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Springtime has hit Texas full blast and the shoulders of the state's highway are in bloom with Bluebonnets and Indian Paint Brushes. Here at home my wife's green thumb is starting to pay dividends as our house is surrounded by her handy work. She has one rose bush that is well over twenty years old and it seems to bloom different color roses each year. One year they were red, the next pink, and then they bloomed white with red streaks through each petal. It is the 'bud' stage now so we are anxiously awaiting to see what color it is going to be this year. It's kinda like Christmas morning for us old folks...
This is the flowerbed just below my office window and she has it filled with Bluebonnets (state flower of Texas), but the far left side of the flowerbed is Mexican Heather, and it has yet to bloom this Spring. The Redbonnets (hybred plant from Fredricksburg, Texas) are a stark contrast to the Bluebonnets and get a lot of comments. Each time we get a different mail-man it is a sure thing he will ring the bell and ask about the red variety.
We visited Tyler, Texas a few years ago and it is the Rose Capitol of the state. My wife bought a few small sprigs and some seeds; now our house is surrounded by Roses in addition to other flowers. Momma is one of those people that could plant railroad spikes and small nails would bloom.
The down side is I have to mow AROUND all of her flowerbeds. This one sprung up along the fence around our backyard. The backyard remains shady most of the day and is the domicile of my big dog.
Sarge is an eight year old Lab and tips the scales at one hundred and twenty pounds. He is a sweet dog IF HE KNOWS YOU..
The front flowerbed is also filled with various flowers Momma has nursed back to health over the years.
Even on the far side of the garage she has flowers growing alongside the chain link fence. The rose bush closest to the camera in the above photo is the 20 year old plant. It gets a small flowerbed all to itself.
This is Marilyn and she guards the flowerbeds from weevils and bugs...The symbolism is I am a grad of the University of Maryland...and their mascot is the Terrapin... thus our terrapin is named Marilyn.
Picking up where I left off ten days ago... April 19, 2013 I told you my 1985 Olds Toronado was destroyed by a hailstorm. The hood and deck lid of that beautiful car looked like the surface of the moon when Mother Nature was finished with it.. The windshield was also cracked in several spots...
...I found a dealership in Dallas that sold Oldsmobiles, but also sold Mazda cars. My wife and I had gone separate ways and I wanted to find something a little more 'sporty.' You guys will know what I mean.
I had driven a friend's 1989 Mazda coupe and I really liked it. The dealership found the above car for me in Oklahoma City and had it brought to Dallas. Mazda calls it a Fawn color and the interior was leather and velor. It had a 5-speed manual transmission with the bigger 4-cylinder engine so the air conditioner would have no effect on the performance of the car. An after-market vendor came to the dealership and installed the sun roof and tinted the windows before I took possession of the car.
The spoiler wing on the trunk really made a good impression on me and was $189 dollars extra. There is a Scot's 3M store locally and they fixed me up with a roll of red vinyl tape one-quarter of an inch wide and it just fit in the molding around the car. Other MX-6 drivers would question me where I got it. Small touch, but I think it sets off the car.
I also ordered the car with alloy wheels and kept the tires as black as I could with Armor-All.
Now the bad news...I had it six days and someone ran into the front fender while I was working at the TV station. Naturally, they did NOT stop or come inside to inform me. I had to take the car to a paint and body shop for repair and touch up paint, and it didn't even have 150 miles on it yet.
The ex-wife had moved 45 miles away and I had to make the trip each weekend to see my daughter (above). We also made a trip to Disney World in Orlando in this car and got excellent gas mileage. I had the MX-6 for two years, but finally got tired of it. The sun roof leaked despite numerous trips to the vendor to fix it, and during one of my frustrated moments I decided to let the Mazda go. I'll tell what came next in a future report..... Stay Tuned !!
Okay,...I know it was a cheap way to get your attention..but I figured the cheerleaders would stop you from scrolling right on through.. Now let's get down to some football..
The 2013 edition of the college draft has just been completed and many of the young faces selected over the past three days will be showing up on Sundays in the National Football League later this year.
It will NOT come as a surprise to anyone that I am a hard-core Dallas Cowboys fan....since 1960. Even in Vietnam I was known to go out on patrol wearing an old ragged Cowboys sweatshirt.
