Archive | Bill Lites A Slice of Life- Wednesday RSS feed for this section

Wringer Washing Machine Blues

12 Sep

 

A Slice of Life

 Bill Lites

 

One day my mother asked if I wanted to help her with washing the family laundry.  At the time, we had one of those barrel shaped washing machines with the clothes wringer attached to the top and side of it.

 

I must have been about 7 or 8 and had only watched my mother and grandmother do the laundry, but as a young boy intrigued with all things mechanical, I was eager to see how everything worked.  She showed me how to turn on the water to fill the tub, how big a load of clothes could be washed, how much soap powder to add, and all that technical stuff.  I watched carefully so I could do it myself the next time she needed help with the laundry.  After she got the washer going, I stayed around to see how long it took to wash the cloths and how everything worked.

 

When the washing was done, the tub had to be drained and the cycle repeated to rinse the clothes.  After that was all done it was time to wring the water out of the clothes so they could be hung on the clothesline to dry.  She was very careful to show me how to feed each piece of clothing into the rotating ringer so I wouldn’t get my fingers pinched.

 

This worked well for a while until I figured I was a pro at that job and got careless.  As I was feeding a piece of clothing into the wringer, I pushed a little too hard, and my middle finger went into the wringer with the piece of clothing.  “Ops! Just pull it back out dummy.”  But that didn’t work and by now that wringer was eating up my whole hand.  It didn’t hurt that much but I was scared and I screamed as loud as I could.  My mother came running but by the time she got there, I was up to my elbow in that hungry wringer’s rollers.  She tried stopping the wringer but didn’t think to just pull the electric cord from the wall.  By now I was up to my armpit and was sure I was going to lose my arm.  I’m sure my screaming didn’t help my mother’s concentration.  She grabbed me around the chest and pulled with all her might, stripping my arm out against the rollers.  This time when I screamed it was because of the pain and the vision of my arm coming out of its socket.  I must have had my eyes closed or something because I really don’t know how she got my arm out of those rollers without pulling my arm off, but she did.

I had painful scraps all down the inside of my arm but thank goodness I still had my arm.  I really don’t like to think about what could have happened if my mother hadn’t been there to pull my arm out of those rollers in time.    Back in those days, I don’t think there was any kind of safety overload switch that would have stopped the rollers when my body got to them.  I would have come out looking like a cartoon character, or worse, Flat Sam.  I think of it as just another case of Someone up there watching over and protecting inquisitive young kids.

 

 

Scripture: 2 Peter 3:17

 

 

Tags: , ,

No More Pizza Please

5 Sep

 

A Slice of Life

Bill Lites

My parents had many hopes and dreams for my sister and me, and tried to give us every advantage they could, so we could realize those dreams.  One way they tried to help me, was to set aside a small scholarship fund when I was born, to help pay for my college education (their dream for me).

I had always wanted to be a mechanic.  My plan was to send money home to my wife every month while I was in the Navy so we would have enough saved to last until she and I were able to find jobs after I got out.  She was a licensed beautician in New Mexico and I planned to work part-time while I went to school.

After I got out of the Navy, my wife and I moved to Inglewood, California for me to go to Aviation Mechanic School.  The problem was, I didn’t really know how the job market worked, so, when I talked to the  school registrar, he convinced me that I didn’t really want to be a mechanic, but an engineer.  Looking back on it, I’m sure he got extra points for every person he signed up for the three-year engineering course over the one-year mechanics course.

When I insisted I wanted to be a mechanic, he said, “Well, okay, we have the perfect course for you, it will give you a Mechanical Engineering degree and an Aviation Mechanics license”. I think I bought into that mainly because he told me how much more money I would be making as an engineer and, it would also make my parents happy,

All of that was great, but the next class startup for that course was two months away, so we started looking for work.  That’s when we discovered that my wife’s New Mexico license wouldn’t be accepted in California and she would have to take the California State test.  We lived it up while the money lasted, but then things started getting really tight.  We had to stop driving the car and go everywhere we could on my 1955 Harley Davidson motorcycle.

Finally, in desperation, a friend got us both a job packing Christmas cards, which barely paid for our rent and gas.  We were too proud to ask our parents for help, because I guess we wanted to prove to them that we were adults and could make it on our own.  There was one week during that time we were lucky the motorcycle had a full tank of gas and we didn’t have to buy any food, because I walked around all week with just one nickel in my pocket until we were paid.

