Dog Gone

Our daughter, Maggie, with Aussie and holding Heidi when she was a puppy

We had two wonderful dogs, and after many, mostly faithful, years, they both died within a few months of each other. Instead of going out and replacing them with new models we decided instead to take care of "other people’s dogs." That works out quite well. We get our dog fix and they have the comfort of knowing their dogs have someone to sleep with, pet them, feed them and scoop poop for them here at "Camp Mallery".

The two we had, Aussie and Heidi left us with a lot of good memories—and a few sour ones. Aussie came from the Humane Society. I was on a early morning talk show. While I was being pre-interviewed before we went on live camera, suddenly the whole crew disappeared. I discovered they were with the Humane Society guy who had all these cute little Australian shepherd and whatever jumped over the fence, mixed mutts. I called my wife and told her to keep watching after my interview was over because our dog was going to be on next. She said, "We don’t have a dog." I said, "We do now."

Later we had to go to the Humane Society and officially adopt the dog. Gaila didn’t like the one I picked and decided on another of the litter. Aussie was a great dog except for the fact that she piddled when she was nervous. The vet said I should take her to town during tourist season and let her piddle around all the tourists and she might get over it. She never did!

It might have been because her breed never developed a tail. You knew when she was happy because her whole hind-end shook. She was smart as a whip. I taught her to fall dead when I shot her, get her dish, speak and not fight with raccoons that were bigger than her. Actually, she taught herself the raccoon trick. One afternoon she was sunning in the driveway while a big fat raccoon climbed on our extra large bird feeder. Usually raccoons only come around at night but this one needed an afternoon snack I guess. Aussie never bothered the furball until I walked out into the yard. She must have thought she wasn’ t doing her job and needed to attack the raccoon. She jumped up and charged.

The raccoon nonchalantly climbed down the feeder pole, grabbed Aussie by the throat and started wrestling. Aussie was crying like a baby and yelling, "Dick, get him off me—quick!"
I had to use the hose to break them up. Aussie headed for the house with the tail, she didn’ t really have, between her legs. She ignored raccoons after that.

I took her to the bank with me and left her in the car while I went inside to make a deposit. I told the teller I needed a treat for my dog out in the car. She said, "Bank policy is, we need to physically see your dog before we can give you a treat." I said, "No problem, I’ll go get her." The teller quickly explained, "I’m only kidding." I said, "No, my dog will work for her treat. I’m going to go get her." On the way to the car I remembered she might piddle in the bank but it was too late. I was already committed.

I brought Aussie to the front of the teller counter and shot her with my finger. She peed on the floor and fell dead. The bank crew was not upset, they said, "Oh look, she peed on the tile and not on the carpet." With that comment Aussie ran around the counter to the teller, got all nervous and peed on the carpet. I said, "We’ve made enough deposits for one day, let’s get out of here."

On the sidewalk heading for the car the teller ran out and said, "In all the commotion she didn’t get her treat." Aussie took the biscuit and piddled on the sidewalk. From that day on we always pulled up to the drive-in window.

Heidi was an abused orphan. Someone dropped her off in the woods by our house. She was a small malnourished puppy. She looked like a German shepherd but she kept growing and growing. We finally decided she was a long-haired, Afghan, Wolfhound, German Shepherd mix. Aussie, half her size, was still top dog. Heidi would never have gotten into trouble if she picked her friends better, but she always hung around with Aussie. Besides rolling in turkey poop their favorite trick was to run off into the woods. They had a favorite mud hole. If we turned our backs for one minute they took the opportunity to sneak off. They would come back covered with this thick, black, almost toxic, ooze pasted all over them. They both hated baths and you would think that sooner or later they would equate mud with bath—they never did.

Like many dogs they were afraid of fireworks and gun shots. They would shake all over and hide behind the couch. I decided to use this weakness to break them of their mud bog adventures. They were smart enough to head in the opposite direction when they slinked away, then circle back to the shallow pond of decaying matter to play. One day I purposely let them get away then ran down into the woods and hid behind a fallen tree where I knew they would pass. When they finally came through, I popped up from behind the tree and emptied a starting pistol at them. They both squatted and piddled then went straight home at Mach four. Did this work? No, they had very short memories—but they left us with many long term ones.
—Keep Smilin, Dick E. Bird

