1963 DIARY
Last week Dawn Letson returned my 1963 Diary that had gotten into Lou's documents taken to TWU. I have been fascinated by reading it. I shared some of the pages with Nancy when I came in Sunday night. In the first two months I wrote about meetings with Bob Gilruth who was the NASA director during the Apollo flights and a frequent visitor to our department at A&M. We also had Johnson, the CEO of LTV speak at a meeting where I handled the Q&A. I made a trip to the IAS (Institute of Aeronautical Science that later joined with the American Rocket Society to become the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics) in New York City at the Astor hotel. I ate at Jack Dempsey's restaurant and went with some friends to Greenwich Village and ate at O'Henry's and walked back to the hotel. I was a member of the Education committee chaired by Ray Bishplinghoff.
I came back and the next day Saturday Jan 26 President Rudder's house burned at noon. Later in the diary I tell about going to work for NASA in Houston, but the diary is very incomplete for the summer. I think I started keeping notes somewhere else but there are a few notations about my trips to North American Aviation in LA and Grumman in NY to discuss the meteroid protection for the LEM that was my assignment.
What also showed up in the diary was my teaching SS every Sunday and giving copies of The Bible and Modern Science to everyone I came in contact with. And I had used it as a study in the College SS class I was teaching. We changed the name of the class from Aggie to College and Career.
When I got home last week there was over an inch of rain in my rain gauge. My neighbors Mary and Pete Shulle said it was Thursday night when a hard rain brought lightning that splintered a large mesquite tree in their yard. When I left Sunday at 3 it was thundering and I watched rain in my rear view mirror as I drove to Granbury. I checked the storm total on the radar and we didn't get much but around Brownwood got a bunch. Today all day we watched clouds all around Granbury but no rain here. Rained heavy north of DFW and some in FW. Mark's plane back from Pakistan was delayed by weather and he was in Chicago waiting to come in tonight. We did see a rainbow in the northern sky as we drove back to Nancy's home.
Monday, June 28, 2010
Monday, June 21, 2010
FATHER'S DAY CELEBRATIONS
Yesterday was Father's Day and for the first time that I can remember I was not on the highway going to or from a professional meeting on Father's Day for the last 40 years. When I left Nancy's house Saturday morning her daughter, Victoria, handed me a Father's Day card and when I got my mail, I had a very fancy card from my oldest granddaughter,Valerie. My daughter, Kathy, called me from Canada. I was feted at Sunday church services with a gift of a bookmark given to each of the father's from the children during the Children's Sermon. I ate with our congregation at our monthly pot-luck dinner at church, got my nap and drove to Mark's house where I received gifts from Mark and Kathy and from Ashley and Ross. Two new short sleeve shirts from M&K. A Christian book to read and Lady Godiva dark chocolate candy bar from Ash & Ross. Then when I got to Nancy's house she had some weights and a pad for me to exercise on to build up my upper arms.
I have been helping Nancy and she is doing really well. This morning we drove to Firehouse Cafe to have breakfast with her old SS class in Granbury. Then bought some more water hose at Walmart.
In Sunday School we had Ruth last week and appreciated no blood and killings after Judges. Then yesterday we started I Samuel and learned about Samuel's birth and his mother, Hannah's prayer plus the sins of Eli's sons.
I am reading Sarah Palin's GOING ROGUE and Bob Favor's life story of all the weird characters that he had to arrest during his service as a Texas Ranger.
Yesterday was Father's Day and for the first time that I can remember I was not on the highway going to or from a professional meeting on Father's Day for the last 40 years. When I left Nancy's house Saturday morning her daughter, Victoria, handed me a Father's Day card and when I got my mail, I had a very fancy card from my oldest granddaughter,Valerie. My daughter, Kathy, called me from Canada. I was feted at Sunday church services with a gift of a bookmark given to each of the father's from the children during the Children's Sermon. I ate with our congregation at our monthly pot-luck dinner at church, got my nap and drove to Mark's house where I received gifts from Mark and Kathy and from Ashley and Ross. Two new short sleeve shirts from M&K. A Christian book to read and Lady Godiva dark chocolate candy bar from Ash & Ross. Then when I got to Nancy's house she had some weights and a pad for me to exercise on to build up my upper arms.
I have been helping Nancy and she is doing really well. This morning we drove to Firehouse Cafe to have breakfast with her old SS class in Granbury. Then bought some more water hose at Walmart.
In Sunday School we had Ruth last week and appreciated no blood and killings after Judges. Then yesterday we started I Samuel and learned about Samuel's birth and his mother, Hannah's prayer plus the sins of Eli's sons.
I am reading Sarah Palin's GOING ROGUE and Bob Favor's life story of all the weird characters that he had to arrest during his service as a Texas Ranger.
