Henrietta, Texas, 1963: It is a time-honored tradition among college-age boys that they drive home on weekends, and there consume mightily of home-cooked meals prepared by their mothers, and by a remarkable coincidence they often have brought a duffle bag filled with laundry which they somehow failed to find time to wash while at school, what with their busy schedule of studying, and etc.

Although these college lads may be large, hulking, beer-swilling brutes, each is still mama’s dear baby, and so these mothers feed the boys and do their washing, and after the weekend send the young warriors off with bellies full and clean clothing. This cycle repeats over and over again, apparently eternally.

I was no exception.

On this particular weekend, I was desparate, for I was down to wearing a dirty shirt, and two mismatched socks. One sock was pale blue and the other white with a faint orange stripe.

In the laundry room, my mother looked me up and down as I plopped down the swollen laundry duffle. Staring at my feet, she frowned.

“It’s the funniest thing,” she said.

“What is?” I asked.

“You have another pair of socks here,” she said, “exactly like that pair you’re wearing.”

Wichita Falls, Texas, 1960: My cousins Bobby and Danny lived in this nearby city. Their father Pfeiffer sold insurance and had a fancy red Farmer’s Insurance sign painted on the doors of their white Studebaker. “It makes the car deductible,” he said.

His wife, formerly Rosemary Hurn, my mother’s older sister, was in fact the eldest of the Hurn children, and she was quite beautiful. As we remember that screen sirens of the 1940’s were somber-faced and dramatic explains a lot about how Rosemary and my mother dressed when they were dressing up. The difference between them was that my mother, a plump and cheery-natured woman, didn’t really fit in that picture, but Rosemary brought it off fairly well.

Rosemary, in my opinion as a child, rather put on airs. It was this snooty outlook which made Bobby’s first Communion so unfortunate for her.

For you see, Rosemary was the secretary to Dr. Hoggard, the smiling and pompous minister of Floral Height Methodist Church, which was lots snootier than the First Methodist Church of Henrietta which I was used to.

Floral Heights Methodist had a ceiling several stories high, and added a vast cathedral echo to the minister’s words. Perhaps that’s what made him pompous. Or perhaps I just imagined it as a child.

Bobby and Danny, and husband Pfeiffer, were expected to maintain a especially diligent decorum at Floral Heights Methodist Church, seeing as how Rosemary had such a position of importance there. So no whispering, and no fidgeting! The boys knew better.

When young Bobby was deemed old enough to attend Communion, he was anxious to do it right. Now, for the benefit of our heathen readers, in the Methodist Church, Communion is held but once per month, unlike the Catholics, who have Mass at most every service. The Catholics also have fancy wafers and red wine, but the Methodists just use crumbled pieces of Saltine Crackers and Welch’s grape juice, for as everybody knows the Catholics are a drunken, unruly lot, unlike the proper and sanctified Methodists.

Floral Heights Methodist being large and proper and sanctified, the Communion service takes a long time, for the congregation must trudge down to the great circle in crews. The ushers select a pewful of parishioners. Down in a line march these folks in their Sunday attire, to kneel upon the padded bench surrounding the low circular railing. Along come the priests- Oops I mean Ministerians, the first one offering to each worshipper a silver plate with the Saltine pieces, then the other guy offering tiny glasses of grape juice.

Bobby marched down behind Rosemary and Pfeiffer and knelt properly, craning his neck to see the silver platter approach. He took a piece of the holy Saltine, and the serving Ministerians moved on to Rosemary and Pfeiffer.

Suddenly the beauty of the service was marred. Bobby was crawling around on the carpet, scurrying in hasty circles on hands and knees.

“Oh my gawrsh!” he cried out, “I dropped my cracker!“

Henrietta, Texas, Summer 1970: My youngest brother David was a tow-headed skinny kid with an active manner, and often serious. Paul was David’s older brother, and 14 years my junior, so I left for college when he was still little. It was only when I returned home as a young man that I got to know the boys as they grew up.

