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My 2016 Mid-West Trip~Part 6

10 Aug

A Slice of Life

 Bill Lites

Day 6 (Thursday)

 

I was surprised when leaving Oklahoma City, on I-70, to discover that it was a Toll Road. As it turned out, by the time I got to Kansas City it had cost me eight dollars in tolls. On the way I stopped in Tulsa, OK to check out the Tulsa Air & Space Museum located adjacent to the Tulsa International Airport. This was a small museum with only about six nicely restored airplanes.

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However, they did have a very unusual Spartan 12W as part of their collection. The Spartan 12W is an upgraded, tricycle gear variant of the Spartan Executive aircraft. I’m going to see if I can talk to my friend Terry (the airplane buff) to see if he has ever heard of, or seen, a tricycle geared Spartan 12W aircraft.

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Just as I was about to cross the border out of Oklahoma I stopped in the small town of Afton, OK to visit in the Afton Station Route 66 Packard Museum. As part of the museum’s name implies, their claim to fame is a nice collection of beautifully restored Packard automobiles, dating from the 1920s through the 1960s. So, it surprised me to see a 1990 Maserati TC sitting off by itself in a side room.

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The museum is located on the old Route 66 Highway and they have every conceivable Route 66 type of memorabilia for sale in their gift shop. It brought back lots of memories from my childhood, when I was raised in Albuquerque, NM with the two-lane Route 66 as our main street (Central Avenue) through town.

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Just down the road a few miles was the National Rod & Custom Car Hall of Fame. I was amazed at the display of some 50 one-of-a-kind custom cars in this collection. I discovered that most all of them were designed and built by Darrell Starboard, who is a famous car show participant with his magnificent original designs.

There is no way to describe the beautiful workmanship of these cars. I would have to compare Darrell Starboard with Bert Rattan, as far as forward-looking design concepts are concerned, in their respective fields.

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By the time I arrived at the TWA Museum located at the Kansas City International Airport they were closed. When I googled that museum I discovered that it was mostly memorabilia items recording the history of TWA’s hub, at what is now the Kansas City International Airport, from the 1920s to the 1990s.

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On the other side of the airport was the National Airline History Museum which was also closed. This is one museum that I was really sorry to miss visiting as I am interested in the history of all the different U.S. airlines. It appears that this museum and the TWA Museum are closely linked, as both display mostly aircraft used by TWA over the years. This is not hard to understand since what is now the Kansas City International Airport was the TWA hub for so many years. The museum’s website indicates it has set an ambitious goal for itself, with the restoration of several large projects. A 1934 Northrop Delta 1D, one of America’s first single engine commercial transport airplanes.   A Lockheed Constellation, known worldwide as one of the first international piston-engine passenger aircraft. A Lockheed L-1011 Tristar, one of America’s premium international jet airliners, and a Douglas DC-8 jet transport just to name a few. Any one of these projects would be a challenge for any museum to take on.

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The last museum on my list today was the Kansas City Automotive Museum located southwest of the city, just off I-35, between Lenexa and Olathe, KS. The museum was closed, but I was able to look through the windows to discover that this was a small museum consisting of 12 nicely restored cars dating from the 1950s and 1960s. There are just not enough hours in the day for me to see everything I want to see along the road I am traveling.

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I had a quick and easy dinner at Taco Bell tonight. Three Crunchy Beef Taco Supremes with lots of Verde Salsa to spice things up. Then it was back to the motel for some TV and a good night’s rest.

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—–To Be Continued—–

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My 2016 Mid-West Trip~Part 5

3 Aug

A Slice of Life

Bill Lites

Bill Red Spot Plane

 

Day 5 (Wednesday)

 

The trip from Fort Worth to Oklahoma City was uneventful. The mesquite trees that inundated central and northern Texas began to disappear as I progressed north, to be replaced by beautiful green foliaged trees of all types in Oklahoma.

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My first stop today was to visit the Oklahoma Railroad Museum located on the east side of Oklahoma City. This museum turned out to be a very small museum with just a few steam engines, and some passenger & freight cars. It was closed, so I wasn’t able to go through any of their restored museum pieces.

