Petit Jean State Park, Arkansas, U.S.

Scanning more slides, I've recently scanned a batch I took on a visit to Petit Jean State Park, in Arkansas. It was Arkansas's first State Park, and is in Northwest Arkansas.

This would have been in 1983, and I went with Lovely Fiance and her family.

Petit Jean is an interesting story about a real person. (I almost wrote 'real live person', but Petit Jean has been dead, lo these many years.)

This first one is from an overlook on top of Petit Jean Mountain, looking over the Arkansas River.

Lovely Fiance, showing again, she's not afraid of getting close to the edge.

This is Petit Jean's grave, right close to the overlook in the above photos. It's where she requested to be buried.

This is way down at the base of the Petit Jean Mountain, after hiking down one heckuva trail. But seeing Cedar Creek and the beautiful forest was worth the effort. Plus, I was only 20 then and still thought I was superman. (except for getting close to the edges of cliffs)

This is Cedar Falls, the final destination of the difficult trek over a couple of miles of rough terrain. This is one beautiful place.
If you haven't already done so, go back up and click the Petit Jean link I put up there. It' is truly an interesting story about a courageous woman.

Go on, git!

I Complained That I Had No Shoes...

Until I met someone who had no feet.

It's an old saying. And as an adult I have always tried to realize that, no matter what I'm going through, someone else has it tougher. And that they are handling it better than me to boot.

I have encountered people over the years, who, although they have it tough, just seem to handle the problems of life with inspirational doses of grace and peace. Much more than I seem to be able to muster anyway.

One person whom I met years ago, once, has stuck with me.

I never even knew this man's name.

I had just finished my final, final exam of one quarter of engineering school at the time. (Louisiana Tech was on the quarter system, not semesters, I think it still is.)

[Aside: I don't talk about this much, because I always felt it was bragging, but I want to help you understand my frame of mind at the time, ok? Engineering school is hard. I only had a couple of easy classes the whole time there, and in geography class one day, before the teacher arrived, truly half the class was complaining that next quarter, they were going to have to have one, sometimes two classes that were hard. Whine, whine, whine. That quarter I was in geography, I also took the second calculus based Physics with it's lab, Differential Equations (basically the final calculus), and Linear Algebra. My next quarter was going to be much the same, so I had no sympathy for someone who was going to have to take college algebra AND English along with their art appreciation and philosophy class.]

Anyway, my last final that quarter was one of my electrical engineering classes.

Dr. Irby taught us out of one EE textbook, but used another one to find his problems he would give us on tests. This made his tests quite difficult. First, using this other book (he did this in all his classes) meant that the problems would be somewhat different than all the homework we had done. It was kind of like learning Cajun French and then having a test on Parisian French. But, it was easier on him to just copy some problems out of another text than to create ones more like the homework we had all quarter.

At any rate, studying for his tests was a nightmare. You just never knew what you were going to get. He ALWAYS ended up grading on a curve, because invariably, when he worked the test himself to generate a test key with which to grade our tests, he found that one or more problems needed skills that didn't quite line up the exact same skills he had been teaching to that point.

So walking out of that test, and heading to my truck to go home for a glorious, almost two week break, was a natural high. Pass or fail, A or B, the classes were over and done with. Like heading home on a Friday when you have the next week as vacation. The sun is a little brighter, the bird's songs are beautiful, and the grass is so, so green. Know what I mean?

I'm walking across campus to my truck, although I'm not sure if my feet were touching the ground, and I can still picture the warm sunny day.

I headed from Nethken Hall (the electrical engineering building) toward the southwest side of the Louisiana Tech campus where I had found parking that morning.

I cut through an area of dormitory buildings on the southern edge of the campus, and specifically across their parking areas.

I'm enjoying the ride up there on cloud nine when I hear a man say, "Excuse me, sir. Could you help me?"

The voice is close by but A.) I was jerked out of my reverie and back to earth and was a bit disoriented, and B.) I couldn't see anyone.

I made a complete 180 on the sidewalk, and saw that the man talking to me was kind of hidden behind the open front passenger door of his white, full-sized, conversion van.

