Friday, March 13, 2015

Chapter 34 Safety or Damage Control?


I have to preface this by saying that everything I wrote when I wrote this was true to my knowledge.  I have not been affiliated with PPCO since before they merged with Conoco.  I have worked for Conoco on the Environmental side working on property they acquired in Charleston. S.C. with attorneys at their offices in Houston.  But I have no knowledge of their business practices since the 1990's. 

It's a roman candle, no it's a bomb, no it's an exploding polyethylene plant!

I had left Phillips about the time the Plant in Pasadena, Texas exploded killing umteen people including the female engineer who had reported the unsafe practices to the company.  But I get ahead of myself.

 I saw a letter to the editor in the Tulsa World that got me a bit riled.  It was probably a PPCo retiree who was defending his former employer company.   He said something to the affect of "Why are you and the OSHA picking on Phillips, if anyone knows how to operate a plant safely it should be Phillips.  Apparently OSHA and the courts thought differently.
 
 I wrote back to the Tulsa World that PPCo's practices at the time were all damage control.  They scrambled like hell after the fact.  As an Associate Geologist, I also acted as the Geology Branch safety officer for a year.  It was a revolving position that meant you hosted the monthly safety meeting in the Research Forum, which also doubled as nap time for most of the older guys who knew everything already.

I was trained as a DuPont Safety Auditor and ran audits in the Production and Chemical branches.  It amazed me to see what people did after being told not to do it.  Like balancing gas cylinders in swivel chairs etc.  My point is the middle line managers did not take things seriously, so it had a trickle down effect. The word seemed to be "do what you have to do to get the job done but don't get caught."
 
You could tell that no body cared about safety, because the company could not be bothered to hire someone full time to act as a safety officer, or give them sufficient authority to enforce the rules.  Instead, they made kids like me one year out of school safety officers.

 Well I said all this in the letter rebutting the other letter.  I also said that it was interesting that Health and Safety was NOT represented at the corporate level by a VP or anyone else until AFTER the Pasadena disaster.  Then all of a sudden it rated a VP and a female one at that. 
 
Not bashing females...I love females, but Oil Companies didn't seem too.  If you recall, if a company wanted to look good they found somewhere to hire women and put them.  Usually it was in the useless HR department.  They would put a male VP over them just to make sure things didn't get too out of hand.  I took HR classes at and OSU campus in Tulsa and it was a joke.  My point being what better way to make a good impression than by opening up a Health and Safety Department and then put a woman in charge of it to make people feel like you really meant business.
 
They quickly staffed the new organization with whatever engineers were available.  It didn't matter if they had ever had a course in industrial hygiene, environmental anything, or industrial safety.  Just being an engineer was enough.  They do oversight anyway, and let the consultants do the work.  My "junkless" friend ended up in that new organization overseeing pipeline safety.  (His little story will come next).

Now I also mentioned a few things in passing in the letter that surprised a few people.  My letter made it up all the way to the CEO I am told.  I mentioned a little known event involving the loss of a whole tank of Benzene at the refinery in Borger.

Benzene you see is a carcinogen and one of the four primary constituents tested for when dealing with gasoline spills.  It is an additive along with Toluene, Ethylene and Xylene.  They collectively form the acronym BTEX.  Well someone screwed up at Borger and left a tap open and a whole tank drained on the ground.  I knew someone involved in the sampling of the site.  Not wanting to draw attention and win the wrath of the then Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission.  PPCo kept mum and sampled it themselves sending some of my former workmates out to do the job.  Turns out they contaminated the watershed of an adjacent ranch.  So their solution was to buy the ranch.  This served to do what they wanted.  In Texas a problem does not exist unless it is reported and comes to the attention of the State Regulators.

Phillips now owned the contaminated property so they were not going to report themselves.  So nothing ever happened.
 
In fairness, the stuff probably evaporated and went to that big "landfill in the sky" as we used to say in the environmental industry.  The hot Texas summers would have baked he ground and wicked it up and into the atmosphere.  Hopefully this happened before it got down to any shallow aquifers, but likely any shallow water would have been alkalai and not fit for consumption by man or beast.  But then there is the possibility that it went into the aquifer or creek and into the nice big recreational lake there around Borger.  I have no knowledge of the gradient out there or where the spill occurred so I am just speculating.  Since this happened in the late 1980's unless there are a lot of people with three heads walking round, I doubt it hurt anyone in the long run.
 
It was to demonstrate the mindset of the company.  Anyhow...

I didn't go into any details in the letter I just mentioned it as an example of how PPCo put a band aid on things after the fact.

My Ex #3 owned a pub in Katy which is near the site of the Great Southwest Equestrian Center.  That is a horse arena to most people.  I got to know the owner and did catering for him on weekends through the pub.  Yes, I can cook.  I did one event for 1200, German food for an Oktoberfest.

Anyway, turns out he was an engineer too.  He had been married to the engineer who reported the dangerous conditions at the Pasadena plant prior to the explosion.  Well, who should PPCo try to pin the blame on?  Yep.  The poor dead female engineer.  Seems she was smart and had copies of all the safety reports to her bosses at home.  So it was easy for her husband's attorney to prove they were lying through their teeth.  Not surprising really. 
 
