Pie Pressure

The first time I went to Isle Royale National Park, I was on the run. It was not the law that was after me, it was life. I was twenty-two years old and already questioning the path my life seemed to be charging down. I was the sole personnel department for a fruit pie company with just under a thousand employees. My days consisted of nearly round the clock refereeing. It was a giant food fight in a way. Pie line workers vying for position on dough covered Colburn® machines that pumped out two pies per second if everything was running smoothly. I ran three shifts with product managers calling for more production at daily meetings, pressured foremen speeding up the pie lines, and the Chief Steward of the Union pressuring the company to slow them down.
I can still hear the many voices in my head over three decades later. "On Monday we need an additional fifty people. We’re cranking up the cream pie and apple dumpling lines." "We have word the third shift freezer supervisor has a pie route and is filling orders late at night when no one is looking." "Someone left the corn syrup spigot opened all night and the bakery is carpeted three inches deep in corn syrup." "Karl has been drinking again and all the pecan pies are burnt." "You can take this job and shove it, I’m going deer hunting." "We’re three guys short on Sunday’s loading crew in the freezer." "Someone stole two freezer suits, you might want to see who just bought a new snowmobile." "There’s a car parked in the boss’s reserved parking space." "Did you hire this guy? He’s a convicted felon." "The Hi-Lo drivers need to be retested, we just had one drive through the back wall of the freezer." Libby® just sent us four railcars full of pumpkin mix. The bad news is, it’s in 8 oz. cans instead of 30# tins." "Someone is putting their pocket change in the pies on second shift." "The eight hour college boys are all sneaking out early when the six hour girls leave." "Herb swore at the packaging line again. They are all headed for your office." "You can’t promote him for doing a good job, he doesn’t have the seniority." "Your new hire just had an epileptic fit in the bakery and fell in the strawberries."
I was beginning to have flashbacks. Not from all the action I saw in the Marines in Hawaii but from my high school days working for an Airstream dealer. Many of our customers were auto executives with high stress, good paying jobs. I remember they all died at about 50. Was this my destiny—to work 18 hours a day for 30 years and one day be found face down in the banana cream pie filling?
Fate stepped in. Top management all left for the Olympic games in Munich, Germany. That left one engineer in charge who considered people as mere machines to be turned on and off daily. He wasn’t going to have much time to drive the train so he decided to reorganize the whole personnel department while he had the chance. Being the youngest member of the management team seemed to mean I was insubordinate if I had any constructive criticism. Had they reviewed my application they would have known better than to push me too far. They would have seen: Male, Caucasian, IRISH.
After two days of not making any personnel changes the cow pie (always thought that would be a big seller) hit the fan. I went home, grabbed my backpack, drove late into the night across Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and caught the last boat to Isle Royale. They had squads of people out looking for me because they found out playing personnel manager wasn’t as fun as it looked. But it was too late. I was already immersed in the solitude of a northwoods wilderness paradise with no boats leaving for several days. They contacted my mother who said, "Well, his backpack is gone. That’s not a good sign."
Did I go back? Yes, eventually. I gave proper notice. In fact, I worked several months until a new labor contract was hammered out. I left the status and financial security of a corporate career to pursue life at a much slower pace. To paraphrase Robert Frost: "Two roads diverged in a wood. I took the one less traveled by. And that has made all the difference."
I’m not suggesting everyone should run off and catch the last boat to Isle Royale National Park—but it worked for me.
—Keep Smilin’, Dick E. Bird

