Dear Mr. President

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          Dear Mr. President
The President of the United States receives a ton of letters each day. It all began when Washington received just five letters a day, and he answered them all. And as time went on, later Presidents began to receive more and more letters. When McKinley became President he was being sent one hundred letters a day. It was just too much. And so the mailroom was born.

Franklin D. Roosevelt spoke to Americans on his radio "Fireside Chats" during the Great Depression. He urged people to write to him with their troubles. A half-million letters arrived the first week after his talk. The White House mail room became a fire hazard.

The Office of Presidential Correspondence called "O.P.C." by those who work there.
It consists of 50 staff members,36 interns and a rotating roster of 300 volunteers to keep up with about 10,000 letters and messages every day.

In the White House mailroom 10 young well-dressed young men and women interns would reach into the pile of letters and begin to read. Choosing which letters made it to President Obama. When President Obama came into office he wanted to read his mail. He said he would like to read 10 letters a day. These final 10 letters were put in a purple folder and added to the back of the briefing book he took with him to the residence on the second floor of the White House each night. He liked to read them after dinner. "Back from the OVAL" was what the stamp said on the letters Obama had read. They were returned in batches to O.P.C., and most had some kind of notation in the margins. Some letters he stewed over. Some letters he answered with his own hand.

Nixon refused to read anything bad said about him. Reagan answered dozens of letters on weekends. He enjoyed reading letters from kids. Clinton wanted to see a representative stack every few weeks. George W. Bush liked to get a pile of 10 already-answered letters on occasion.The question now is, what will President Trump do about the White House mail?
I am deeply in debt to Jeanne Marie Laskas  for her wonderful article "The Mailroom," in the New York times Magazine, January 22,2017

      Aloha
      Grant

Circus Era Ends

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              Circus Era Ends
This Spring will see the end of an era, with the closing of Ringling Brothers Circus. For 146 years, millions of Americans thrilled to the events of this circus, but times change and people's tastes change. In its heyday wire walkers, elephants, trapeze artists, were unique forms of entertainment. But not so today. Also, there are critics of animal treatment and housing.

The closing of the circus will put five hundred people out of work, and will require housing for them. Also, homes have to be found for all the animals. There is already a retirement home in Florida for the elephants. But what about the railroad cars that used to occupy over a mile of track? Homes on wheels, animal pens, not to mention foodstuffs for both people and animals. Maybe some European circus will buy these specialized cars.

I remember going to the Ringling Brothers
Circus when I was a kid living in Texas. The huge tent with something going on in  each of the three rings at the same time.It's a good memory.

There also were small carnivals to be found in the 1950's. One was located outside of my town for a week. Kids rushed to help unroll the heavy canvas tent and do other jobs in hopes of getting a free ticket. The carnival boss  also employed a few high school kids to work ticket booths. My job was at the ride called the "Loop a Plane." It consisted of a tall tower with an arm and a cab at each end,that would whirl the riders around  vertical at high speed. When there were no customers, a search of the area under the ride would often turn up a number of coins lost by riders.

One of the carnival workers used to hide his whiskey bottle in my booth, and he warned me to watch out for "spotters," men who would tell the boss. He taught me a couple of tricks.  First, when the customer, handed him his ticket he would make like he was tearing the ticket up and then return it to me to be resold. I don't remember if I participated in this activity or not. But I don't think I did. One other thing I learned was to slide the customer's change just slightly back under the booth's thick wood window which blocked the customer"s view of some coins.

Many years ago I read in a part of a book by John Steinbeck, in which  the character is also taught the same tricks I was taught. l

The era of the Ringling Brothers Circus is now history, and has been replaced by many small carnivals which travel across America. We have these carnivals even here in Hawaii.
    Aloha
    Grant

   

Packers

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              Packers
I never played football in school, because of a heart condition. But, I always was at   every game. Later, at the University of Michigan, there were some great football games. And now living here in Hawaii, due to the time difference,we can watch games at breakfast, and have the rest of the day to do other things. But, don't get me wrong,we watch only important games. I am not a fanatic, and neither is my wife. This brings me to some football fanatics, the Green Bay Packers.

If you are a football fanatic, you may want to skip all the following information about the Green Bay Packers. You probably know about all this anyway. But for people who are only mildly interested in football, you will find this information very interesting.

