Good Meals

A balanced meal: an oatmeal chocolate chip cookie in each hand.
Seriously!
Ya ga chur carbs.
Ya ga chur protein.
Ya ga chur whole grain.
Ya ga chur fat.
Ya ga chur sugar.
Ya ga chur chocolate.
And yur dessert is included.

Now, triple size it, add a pint of milk, and you've ga churself a "Happy Meal."

Enjoy!

My First Big REAL Driving Test

This will recount an adventure which was not intended as an adventure, and of which there was nothing fun, nothing pleasant, nothing good, except the result and the experience gained.

I obtained a learner's permit at age 15 1/2, scored above 90 on the written test, then failed the driving test shortly after my sixteenth birthday. After about two and a half additional months, I passed and was officially licensed to drive solo in December of 1963.

In February, 1964, I needed to go to OU on a Saturday for All-State band and orchestra auditions. Dad and Mom had said that I could take the family car. When I awoke before sunrise, I looked out the window and saw that ice was on the yard and street. With all the bravado and ignorance of a sixteen year old, I very, very, very quietly dressed, opened, and closed the door. This was my first big chance to drive by myself further than to the store, but if my parents saw the road conditions, it would not happen. I made my great escape, only to learn later that the ice was not confined to Tulsa. Rather, a sheet covered the whole state. It must have been a complete meteorological surprise, because Dad watched weather reports religiously.

I crept along ever so slowly and got to the turnpike thinking that it would be in better shape, but, alas, twas not so. Back then, the shoulder on the turnpike was composed of chat [extremely small gravel]. The ice was solid, but thin. So I drove with the passenger-side tires on the shoulder, hoping to get a modicum of traction. Still, the maximum speed at which I felt somewhat comfortable was about 15-20 mph, and that required my full concentration. I got so irritated when cars with Ohio or Michigan tags would pass me, going along in the middle of the road, traveling, probably, 35-50 mph, without any slipping or sliding. It wasn't until later that I realized there were a number of factors involved: many more years of driving experience; experience driving in icy conditions; tires more suited for driving on ice; full sized, heavier cars. Our car was a Ford Falcon; one of the first compact cars. Nevertheless, I lost control only once during the entire trip. I was going downhill and did about a 210 degree spin, coming to rest with the rear bumper against a guard rail. Thankfully, there was no damage to the car [nor to the guard rail].

About a quarter of the way along on the trip, the radio antenna snapped off. That was a major catastrophe; not to the car, but, potentially, to my sanity. So for the balance of the journey, I was forced to entertain myself by making up melodies and using stream of consciousness to supply the lyrics; e.g., "Hello, Mr. cow. You sure look cold. How do you like your iced grass? Burma Shave signs, where are you when I need you? Mr. man from Ohio, that is one fine looking Oldsmobile. Hey, ho, solid ice, you have my hands gripping the wheel like a vise."

Due to the warming of the day and increased traffic flow, the ice finally changed to slush just south of Oklahoma City, and I ultimately got to Norman, and was awarded the slot of tuba player in the 1964 Oklahoma All-State Orchestra. What should have been about a two hour drive took well over five hours. It was a harrowing experience, but it did serve me well later in life.

Be Wise

If you have a headache, follow the directions on the aspirin bottle. Take two, and keep away from children.

Miracle or Big Fat Lie?

Today I observed a truck driving along the highway. On its bed was a large tank. On the tank, in large print, was the following message:

CONTENTS
NON
PORTABLE
WATER

Adventure in the Best Car Purchase I Ever Made

In the spring semester of my freshman year at Abilene Christian, I was recruited by a sophomore to be a part of his team that summer selling Bibles for the Southwestern Company. He drove a new Corvette which he had purportedly purchased with his earnings from the previous summer.