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The H & H Gun Range was on the Internet list of “Things to do in Oklahoma City” and I was interested to see what it was all about.  It turned out to be one of the most impressive gun shops I have ever witnessed.  They had every type of pistol, rifle, and ammunition anyone could ever need. They had a pistol range, a rifle range, and even a bow and arrow range. They also had every type of hunting and fishing equipment that a person might have need of. All of this in one store that took up as much as a city block in length and was all housed under one roof.

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Next I stopped at the Oklahoma Science Center, but it was absolutely full of children (grade school through high school) and was so noisy you could hardly hear yourself think. As you might imagine, I didn’t stay long.

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Down the road a ways was the Charles B. Hall Air Park located just outside the main entrance to Tinker Air Force Base. They had a nice arrangement of restored aircraft, statically displayed in the park. The park was named in honor of Major Hall, who was a Tuskegee Airman flying with the 99th Pursuit Squadron during WWII. He was also the first African-American to shoot down an enemy aircraft in combat. I really hate to see some of these magnificent warbirds sitting out in the weather and slowly deteriorating.

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On my way to Bethany, OK to visit my next aviation museum, I stopped off at 180 Medical to talk to Taylor Dragoo, who is my company contact for my self-catheterization supplies. As it turned out he did not look anything like the picture I had of him in my mind, when we are talking on the phone. We had a nice visit but he was busy and I had places to go, so I didn’t stay long.

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My last stop for the day was at the Oklahoma Museum of Flying located in Bethany, Ok. The owners were kind enough to let me in, past their normal 4 o’clock closing time. The museum is quite small with only four planes in one small hanger. However all four of those airplanes are in flying condition. With one of their planes being a B-25 Mitchell, we talked of people in the warbird restoration community that we all knew, such as Tom Riley and Dave Matthews.

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When I arrived at the motel for the evening, I arranged everything I was going to take into my room on the passenger seat and punched the door unlock button. I walked around to the passenger door, to retrieve the items, and found the passenger door locked. What a surprise! I was sure I had punched the unlock button. But when I went back to the driver’s door it was also locked. “Uh Oh! Where are my keys? On the seat with the other things. What have I done now? Locked myself out of the car, dummy.” Everything I needed to contact Roadside Assistance was laying right there on the seat out of reach.

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It took me half an hour and four phone calls before I could contact someone with Thrifty who could help me. It took another half hour for the locksmith to get there and unlock the door. The only upside to this entire ordeal was that the manufacturer had included “Lockout Insurance” with the car, so I didn’t have to pay for the locksmith. You better believe I will be keeping a close eye on those car keys for the rest of this trip.

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Dinner tonight at the local Cracker Barrel was grilled catfish, collard greens and a tossed green salad, with ranch dressing. One of their famous biscuits and honey was my dessert. What a delicious meal that was.

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—–To Be Continued—–

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My 2016 Mid-West Trip~Part 4

27 Jul

A Slice of Life

Bill Lites

Bill Cross Plane

 

Day 4 (Tuesday)

 

I made good time on my trip from Houston to Fort Worth today, and my first stop was to visit the C.R. Smith Museum. This museum records the history of American Airlines, which was founded in 1930, and how the airline has developed from its inception, to the present, under the leadership of C.R. Smith.

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They had a beautifully restored 1935 DC-3 in American Airline colors (of course!). That reminded me of my very first flight on an airplane. That took place in 1945, when I was 6 years old, and my family was moving from Dallas, Texas to Albuquerque, New Mexico. And would you believe it, that trip was in a plane that just happened to be an American Airlines DC-3. I wondered if it could be possible that this is the very airplane I flew in all those many years ago? I have heard of stranger things than that happening.

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Several museums that I had planned to see in Fort Worth were closed today so my next stop was to visit the Vintage Auto Museum and Grill in Weatherford, Texas. This is a very unique museum, in that it includes a bar and grill all under one roof.

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One of the museum’s favorite automobiles is the 1964 Lincoln Continental Convertible that President Lyndon B. Johnson used to drive around his Texas Hill Country ranch, when he was there resting from his White House duties.

