January | 2015 | Grumpa Joe's Place

Best Fireworks Displays Ever

Posted on 09/01/2015 by Grumpa Joe

Follow the link to a news video of a fireworks display that occurred on Interstate 94 near Kalamazoo, Michigan during a 120 vehicle pileup on the snowy road. A semi truck carrying 40,000 pounds of fireworks exploded and burned setting off an amazing display.

http://fox17online.com/2015/01/09/video-truck-carrying-fireworks-explodes-near-i-94-hazmat-situation/

This accident brought to mind a fourth of July celebration I attended back in the sixties. My brother invited us to watch the fireworks display in his town of Sauk Village, Illinois. We got to the park early after an afternoon barbecue. Did you ever experience having to wait for it to get dark in July when you begin waiting at 8:00 p.m.? My three kids, and his five kids went bonkers running wild and enjoying themselves while we parents went wild trying to curb their enthusiasm.

The sky darkened enough to begin the show somewhere around nine-thirty. The Sauk Village Fire Department was in charge of the show. We sat on the hood of our car in the front row of the parking lot within a hundred feet of where the men were setting things off. The display began normally with random Roman Candles and a few very loud Dago bombs booming over head, the Sound of the bombs was deafening. Then, I spotted a fireman holding a lit flare down at his side while walking past a large cardboard box containing the Roman candles, bombs, shooting stars, and showers. As he passed the box someone accidentally bumped him, and he dropped the live flare into the box. Within thirty seconds it was World War One and Two all over again. Things whizzed past us into the parking lot, some into the dry field opposite, and others into the standing crowd. We ran to the back of the car and cowered while keeping an eye on the display. God was with us that night because not a single person got hurt in that raucous five minutes of rockets whizzing by at eye level, and Roman candles exploding on the ground sending showers of colored fire everywhere. By far, it was the best fireworks show, but also the shortest, I have ever seen.

Filed under: Biography, family, Memories | Tagged: Fireworks, Kalamazoo, Snowy Road | Leave a comment »

Are there now Two Americas?

Posted on 08/01/2015 by Grumpa Joe

History is a favorite of mine. This blog piece from blogsense-by-barb and written by Greg Richards is an excellent essay on how the Democrat party has managed to survive on the backs of slaves.

Are there now Two Americas?.

Filed under: Conservative, family, Government, politics, Society | Leave a comment »

The Good Old Days?

Posted on 08/01/2015 by Grumpa Joe

Oh the weather outside is frightful
But the fire is so delightful
Since we’ve no place to go
Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow . . .

Today, Peg and I sat and watched the snow blowing outside our front window. We commiserated about winters past. My thoughts returned to 1961 the first winter I had as a married man. Barbara and I rented a three room apartment in Chicago on West 87th Street. The front of our house faced the border between Chicago and suburban Hometown, Illinois. We both worked and had long commutes. My drive(11.4 miles)took me to Danly Machine Company in Cicero, Illinois, Barb’s (12,5 miles)took her to the Westside VA (Veterans Affairs) Hospital in Chicago. I spent every dime I had to buy a used Volkswagen, and Barb did the same to buy her Uncle Tony’s 1954 Chrysler New Yorker. The apartment provided parking spaces perpendicular to 87 street which is a CTA(Chicago Transit Authority) commuter route for busses.

Winter snow began in December with regular snowfalls followed by very cold temperatures. It snowed in January, February, March and April too for an accumulation of over 50 inches for the season (avg. Chicago snowfall is 39 inches). What I remember most was digging the cars out after the CTA snow plow pushed the snow off 87 street into a mound behind our cars. It seemed like every morning I’d be exercising by shoveling snow from behind two cars. In the evenings when returning from work we had to turn sharply and gun the car to plow through the mound to get back in. Many times my VW lifted off the ground and I had to shovel snow from under the car to get the wheels back onto the ground.

The joy of owning a Volkswagen to save gas which was selling for under 2o cents per gallon at the time, was the German engineer’s idea of efficiency. VW’s used the air that cooled the engine to heat the car and to defrost the windows. It didn’t take me long to use my knowledge of thermodynamics to conclude that air-cooled engines don’t make it for heating in a Chicago winter. When it is thirty degrees outside and the engine transfers thirty degrees to the air, the passenger compartment gets sixty degree air. When the outside air is zero degrees the engine still puts in thirty degrees, and the driver gets a chilly thirty degree breeze blowing into his face. That winter we had ample days with sub-zero temperatures which meant scrapping ice off the inside of the windshield to see the road. I took a blanket with me to wrap my legs for warmth.

