Thursday Thing-along

Nothing wrong with a little old Journey now and then.

Way Back When-sday

It's starting to get cold here now. Anyone who's been tuning in to the World Series has been able to see the weather change in this area. It's made me think about snow a bit.
The picture at top is of Pops holding me beside a snowman he and Mama made was taken in 1968 at our house in Grifton, N.C. The smaller picture at right is one I posted a couple of years ago on a different blog of Mama with me beside the same snowman. I think it's neat they took turns posing with me.

Thursday Thing-along

I feel like I'm back in high school after listening to that ...

Way Back When-sday

This is me in my stroller in 1966 when I was just a few months old. This stroller looks like it was a pretty stiff ride. I see no suspension to speak of on it, all metal frame, hard rubber wheels, no springs nor any give in it all ..... I hope I was at least sitting on an inflatable donut to protect my coccyx.

Guess where I am right now?

Getting my truck washed...

Crab Picking

The annual Tilghman Island Day was Saturday. As always, it was a blast. Below is some video clips from the crab picking contest. More pictures and video to come soon.




I also just upgraded my account on Vimeo to the paid membership and have changed my settings for uploading. That should make these videos look better than ever -- and I thought Vimeo did pretty good anyway.

A little Sunday silliness

Found this while looking around YouTube.



The Onion has always been a fave of us in the newspaper business.
Check it out here.

New friend

One of the many friendly people enjoying the crabs and oysters during Tilghman Island Day.

Thursday Thing-along

Sing it ....

I was made for loving you baby
you were made for loving me
and I can't get enough of you baby
can you get enough of me?

Way Back When-sday

This is a picture of Pops (older one on the left) and David, one of his younger brothers. It was taken in 1949 in Ca-Vel, a Collins & Aikman company village in Roxboro, N.C. The neighborhood of homes was built next to the textile plant for workers to live in. These mill villages were pretty common.

It looks like Pops is trying to point out the camera to the diaper-wearing David who seems none to sure about what he's supposed to be looking at. Uncle David died in April 2004. He was just 56.

He died of Lou Gehrig's Disease. I wish I had taken up shooting video before he passed so I could have more to share of his North Carolina drawl. I can still hear it in my head, many times barely understandable because of the thick accent and quiet tone.

Keep going down

Please

Thursday Thing-along

A little live H & O ...

Way Back When-sday

This is a picture of Pops from the early to mid 1980s doing some paperwork while sitting at the couch in the den. Pops mostly did his paperwork there or at the dining room table -- which was otherwise known as Pops' desk because we never 'dined' at that table and it was always covered in his stuff. Tax forms, warranty books, DuPont work, planners, etc. He had a desk upstairs in their bedroom but that was just to hang his pants over when he took them off at night and a place to keep return address stickers and postage stamps top drawer on the right).

Now that he's retired, he has a home office. Go figure. I guess they needed to get us four boys out of there so they could use the rooms the way they wanted.

Anyway, the reason for using this picture for Way Back When-sday is to share some advice with you that Pops -- a workaholic if there ever was one -- recently gave me. He said: Remember son, it's just a job. No one on their deathbed ever said they wished they'd spent more time at work. He said it took him forever to start figuring that out.

He went on to say -- as if I didn't already know -- that he placed so much importance on his work, his job became a big part of his self-worth. He climbed the corporate ladder, traveling three or four days a week for management meetings at other DuPont sites. He was proud of his work and he was damn good at it. He spent as much time as he could with us, don't get me wrong, but he worked an awful lot. Work was almost everything to him.

But he recently told me that putting that much importance on his work -- letting it be a measure of his self-worth -- was one of the biggest mistakes he ever made. He said that once DuPont started going through cutbacks, layoffs and buyouts and the company stock started sinking, so did his feelings of self-worth. Even though he was still there, still employed, he felt like he could never do enough to feel his job was safe. It ate at him for many of his final years with DuPont, up until the day he took one of the buyouts.

There's a reason Pops shared this with me. The newspaper company I work for -- like most other print media companies -- is having a tough go of it right now. We've laid off more than a 1,000 people company wide and it's doubtful that round of layoffs will be the end of it. It's put a real hurting on a lot of people, not just the ones let go. Most of us wonder if we will be next. No one feels safe. For those of us still standing, there is now much more work to be done and less time to do it. More and more time is being sucked into taking care of work tasks and less and less is being gained from it. And just like happened with Pops -- I am my father's son -- I've found that my feelings of self-worth have also taken a hit.

It sounds selfish, I know. After all, I still have my job. What would I be feeling if I was staring at a table piled with bills and I didn't have a job?

Perhaps it's time to start reassessing things a bit.

"The work you do is not important. It is what the work does to you that’s important."

Dear John,

I am not your friend so please stop saying "my friends" when answering questions during tonight's town hall debate.

Thank you

UPDATE: He said it 22 times, my friends.

E-A-G-L-E-S

I'm leaving the house in 10 minutes to go tailgate before doing this.....

Thursday Thing-along

Sssssslither

Happened across this just now while mowing the grass.

UPDATE: To answer Mama's question in the comments, this is a common Eastern garter snake. They are found all over Maryland and are pretty much harmless to humans.

Way Back When-sday

This is me from 1967. I had to retouch the photo just a bit to blur out the package :-)
I don't want any accusations of kiddie porn headed my way -- or my parents' way. This was taken in an inflatable pool in our back yard in Grifton, N.C. I'm not sure what my hand was doing but I think I had a scratch that needed itching.