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I forgot to mention a minor incident I had yesterday. As I was leaving Texas City, heading north on I-45, a truck kicked up a stone that hit my windshield, (left of my field of vision) leaving a chip in it. I told myself, “I’ll have to be sure to mention that chip to the Thrifty Rental Car folks when I turn the car in at the end of my trip.” That thought was based on the fact that DiVoran and I have two chips in the windshield of our 2003 Mercury Grand Marque that you can barely see, and have been there for years with no problem.

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But, by the time I got to the motel last night, a crack had migrated about 4 inches out of the chip, toward the center of the windshield. When I got up this morning, the crack was not any bigger.   No problem, right? Well, as the day wore on, the crack kept getting bigger. There didn’t seem to be any system to it. I’d drive along for a while and there would be no progression of the crack. Then all of a sudden, it would grow an inch or more.   So, by the end of the day now, the crack was over 12 inches long, and had progressed right across my field of vision. I was afraid that if the windshield was hit again, it might shatter and I could be in a heap of trouble. Since I had some time left in the day, I called Thrifty, explained the problem, and asked them for the closest office where I could take my rental car for a replacement. That turned out to be not far, at the DFW Airport. Thrifty set up the exchange and by the time I got to the airport, that office had my replacement car ready.

 

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So, then it was back to the motel, with my new car, for leftover Baby Back Ribs, sweet potatoe and cole slaw. It was all almost as good as it had been the night before at Longhorn Stakehouse.

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—–To Be Continued—–

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My 2016 Mid-West Trip Part 3

20 Jul

A Slice of Life

 Bill Lites

Bill Stars Plane

 

 

Day 3 (Monday)

The day trip from Houston to Galveston took longer than I had expected. My first stop was to visit the Lone Star Flight Museum. This was a very nice museum with about 20 aircraft (in one very large hanger) most of which were restored to flying condition.

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I was surprised to see they had a German Me-262 Schwalbe (Swallow) jet fighter on display.  I ask one of the volunteers if the Me-262 was in flying condition and he said, “Yes.”  Then he told me it was on loan from another museum, and it was actually one of the three beautiful new Me-262 reproductions built by the Classic Fighter Industries at Paine Field in Everett, Washington.

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The next stop was to visit the Galveston Railroad Museum which had a very nice collection of rolling stock. Their train station restoration was amazing and reminded me of several stations I had visited on my travels to and from duty stations while in the U.S. Navy. A large variety of train memorabilia, including original dinning ware, from the 1920s through the 1960s was also on display.

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I was disappointed when I couldn’t find the Texas Seaport Museum where I hoped to see the Tall Ship Elissa. Greta took me to the Galveston cruise ship terminal which was bustling with cruise line passengers, taxis and limousines.  The entire dock area was blotted out by the mass of the cruise ship tied up alongside the terminal, taking on passengers. The Elissa is a two-masted, iron-hulled brigantine sailing ship originally built in 1877 in Aberdeen, Scotland by the Alexander Hall & Company. The ship is one of the world’s oldest sailing ships, and is maintained and sailed annually around the Gulf of Mexico.

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I stopped and took a photo of the famous Willis-Moody Mansion there in Galveston. I had read that the mansion is a 31-room Romanesque historic residence that was built in 1895 by Narcissa Willis. It was later bought by the entrepreneur William Lewis Moody Jr. and is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places. I decided not to take a tour of the mansion and headed back toward Houston.

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The route Greta proposed for my return to Houston took me past the small town of Texas City, TX. I was old enough (9 years old) to remember the tremendous disaster that happened at the Port of Texas City in 1947.  So I decided to stop and see if they had a museum or memorial honoring the many people that were killed as a result of that disaster.

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The small Texas City Museum is said to have a section set aside for the 1947 disaster, but the museum was closed. However, there was a Texas City Remembers park that honored the people killed in that horrific disaster.

I stopped to pay my respects.

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I made it back to Houston in time to visit the site of the Battleship USS Texas

(BB-35). I had toured two other U.S. battleships and a U.S. cruiser, so opted not to tour this ship. However, Wikipedia informed me that the ship is a New York class battleship that was commissioned in 1914. The USS Texas was involved in many actions during WWI, and again during WWII including support of Allied landings on North Africa, Normandy, Iwo Jima and Okinawa.