When I made eye contact, he said, "Could you pick this up for me please? I can't quite reach it."

I looked right in front of him and saw a jacket on the asphalt just in front of him.

The man asking for my help was a dwarf. He was also paraplegic and in a customized wheel chair. He had use of his arms and hands, but not his feet.

Such a simple thing as dropping an article of clothing, and he had to ask for help.

I said, "Of course." and picked up and handed him his jacket and asked if there was anything else I could help him with.

"Nope. That's the last thing, I'm heading home for the break."

He had been putting a few last things into the passenger front seat area of his van, and I could now see that the van had no driver's seat. It also was configured for hand controls of brakes and such, and that it contained a wheel chair lift. He could drive his chair inside the van into the driver's area, lock his wheelchair down, and drive himself.

I wished him a good day and a good trip and continued on my way to my truck. The total elapsed time could have only been about 30 seconds with this guy.

But as I continued on, I was mentally JERKED into another frame of mind.

Here I was, euphoric over having finished such a difficult quarter, and looking forward to the break, when I encountered a man whose life was much different than mine.

I got to thinking about him. He was handicapped, but he was also a dorm room living, full time university student.

How much determination and dedication does it take for someone in his position to go against the grain like that?

I don't know what services were available to someone in his situation, but within seconds of walking away from him, I knew that I would always remember this man.

As I said, I never even knew his name, but I can still picture him. I can also remember thanking God for letting me be there to do that simple task for him that he could not. Just knowing how much more difficult university life must have been for him than it was for me on a physical level made me file a memory of him away.

I did not feel sorry for him in any way. I admired him then, and I still admire him now.

How many times in the ten years since have I wondered about him and thought of him when things in my own life seemed so difficult?

As often as I think of him, I pray for him, something I learned to do about everyone who pops into my mind for any reason.

I pray he's having a good life.

He has no idea that this moment, years ago, has inspired me to repeatedly pick myself up spiritually, mentally, and physically when I thought I was down for the count.

No matter how tough I have it at times, there's always someone in a tougher position, and they are succeeding with their determination and inner strength.

Being reminded of this man, helps me counter the inertia in my life in various areas where I'm either heading the wrong way, or just can't get started.

---

Sorry to be later than usual in getting my post up. Today is my every other Friday off Friday, and I slept until 11:00am.