Dallas has not been burning up the league for the past several years, and they hoped to make some improvements this season with talent from the college level. The Cowboys had the 18th overall selection in the first round of the draft, but traded that pick to San Francisco for an additional pick in the 2nd round plus the 30th pick in the 1st round... With the 30th pick the Cowboys selected Travis Frederick, the massive center from the University of Wisconsin.
Frederick is number 72 in the red above ...He is six foot four and weighs in at 330 pounds. Dallas has had poor performance in the offensive line for the last three years and Frederick can play guard as well as center. The Badgers led the nation in rushing this past season, and Frederick is one of the main reasons.
The Cowboys had two picks in the second round of the NFL draft thanks to the 49'er trade and on the second day of the draft used the second pick to secure tight end Gavin Escobar of San Diego State.
Escobar is six foot six and 255 pounds. San Diego State used his pass catching skills extensively the last couple of years but he is also a good blocker. He will be behind Jason Witten and John Hanna at the tight end position but will see action when the Cowboys deploy all three tight ends on some plays.
Some would think the Cowboys are set in the wide receiver postion with Dez Bryant, Miles Austin, Dwayne Harris, Cole Beasley, and three other receivers on the current squad,..but with their third selection Dallas chose Terrence Williams.
Not having RG III as his quarterback for his senior season did not hamper Baylor's Williams. He is six foot two and 205 and is described as big, tough, and extremely physical. He led the Bears in receiving in 2012.
Day three at the NFL Draft was to be a key day for the teams that did their homework. Once the glamor names were gone it was time to find some real football players. With their 4th pick of the draft, Dallas selected B.W. Webb, a cornerback from William & Mary University.
Webb started every game as a collegian and recorded eleven interceptions at W&M. He is five foot ten and 183 pounds and was one of the fastest players on his college team.
DeMarco Murray is the starting running back for the Cowboys of Dallas, but when he is not in the game the offense has suffered. With their 5th pick in the draft, Dallas chose another Cowboy...but this Cowboy came from Oklahoma State University.
Joseph Randle was a two year starter at Stillwater and will bypass his senior year to jump to the National Football League. He is six foot and weighs 202 pounds. Randle is fast and powerful...could be a good fit for Dallas.
Linebacker is a spot that was completely devastated by injuries for Dallas in 2012 as Sean Lee and Bruce Carter were lost for most of the season. Pick number six for Dallas found them going for DeVonte Holloman from the University of South Carolina.
Holloman played both linebacker and safety for the Gamecocks and is listed at six foot one 246 pounds. Opposing coaches always had to be aware of where he was on the field and in 2012 he made eight stops behind the line of scrimmage.
With their final pick of the college draft Dallas again went for help in the defensive secondary as they chose J.J. Wilcox, a safety from Georgia Southern.
He is five foot eleven and 214. Coaches describe him as extremely quick and a hard hitter, two attributes a safety must have.
The draftees will all be in Dallas in the next week to get familiar with the surroundings of Valley Ranch and the personnel they will be playing with...and then a first practice coming up in May.
This weekend we celebrated the 7th Annual Birthday Bash at Texoma Harley-Davidson in Sherman. The dealership actually dates back to the 1960's but this is the anniversary of the move to the new facility in the Town Center Shopping Complex off U.S. Highway 75 (exit 64). A little bit of everything was available at the dealership this weekend.. Dyno-tuning of your bike, lots of free eats, tattoos, air-brush painting, a jumping-jack trampoline for the kids, ice cream, and the patch sewing lady was on hand..
Okay,...right off the bat let me admit the patch sewing lady is my wife and if I don't start with her I'll never hear the end of it. She does excellent work, and riders from Dallas and Oklahoma City come to the dealership just to have her do the work on their apparel.
The biggest draw for me is always the bikes... and if Harley-Davidson wants to let people test ride them, count me in. Last year I rode every bike they had in the truck. Since I sold my bike this is my only opportunity to satisfy that hunger for the 'wind in your face' feeling. Harley has a new model out this year called the 'Breakout.' It comes standard with a 103 cubic inch engine and really has a great deal of power....BUT the handlebars are straight across. They are similar to the early models of the Nightrain and I hated them. It forces you to hunch over the gas tank like some crotch-rocket fool. This is the Breakout in the photo below.
There is NO limit on how many bikes you can ride, so most riders usually check out two or three to see how they compare, and that is exactly what HD wants.
