But where will we sleep?

There is no Starbucks there.
America rose to the occasion and sent men to the Moon as a challenge to the Russians. However, we didn’t stay there very long each time visiting. Too much of a hostile environment. Both too hot and too cold just standing in one place on the Moon. Certainly, no level landscape to build a casino or timeshares. A geodesic dome biosphere maybe with laboratory, kitchen, and sleeping quarters perhaps. But if you notice by viewing the moon from earth through a telescope there are many craters. Craters produced by large meteors. And meteors that still hit the moons surface. Possibly could hit a dome or two if constructed by visiting astronauts. Then, as an alternative, necessitating living quarters to be established way down underground.
I suppose something could be constructed and possibly something that would accommodate ‘space tourism.’
Considering all of the above, then why on Earth do we want to rocket to the planet Mars? And fly to Mars to establish a “Colony.” Flying dozens of people on one flight flying to an even more hostile environment. Do we really want to send our own people into harm’s way? Why do we think this is a good idea? I know Elon Musk stands to make billions on developing a giant rocket to boost our explorers to the Red Planet but why not go to Disneyland instead. Just a thought. . Now just think about this scenario.
Could you imagine being stuck in a space ship for six months and Possibly sitting in the middle seat? Jumping Jupiter! And furthermore, possibly never coming back to planet earth. There are no rocket fuel filling stations up there. No barber shops or taco Bells. Not even a Dollar General. Just red dusty dirt like Oklahoma. Wheew!

Why, we can do that.

Saturday movie matinee.
The black and white photos on the Now Playing theater play bill poster out front were of Tom Mix movie star, trick rider, and sharp shooter. The first cowboy silent movie star filmed long before John Wayne appeared on the screen. The year was 1927 and Two brothers came out of the darkened theater that Summer’s afternoon after seeing yet another action-packed silent movie starring their cowboy hero Tom Mix. The two walked over to the older brother’s horse name Dan and the horse was tied to a hitching post out front at the edge of the gravel road. A buckskin colored seven-year-old work horse lapping water from a trough. The brother’s father, Charlie had traded a new Case pocket knife for the tall horse and gave the nice-looking animal to the fifteen-year-old older brother. They both climbed on and rode off headed towards home with the older in the saddle and his brother Hubert sitting astraddle the horse behind the saddle. Home was a tenant farm near Marietta, Oklahoma. About an approximate 11-mile ride. So off they went at a brisk stroll.
All along the way riding home the two talked endlessly about their cowboy hero and trick rider Tom Mix. The older brother mentioned wouldn’t it be fun to try some of Tom Mix’s movie stunts. The younger brother agreed but what. The two horsemen were approaching a wide creek where there was a small wooden bridge off to the left. However, there was a rocky ledge to the right of the bridge that overlooked the creek. The older mentioned to the younger, how about we get a running start and run Dan and jump over the creek like Tom Mix did in the movie. The younger brother said since it was your idea Carl, you try it first and I’ll watch. So, the older brother rode the horse back about fifty yards and told Dan to let’s go and gave Dan a heel to the horse’s under side and the horse took off running. Dan was gaining speed and approaching the rocky ledge and suddenly stopped and the older brother took flight and splashed face first in the creek and hit rocky bottom. Resulting in bruises and a few scrapes while soaking his pants and shirt. Not to mention bruising his fragile ego. So much for my dad’s movie horse riding tricks.

Listening to midnight radio.

All from my little AM radio.
Back in 1951 and before our first TV and I Love Lucy, I was a frequent radio listener. We were living in Los Angeles and we had a Sears AM radio/record player console in our tiny Livingroom. A big wooden mahogany box that stood up and about the same size as our Maytag automatic clothe washer. In the front and down below where most people would place albums and single records, we had a full volume of the World Encyclopedia. We had only one 78-RPM record of the Cordettes and Mr. Sandman, Bring me a Dream.
Most evenings, I would be cross legged on the floor reading the Encyclopedia and listening to Dragnet or The Great Gildersleeve. I must had been about seven years old back then.
Fast forward about three or four decades and after TV was morphing into cable and most people were listening to current music on FM radio, I discovered overnight radio called DX’ing. I really didn’t know what they called it but later there were others listening late at night and they called it DX’ing. Not sure why but there were a bunch of us. What is it? Late in the evening and over night and if the clouds and Ionosphere were in alignment one could pick up AM radio on your little AM receiver or pocket radio from a great distance. From our house in Tulsa and late at night I could receive radio signals from WGN in Chicago, KOA in Denver, WLW Cincinnati, and sometimes if the clouds were just right, signals from KFI in Los Angeles. Never mind the two mountain ranges in between. I listened with great interest to WWL in New Orleans after hurricane Katrina. Regular programming had been suspended for at least a month. What a mess. And if I woke up early enough before sunrise, I would listen to WBBM in Chicago and their weather and traffic reports. The snow season there must had been horrific. I quickly learned what the “lake effects” were. But anyway, I tuned in Saint Louis, Detroit, Des Moines, Kansas City, Saint Paul/Minneapolis, and even New York City. All this trying to understand how other Americans live and what they had to deal with weather wise or event wise.
Buy yourself a pocket AM-FM radio and some ear buds and try this. It’s fun and most interesting. However, I have succumbed to a radio App on my iphone called “Tune-in Radio.”
An Internet collection of thousands of radio stations worldwide. Some call it cheating. Oh well. Happy DX’ing.