Thursday Thirteen #10

13 Movies I Have Watched Repeatedly (my obligatory Movie T13) These aren't all of my favorites, just the ones I can think of off the top of my head that are my go to movies when I'm in the mood to see a movie but aren't sure which to watch, and am willing to watch something I've already seen. 1. Local Hero (1983). A big shot corporate buyout guy is sent to buy a small town in Scotland. It's a really low key comedy where a guy who has everything, a porsche, etc., realizes the folly of his ways. It's low key, British type humor. This is definitely one of my top 5 all-time movies. 2. Chariots Of Fire (1981). Lovely Wife and I went to see this on one of our first dates. But the movie, even after all these years is amazing. It seems like the pace of the movie is slow, it's so quiet and gentle, but still keeps me glued to the screen. It's the true story of the 1924 Paris Olympics, told from the point of view of one of the minor participants. If I could only see one movie ever again, it would most likely be this one. 3. Stargate (1994). I am by no means a huge fan of sci-fi, but this movie was right down my alley. I had wanted to see it in the theater, but ended up not seeing it until it came out on video. It's the first movie I ever sat and watched for the first time, and then turned right around and watched it over again right away. It's a cross between 'gotta follow the clues' type mystery movies, plus regular sci-fi. Egyptologist Daniel Jackson (James Spader) is all alone among his peers in believing that ancient Egypt, and possibly the whole human race, was started by aliens. He finds out the hard way he was right. Excellent filming and a story that just pulls you in. 4. A Christmas Carol (1999). Either ya like Dickens, or ya don't. I do. I love his books. This movie version with Patrick Stewart as E. Scrooge, and made by TNT is one of my all time favorites as well. It's really gritty and totally true to the Dickens book, to the point of many lines being verbatim from the book. I usually end up watching this 2 or 3 times in the run-up to Christmas every year, and usually once or twice in the summer to boot. If you have netflix, try out this version. I absolutely love it. 5. Contact (1997). I said I'm not a huge sci-fi fan, but here's yet another one on my list. I thought the movie was way, way better than the book, but the movie was different enough for me to really like it. Carl Sagan, who wrote the book, had, as a part of the antagonism to advancing science, characters who were supposedly Christians, but they were all hopelessly two dimensional and petty in the book. In the movie, they still are, but aren't as big a part of the movie as the book. The story: a life long stargazer, Jodie Foster, whose folly of using radio telecsope time to listen for alien messages, is rewarded by hearing and recognizing the earth's first alien contact, via an audio/video message. The message leads the entire world on a rush to build a contraption whose design is sent by the aliens. It ends up being a movie about faith, of all things. I couldn't help but love it and watch it again from time to time. 6. Raiders Of The Lost Ark (1981). No explanation should be required. It was fresh, new, and unique and I've always loved it. 7. Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade (1989). After the sorry affair of Temple Of Doom, the bar was raised back up high with Sean Connery as Indiana's father. 8. Peter Pan (1953). This Disney animated movie is by far my favorite Disney movie. It still seems dreamy and magical to me. 9. Star Wars (1977). Glenn B. and I rode our bikes to the closest theater to see this in 1977. Although I liked the next two almost as much, you can't beat the originality and surprise of this first one. 10. It's A Wonderful Life (1946). What can I say, I'm a sucker for stories in which ordinary people examine their lives and decide to make a change. 11. Cast Away (2000). A modern day Robinson Crusoe without the slavery. Just one man and his wits on a deserted island. As kid I used to fantasize about what it would be like to be the last person on the planet. This was a pretty close theme to that. 12. Phenomenon (1996). John Ravolting as a man who somehow gains amazing mental abilities and his impact on his community. A surprise movie. I remember walking out of the theater in deep thought about my life. The movie seemed to move in one direction that I thought I knew what was coming, then it flipped around to something SO surprising to me. But I love that 'live your life to the fullest' theme it has. 13. The Passion Of The Christ (2004). Ok, this is stretching it, because I've only seen it twice. But that first time, in the theater, I cried like a baby. Covers the final 12 hours of Jesus's life, and the resurrection three days later. I tell you, no other movie has touched me so profoundly. 'Nuff said. Plus, I'm due another watch of this one. Yeah, there's more sci-fi in there than I would have thought, but that's ok. I could have made this list way bigger. Lucky for you this was a Thursday Thirteen. You can see I like action, adventure, following clues, and meaningful introspection. Oh, yeah, and laser beams and explosions too. The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

At The Risk Of Sounding Like An Old Man...

I guess that the years that I worked for Delta Airlines has left me with a lifetime of stories.

Each individual who worked the ramp in any way, baggage handler, bringing U.S. Mail to and from the mail room, etc., worked their shift for six months. And then everyone would bid for the best shift/days off their seniority would afford them, and that was their schedule for the next six months.

And, for example, there were something like 1600 ramp workers for Delta in Atlanta in 1992. Working at a job with that many people, you're just bound to end up working with a lot of interesting characters.

But when we first moved to the Dallas area in 1986, and I started working for Delta (again), I was, as all new hires were at the time, a temporary, part-time employee.

Basically this meant that I could only bid on shifts of less than 8 hours. I might end up actually working 60 hours per week because of how busy we were, but officially, I was temporary, part-time.

This allowed Delta to pay us a low wage with absolutely no benefits.

But I went into the job with my eyes wide open, and knew that. I'm not complaining at all. That's the situation I signed up for, and I dealt with it.

But us TPTs, as we were referred to, ended up not only doing regular ramp work, but every kind of 'scut' work the supervisors could imagine. I'm just thankful that most of the supervisors I worked under were decent, and that the ones who were morons/horse's behinds were for the most part unimaginative.