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As I was leaving the Battleship Texas site, I noticed right ahead of me was a very tall monument. So I stopped to see what it was all about. I discovered it was the 567 foot high San Jacinto Monument, located on part of the San Jacinto Battleground State Historic Site. This impressive monument was built to commemorate the decisive 1836 Battle of San Jacinto during the Texas Revolution. It was completed in 1939 and is the world’s tallest masonry column (13 feet taller than the Washington Monument). Leave it to Texas to be and have not only the biggest, but also claim to have the tallest!

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Next it was over to the William P. Hobby Airport to see if Greta could find The 1940 Air Terminal Museum. And what do you know; she took me right to it! I was surprised to learn that according to Wikipedia, Houston’s Hobby Airport has been around since 1927, and has had several names; W. T. Carter Field, Houston Municipal Airport and Howard R. Hughes Airport, just to name a few. This building was the first airport passenger terminal built in Houston.

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Opened in 1940, this art deco structure served as the Houston Municipal Airport Terminal until 1954 when it was renamed Houston International Airport. As the air transportation business expanded across America, Houston’s airport expanded with it, and in 1967 it was renamed, again, to what we now know as the William P. Hobby Airport. Too bad the museum was closed, as I would like to have browsed through the history of this beautiful air terminal building.

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On the way to the motel, I asked Greta to see if she could direct me to the ArtCar Museum. As it turned out, this was a small museum that displays mostly post-modern age cars, modified by artists/owners to the specifications of their own idiosyncratic images and visions. I was sorry to find this museum closed for the day, since I would have loved to seen some of those “Artists” handy work.

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Dinner tonight was Baby Back Ribs, a sweet potato with cinnamon butter and cold slaw at Longhorn Steakhouse.  It was all wonderful, and put me in the mood to kick back with a relaxing TV show and a good night’s sleep. I couldn’t find any good TV shows, so I just checked out tomorrow’s weather and went to bed.

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—–To Be Continued—–

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My 2016 Mid-West Trip~Part 2

13 Jul

A Slice of Life

Bill Lites

My 2016 Mid-West Trip Part 2
By Bill Lites

Day 2 (Sunday)

I was expecting today to be a long day, but that huge storm that hit Houston the day before was getting ready to make today even longer. That storm must have been moving slowly west while I was enjoying a good night’s sleep. I hadn’t been on the road more than a half an hour this morning when I started running into the rain. And it was solid rain from then for the next six hours. It was coming down so hard at times that I couldn’t hear my audio book on the car speaker system over the pounding of the rain on the car.

traffic_in_the_rain

Of course no one expects to have an accident just because it’s raining, but as you might expect, someone did. Just look at the car in the left lane, in the picture above, and tell me that is adequate separation for driving on an Interstate in a driving rain! How can people expect to arrive at their destination in one piece when they drive like that? Over the course of the day there were two major accidents which caused I-10 westbound traffic to back up for miles each time.

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During one of those stop-and-go episodes I was lucky enough to be able to pull off the Interstate for gas and to use the restroom. I was thinking that while I was accomplishing those tasks the traffic might hopefully clear. Well, not only did the traffic not clear up, but there were so many people stopping for gas, that there were lines at all 10 pumps, and people were using the covers over the pumps to stay out of the rain. When I finally was able to snag a pump, my credit card didn’t work. I asked the attendant why my card didn’t work and he said with all this rain his satellite connections are not working. Good thing I had some cash or I would have really been stuck. The light at the end of this very dark tunnel was that the weather in Houston was reported to be clear and dry.

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I finally made it to Houston and got to the Space Center Houston Museum around 2:30 in the afternoon. It was a large facility with a tram tour that included the NASA Human Spaceflight Training Center, the Manned Flight Control Center and the NASA Rocket Park. I ended up spending about 2-1/2 hours there, with the tram tour and walking through the museum.

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By then I was getting pretty hungry and it was starting to rain, AGAIN, so I decided to take my supper at Fuddruckers, which was just down the road. I had one of their 1/3 pound Southwest Specialty burgers. Supper was wonderful and relaxing. Then after a couple of wild goose chases around the northern part of Houston, by my friend Greta, she finally got me to my motel for the night.