Naturally, the food is a big draw for hungry riders...and our thanks go out to Lupe's cafe in Sherman, Buffalo Wild Wings, and the Cupcake Factory for helping feed everyone.
Tex had his usual painting facility set up and did a fantastic job painting a Jeep Cherokee with the Harley-Davidson colors of black and orange. He also is 'world famous' for his air brush work on bikes, cars,...and women.
You would have to say that a good time was had by all...but the weatherman let us down again. Cloudy and rainy skies put a damper on the festivities and only the hard-core riders came out. Hope everyone had a good time and remember that Texoma HD tries to have one blow-out activity each month. For the next one please go to the webpage for more info.. TexomaHD.com
The how and why I got started collecting old radios should be obvious to you if you have been following my blog for anytime. I spent thirty years behind microphones at various radio stations around the country, and despite working in television for fifteen of those years, the older medium has always been my favorite.
My oldest radio is a 1937 Philco cathedral-back model. Actually, Philco calls it a model 31-71. I bought it in Dallas back in 1971 and it was in a cardboard box in three pieces. While refinishing the cabinet I tried to replace some of the defective tubes. Two area service dealers sent me to the national warehouse for Philco as I tried to find the main power supply tube. When I relayed the number of the tube I waited 'on hold' for ten minutes while the technician traced it down. He told me this tube had been on the shelf for over twenty years and he was sending it to me free for putting one of their old units back in service. It still works and has a nice bass sound to it...
The old stand-up, or floor model, radios have always been enchanting for me. I was raised by my grandmother while my Dad was gone to World War II and my Mother worked two jobs to support our family. Each day and night my grandmother and I would sit before her Atwater-Kent radio and listen to soap operas by day and mysteries at night. The model above is a 1940 RCA Victor radio that I discovered in 1973. The previous owner told me it did not work and gave me a discounted price. This particular radio receives standard broadcast signals, but also shortwave transmissions. He had the knob turned to shortwave and when I got home I switched it to AM and the radio played like brand new. I have done some refinishing to the cabinet and speaker cloth.
Another of my floor models is this 1942 Truetone radio. It features an AM, FM, and shortwave band of reception. This particular model has a longwire antenna that needs to be stretched out to receive distant signals. I have never had occasion to listen to the shortwave band, but the AM and FM bands work like new.
This is a 1948 Westinghouse table model radio, and was one of the first to have push-button tuning. I had planned to restain the cabinet when I got it sanded down, but the natural wood is from three different varieties so I just clear coated it and painted the trim. This radio receives not only the standard broadcast band, but the 19, 25, and 31 meter bands of shortwave. Most of the broadcasts from overseas during World War II came to America via shortwave.
Finally we have my 1946 RCA Radiola... I wanted a radio that did not have a wooden cabinet so I could paint it this color. This was a bakelike finish and I sanded it down smooth and painted the background of the dial a lighter color so the tuning needle would stand out. When I purchased if off of Ebay it looked like this.
But with three coats of Chevrolet engine orange it now adorns our bookshelf looking like this:
The knobs got a touch-up of dark brown paint and my talented wife did the Radiola script for me. This one does not work, but I simply wanted it as a display model for the bookshelf. Needless to say, everyone notices it as soon as they come in the room.
My brother and I went to the Summer Nationals in Pomona, California in 1960 and one of the great cars I spotted at the drag strip was a 1940 Ford Sedan Delivery that was painted 'orange.' This was not a factory color at this time, but it was my favorite. I decided then and there I would have a car that I could paint this color.
This is the car I owned from 1961 thru 1962 and truly loved it. When I bought it there was a metal sun visor over the windshield and the car was two-tone green, a lighter pea green on bottom with a dark green top. I was still in high school and working nights at A&P Food Store to generate gas money. The car was purchased new by a cashier at a different A&P Store and when I bought it from her the speedometer showed only 34-thousand miles on it. The original 216 cubic inch straight six-cylinder engine got me through the first year, but then my brother helped me install a 283 cubic inch V8 engine. Custom made exhaust headers were the only modification to the engine besides a Holley carburetor. We also used the transmission out of the same car the engine came from, but I installed a floor shift unit instead of the column shifter. My father was never confused with anyone knowing anything about cars, but for Christmas in 1961 he took my 'Nifty Fifty' and had the entire interior redone in black Naugahyde.
