Beebe Gun

Our Grandson got a Beebe Gun for Christmas. I asked his mother if he was using it. His mother said he could hardly lift it. I remember getting a Beebe gun when I was four years old. The first thing my father told me was not to shoot the hubcaps on our car.
I had to turn the rifle up side down to cock the lever in order to ready it for firing. Once it was ready to shoot, I could barely lift and aim it at a target. However, I could certainly hit them hubcaps my father told me not to shoot. The rifle was taken from me for a month.
Whenever I got to town, I always bought more Beebe’s for my rifle. They cost a dime when I was a boy. They come in a round tube. Sometimes, you would have to pinch the sides of the tube to release the Beebe’s, other times the tubes had a cap you took off.
All stationary objects were fair game and most moving objects also; Birds, fence posts, electric transformers, the barn, and did I mention hub caps?
My brother once shot an up stairs window out trying to knock an Icicle off the house. He also shot a friend in the hand because he asked him to do it. The friend put the palm of his hand on the end of the barrel and told my brother to pull the trigger on the rifle.
This friend was a couple of years older than and us. He went to the house wining like a little girl. My brother was in trouble until our friend went home and then we all had a good laugh about it.
Our father taught us fire gun safety with our Beebe guns. We would all go hunting and he would show us the proper way to handle our weapons while in a group. There was no way Dad was going to have an accident with a firearm in the years to come.
I killed many a bad person with my Beebe gun and spent many years enjoying it. I do not know what happened to it. As real weapons took its place, I lost track of it. It will always be in my heart.
I took a friend of mine to where I grew up. The first thing I told him was the area was safe. I killed all the bad people in the area while I was growing up. If you ever get up Michigan way, the northern Lower Peninsula, enjoy yourself it is safe. Until next time.

Norm

Meetings

I hate meetings and for a good reason, they are a waste of time. Someone runs the meeting, talking about a subject no one cares about, that everyone has to attend. Everyone means you and I. Usually at the end of the meeting the speaker asks if there are any questions. Of course, the same people ask questions every time. I wonder why the same people always ask the questions.
I have attended hundreds of meeting in my life. I have studied various management techniques. I have probably worked for people that have used most of the techniques that I have studied. I can honestly say that most of the meetings I have been involved in have been counter-productive.
I feel that if a meeting is more than fifteen minutes long it is a waste of time. If the objective is to drain the swamp then lets talk about ways to drain the swamp. If at the end of the allotted time, we have not found a solution then lets adjourn and meet again. We can always brainstorm on our own and send our ideas forward to the boss. Eventually we will figure out how to drain the swamp.
I do not relish the idea of spending an hour or two with people I do not really like. We have very little in common and I do not agree with what they are saying in the first place. Most of them would not be invited to the meeting, if it were my choice. Do not even think you are hurting my feelings by not inviting me. Make my day PLEASE.
The best meetings I ever attended were while I was in the Military. I worked for a Major in a combat unit. When he called a meeting, we met in a room with one long table and one chair. The Major sat in the chair and we stood around the table. The Major started on his left and went around the table. We all had our say and everything was resolved in a five-minute timetable. If you told the Major you would take care of something, you had better follow through. If you needed further assistance, you just let the Major know. He did not waste his time or ours on petty details that meant nothing.
Are there any questions? Until next time.

Norm

Lets Eat

Some of the best food I have ever eaten is simple dishes. I cannot tell you that I have eaten the best foods the world has to offer. I have never eaten Escargot or any other fancy food like Alligator, or Crocodile. You get the picture.
I can tell you I have whipped up some macaroni and milk. Throw in a little butter, salt and pepper and you have a meal fit for a King. Sometimes we fix beef stew with noodles or rice as a side dish.
My mother used to fry bread dough and butter it. Oh what a treat, us children thought it was a holiday or something. Sometimes I make my own soup. I get in the cupboard and throw everything I can find in the pan. My wife calls it something she will never taste. She also tells me to keep it away from her.
Some of the best meals we have eaten consisted of left over meat and boiled potatoes. It does not really matter what the meat is any kind will work. Fry it all up, salt and pepper it, throw on the Ketchup or Catsup what ever you prefer. Set down and feast.
Sometimes we have breakfast for dinner. I know people do this. I know my family members young and old have done it their whole lives. I bet you know someone that does it too.
We have some left over hotdogs in the refrigerator. I am thinking about hotdogs, Chili, and eggs for dinner tonight.
Until next time.