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After I got settled in at the motel, I remembered I wanted to pick up a couple of items from Walmart. I asked the desk clerk for directions and found it with no problems. But, as I exited the store I realized I had forgotten to bring Greta with me so I could find my way back to the motel easily. Even with a lot of prayer, and several stops for directions, it still took me an hour to find my way back to the motel. Boy, am I ever glad this day is over. I told myself, “Never leave home-base again without Greta!”

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—–To Be Continued—–

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My 2016 Mid-West Trip~ Part 1

6 Jul

A Slice of Life

Bill Lites

Bill Small Red Plane

 

Day 1 (Saturday)

Because of a couple severe health issues, it’s been almost a year since my last “Museum Discovery Trip” (as I call them), and I was looking forward to this trip with great anticipation. However, after today, I’ve decided I will never fly on the weekend again. The lines were extra-long everywhere I needed to go. It took 1½ hours from the time DiVoran dropped me off at the Southwest curbside check-in, then through security, and finally to the departure gate. Now I know why the airlines suggest you arrived at the airport two hours before your flight; so you can hurry up and wait!

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Once we got in the air, it only took 20 minutes longer to fly from Orlando to New Orleans then it took me to get from curbside check-in to the departure gate. I have to admit it was a very nice flight, and the peanuts were fresh. I thought the over-water final approach to the New Orleans International Airport was going to end up with us having to swim the last mile or so. We kept getting lower and closer to the water! It reminded me of a similar feeling I have had; that of the long over-water final approach, over San Francisco Bay, to the San Francisco airport.

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Once I retrieved my suitcase, it was a very long walk from baggage claim to the rental car facility. At the Thrifty Rental Car counter I discovered my reservation had been made for a “Special Rate” (what was that?). When I got to the pickup area, the agent took one look at my reservation slip and pointed to three SUV’s and said, “Take your pick.” That was a new experience for me. I had my choice of a Jeep Renegade, a Jeep Compass or a Jeep Patriot. After a quick call to my son-in-law (a Jeep owner) for his recommendation, I chose the top-of-the-line Patriot.

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After checking out the New Orleans street map and getting Greta (my Garmin) set up and running, my first stop was to visit The National World War II Museum there in New Orleans. There was a huge amount of construction going on around the museum and it took me some time to find a parking place. I was surprised to see that the museum was made up of three large buildings (called pavilions), and the construction was for their new fourth pavilion).

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I discovered that each pavilion was filled with a variety of authentic memorabilia from each of the U.S. military services that took part in that conflict. I realized I was not going to be able to see everything in detail in the time I had left before they closed. I asked about their reduced price “Day After” ticket, but it was only good for one week, and I wouldn’t be back for two weeks. So, I hurried through each level of each pavilion. It would take hours, if not days, for a person to read all of the information displayed and viewed all of the many short movies on each level of each pavilion. I was familiar with much of the information presented in two of the three pavilions.

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The third pavilion was the one I was looking for; it had the museum’s aircraft displayed. There was a German Me-109 hanging from the ceiling of the foyer and six other nicely restored aircraft, all hanging from the ceiling of that third pavilion. There was a P-51 Mustang, a TBM Avenger, a SBD Dauntless dive bomber, a F4U Corsair, a B-25 Mitchell bomber and a B-17 Flying Fortress. I could hardly believe the strength that pavilion’s roof structure must have, to keep all six of those airplanes suspended from its ceiling.

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As it happened, just across the street from where I parked was Louisiana’s Civil War Museum. Since I’m not a Civil War Buff, and it was raining by the time I got back to my car, I elected not to take the time to go through this museum.

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My next stop was to visit the Cars of Yesteryears Museum in Metairie. I had to drive through several blocks of heavily flooded streets, and when I got to the museum it was closed for the weekend. Since it looked like it was going to continue to rain the rest of the afternoon, I decided to go on over to the motel in La Place, LA and try to dry out there.

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After I got checked in at the motel and dried out, I got dining recommendations from the desk clerk, and headed for supper at The Pier 51 Seafood Restaurant just down the road from the motel.  I had Cajun style crawfish, jumbo shrimp, and a house salad with ranch dressing. Boy was that an experience!  I had always wanted to try Cajun prepared crawfish. A local sitting next to me at the bar, with a huge tray of crayfish, graciously instructed me on how to properly peel and eat the crayfish. In my opinion, its more trouble than it’s worth. Also, the Cajun boil they use is a little too spicy for me.