The seats, door panels, headliner, and package tray were all re-done to make it one of a kind.... Or so I thought. One night while cruising North Dallas I spotted another orange '50 Chevy sitting at the Pizza King on Greenville Avenue. He waved me over and we sat and talked cars for a while. His '50 sedan was painted Gulf Orange as in the service stations, while mine was Omaha Orange, the same color the City of Dallas painted its utility vehicles. Most of my friends would refer to my car as the '50 Impala, even though Chevrolet didn't debut the Impala logo until 1958. While rummaging through wrecking yards on a regular basis, I discovered the written script 'Impala' on the dash of a burned out hulk. I pried it off and had it re-chromed before mounting it on the glove box door of my Fifty.
My '50 was a business coupe from the factory and came without a backseat. Before the upholstery job I found a backseat and installed it over a weekend. The coupe was not one of my fastest cars, but with the V8 and light-weight body it was pretty quick for a car driven on the streets regularly. The time period of mid 1950's through the mid 1960's was a time I consider special. For those that missed out on this era, you missed some great times. It was an every night occasion to pull into the local Dairy Queen and find it filled with 409 Chevys,.. 426 Hemi Cudas...and 427 Ford Fairlanes. Of course there were always guys like me with an older car that had been stroked back to life. It was a super time and I am glad I got to take part in it..
I drove for Wal-Mart for fourteen years before retiring in 2009. Before that I was in Radio/TV Broadcasting for 30 years and just wanted a change. Too many stories on killing, robbing, and raping finally got to me and I just wanted to get away to some solitude. Driving a truck gives you a lot of time alone to yourself so you can contemplate the problems of the day. Being a former sniper in Vietnam, I am used to being by myself and not needing a lot of support from others. In 1995 I did my final report on TV and walked out of the station for the last time, never to return.
I took about a year off and just tried to find a new direction to my life and future. An uncle in the car business tried to get me involved in his car dealership in Plano, but after a brief fling in that dealership I knew it was not for me. In my early years I had driven a truck and trailer while hauling my brother's race car around the country. I figured why not try that for a while?
My chauffeur's license had expired while I was in Vietnam and I never had it renewed. Now it was replaced by a Commercial Driver's License (CDL) and I had to undergo a rigorous test to secure one. Without any experience driving commercial big rigs it was tough finding that first job, but I did work for CRST, Trans-States-Lines, and Heartland Express before landing with a top company. My Dad use to tell me, 'whatever you do, be the best you can be.' I figured everyone wanted to be employed by Wal-Mart, so they must be the best.
In April of 1997 I started working for Wal-Mart after almost two years of applying. They would reply about an opening in Ohio,..or California, but I was adamant about wanting to work in Texas. Finally I was accepted by the distribution center in Palestine, Texas (6036) and given the above cab-over truck to drive. This was a 1994 model truck and had been passed down through three other drivers. From Palestine, we supplied almost 200 Wal-Mart stores in Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas. Palestine had around 300 drivers and I was at the bottom of the seniority board, but I loved it. After three years in the cab-over I moved up to another truck.
Truck 9830 was originally driven by another driver, but he had a physical problem that forced him to give up driving altogether and I assumed it. A ten-speed transmission and Detroit diesel engine performed flawlessly for over two years for me. When I did move up on the board and become eligible for a new truck another problem arose. Palestine is 183 miles from my home and Wal-Mart was building a new distribution center in Sanger, Texas,...46 miles from home. Management told me I did NOT have enough seniority to qualify for the move, so I accepted a new truck from the Palestine fleet.
Truck 1734 was a 2001 model and had 2 miles on the odometer when I climbed in it for the very first time. I had carpeting installed inside and night lights on the floor,..also a refrigerator and TV. It had all the comforts of home, BUT then management decided that I could transfer to Sanger after all.
The distribution center in Sanger (6068) opened for business on September 11, 2001, the same day the terrorist crashed planes into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a field in Pennsylvania. I was issued a new truck in Sanger.
Truck 1501 was also a 2001 model but actually older than the truck I just gave up in Palestine. It had 6 miles on it when I officially took over responsibility. I took the above photo as a joke since I had to pick up a J B Hunt trailer for them and return it to the J B Hunt terminal in South Dallas. Truck 1501 and I would enjoy each other's company for almost five years through thick and thin.
