago smelling them for the first time.

I'm sure this has happened to you as well. Not about my grandmother's farm, perhaps, but you know what I meant. How easily all the other senses and memories are brought out by just the right smell. I passed someone a few years ago who was wearing English Leather cologne for heaven's sake.

Where did he get it? Do they still make that stuff or has he kept it in his drawer under his socks for fifty years and brought it out for a special occasion? Whatever it was, it took me right back to my senior year of high school when my friends and I would put on a sport jacket and tie and go down to the upscale hotels like the Eden Roc and Fontainebleau on Miami Beach and scout out the young ladies who had been dragged down there by their parents. We were more than happy to serve as their entertainment directors and we had to at least smell like we bathed regularly, hence the English Leather.

The first few warm days of Spring warm up the earth and you get that earthy smell that makes you want to go stick your hands in it and plant something and get dirt under your nails and kneel down in it and I would, too, if I still had knees. And speaking of my grandmother's farm - actually it was my grandfather's farm, too. Hmm, I wonder why we say that? "I'm going to my grandmother's farm." "I'll be over at my mom's house." What? The men are chopped liver?

OK, at my grandparent's farm, they had a dairy barn - that's it up there on the left - that had a smell I had never experienced growing up in Miami. It was cow manure and hay and milk and cows and dirt and feral cats and chickens all mixed together and it was great. It was like life itself in one smell. I would recognize it instantly if I could smell it again, and believe me, I would drive a long way for the privilege.

Smell also contributes a lot to taste and I carry the burden of being a supertaster. Oh, haven't heard of that one, huh? Well, a supertaster has more than their share of tastebuds. And it is a burden. People have looked at me funny all my life because I'm such a 'picky' eater. It turns out I'm picky because I taste things differently than most people. By differently, I mean overpowering, overly bitter or just plain bad.

An example would be hot peppers that people use to 'bring out the flavor of the food'. All that stuff does for me is mask any real food flavor because all I taste is the hot pepper. Nowadays, I please myself, you guys don't know what I'm tasting.

Which brings out the universal sense question. How do we know the color blue looks the same to everyone (for example). We know some people are color blind and that proven variation demonstrates the possibility that there may be ranges of 'blue' for different people just as there are ranges of taste for different people. We're all different or as the poster says "We are all unique, just like everyone else."

So, don't get upset if your child is a 'picky' eater. You don't know what they're tasting. And furthermore, you don't know how you appear to them either. What do you think of that?

But I bet my grandparent's farm looked good to everyone.

Rich's Four Rules

I had the opportunity to guest lecture at a university in downtown Philadelphia the other day.

It was very interesting for me and quite revealing about the nature of our college students today. Some of them are pretty darn smart. The class was a microcosm of all of humanity. Some people are just dragging their way though, some are so smart they don't really have to try, some have specific goals, some can write very well and some can't. And they were all ridiculously young.

I spoke to them about my company, Siemens, and my data center but I also provided some advice about how to succeed in the business world. And that seems to have had more of an impact than any of the technical crap I had heaped upon them. They appear to have appreciated the advice. Wow, that was a little unexpected.

How about that! I guess advice is a scarce commodity nowadays. Well, it turns out I've got plenty of that. Hey, I'm old, I've been around, this is not my first hayride. Wanna see my scars?

So, I gave them some specifics about what to do under certain circumstances and how to approach relationships with their future boss. These are all things I've learned under years of pressure and duress and attempted intimidation and distress and hated. You know, the usual.

And at the end I told them my Four Rules which I developed over the years by watching patterns. It used to be Three Rules but I noticed over time that there were some outliers when I tried to make everything fit. These four pretty much cover business and life in general.

Rich's Four Rules

1. Take care of the people who take care of you

Build relationships that last. If you're twenty years old, you may begin a relationship that lasts for sixty years or more. Try to keep your family relationships positive or at least civil even if your relatives are insane. It's hard to argue the thickness of blood especially in tough times. Don't abuse friendships or ignore an outstretched hand. Watch for the signs of an appreciative word, support during a discussion, or someone willing to do more than the usual and then reciprocate.