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With a full tummy and a good night’s sleep tonight, I’ll be on my way to Houston, Texas first thing tomorrow morning.

—–To Be Continued—–

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My First Car~Part 2

17 Feb

A Slice of Life

 Bill Lites

Bill Cross Plane

 

The extra money I saved working at Furr’s Super Market allowed me (with my parents help) buy a new Harley Davidson Sportster when I was 17. This machine was the one that got me interested in motor cycle clubs there in Albuquerque. They had all kinds of cool club events that I participated in. The one I liked the most was the “Hare & Hound” chase at night. A bunch of us would line up abreast with our lights on, and then act as the “Hounds” and slowly take off across the desert until we flushed a rabbit. Then it was open throttles to see who could chase down the rabbit first. Do any of you have any idea how fast a rabbit can run and make a 90-degree turns? Needless to say, that could be a very bumpy ride as the wind would deposit small mound of sand around each little tuft of vegetation, and running over one would sometimes causing unexpected airborne adventures.

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When I was 18 my parents finally relented and allowed me (Here it comes!!) to buy “My First Car.” I think the main reason for their decision was that the car was in pretty sad shape and needed a lot of work, so they figured I couldn’t get in too much trouble with it. I can’t remember who I bought it from, but I paid a whopping $50.00 dollars for it. It was a 1940 Chevy Coupe and all I can say is that it ran. Now came the challenge I had been waiting for all those years. Rebuilding lawn mower and motorcycle engines had kept me busy over the years, but it had not satisfied the desire to rebuild my own car. Now I had a car to work on that I could call my own. Believe it or not, when I said it would run, I wasn’t kidding, flat out it wouldn’t go over 50 mph on a level road, and much less up hill.

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The first thing I did was to get the car into our garage and began to clean up the engine. I didn’t have a lot of tools or a hoist, so I didn’t remove the engine. But I degreased the engine, flushed the radiator, replaced the water hoses, replaced the spark plugs, cleaned up the distributor and installed new points. I changed the oil and installed a new oil filter and a new air filter. Then I rebuilt the carburetor and, with a friends help, adjusted the timing. I painted the rocker cover, oil filter, air filter, oil filler cap and water pump to make the engine compartment look a little flashier.

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Then I started to work on the body. I found some replacement bumpers and grill at an auto salvage yard (that was back when you could remove the parts needed yourself and very cheaply). I had to replace the heater hoses, install new seat covers, install new floor mats, and recover the platform under the rear window. Of course I had to have a “Necker’s Knob” on the steering wheel. And amazingly the radio worked (on most local stations). The next thing was to sand down all the rough spots on the body (apply and sand “Bondo” where needed) and primer the entire body. We didn’t have clear-coat finishes back then and I didn’t have the money for a fancy multi-coat lacquer job, so a friend helped me with a nice enamel paint job. When I was finished with all that, the only difference between how my car looked and the one in the photo below is that my car was painted Turquoise, had a permanent windshield visor and no fog lights.

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As it turned out, I finished fixing the car up just in time to meet, DiVoran, the love of my life. However, the when, where and how we met is another story for another time and blog. I knew DiVoran’s brother, David, from working with him at Furr’s Super Market, and when he told her he knew this guy at work who had a car and a motorcycle, she said, “I know a Bill Lites from school. Maybe I should get to know him a little better.” Well, she did get to know me better; a lot better, and we spent many evenings after that in “My First Car” running around town and at the drive-in movies. I drove that car until I shipped out with the U.S. Navy. Funny thing about that car; I had waited so long to get it, and now can’t remember who I bought it from. Then I put all that time, money and effort into restoring it, and now, for the life of me, I can’t t remember exactly to who or when I sold it. Oh well, I’m just glad I have this much of the memory of that time during my teenage years.