Terror Cell

I wasn’t taking this terror cell threat seriously until just recently. You always think, "This could never happen to me"—then out of the blue a terror cell sneaks into your life and tries to destroy you. It all started two years ago. I guess this is why they call some cells "sleepers."
My 17 yr. old daughter wanted a cell phone. I tried to discourage her but she said we were the only people on the planet that still had zero mobile communication capabilities. I tried to prove that we could still communicate with the rest of the planet. I drove quickly to the nearest pay phone. As I pulled up, there was nothing but a black hole with a single wire dangling from it. I said in astonishment, "I wonder why they took the pay phone out." My daughter quickly chimed in, "Because dad, the phone guy came to get his money and there was only a quarter—and it was YOURS."
So for Christmas we bought her a cell phone and a two year contract. When she opened the box on Christmas morning she didn’t laugh when as a joke I had a very official looking contract wrapped around two tin cans with long strings attached.
So for two years everything seemed to go smoothly—that’s how sleeper cells work.
Recently we renewed her contract for two more years with Alltel. I shopped around a bit and they seemed to offer a pretty competitive service so we decided to not only stay with them for two more years but also add a second phone and join the ranks of maniacs who talk and drive at the same time. If life was fair a vehicle’s license number would be the driver’s cell phone number. That way when they were doing something real stupid you could call them and give them a piece of your mind.
So for twenty bucks and a two year contract we were given two phones that do almost everything. We can play video games on them, take a picture of our cat and send it to our family in Arizona, surf the internet and email our friends—quite amazing. All I really wanted to do was talk to people—you can’t do that! Unless you are standing underneath a cell phone tower our phones get about the same reception as the Dick Tracy wrist radio I had in 1957. My friend Donnie could hear me on his wrist radio only if I was yelling really loud.
I visited my once friendly Alltel office and explained my problem. They agreed that my phone was not known for great reception and said they would give me a Motorola. Someone in line said, "The thing was probably made in China." I said, "Actually, the problem is this is the only model on display that is built in America."
When it was finally my turn to sit down with a representative and get my new phone, they wanted another hundred bucks for two new phones. That’s when it happened. The sleeper cell was activated. I was their latest target. The "bait and switch." This shell game is as old as time and still working on modern day cell phone customers all over the world. With the first volley of protest I was given my options, buy new phones or put up with our bad service for two years—YOU SIGNED THE CONTRACT, FOOL.
That’s right. If you cancel the contract, lousy service or not, they can charge you two hundred bucks as a cancellation fee.
I tried to use the analogy of the car lease. Say I lease you a car for two years and you go home and it won’t start. You come back and tell me your car doesn’t start. I say, Oh, you want a car that starts, that’ll cost you another five grand." Wouldn’t you just assume that when you buy a car it will start? He said, "Well, you can’t buy a Chevy and think it’s going to run like a Cadillac."
I took my phone and headed home to call Scott Ford. Scott is the CEO of Alltel. I found his name and number on the Internet. It didn’t give his cell phone number because Scott probably doesn’t get any better reception than I do.
I was never allowed to talk with Scott. They assigned me Agent #15809, code name "Anthony." I tried a different analogy on Anthony since the car scenario didn’t work on the lock stepping, company policy branch manager. This time I tried lawn mowing. Say you sign a contract with me to mow your lawn for two years. I show up and butcher your lawn. I do a completely horrible job on your beautiful yard. But you signed a two year contract with me so you are going to have an ugly yard for two years. Does that seem right?
Anthony said he would send me two new KX-1 phones. I told him not to send them until I checked them out with consumer review on the internet. He gave me his phone number, again not a cell number, and I told him I would call him back.
I now have two new phones that are not made in America. These two are made in Mexico. I was hoping for Chinese phones but Mexican phones got me a step closer to communication devices that actually transmit voice signals.
Did you know they want to charge you ten bucks to transfer all the phone numbers you have in the phone they give you that doesn’t work to the phone they gave you that they say will work? I find this whole cell phone industry surreal—and they seem to think I ask too many questions.
Have you ever looked at your bill and wondered about the charge for calling the information operator. We’ve never called an information operator. The charge is not part of the call breakdown showing date and time of call. It’s a separate charge altogether with no history. So if you can’t prove you didn’t make that call who do you think is right? RIGHT!
No matter who your service provider is—land or cell phone—you should be learning to read your 12 page bill. After I cleared up all my problems with Alltel phones I had a new crisis—my bill showed up in the mailbox. After spending two hours deciphering the accounting labyrinth I discovered they had over billed me $ 102.13 for product and service I didn’t ask for, I was never pitched to buy and had absolutely no need for. This unregulated industry is a regular wild west show. Think about this. One of the charges is phone insurance! They automatically charge you sixty bucks a year to insure your $ 19.95 phone. If 1% of the people end up with a bill like mine and don’t catch that one bogus charge for just one month, that's a nice company bonus. With 12 million subscribers, Alltel stands to rake in millions of bogus bucks. That’s just one of the charges you have to find and tell them you want removed from your billing.
—Keep Smilin’, Dick E. Bird

SLAVE TO YOUR PRINTER

I’m having a tough time getting used to the Global Economy. Billy Durant once told my Grandfather, "If you have a nickel put it in General Motors." That was right after Billy lost control of GM. My Grandfather was a young man who didn’t heed Mr. Durant's advice and therefore I didn’ t inherit fifty million dollars. But maybe what goes around comes around. Maybe if you have a nickel now it’s a good time to buy GM.
But that is a small part of the Global Economy problem. My biggest beef is with technical help. Every time I call for help for anything electronic I end up talking with someone on the other side of the planet. This might be a good thing for foreign economies but it doesn’t solve my problem which makes it bad for my economy.
I called a company in Arizona recently and they connected me to tech support. I couldn’ t understand a word the guy was saying. The conversation went something like this, "You problem. Yabadabadoo Wadoodlewaday no work!" Not only could he not speak clear English, I could tell he was reading the same trouble shooting manual I had. I hung up, called right back and got another guy. He was a little better so I hung up on him and called a third time. I can’t guarantee this will work for you but you can give it a try. Since I couldn’t understand them, I decided to see what would happen if they couldn’t understand me—I stuttered. Immediately they switched me to a tech who spoke perfect English. His expertise consisted of suggesting I turn off my printer and turn it back on again and it would magically fix itself. So after three calls and three different tech people from who knows where, I ended up with a guy I could understand that didn’t know anything. This is what American business calls progress.
Let’s not forget about the scam factor. The consumer used to be considered a valuable customer. Companies used to bend over backwards to keep you happy. Today you're just another schmuck with a buck. Let’s revisit my printer problem. I finally gave up calling the company tech service. I emailed them. I was sure they would email me back in English. I was right. After explaining my problem and giving them the error message that continued to come up on my screen they emailed back with these instructions: "Your printer needs service. Take it to a certified technician."
The error message was: "A part on your printer is at the end of its life. Service your printer." I discovered that my printer has a brain, and that the brain is programmed to help the company scam me out of my hard earned money.
It’s a little techno war I’m waging against the establishment. Basically I hate paying $50 bucks for a little cube of ink that doesn’t last all that long. My first attempt at beating the system was to buy those little kits that refill the ink cartridge. I would end up with more ink on my hands than in the cartridge but it did save some money. I discovered the printer engineers were miles ahead of me. They have designed a little cartridge chip to fail after so many trips back and forth across the printer. So even though the cartridge was full the printer would go on strike after a couple refills.
I’m Irish. I was not going to let them get the best of me. I went on Ebay and bought a bulk ink system— little bottles of ink that sit on the side of my printer with tubes intravenously feeding ink to a super cartridge with chips that automatically reset themselves. I thought I had’ em—that’s when my printers brain started playing chess with me. Error message, blinking lights, printer playing opossum as if it were brain dead. I spent hours googling the net for printer options. Finally I found a site called "Printer Doctor" with a small piece of code I could download to revive my printer's brain and bring it out of its coma. This little code makes the printer think it’s working for me instead of the printer manufacturer. It seems surreal. I have brought this innocent piece of machinery over from the dark side to fight for right and justice and cheaper printing ink dispensing.
I guess I have gone global. I have an American printer made of Japanese parts. The tech support for my printer is tucked away somewhere in the Middle East. If I need to give it a brain transplant I go to the "Printer Doctor" on the internet who is based in Britain.
To top it all off I discovered recently that if I get mad and want to throw my printer in the trash I have to deal with my global garbage company. They practically have a monopoly on North American garbage. They control collection, recycling, disposal and landfill services. Instead of paying large monthly trash bills and throwing everything away, I fight the disposable economy and recycle a large percentage of our waste. I can fit everything we throw away into one "budget bag" every two weeks. I pay $2.50 for the bag and put it at the end of the driveway on my allotted trash day and it goes to the landfill along with all the garbage they hall here from Canada. I was just informed that they now want a surcharge of $5 if I insist on continuing my environmentally, economically sound practice of not generating enough garbage to boost their corporate spreadsheet balance. Stay tuned. I’m googling for the "Trash Doctor." I’ll let you know if I can bring my garbage man over from the dark side. —Keep Smilin’, Dick E. Bird