In June, we spent a week in Nashville for sales training. Then we went to our assigned location of Dothan, AL. Today, Dothan is a thriving small city, but in 1966, it was a poor, small Southern town. After spending a lackluster week working the neighborhoods in town, our manager decided the pickings might be easier if we worked in the countryside surrounding the town. So I found myself walking up to houses with dirt lawns, rips in screen doors, dogs lying around the yard, and mamas in soiled simple dresses rocking babies on the porch, shooing away flies, while toddlers played nearby with broken or no toys. After a while, it got to me and I began to think, "Who am I, and what am I doing trying to sell a $30 Bible [in 1966 dollars] to someone who might not know if they're going to have food on the table next week?"

We were living in a motel in Dothan. One morning after breakfast, the rest of the team went off to work. I went back to our room, watched the Art Linkletter show on TV, then packed my car with the book inventory for which I had prepaid and my personal possessions, then hit the road. I don't remember my excuse for not telling my manager that I was leaving. Perhaps I was afraid he would talk me out of it.

I had made friends with a couple of juniors who lived across the hall in my dorm. One of them was from Galveston. I needed a job for the rest of the summer and thought that would be a neat place to work, so I headed West.

I picked up a hitchhiker who turned out to be good company. [I just had a mind flash that his name might have been Frank, so that's what I'll call him throughout.] His story was that he had been a moving van driver from Texas. He had taken a load to Florida and after he ruptured himself while unloading, they fired him without pay. So he was just trying to get home. Frank taught me, when meeting traffic on a two lane road at night, to look at the right hand shoulder. You can watch for irregular movement from the vehicle coming toward you with peripheral vision, but save your eyes from temporary blindness.

There was no I-10 then. I took US-90 across Mississippi. For miles and miles it goes right along the coastline. It was a beautiful drive. In many places, there was enough light that it reflected off the whitecaps in the Gulf. Somewhere in Louisiana, one of my bald tires went flat. The mosquitoes were so thick that while I was changing the tire, I could slowly move my arm through the air and feel them hitting against it. [As I've said before, adventures are not 100% good experiences.] In the next town we came to, I found a tire shop and bought another bald tire for $5 so I would have a spare. We needed to eat. Frank had no money and I had very little. I stopped at a country store and bought a package of bologna, a loaf of french bread, and two Coca-Colas. As I drove, he would hand me a slice of bologna, then break off a hunk of bread. Even without dessert, it was a good meal. The next morning, I dropped Frank off in Houston and went on down to Galveston.

The title says the best car purchase I ever made. It does not say the best car I ever purchased. There is a big difference and, as I continue, I think you will understand why I say it's the best car purchase I ever made.

I had ridden from Nashville to Dothan with my manager and for the first few days in the field, he would drop me off in the morning and pick me up in the afternoon. I desired more independence. I went to a used car lot where I found a '57 Plymouth for $75. That was 50% more than I had paid for my first car, a '47 Chevy, two years earlier. The Plymouth had four bald tires, but no dents, no rust, was not an oil burner, and the interior was decent. My plan was to drive it around Dothan, then sell it at the end of the summer and buy a new car with the fortune I was going to make. As we've already discovered, it didn't work out that way.

I drove that car from Dothan to Galveston, to Houston and back to Galveston. I was unable to find a job in either of those places. I went to Dallas and drove around there for about a week seeking work, again unsuccessfully. The end of July was nearing and I hadn't earned any money. I finally swallowed my pride and drove back to Tulsa where I was able to work through August as a janitor for the company where my Dad worked. Of course I drove it around town and made a trip to Dallas and back for a wedding. Then I drove it to Abilene in September and continued drive it for a few weeks before it died. Even in 1966 dollars, I think I got more than my $75's worth.

Good Words

I'll admit it. I'm an unabashed, unrepentant logophile. I love various words for sundry reasons: some because of the way they look, some because of the way they sound, and some because they flow, to paraphrase Prince Hamlet, trippingly off the tongue. Allow me to give some examples. I would be hard pressed to cite a prettier looking word than miasma. Other attractive looking words are scimitar, xenophobic, xylophone, xylem, zeppelin, and zephyr. Do you think there is something about X and Y that I like? A sampling of words which have a sweet sound to me includes enigma, protocol, aplomb, etui, myopia, myopic, eclectic [lots of clicking], cabal, hombre, spilt [not split {think of milk}], hewn, and its more crass cousin sawn, tryst, abbesses [lots of hissing], torque. Exemplars of words which flow trippingly off the tongue are chicanery, loquacious, sychophancy, pizzicato, and ubiquitous. Some words, such as chic and abyss, delight both eye and ear.

