It was late October 1944. The end of World War II was still months away — May 8, 1945, marked V-E Day in Europe, and August 14, 1945 for V-J Day in the Pacific Front. According to the NOW newsletter I recently uploaded to the Portal to Texas History, R.G. LeTourneau, Inc. — then with plants in Peoria, Illinois, Vicksburg, Mississippi, Tournapull, Georgia and Stockton, California — had 2,161 employees in the armed services. The eight-page company newsletter went out to “everyone connected with R.G. LETOURNEAU, INC.” And anyone interested in subscribing could have copies mailed to them...
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I have survived the two online graduate courses begun in January at the University of North Texas, seeking a certificate in archival management under a grant the R.G. LeTourneau Archives received last year. It was touch-and-go for a time. The digital curation course in particular at times seemed akin to learning a new language. I would read the assignment and realize I had absolutely no idea what was required of me.
I learned how to create and compare checksums for example, which I never knew existed. A checksum is a digital identifier consisting of letters and numbers that is assigned to a dataset....
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Just outside the picture window nearest to my desk, a daylily planted a month or so ago is blooming. This variety keeps multiple blooms that last longer than the name implies. Uninvited but welcomed is a tiny daisy, a wildflower, which sprouted up in the middle of the daylily. It has white petals and a yellow button in its center. There are hundreds of these daisies growing along the hill heading down to Pancho’s Pond. We don't mow that hill, save for a swath creating a path down to the shop/gym. I will mow the hill after the first frost this fall turns the grass brown, and the flowers have wilted.
I...
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Things are beginning to pick up out here at Three Geese Farm. A major landscaping project is coming to an end. A local landscaper who works solo (message me for his contact information) has done the bulk of the work — first transplanting roses that dominated the front and east side of the house and creating a stone walkway in its place. People can actually get to the front door now without walking through the grass. Three different walkways in the backyard break up a boring rectangle of grass. At his suggestion, we have added a variety of plants suitable for our climate — azaleas, purple sage,...
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Irene goodnight, Irene goodnight
Goodnight Irene, Goodnight Irene
I’ll see you in my dreams
Huttie “Lead Belly” Ledbetter
Since I first heard this song as a child, I have never listened to it without thinking of Aunt Irene, one of my late mother’s younger sisters. Irene Kinosh was a constant presence in my childhood, growing up in New Hampshire. She was kind and funny, someone who delighted in her family, and loved the Red Sox. Later in life, after moving to Bristol, Connecticut, she became an avid fan of the UConn Huskies women’s basketball team as well.
My mother had five...
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Three years ago, at Easter, my Beautiful Mystery Companion and I sat down to a fancy lunch fashioned from frozen Christmas dinner leftovers. We propped an iPhone against the table’s centerpiece and watched famed tenor Andrea Bocelli perform Music for Hope along with an organist, in an empty cathedral in Milan, Italy. The streets were largely empty as well, in Milan and across the world. The COVID-19 pandemic had forced much of the world to shut down, including us, of course. We were fortunate enough to be able to work from home, to order groceries picked up curbside, to be sequestered in a beautiful...
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McMINNVILLE, OREGON – On a rainy late-winter morning, my buddy Glenn and I headed southwest from Portland to McMinnville, about 35 miles away. The town is roughly the size of Lufkin and is home to the Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum, three large buildings (one is a movie theater), across from the airport and surrounded by a vineyard. The museum was founded by Evergreen International Aviation, known mainly for commercial helicopter operations. The company went belly-up in 2013, but not before founding the museum about two decades earlier, in 1991. The following year, Evergreen won the bid to buy the Spruce...
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ALONG THE COLUMBIA RIVER GORGE – Forgive me for saying this, but this place is gorgeous! (Pun intended and likely not original.)
I first encountered the Columbia River in North Portland while wandering around with our buddy Glenn, while my Beautiful Mystery Companion and daughter Abbie took a Lyft to shop at a mall. We ended up crossing that wide river into Vancouver, Washington, searching in vain for a restroom in a driving rainstorm. We finally gave up looking in Vancouver and snuck into a McDonald’s on the Oregon side. It turns out my peeps were at the mall beside Mickey D’s, so we gave...
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PORTLAND, OREGON — We were hanging around the Saturday Market in Old Town Portland, vendors set up beneath one of the bridges that spans the Willamette (emphasis on the last two syllables, which rhyme with dammit) when a short scrawny fellow holding a soft drink cup began jawing with several security guards. He was highly agitated, screaming and cursing, jabbing his finger into the air. The guards, armed only with truncheons, calmly stood in front of him while he vented his rage. The subject matter of his ire was not readily apparent. Finally, he started walking across the one-way street into...
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We are now the proud owners of a cuckoo clock, a Valentine’s Day present to my Beautiful Mystery Companion from yours truly. We began talking about getting a cuckoo clock while in Germany just before Christmas but did not really look for one. As it turned out, daughter Mere and son-in-law Matt were headed to the Black Forest to spend Christmas right after we left. The Black Forest is in the southwestern part of Germany, near the French border. It has been the home of authentic cuckoo clocks since 1737, when Franz Ketterer, a clockmaker in Schönwald, in the Black Forest, built what is believed...
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