Chapter 80 - Life in the LCO

Life in a small city.

I was approached by the Rec Director at the Community Center (LCCC) to see if the Scouts wanted to participate in the first-ever National Night Out celebration. The LCCC was going to host the event along with the LCPD and needed some tables, booths, people concerned with volunteering in LCO to help them sorta fill the place out.

And so we decided to 'represent'.

The event started at 1700 and ran to 1900. Two hours was a very good time frame. It was held at Kirtsis Field, home of one of our five pairs of mating Ospreys. Carol and I arrived about an hour early so we could get a good parking space and the lay of the land. We wanted to have our table set up and ready when the whole thing started.

And this is what we saw when we arrived.

They were setting up the event. There's the LCCC booth there on the right. They were busy getting themselves together. The Rec Director, Boone Marker, in the green shirt and red beard, was getting the Oregon National Guard oriented so they could get their rock-climbing wall into the park and set up.

We had our little table set up when the rest of our hardy band arrived. Hannah and Mike brought the flags and banners plus their two little Cubs.

And more of our Scouting Family showed up. We had the Cub Scouts, the Boy Scouts and the Kiwanis Club represented. We were ready to answer questions and hand-out applications.

Oh, and have a good time, too.

I was wandering around taking pictures. I have made it a habit to forward my pictures to the LCCC for their use and so I try, when I'm there, to shoot the whole event. Plus, it's fun for me.

Anyway, I got a picture of a couple of the folks that work at the LCCC when Mike came up and greeted this woman like an old friend and then asked me to shoot a picture of them. Why I mention this is I didn't know who this woman was but here comes Mike and they're old friends. 

Small town and everyone knows everyone else. I'm still shaking my head at that. I've lived my life in big cities for too long. I'm still amazed at the mechanics of life in a small city.

Hannah brought the U.S. Flag and the Pack Flag to sorta draw attention to our little booth. But it was too windy. First we had to move them back further from the tables because the wind kept whipping them around our heads as we sat at the tables and then the wind, despite our best efforts to anchor them down, kept blowing them over. 

Ended up retiring the U.S. Flag because it fell over. 

Bummer.

What was really cool was the Oregon National Guard and their rock-climbing wall. What a great recruiting tool!! One of the more popular offerings at the event.

And the LCPD set up some games for the kids to play.

With plenty of prizes for the winners. And I'm guessing every kid there was a winner in some way or the other.

Everyone.

OK, I had stopped by the set-up by the Library. They were giving away books and just, generally, raising awareness of all the things the Library does. Anyway, they had these posters of local folks they'd taken and put up on the panels at their booth.

I happened to see one of the posters. Then when I walked down to the LCPD booth I saw the woman in the gray shirt and realized she had been on one of the posters. So, naturally, I greeted her and mentioned the poster. She hadn't seen it so she walked over to the Library booth with me and I got this....

....picture. 

Hahaha, small town, right!?!

She works in the Criminal Identification Department of LCPD.

And the Taft Tiger was there, too. He was posing with one of our little Lions by the bouncy houses.

I like how the high school mascot shows up for non-school related functions. I mean it is cool and helps bring the community together. It's like we have a unofficial community mascot.

I tell you, the kids loved, loved, loved the rock wall. Great job, Oregon National Guard. Both for challenging these kids and for letting them get to know some soldiers.

The thing was beginning to come together. 

You can see our table to the left in this picture. See the red cover of the Oregon National Guard canopy? We're right in front of that. You can see the Kiwanis sign Carol made and the Blue and Gold banner of Pack 47.

And right across from us was a bouncy climbing wall with a slide on the back part of it AND an authentic, honest-to-goodness bouncy house to the right of that. As sponsored by ServPro. Hahaha, regardless, it was fun for the kids.

Combine the Tiger and the wall and you've got a real winner!!

Hahaha, let's shake on that, OK?

One of the Cub Mom's, Cami. She won a glass float ball during the raffle. The thing is, she got tickets for her and her kids and she WON three times. 

Between us, Carol and I won exactly zero times.

Ratz!!

They should have had a bell up there for the rugrats to ring. Something to announce their achievement.

And there's Katie Mortimer, the Ace Cub Reporter for The News Guard. Plus she's become a good friend and supporter of Scouting. Busy on making a story out of the National Night Out.

Oh, and if you look, you can see some of the bubbles from Carol's bubble machine. She loves to bring it along and share the fun but it gets irritating at times when parents don't supervise their kids and they stick their fingers in the wheel or stand right in front of the wheel so no one gets any bubbles. And then they do it again after you've asked them to stop. ARGH!! I don't have the patience for little kids anymore.