60955 would be my final new truck and was a 2006 model. It was a super truck and performed flawlessly. In 2009 I won a seniority bidding contest and was given a position where I would work two weeks and be off one week. The kicker to the deal is I had to give up my truck and take another one that I don't have a photo of. That truck had a history of trouble and the driver's seat did not even square up with the steering wheel. I developed a lower back problem and in October of 2009 I could not deal with the pain any longer,...and I retired from driving. I am not sour with Wal-Mart for the outcome, after all, it is my back that gave out. Wal-Mart pays its drivers well; thanks to them my home, two cars, and a motorcycle are paid off. My time with WM was some of the best years I can remember..
This was taken in 2001 at the Regional Driving Championships in Tyler, Texas. This was the group representing Palestine and I am the one in the necktie. I went on to the State Championships later and finished fifth in the state. Thanks for the memories!
It is a shame that one of America's oldest car-makers went broke in the 1990's despite making some grand automobiles. I have owned three of them and as I think back I can't remember a single bad instance from any of them. My first was a 1978 Toronado and I do not have a single photo of it. It was front-wheel drive and I had serious thoughts of it going bad and costing me a ton of money, but it worked like a charm for the three years I owned it.
My second Toro was this 1985 model.
The distinctive features of this car are twofold. The grille is from a Cadillac El Dorado and even led servicemen at the dealership to write it up as a Cadillac instead of an Oldsmobile. The cabrolet top looks so authentic that friends would ask me to put the top down, but alas, it did not come down.
This car had the most comfortable bucket seats I have ever felt and the air suspension was like riding on a cloud. Even the car dealer where I purchased the car wanted to buy it back from me. I had it for about three years but a sudden Spring thunderstorm produced hail stones the size of golf balls and beat my Toro to pieces. All of the flat surfaces had severe damage and the windshield was also broken.
I also would own a 1992 Olds Toronado and while it was another super car, it would never command the attention and comments the '85 attracted. The color was called 'Sable' and the interior was dark brown velor and leather. The fake spoke wheels used to bloody my fingers each time I washed them, but then I discovered a new use for the baby bottle brushes left over when my daughter (above) outgrew them. The only addition I ever made to this car was to display a SMU sticker in the back window. It was the perfect finishing touch.
I know I probably posted this story last year, but it is a milestone in American history that should be acknowledged annually. The mainstream media will probably neglect it in their daily diatribe, so I am here to make sure the public remembers.
It was April 18th of 1942 and American President Franklin D. Roosevelt was intent on finding a way to strike back at the Japanese after they bombed Pearl Harbor the previous December. The United States did not have a base from which they could reach the Japanese homeland. Someone came up with the idea of launching bomber aircraft from a carrier ship, something that had never been done in the past.
Lieutenant-Colonel James Doolittle was put in charge of finding and training a group to do just that. The B-25 Mitchell bomber was selected since the huge B-17 was simply too large for the mission. The group of men and planes trained in Florida and a Navy officer marked off the distance of a carrier deck and told them they had to get airborne within that distance.
Sixteen B-25's took off from the U.S.S. Hornet and bombed not only Tokyo but several other Japanese cities. The damage was minimal, but Japan's claim to be invincible was now a thing of the past. America's might was felt for the first time, but it would not be long before the tide of the war turned and skies over Japan would be filled with B-29 Stratofortresses. Of the original 80 men involved in the Doolittle raid, only 5 are still alive as of this writing. On August 6, 1945 the B-29 'Enola Gay' dropped the first atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima, Japan, but the government still refused to surrender. Three days later the city of Nagasaki, Japan was struck by a second massive blast and the Japanese surrendered, ending World War II.
Editor's Note: In 2008 a hurricane threatened the coast of Texas and some of the planes of the Confederate Air Force sought safety further inland. Five of the planes landed in my hometown of Sherman/Denison and one of them was a B-25 Mitchell (my favorite bomber of the war years). Upon arriving at the airfield you can imagine my surprise to find one of the surviving raiders from Doolittle's mission.
The men involved in the Doolittle raid never thought of it as a suicide mission, but simply as a high risk assignment. One flight crew was captured by the Japanese, one plane landed in Russia, and the rest made it to China or the waters off China. Doolittle thought he would be court-martialed for losing so many planes, but Roosevelt called it a complete success and promoted Doolittle to the rank of General.