Norm

Baby Formula

One of our local News networks ran a special on Baby Formula. It seems through investigating they discovered formula that had expired on some store shelves. Seven out of eleven stores had expired formula on their shelves. Some of the stores were major chains that have been around for years. According to the network, Federal Drug Association regulations are more stringent concerning Baby formula. Due to this investigation, the stores said they would retrain personal and take other steps to safe guard Baby Formula.
I doubt very much if these stores meant for food to be expired on their shelves. Let us face it; it does not make for good business. The Public has a trust in these enterprises that they are not deliberately harming us. It would not hurt you and me to check the expiration date on the goods we buy now and again. I still have faith in our local Merchants to do the right thing.
Now that being said, let me tell you about my experience as a stock boy at a grocery store. I decided when I was around fifty years old that I just might want to work in a grocery store. I was hired to stock the shelves.
My job was to move the entire product from the back of the shelf and put the new product behind. This is a simple task says you. Not really.
We would go into the storeroom and load our dollies with boxes of product. After we loaded, we went to the aisles and began to stock product on the shelves. The product on our dollies would be spread throughout the store. There was no rhyme or reason in the storeroom. This caused us to run all over the store-stocking product. In-addition we were constantly called up front to bag groceries, carryout for our customers, or gather grocery carts. Most days we were moved from one department to another because of absenteeism.
Management thought we were a band of thieves. We received calls anytime during the day or night while at home wanting us to come to work. I once was called to work at eight P.M. to mop the floor because the manager did not want to do the mopping. The girls on the registers were supposed to be off the floor in time to count their money and be out the door at the end of eight hours. This rarely happened because hourly employees were not important. If we wanted a day off, we had to beg and bribe one of our co-workers to fill in for us. Management would not find someone to fill in for us. The whole environment led to bad attitudes by employees.
Now lets recap; Storeroom unorganized, Stockers run all over the store stocking shelves, Stockers constantly pulled away for other tasks, stockers switched from one department to another, hourly employee’s not trusted, Employee’s personal time not important, and management would not work with employee’s on scheduling days off. I wonder why product is out dated on the shelves.
I hope my experience was an extreme case. The store I worked for shut the doors with no notice and left it employee is hanging. In my opinion, the owners should have been Tarred and Feathered and run out of town. Their closing did not hurt me, but it hurt others.
There are plenty of reasons why product expires on the shelf. The above are just some. We could do ourselves and local business’s a favor by checking the expiration date every occasionally. If we find something wrong, we could point it out. Not to cause problems but to help protect ourselves as well as our neighbors. Until next time.