IT'S ALWAYS MOTHERS DAY

I’m finding that the transition during the time you lose your parents is almost surreal. They are still so close in memory that it is almost as if they are not really gone. Sometimes I think I hear my mom whistling, as if she were standing at the kitchen sink with Harry the canary singing harmony with her from his cage just a few feet away. She was known around our town as, "The Whistler."
As we were going through mom and dad's things it brought out great memories for all of us, but what touched me most was how certain seemingly unimportant objects held great emotions for our kids. It made me realize that they held those important feelings for their grandparents that we possess. Each one of them had as much quality time with grandma and grandpa as they wanted or needed.
My parents called their property "The Ole E Ranch" and it was always a welcoming place. Anyone could drop in and feel like they were expected. It was just a 60's model mobile home, but in a beautiful wetland setting. Friends would say, "They live in a palace." And what made it a palace was not the place, but the occupants.
I would be remiss if I did not mention the fact that mom was famous for her chocolate chip cookies. My brother Tom is in possession of the glass cookie jar with the green tin top that could not be quietly opened. And believe me we tried. Kids are different today. When we were kids we never used doorbells, we would always go to our friend's door and yell their name— "Donnie." It was very efficient. You never got the parents or an older brother, who was just gonna slug ya anyway. The person you wanted always showed up at the door. But kids would come to our house and yell—"Bea." They didn’t want Tom or I— they were at the door begging my mom’s cookies—she would always give them some, which only encouraged them to come back.
My mom played many roles in the parenting scheme of things. Tom and I found out many times that Bea and Ernie worked together. Ernie would yell at us, but when things got out of hand he would send the 5 ft. enforcer in to quell any riots that might be going on in the upstairs bedroom. She was always famous for saying, "I’m little, but I’m mighty." One time she came up to straighten us out and Tom and I tied her up and told her she was "mighty little." We paid for that!
On the other hand she was also the peace-keeper. For example whenever she wrecked the car she would always say to Tom and I, "Now don’t tell your father."
Her advice to her daughter-in-laws was advice that her mother gave her, "a little white lie never hurt anyone—it’s better than a big fight." What the girls don’t know is that she gave Tom and I that same advice.
Her peace-keeping role only went so far. After all we are Irish. When most kids get into a fight in the neighborhood the parents would be out there to break it up. But my mom would be out there screaming, like Jim Bradock’ s trainer, shouting boxing jabs. She always told me I needed to use my left more.
She was very athletic. When we were gathering her things we found many of her trophies from high school to senior golf and bowling leagues. I said to Tom, "Why don’t we have any trophies?" Then I remembered, I don’ t play golf, and mom could out drive Tom.
She was contrast in motion. She was both a sweet, gentle little Irish lady and tougher than nails at the same time. During her few months in the Hospice program I would visit her at her home every morning and ask her how she was doing. "Fine, I feel great, NO Problems." Then "psychic" Sara would show up—our wonderful Hospice nurse, and say, "What’s wrong, Bea?" "Nothing, I’m doing great." It’s okay Bea, you can tell me." "Really, I’m fine." She quickly learned that Sara’s blood pressure and pulse readings worked exactly like a lie detector. You can’t even tell "Little White Lies" to Sara. "Okay, I fell last night and hurt my leg but I’m fine, I don’t want my kids to worry about me."
For a woman that could not swim and was afraid of the water, my mom loved to fish and had four boats named after her, The HoneyBea 1,2,3, and 4. I think that might have been brilliant marketing on my dad’s part. When my folks bought an Airstream in 1957, which were known in those days as "Land Yachts," I’m surprised that it wasn’t christened "The HoneyBea" also. But it already had an Airstream Travel Trailer Club number on it, so I guess there wasn’t room.
You don’t often appreciate the efforts of your parents until later in life when you reflect on all the things they fit into your youth. While we were going through pictures, my niece Tabatha was getting a kick out of a picture taken by a Michigan Bell Telephone Company magazine photographer. It was a picture of the whole family next to a 1960, chocolate brown, Buick LaSaber convertible with wings big enough to make it fly — hooked to it was our Airstream with a big red and white sign that said, "Seattle or Bust." We were headed for the world’ s fair. Tabby said it looked like my Dad had this big smile and wave, like — "Hooray, we're going on a great adventure." She said my brother, Tom, her dad, looked like he had his hand up as if he were at that age when — "I’m too cool to wave" — even our collie Duke had a big smile on his face. But Tabby said she thought my mom had that look of — "Oh boy, here we go again ! " But if she did feel that way you would never know it. She was a trooper, always game, always fun, always kind, always encouraging.
She was capable of her own adventures. She always wanted to go to Ireland and see her mothers old homestead. When she was taking Chemotherapy she told us, "If I go into remission I’m going to spend your inheritance and I’m taking the whole family to Ireland." And by golly that’ s exactly what we did. To the Emerald Isle went her great granddaughter Lexi, her grandchildren Tabatha, Kevin and Maggie, my brother Tom and his wife, Chris, Gaila and I — and even though she wasn’t feeling up to par mom was sitting right in the front of the bus leading the charge across Ireland. Of all the stories we will have to tell through the years about that trip one of my favorites will be when she, and her oldest son, and her grandson closed down a pub in Bunratty called Dirty Nellies and had to drag themselves back to the Bed and Breakfast and knock on windows until they found someone they were related to — to let them in.
My memories will always be highlighted by her deep faith. Even toward the end when she needed help to get ready for bed, before she would climb in, she would still drop to her knees and say her prayers. She prayed us through many of the peaks and valleys of life. On our many adventures when I was a kid we never missed church. On Sunday morning, it didn’ t matter if we were in the middle of Wyoming or the wilds of Canada — we went to church. Fishing camp in Canada was the one I remember the most. There was a traveling priest who covered several churches, so he didn’ t hold mass near us until mid-afternoon. It was great because we could fish all morning. But after lunch she would make us get cleaned up and off to church we would go. It wasn’ t that far. I think the church was in Quebec — and we were only one Province over, in Ontario.
If you ever hear me talking about my mom or my dad, or any of my grandparents for that matter, you might get the impression they were perfect. Well — they were!
--Keep Smilin', Dick E. Bird

