Happy Birthday to me, I'm now 53

(sorry - this is the youngest baby picture I have of me)

How Much things cost in 1955

- Average Cost of new house ==== $10.950.00
- Average Monthly Rent ==== $87.00
- Average Yearly Wages ==== $4.130.00
- Minumum Hourly Rate ==== $1.00
- Average Cost of a new car ==== $1,900.00
- Cost of a gallon of Gas ==== 23 cents
- Black and White TV ==== $99.95

Popular Culture 1955
- Ray Kroc starts the McDonald's fast food restaurant chain.
- First riot at an Elvis Presley concert takes place in Jacksonville, FL
- James Dean’s stars in the movie East of Eden
- James Dean killed in car accident near Cholame, California

Popular Films
- Oklahoma
- The Quatermass Xperiment
- Rebel without a Cause
- To Catch A Thief
- The seven year itch

Popular Singers
- Elvis Presley
- Bill Haley and the Comets
- Chuck Berry
- Fats Domino.
- The Platters

What Events Happened in 1955
· US military intervention in Iran
· Hurricane Diane hits the northeast United States, killing 200 and causing over $1 billion in damage
· Disneyland opens in California
· 52 Die in a disaster at 24hr Le Mans Race
· African American Rosa Parks is arrested after refusing to give up her bus seat to a white person in Montgomery Alabama

Technology 1955
· First pocket transistor radios available
· Fish Fingers are marketed by Bird's Eye
· The first Atomically generated power is used in the US

I share my birthday today with my brother David, Step-father Henry, and the guy who is the voice of the AFLAC duck.

Exercising my patience - OR - stupid department stores

Happy Birthday me!
Sue and I were wishing we could afford to rejoin the Y, but alas it is beyond our current reach. Sue thought that getting a home gym machine would be a great birthday present. We had seen a neat one at Walmart a while ago but it had no price on it. When we EVENTUALLY found a clerk willing to speak to us, he too couldn’t find the pricing and said we needed to come back during the day when a department manager could help us. Well yesterday, Sue was there – and a price was listed on it ($189.99) and it seemed like a good deal. After I got home from work, we all went back to WalMart to purchase it. Again, we have to seek out someone to help us. The first clerk we found couldn’t but went to find somebody who could. Three times he returned to apologize and say it should just be a few more minutes. A lady came, scanned the price tag/bar code, and told us that two were on order and should be in within 14 days or less. No, they were not ordered for somebody else – no, we could not reserve one – we could check in later. After pushing lots of buttons on her scanner, she informed us that Braintree and Weymouth had them in stock. Because Julie and friend had to be picked up in an hour, we had to pass. After returning home, we search for the specific machine online to see who else might carry it (and compare pricing). Apparently, that particular unit is proprietary to Walmart as nobody else in the free world carries it. BUT – Kmart has a similar but clearly superior unit by a different manufacturer at 30% off ($195.00) and Brockton has them in stock. Because they close at 10 and it was already after 9, I decided to wait until today – I could zip over there on my lunch break.
And I did - $200 cash in hand – walked in, found the machine, didn’t find a clerk (way too heavy for a carriage and one person to lift), found the service desk, asked for help, waited for help, waited as she paged again, waited some more, met the clerk who said he’d meet me back in sporting goods as soon as he finished helping the other two customers ahead of me, waited, waited, waited until I was 45 minutes into my ½ hour lunch break. (starting to sound a bit like the “Alice’s Restaurant” song) And I left – without the machine. But we want it. Sue and I will certainly get good use out of it, the little kids will initially be intrigued enough to use it at first, Julie can work out prior to Discus competition season. The 30% off sale ends March 1st so I guess I’ll try one more time. Why doesn’t anybody want my $200 dollars? If I could I would get it and move it myself, except – if I could, I wouldn’t need the machine in the first place!

Ruth McDonnell

Ruthie McDonnell - upper left in photo

In 1979 the Hanson Girls Softball 13-17 yr old team had a 6-8 record playing in the North River Girls Fastpitch Softball League. I was the head coach of this wild and crazy and diverse collection of teenage softball players. Many of the girls had unmistakable and strong personalities of various types. Some were shy or quiet and just sort of blended in without being particularly noteworthy, which is how I had tended to be as a teenager and young adult. But after getting talked into helping coach this team, and then becoming the head coach – I was forced to learn to interact in a more vocal and demonstrative way. These girls were the best thing to happen to me at that point in my life.