At  Halloween we were told the neighborhood kids did bad “tricks” to houses and cars if they didn’t  get lots of “treats”.  We didn’t have money to buy any treats, so we rolled my motorcycle into the living room of the tiny apartment we were renting, and took the car to the drive-in movie.  Of course, we didn’t have enough money for both of us, so my wife got in the trunk.  Boy, what kids will sometimes do to avoid confrontation.

Well, somehow our parents realized we were in bad financial straits, and each family sent us a “Care Package” consisting of four boxes of Appian Way Pizza.  Those packages got to us just in the nick of time, as we had just celebrated Thanksgiving with a plate of pinto beans, no seasoning of any kind except salt.  We really enjoyed that pizza for the first week or so (two or three times a day) but then it started getting really tiresome.  We still have the “Special Offer” pizza pan that we got with all those Appian Way Pizza box tops.

Somehow, we survived until my wife’s California Beautician’s license came through, and she got a job. After that, our immediate problems were over, but that’s not to say we didn’t have a lot more life changing encounters over the eight years we spent in Inglewood, California.

Scripture: Philippians 4:19 (The Message)

 

Tags: , , , ,

Another Road Trip- El Paso

29 Aug

A Slice of Life

    Bill Lites

I was 17 and I was in love.  At least  I thought I was in love.  I had been going steady with Barbara for many months and we spent every minute we could  together.  We just knew we were a perfect match because our parents approved of our choices; we enjoyed each other’s company and liked the same things.  Then the worst thing we could imagine happened.  Her father’s job transferred him to El Paso, Texas and we were separated.  What were we going to do?  We had to think of something.  But what?

 

Barbara and I talked it over during many phone calls and then I got the bright idea.  With our parent’s approval, I’d ride my 1955 Harley Davidson motorcycle down there and see her.  I’d stay at their house and they would show me the sights.  It was only a 265-mile trip and I figured I could make that in about 4 or 5 hours.  So, why not, I asked my mother?  I’d been safely riding motorcycles since I was 14 and was still in one piece.  This was another one of those teenage trips that I somehow talked my parents into.

When all the details had been worked out, I headed South that Friday morning, on what was then US-85 by way of the southern New Mexico desert.  The trip took me thru the small towns of Los Lunas, Socorro, Truth or Concequences, Hatch, and Las Cruces.  After stopping for lunch and bathroom breaks, it took me longer than I had planned, but I finally made into the big city of El Paso, Texas.

It took me a while, but I finally found Barbara’s house and was welcomed  in by her whole family.  After dinner, Barbara and I took a walk around the neighborhood and she told me what she and parents had planned for the weekend.  Saturday they showed me the many sights of El Paso and then they took me across the border to Juarez, Mexico for a visit to the “Old Mexico” way of life and tourism.  That’s where they put Barbara and me in their “Old Jail” for our picture.

Sunday we all went to their church and then back to their home for a great lunch.  Then it was time for me to head for home.  After we said our good-bys, I reluctantly headed back North on US-85.  With all the excitement of the weekend and the big lunch, I began to get sleepy after a couple of hours.  The constant drumming of the motorcycle engine and whistling of the wind in my ears didn’t help matters.  I did everything I could think of to stay awake, talked to myself, sang to myself, stopped at rest areas to splash cold water on my face, all to no avail.

The next thing I knew, I woke up, on the wrong side of the road, headed for the ditch at 60 mph.  It’s a good thing it was Sunday and traffic was almost non-existent on that stretch of road or I might have ended up as road kill that day.  After I recovered, the incident had pumped enough adrenaline into me to keep me awake for the rest of the trip.  I had a hard time thanking God and my guardian angel enough for saving me from a really bad day.

Psalm 16:8

Tags: , , ,

Stolen Rocket

22 Aug

A Slice of Life

Bill Lites

When my son was six-years-old I was working on America’s Manned Space Program and at the time I thought it would be great fun for my son and I to build and launch model rockets.  We purchased a couple of small basic models and put them together.  We took them to the local school yard to fly them and we always drew a crowd of kids who wanted to watch and help us retrieve the spent rockets.

They flew very well and it was so much fun that we began to expand our new hobby by designing our own rockets and launching them.  One day the launches were going great when the wind picked up and carried the parachute and rocket across the street into the nearby neighborhood where it landed in the front yard of one of the houses.  As we were hurrying over to retrieve our rocket, a young boy came out of the house, picked up the rocket and ran back into the house.  I was stunned!  Did he not see us coming to get it?  Did he think finders – keepers?  Whatever he thought, it didn’t matter, it was our rocket and we wanted it back.