2. You never know today who you'll be working for tomorrow

If you're getting a promotion or leaving a job or leaving a relationship, suppress the urge to gloat, catcall, ignore, tell off, berate, humiliate or do any other such things to those you are leaving behind. No matter how good you may think it will feel, use a little self control. Because things change. Companies are bought and sold, departments reorganize, friends get better looking and before you know it, the whole structure of the universe is topsy-turvey. And that ex-girl-friend is your new boss.

3. Know your audience

Try to wake up every now and again and look around. See what's happening around you. Notice things. And then do something about what you noticed. If you're talking to someone and they keep looking down and away from you or at their watch, they're NOT LISTENING. STOP TALKING! Pay attention to the reaction of people you're speaking to and if you're not getting the reaction you wanted, do something about it. Geez. Wake up!

4. Know the nature of the beast you are hunting

You want a new job? Well what does the job want from you? Find out what the job expects, do your research, do your analysis. Got a real problem going on? Tough, nasty little bugger, huh? Before diving into the possible solutions, take the problem apart, discover what's at the core. You may be trying to solve a symptom and the real issue is still undiscovered. It might appear to be slowing you down, but that first step back to actually see what's going on helps EVERY TIME.

Sounds simplistic, huh, but the next time you've got something going on apply the applicable rule and the rule will get you though it. Bluto used these rules and he ended up a United States Senator. And so can you. If that's what you want.

Disclaimer:

Rich's Four Rules are for educational and enlightenment purposes only. Don't come bitching to me if they don't work for you, you probably used them wrong. Besides, I didn't charge you anything, did I? Well, DID I? So just take your complaint down the hall and remember Rule Number 1.

Resolution - the Movie

A few blog entries ago, I mentioned a process that I 'invented' ... OK, stole, that I called Resolution.

I found my mind returning to the same thoughts over and over, rehashing decisions I had made or actions that I had taken, none of which were to my satisfaction. Did you ever get yourself into one of those spirals? You spend a lot of time debating decisions that were already long over with and couldn't be undone anyway.

Over the course of time, it dawned on me that I was spending a lot of time trying to come to terms with why I did this or that. This was time I could have spent on something constructive or at least whistling a happy tune. So I decided to do something about it.

In other words, I didn't have time for this crap.

This was maybe fifteen years ago and the fact that my father had died a few years before had nothing to do with all this angst. Like, I'm SO sure. But whatever the origin, I did what I always do, I studied the matter. Even all those years ago, you wouldn't believe all the self-help books out there with a sure-fire program to solve everything. So I helped myself to those aspects of a variety of programs that appealed to me or suited my purpose and ignored the rest.

Oddly, there was no self-flagellation or tough love among the recipe of rules I put together. That wasn't the point, I just wanted to be done with this stuff and not have it popping into what's left of my mind.

I can't really go into all the specific devices here, for all I know some of what I stole was copyrighted but I can summarize it for you in the name I selected for the program: Resolution.

I had to resolve the issues to the point where I no longer thought about them. Just to make you feel better, there was no murder or mayhem involved, it was job decisions, personal relationships, perceived insults, you know, childish junk like that. Boy, I can hear people signing off all the way from here.

So, I started by writing them all down.

That's a throwaway line that really translates into a great deal of work over a long period of time. I had to learn to recognize which issues were the ones contaminating my thoughts. Some were common and others rare. Some, many actually, were 'resolved' simply by writing them all out and staring at them. It was almost as if the act of writing them down had dumped them from the recirculating hash that masquerades as my thoughts. Catharsis, I suppose.

Others required actions. I learned by analyzing the patterns of what I had written that I actually wanted to be liked. How stupid is that? You may have noticed that I put that sentence in the past tense. People are either going to like you or not and it's almost invariably because of a reason of their own, not some action that you took or words that you said.