Camping Evolution

I have been camping all of my life and many of my fondest memories involve the many campsites I have occupied with, family and friends over the years. A campsite is actually an odd concept. By definition: An area where an individual or family might camp. I have always thought of it as the opportunity to live outdoors for short periods of time.
My first memories of camping involved my parents and grandparents in an old canvas tent in Michigan State Parks in the early 1950’s. Camping for us soon blossomed into a whole new concept. My grandparents bought a 1956 Airstream. Within a year my dad and his brother also bought Airstreams and we were on the road almost every weekend.
During the summer we would head West and camp wherever someone would let us plug in our trailer. My dad said we were a bunch of Gypsies. I didn’t know what a Gypsy was but I figured they must like to camp. One of my favorite campsites in those days still exists today. It is in Avalanche Campground at the base of the Going-to-the-Sun Highway in Glacier National Park. We would run the trail to Avalanche Lake and listen to the ranger programs at night. When I graduated from high school I lived a few months in a truck I converted into a camper and made it a point to stop in Glacier and camp in the very site we often used. The site was near the trailhead to the lake and during the afternoon I would sit at my picnic table and watch Khrushchev watch me. He was a big habituated grizzly, obviously named after Nikita, the big Russian bear who led the Soviet Union at the time. Khrushchev had a white spot of hair on his chest that made him very distinctive. He had been trapped twice in Avalanche and moved far into the park. He had not learned his lesson but sat patiently in the woods and waited for a camper who was living on more than just Rice Krispie Treats. His wish came true one afternoon when an older couple set up camp near me and started roasting a chicken. Khrushchev ended up with the chicken, but not without a fight. I kept telling the woman to forget the chicken but she was bound and determined to snag it before Khrushchev ate it. She only made one lap around her car before she decided that "Possession is not always nine-tenths of the law."
I took my wife to Avalanche on our first camping trip in 1975. I took my daughter several years later, and one day I will probably take my grandkids. But that is just one of many places that hold family history and archives of good times.
The joke is that most women can’t keep their husbands from fishing, but in my mom’s case she had to convince my dad it was a good idea. Mom loved to fish and my dad had little desire to "drowned worms." She finally talked him into trying it and he decided we would caravan with friends to Canada to a place called, "Sweet’s Log Cabin Camp." It was a fish camp, but we were allowed to park our trailers along a point on the lake. My dad never did take fishing too seriously but he loved to buy gear. He had every conceivable rod and reel combination, special bait and killer plugs like the "Bomber." But we had discovered this wonderful Canadian lake campsite that made for many memorable summers of big fish fry’s and bigger fish tales.
Another great camping spot was along the Ocklawaha River in Florida where Gaila and I lived for several winters. It was called Colby’s Landing. It was such a magical place that friends and family from all over the country would come and visit us. We cooked cowboy stew by the barrel and tales around the campfire would get taller as the fire got lower.
I started thinking of all this when two friends recently told me about their summer vacation. The two brothers live in different parts of the country and decided to get their families together by renting motorhomes and meeting in Yellowstone. One brother rented a small Class "C" motorhome that would accommodate he and his family for the short time they planned to camp and explore the Greater Yellowstone Basin. The wife of the other brother found a internet rental deal in South Dakota that looked too good to pass up. They rented the coach and decided it would make the vacation more interesting traveling through the Black Hills on their way to Yellowstone country. Knowing absolutely zero about motorhomes they arrived in South Dakota and the guy gave them about fifteen minutes of instruction on operating a 40-foot monster motorhome. My friend said it was so big he couldn’t even tell if he was in his own lane. They had to drive 500 miles the first day and pulled into a KOA after dark When most other campers were already in bed. He said, "They told me they didn’t have any pull-thru sites. I had to back it in. It took me an hour to get that crazy thing backed in and every time I put it in reverse you could hear the loud ‘BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP,’ all through the campground."
The next morning, after finally reaching Yellowstone, he said he decided to use the big rig to put both families in while touring the park the first day. He noticed that everyone was using the toilet all day long and remembered the owner telling him not to let it completely fill up. When they arrived back to their campsite that night he decided to empty the septic immediately. He went around to the back and found to his horror that the valve had been open all day."
--Keep Smilin', Dick E. Bird

Rubber Egg on the Face

We get our eggs from our neighbor who raises chickens. We just put an egg crate in the mailbox and when we pick up the mail the next day we have a dozen fresh eggs. While making French toast one morning I grabbed an egg with a membrane so tough I could hardly break through.