When I rang the doorbell, a man opened the door and asked how he could help us.  I explained what had happened and told him we were there to claim our rocket.  He said he didn’t know anything about any rocket, but would ask his son.  Well, when confronted the boy admitted what he had done and the rocket was returned to us with an apology.

My son and I enjoyed many years of flying our model rockets, but after our “Stolen Rocket” adventure, we were very careful to launch our rockets only when there was no wind to carry them out of the schoolyard parameter.

Exodus 20:15
Related articles

Tags: ,

A Boy, A Bike and Summer

15 Aug

 

 

A Slice of Life

Bill Lites

 

 

 

The summer between my junior and senior years of high school I was itching to get away from home and explore the freedom of the open road.  How I talked my parents into letting me go on this wild idea of a trip I’ll never know, but they finally agreed and all was set.  They were not about to help me with this plan, but that was okay with me as I had my own money and transportation.  I loaded everything I thought I might need for a one-month stay into one small suitcase, strapped it onto the back of my 1955 Harley Davidson motorcycle and off I went.

 

 

 

The place I had chosen for this trip was about 185 miles from my home and was known for its moneymaking oil industry.  The plan was to get a job as a roustabout on an oilrig, make lots of money, and come home after a month or two and show my folks that I could do it on my own.  Well, as you might expect, the plan didn’t work out exactly as I had envisioned it.

 

 

 

 

I made the trip in good time and found a place to stay.  The next day I went to the oil company employment office to ask for a job.  The guy at the desk almost laughed out loud when he took a look at this 6’0” 125 lb. kid who thought he was going to tough-it-out on the oil rigs with those experienced 200+ lb. oil rig brutes.  Besides that, they couldn’t hire anyone under 18 years old, and I would have to prove that I was that old.  So there I was only two days into my great adventure, with no job and no way to pay for my lodgings, but I wasn’t ready to go home with my tail between my legs, either.

 

I don’t remember all the places I looked for work, but I ended up packing fruit in a terribly hot and dusty fruit processing plant for minimum wage (what a let down).

I have no idea how it happened, but a local church family took pity on me and charged me very little for room and board to stay in one of their extra rooms. At some point, I met the pastor’s daughter and her friends so I spent a lot of my off hours running around with them. The legal drinking age was 21 at that time, so that also helped keep me out of trouble.  When the fruit picking/packing season ran out there were no more jobs to be had for a skinny teenager, so I packed up my few things, loaded my motorcycle in the empty 18 wheeler trailer that was going my way, and was delivered back to my home a little wiser and a lot more tired than when I left.

 

What did I learn from this adventure? I learned to listen to my parents’ advice before I ran off to try and do my own thing.

 

 

 

Ephesians 6:1

 

 

Tags: , ,

A Boy, A Cave and Secrets.

8 Aug

 

A Slice of Life

 Bill Lites

 

When I was 16, I was 6’0”, weighed 125 lb, and knew all there was to know about life, and so, was ready for any life challenge that came along.  My mentor at the time was an 18-year-old Air Force brat that was bored and as rebellious as the day was long.  When I wasn’t working, I followed him around everywhere he went.  We both had small motorcycles, so transportation was not a problem.  The other kids in our following came and went, but the two of us stuck together in everything.

One day my mentor said, “I know a really neat place we can go exploring up in the foothills outside of town.”  He polled the others that were hanging around his house with us that day and everyone thought it would be a lot of fun.  So, the five of us piled on our motorcycles and headed out of town.  It only took us about thirty minutes to get to our destination, the entrance to the old deserted mine opening, on the side of one of the foothills. 

 

Of course, my mentor had been there before and knew all about this deserted mineshaft.  So, with flashlights in hand, we set off to explore the dark hole in the ground.  At first, the shaft angled down at about a 5 to 10 degree slope, and was big enough that we only had to bend over slightly to make progress.  The further down we went, the angle steeped, and the shaft grew smaller, until we had to get down on our hands and knees to make any progress.  We crawled along like this for some time until we came to a caved-in area where we had to lay down on our bellies to squeeze through the opening.  Now I’m not normally claustrophobic, but that was very scary for me.  I guess I’d seen too many tunnel cave-in movies not to think, “I might just get caught in a cave-in here and now.”  But, I just held my breath and squeezed through.  About 100 feet beyond that tight spot, the shaft opened up into a large cave about 50 feet wide, 25 feet high and filled with water.  And there on the edge of the water was a raft.  What a surprise!  Only two of us could get on the raft at a time, and we took turns paddling around for a while getting wet in the process.