In Hamlet, Polonius (that's him lying dead at Hamlet's feet) said, "...to thine own self be true..." Well, he was right, you know. If you mess around with your decisions because you're concerned about what others may think of you, then you'll find yourself trying to figure it all out years later. They're your decisions and it's your life. What others may or may not think is the business of politicians, it has no place in real life.

Regardless of which decision you make, about the same number of people (not the same people necessarily) will 'like' you as did before. And as I said, likely for their own reasons. So please yourself. The only person you have to justify yourself to is YOU.

The problem with being so slow to 'resolve' my issues is that some of the people I wanted to speak to had disappeared from my life or had died. There are many things I would like to say to my mother and father for example. But that ain't gonna happen.

It's remarkable how much time I got back by means of this program. After I had spoken to those I could and fixed or attempted to fix those things I could, suddenly I had brain cycles at my disposal that were not available previously. Heaven knows there are few enough of those as it is. Plus, there is the added attraction of knowing what to look for and avoiding them. This was clearly another of those opportunities for testing that I've spoken of before. The release of pressure allows a machine, like the human mind, to operate at a more optimum speed with more optimum efficiency.

Remember the title of this blog? Past is Prologue. Put the past in it's proper place, for in our lives it is only the prologue. The good stuff is still ahead of us.

Leaving Home

I have no memory of leaving home to go off into the Navy.

How could that be? How could memory-boy come up with nothing? Well, it WAS September 12, 1966, that's a long time ago. It was just a few days past my nineteenth birthday and just four days after the very first Star Trek episode aired. You remember it, I'm sure, The Man Trap. Where the shape-shifting salt monster/vampire kills a bunch of people by sucking out all their salt.

It wasn't the first Star Trek episode shot, or even one of the pilots, but it was the first aired. Because it wasn't in the sequence intended, there wasn't any explanation of who these space people were or what the Enterprise was all about. Just Kirk's usual comments about the 'five year mission' (which turned out to be a three year mission) and -bam- right into the episode. Pretty gutsy, I think. I didn't see it when it aired, I didn't really see much TV for a couple of years before or after.

So, Star Trek was not blurring my mind when I left. I remember the trip (it was my first jet airplane flight) and I remember arriving in Chicago. Was there some sort of trauma that caused me to forget? I've heard of people whose brain suffered some emotional insult and the brain said, "The hell with this! I'm outta here!"

Doesn't sound like me, though. More than likely, Bob Deeter's dad and/or mom picked me up after my mom and dad went off to work that morning and took Bob and me to the airport. Just nothing to remember. Or else it was very early in the morning and I wasn't awake for any of it. Anyone who knows me even in passing knows I cannot abide getting up early in the morning, so it makes sense that I would go into military service. Or. . . DOES it?

When I was taking Physics in High School, the only accelerated class (HAD to be in the accelerated class! COULDN'T be in the regular class!) started at 7:15. 7:15 AM! Like in the morning! What sadistic bastard did that scheduling? There I was, working at Royal Castle, flipping burgers and frying eggs until 9 PM, coming home doing my homework and then getting up in the stony dark to do it all again. I'm still tired.

Bob and I had joined the Navy together and we went to boot camp at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center where we learned to polish shoes and march. The GLNTC is on Lake Michigan in North Chicago getting close to the Wisconsin border. In a couple of years it will have it's one hundredth anniversary and some of the buildings looked it. It was in heavy use during World War II and some of the barracks from that period were still being used.

Remarkably, we were stationed in a brand new building. My company was the first one to use it. It was all clean and new. A little too new, actually. There was a row of brand new toilets in the head and everyone got the bright idea to leave most of them untouched so we wouldn't have many toilets to clean. As often happens, this had unexpected consequences. There was often a line. And since these were not stalls with doors, the line was directly in front of the guy trying to use the toilet. Not content to quietly await their turn, there was often yelling and abuse from those standing in line two feet in front of the poor schlub. "Come ON! Hurry UP! What's the PROBLEM!!" For some reason, privacy is a big deal for me now, I'm not certain why.