A book you might read.

Book Report
Many of you along with myself may have recently heard an NPR Fresh Air interview with Judy Blume. An interview more or less reviewing Ms Blume’s fifty-year-old bestseller “Are you their God. It’s me Margaret” as it was adapted into motion picture form. Ms Blume concurs that the movie adaptation pretty much follows the book. For the past two or three weeks the Are you their God movie has received numerous positive reviews.
However, this is not a movie review but a book report. A report because I had never read the bestselling book. But I had now recently read the book because of the positive reviews of the movie version. Are you following me?
I just wanted to know, out of curiosity, what the big fuss was all about. So, I read Ms Blume’s book.
Title: Are you their God. It’s me Margaret, By Judy Blume growing up fiction 1970. Primarily a primer for preteen girls and their expectations of pre-pubescent bodily changes and its confusion and misinformation. If the movie does indeed follow the book, it should be a most hilarious and entertaining movie.

Library of Congress annotation:

Margaret is lonely after her parents buy a new house in Farbrook, New Jersey. Because she is from the city, the new girls expect her to be more grown up than they are, but Margaret’s body hasn’t begun to mature yet and she’s never kissed a boy. For grades 4-7.
Take your preteen daughter or granddaughter to see this movie. You might even take your preteen son or grandson as well. Or just buy or borrow the book. It is a laugh out loud book. See it or read it. You’ll like it.

Boy, am I pist off!

What is going on here?
I’m not sure I’m the only guy to discover this but men’s pant zippers are becoming troublesomely short. Creating a logistical conundrum. No longer can we just zip but must unbuckle one’s trousers risking dropping one’s pants while standing at a wall urinal. Men’s pant zippers use to be about ten or eleven inches long. But no more. Gentlemen pants zippers are now five or six inches long not allowing full complete passage. At first I thought I bought a pair of women’s sports pants. But no. They are men’s and the zippers are getting shorter. Just enough zip to get in and out of our jeans and shorts.
Good grief Charlie Brown!

Grapes of Wrath? Not here.

Before the sun peaked over the horizon,
Carl would be up and crossing the road with two 2-gallon buckets. He was headed for the school house across the county road where he filled each bucket with fresh well water from the hand pump. Then carry Ing both buckets full he slowly started back to his little four room house where he and his young family resided. He sat the buckets in the house for the day’s water needs, exited the house , and climbed into his dusty black Model-T Ford pick-up and drove off to his WPA job. A job as Forman of a road crew grading and laying gravel for a county road.
This routine went on for months and usually six days a week. A job that was a godsend from the Roosevelt administration. In Washington DC, it was known as the Works Project Administration or just WPA. None the less Carl was glad to have the work. His 40-acre parched red dirt farm just didn’t produce much corn crop. It hadn’t rained in months. The wind blew dry red dusty dirt into the air and Carl could look straight up at the noon day sun which on some days be a tinted a dirty orange. Rainless weather causing farming to be almost non-existent. Again, his family had little to live on but the WPA job certainly did helped.
You would think this was some other third-world country. Right? No. Carl’s family lived on the county road between Carter and Love counties in southern rural Oklahoma. It was 1941 and life was not easy for a beginning family.
Then one day, Carl was taken by surprise when he came home from his day’s job and his wife suggested moving to California. “Are you kidding me,” he blurted out.
So, they sold their tiny house, the 40-acres, his mule with plow, a pig and a few chickens. Then bought a reasonably new but used 1937 Ford sedan, packed in what they could take and drove all the way to Los Angeles county and mostly driving on gravel roads. Once there it didn’t take him long to find a reasonable job. Just one look at this farm strong man and employers knew he can work. So, he worked 40-years and retired with full benefits. And in the meantime, my younger sister and I were born in southern California. We all lived between the mountains and the beaches. Oil was pumping in the hills and schools were well staffed and supplied. Life was good to us. No Grapes of wrath here.

I need to occupy my brain with something else.

Senior mind wanderer.
I’m not sure it’s just mindless fantasizing or a sign of getting old. Especially getting old and not wanting it. Mind wondering back to teenage days. Teenage days as in thinking about teenage girls.
Remembering Lucy, Vickie, Pat and Pat, Terry, Mr. Oddi the boy’s vice principal’s daughter Cheryl. What cuties they were. Lips of red and cheeks of blush. Most inviting and soft velvet supple skin. Blond, brunette, and auburn hair. No gray. Just ponytails waving in the breeze. Soft warm Hands to hold and legs so trim and lovely. Yes, I could go back to that.
But wait a minute. All those desirable girls are now as old as me. Late seventies. Good grief. How did they age so rapidly? Gray hair and wrinkled skin like mine. No sir! Not for me. I’ll keep what I have. Goodbye girls. Or rather goodbye old ladies. Whew!