Swim Like a Cat

Stan Simmons and I, the day he threw me into the lake

Life goes by like a lightening bolt heading for ground. I have a new perspective as I look back over my aging shoulder and reminisce about friends, places, good times and bad. I have a lot of wonderful memories about colorful characters. I was thinking about one of them recently that I met before I could swim. I was six or seven years old. My parents had a boat—a small cabin cruiser we could sleep on. My dad worked at the phone company with a man who lived on a small lake near our home. His name was Stan Simmons and he let us moor the boat in front of his house. We spent every weekend on the boat and barbecuing with Stan and his family.
Stan knew I couldn’t swim. One day he said to me, "Everyone can swim, it comes natural." He said, "Even my cat can swim." At that moment he picked up his cat and threw it off the end of the dock. That cat came out of the water like an Indy car with no brakes. I never did see it stop running. It wasn’t the kind of swimming lessons I had in mind.
One piece of lawn furniture in the yard was a metal sofa designed to swing. The adults were often gathered there talking. That afternoon I happened to be behind the swing making cat noises. It seemed to annoy Stan so I continued my "meowing." I was getting tremendous enjoyment from the fact that my cat imitation was irritating Stan. Finally he said, "If you meow one more time I’m going to throw you off the end of the dock just like I did the cat.
I didn’t believe him for a minute. Besides, my mother was sitting right there. She would never let him do that to me. "Meow" no more than crossed my lips and I was sucking water. I can still see the underwater scene to this day. I didn’t close my eyes. And just like that cat I learned to swim in seconds. It happened so fast I think my mother was still in shock by the time I passed her moving as fast and in the same direction as that cat.
I ended up in our 1950 Buick Road Master. Because it was all black the sun had turned it into an oven. I sat in the front seat crying and drying. I think it was my first lesson in calling someone’s bluff. I would be careful with that tactic in the future. I completely forgot about my traumatic event when I discovered a fifty-cent piece lodged down behind the seat. It must have fallen from my dad’s pocket. Instantly I was rich. My fortunes had changed from sorrow to elation in the blink of an eye.
Simple actions impact children in ways you may never understand. I can remember Stan and everyone laughing at me when I finally gathered enough courage to climb out of the car and confront him. First I showed everyone my Lady Liberty half dollar. Then I told Stan, "I’ll get you for that." My mother laughed and warned him that I was Irish so he had better listen to what I was saying.
We were good friends for over 40 years. Stan was a jovial fellow who could make everyone laugh just being around him. Near the end of his life he had a stroke and ended up in a hospital near my home in northern Michigan. I went to visit him and found him down the hallway from his room eating his dinner looking out the big picture window. Although the right side of his body was slumped from the stoke he still had his sense of humor. We talked and laughed for an hour. When we were getting ready to leave he asked me if I could help him back to his room. He wasn’t used to his walker and needed someone to take him by the arm and steady his balance. I was honored to help him.
The stroke rendered his right leg almost useless and Stan would take a step with his left leg then drag the right around in front of him. Just as we neared his room, his right foot caught the back of his left heel and he tumbled to the floor. Stan was a big guy and I couldn’t stop his fall. I let him down as easy as I could and ended up almost on top of him, my face right at his left ear. I said the first thing that came to my mind. "That’s what you get for throwing me in the lake you old goat."
We were both laughing so hard it took three nurses to get us off the floor. That comment brought him so much joy he told anyone that would listen to him the whole story.
I’ll never forget Stan. He’s part of my history. His teaching methods came from the old school—get your feet wet—sink or swim. Some would call it crude but I can recall many occasions in later years when I made decisions based on the lesson I learned the afternoon Stan taught me to swim like a cat.
—Keep Smilin’, Dick E. Bird

Maggie May

If you look into your children’s eyes you will often see your ancestors. Such is the case with our daughter, Maggie. She resembles her great grandmother when she was eighteen nearly a hundred years ago. It was 1908 and millions of people were coming to America. Margaret (Maggie) Walsh from Tipperary, Ireland was one of those people. When my great grandfather said good-bye to his daughter he told her he knew in his heart that he would never see her again and indeed he never did. It was over sixty years before she returned home again. By that time everyone she had known had passed away except for her sister Hannah.
It is a little ironic that at the same age her great grandmother was when she came to America from Ireland, Maggie visited Ireland. It wasn’ t planned that way. My 85 year old mother always had a desire to visit her parent’s homeland but it just never seemed the right time for her. She lost her twin sister to cancer and days later found out that she too had lymphoma. It seems she had lost her whole generation in just a few short years—my father, her sisters and many close friends. One day she told our family, "If I beat this cancer I’m going to spend your inheritance and take all of you to Ireland." Being the tough little Irish woman she was, six months of treatments sent her into remission. We booked the trip and the whole clan was headed across the pond to invade Ireland and visit our roots.
Maggie even sang in the pubs. She has always had a beautiful voice and several years in a row won the local "Danny Boy" singing contest held on St. Patrick’s Day.
It wasn’t until we began to study old pictures and tried to discover more about the Walsh and O’ Connor side of our family that I began to see more and more of my grandmother in my daughter. She has the same sense of adventure it must have taken for my grandmother to leave Ireland in search of her new life in America. We used to call Grandma O’Connor, "Sweetheart Grandma," and Maggie seems to have that gene too. The reddish hair, fair complexion, quick smile and a twinkle in each ey e. She has that Irish sense of humor that just seems to spill out of her, and the compassion of a saint. If she ever cleaned her room she would be darned near perfect!
She is a grown woman now. It seems like such a short time ago she was in kindergarten sitting at the breakfast table ready to leave for school without a care in the world. It had been the Easter holiday followed by National Heritage week. She would be sharing her heritage with her class at school so we explained to her about her great grandma coming to America from Ireland. Before she started out the door we tested her, "Maggie, where did grandma O’Connor come from?" She paused and thought for a moment and then very confidently said, "She arose from the dead." I said, "We’re a great family, but we aren’t that great!"
One of the stories my grandmother would tell us was about a young man she dated before she left Ireland. John Scanlon was a groundskeeper at Lismore Castle and took her dancing there just before she left for America. Her stories are the only clues we have of where she might have lived. She actually inherited the family farm when she was nearly 100 years old. She was the last surviving of thirteen children. She had a nephew who was a retired Judge in Utica, NY who helped her sell the farm and settle the estate. She used some of the money to make sure everyone of her family in Ireland had a proper headstone. Everyone has small pieces of information about the family but the world was a much larger place at that time. Communications were slow and families who came to America were often fragmented. Centuries of family history has been lost. But what did it really matter. Part of our adventure was to visit County Tipperary where Maggie Walsh was raised and County Cork where my grandfather, Micheal O’Connor was raised and use our imagination as to how these two, who grew up so close to one another, moved halfway around the world to meet and fall in love.
As for our Maggie. I’m not planning on any good-byes. No matter where her life’s adventures take her, travel time has been reduced to hours not weeks.
—Keep Smilin’, Dick E. Bird

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