Not quite as bad as the public toilets in Roman days, but getting there.

Old Navy

I must have met my Uncle Tanny as a boy, but I have no memory of him.

Stanford Wheeler Kleylein (that's my Uncle Tanny) lived most of his life in Indiana. He had met and married Harriet Copple and Harriet and her family were from Indiana and you know how that goes.

Here's a photograph of him from November of 1942. I can see from close examination of his rank and rating (the insignia on his sleeve) that he is a Machinist's Mate First Class. That means he could have worked on anything to do with ship propulsion or any other kind of shipboard engines that need looking after by a mechanic.

Here's what the Machinist's Mate rating designation looks like. I guess he could have worked on propellers too. A naval rating is like an occupation, you can glance at anyone's sleeve and instantly tell what their job is and what their rank is. There's no guessing in the Navy.

I don't know why he joined the Navy. It may be because his step-father, Avner Hoffacker Wareheim had been in the Navy. That's probably a pretty good guess. Avner's daughter, Violet also married a Navy man, Raymond Alt. But blind and dumb as I was when I was a kid, all this was lost on me. I was actually surprised to learn all the Navy connections later when I got into the whole genealogy thing.

Here's Avner holding my brother Dave. Look how stiff my brother looks. I think there's something wrong with him (Dave I mean) and Avner's probably trying to wake him up or something. Maybe he's in a coma, although I don't know how anyone could ever tell.

Avner was also a Machinist's Mate, but he was a Chief which is a higher rank than Uncle Tanny. In civilian life, Avner was a plasterer, I guess they didn't have too much call for plasterers on board ship. Or maybe he just wanted to do something different.

When my brother outgrew his little Navy suit, it got passed to me. Boy, there was a long history of that. Here's a photograph of me in the suit with my brother Dave and our cousin Audrey. Isn't she cute?

I guess wearing that suit as a little kid is another example of that foreshadowing thing.

In the Navy

When I was nineteen, I joined the Navy.

Yes, the United States Navy. You may recall that as I was growing up, I had always figured that if I was going to go into ANY service it would be the Air Force even though I couldn't fly because my eyes were not perfect. My, that was quite a run-on sentence, wasn't it? Sorry.

It wasn't until years later that I discovered the number of relatives that served in the Navy. It got a little weird. I had a cousin, two uncles and my step-grandfather all in the Navy and no one in any other service. No Marines, no Army, not even the Coast Guard. Oh, wait, my brother was in the Army Reserve, but apparently, he was in the Navy first.

That's quite a toy you've got there, buddy. Don't break it. And comb your hair.

My uncle Tanny was also in the Navy. They called him Tanny because my grandmother, in her infinite wisdom, named him Stanford. My father's youngest brother was named Nimrod, he went by Nim. He was named after his grandfather Nimrod Harrison, Jr. and his great grandfather Nimrod Harrison, Sr. Nimrod Sr.'s father Kinsey Harrison fought in the Revolutionary War. He was a Private in the Maryland Line for those of you familiar with Maryland history.

My father, Leon Kleylein and his brothers Stanford and Nimrod grew up in Maryland, for the most part in Baltimore. They did have to leave town for a while in 1917 and 1918 because their father, Peter had to abide by a rather peculiar law passed during World War I (actually, it was called the World War at that point).

If you had been born in Germany as my grandfather was, during the war you were not allowed to live within a hundred miles of Washington DC. Can you imagine them trying to pass such a law today? The court docket would be so clogged with lawsuits the commerce of the nation would grind to a halt. But not so in 1917. So Peter and the boys, Leon (the tall one) Stanford (the middle one) and Nimrod (the youngest one) packed up and moved to Pittsburgh.

