Fall Break

A few days of vacation

Dennis and Isaac are both on fall break -- Dennis from his school job, and Isaac from college. Dennis still has to go in to work a few days, and Isaac has to work at his job a few days. I don't go back to work until Saturday, so I have more days off than either of them, for once. This is my R&R before the craziness of November and December at my workplace.

My goal tomorrow is to stack the firewood that Dennis has been hauling home and pitching into a big pile. He's been cutting wood a few hours each afternoon, and he's hoping to cut a lot more this week. A friend is having three dying or dead old trees removed, and Dennis is cutting up the branches as they are dropped. Two of the trees are white oaks and the other is a hickory. It's going to be excellent firewood.

Isaac and I are going to take a small trip to Henderson, KY, and Evansville, IN, during his time off. Evansville and Henderson are across the Ohio River from each other, or nearly so.

A lot of people go to Evansville to gamble on the riverboat, but we're just planning to go to the mall.  We also want to visit the World War II ship that is docked at Evansville. It is the USS LST-325 which was manufactured at the Evansville Shipyard in the early 1940's.

UPDATE 10/14/08: A reader has written to tell me that the USS LST-325 was actually manufactured in Mississippi, but it is like those manufactured at Evansville.

UPDATE 10/16/08: We learned during the tour that the LST-325 was manufactured in Pennsylvania.  Evansville was selected as its permanent docking site because of the enthusiastic support when it visited there on tour.

In Henderson, we want to go to the Audubon Museum at the state park, and I want to do the walking tour of the historic district. Henderson was once a major shipping port for dark tobacco, and it has some beautiful old homes that were built with the money that flowed through town from the tobacco trade.

A couple of my other projects for the week involve paint. I still haven't finished painting the baseboard in the bathroom, so I'm hoping to get that done.

I also want to spray-paint an old file cabinet. I'll do a little sanding to take off the loose rust, wash it good with soapy water, and then use Rustoleum Rusty Metal Primer, followed up by Rustoleum Hammered paint. These are both spray products. I used them on a similar old file cabinet recently, and the finish looks like it was done in the factory. I was very pleased.

The other thing that I really need to work on is a trench coat that I've promised to sew for Isaac for a Halloween party. It's supposed to be an easy pattern, so maybe I can get it done in one day of dedicated sewing.

I'm looking forward to doing all these things, except for stacking the firewood. However, there is a certain satisfaction in admiring a big, tidy stack of firewood, securely tarped to keep it dry until the cold days of winter when it's needed. It's a worthwhile chore.

Seen at Wickliffe, KY

River town on the Mississippi

When I drive out to southwest Missouri to see my sister, I always go through Wickliffe, KY, a small town in extreme northwestern Kentucky. Wickliffe sets just south of the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. About four miles north of Wickliffe, I cross the Ohio River. Then I drive through Illinois for maybe a mile before I cross the Mississippi River into Missouri.  It's an interesting bit of geography.

I've always thought Wickliffe is a pretty little town, so I stopped to stretch my legs and take a few photos when I went through there last week.

Five (or more) highways come into Wickliffe from various directions. Several of them go through Wickliffe's business district on the town's main street, 4th Street.

The courthouse is the most imposing structure in Wickliffe. It borders 4th Street on its west side. The only stoplight in downtown Wickliffe is at the southwest corner of the courthouse block, where Highways 62/51 and 286 intersect.

The courthouse doors on the west (photo above) and south sides of the courthouse aren't used anymore. Signs direct visitors to a door on another side. I figured those doors were closed to discourage people from walking across the busy highway like I did.

Wickliffe became the county seat after the original Ballard County courthouse, located in Blandville, burned in 1880. The election results were appealed by Blandville, but Wickliffe prevailed. A second election favored Wickliffe as well, and the courthouse was built. Amazingly, the population of Ballard County at that time was over 14,000, roughly double the current population.

The Mississippi River runs along the west side of Wickliffe. At the riverside, big transport trucks were waiting to pick up loads from barges. Train tracks run along the river as well. The river, the highways, and the trains have been an important influence on Wickliffe's economy through the years.

A couple blocks above the river, a large old store building is mouldering away. The doors on the left side of the storefront seem to have been for loading in and out.