Norm

J.D. Salinger

J.D. Salinger passed away this week and there is a lot of speculation about what is in his closet. I found the following in the Yahoo News on the Internet and I quote "There is a marvelous peace in not publishing," J.D. Salinger told The New York Times in 1974. "Publishing is a terrible invasion of my privacy. I like to write. I love to write. But I write just for myself and my own pleasure." Let us check not only his closet but his Trouser pockets and his Wallet also. Let us discover what he never wanted us to see and steal it in the process.
I do not really know what his reasons were for moving to Cornish, N.H. and refusing to be published. It could be the people he was dealing with could not write a single line themselves but insisted on telling him how to write. Maybe they wanted too much information on his personal life. I guess we will never know.
I have never read Catcher in the Rye and doubt I ever will. Oh yes I have it in my collection of books here in the house. The problem is I was once sixteen and had my own problems. I had parents that were too busy and had too many problems of there own to worry much about me. We were poor, but I was clothed and fed and not abused, at least in the physical sense. If my English teacher would have assigned me a book report using Catcher in the Rye I would not have had the money to buy the book.
She would not have understood and failed me. My teacher was caught up in her importance as a teacher and her role in our community. I doubt very much if she could call me by name in the Hall as we walked by each other. I refused to get up in front of the class and do a report on The Call of the Wild. I am sure the teacher had an f on my record before calling on the next student. She never asked for an explanation as to why I would not do the report.
I did not like to talk in front of people because my teeth were rotten and I had a low self-esteem. I had no interest in The Call of the Wild and could not even relate the story to you then or now. Mind you I love to read and always have, I just wanted to read what interest me not others.
I also like to write, and I do not share all my thoughts with the world. I hope after I am gone people are not rummaging through my closets. Until next time.

Norm

Oatmeal

When making Oatmeal, you need to pay attention to detail. I learned this the hard way. My wife makes it using the clock; it has to cook just so long and no longer. Sometimes I put too little Oatmeal in the pan and sometimes too much water. I never use the clock to time its cooking.
Never the less it normally turns out so that it is eatable. I make it a little bit dryer than my wife does. She likes the Oatmeal to run out of the pan in to the bowl and I like to help it with a spoon. Not any spoon mind you, it has to be the spoon in which I am going to eat.
I do not like the way she cooks it, but am smart enough to keep my mouth shut. I know she knows I do not know what I am doing but she is patient and leaves me to my chore.
Special mornings are when Miss Emily spends the night and in the morning, we eat Oatmeal together. Her Brother Nathan is a Pancake type of person. On these special mornings, Grandma (Meema) cooks breakfast. She makes Pancakes for Nathan, one-half helping of Oatmeal for Emily, and Papa gets a full helping.
Lately the conversation goes something like this; Emily” My Mom always puts the milk in before the Brown sugar. I tell her to put the sugar on first but she does not listen.” Papa” Oh is that right”. Emily” Mom says it does not matter”.
I normally put the Sugar on first and mix it in real good. Evidently, Emily’s mother has not time for this step. On special mornings I hear; “is that mixed good enough Papa“? Of course it always is. Then we add the milk and mix it all together. Most of the time I hear; I am full Papa can I be excused? I normally end up eating all of my Oatmeal and at least three spoonfuls of Emily’s. Of course, Emily is sitting on Papa’s knee.
Until next time.

Norm

Kids

Kids just are not as smart as they used to be. I heard this while still in the Military back in 1992. Of course, I worked with young adults between the ages of eighteen and twenty two years of age. In fact, I trained them on Communications systems.
You know how kids are; they listen to that music that makes them nuts, stay up to all hours of the night, drink too much, talk back, and not responsible at all. They are all going to Hades in a hand basket.
It never proved to be true. The young adults I worked with were responsible, smart, and ambitious. They were always to work on time and ready to learn when they got to work. We trained on complicated communications systems, lifted six hundred pound walls and spent weeks out in the sticks with sub-standard shelter and food. I never heard any complaints and they never let me down.
A friend says kids just do not get it, they are lazy, do not want to work, dress funny and their hair is weird. Not like us at their age, we had it together. Sure we did!
Until next time

Norm

Community Involvement

My wife and I went to Church today. We try and go every Sunday while we are down in South Carolina for the winter. The theme of this Blog is not Religion. I think getting involved in your Community is a good thing. Church is only one avenue to do so. Some of the positive aspects of community involvement are the new people you meet, the insight you gain, and the feeling you get by helping others.
People are about the same wherever you go. Our Cultures may differ, but we are all basically the same. I think mingling with others rounds a person out. You get a chance to hear different points of view which gives you new insights.
Meeting others, exchanging ideas, and helping each other make you a better person. Prejudices disappear, wisdom and experience increase. No matter how I look at it, it is a win, win situation. Until next time.

Norm