I can't prove it yet, but I believe they made this decision because William J. Kleylein, son of John and Anna Kleylein was living there. William may not have been a close relative of Peter's, but they were both Kleyleins which meant their ancestors had all come from Unterrodach in Germany. The place was loaded with Kleyleins.

When the war ended, since Peter had not blown up the US Capitol Building, they were allowed to go back and live in Baltimore.

While he was in Pittsburgh, Peter still worked as a baker. He was always a baker. I wonder if he enjoyed his work. I can't ask him, he was dead for twenty years before I was born. I wonder what he was like. Did he have driving goals? Was he really intelligent, but never had access to education? Or was he small-minded and belligerent and did he pass those qualities on to me?


I'm glad he had enough sense to get some good professional photographs taken of his boys. I know he had blue eyes from the photographs I have of him and I know he could smile because he has a broad smile making his bread deliveries.


I know this has taken us a long way from the Navy, but we'll get back to all that in due time.

Trossachs

The mind is a funny thing, the way it jumps around.

For years my wife had a screen saver of animated fish swimming around in an animated fish tank. Unfortunately, the gamma rays that are constantly bombarding us finally corrupted the code and caused her machine to operate in a less than optimum mode. In other words, it was messed up. Actually, I'm deliberately blaming the gamma rays although the real source of the contamination was probably Deb herself.

Now, calm down, I'm not accusing her of modifying the fish tank code. However, there is a decades long, well documented, voluminous case study of her mere presence affecting electronic devices. Her aura must be so electrically charged that the poor little electrons get all discombobulated. (Wow, spell check says that word is OK, how about that!). She can cause a computer to reboot simply by walking up to it. The thing starts yelling 'Proximity Alert' and shields go up.

But she felt better yesterday when we went to Home Depot to buy a Roman statue to place along one of her paths in the woods. As we were checking out the check-out lady was complaining that she has the same affliction. She's always being accused of demagnetizing people's credit cards and fouling up the electronic register. For some reason, Deb felt much better knowing that she was not alone in this crippling disease.

Back to my story, I was going to reinstall her fish tank program, but in the mean time, I started up the 'random picture display' screen saver until I could find the software. This is the option that goes to your My Pictures file and displays random pictures as a screen saver. I know, it makes no sense that Microsoft would name something so intuitively, but there you have it. The naming guys must have been having an off day, this name is not nearly as arcane as it should be.

Anyway, we liked it so much, we left it in place. We were seeing photographs we hadn't seen in years. "Hey, look at that!" "Hey!" One of the photos that flashed by a little while ago was from our genealogy trip a year and a half ago to England, Wales and Scotland. the photo was of a field in the Trossachs in Scotland and it struck me how lucky we were to have gotten to see it. We saw wonderful things at every turn on that trip, but this field really stuck with me. We were driving through the area on a day trip and there was one spot where a car could pull off so I stopped to take a photograph.

There was a little pathway that led through the bushes by the road to a hidden field beyond. So we had to go through. It wasn't a cultivated field, although it probably was at one time or another. With so much history, you can't escape reuse. But it was just grass now and you could hear the loch beyond. There was no one around, no buildings in sight and traffic noise had faded away. It could have been any time in the last four thousand years. No one was taking care of this place, it was just growing this way, just as you've read about it a hundred times and there we were!





And then we drove to the hometown of Rob Roy (Robert MacGregor) in Balquhidder Parish to visit the cemetery and say hello.


Here's what's left of his old church.


I don't know if you can read the inscription there, but it says MacGregor Despite Them. If you click on the photograph, it will enlarge. Boy, if that isn't Scotland!


Scotland has a motto "Nemo Me Impume Lacessit" which means literally "No One Assails Me with Impunity" but the modern colloquial translation is closer to "Don't F*** With Me".

Believe it!

Conversion

Change happens.

