Pencil Stubs

Posted on 16/10/2023 by Grumpa Joe

Yesterday, I started a new Intarsia project. It’s been a few months since I completed ‘Libre’ the Bald Eagle, and my weary bones yearn for the woodshop. My projects always begin with a model. Usually, it is a photograph of something that moves me. This time, the subject is a piece of art I bought on one of our trips to Arizona. It is a three-dimensional, life-size rendering of a Lotus leaf. The artist found the leaf in the Far East and then used it to cast a mold. He then filled the mold with an epoxy ceramic material to form a hard rendering. On this casting, he applied various colors. While the paint was still fluid, he spun the casting to move the paint outward from the center. The effect is similar to that of a tie-dyed shirt, with the colors spread through the various veins within the leaf. It has been one of my favorite pieces, and I have promised to give it to my stepdaughter as part of an inheritance from her mother.

The next step in my process is to make a paper pattern of the model. In this case, I used a digital photo of the artwork and projected the image using my computer. I taped a large sheet of vellum paper to the screen and began tracing. I dug around in my desk drawer for a pencil and found a Number 2 yellow wood Faber Castel with an eraser that is petrified to the end. The pencil had been sharpened using a hand crank sharpener, giving the tip a perfect conical shape. The lead was rather blunt from prior use, and it needed resharpening. That is when my brain kicked out a memory from seventy-five years ago. I was ten and using a similar yellow pencil to do my homework. My Grandpa Jim was living with us for the winter and sat in the armchair reading his four-week-old Hungarian newspaper in the living room. The memory is somewhat sketchy about why I threw a tantrum to get my pencil sharpened, but it needed sharpening. Grampa Jim pulled out his pocket knife and chipped away to give me a stubby-looking sharp point. My problem was that I insisted on having a perfect machine-sharpened conical point. He shook his head and let me go about screaming and hollering for a perfectly conical point. I left him to carry on with my mother for a conical point. After she ignored my demands, I returned to the living room, and Grandpa handed me a pencil with a perfectly conical point. He had taken the time to carve the wood into a perfect cone with lead to match. I was shocked, amazed, and satisfied that he had done it for me.

I don’t own a hand crank pencil sharpener anymore, and I didn’t even have a portable plastic jig with a blade that, when twisted around the end of a pencil, will result in a perfectly conical point, but I did find a pocket knife with a somewhat dull blade that I used to resharpen my number two yellow pencil. I hacked away the wood, scraped the carbon into a point, and traced the work while remembering Grandpa’s patience and skill with a pocket knife. It was a mellow moment.

Filed under: Aging, Grampa Jim, Hobby, Memories | Tagged: , , , | Leave a comment »

Grandpa Wigh Reincarnated

Posted on 24/06/2023 by Grumpa Joe

One of my favorite phrases to use is, “the only thing wrong with retirement is that there are no days off.” The only way I know that today is Saturday is to look at my phone. Otherwise, all days seem to run into each other, and before I know it a week is gone, and I’m still thinking it is last Tuesday. This week, I missed a planned meeting because I got lost in time, and the task at hand carried more priority than the meeting.

Yesterday, I drove lovely to visit one of her girlfriends. While there I asked the friend if she remembered what I had promised to give her the last time we met. “Yes,” she replied, “I want a picture and you said you’d give me one.” She led me into her room to show me a picture on the wall that she wanted to replace. Actually, I thought to myself, that is a great picture, why would she want to replace it? Just as if she read my mind she said, “I’m tired of looking at it. I would like a sea with mountains and trees, use your imagination.”

While Lovely and her friend chatted away in a foreign tongue that I don’t understand, I sat scrolling through the photos on my phone. Surely, I have something with all the elements she desired. I scrolled all the way through 2011 before Lovely ended the visit. I found a number of photos that I would be proud to give her. Most of them were of the Monet Vision, and the remainder were sunsets, some at sea, and some of the desert. Now the task of choosing and getting Lovely’s approval before setting out to have the picture enlarged, printed, and framed. I have to get better at fulfilling my promises because I now have three things ahead of this one that await packaging, and shipping.

With nothing but time on my hands the temptation is always to put things off until tomorrow. Yet, I should adopt a policy of don’t put it off until tomorrow you may not live that long. Many people think that is wrong, and somewhat negative but the fact remains that it is reality.