This incident took me back to sixth grade. I was visiting my grandparents. They had a subscription to, and a pile of, Popular Science and I loved to read them. I happened upon a story about making rubber eggs. It sounded simple so I asked my grandmother for an egg and a cup of vinegar.

If you let the egg soak for a few days the vinegar (acetic acid) dissolves the calcium carbonate in the eggshell. Once the egg shell dissolves you end up with just the protective membrane. Sure enough, the next day I had a perfect rubber egg.

Not satisfied with this egg oddity, and perhaps with too much time on my hands, I decide to experiment further with my egg. I asked my grandmother for some red food coloring. I put a few drops into the vinegar, curious to see if the vinegar was penetrating the egg membrane. I had my answer the following morning. I removed the egg from the jar full of vinegar and had a beautiful red rubber egg.

The jar my grandmother had given me to perform my experiment happened to be an olive jar. After dumping the vinegar and filling the jar with fresh water, my egg was suspended in the jar like the small planet Mars floating in space.

The following Monday I took my rubber egg to school to show my friends. It caught the eye of my teacher. She obviously had never seen anything like it. I could tell by the excited curiosity in her voice. Because of the sudden stir my oddity was causing my Irish Blarney must have kicked in automatically. When the teacher, surrounded by my classmates asked what it was I told them it was a Mexican Olive. Before I could explain that I was just kidding, the teacher said, "I am going to get the Principle, she needs to see this."

Soon the Principle and several other teachers and staff members where at my desk examining my Mexican Olive. It was too late to change my story so I just kept layering it on. Thank goodness there was no such thing as Google back then. I would have been ferreted out quickly.

Today you can ask Mr. Google just about anything and get an instant answer—sometimes it’s even right! In fact, I just Googled Mexican Olive and up came the Mexican Olive ornamental flowering tree, and a beautiful Mexican Olive seashell. I guess I could have built a case around the fact that the flower tree sometimes would develop fruit as do those in the Mediterranean region. If you think fast enough and talk fast enough anything is possible.

I never told anyone my Mexican Olive was actually a colored, rubber egg. This experiment answers the age-old question... Which came first, the rubber egg or the rubber chicken? It’s easy to make a rubber egg if you understand the chemistry of removing the eggshell with vinegar. What you’re left with is a totally embarrassed naked egg and a cool piece of science to take to school and make a liar out of yourself. --Keep Smilin', Dick E. Bird

Billy Beach

I had a job once (yes, it’s true) in Ocala, Fla. I unloaded pot trucks. It’s not what you’re thinking. I worked for a plumbing wholesaler to the mobile home industry. I spent a good share of my time unloading semi-trucks that were filled with toilets. I worked during the winter and traveled during the summer. It was a great gig. I was actually a very good pot truck unloader, and the people I worked with were some of the finest I have ever known. They always rehired me when I returned from a summer of traveling, and treated me as if I had never left. I always showed up around Thanksgiving and received a turkey and holiday bonus like everyone else. Same thing happened at Christmas.
But the real magic about this one time career is centered around an individual who I can truly say was one of a kind. He was a clown of the highest order. He made Robin Williams seem like a straight man. He was one of the most incredible characters I have run across in all my days of rambling. He made showing up for work a pleasure.
His name was Billy Beach. He looked like the NFL great, Lyle Alzado. From what I could gather from others, he once played school football with the same enthusiasm as Lyle. He could get away with anything around the warehouse because he worked twice as hard as everyone else.
At first I didn’t know how to take him. I didn’t have a checking account, so on payday I would go to the bank with Billy and he would cash my check through his bank. The first time we drove up to the teller window, Billy deposited his check and sent a note in to the teller to cash mine. I could see all the girls in the bank giggling and laughing and wondered what was so funny. Billy sat in the driver’s seat as if nothing was going on. Finally, I asked him what the tellers were laughing about. He said, "I sent a note in with your check that read, "I love you."
During the spring, before I would leave for the summer, Florida would begin to get very hot and humid. In a warehouse full of plastic plumbing fittings and fiberglass showers, there wasn’t much that water could damage. Spring would often break out in water fights toward the end of the week on Friday afternoons when all the shipping was complete. It happened much like a football coach’s being ambushed with Orange Crush when his team was assured of a championship. As a first-time victim, I was sweeping up the warehouse when Billy dumped a garbage can full of water on me. That was my initiation and my lesson to be combat ready on hot Friday afternoons. I can only remember once getting the best of him. He was usually thinking quicker than everyone else. I must have caught him on an off day. I saw him filling the can and knew he was targeting me. It was the day I took water combat to a new dimension at Service Supply Systems. The old plant did not have a sprinkler fire-prevention system in the ceiling. Instead, it had a fire hose with all the pressure of a New York City pumper truck. I made sure I continued to sweep the floor within easy access of the fire hose. Billy came bounding around the warehouse storage racks struggling with his heavy burden of water. I can still see the shocked look on his face. He looked like a deer caught in the headlights of a speeding car. He was screaming, "That’s not fair!" as I blew him straight out the back of the building through the loading dock doors.
There is a Garth Brooks country song with the verse, "I’ve got friends in low places." It’s about a beer joint called the Oasis. It’s a place that Garth Brooks has never really been. The Oasis really did exist. The song was written by a fireman from Ocala. The Oasis was on the north side of Ocala. The front of the joint had plastic palm trees. It was probably the classiest part of its decor. The boss held our Christmas party there once, and if I remember right, I think we almost got thrown out of the place. Billy was singing, "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" using Judy Garland’s voice. He was even doing the high Auntie Em and Toto parts.
Billy’s father, Clifford, worked with us. He was quiet, mild mannered and serious. I always told him I thought he must have brought the wrong baby home from the hospital. Clifford always knew if he scolded Billy he was going to get put in a headlock and have the top of his head kissed. All joking aside, it was a joy to see the relationship the two had. In fact, Gaila and I had the pleasure of knowing the whole family very well. We still have sweet potato casserole every Thanksgiving. It was a dish that Billy’s wife Louanne served the first Thanksgiving we spent with them.
Friends are the real value of a lifetime. Good memories are a commodity that can only be traded through the heart. Sharing with others is the bond that welds the two forever.
When I heard that Billy had passed away. I found it no surprise that hundreds of people attended his funeral. He was a welder of bonds, a special individual, a maker of memories.
--Dick E. Bird, thedickebirdnews.com

The RV Lifestyle

My grandparents bought an Airstream travel trailer in 1956. It would end up having a huge impact on my life. It was actually my grandmother’s idea. She saw one at a gas station one day and had my grandfather turn around and go back. The owner gave them a tour of the trailer and before long they had one parked in their driveway.