There are some words which sound like their meaning. Prime examples would be abut and scofflaw. [Don't you just love that one? Its beauty is in its usefulness.] Others in this catagory include redundancy, angst [don't you begin to feel uneasy just looking at the word?], exacerbate, and crap [not as an expletive, but as a descriptive noun]. In fact, if you think of a cow patty hitting the ground in a pasture on a warm summer afternoon, the last one almost becomes an onomatopoeia.

At least one word, fjord, is in a category all by itself. Can you believe the audacity of using a minor consonant as a vowel? A word you might expect to be on my list is rhythm. But, alas, I cannot call it a good word, because more than fifty years after meeting it, I still cannot consistently remember how to spell it. And for someone who is a good speller, that's a little bit embarrassing.

My favorite word of all time is one that has no known meaning. It is Biafra. It was the name of a country from 1967 into 1970, which, similar to the Confederate States of America, seceded from and lost a civil war to Nigeria. Before, during and after the country existed, the Bight of Biafra is the curve in the coast including Nigeria and Cameroon, and the bay formed by same. And whether you pronounce the first "a" as in after or as in father, I like it equally well.

This is by no means an exhaustive list. I will think of others, as will you. It is, rather, a glimpse for you into the way my twisted mind works.

Oh, I almost forgot a good word - chocolate. Well, okay, there is nothing special about the word, but what it stands for certainly is super special.

But Not Three Hair Cuts in Two Days

This occurred at the end of the trip which began in the previous posting. I'll begin with some background information.

The year was 1970. Back in the world, hairstyles were getting longer. The Captain of USNAVMAGGUAM made us wear our hair as closely cropped on the sides as U.S. Marines. Other Naval bases and the U.S. Air Force base on Guam held with traditional military hair cuts. And then, there were the SeaBees. They were allowed to have hair that could blend in with the civilian population.

I certainly did not want to come back to the world for emergency leave with the boot camp style hair which was required at my duty station. Therefore, a few days before my scheduled departure, I began preparing by shunning a hair cut and allowing mutton chops to begin growing on my face. I managed to avoid any Officers or superior NCOs who would make me shave and cut before leaving. I saw my grandma and she was so weak and emaciated that I questioned my decision. Perhaps it would have been better to remember her only as the strong, vibrant woman I had known for more than 20 years. Be that as it may, I had to go back to the NAVMAG.

By then, the white sidewalls above my ears had filled in, and I had about 10-12 days growth on my mutton chops. To fly military standby, I had to be in uniform. I knew that anywhere along the way I might catch some flak about the chops. I caught a flight from Tinker AFB in Oklahoma to El Toro Marine Corps Air Station in California and another from there to Norton AFB, CA. Then I was able to get on a plane to Okinawa. It sat down near Tokyo for about an hour, probably to refuel. I was able to go out into the yard while there so that I could say my feet touched Japanese soil. But it was shortly after arrival in Okinawa that I hit the wall. When I went to check availability for the next leg of my journey, the E-5 Air Force sergeant who was manning the desk said he could get me on a flight to Guam, but only if I had a shave and hair cut when I checked in. I found a barber shop, got the shave and a standard military haircut. I knew it was not short enough for NAVMAG protocol, but a cut at a military barber shop was so cheap [I think it was $0.75] that it was worth it to have a few more hours without looking like a lifer. I got back to my base and went to the barber shop there for a NAVMAG peel.