The Packers were founded in 1919. Curly Lambeau, an outstanding player for Notre Dame, and George W. Calhoun, the sports editor of the Green Bay Press-Gazette, decided to form a football team. Lambda worked as a shipping clerk at the Indian Packing Company-hence the name of the new team. The Packers won ten games that first year. But it was difficult to find funds to keep the team solvent. In the end, aid came from stock sales, the first stock sale came in 1923. Shares were sold for $5.00 each, and required shareholders to buy six season tickets in order to see the bleachers filled.

Today the Packers are the only professional sports team in the United States that is owned by shareholders-363,948 of them representing 5,020,523 shares. I met a woman who was able to buy a single share for her husband's Christmas gift. It cost $250.  There are no dividends for shares, only bragging rights and a framed certificate proving that he is one of the team's 363,948 owners.

The only way to get tickets to a game at Lambeau Field is to inherit them. Tickets could not be transferred to anybody outside the ticket holder's immediate family. Nowadays, however, you can put your name on a waiting list-which currently numbers more than 81,000. The wait to get tickets is estimated to be around thirty years. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel wrote that the wait would be more like 955 years. Some couples, on having a baby, put the child's name on the list.

A couple of other facts about the Packers. When  a Packer scores a touchdown, it is expected that he will jump into the stands.  In this way, the leap is a symbolic embrace of the team with the crowd. Also, the Packer fans travel, and are to be found everywhere. We have them here in Honolulu at Snapper's bar, which is always filled to over-flowing for a Packer game.

All of the information for this brief story of the Packers came from a most wonderful essay by Austin Smith, in Harper's magazine.

     Aloha
     Grant

Scooter People

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            Scooter People

The Nevada desert on a December night was very cold, and silent. But here and there one could see small groups of people making their way to the blazing lights of a casino. The same way moths seek the light of a candle. Some arrive from nearby Arizona and California, where gambling is illegal.
Were they coming to the casino because they were tired of watching t.v., reading, or knitting? Or more likely,the promise of riches. We may never know for sure, but I suspect the latter motive.

Inside the casino I found something very disturbing. There were a number of very heavy people making their way through the crowds of people on their scooters. They seemed to me, to be somehow out of place. I feel sorry for anyone who has lost the movement of their legs, and are confined to a wheelchair. But, why should their disability prevent them from having some entertainment?

Their scooters made it so that they could reach and operate slot machines. I thought  that crap tables, black jack, and  other games of chance were out of their reach.

However,sometime later my pity for those heavy people, bound to their scooters evaporated. I saw a row of scooters parked outside a lounge, while their owners were inside stuffing their faces with free food and drink. I turned away in disgust. These scooter people were not as infirm as they pretended to be. But, I may be wrong, who knows?

     Aloha
     Grant

George's Story

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           George's Story

George is a large heavy-set man in his sixties, bald, with a fringe of gray hair. He is a retired Navy Chief Petty Officer. He and I have several things in common. We live in the same building, and we both are "Airdales," which is Navy slang for men who served in the aviation branch of the Navy. I like to kid him that for all his service, he never went to sea. We both are fond of books and reading. And there is one thing more. We are part of a loosely-held organization called ROMEO (retired old men eating out). We meet every Friday morning, and go together to a local restaurant for breakfast and conversation.

The guys had not seen him around for some time, then I learned he had at last gone to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. I had been bugging him for some time to go there for treatment. George had undergone knee replacement, and things had gone terribly wrong!! I know several people who have had this done, with somewhat satisfactory results. But this one is one for the books. Let me try and explain what had happened.

George was operated on both knees. One knee came out alright, but the second knee became infected. He underwent five operations on that knee!! He was given two bags of antibiotics six days a week, for two weeks.The wound refused to close, so a vacuum pump was attached to his knee. The wound closed at last, but then it began to drain. Is it any wonder that I urged him to go to the Mayo Clinic? Besides, I argued, he was from Minnesota and his daughter lived not far from the clinic.

And so, George had gone to the Mayo Clinic. I didn't have his cell phone number, but when I did get to speak to him, he said that his leg had been amputated!!

George had discussed with me that if it came to lose his leg he was ready, as he was miserable, and could not get around and do anything. With a new leg he would be more mobile.

I call him every so often for a progress report, so I can tell all the guys. George is in good spirits. He said that after the operation he had a phantom pain in his little toe after the leg was gone.

He is up and using a walker, and then trying the first of his new legs. But his stump had shrunken, and required shims to make a tighter fit.