Last week, I visited my brother who is seven years my senior. He was recently hospitalized and at death’s door after oral surgery. It seems he developed sepsis, a systemic infection afterwards, and it nearly killed him. Up to that point he still drove his car regularly, and was a free spirit at the retirement home, often disappearing for two weeks at a time to visit his summer home in Michigan. As he put it to me, “they took my key away.” As we talked he stopped for a moment and said “I think I’ll escape this place soon.” His heart pines for the country life. During our visit I saw him in profile and saw our Grandpa Jim. Grandpa didn’t have teeth, and Bill’s uppers are now out and his upper lip is collapsed inward, and damned if he doesn’t look exactly like Grandpa Wigh.

I reminded Bill that our own father gave up driving when he was in his early eighties. “Yeah,” Bill said, “He told me he nearly crashed someone because he couldn’t lift his leg fast enough to brake, and just squeeked by an accident.” It makes me think about my own driving which is becoming somewhat questionable at times, so many times while driving I am thinking of making a lane change and literally feel a presence next to me then out of the corner of my eye, I see a vehicle in the blind spot. Thankfully, the worst has been a loud horn that saved me. I can vision someone taking the key away from me in the near future.

Filed under: Aging, family, Grampa Jim | Tagged: , , | Leave a comment »

Rambling Man Annoying and Creepy

Posted on 08/06/2021 by Grumpa Joe

When I was very young I enjoyed listening to the stories of my grandfather. He and his farm buddies often sat under the big willow tree sipping beer and spinning yarns. Most of the time they spoke in Hungarian and I could only decipher words they used most often and generously within their conversation. It was many years later that I learned that these words were obscenities, and curses.

Now it is my turn. I am the old guy who loves to spin yarns except not-one of my kids or grand kids listen. Instead I write the stories and post them onto WordPress to an invisible audience. I’ll never know if the stories I post made a difference in someone else’s life. What I do know is that writing stories about life experiences makes a difference in my life. It is cathartic to spill my heart into the computer chip of my laptop. What does happen sometimes is that I slip up and reveal too many clues of my personal life and a friend will write or call me to ask what I meant.

Slowly my writing has evolved from the third person style of reporting facts to that of the narrative which I hope means I show rather than tell the story. For years I was stuck in the style of report writing which is stiff and boring as hell, but is the style of my profession. At first, I couldn’t even recognize what showing meant. At least now, when I read I can tell when an author is showing, and I really can’t tell when he is telling. Does that make sense? No? Me either.

When I read fiction today, I am mesmerized by the amount of a page an author will devote to psychoanalyzing the character’s thoughts and feelings. I tend to spend time on physical traits rather than inner thoughts. Perhaps if I read another couple hundred books and write another thousand posts I will begin to develop characters that a reader will love.

I’m traveling now, but when I return to my home base I will visit the library to select some new reading. Our library is staffed heavily by women. Nothing wrong with women here. What they often do is select and feature books that are authored by women. Again, nothing wrong with women authors, but I tend to like male authors better. There is much more action and gore in a man authored book than in one written by a woman. That, of course, is only my personal observation and opinion. I have read many fictional tales written by women and have loved them. Many take place in the summer on a beach in a remote area away from people. Most I have read are loaded with love and the emotions stimulated by love. I have nothing against love, but I tend to lean toward action and intrigue. If an author includes love with action and intrigue I will eagerly read the work.

WTF! Suddenly the bottom half of my screen has turned black. Has that ever happened to you? The only way to see what I am writing is to change the background color to white, or to make the text color white on a black background. If this is a WordPress improvement I suggest they pull their head from their ass and shit-can this feature immediately.

I suspect this happened because I am typing on a laptop and inadvertently dragged my thumb across the touch pad while at the same moment I brushed over a magic key which then turned on some super secret feature invented by WordPress to make more money. I’m sorry, but I can’t continue this way. It is super annoying and creepy.

Filed under: Aging, Biography, Characters I knew, Grampa Jim | Tagged: , | 2 Comments »

We the Stupid

Posted on 28/11/2015 by Grumpa Joe

Thank you Rich for sending these facts. As a young boy, I remember my grandfather who was born in the Austro-Hungarian Empire telling me stories about the Turks invading Europe. They over took Budapest and occupied Eastern Europe for hundreds of years before they were beaten and driven out.