At that time we had a huge orange tomcat named Kitty. David and Kitty were great pals, often exploring together, and when David took a nap on the long white sofa, Kitty would find him and wash David’s straw-colored hair. One afternoon, as I walked through the living room, I found the two of them fast asleep on the sofa. David had his arm over Kitty, and Kitty had his arm over David.

But Kitty had an annoying habit.

Kitty had no regular mealtimes. Kitty ate when Kitty got hungry. No matter what my mother was doing, Kitty would begin rubbing against her ankles, yowling loudly. No matter that my mother said “Shoo!” No matter that my mother pushed Kitty away. Rubbing and yowling continued steadily until my mother gave in and went to feed Kitty.

But what if my mother wasn’t available. David, Kitty’s great pal, would become the target. Kitty yowled and rubbed David’s ankles until David would go and feed Kitty.

Kitty did not try this strategy on me or Paul, because it didn’t work. Paul and I would not react to these guerilla tactics, and so Kitty concentrated on our mother and David.

Mama complained. David complained. But grumbling and complaining, they’d open a can and feed Kitty. I told them that they were just training Kitty to expect a reward from that behavior. Mama frowned.

“But he just makes so much noise!” she said.

Paul tried to explain it to David, but David just said that Kitty was hungry. So I suppose it unsurprising that one day Paul appeared with a serious expression on his face.

“I’m worried,” he said. I looked up.

“About what?” I said.

“I’ve just realized,” he said, “that Kitty has more will-power than Mama and David.”

Mount Shasta: Why am I writing a weblog? Why would you want to write a weblog?

A long, long, long time ago, Lao-Tzu was leaving the city, and the gate-keeper stopped him. Recognizing Lao-Tzu as a man of great learning, a walking treasure, the gatekeeper refused to permit Lao-Tzu to leave until Lao-Tzu wrote down what he knew.

The book written down we call the Tao Te Ching, and it describes the mysterious Tao which underlies and animates all the universe and all life.

Frankly, I don’t have anything that valuable to write down. I might as well admit it; you’d have guessed it anyhow. But I’ve seen this in action …

Some years ago at Network Answering Service, a young man named Chris N. came to work. Of hundreds who worked there, Chris stands among a handful notable among humans because he took responsibility for his actions. That means you could assign him something, and he’d do it or discover what was needed to do it and handle that and then do it. If he made a mistake, he made no excuse. In my experience, this trait is rare in humans, and I greatly respect it.

One day Chris made a one-page comic strip, called “The Airtight Answering Service of Richard French” (later re-titled “Cronographics“) about our little band of OPs. From time to time, Chris would add another page, spotlighting various OPs in some science-fiction adventure. These we posted on the wall in the bathroom, where all could enjoy them.

Chris worked there for some years, and then one day it was to be his last. If memory serves, it was the day of our Christmas Party, and there was a certain amount of wine. When Chris was ready to leave, slightly sloshed, he was surprised when I ambushed him in the stairwell, refusing to let him leave until he finished Cronographics.

He requested pen and paper, and sat on the stairs, and drew a final page. And then he left, going on to other adventures both sacred and profane. His final page was magnificent.

I have no such talent. But I’ve seen some things, and known some people, and some of these people and stories might be interesting to others.

So in the hope that some of these stories might be of interest, and that some of these insights might prove useful, I write them down, in this world-wide journal, the weblog.

May you find something of interest here.

This is a simple law of nature, but one which is very handy:

If you ask somebody why they did something, you’ll get only justification and very little useful information.

That’s it.

Generally speaking, in a conversation, if you ask your buddy Joe why he started a fight with Alvin, you won’t get much useful information. The human reaction to having motives questioned is often an automatic marshalling of justification. Joe might say, for example, that Alvin had it coming and that Alvin had been bugging Joe for a long time.