For example, the thing I remember as being the most menial, ridiculous task I was ordered to do, was to, on a 30 degree (F) day of misting rain and sleet, go out and fill 50lb sand bags, and then to retie the tops of all the ones that were loosened. Needless to say, within minutes my hands were hurting me miserably, because it proved impossible to undo and re-tie wet cotton strings with my leather work gloves on. I just did as many as I could until my next flight I was supposed to unload came in. But I was miserable enough to still have that at the top of my "worthless menial task" list.

Working at DFW airport (Hartsfield in Atlanta, too) was a learning experience for me. See, Delta was the only airline whose employees were not in a labor union. The pilots always have been, but the ramp rats like me, as well as the flight attendants, were not.

The result was, that whatever I was told to do, however dumb it seemed, I had to at least attempt.

Also, Delta's old timers were a crotchety bunch of guys, and if a supervisor told them to do something like that, they would refuse, and say, "That's what the TPTs are for."

If it was a nasty job, us TPTs were the cannon fodder sent to the front.

But, like I said, I went into the job with my eyes open. I didn't mind most things, because nothing was worse than sitting around one of the ramp worker's break rooms in the days of indoor smoking. Half a dozen smokers could make the large break room miserable for the other 70 or so guys in there, if you can remember the bad old days.

And a lot of the old timers resented us, though I was never able to truly work out just why that was so. Most of those guys appreciated having young, strong men around to do the really heavy stuff, but some, well, you just couldn't please them in any way. With all of Delta's troubles of late, I wonder how these older guys are fairing with their retirement. Seems like most companies who declare bankruptcy these days almost immediately seek to drop the burden of the retirement incomes of those who have retired. Oh well.

The bottom line, for us temporary part-timers, was that we wanted a good work record so that we could become permanent full-time employees. In my case, I was a TPT for about 20 months.

I did lots of grunt work during that 20 months, but then again, I was young and strong. This was way before my first back surgery.

My almost-44 year old bones shutter to think about doing the physical work I did with ease twenty years ago. I felt ten feet tall and bullet proof back then.

And though age and some physical problems have humbled me the past few years, I'm not ready for the grave just yet.

I'm grateful for what health I do have. I have a sorry back, but both knees and shoulders are intact. And I succeeded in learning the difficult things taught in engineering school, while in my thirties, so I know an old dog can learn new tricks. I guess my brain still functions.

I didn't really have a point to all of this, and therefore no clever ending.

I just think a lot about all those men and women I worked with during my tenure with Delta. It's kinda like thinking about high school and wondering how/where everyone is now.

Sometimes I guess I need to think about the things I've been through to remind me that I can also make it through what things I'm now going through.

This too shall pass.

Immigrant Song / Circuit Card Test

Yesterday, when I was coming home from work, the sun had just gone down and the sky was this blueish purple that I've only ever seen near the ocean.

It is such a pretty and relaxing thing to me, to see the sky like that.

And although it's still getting into the upper 80's (F) every day, the mornings and evenings are beyond perfect.

So I was driving home with the windows down. I was listening to a CD, but wanted to hear one of the other ones that I didn't have in the car with me. So I turned on the radio, and flip around, trying to find something to match the pleasant mood that the beautiful evening induced.

We have a smooth jazz station here, but the jazz they play is the more up tempo, complicated stuff that makes my blood pressure rise instead of the more mellow relaxing smoother smooth jazz. So that didn't work.

I finally turned on a rock station, right at the beginning of Immigrant Song by Led Zeppelin.

Though it's loud and fast, it was the perfect song for cruising down I-95 on a stupendously beautiful Florida evening.

Rock On!

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Have you ever had one of those days, where you really, really cannot trust yourself?

First, this is the first time in quite a while where I didn't post early in the morning, so I'm doing it at lunch like I did when I first started my blog.

And to give you an example of what I'm talking about:

I'm trying to test a circuit card this morning. I have to use a UNIX machine to do it. I'm using a particular program on this UNIX computer to do a certain test. One of the commands I have to enter into the program on this UNIX computer is "BERResult4 150000".