When the temperature dropped below fifteen degrees, I removed the battery from the bug and took it into the house to keep it warm and charged. How did I learn to do that? Trying to start a VW with a six volt system in sub-freezing temperatures is next to impossible. There was not enough power in a cold battery to turn over the engine. I learned another trick from the German mechanics when I complained about the terrible starting situation. “Did you put five weight oil in the engine? No, well no-wonder you have trouble, we always use five weight oil in the winter.” Duhuh.

By the end of that winter I became proficient at dealing with both cars, what worked for the VW also worked for the Chrysler, and we somehow managed to survive.

“Why didn’t you take public transportation,” people would ask? I tried taking busses and the elevated, and learned that waiting for, and riding CTA buses in sub-zero was not fun. Even if I caught the buses without waiting, it took me two and a half hours to make it to work, and that was in an era when the CTA service was better than it is today.

Yes, I sang the song lyrics above while looking at the snow swirling about in a thirty mph wind and recalling the “good old days.” The only thing good about them is that they are old and gone forever.

Filed under: Biography, family, health care, Manufacturing, Memories, Warm and Fuzzy | Tagged: CTA, driving, Let it Snow, Snow, VW | 1 Comment »

Time to Reawaken America

Posted on 05/01/2015 by Grumpa Joe

For most of us the new year brings on new goals and fresh aspirations. My goals are neatly written and in a place that easily accessible for regular review. My aspirations remain the same as they have been since 2008, dump Obama and get this country back on track. The transformation promised by Obama is heading forward, but most of us still don’t understand what the transformation is. I saw it happening during his first campaign. His rhetoric reminded me of another man who fifty years earlier spewed the same BS. At that time it was Fidel Castro who mesmerized the world with his words. I am a child of World War Two. I am fully aware of communism and what communism means. My relatives living in Europe lived under communist regimes. None of them were very happy, and many were very hungry most of the time. My mother saved her relatives by sending care packages from the USA. She filled them with old clothes so her niece could remake them for her family.

As part of my aspiration to fight communism it is time to share the tenets of our country’s favorite communist i.e. one Saul Alinsky. Alinsky authored a book titled Rules for Radicals which Obama and Hillary studied, and which Obama uses as his transformation plan. If you are not fully aware of what I am talking about, or if the rules below are not familiar it is because you have not been paying attention. I can only add that if you don’t wake up and soon, you will find yourself living in a country transformed into a socialist state with a new form of government. The new government will not have three equal and separate branches, it will be a dictatorship with one person in charge, and you know who that will be.

How to create a socialist state by Saul Alinsky:

There are eight levels of control that must be obtained before you are able to create a social state. The first is the most important.

1) Healthcare Control healthcare and you control the people (Obamacare in place)

2) Poverty Increase the Poverty level as high as possible, poor people are easier to control and will not fight back if you are providing everything for them to live. (Record numbers of people on food stamps, disability, and welfare)

3) Debt Increase the debt to an unsustainable level. That way you are able to increase taxes, and this will produce more poverty.(Eighteen trillion dollars and growing fast)

4) Gun Control Remove the ability to defend themselves from the Government. That way you are able to create a police state. (Every chance he gets there is a grab for our guns, the latest being a UN treaty to remove guns)

(5) Welfare Take control of every aspect of their lives (Food, Housing, and Income) Flood the welfare system with thousands of new illegal immigrants from Central America

6) Education Take control of what people read and listen to, and take control of what children learn in school.(Implement Common Core in schools. Repeated attempts to pass the Fairness Doctrine to squash conservative talk radio and TV, including Muslim doctrine in class)

7) Religion Remove the belief in the God from the Government and schools (We see evidence of this in our schools almost daily, and there is also a massive influx of Muslims who will eliminate Christianity)

8) Class Warfare Divide the people into the wealthy and the poor. This will cause more discontent and it will be easier to take (Tax) the wealthy with the support of the poor. (Al Sharpton in charge of the Ferguson incident to divide the country racially, and to sic people against law and order.)

Like I said before, if you don’t see these things happening you are living in another world.

Filed under: Conservative, family, Government, health care, LIBERAL, politics, religion | Tagged: Alinsky, Castro, Communism, Dictatorship, Hillary, Obama, Rules for Radicals, Socialist State, Transformation | 1 Comment »

I Give a Rat’s Rear

Posted on 04/01/2015 by Grumpa Joe

The 2015 Monet Vision is in its Blizzard White phase, and I could care less. The snow is pretty looking at it from the warmth of a house, but it becomes a hazard when outside. I don’t care about snow at my age. I’ve seen enough to last the rest of my lifetime. No longer do I rush outside to shovel the drive or the walks. I tend to let it accumulate and hope the sun melts it off. That however, is a dream. It’ll be May before we get the temperatures to melt off a snow pile. Instead, I will drag myself out with shovel in hand to push the snow off the walks and the drive. If I don’t, then walking becomes hazardous, and tedious. I’ll just let the beauty of it all soak in a while longer before I venture out with shovel in hand.