On the other hand, try using an alternate wording. Instead of asking why, try asking “what led you to …” For example, you’d ask Joe “What led you to get into a fight with Alvin?” In this case, often his answer will be somewhat different. He might say, for example, “I don’t like him much, and when he stuck his finger up my nose, I lost my temper and hit him.”

Asking “why” is usually a waste of time; asking “what led you to” generally provides a better picture of what happened.

Knowing this important secret of the universe, go forth and prosper.

Westbury Hotel, San Francisco, 1974: Clark, the new assistant manager, was a jerk. Everyone agreed. So it was real annoying that he was now the assistant manager. He seemed especially hard-nosed and tactless at first, but maybe he was nervous.

After a while, we got used to him, but when he came in on crutches with his leg in a cast, nobody was real sorry. We watched him hobble around for a while, and then finally I had to ask.

“Clark,” I said, “What happened?” He looked up into the air, and winced at the question.

“I got hit by a car,” he said.

“Why did you walk out in front of the car?”

“Well,” he said, “the light was green.”

Henrietta, Texas, Summer 1960: My parents were out of town, and I had the place to myself.

In the afternoon, Lefevre and I drove to Wichita Falls for beer. Pioneer Drive-Inn #3 was just inside the city limits, so that’s where we sat until we espied a disreputable-looking fellow who looked like he was over 21.

We struck up a conversation, and offered to buy him some beer. He liked that idea. He was a skinny guy, none too clean, with a Camels pack rolled into the arm of his t-shirt. We produced the money and he got the goods from the liquor store next door, and then for politeness sake we all sat in my car and drank a beer, and while sitting there, the guy did an amazing thing:

With one hand he opened a book of paper matches, pulled one forward and closed the cover behind it, bent it and ignited it, then lit his cigarette and tore the burnt-out match from the book! All with one hand!

I got him to show me slowly, and I practiced this over and over, because I just knew that it would make me very, very cool. I probably could still do it, but frankly I’m just not cool any more, and no longer smoke.

We soon said adios to our new friend, because we now possessed a case of beer and a large house all to ourselves. Naturally, throwing a party seemed like a good idea at the time.

Back in Henrietta, we sat around at the Lo-Boy Drive-Inn and when friends showed up, we invited them to my party. After a while, Lefevre left to fetch his 1967 Impala, him needing to drive back to Wichita Falls to collect a date for the evening.

Lefevre was a famous ladies man.

He was widely considered to be smooth of speech. We all believed that he could walk into any building and come out with a girl on each arm.

Lefevre himself was the first to promulgate this legend. He himself explained to me that he was no longer at the level of trying to get laid; he was at a higher level, where he concentrated on the best way to do it with each particular girl. There was more to this speech, but perhaps that’s enough for now.

That evening, when it got dark, people began showing up. More and more of them. Cars were parked on the street, then on the lawn. Upstairs was lottso beer. Downstairs in my beatnik’s lair, the basement, was cool jazz music, and a quiet spot.

Somehow, during the evening, Lefevre and his date became ensconced in that basement, and everybody else was locked out. Well, how typical, we thought.

We drank beer and told lies, and mostly it was just a bunch of guys sitting around, because all the girls but one had gone home. Paul H. I think it was also had a date, who was now complaining that she needed to go home.

The problem was that she was supposed to ride back to her home in Wichita Falls with Lefevre and his date, and they were inaccessible. Finally Paul H. gave up, and drove her home. The party was definitely thinning out.

Then somebody noticed the intercom system. My parents had installed this fancy intercom with a station in their bedroom, and one in the children’s room, and one in the basement. That was the same basement in which Lefevre and date were barricaded.

Naturally, wanting to give them every consideration, we refused to listen in for at least a minute or two. When we turned it on, we could hear them, but they couldn’t hear us. The girl was complaining.

“Take me home,” she said. “I’ll get in trouble.” Then we heard Lefevre.

“Come here,” he said.

There were some moments of silence and rustling, and then she began again that she had to go home, that he must take her home right now.

“Come here,” he said.