When I went to work the next morning, the Chief Petty Officer who conducted muster decided to hold a military inspection. Can you guess what he said to me? Yes indeed, he told me to get a hair cut. Well, that was just too much. Internally, I blew a gasket. Externally, I remained calm and said that I had gotten one at our shop only the day before and would not get another so soon. He said that if I didn't, he would put me on report. I told him, if he must, he should; and he did. The next step was for the lieutenant who was in charge of the Mine Division to "try to talk some sense into me." I continued steadfast in my decision. He then referred the matter to the Captain's office. I was scheduled for a Captain's Mast, which is a non-judicial disciplinary hearing. [The Army and the Air Force call it an Article 15 hearing.] Given that it was the Captain's pet campaign against which I was making my stand, it was probably extremely fortuitous that he was away at the time. The mast was conducted by the Executive Officer [XO]. He gave me a six month suspended bust. That means, if I got in trouble within the following six months, I would have been lowered one rank. Had that happened, my pay would have been reduced and I would no longer have been a non-commissioned officer. But it did not because I was not a troublemaker. For attestation, I offer below a quotation from my semi-annual Enlisted Performance Evaluation which was submitted about three months after the occurrence. Further proof is that, as a Third Class Petty Officer, I was chosen to be supervisor of Supply Branch of Mine Division, a position usually filled by a First Class Petty Officer.
From Enlisted Performance Evaluation dated 16 Oct 70:
"MN3 BENDER is a high achiever and approaches his duties with enthusiasm. He constantly strives for knowledge in his rate and to complete tasks quickly and efficiently. He has proven himself effective and efficient in all branches of Mine Division. His ideas are usually sound and he approaches problems in a logical manner in order to complete them in a minimum of time. During this evaluation period BENDER received one C.O.'s Mast for disobeying a direct order; however, after counseling on the circumstances leading to the Mast he has reconciled the matter as a learning experience containing value. BENDER is a conscientious and forceful leader who leads through mutual respect with his subordinates. MN3 BENDER's military appearance is above average and he has a friendly disposition."

I held no bad feelings toward my lieutenant or the XO. They did what they had to do. Besides, I could have stopped the process at anytime along the way by buckling. But sometimes ya just gotta take a stand. I did, however, resent the Captain for creating the atmosphere which spawned the incident. For the record, I don't recall ever stating to anyone that I viewed it as a learning experience containing value. I suppose it is possible that someone proffered the notion and I simply did not disagree.

Two Sunrises in a Single Morn

In 1970, I was stationed at the Naval Magazine, in Guam (USNAVMAGGUAM). My Grandma Pearlie was dying of pancreatic cancer. I wanted to see her before she died, so I requested and was granted emergency leave. I flew on a military standby basis. That was kind of like registered hitchhiking on a space available basis. I caught a flight from Guam to Hickam Field, which is located between Honolulu and Pearl Harbor. I got my name on a list for a flight to North America, then waited. It was a very long wait, but about 0430 I was told that they could get me onto an EC135 which was going to Offutt AFB, near Omaha, NE. I had lost a lot of time in the long wait, so to be able to get so close to home in a single flight was a Godsend.

The 135 designation was applied by the U.S. Air Force to the Boeing 707 body. The KC135 was pretty well known during the Vietnam Era as a cargo carrier. The EC135 was cram packed with so much electronics equipment that there was room for only seven of us beyond a small crew. The advantage was that we were able to move pretty freely around the plane without getting in anyone's way.

The first sunrise took place shortly before we boarded. Before takeoff, the pilot told us that because there were so few of us, we could come into the cockpit, one at a time, after we were well underway. When the plane achieved cruising altitude, we were above a pure white cloud deck, the top of which looked like moguls in the snow for as far as the eye could see in all directions. After a while, I went forward for my visit to the cockpit. It was summer. We were flying in an ENEasterly direction. They gave me a verbal tour of the small, crowded area, and as I stood behind the pilot looking directly out of the front windshield, a golden arc came peeking above the clouds and continued to grow until I witnessed a second full sunrise, less than two hours after the first.

I regret that this narrative can convey only the uniqueness, but not the emotion of the event.

Boomer Sooner

I grew up in Tulsa. After reaching adulthood, wherever I traveled or lived, Tulsa was always home. That was, until I moved to Florida. I have grown to like both Gator and Seminole football. However, just so that no one could accuse me of waiting to see the outcome, I wanted the time stamp to reflect that , before the game began, I declared that tonight I will be donning the Crimson and Cream of OU.
Go Sooners !!!