 

—–The End—–

 

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My First Car~Part 1

10 Feb

A Slice of Life

Bill Lites

Bill Small Red Plane

 

I believe I have mentioned before that I started working at an early age (see “I was a 12-Year Old Businessman” blog 01/23/2013) because I had big dreams of things I wanted to do. One of those dreams was to own a car that I could work on and call my own (As I was growing up, my mother always told me she thought I was mechanically inclined). If you can believe it, that didn’t seem so far in the future to me, as the law in New Mexico, at the time, allowed a person to get a driver’s license at age 14. I started my dream adventure at around age 10 by mowing lawns with a push mower (In case some of you younger readers don’t know what that is, the mower doesn’t have a motor on it and the power to cut the grass is provided by you).

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By the time I was 12, I had saved enough money to buy a Sears self-propelled gas powered mower (Of course you know what those are, right). I spent a lot of time pushing those mowers around the neighborhood to my various jobs. As my lawn mowing business grew, my parents helped by driving me and my mower to jobs outside our neighborhood.

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My lawn mowing reputation grew and in the winters I had a paper route to help supplement my income. So, by the time I was 14, I hadn’t saved enough money for a car, but I needed better transportation than a bicycle for the paper route and to get around town. Strange thing about this was that my parents didn’t want me to have a car, but they were OK with me having a motorcycle. Go figure! Most parents won’t even talk to their kids about having a motorcycle. So, after I got my driver’s license, I bought a used Harley Davidson 125cc motorcycle. Boy could I carry a lot of newspapers on that machine. And, I could go anywhere in town without breaking a sweat.

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When I was 16 I got a part-time job as a bag boy with a super market that opened a new store in town. With this job and my paper route, I was making enough money to make payments on a larger motorcycle. My parents helped me buy a new Harley Davidson 165cc motorcycle and now I felt like the “King of the Road” on my bright red cycle. This was the mid-50s and “Fonzie” was a big hit in the “Happy Days” TV show. So of course I had to have the cool “Fad” threads to play the part (leather motorcycle jacket with lots of zippered pockets, Levis jeans with rolled up cuffs, motorcycle boots, and a “Duck Tail” haircut) and complete the scene.

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Now I know it’s hard for some of you to imagine the Bill Lites you know today as ever having been one of those motorcycle bums all those many years ago. And I’m sure that, those of you who know me don’t believe I ever had enough hair for one of those hairdos. Well, just take a look at my sophomore year book photo.

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Now I know, with the title of this blog, you were expecting to hear all about my first car, and it’s coming. I promise. It was a growing process, so hang in there, I’ll get to it (maybe in Part 2). At the super market I worked my way up to “Checker” (Cashier) that paid more and wasn’t near as hard work as carrying out armloads of heavy paper bags full of groceries to customer’s cars (in all kinds of weather), unloading truckloads of heavy boxes (at 4:00 am) and mopping/polishing floors. The lawn mowing jobs and the paper route went to others who would work for less.

—–To Be Continued—–

 

 

 

 

 

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Circle of Fire

3 Feb

A Slice of Life

 Bill Lites

Bill Small Red Plane

It’s amazing how much trouble young boys can get into when not supervised! I remember one very dangerous thing my friends and I came up with one summer evening. Our neighborhood was laid out with alleys behind the houses for city trash pickup. We would station one boy near the entrance of the ally to alert us when a car was coming our way down the busy side-street. We would take an old discarded automobile tire and pour some gasoline in it. We would wait until our lookout gave us the signal that he had gaged the speed of the next car coming down the street would get to our alley. We would set the gasoline on fire and, without any regard as to what hazards we could be creating, would roll the flaming circle of fire out of the ally into the path of that oncoming car.

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Can you imagine the shock of the driver when that flaming circle came rolling out of nowhere, right across the street in front their car. Of course we were long gone before the driver had time to stop his car, and get out to see what was going on. In most cases the driver was able to stop before he hit the tire, and it rolled on across the street to hit the far curb and just fall over.

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Sometimes the driver was going faster than we thought, and the car went past the tire missing it entirely. And then sometimes the driver was quick enough to swerve around the flaming tire without hitting it.   It never dawned on us that if some driver couldn’t stop fast enough, and hit that flaming tire, that gasoline could splash onto the front of their car and cause a major incident.

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Or, if a driver over-reacted, and swerved into the curb or into oncoming traffic, what a terrible accident we could have caused. We just thought it would be fun to scare the drivers and see how they reacted to that sudden horrific sight.