These folks were listening to the band. I don't know if it's a dog club or this was just happenstance but, there ya go. They were all there and all young and all together.

Gabriel, one of Hannah and Mike's boys, climbing the bouncy rock-wall climbing thingie. 

They even had a clown there tying balloons into whatever for the kids. You can't see it but she had a pump thing there so she didn't have to blow up each balloon individually. Smart move.

There's the Bubble Machine!! A big hit as the wind carried the bubbles everywhere.

And she made a balloon cap. Or hat. 

There were games...

...and a fund-raising dunking booth.

They had local celebrities, like the Mayor, get on the perch. For $1 you got three tries to hit the target or, if you wanted, you could pay $5 and push the button to make sure they went in.

The Tiger was hovering around the button and so I yelled "Go ahead and push it, I'll pay the $5."

And he did and I did. Hahahaha, it was great fun and just before she went in there was some serious head-shaking "NO, NO, NO!" 

No mercy.

Oh, and the had themselves some GA-UDDD hot dogs there!! I mean seriously COSTCO-good hot dogs. And they were free. And what number rhymes with free?

Hahaha, that's how many I had.

OK, I did pitch in some money for the scholarship fund they were raising money for. Cheez, lighten up, Man!!

But they were good dogs.

There's our Ace Cub Reporter again. Our job, when our paths cross, is to watch her backpack for her while she roams about with the camera and her notepad.

But all good things do come to an end and so did the National Night Out. It was, really, just the right amount of time. Two hours was quite enough. They said there were about 500 people that came. I bet next year there'll be a lot more as the word gets out. 

Plus, this was put together in like a month or so. With some more time to plan I bet it's bigger next year. Just, y'know, get the same hot dogs. I had parked up the slope overlooking the ballfields. I regretted my actions when I had to haul everything out.

I waited until a lot of the people had gone then I walked up to the car and drove it back to the gate on the field to load up our stuff. 

Good times.

I discovered the "Poster" option under the Scene Mode. This selection allows you to get "shots that resemble an old poster or illustration."

I've been toying with it just a little. Like with this shot. I like it. It punches up the color and makes the image, I don't know, sharper, more defined.

Where I parked, and that's where I got the shot above, I just had to look to my left and see the local PickleBall Club playing. When the weather is good they like to play outside.

I'd like to play but I don't think I have the ability to move as quickly as I would want to. My knees wouldn't stand for it. Hahaha, get it!?! Knees? Stand for it?

Laugh, dammit, that was funny.

Anyway, the reason I was parked there and getting those pictures was that I was heading over to Carol's place to get her to go for a walk with me. 

My goal is to get out and walk a bit each day. It helps when there is a goal or purpose for the walk.

Way back when, this bar was called the Nauti-Mermaid. We'd visited it maybe twice and didn't care for the service. Like we were an afterthought so we never went back. The Nauti-Mermaid went out of business (I'm not saying that the two are related....then, again, I am NOT saying they aren't). 

The place just reopened with a new business, Marci's Bistro. I wanted to stop in and see what changes they've made to the joint. 

Pretty much everything physical was the same. You can't see it but the Mermaid had an alcove where they put a settee and bookcases and such. The Bistro has just left that space open for now. I don't know what they have planned for it.

So in first impressions, it's not unlike the Mermaid. 

But...

...and this is one of the main reasons Carol and I were there. They have a Happy Hour seven days a week from 11-1800 where all the draft beers are just $1.50.

Whoa!! Alrighty, then!! Color me there.

The service was much better and the menu was more upbeat, more Millennial-oriented. I had me a hankering for some decent Nachos and so I ordered us a plate. They came, as you can see, with avocados and they were...good enough.

All in all it was pretty good. I think I'll go back.

So after our Nachos we walked back. We'd walked to the Bistro along The 101 but why do that again? We took a backstreet route to get back to Carol's. 

It's been a while but we'd walked along this route before, a couple years ago. And BAM, there was this shot, again. I used this framing for a couple of "Retirement Quote" pictures before. And I shot it again. But I must have had it on manual or Av cuz the color was totally blown out. I had to play with it in iPhoto (and believe me, there are not a lot of options in iPhoto) to buy back some color. I'm also pretty sure it was still in the "Poster" mode, too.

But I got this and I sorta like it. Still blown out, I'd shoot it much differently if I went back but for an accident, it was a Happy Accident for me.

