Thoughts brought on when listening to and viewing a retirement card from a neighbor

An instrumental version of The Bear Went Over the Mountain tune played when I opened the card. That was a song that my father's father, Ernie Thomas,  used to sing with us when we were little.  It also fit his desire to go places and see things.  When I got my drivers license in high school he wanted to see the Viking site on the northern peninsula of Newfoundland.  He went with me and two of high school friends on a camping trip there in 1969.  Later he went with me and my brother and another high school friend, Jim Flagg all the way to Oregon and back.  He also went with me and my girlfriend at the time to the Grand Canyon.  All the trips were camping in tents and sleeping on the ground even though he was in his seventies, having been born in 1901.  

Here he is in 1989.

  

I remember him singing about four other songs on a regular basis. 

I've Been Working on the Railroad

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4e9Q4WVUOvQ

Down by the Riverside

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9eDU045u_E

On Top of Old Smokey

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ikJEbEk0Io

Down in the Valley  -  I didn't know till now that it was also called Birmingham Jail

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z39QwP7_4Fc

 When he would come visit me at the University of Rhode Island sometimes we would drive out to Jamestown, an island in the middle of the the Narragansett Bay.  On the north end of the island was an isolated bar that may have had an inn attached.  They had Saturday night sing-alongs with lyric books they passed out and a lively piano player.  Olive and Ernie Thomas, my grandparents really enjoyed going out there.  Sometimes we would have to drive back very carefully as a fog would creep across the island while we were inside enjoying the music and song.

Here's a picture of Olive and Ernie, side by side, with my sister Deb's, mother-in-law telling Olive to look at the camera.  

First Saturday of My Retired Life, the Trajectory of a Life

I decided to set my date of retirement as Aug 31, 2015.  Turns out that Aug. 31 is a Monday --- so I used a vacation day and ended work on Friday, Aug. 28.

A few people had said that being retired means that every day is Saturday, even the retired SUNY Oneonta college president stuck his head in my door and told me that. It is a good concept or at least I think so at the moment as I type this on Saturday morning August 29th.

Other thoughts cross my mind.  When I was a boy my best friend was Randy Weber.  His father was an early riser -- he had to be he lived southeast of Philly and worked in the Big Apple -- commuting daily for years.  Did he sleep in on Saturday morning?  No way -- Saturday was HIS DAY and he got up earlier and if possible with more energy!

For years I was an early riser also.  I had to be, because I had a morning paper route.  The papers were all supposed to be on the porches by 7 AM. I have seen a lot of sunrises.

Other things I am thinking about and will expand on include --

The Trajectory of A Life --
Is trajectory a good word?    Are we really "shot from cannons" and subject to the calculations of a trajectory?

How is it that I can retire at 62?

Was it because there was a gas shortage in 1974 and I ran into Jack Salo in the Keaney Gym parking lot at URI -- finding him siphoning gas (with permission he told me) from a friend's car because the number on his license plate wouldn't permit him to buy gas in his car on that day?

Or was it because I stopped and got his Minnesota address?

Or because I was organized enough to keep the address with me and use it in 1976 when I was biking across the country and running low on funds and needed to stop and see someone I knew in Minnesota -- and he was the only soul that I knew in Minnesota.

Was it because he answered the postcard that I sent him?

Or because an airline lost my luggage on a flight back from Africa in 1977 and I tried to hit him up for a place on his floor until the luggage caught up with me which caused me to try to reconnect with him.

Or because the girlfriend, Diane Hoffbauer,  that came east with him in 1977 was ambitious and wanted to move from being a migrant tutor to another role as parent advisor leaving a part time position open that I could fill?

Or because a wise man, Jim Pasternak, in the payroll office told me to bank any raises I got instead of spending them?

There's a story behind each question -- I'll see if I can get around to filling out the stories on this blog.

Remembering Debbie

On July 31st I was in the South Jersey area for a very somber event. On that evening in Temple University Hospital in Philadelphia my older sister Debbie died from complications of kidney cancer.

There is a web site to help remember her. Please have a look and add comments.

rememberingdebbie.blogspot.com

Deborah Lynn (Thomas) Bozarth - October 9, 1951 - July 31, 2007
Parents - Robert Roy Thomas and Pearl Helen (Estilow) Thomas
Brothers, Bob and Roger Thomas, sister Dee (Thomas) Newman
Husband - Jeffrey Bozarth
Daughter - Rebecca (Bozarth) Szkotak
Grandsons - Peter Szkotak, Jr. and Payton Szkotak

She would have been 56 tomorrow.

Thanks for reading.

Bob

Little Brother Makes a Hit!

The adults we met in Wenonah were very helpful and friendly.

Some of the kids were otherwise. One of the very first to stop by out front was (as I later learned) Tommy Jenkins. My little brother, Roger, and I were out front of the house. Tommy was on his bike and stopped in the street and sat on his bike. Tommy asked what our names were. Then he called Roger over to him and whispered something in his ear.

Roger was only two years old but he was a good size for his age and pretty strong. He walked straight over to me and punched me in the mouth hard enough to make my lip bleed! I asked him why he did that and he pointed at Tommy who was on his bike and riding away laughing at the moment.

Fortunately not all kids in Wenonah were as treacherous as Tommy.

Wenonah, August, 1959

My family of five came to Wenonah in August of 1959 when I was six. For a year or two prior to that move I had lived on a farm owned by Ambler Junior College. We lived on the farm in one half of the farm house. Our neighbors, Hans and Hetty Zutter, had a son, Peter, and a daughter, Rosemary, who was a few years younger.

There was another house on the farm property. It was a "spring" house.  It was built over a spring and the water from the spring moved through the basement in a channel.  Milk cans would be placed in the basement and the channel blocked so that the cool spring water would chill the milk and keep it fresh. That was a very old house with a central chimney. A stairway wound around the back of the chimney to reach the second floor. We had lived in that house, too. But we had no other nearby neighbors. The driveway to the farm buildings from the road was at least one quarter of a mile long.

By contrast in Wenonah we moved into 102 N. Monroe Ave and we had neighbors on all sides. It wasn't too long before we got to know some of them.