images-3

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

We the stupid, historical facts

WE, THE STUPID
> The war started in the 7th century and lasted through the 17th century. I would contend it never stopped but historically the facts below are correct.
> This is why I choke when I hear someone say we will defeat or contain these Islamic terrorists in a few years or even 30 years as recently stated by Leon Panetta.
> If the latest batch of murders, beheadings, and killing of innocent Christians has shocked you, maybe you should read this compilation of historical facts about Muslims.
> This is all factually (and historically) correct and verifiable:
> In 732 A.D., the Muslim
> Army, which was moving on Paris, was defeated and turned back at Tours, France, by Charles Martell. (Charlemagne)
> In 1571 A.D., the Muslim Army/Navy was defeated by the Italians and Austrians as they tried to cross the Mediterranean to attack southern Europe in the Battle of Lepanto.
> In 1683 A.D., the Turkish Muslim Army, attacking Eastern Europe, was finally defeated in the Battle of Vienna by German and Polish Christian Armies.
> This crap has been going on for 1,400 years and half of the politicians don’t even know it.
> If these battles had not been won, we might be speaking Arabic and Christianity could be non-existent; Judaism certainly would not exist.
> Reflecting:
> A lot of Americans have become so insulated from reality that they imagine that America can suffer defeat without any inconvenience to themselves.
> Pause a moment and reflect back.
> These events are actual events from history. They really happened!

Do you remember?:

> 1. In 1968, Bobby Kennedy was shot and killed by a Muslim male.
> 2. In 1972, at the Munich Olympics, Israeli athletes were kidnapped and massacred by Muslim males.
> 3. In 1972, a PanAm 747 was hijacked and eventually diverted to Cairo where a fuse was lit on final approach. Shortly after landing it was blown up by Muslim males.
> 4. In 1973, a PanAm 707 was destroyed in Rome, with 33 people killed, when it was attacked with grenade  by Muslim males.
> 5. In 1979, the US embassy in Iran was taken over by Muslim males.
> 6. During the 1980’s a number of Americans were kidnapped in Lebanon by Muslim males.
> 7. In 1983, the US Marine barracks in Beirut was blown up by Muslim males.
> 8. In 1985, the cruise ship Achille Lauro was hijacked and a 70-year old Jewish American passenger was murdered and thrown overboard in his wheelchair by Muslim males.
> 9. In 1985, TWA flight 847 was hijacked at Athens, and a US Navy diver trying to rescue passengers was murdered by Muslim males
> 10. In 1988, PanAm Flight 103 was bombed by Muslim males.
> 11. In 1993, the World Trade Center was bombed the first time by Muslim males.
> 12. In 1998, the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed by Muslim males.
> 13. On 9/11/01, four airliners were hijacked; two were used as missiles to take down the World Trade Centers and of the remaining two, one crashed into the US Pentagon and the other was diverted and crashed by the passengers. Thousands of people were killed by Muslim males.
> 14. In 2002, the United States fought a war in Afghanistan against Muslim males.
> 15. In 2002, reporter Daniel Pearl was kidnapped and beheaded by a Muslim male.
> 16. In 2013, the Boston Marathon Bombing resulted in 4 Innocent people, including a child, being killed plus 264 people injured by Muslim males.
> No Obama, I really don’t see a pattern here to justify profiling, do you?
>
> So, to ensure we Americans never offend anyone, particularly fanatics intent on killing us, airport security screener’s will no longer be allowed to profile certain people.
>
> So, ask yourself “Just how stupid are we???”
>
> Absolutely No Profiling! They must conduct random searches of 80-year-old women, little kids, airline pilots with proper identification, secret agents who are members of Obama’s security detail, 85-year-old Congressmen with metal hips, and Medal of Honor winner and former Governor Joe Foss, BUT…….leave Muslim Males alone lest we be guilty of profiling.
>
> Ask yourself, “Just how stupid are we? “Have the American people completely lost their minds or just their Power of Reason???
>
> As the writer of the award winning story Forrest Gump so aptly put it, “Stupid Is As Stupid Does.”

Filed under: Biography, Education, family, Grampa Jim, Obama, religion, Uncategorized | Tagged: | 2 Comments »

I Believe in God

Posted on 05/07/2012 by Grumpa Joe

I believe in God. My heroes and role models do too. As I look back on life I can honestly say I only knew one atheist, and that was my grandfather. Toward the end of  his life, he looked out the living room window of his lonely little farm-house in Michigan at the sixty foot willow tree he had planted as a sapling immediately across the driveway.  A storm brewed, the skies were black and roiling, and the wind picked up with a fury. Grandpa Jim watched in awe as the sixty-foot willow tree ripped out of the ground and slammed over next to the house.

He told me that after seeing that tree rip out like a small twig he began to believe there was a God. It is my belief that Grandpa Jim resides in heaven with our Creator and waits for us to join him.

Here is a video of one of my mentors and a true role model.

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