Now the thing about this is that each portion of the test takes about 10 minutes to run. So when I type BERResult4 150000 and hit enter, the test starts. If I screw up that command slightly, however, the whole test setup just goes off into the weeds somewhere and it takes a while to restart everything and get back to where I was.

All of that is to say this, I'm in the habit now, of pausing for a few seconds before I enter whatever command, to make sure it's right. This saves me a lot of time and frustration in the course of a day.

But today, several times, I've typed in things like: "the BERResult4 150000". That simple "the" that I added there would hose things up to where I would lose about 10 minutes just getting everything set back up.

I've caught myself making almost-mistakes like that all morning.

I'm just having one of THOSE days.

Is it time to go to bed yet?

It's A Wonder She Can Walk

When I was around 7-8 years old, we lived in a little town in Louisiana called Vidalia. It's on the Louisiana side of the Mississippi river across from Natchez, Mississippi.

We lived in a corner house on Charles Street across from Calvary Baptist Church.

The house had a big yard, especially on the side against the intersection of Charles and... well, I don't really remember the name of the intersecting street there. Hey, I was only 8, give me a break. It's not important anyway. (Big Brother would have been about 10, and Big Sis about 13.)

Big Brother was about 2.5 years older than me, but way bigger and stronger. So he got pretty bored playing games like football with me.

One of the few games we could entice Big Sis to play with us was kickball. But that was an iffy proposition in itself. She didn't want to do it that often.

One day, Big Brother and I came up with a great idea. (Well, I say we because I took part in the scam, but I think Big Brother came up with it.)

We got the shovel, and went out to the side yard, and dug a hole where we normally laid something to mark first base in our games. The hole was narrow, but a couple of feet deep.

Then we carefully laid some pieces of cardboard or something to mark three bases and home plate. Oh yeah, and to hide the hole at first base.

Now, the hard part.

We had to talk Big Sis into playing a game of kick ball with us. Since we were going to play Big Brother and I against Big Sis, we had to spot her some points and let her kick first, to sweeten the deal enough that, A. she would even play, and B. that we could get her to kick first and enact our nefarious plan.

Now normally when you 'pitch' the kickball to a kicker, you roll the ball in such a way as to make it bounce just a widdle biddy bit, so that hopefully the kicker makes a bad kick that would favor you and your team.


But this time, due to the hole under first base, Big Brother rolled her a nice, smooth, slow ball.

BAM! She nails it.

We half heartedly move toward the ball, mainly watching as Big Sis approaches 1st base.

Bloop! Her right leg almost disappears.

She starts yelling.

Big Brother and I are dying with laughter.

Needless to say, Big Sis didn't want to play any further.

I can't even remember if we got in trouble for this prank, but I have to assume we did. I can't imagine we got away with it with no repercussions.

And as an adult, I marvel that we didn't ruin Big Sis's right knee. I think that what saved it was that, as she approached first, she slowed down really slow to see if she needed to stay there or if she had a chance to advance.

If she had had a killer instinct and tried to fly around first to see how far she could get, we probably would have ruined her leg.

Adults always caution kids by saying, it's funny until somebody gets hurt.

As adults Big Brother and I always laughed about this event, shaking our heads about how lucky Big Sis was not to have a life long limp.

We were able to laugh, because nobody got hurt.

Picture Post, Sunday October 7, 2006

Sebastian, Florida.


Sebastian, Florida. These squirrels were very tame. I can only assume they are well fed by park visitors, they come much closer than your average skittish squirrel.


This is the easy to miss dirt road that will take you to the Pelican Island National Wildlife Refuge, the America's first NWR. It's low key, but well worth the effort to find it. I wrote a post about Pelican Island a while back.


At Castaways Point Park in Palm Bay, Florida.


At Castaways Point Park in Palm Bay, Florida.


Also at Castaways Point Park in Palm Bay, Florida. This little memorial was hidden among some trees. No names. There are a lot of homeless people down here, and this park is out of the way and therefore one of their places to bed down at night. Though I actually have no idea who, or what kind of person is remembered here.