Thursday, June 10, 2010
REMOVING STAPLES
I have been helping Nancy this week and she gets better every day. Today she went to have the staples removed and replaced with little bandaids on the long incision scar. Twenty eight metal staples were removed. The incision is looking good. She was able to walk in using her walker after her Physical Therapist came in a couple of days ago and found her walking without the walker and scolded her. She is now trying to walk 5 minuted each hour to strenghten her leg and it seems to be working.
After they took out the staples and took two X-rays we drove back to Acton to get her mail, and then she used her walker to eat at the Cotton Patch cafe in Granbury. We then spent a half hour getting a prescription from her eye doctor filled and got home just before the home care nurse came to check her blood. She had been out of range on blood thinness and finally today came back into normal so they won't have to come every day to check on her.
Yesterday I spent the afternoon in Fort Worth at the Annual Conference of the Methodist Church where my resolution on supporting creation science was debated and voted down. More information on that is in my creation blog. While I was gone, Nancy's granddaughter, the math teacher, who is out of school stayed with her and washed her hair.
I will return to Cross Plains to assist the Library during Robert E. Howard Days Friday and Saturday, teach Sunday School Sunday and make the Library board meeting Monday.
I have been helping Nancy this week and she gets better every day. Today she went to have the staples removed and replaced with little bandaids on the long incision scar. Twenty eight metal staples were removed. The incision is looking good. She was able to walk in using her walker after her Physical Therapist came in a couple of days ago and found her walking without the walker and scolded her. She is now trying to walk 5 minuted each hour to strenghten her leg and it seems to be working.
After they took out the staples and took two X-rays we drove back to Acton to get her mail, and then she used her walker to eat at the Cotton Patch cafe in Granbury. We then spent a half hour getting a prescription from her eye doctor filled and got home just before the home care nurse came to check her blood. She had been out of range on blood thinness and finally today came back into normal so they won't have to come every day to check on her.
Yesterday I spent the afternoon in Fort Worth at the Annual Conference of the Methodist Church where my resolution on supporting creation science was debated and voted down. More information on that is in my creation blog. While I was gone, Nancy's granddaughter, the math teacher, who is out of school stayed with her and washed her hair.
I will return to Cross Plains to assist the Library during Robert E. Howard Days Friday and Saturday, teach Sunday School Sunday and make the Library board meeting Monday.
Sunday, June 6, 2010
MEETING MYSELF COMING BACK
It has been a busy week. I helped Nancy through the week until Friday. Her son John came in from Oklahoma late Thursday night and Friday morning he took her to her eye doctor appointment in Weatherford. I took the opportunity to go home. I picked up the week's mail and had too much to read. I got dinged by the State because I apparently failed to file my business tax form. I owed nothing but got fined $110 for not filing. I thought I filed but couldn't find my receipt when I looked. Also my Internet satellite dish is weathered and didn't work. I spent most of the afternoon with a tech rep in Bangladesh testing the system and he finally agreed to send a technician. Friday night it worked fine. Saturday morning Mark and I looked at my dish and the lens cap that is plastic had a crack in it and looks really old. The technician called and said I needed to buy an upgrade that would replace all of the hardware on the dish and the modem that was last worked on in 2007. I got that scheduled for next Friday afternoon.
Saturday was clean out the Halsell House day for the new "tenants" if they show up Monday. I haven't heard from them. While Mark and Kathy moved their stuff to their storage building, I mowed the yard inside the fence with the Deere and mowed the outside with the Ford tractor. That took till after 11 and we went to CP to meet Ike and Sue at Subway for lunch. Mark and Kathy did a little more work at the HH and left about 2:30 so I got a nap until 4.
I was able to use my phone connection for a slow Internet to check email and do a little business. Friday night I attended the first lecture on creation/evolution sponsored by the Church of Christ in Rising Star. Dr. Brad Harrub had heard about the Stanford Research Institute paper that hypothesized that the speed of light is slowing down and was a lot faster in the past. I found my copies of the paper plus the second paper that they published that used their theory to argue that the times of the Bible could be correlated with their theory. I took copies of both papers to him Saturday night when he gave back-to-back lectures on evolution and fossils. He visited Mount St. Helens on the 30th anniversary of the eruption. Dr. Steve Austin is using it as a laboratory to show how catastrophic geology can produce grand canyons, coal and other artifacts that have been attributed to millions of years in the past. Using St. Helens he postulated that the Grand Canyon was not cut out by the Colorado river but by an equally catastrophic event like St. Helens in the matter of days. He showed photo slides of several artifacts made by humans that have been found in existing coal seams that according to evolutionary geology were attributed to the Carboniferous age millions of years before man evolved. He pounded all of the evolutionary "science" with many examples that posit a young earth age. He gave me a copy of his book. He is one of the publishers of a magazine dedicated to supporting a Biblical approach to education. When I got home I read my SS lesson and remembered that I hadn't written my newspaper column. I had to take it upstairs to use the phone Internet connection and finished at 11:11 p.m.