She objected, became angry, remonstrated with him.

“Come here,” he said.

She became tearful, pleading that she’d be in trouble.

“Come here,” he said.

This went on for a long time. Then there was a long silence and more rustling, for a long time.

After a while, Lefevre and the girl appeared in the living room. He said he’d be taking her home now. They left.

What a smooth-talking guy! No wonder he did so well with the ladies!

Henrietta, Texas, 1960: Once upon a time, Adrienne tells me, her parents packed her and her sister into their Renault automobile, for a month-long jaunt from New Hampshire to American landmarks like Gettesburg and tobacco fields, all on the way to Florida.

In order to satisfy the school, she agreed to a science project, where she collected soil samples from each location, and then gave a talk to her class. She remembers Chesepeake Bay and these other places, but she mainly remembers packaging the soil samples: the red color of this one, the gravelly texture of that one.

My own science project shines clear in memory, because it wasn’t. It wasn’t actually my project. In fact, it wasn’t really a science project at all, but rather a fraud disguising a speaker cabinet.

Let me explain …

My cousin Bobby is a sharp guy. He’s younger, as are all my cousins. He tended to be rotund as a child, an earnest kid who took life seriously. In college he did something smart: he signed up for a “co-op” program with Conoco Oil Company. He’d attend engineering classes for one semester; then he’d work at Conoco for one semester.

It took longer to graduate, but he learned what engineering was all about, and already had a good job from which he rose rapidly, becoming a vice-president at such a young age that he took to wearing granny glasses and dressing in a stuffy manner so as to be taken seriously by the other vice presidents around the place.

He’d showed promise years earlier, winning the Wichita Falls science fair with his Electronic Level. It was very clever.

In a normal carpenter’s level is found a glass tube slightly curved, filled with a clear liquid and one bubble of air. Mounted onto a straight board, when the board is lying on a level surface, the bubble of air is nicely centered between two marks on the glass tube.

Bobby took this glass tube and shined a light through the bubble onto two tiny photo-receptor panels. Then, with a circuit that measured the light output from the two panels, he operated a needle on gauge to show the bubble’s position with extremely high accuracy. Presto! He’d created an electronic amplifier to make the common level more precise.

Nineteen miles away and a year later, in my school in Henrietta, I had to do a science project.

I didn’t want a science project.

Instead, I wanted to build a speaker cabinet shown in Mechanics Illustrated: Into a plywood box of a certain shape, you mounted an 8-inch speaker. Because of the odd shape and an adjustable lid placed at an angle, the sound from the back of the speaker wove its way all around and then emerged in such a way as to obtain surprising hi-fi sound from such a simple speaker, it said.

So I pulled a con.

First, I made arrangements to borrow Bobby’s Electronic Level to represent as my own. I confess that being a crook and a fraud bothered me not at all.

Next, I got permission to attend the Shop class in my high school during my normal study hall period.

Last, using the shop tools I designed and built a fancy wooden exhibit, with a back panel to display the sign explaining the device, and two side panels across the front edges of which I placed a board. Upon one side of this board was an off-center wooden wheel which you could turn with a knob. This raised and lowered one side of the Electronic Level so that you could watch the device working.

I won a ribbon at the Science Fair with my most excellent fraud. Hooray for science!

But more important to me, after the fair, I disassembled the display. The display had been designed so that the wooden parts just happened to be cut to the exact same sizes as were required for the speaker cabinet. I took the display apart, then screwed the pieces back together in a different way. Presto! A Mechanics Illustrated speaker cabinet!

My wonderful speaker cabinet found a home in our home’s refurbished basement, which I was rapidly converting into a beatnik dive. There, extracting wires from my old record player, I luxuriated in beatnik heaven listening to the sounds of the Miles Davis “Porgy and Bess” album, along with Jimmy Smith, Barney Kessel, and Dave Brubek.

Life was good. “Hooray for science!” said the beatnik. Oops. I mean-

“Cool, man,” said the beatnik.