Varmint reduction, a/c, etc. (1969 style)

I've never fired any weapon more lethal than a BB gun.  But my brother Steve did, even going back to the '60s.  I remember the day in question here quite vividly.  From my diary of 45 years ago (Steve was 16, I was 13):

"June 28 (Sat) Good Day.  In morning went hauling beans from overhead bins at Florian Faber's.  Twins lost.  Steve shot 3 more coons that were crawlin' up corn crib.  One got in the crib, but Steve got it in the forehead with a lucky shot.  Had to crawl up a ladder to get it.  Steve threw it down.  It glanced off my shoulder - some brains got on my shirt!!!  Went to practice organ.  Came home."

A few things I notice in the photo (by the way:  nice picture, Mom):

• Our very fine dog - Joe-Boy - seems quite interested in the remains of one of the victims (pretty clearly a very young raccoon).  
• Farmall M parked in corn crib alley, cultivator attached, tin can atop muffler in case of rain.
• Beautiful evening sunlight - very long days that time of year.
• Corn crib still looks to be in pretty good shape, and certainly full of ear corn (as was the shed behind it).
• Somebody had done a pretty nice job mowing the grass/weeds around those buildings.
• Note usage of color film - still somewhat a novelty for us; my mom had just started using it the year before for Grandpa and Grandma Bormann's golden wedding celebration. 

It was a typical lazy summer weekend for those days; the next day:  "June 29 (Sun)  Went to 2nd Mass and played organ.  Put air conditioner on and it felt good.  Dave McGuire and Irvin Mertz were here to print KC bulletin.  Fooled around all day.  Watched track meet."

The fact that it was notable that we turned on the air conditioner prompted me to flip back a few pages . . . "June 19 (Thu) Good Day.  Wayne Sanford and his assistant Leonard Johns came over to install whole house air conditioning.  They got it in.  We took out old furnace which was in cellar yet.  Mowed lawn at night."

I'll bet we were pretty pleased to have a/c, even if we were quite used to living without it.

Regarding air conditioning, color film and other evolving technologies - it's interesting to think about the method for printing that "KC (Knights of Columbus) bulletin"  - I'm pretty sure they were using one of this company's devices.  Seems quite primitive now, but it got the job done.  And we always enjoyed Irvin's non-stop chuckling - and Dave McGuire's overall affable-ness - on bulletin-printing Sundays.  (I think this started during my dad's regime as Grand Knight.)

Beatles inaugural U.S. visit (February 7, 1964)

This being the 50th anniversary of the Beatles' first U.S. trip, the media is full of retrospectives of one sort or the other.  I hadn't quite turned eight years old, and have no recollection of the event - probably about as connected with pop culture events then as now, just for different reasons.

In grade school art class, I consistently,
and charitably, received a grade of "C".

But I do remember that my mom had bought Beatles spiral notebooks - maybe a set of four featuring all of the famous visages?  And I recently had run across mine when looking for the notebook mentioned here.  So it turns out that we were well aware of the Beatles.  And I got McCartney - probably because we shared the name Paul?  Now he's a knight, whatever that means these days.

The notebook's cover page received similar treatment as was given to plenty of baseball cards in those days, at least for players we didn't like.  I don't recall disliking McCartney, but who knows.

And then there's my drawing on the first page of the notebook, featuring the fab four performing under a starlit sky and a scruffy thing that no doubt is supposed to represent a tree.  But even my drawing isn't entirely respectful of the boys, as it includes a fellow behind the tree preparing to detonate a crude-looking bomb.  Hmm.

This particular artwork is from my personal collection - not submitted in the classroom.  Still, if a seven-year-old
handed in  something like this to a teacher in 2014, wouldn't the pupil be sent off for extended counseling?

NBA notes: smitten early; Pearl

When occasionally talking basketball with our children around here as they grew up, I always told them that I had far preferred the NBA over college nonsense-ball going back to my earliest recollections of seeing Association games on TV in the 1960s.  (And, of course, nationally televised games were few and far between back then - an occasional Sunday afternoon game in black and white; weeknight finals games often on tape delay all the way up to the beginning of the Bird-Magic era.)

PMG diary from 1969.  Less than two months
short of becoming a teenager.

My favorite player to watch back then - not a close call - was Earl Monroe (in his Baltimore Bullets days).  (By the time he got to the Knicks - and finally received national recognition via a New York stage - his knees were shot and he was *just* a very good role player on a very good team.)  In his Baltimore days - highly unique style, way ahead of his time.  Specialty = all variations of spin moves.  Much of it would not look so special to today's observer - but it was mesmerizing at the time.  Especially to would-be defenders who just hadn't seen much of this kind of thing (unless they had played for the Washington Generals).  Or to an Iowa farm kid who had seen exactly none of it.  (Various Pearl clips are easily findable online, for example this one.)

I'm not unique in being infatuated with Mr. Monroe - how about the fellow in the below clip (from a movie I need to see, if any other part of it is as awesome as this clip) - to Ray Allen's character's edification, the older guy (who I learn via Wikpedia is Denzel Washington playing his father, in a movie directed by Spike Lee) totally gets the Pearl thing (to the point of understanding the Bullets-era Pearl in comparison to the Knick version) (though the divinity thing might be a step too far):



In those days I dutifully and thoroughly disliked the Boston Celtics - headlined by Bill Russell, they definitely were the Yankees of the NBA.  Watching them win was tiresome.

As happens with kids - watching the NBA games often would get me wound up to the point where I would go outside and work on my "moves," if that's what you could call them, using the hoop Dad had hung on the yard light pole in the gravel driveway outside the farm house.  Depending on the stage of the NBA season, that involved snow, gloves, whatever.

January 26, 1969 box score from this site

Anyway, I ran across the above diary entry from back in 1969 that reminded me, quite strongly, of all this.  It was a fine, quiet January Sunday, exactly 45 years ago.  Went to first Mass; painted on my paint-by-number oil paint set (doubtless a Santa gift); played on the "Carom" board (ditto); watched Walt Disney at night.  AND in the afternoon:  watched Earl Monroe and the Bullets get smoked by the Celtics - ugh.  What happened?  The Bullets actually were very good that year, and Pearl was at the height of his powers.  Per box score - just two points (and never even got to the line)?  How is that even possible?  (Maybe Pearl was tired from a 31-point effort against the Hawks the prior day in a game down the road in Baltimore?) (Don Nelson - a now-fat, retired coach - put up 26 for Boston.)

Anyway, the NBA-viewing did lead to a post-game outdoor basketball shoot-around session - per diary, "had fun but about froze our hands" (understandable per weather info below).  Wonder who was out shooting with me?  Steve?  Charlie?  Both?  Cecilia was a great accomplice for all things sport-related but I don't much remember her out shooting baskets after NBA games like this.

[Random note:  how appropriate is it that Javaris Crittendon played for a successor team to the Baltimore Bullets (a team nickname which became socially unacceptable in the gunplay-ridden Washington DC area)?]

The NBA infatuation continues.

No wonder the diary reports that we "about froze our hands" - temp (30 miles south) topped out at 15 F that day.  
I'm guessing we were forced to wear a glove on our shooting hand for most of the time we were out there. 
(Typically tried to avoid that as much as possible - shooting conditions bad enough as it was.)