My last entry on travel reminded me of a story. Back in the days of yore, when giants walked the earth (OK, thirty years ago), I had just begun work at Shared Medical Systems (SMS - later acquired by Siemens) and I worked in the group that did 'Conversions'. In those days, SMS was growing rapidly, getting tons of new hospital customers all the time. Converting from one electronic system to another is a hard time for a hospital, most run on very thin margins and any disruption to their cash flow is very painful. So we tried very hard to get their billings moving again as soon as we could. And we did that by 'converting' their old files from whatever system they used to run on into the SMS file structure so we could do billings right away, in many cases the very next day after the conversion.

I was very pleased to be in this group doing that work because it was SO challenging. In those days, there were many more manufacturers of computers and many more proprietary file structures, some specifically built for one hospital. So every conversion was different and each was a little like forensic archeology. We had to pick the files apart and tease the information out of them and specifications were always poor because the company or group losing the account was never tripping over themselves to supply proper information. They were probably hoping we would fail so they could get another shot at the hospital. So we wrote our conversions in a language called PL/I (Programming Language One), which allowed us to manipulate data down to the bit level so we could actually change characters around if we had to. And we often had to. This is what coding in PL/I looked like:
It was such a strong language, we could decode bizarre 7-bit junk or data with arcane random buffer lengths or files that had another file to tell where certain data was posted (which was never included in the batch they sent us). But this is where I learned my love of forcing the system to do what I wanted it to even if it had no intention of giving me what I wanted. It was a real rush to pull a jewel out of a steaming pile of crap. The executives knew we were doing magic and were grateful to us and sent us letters of appreciation. But no money.

So, what's this got to do with travel? Well, the most money came in when we acquired a group of hospitals and that was fairly regularly. The deal maker was a Vice President named Mike Mulhall who had such commanding presence that his statements were regarded as stone fact simply because he had uttered them. These were not negotiations, they were pronouncements. It was amazing to watch. So he and I would travel to these places and meet with a room full of people and 'negotiate' what was going to happen. They would bring in their technical experts and I would question them about their file structures, aging decisions, financial codes, etc. etc. right in front of everyone. Then I would give Mike my estimation of the difficulty factor for the conversion and he would apply it as one factor in the financial part of the deal. It was a little like the Pros from Dover had come to town and we were there to crack this kid's chest and get in a round of golf.

Only it wasn't golf, it was drinking. Mike drank more than any human I'd ever seen. On our fairly frequent trips, we would go the airport and into one of the many airline clubs he was a member of. I didn't sit in those cold plastic chairs at the gate for YEARS. When they called our flight, he called for another round. We only left when it was FINAL call. And then, when we boarded (always as the door was closing) he'd ask the stewardess for a drink so it would be ready as soon as we were in the air. At first, I tried to keep up with him, but that was just dumb. Mike was a studied, hardened professional drinker, but he never showed a sign of intoxication other than a reddening of the face as the evening (or day) progressed. There was more than one occasion when we would fly to our destination and go right into a meeting after drinking for hours! I have no idea how I pulled that off other than Mike expected me to, so that made me capable. It was a little worse when the meeting was first thing the next day because although he didn't feel it, I sure did.

Then my team and I actually had to DO the conversion and there was never enough time. But that's a story for another day. Imagine staying awake for three and half days straight and writing better code three-quarters of the way asleep than I did wide awake and rested. If I tried that now, I would be DEAD, DEAD, DEAD.

On the day of conversion, we didn't have any fancy file transfer, we had one of our guys hand-carry a set of tapes back from Michigan or Arizona or wherever. Timing was crucial as you can imagine. Between the day-end of the other system and the airline schedule, there was often a very tight timeframe. Our courier told the story once of his speeding across town in his rental car, squealing to a stop in front of the terminal door, jumping out with his case of tapes and as he ran through the door, he tossed his rental car keys to a cop standing there and said "Medical Emergency!" and just kept running. I can't remember if he said he made it through the airplane door as it was closing or it had already closed but either way there was no time for any rental car return.
We waited breathlessly for a ticket or bench warrant to arrive in the mail, but all we ever got was the rental car receipt. That means the officer may have personally driven the car to the rental car return himself and then had to arrange getting back to his post or made it happen some other way, but however he did it, we're grateful.