His final new leg is manufactured in Austria, and contains a chip, which tells the wearer if the ground under foot is uneven or not. And he said that he has to plug the leg into an electric wall socket for charging. The cost of the leg is said to be fifty thousand dollars. Not many places are familiar with this Austrian-built leg, but George called around and found one. Guess where? On our island, at Tripler Hospital. How about that? He hopes to return sometime later this month, but he says there is a steep learning curve. I know he will master the use of his new leg. He is a tough old bird and one of the bravest men I have ever met.

      Aloha
      Grant
   
   

Bamboo

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                Bamboo

An interesting short article in our local paper told about a guy who had built a bamboo bicycle. Did I save the article? I did not, and spent a lot of time looking for it. Never did find it. Most unusual idea building the bike frame of bamboo, instead of metal. All he had to buy were the wheels,crank and chain.

This got me to thinking about bamboo, and its many uses. My first encounter with bamboo came when I was a kid living in San Marcos Texas. We cut our fishing poles from stands of green bamboo. When dry, the poles dried into the familiar yellow poles.

The cutting board in our kitchen is made of bamboo, and tag that came with it said that bamboo is twice as hard as maple. I like it.

I saw an ad for a speaker amplifier for smart phones. It consists of a section of bamboo, three inches thick, about twelve inches inches long. There is a nine inch slit in top in which to stand your phone, and amplify sound. Costs $25. a bit much, but you could always make your own, and save a lot.  

There is great interest lately in wood flooring for apartments in our building. Some people are replacing carpet for wood floors. There is a wide range of woods to choose from, and bamboo is very popular. People doing the change from carpet to wood floors have found that the wood floors cause noise,where carpet had soaked up the sound. Teena and I thought about changing from carpet to wood but rejected the wood, because of the sound problem, and carpet feels so very good on our bare feet. You never wear shoes indoors in private homes here in Hawaii.

Some other uses of bamboo came to mind. Bamboo scaffolding, used in the construction of buildings. Used in many parts of the East, but not here in Honolulu. Bridges and boats too. There is a lot of bamboo furniture sold here in the city.

There was once an Indonesian restaurant we loved to frequent,(alas no more) that served a sweet rice dessert in a section of bamboo.

I am also remained of a calypso song I knew while serving in the Navy. It was all about the "Big Bamboo." I'll let you figure out what the singer was saying. That's enough about bamboo.

     Aloha
     Grant

Let Us Spray

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            Let Us Spray

The use of pressurized cans to spray everything from hair products,insecticides, and cooking oils, plus many more,are widely  used and accepted. But it has not always been so. In the 1940's, before pressurized cans,it was still possible to spray. Let me illustrate.

It was sometime during my early elementary   school days, when a friend confided in me, that he knew where there was a skunk hole. This had to be investigated, and so we two skunk hunters left school, in search of our prey. We found the skunk hole as promised, and were sprayed for our effort. Punishment soon followed. Spankings by both of our mothers, and spankings at school for leaving the building.

But the most interesting story about spraying comes from our friends Gordon and Penny. These two have a goal of visiting every single National Park in America. So far they have visited some twenty-two National Parks. They have just returned from having visited Glacier,Yellowstone, and Yosemite National Parks. They are fond of hiking while in each park.

Gordon told about how while they were in Yellowstone National Park, they were about to go on a Park Ranger guided hike, and the Ranger asked, how many had brought their bear spray? Only two hands were raised, from the fifteen people present. Gordon was one of the two. The Park Ranger proceeded to lecture on the subject of what to do when confronted by a black bear. How to behave towards the bear, and if necessary, how to   use bear spray. The spray contains pepper and will cause the bear to retreat. He cautioned that the user of the spray should determine which way the wind was blowing to avoid getting any in your face. Very irritating, Gordon said that some people not reading directions, had sprayed themselves to be protected from bears. Once again, very irritating and very stupid.

It is interesting to note that bear spray is not cheap. Price paid in the park for a can of bear spray is $47.00, while at Wal-Mart outside the park it can be bought for about $30.00. Gordon said that it was also possible to rent a can of bear spray when going on a hike. Penny said that she talked to a local guy who said that he never went anywhere without his can of bear spray. So we all now what to do when confronted by a black bear.

 I should also point out that if the can doesn't do the job, you only have to  run  faster than the person behind you.

Sadly, neither Penny or Gordon had the occasion to make use of their bear spray, and had to leave the two cans behind. Airlines take a dim view of bringing bear spray home, even if we have no black bears here in Hawaii.

        Aloha
        Grant