Not long after that my dad brought one home. I don’t think my mother was all that thrilled. It wasn’t like getting diamonds or pearls. It actually meant she would be busy every Friday for years loading the trailer for weekend camping and unloading every Sunday evening.

During my dad’s summer vacations we would travel all over the country like a bunch of gypsies. It was long before trailer parks were common or franchised. We would camp while traveling wherever they would let us plug in our electric cord. Gas stations, A&W root beer joints (my personal favorite), city and county parks in small towns across the U.S. and Canada.

In those days you could do things that would now have you arrested and thrown in jail. Each new trailer came with a narrow shovel for digging gopher holes. That was the polite way of describing the septic disposal method. Even in the state parks, digging a gopher hole was standard operating procedure. The septic dumps on trailers at the time were designed to be located on the shoulder side of the road. In rural areas my brother and I would pull the pin and my dad would drive down the shoulder. We made a wide berth to catch up with him. It was no different than the railroad passenger cars dumping on the tracks. Needless to say, people discovered, as RVing became very popular, that the practice was not acceptable and unsanitary and some would say, "The idea just plain stinks!"

We spent many summers exploring National Parks and Monuments. I learned to love nature, camping, hiking, backpacking, fishing and just plain traveling, meeting new people and exploring. I guess you would define it as wanderlust. I have been rambling ever since.

After graduating from high school I lived in my ’64 GMC suburban for several months traveling and backpacking through the Northwestern states and the Provinces of Canada. For graduation people gave me canned goods. I would make Rice Krispy treats in a metal bucket. That was a large part of what I lived on that summer. When I had extra money I would splurge and buy hamburger, cooking it on my engine block driving down the road.

After the Marines and marriage, wanderlust struck again. My wife Gaila and I bought a trailer and worked our way around the country for several years. We would stop and find work whenever we ran out of money, which introduced us to some of the most wonderful and interesting friends we have had throughout our lives—not to mention some of the craziest jobs.

After spending years parking long trailers in short spaces—such as small ferries in Alaska’s Inside Passage—we switched to a motorhome. Gaila loves to drive the motorhome and after spending five months searching for me as I hiked the Continental Divide from Mexico to Jasper, Alberta Canada, she has decided that me walking and her driving is an excellent way to travel. She says that if she sees me once a week—that’s plenty.

Traveling across the continent in a self-contained mobile unit of any kind is an adventure. I guarantee when you return you will have new friends and stories to tell. We have been stuck in spring snowstorms in the middle of New Mexico’s Gila National Forest, near hurricanes along the coast of Texas, broken down along 1,200 miles of the Alaskan Highway and changing flats in 110 degree Arizona heat. But to temper those rough times we have watched majestic sunsets across the plains, sunrises full of life in the Everglades, warm summer nights in the heart of the Rocky Mountains, spectacular fall colors through New England and sunny days along the rocky Oregon coast. We have seen Denali from the backcountry and life from many angles that would never have presented themselves to us had we not been there to seek them out. If you have a sense of adventure, traveling is one of the pure joys of life. Living in an RV allows you to feel right at home on the road. --Keep Smilin', Dick E. Bird

Learn to KAYAK

During the years that Gaila and I lived full time on the road in our Airstream, we stopped one fall in Connecticut to visit friends. They were a professional couple we had met on a hike through Mammoth Cave National Park. Nancy was a teacher and George a lawyer, but they really wanted to be professional kayakers. I had never been in a kayak, so George took me out on the Farmington River and tried to drown me.
He was a very good teacher; I was just a lousy student. I had my helmet on, got all tucked into this porthole with a boat under it, adjusted the spray skirt and told Gaila where to spread my ashes. George said it was very easy. He had tied a practice golfball on the spray skirt, then he told me to lean downstream and let the water run under the craft. If I rolled the kayak all I had to do was grab the golfball which would make me lean forward, pull the spray skirt off the boat and roll out. That sounded easy enough.
He pushed me out from behind my secure boulder and into the current. I immediately forgot everything he told me, leaned upstream and flipped over. As my helmet bumped along the bottom of the river, I tried desperately to climb out of the boat. A few rocks later, I finally remembered the golfball. I reached up for it and rolled right out. It wasn’t long before I was an expert at getting out of a kayak. I rolled that thing, without exaggeration, at least 40 times in the first hour. But finally I learned the body English for staying afloat in a boat with no bottom, and it was fantastic the rest of the day. George tried to teach me to roll. That way, when you go over, you don’t have to come out of the boat. You just roll back over. Heaven knows I could get a lot of benefit from a move like that, but no matter how great a teacher George was, I never did learn to roll, but I could really rock!
They were very gracious hosts. While they were working, we would explore; on weekends we traveled together. They have a cabin in Skowhegan, Maine, so over Labor Day weekend we headed north. Our first stop was L. L. Bean in Freeport, Maine, about midnight. Bean is open 24 hours a day, all year except Christmas. It’s even crowded at midnight. I love outdoor gear, and I could have dropped a bag of money there. Lucky for me I didn’t have any!
Every body of water in Maine is a pond and their cottage was situated on beautiful Oak Pond. From there we headed out to Acadia National Park. We love national parks and so do Nancy and George. Just ask their kids, Acacia and Bryce. We always figured that if they had a boy they would name him Smoky or Oly.
Acadia was a wonderful place. I met a seasonal ranger in the Everglades who spent his summers working there. He told us not to miss it in our travels and now we could see why. The reason I remember this particular ranger is that during his park transition, he had just a few days to travel from Acadia and report for duty in the Everglades. He and his wife had a pickup camper, and they were taking turns driving down the East Coast. His wife was driving late one night while he slept in the camper when, somewhere in North Carolina, she almost hit a deer. Slamming on the brakes, she rolled him right out of bed. By the time he got up and opened the backdoor to see what was going on, she had accelerated and he fell clean out of the camper—stark naked! He had to use every ranger trick he ever knew to convince the sheriff what happened. The highway patrol finally caught up with his wife in South Carolina, or she would have been in Florida without him.
And Gaila thinks we have all the pre-Dick-aments.
During our stay near Acadia, we stopped for a lobster dinner. It was one of those places along the Coast where you pick out your own lobster and they boil it up for you. We were all looking forward to a lobster dinner, but Gaila was not sure she wanted to have one sacrificed for her. So, she asked the owner if it hurt the lobster to be placed into the boiling water. He very patiently explained to her that the lobster would not feel a thing. He gave her a five-minute explanation that made her confident her meal would not squeal, and we picked out our lobsters. As we walked back toward the building, the guy dropped the lobster into the water and let out a bloodcurdling scream. I’m sure Gaila was not his first skeptic. His timing was too perfect!
--Keep Smilin', Dick E. Bird