Can you IMAGINE trying a stunt like that now? We would be shot six times before we ever got through the first door. Traveling was different in those days.

Mike Mulhall died very young and it was a long time ago. He had a heart attack at the New York Athletic Club after a steam bath. I learned a lot from Mike, we traveled all over the country together, we were a good team. He is missed.
 

Travelin'

I'm traveling and the traveling is interfering with my blogging. What's up with THAT?

I recall the days of yore when traveling was exciting and interesting and I really looked forward to it. Now. . . not so much. Being in the destination place is still cool, it's the plane ride that's JUST NO FUN.

Right now, I'm sitting in a hotel room and out of one window is the Eiffel Tower and Caesar's Palace and out of the other window is the Arc de Triomphe and the Bellagio fountains. And if anybody tells you there's some sort of Recession going on, it sure isn't going on in Vegas. Just the money they make from cigarette taxes are going to keep this place afloat. I thought people were quitting smoking, but not in Las Vegas. I guess if you get cancer here, it stays here.

Being here is fine, but the frickin' terrorists have made travel annoying and unnecessarily long and . . . well, just not as much fun as it used to be.

When I worked at Eastern Airlines, they practically FORCED you to travel. A ticket anywhere on the system was $5. Yeah, five dollars! Unless you wanted to go first class, then it was SEVEN dollars. And if you wanted to travel to a city that Eastern didn't fly to, you could fly on another airline for TEN dollars. For our belated honeymoon, my wife and I flew from Miami to Hawaii round trip for $40. Plus there were outstanding discounts at the hotel chains where the pilots and stews stayed and cheap rental cars and discounted attractions. You could go broke saving money. There was a catch, of course, you had to dress nicely. OOOOhhh, bummer.

I know of managers at Eastern headquarters who flew to Dallas for steak dinners. We flew to St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands just to buy a camera because it was so much cheaper there. I was sorry to see Eastern go under, I would have liked to stay with them, but it just goes to show: Just because you're some fancy astronaut doesn't make you a good CEO, does it, Frank Borman? Huh, does it?


It's probably just as well, I would probably have put us in the poorhouse (are there still poorhouses?) by doing too much traveling. Shoot, you could get to the airport a half hour before your flight, have your loved ones see you off at the gate and you were dressed nicely when you arrived. Now you have to strip down naked, show some 'security personnel' every fluid you own and every now and again have the privilege of having your belongings rifled through after you spent a lot of time arranging them.

Oh, well, it's still not as bad as Europe. I was flying out of Munich one time and I noticed a female security guard circling me and darting around and eyeing me. Now it could be because I'm extremely attractive, or it could be because I was wearing my hair cut very short and I was wearing a Deutschland Uber Alles t-shirt. Or both, I imagine. Just as I was at the head of the security line, she pounced! "Voud you kum wis me, pliss?"

She took me into a little room, just the two of us and she searched my luggage. No, not the way American 'security personnel' search stuff, no she SEARCHED my luggage. She felt around every article of my clothing, the waistbands, the seams, turned the pockets inside out, felt the weight of it, the whole bit. And since I was going home, these were my dirty clothes. Whoo Hoo!

Then the toiletries. She opened everything, smelled it, squeezed my toothpaste tube all the way up and down, took my electric razor apart. Just like the stuff you've seen in the movies. Meanwhile, I'm standing there with this stupid grin on my face and every now and again, she would look at me - but NO smile, there were heavily armed soldiers guarding the airport and they were very serious about their work.

In the end, Rosa Klebb let me go, a little disappointed, I think. "Sank you for your. . . <eyebrow raised> cooperation."

Travelin'.