As a landlord, I have usually handled tenant relations in a fairly conventional manner; however, on occasion I have made some rather unusual or innovative…
I’ve done a lot of things in my life and some of them were pretty smart.
BUT!
The smartest thing that I ever did was marry Phyllis, and be able to spend…
I started innovating at an early age. I was a fast learner in design and the use of tools. Sometimes it seemed that I didn’t even have to learn. It seemed like…
In 1936, the year that I graduated from high school, George Walker and I and Stanley Davis, known as “Stinky,” went to the desert in Stinky’s sister’s car.…
In the spring of 1937, I was 18 years old, out of high school and looking for a job. At an office of The Federal Reemployment Agency, an agency set up by the…
At age 20 I got a job at Lockheed Aircraft. This was just about the time that the United States got involved in World War II. The war production and the…
This is two stories in one. They tie together. We were water skiing at Lake Isabella with our little P14 with the 45 horse outboard motor. Our skier had fallen…
One evening in 1940 or 1941 I had brought my brother Joe’s car home to do some brake work for him. This was before Phyllis and I were married, and I was still…
I have been really inebriated twice in my life—once at age 17 when I was learning about wine, and once at age 25, when I was learning about whiskey, and was…
We were on a Caribbean cruse on a big sailing vessel with auxiliary diesel power. The ship was anchored off shore. The shore boat was loading to take a group…
I learned to swim at age 17. Despite the late start, I got to be a pretty good swimmer. On two occasions my swimming ability almost got me in serious…
Way back in the ‘30s, motor vehicle laws were much less restrictive. You could do just about anything that you wanted to do as long as you didn’t drive too…
This story is listed in the category of “Dumb things I have done.” I also have a category entitled “Unusual or Innovative things I have done.” Sometimes these…
All my life I have been a little cavalier about encounters with electricity.
Having considerable knowledge of electricity has helped me maintain a healthy…
In 1942, the year that Phyllis and I got married, I was working at Lockheed Aircraft as a Group Supervisor. I had supervision of about 50 people. My section…
A long about 1980, Glenn and Katy and Phyllis and I were traveling in Mexico, in Baja California. Baja was quite undeveloped then, with almost no paved roads…
In the early days of water skiing my good and old friend, Don George, and I were water skiing on the Colorado River. We had no observer as this was not yet a…
For years I have heard that batteries could explode. The action of a
battery involves breaking water down into hydrogen and oxygen which is an explosive mix so…
Sometime in the 60s I built a swimming pool for Glenn and Katy
Mc Connell. Glen and Katy ran the local lumber yard and were good friends of ours. We had…
Phyllis and I were on a Caribbean cruse with a group of old friends. Included in the group were our son Jim, who was single at the time and the daughter of a…
In the spring of 1937 I was working as a welder at the General Motors assembly plant in Torrance, CA. In early summer the plant closed for a week in…
I bought my first car, a 1921 Model T Ford, when I was 13 years old and spent most of the summer working on it so it would be ready to drive. When I turned 14…
I was making something and I needed a piece of smooth plastic about four inches square and about one eight inch thick. I had been through all the stuff in the…
In the mid 30s I worked for Uncle Fred quite a lot. Uncle Fred manufactured small gas heaters in a small, family operated business located in the basement and…