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Of course, if we had caused one of those accidents, we could have found ourselves in jail for a long time. Luckily, nothing like that ever happened and we were never caught in that mischievous act. One of the more dangerous games some teenagers in our town played (not me) was called “Ditch’em.” This game usually consisted of at least two car loads of (sometimes drunk) teenagers chasing each other around on neighborhood streets with their lights “off.” This potentially fatal game did, in my recollection in the town where I grew up, cause the death of one young girl who was hit by one of these cars one night while crossing a street on the way to a friend’s house.

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This is why, in his book “Making a Good Brain Great” Dr. Daniel Amen says our brains are still maturing as teenagers and really don’t fully mature until around age 25 or 26. This means we don’t have the decision making capability when we are teenagers, and why we do some of the crazy things we do. After we become adults, we usually can look back on our teenage years and wonder how we could have done some of the harmful and dangerous things we did.

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I never knew any of the people we scared when I was taking part in those “Circle of Fire” episodes when I was a young person, but I would like to personally apologize for the part I played. I have asked God to forgive me for my part and I hope whoever those people were, that they can also forgive me, even at this late date.

 

—–The End—–

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That Hot Loaf of Bread

27 Jan

A Slice of Life

Bill Lites

Bill Red Spot Plane

 

My family moved from Dallas, Texas to Albuquerque, New Mexico when I was six years old.   I went to grade school at Monte Vista Elementary School there in Albuquerque. As I remember it, I was not the most cooperative student. I spent many sessions in the Principal’s office for a myriad of reasons.

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Some of those visits required a stern vocal reprimand by the Principle, while others required more severe physical action, which many of you may also remember. Over the years, I’m sure there were the occasions of someone hitting someone and some pigtail pulling, that caused me to visit the principal’s office.

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But there is one episode that I remember most vividly. My best friend and I cooked up this very creative way to skip school. We would take our sack lunches and sneak away from the playground during morning recess while no one was watching, and have the whole day free to go and do anything we wanted. Boy, were we clever! Of course it didn’t take long before we got hungry and were looking for a hiding place to eat our lunches. We picked the top of a garage (flat roof) only a couple blocks from the school that we accessed from a low fence in a back alley. We were sure no one could see us as there were big trees on either side of the garage to hide us.

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While we were eating, the owner of the house saw us and called the school to advise them that there were two boys on his garage roof that looked like they should be in school. Great plans don’t always work great! As it turned out we had really picked the wrong garage roof to eat our lunch. Not only was the owner at home, but it just so happened that it was my family’s pastor’s house. The truant officer took us to the principal’s office and our parents were called. That was one of those cases where I got (you know what) at school and again when I got home.

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On a lighter note, I have many fond memories of my time in grade school. One of the most memorable is when I was in 6th grade. Just up the street from our school was a small bakery, and when the wind was from that direction, the smell of freshly baking bread made my mouth water. One of our school field trips was a tour of that bakery. We got to see how bread was made; from the hand mixing of the dough (with long metal spatulas) in large stainless steel tubs, to how the dough was left to rise in individual bread pans, then baked in a huge rotating oven, and finally how the finished loaf was sliced and automatically wrapped. It was all really amazing to me and the rest of the class.

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After that experience I spent a lot of my spare time at the bakery watching the bakers work, and talking to them about the different stages of the bread making process. They were all very friendly to this inquisitive 12-year old. They didn’t run me off, and let me watch as long as I wanted. They told me about all the good ingredients, and how good bread was for a growing boy like me. I bet I ate a lot more peanut butter and jelly sandwiches after that. While I was in 6th grade, one of my favorite things to do (when I could afford it) was to buy a 15-cent loaf of warm unsliced bread from the bakery and eat the middle out of it. You know how kids don’t like the crust, right?   It’s amazing how wasteful kids can be, but I just couldn’t seem to stay away from that bakery. Of course all that came to an end when I moved to Junior High school the next year.

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However, I still love the smell of freshly baked bread, and it always reminds me of that time in my life when I would look forward to making another trip to that small local bakery. I can just smell and taste it now. Yummm!

 

The End

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