Interesting arrangement.

And I like panoramas. Sue me.

The second shot was blown out like the first. I put as much color into it as I could and then I used iPhoto to render it in a B&W. Then I severely cropped it. I'm thinking it called for some serious cropping to make it work in a B&W.

Not as impressed with it as I am with the color version but, still, there is some small thing about it that saves it from the shitcan.

For now.

Y'know, I'm pretty sure I was shooting "Poster" with those last shots because this is the next one and I know this is 'Posterized'. I can tell from the color...it's just a bit off from real.

And that is OK with me.

An interesting composure. I like the flags framed by the red door.

I wonder, should I have cropped closer and eliminated the brown paneling of the garage...just focusing in on the white frame and the red garage door. Maybe later.

Maybe.

Just a scenic. Looking at the colors here. The pervasive blue and the gold of the grass and the lower tree trunks. 

Can colors support a picture? It's got some form but that is minimal. It's colors; the blue versus the green.

Carol's son, Paul, had taken this picture from the porch of his apartment in Corona, CA, and forwarded it to his Mom. I asked her to send it to me. It's a dramatic picture.

I hadn't understood the total fury of this fire until this photo.

And from the dry, arid and fire-swept Southern California back to the Central Coast of Oregon. I looked out the dining room window early one morning and saw this...a dreary, wet and desolate day.

Ah, man, my first thought was, "Summer's over." and my heart sank.

But I think I was whining a bit too early. Not three hours later, the skies were still overcast but the weather was warm and it was dry.

Since this picture was taken, several days ago, it hasn't rained again. It's been foggy and gray but it hasn't been wet, cold, dismal and deadening.

But it's coming.

Oregon has its own share of fires. Not as dramatic or as large as California's but there are fires. In reaction to the dry Summer we've had, no real rain since June, the State, County and City have restricted open fires.

Severely. A couple of Yahoos had started a log fire on the beach...normally a keen fun thing to do...but the LCFD was called and they were out there to put that fire out, ASAP.

Here comes the Gang. You're going down, Fire.





I don't know if Mutt and Jeff, sitting there in their lawn chairs swilling beer, were ticketed but their fire was definitely put out.

As Smokey says, "If it's too hot to touch, it's too hot to leave." (Did you read that in Smokey's deep baritone? Yeah, you did, didn't you!! Hahaha, so did I!)

So they were down there a good half-hour working that thing.

The Fire Department responded with this truck, a rescue vehicle and a pump truck. 

Overkill much??

 I lead such an exciting and adventurous life.

For the second time since July of '16, I went down to the beach. It's not that cool.

Looking south from the foot of the stairs leading up to the Casino.

And looking north towards Cascade Head.

 Looking straight ahead from the foot of the stairs and, finally, looking...

...straight up the stairs.

I'd already walked enough beach so I went up to the Casino parking lot and the walked back to the shed on the surface streets.



And just a nice scene of clouds, grass, sky and ocean. Oh, and the top of the stairs.

Bored and desparate for something, I ran across a picture of GySgt Carter of Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. fame. It got me thinking who was the best NCO on TV.

Bored,  I immediately thought of M/Sgt Bilko, U.S.A. I always liked this show. Then there was CPO Sharkey, U.S.N. I didn't watch his show, mainly because it was on while I was in Panama and AFRTS didn't get his show.

While we lived in Panama we had the one channel. It came on around 1100 each workday and they signed off around 2200, 2300. On weekends they came on about an hour earlier and stayed on until midnight.

ONE CHANNEL!! How did we survive!?!

And the final one, well, I was stumped for the Air Farce. There aren't any TV shows with an Air Feces NCO. I mean, there was Major Tony Nelson, U.S.A.F., on the "I Dream of Jeannie" show but he wasn't an NCO.

The only one I could think of from the Chair Force was poor Ol' MSgt King from the movie, "No Time For Sergeants."

Anyway, I was going to post this on a MCRD, San Diego Alumi FB Page and then I had second, and smarter, thoughts about it and didn't. But it might have been fun. The biggest problem is that probably 3/4s of the audience wouldn't know who Bilko was let alone any of the others besides Carter.

It might have been fun but, honestly, I didn't trust the people there to get it. I felt like this would just open a can of shit and I decided not to even try.

My pick? Hah!! Hands down it would be Master Sergeant Ernest G. Bilko. No doubt he is the best on this short list.