All this time, I had this niggling feeling in the pit of my stomach that we need to get out of here while we can before that shaft caves in again.  But, of course, I said nothing, because I didn’t want to embarrass myself.  After we tired of splashing around in that dirty water, we headed back up the shaft toward daylight.  I was relieved to get past that caved-in area and to finally make our way to the shaft entrance.

I thought later, “Well, I got out of that alive, and this is one venture my folks don’t ever need to know about.”  And, they never did. What kind of things did your folks never know about you?

 

If I climb to the sky, you’re there!  If I go underground, you’re there.

Psalm 139:8  (The Message)

Related articles

 

Tags: , ,

Snake Bit

1 Aug

 

A Slice of Life

Bill Lites

When I was around 6 years old our family took one of their many summer vacations to the beautiful Alto Frio Encampment near Leakey, Texas.  Even though the Encampment was established in the early 1920’s, by the mid 1940’s, it was still fairly primitive.  Our rustic cabin furnished only the basic eating and sleeping needs.

 

The south Texas summers were hot, so one of the joys of the trip was the afternoon swim in the Frio River.  On this particular day, Mother, Dad, my younger sister and I headed down to one of our favorite swimming holes on the banks of the river.  Being a frisky lad, I was running out in front of the others.  As I reached the edge of the water, and started to wade in, I felt something on my left shin and reached down to brush away what I thought was a deer fly.  My hand came back with blood on it.  About this time, my dad yelled for me to stop, he ran up to me and began to wrap a bandana tightly around my thigh. He tied it with a knot then picked me up and ran for the cabin.  I had no idea what was going on, but my dad and my mother who had been right behind me, had seen what happened.

 

Evidently, I had scared or stepped on a snake (water moccasin) in the shallows and he bit me, and then he was gone.  When we got to the cabin, my dad used a razor blade to make small cuts over the fang holes. He then sucked on the wound to get the poison out. He picked me up again, rushed to the caretaker’s house, and asked him to take us to the hospital.  I remember feeling dizzy and a little sick to my stomach, but that could have been from the smelly exhaust fumes coming through the firewall of that old Model A pickup we rode in.

The closest hospital was too far away, so we ended up at a doctor’s office where the doctor used a glass suction device to remove any poison that might be left.  Hardly anything came out and the doctor praised my dad for having done a great job.

I learned later that my dad had been a medic at the front during WWI and I  understood that was how he knew what to do in case of snake bite.  I also learned that sucking the poison out of my leg, could have been dangerous for him because of the fillings in his teeth. If there had been even a pinhole cavity around in one of them, the poison could have entered and made him sick or even killed him. Of course, he wasn’t thinking about himself at the time, only me, the little boy that he loved so much.  Thanks, Dad.

 

Psalm 23

Related articles

 

Tags: ,

Keep Your Eyes On The Road

25 Jul

A Slice of Life

     Bill Lites

 

In the fall of 1954, I was going to school, working part-time as a checker in a super market, and riding a lightweight Harley Davidson 165cc motorcycle all over town.  I was tall and lightweight myself at the time, so the motorcycle suited me real fine.

One day, after school, I was on my way down town to the Harley Davidson shop, when I saw my sister up ahead, walking home from her school with some friends.  Hoping to show off my shiny red motorcycle and get a little attention from the girls, I honked my horn and waved as I passed them.

With my attention on the girls, I hadn’t noticed the dump truck and workmen stopped in the middle of the street making pothole repairs.  There were no caution signs of any kind or flagmen warning traffic of the roadwork being done.  So, the first time I was aware of a problem was, when I looked from the girls and back to the road.  There was the bed of the dump truck right ahead of me.  I didn’t have time to think.  I just reacted.  I threw my weight and the motorcycle to the left, my left foot hit the pavement with a slap, and then I pushed myself and the motorcycle back up with my left leg.  This all happened in a split second as the motion carried me and the motorcycle down, under the corner to the bed of the dump truck, and back up on two wheels.

I pulled over to the curb, slowed to a stop and just sat there trying to stop shaking and catch my breath.  I couldn’t believe what had just happened.  If I had held my attention on the girls for one second longer, I would have run right into the bed of that dump truck and that would not have been a pretty sight, and I wouldn’t be here today telling this story.

I believe that Someone bigger than you and me has my life and breath in His hands and has been guiding me and watching over me from the day I was born.  I don’t know why He has been so good to me but, I thank Him,  God of the Angel Armies.