Starlings Are Smarter Than the Average Bird

Star on my shoulder

Starlings are extremely smart birds. They know when they’ve got a good thing. Like the rest of us they are greedy and always wanting more.
A friend told us about a baby starling she found abandoned in a barrel near her garage. It was so irresistible we decided to try raising the little egghead. We took the little orphan home and put her in a small cage in our atrium just off the kitchen and discovered that even at this fragile age she was a ferocious eater.
She loved blueberries and roast beef. We called her "Star Ling" and when she had all her feathers we gave her full use of the atrium and soon she was looking for room to roam.
I was getting real used to having a regular supply of roast beef in the house, but Gaila said we had to release the bird outside. I tried to convince her that I wanted to teach Star to talk but she knew I was only interested in the roast beef supply. As it turned out we both got our way. After we released Star she stayed close to home. On our way to the mailbox she would swoop down from the tree tops and land on our head or shoulder and look at us as if to say, "Hey, how about some roast beef."
One day Gaila went to get her hair cut and the hairdresser said, "Looks like you’ve been painting, Gaila, you’ve got paint in your hair." Gaila was too embarrassed to tell him that it was recycled roast beef.
Another time Gaila was talking to Star who was perched on her shoulder and the bird poked her in the eye. It started to get infected so she went to see our optometrist. A couple weeks later I went for my yearly exam and had to explain to him why I had a ugly bruise on my forehead. Maggie and I had been swimming in Lake Michigan and in jest I told her I was going to sneak up on some ducks swimming nearby. I swam underwater for about fifty feet before I collided with a cement block that held a water pump on the bottom of the lake. The doctor already knew we were a couple of birdbrains but this proved it.
Star loved to travel. We would take her on weekend camping trips. We could release her knowing she would always come back for roast beef or blueberries. We usually knew where she was—we could hear other campers screaming when she landed on them. On occasion Gaila would have to go fetch her. One day a couple Star met was amazed by her and had been planning to take her home. Gaila was calling for her and as soon as she heard her name she flew over and landed on Gaila’s head.
Star loved meeting new friends. We live on a dirt road that curves 90 degrees at the bottom of our driveway. Vehicles always slow down to make the curve and Star found that to be an excellent way to meet new friends. One day she landed on the hood of a car. The driver was a baker heading for work and dressed in bakery whites. When he stopped the car to check out this bird who had now flown to his side mirror, Star perched right on his shoulder taking her regular morning blueberry dump.
Star went all the way to town that day. Her reputation followed her. The guy stopped at a local business and asked if they had a camera so he could get a picture with this overly friendly bird. A woman in the office exclaimed, "That’s Maggie Mallery’s bird!" Coincidentally this woman happened to be our neighbor and she brought Star home that afternoon tightly taped in a cardboard box. When we opened the box Star hopped up on my shoulder and looked at me as if to say, "Hey, how about some roast beef."
Towards the end of summer Star began to feel the tug of wanderlust. She was reported further and further down the road. Soon the tug of adventure over-powered the urge for roast beef and blueberries and Star was gone. She may have made friends with the wrong people but we like to think she merged into a flock of her peers. She would tell them where she had been and all the things she had done and they wouldn’t believe a word of it. When you do things others have a hard time believing, then you are most likely living life the way it was supposed to be lived.
Every time we see a massive flock of swirling starlings we look for Star—and every time we find her wonderful memories. - Dick E. Bird

Luchenbach, TX. vs Plains, GA.

Ever look for Luchenbach, Texas? It’s on the map, but not on the road.

Luchenbach—you know—Waylon, Willie and the boys. After Willie Nelson made it famous in song, the Texas highway department can’t keep signs on the road. People keep stealing the Luchenbach city limits signs.

Luchenbach isn’t your typical town. You won’t find it looking main street. Luchenbach is more of a dead-end road. But if you look hard enough you can find it in Texas Hill Country. At the end of the road you’ll find a bar, post office and mercantile all in the same building, with restrooms out back. You can even birdwatch there. The bartender told me there was a red-headed woodpecker in the side yard. It turned out to be a red-bellied but I didn’t try to explain the difference to him .

He also told me a local tractor salesman had just run off with a farmer’s wife. He said the farmer just got a John Deere letter. Willie wasn’t there but he was coming soon to play dominoes. It was going to be Willie against everybody in Luchenbach—should have been a short game.

Luchenbach claims a population of three. The town motto is "Everybody’s Somebody in Luchenbach." I’m not sure who the bartender was but as a resident of Luchenbach he was definitely somebody. He was an incredible guitar player. He was left-handed with a right-handed guitar which meant he was playing it upside-down and backwards. And he played it better than most people play it right-side-up and forward.