 I just now thought about the possibility of there having been a TV show by the same name and there was. It was only on for one season in '64-'65. It starred Harry Hickox as MSgt Orville King.

It wasn't good. I saw a four-minute clip from the show and it, well, stunk. The star, Sammy Jackson, had to be a casting call reject for the role of Jethro on the Beverly Hillbillies. He was bad.

So there WAS a TV version of the movie but it was so horribly terrible it couldn't make it for two seasons. Well, it was about the Air Farce, whadya expect!?!

 I was on fire; really cooking. And when I saw that the Mighty Aggies of New Mexico State will be playing Sandy's Asinine Aztecs of San Diego State, I knew I had to make another bet with her.

You see, I had bet her that Army would beat San Diego State in their Bowl game last year and, sweetest of sweet, Army won. It was great fun to collect the $20 from her. Even greater fun was digging it into her.

So it should come as no surprise that once I saw that the Mighty Aggies were going to play the Anemic Aztecs in 2019, I had to immediately offer the same chance to lose to Sandy. I did and she accepted.

And then I came up with this little gem. Hahahahaha, I kill myself!! I thought it was pretty damn good.

A Mighty Aggie pictured over the words, "Aztecs? More like, "'Ass-Kicked'" Hahahahaha, that's rich!!

And now, after rooting for the Ol' Home Team, we'll switch gears and motor on down to Main Street, U.S.A. curtesy of Mr. Norman Rockwell and the now deceased Saturday Evening Post (SEP).

It is a puzzle of the cover of the April 3rd SEP from 1943. Dark days for America. We were well into World War II and things, for the past 15 months, had not been good; not good at all. But there were some good signs and, very faintly, a glimmer of hope that was more than just wishful thinking.

America was hard at the business of war and they needed some small diversions from the drudgery of fighting for their very lives. Into the breach stepped Mr. Rockwell with this delightful, amusing and diverting cover called, "The Checkers Game".

I can imagine this caused more than a little bit of fun as people raced to be the first to find at least forty-five April fooleries. I can hear them whispering to their friends and comparing their notes to see which ones they had missed. 

It must have been fun. In all the darkness to have a little light-hearted and innocent fun must have been a welcome relief.

 And now it was my turn to enjoy it.

And I did. Even though it was a small bit of a challenge.

To be honest, I didn't realize it was an April's Fools joke until I was well into the puzzle. Right about when I'd finished the borders and then the banner at the top of the puzzle. It wasn't until I actually started in on the rest of the puzzle that I flashed onto the fact that something, some several somethings, weren't necessarily right. Not at all.

I mean, how many subjects lean out of their portraits? And I do love me some eggs and bacon but, seriously, as a mantlepiece? And don't start with the ducks.

Hahahaha, it was a treat to figure out Mr. Rockwell's game and I confirmed it when I went back and rechecked the date again.

Of course, I can see where, at times, it might be prudent to have a handy wrench available during a hotly contested game of checkers but these sweet Old Folks didn't seem the ones to do battle beyond the board.

I'll let you look for ALL the other fooleries.

 Except for this one. I especially enjoyed the clock on the mantle.

Hahaha, well done, Mr. Rockwell.

 As always, I enjoy a feeling of accomplishment when putting in the VERY last piece of any puzzle. I felt an even greater sense of having finished something when I was done with this one.

It was just plain, good fun.

Even given those dark days, (see the Lead on an article in this issue, Last Man Off Wake Island), the American people united in one culture, one language, one sense of being American could smile, laugh and then, carry on.

No exciting adventures for me but that doesn't mean I can't take pictures of someone else's good times.

On my second walk on the beach, I caught these two fellows doing some wind-surfing up towards the beach near the Casino.

Their routine was simple. Begin racing out, away from the beach, and then use a wave to give them some height for their acrobatics. When they'd gone out far enough, they'd reverse and head back towards shore to start the whole thing over again.

And, evidently, having themselves some fun.

Coming back in.

I will admit that in my youth I might have been capable of doing something like this but I can't imagine I would have. I was certainly athletic enough but I don't know if I would have been too keen for this kind of sport. 

And up!! This time on a run towards shore.

Still it was a good day for a walk. I'm enjoying these summer days for I know all too well they won't last much longer. Then it's dark, damp, chill and bleakness.

Ah, winter. You suck sometimes.

But it's still summer and so enjoy.

There it is. Not a lot to it but it's mine. I would like to share it with someone but that's not happening. It's here I am and here I stay for the near future.

Looking for the courage to fly

Hooah!!