One of the best players and strongest personalities on any of the teams I coached over eight years was “Ruthie”. She was a big strong girl who could hit for power, had a cannon of an arm, and would gladly run over the opposing catcher if she tried to block home plate. AND, she would laugh about it the whole way – as if to say “I can’t believe you thought you were going to stop me”. In any moment of competition, Ruthie had a determined scowl which instantly gave way to a proud and beaming smile. She LOVED doing her job well. As a shortstop, she would throw so hard to first base that Nancy (our 1st baseman) would complain that she was throwing too hard. Ruthie hated pitching because she couldn’t throw as hard underhand as she could overhand. What she excelled at was being the catcher.
Stereotypically big and slow moving, and happily bossy, Ruthie at 16 and 17 years old was the field general. She would pump up the pitcher, wake up the infielders, joke with the umpire and batter, and let me know that I wasn’t really needed here – she had it all under control. Our pitchers quickly learned that their own head was directly in the line of fire when Ruthie tried to throw a runner out stealing second base. She would sternly remind them of that fact and warn them to be ready to duck – not to save their own lives, but so their head wouldn’t interfere with her throw. This public and confident announcement was sometimes enough to convince a baserunner NOT to try stealing second. On plays at home plate, she KNEW she had a size advantage over most girls and would practically DARE anyone to try to run through her to score. She knew she was big and strong and relished in being able to take advantage of her “physical talent”.

At bat she was fearless and always grinned at the opposing pitcher – her way of trying to psych out the opponent, no matter how fast the girl could pitch. In batting practice, she was murder. When Ruthie stepped into the batters box, most of our own pitchers were too scared (or too smart) to pitch to her, and because we didn’t have many girls who threw real fastballs (but many of the opponents did) I would throw a lot of batting practice so our own batters could practice hitting against speed. Ruthie had an uncanny knack of hitting line drives back through the pitchers circle – anywhere from head high to “just-below-belt-high”. She would have me ducking and leaping throughout her whole BP session, with the rest of the team laughing at my predicament and rooting her on. Every body loved Ruthie – you couldn’t help it, unless you were on the other team. She learned that her power zone was hitting towards right-center field, and that most teams weakest players were in right field. She needed to hit the ball into that gap, because Ruthie didn’t particularly run around the bases – she thundered around them. Team-mates good naturedly complained about earthquakes and thunder, and joked about the 3rd baseman running for cover as she huffed and puffed into 3rd base. She just smiled and laughed with them. Playing down in Plympton, the opposing star player was also their catcher. Ruthie was on 2nd base and a ball was hit to the outfield. She rounded 3rd and headed for home –ready for a close play. The throw was high causing the catcher to leap. Ruthie – not one to be polite or to avoid a collision - went low and took the girls legs out from under her, and they landed in a heap. The umpire called “Safe”, the catcher got up looking for a fight, but Ruthie just casually got up and triumphantly walked away – beaming as always, and to a chorus of cheering from her impressed team-mates.

That was Ruthie in all of her glory. Never to be a prom queen, she held court on 95 degree hot July afternoons, full catchers gear on, dirty, sweaty, and personally victorious no matter what the final score was. She was the hero of all the pretty girls who wished they were “ballplayers”, the shy girls who wished they were outgoing, and any other girl who simply marveled at the person who was “Ruthie”. She was a joy to coach.

The reason this story is on my “current events” blog instead of my “growing up a long time ago” blog?

Ruthie McDonnell – now 45 years old - passed away this weekend after succumbing to cancer. Apparently, her adult life was not easy and she did not fare as well against real life’s opponents off the playing field.

Although I have not seen her since the early 1980’s, I feel somewhat like a father who has lost a child. In my minds eye, she will always be 17, laughing, wearing her Hanson Girls Softball shirt, ready to drill a line drive at my head, and telling Sue that she has that one more strike in her that she needs to get this batter out.

I think I will make a recommendation to the Hanson Recreation Committee to rename the LZ Thomas School softball field to the Ruth McDonnell Memorial Field. It would be a fitting honor.

..the 123 page book Meme.

Here are the rules:
1. Pick up the nearest book ( of at least 123 pages).
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people.

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Musicophilia by Oliver Sacks
page 123 sentences 6,7,8

Transposing a piece of music, for someone with absolute pitch, can be analogous to painting a picture with all the wrong colors. Another difficulty was mentioned to me by the neurologist and musician Steven Frucht, who himself has absolute pitch. He sometimes experiences a certain difficulty in hearing intervals or harmonies because he is so conciouse of the chroma of the notes that compose them.

======================

sorry, I have nobody to tag
(they've all be taken)

I would be curious to know what revelations this Meme suggests.
Why the 123rd page?
Why the 6th, 7th & 8th sentences?
Why 5 people? Why not 4 or 6?

Most Meme's are designed to offer insight to the person
(Fav color, cola, music, movie, etc...)
I don't understand how lines 6,7,& 8 of page 123 offer any psycological insight to me.

Dark Thoughts (part 2)

Still loving my site meter.
Still getting LOT's (literally dozens - check it yourself - go to the bottom of this page and click on the Site Meter box) of europeans searching for "dark dark town dark dark street" (it's a little freaky), lot's of americans searching for "helplessly hoping" and "I was born in the sign of water" meanings, and now I know that somebody in Manchester NH is looking for my cousin Joanne (or at least somebody with her same maiden name). I wonder if I should tell her?