Traveling can take you to the most exotic places if you get off the beaten path once in awhile and do a bit of exploring. I’m not saying it is always an enjoyable adventure but most of the time you will end up with lasting memories.

Take the time my wife Gaila and I were headed south on I-75 for Florida. The weather was nice, the traffic was not heavy and we were making good time. All of a sudden we felt adventuresome. We were in Georgia and not far from Plains—home of our new President, Jimmy Carter. "Hey, let’s go to Plains and find Billy’s gas station." If you know your Trivial Pursuit history you will remember that Jimmy’s opinionated brother Billy owned a gas station in Plains. He not only sold gas he doled out free advice to anyone who had a question.

By the time we reached Plains they had already rolled up the sidewalks. Billy’s station was closed—in fact, the whole town was closed. The town’s people had been under so much demand to answer media questions during the campaign that after the election they were wore out.

When you live in a small town in Georgia and one of your own runs for President it is your civic duty to have an interesting story to share with the world about that person. Every one in Plains did their part, sometimes fighting over camera time. But it was over. The town had its fifteen minutes of fame and on the evening we arrived everyone was already home in bed. Not a soul to be found.

We turned our rig around in the entrance to the Plains Country Club. I’m not sure what they did there but it looked like it might involve roasting a pig. The trip back to I-75 was dark, foggy and confusing. I almost hit a hound dog chasing a rabbit across the road, then a kid on an antique motorbike going the wrong way in my lane, and yes, a chicken trying to cross the road.

By the time Gaila and I made it back to the expressway I could have used a Billy Beer. My eyeballs felt like they had been glued open searching the dense fog for Georgia road obstacles. We have never been back to Plains but I’m sure there must be a Walmart there by now. If you arrive and find everyone is still going to bed early, Sam Walton will let you sleep in his store parking lot for free because he’s from Arkansas—but that’s another story!

—Keep Smilin’, Dick E. Bird

The Re-Designed Saturn SL2

My 1994 Saturn just turned over 210,000 miles. Most people would trade their car in at 36,000 miles when the bumper-to-bumper warranty runs out, or 100,000 miles when the extended warranty runs out. Not me. Just because I live in a throw away society doesn’t mean I have to cooperate. My Saturn was built to last a good 300,000 miles and I am going to see that it does. Warranty is very important to most people. That’s because when you take your car to a dealer to have it worked on it usually costs about a thousand dollars to get it back. I’m not that old and I can remember when that was the price of a new car.

The reason warranty is so valuable is that cars are made in such a way today that normal people can’t work on them. Not only do you need a computer programming background and be a certified electronics engineer—you also need to know where stuff is. Why do you think they turned engines in cars sideways? It’s because when they faced forward people figured out where all the stuff was. Designers had to put normal wear and tear parts like fuel pumps, alternators, fuel filters and air filters where no one could find them. And just to be sure those that did didn’t mess with them, they put stuff like transmissions, drive lines, air conditioning compressors and radiators in front of them to checkmate any shade tree mechanic who isn’t on a first name basis with Mr. Goodwrench.

That’s why I keep my Saturn with no warranty. I have already found all the stuff and I have retrofitted the car so that I can get to all of it. It’s not that I’m a mechanical genius—far from it. Once I get things apart I can’t always get them back together. So I re-engineer them to my Specs. Take my windshield wipers for instance. They are brilliantly designed with a nut that becomes loose when the arms ice up. That way you don’t burn the motor out. The problem I found was that I had to take half the front end of the car apart to get to the nut and re-tighten it. So—I just cut a hole in the windshield panel and now I can reach right in and tighten that nut—no problem.

Another thing I discovered is that my fancy mag wheels were valuable. My dad stopped at Bob Evans for breakfast one day and when he came out all his fancy hubcaps were gone. If you have nice stuff people tend to steal it. My dad should have known that. When I was a kid and Head Ski gear was all the rage you had to lock your skis to the rack or find them missing. My dad had an old pair of wood slates he used for skis and one day he spray painted them all black and painted the Head Ski logo on the tips. Sure enough, that night someone ripped his skis off. No one wants my wheels anymore because they don’t match. They work just fine. The wheels still go around and the tires stay inflated—they are just visually impaired which makes them safe from thieves—unless they are stupid thieves like the ones who stole my dads wooden Heads.

The reason I bought my Saturn is that it is one of the few cars you can dingy tow behind a motorhome (all four wheels down) and not rack up any miles. It is the reason you see so many Saturns being towed behind motorhomes. Most other models need electric pumps feeding fluid to the transmission as you tow it down the road.

I love my Saturn but I had a hard time buying one. I went to the dealer and they had a brand new marketing program. It was called the "NO HAGGLE" policy. That means whatever the window sticker says the price is—that’s it—No Haggle!

At first I didn’t believe it. I haggled a couple times and got my hand slapped. Finally I gave in and said, "All right, I’ll take it." The salesman got that happy little commission grin on his face and started filling out the purchase agreement. I said, "I need $16,500 on the van I’m trading in." He said, "My guys have looked it all over and said we can give you $14,000." I said, "I’m sorry, I have a ‘NO HAGGLE’ policy."

Needless to say, I didn’t buy a car from that guy. But I still wanted a Saturn and I went just up the street and found one at a dealer with a "HAGGLE ‘TIL YOU DROP" policy.

That little beauty doesn’t owe me a dime. My wife got in a fight with a garbage truck last winter and lost. They wanted $4,500 to fix my little Saturn so the insurance company totalled it. With $200 in new plastic parts and ten screws I had it back together and on the road again. It kind of looks like an alley cat that has seen his share of scraps. A Tomcat with torn ears, one eye missing and half a tail. And just like that Tomcat my little Saturn keeps on going. I live way back in the woods on the worst dirt road in North America. I have seen Jeeps die on my road but it hasn’t even fazed my Saturn. I think Saturn should use my car in their commercials. Instead of showing all those shiny new clean vehicles, put one on display that’s been around the block a few hundred thousand times. I might turn mine in for a hybrid, but I have to find someone I can HAGGLE with. —Keep Smilin’, Dick E. Bird