Across the street nearby, a little fish market was open for business. Farther down, a boat store serves brave mariners of the mighty rivers. At the river's edge, a tugboat was pulled into something that I thought might be a "dry dock" (a term I've heard in association with boat repair.)

In the image below, the bridge across the Mississippi River (from Illinois to Missouri) is visible in the distance. The shoreline at right in the distance is the extreme southern tip of Illinois, and the water flowing in front of it is the Ohio River. This is literally a photo of the Ohio River joining the Mississippi River.

I didn't stop at the Wickliffe Mounds on the north side of town. It is a state historic site where an Indian village was once located. We've visited it before, but a return visit would be nice. I didn't have time for it on this trip, though -- I needed to move on down the road.

Pembroke (KY) High School

Needed: Old photos of the Pembroke area

I received the following note from Chuck and Dean Norfleet. The Norfleets are nice people who both grew up in the Pembroke area and attended Pembroke High School. They have done a lot of research on Pembroke High School history and also have researched the St. Elmo rural elementary school.

If you can contribute to this project, please e-mail them at phs1957@hesenergy.net.

We are working on a photo DVD about former Pembroke High School, the town, the area and the students. This will not be for sale but will be a gift from us to the former PHS students who attend the school reunion on 17 October 2009. The first section will be composed of old pictures of anything in and around Pembroke before 1959 (that was the year the last class graduated). If you have access to any photos that fall into that category, we sure would like you to email them to us. You may find our website interesting. www.pembrokeowls.net

Chuck and Dean Norfleet

Computer Shenanigans

Acccckkk, blarg, and bleccchhh!

We've been having some strange computer problems lately. The so-called "good" computer thinks that the connector cable for some disk is missing. I've taken it to Keely's boyfriend Taurus to see if he can figure out what's wrong.

That leaves us with the little Linux computer in the back hallway. I use it often anyway, because Isaac ties up the other computer. Usually, it works fine, but not lately.

First, it could barely connect to the internet. I finally discovered that the network cable plug-in on the back of the computer was missing some of its little wires. I don't know why. Maybe they just got old and fell off!

While crawling around on the floor and fumbling with computer cords, I knocked the goose-neck lamp off the desk. Later when I turned it off, a big, loud spark popped, and the computer lost power. This electrical event fried the surge protector.

Meanwhile, I couldn't log onto Blogger or access any Blogspot sites, including my own blog! I kept getting a "Server not found" message. This was making me crazy!

The new network card had no effect at all on the Blogger/Blogspot problem. I finally changed the DNS (Dynamic Name Server) numbers, and that was the necessary magic. Here I am at last, happy to see with my own eyes that my blogs still exist.

The little computer is plugging along valiantly again and doing the best it can (much like its owner.)

Visit with My Sister and Brother

A pleasant get-together

Last Friday, I drove out to southwest Missouri where my sister Charlotte lives. My brother Dwight also arrived from south-central Kansas on Friday, after attending the Farm Show in Springfield, MO.

We had a nice weekend at Charlotte's house. This was the first time we'd all been together since the Sees reunion at Osage Beach, MO, which was six or seven years ago. (I've visited them and they've visited me, but separately.)

This morning, Dwight and I headed for our respective home when Charlotte left for work. I got back about 6 p.m. tonight.

I had no problems of any sort on the road, so I'm grateful for that. I took lots of pictures and I will post more of them later.

I was amazed to find that gasoline in southern Missouri is a lot cheaper than Hopkinsville gas -- at least 50 cents per gallon cheaper at every gas station!

The sumac is red on the road banks and the soybeans are yellow in the fields, all across southern Missouri.

It was interesting to see cotton ready for harvest around Sikeston, MO. Now I can imagine why "Blues for Dixie" says, "...those old cotton fields were white in pale moon light..."

Most memorable thing I heard on the radio during the trip:
It was time for the "Are You Smarter Than Your Kids" segment on a morning show. The question was "Which state is known as the "Land of 10,000 Lakes?" The caller's answer was "India."

Here's a photo of me (left), my sister Charlotte, and my brother Dwight. This is for all who haven't seen us for a while. We thought you might be worried that we weren't getting older -- haha! We are now (left to right) 57, 52, and 62.