This morning my SS class completed Judges and are looking forward to Ruth because they didn't like the horrible stories of the last chapters of Judges. In addition to the battles with thousands of men killed we read of another homosexual attack on a traveler where women were offered to the men of the city in place of the man they wanted. This time one of the women died from the all night abuse and the man cut her body up to send a portion to each of the tribes of Israel to encourage them to take revenge on the city that attacked him. It was a bad story and the theme throughout was that there was no king over Israel and every man did as he pleased.
Church had a sermon on Christ resurrecting a young man of a widow when no one asked him to do so. He just took pity on the woman who lost her only son. We had a baby baptism, communion and then this afternoon the funeral for one of my SS members, Becky Odom. I drove to Granbury where Vicky has been taking care of Nancy. She made supper for us and I am getting fat.
I am trying to get a statement ready to support my resolution that will be voted on by the Annual Conference sometime this week. I have been asked to be there to speak in defense because the Church and Society committee recommended against it. I plan to show up Wednesday but knowing the AC they may have voted on it Tuesday. Because I am not a lay member this year I won't be in continual attendance. Nancy's granddaughter will stay with her Wednesday to let me try to make part of the meeting. We will see.
It has been a busy week. I helped Nancy through the week until Friday. Her son John came in from Oklahoma late Thursday night and Friday morning he took her to her eye doctor appointment in Weatherford. I took the opportunity to go home. I picked up the week's mail and had too much to read. I got dinged by the State because I apparently failed to file my business tax form. I owed nothing but got fined $110 for not filing. I thought I filed but couldn't find my receipt when I looked. Also my Internet satellite dish is weathered and didn't work. I spent most of the afternoon with a tech rep in Bangladesh testing the system and he finally agreed to send a technician. Friday night it worked fine. Saturday morning Mark and I looked at my dish and the lens cap that is plastic had a crack in it and looks really old. The technician called and said I needed to buy an upgrade that would replace all of the hardware on the dish and the modem that was last worked on in 2007. I got that scheduled for next Friday afternoon.
Saturday was clean out the Halsell House day for the new "tenants" if they show up Monday. I haven't heard from them. While Mark and Kathy moved their stuff to their storage building, I mowed the yard inside the fence with the Deere and mowed the outside with the Ford tractor. That took till after 11 and we went to CP to meet Ike and Sue at Subway for lunch. Mark and Kathy did a little more work at the HH and left about 2:30 so I got a nap until 4.
I was able to use my phone connection for a slow Internet to check email and do a little business. Friday night I attended the first lecture on creation/evolution sponsored by the Church of Christ in Rising Star. Dr. Brad Harrub had heard about the Stanford Research Institute paper that hypothesized that the speed of light is slowing down and was a lot faster in the past. I found my copies of the paper plus the second paper that they published that used their theory to argue that the times of the Bible could be correlated with their theory. I took copies of both papers to him Saturday night when he gave back-to-back lectures on evolution and fossils. He visited Mount St. Helens on the 30th anniversary of the eruption. Dr. Steve Austin is using it as a laboratory to show how catastrophic geology can produce grand canyons, coal and other artifacts that have been attributed to millions of years in the past. Using St. Helens he postulated that the Grand Canyon was not cut out by the Colorado river but by an equally catastrophic event like St. Helens in the matter of days. He showed photo slides of several artifacts made by humans that have been found in existing coal seams that according to evolutionary geology were attributed to the Carboniferous age millions of years before man evolved. He pounded all of the evolutionary "science" with many examples that posit a young earth age. He gave me a copy of his book. He is one of the publishers of a magazine dedicated to supporting a Biblical approach to education. When I got home I read my SS lesson and remembered that I hadn't written my newspaper column. I had to take it upstairs to use the phone Internet connection and finished at 11:11 p.m.
This morning my SS class completed Judges and are looking forward to Ruth because they didn't like the horrible stories of the last chapters of Judges. In addition to the battles with thousands of men killed we read of another homosexual attack on a traveler where women were offered to the men of the city in place of the man they wanted. This time one of the women died from the all night abuse and the man cut her body up to send a portion to each of the tribes of Israel to encourage them to take revenge on the city that attacked him. It was a bad story and the theme throughout was that there was no king over Israel and every man did as he pleased.
Church had a sermon on Christ resurrecting a young man of a widow when no one asked him to do so. He just took pity on the woman who lost her only son. We had a baby baptism, communion and then this afternoon the funeral for one of my SS members, Becky Odom. I drove to Granbury where Vicky has been taking care of Nancy. She made supper for us and I am getting fat.
I am trying to get a statement ready to support my resolution that will be voted on by the Annual Conference sometime this week. I have been asked to be there to speak in defense because the Church and Society committee recommended against it. I plan to show up Wednesday but knowing the AC they may have voted on it Tuesday. Because I am not a lay member this year I won't be in continual attendance. Nancy's granddaughter will stay with her Wednesday to let me try to make part of the meeting. We will see.
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