 

 

John 10:28

Tags: , ,

Just Another Day At The Flying Field

18 Jul

 A Slice of Life

Bill Lites

A friend called the other day asking me to meet him at our model airplane flying field to help him with one of his planes.  He was in remission from cancer and had not flown for some time. The last time he tried to fly he passed out on the field and woke up in the hospital. Now, he wanted someone there in case anything happened again.  It was a beautiful day with just a hint of a breeze right down the runway.  He unloaded his plane and all the gear needed to setup his large electric powered model.

The first thing he noticed was that the three batteries he had charged for the occasion did not have the right connector on them to mate up with the airplane electronics.  He looked in his support bag for the adapters that would solve that problem, but couldn’t find them.  “I must have left them at home” he said.  Then he discovered the battery with the correct connector was still in the plane, but he had not thought to look for it in there, so he could charge it for this trip to the field.  This prompted another search in the support bag for the battery analyzer to see if that battery had enough juice left in it to fly the plane.  Finally he said with disgust, “I must have left that thing at home too.”  But, when he plugged the battery into the on-board flight system, the system “beeped” with a response that indicated “I’m ready to go.”

So, he decided to fire up his new computer radio system to see if the on-board battery had enough charge left for a flight, and broke out his radio control transmitter.  When he couldn’t get the transmitter to show him the correct model information on the display screen, he had to refer to his radio control system manual to look up the proper procedure to set up the radio for the model he had brought to the field.  Every time he thought, he had the right sequence, it would be for the wrong airplane and he would have to start over.

At this point I suggested it might be better if we tried another day when he had time to get everything working properly.  But, he wasn’t ready to give up an opportunity to fly, and this went on for about 10 or 15 minutes.  Finally, he came up with the proper sequence, and when activated, the motor sounded as if it had plenty of battery power, and we were ready to put the wing on and give it a try.  He decided the rubber bands that had been on the wing were old and questionable, so, rather than take a chance, it was back to the support bag for fresh rubber bands.  These he did have, and now all was in readiness for the flight we had come to the field for.

He taxied the plane out onto the south end of the runway to get the feel of the controls.  When he said he was ready to take off, I said, “The wind is out of the south, you need to start from the other end of the runway.”  Would you believe he took that plane off, did a nice slow circuit of the flying field, and brought it back in for a perfect landing?  He said, “I think I’ll call it a day.  Thanks for your help.  Any day I can take my plane home in one piece is a good day.”

 

He obviously felt good about his success and so did I. I hoped that if I ever experienced that kind of devastating illness I would possess the positive attitude, the faith, and the stamina to persevere as he had done.

 

 

I Thessalonians 5:18

Related articles

Tags: ,

Take Time to Read the Label

11 Jul

A Slice of Life

Bill Lites

Reading is not my favorite thing to do.  I have been told that my word dyslexia is what causes words to get jumbled up as I read and sometimes words even drop out or are added to what I see.  This makes for some interesting if not frustrating situations.

Take for instance the last time I went to the store to pick up a few things for my wife.  She had given me a list of things she needed which included four cans of four different soups.  Years ago, this would not have been much of a problem for me as each soup had only one label.  All I had to do was read the label correctly.

Today it’s a little more complicated than that.  When I looked on the soup shelf for a can of Cream of Celery soup, there was green label “Low Sodium”, green label “Heart Healthy” plain label “98% Fat Free”, plain label “Reduced Fat” and blue label “great for Cooking” – I think that was all.  Anyway, you get the picture.  Now, we were raised on the real thing, when it comes to soup, and my wife still wants the real thing for all her cooking.  Well, as you might imagine, I spent some time looking through all those different labels to find the real thing for each of the four types of soup she wanted.  I even had to take some items out of my basket and put them back on the shelf after I discovered I had picked up another wrong-labeled item.

When I got home, I was pleased to see that I had managed to get all the right kinds of soup on the list.  But then, my wife asked me, “Is this stick the only type of Benadryl they had?” I had spent a lot of time looking over the different types of Anti-Itch products, reading and comparing the ingredients and thought I had the right thing.  But, right there, in big black letters was the word “Stick” not “Cream “on the front of the box.  I guess I had been so involved in checking the ingredients that my brain looked right over the obvious.  Fortunately I had also bought another brand of anti-itch product that just happened to be “cream” for my medicine cabinet, so I just traded with her.

Romans 8:28

Tags: ,

← Older Entries
Newer Entries →