Well, my new friend and owner fought back and won a defamation and wrongful death suit and a boat load of money.  Seems he got about $12 million.  More than enough to buy the Equestrian Center and all its property while it was in bankruptcy.  He probably paid $50 of the dollar or less for the very large property directly in the path of the western expansion of suburban west Houston.

He has gone on to keep the center in operation while selling off surrounding property.  At last look there were at least 2 apartment complexes, a super church, condos and commercial property all in the front 1/4 mile of the property along Mason Road.

Seems he turned those $12 million dollars that PPCo stock holders generously gave him into a tidy profit.

Friday, February 27, 2015

Chapter 32 Hawaii Bound Brunette or ( Dogs really are great bait chick magnets)


I ran into this cute young thing at a festival on Riverside Drive.  I brought my Doberman down to the festival for company and he was a great ice breaker.   She saw the two of us walking and came running over with a friend to pet the dog.  Gotta love dogs...anyway she ended up inviting me to a party that evening.  I took the dog home to B'ville and came back.  I ended up spending the night with her and but not before I got to meet her boyfriend. 
 
WTF?
 
Yeah. 
 
They were in the restaurant business, the part that serves the tables, and were planning to move to Hawaii together.    I guess there was a waiter and waitress shortage in Hawaii at the time.  Yeah, right?  
 
I hope she didn't end up turning tricks somewhere.   She was cute as a button, dark hair cut into a page boy, and yes, a major rack on a 5'7" frame.  Simply gorgeous, liberated and about 18 or 19.  She lived on the south end of Riverside just north of where it used to take a hard turn east at 81st or so.
 
Now how I figured in I do not know.  The party was really just some friends, booze and the three of us.  She let me stay after the party, we made love, and then cooked me breakfast in the morning before sending me on my way.  Now I don't know if her boyfriend was gay, or saving till they got married.  All I know is she wasn't. 
 
Which reminds me…have you heard the joke about the father catching his son jerking off and telling he had to save it till he got married?  A year of so later he comes to the father with two mason jars filled with jizz and asks his dad if he thought he had enough to get married.  Ta dum!

I am waiting for the laughter to subside.  
 
I don't know if it was just him, or both of them, but there seemed to be a lot of naivetĂ© going around.  Or it could have been me. 
 
I kind of thought she was cheating on him, but she introduced me to him, and he went on his way, and I ended up with her for the night.    Who knows, maybe he got off on the idea of his girl making it with an older man.  I was about 27 at the time and she had to have been 8 or 9 years younger than me.  It could be I was the naive one.  He could have been in the next room listening for all I know.  Years later, I now know those kinds of things are not so strange as they once might have appeared.  I married one.  My future Ex #3 like to bring women home for me or pick them out, let me take them home, only to show up later so she could watch.  Go figure.  As far as I know, they made the trip to Hawaii and lived happily ever after.  I certainly hope they did.  On a trip to Hawaii, I wondered if I might run into her.  I know it was far fetched, but weirder things have happened.  I was on Kauai and she struck me as a Kauai kind of person.
 
No I didn't see her, but wish I had.

 

Chapter 31 Betty B.

Another nurse I ran into was a beautiful but odd bird.  She was a home grown cutie from Tulsa, but had moved on to fast times in Dallas.  This sweet Berry, got into weight lifting and from all accounts a fast living abusive husband.  She lived in the Dallas fast lane for a while, then I can only surmise that her husband, beat her up in a 'roid rage.  Don't know if other drugs were involved or not, but probably were. She told me how her ex had rearranged her dentistry and he must have really wailed on her knocking out about 4-5 teeth on the left side of her jaw.  She moved back to Tulsa and lived with her parents off Sheridan or Yale.  In the event, I met her at the County Health Clinic.  She was administering AIDS tests, and yes, I had the cajones to ask her out when I went back from the far east and got a clean bill of health.  We went out a few times and ran into each other here and there. 

She had a body that would stop a freight train.  She worked out and walked regularly in the park off Yale, speed walking, and I used to troop along with her and some doctor friends who bird dogged her.  Betty was gorgeous and had a nice customized front end too.  Body shops did and still do wonders.  She worked hard on it no doubt about it.  I know her and her ex were probably narcissistic work out freaks.  She actually tested her urine to determine if she was in ketosis or not on a daily basis.  For those not familiar, ketosis is when your body is utilizing fat instead of the preferred glucose as an energy source.  "Most medical resources regard ketosis as a pathological state associated with chronic starvation. Glucose is regarded as the preferred energy source for all cells in the body with ketosis being regarded as a crisis reaction of the body to a lack of carbohydrates in the diet."  Get the picture?  One really has to be obsessed, and also has to know what they are doing to want to stay in the state of ketosis.  The term comes from Ketone, a by-product of the breakdown of fats in the body.  It is decarboxylated into Acetone and that my friends is excreted in the urine and in the breath.  It is quite noticeable.  Know anyone with anorexia?  Smell their breath, it will have a sweet chemical smell to it.  I went on a diet program called "The 6 week cure to the middle aged middle." and it relies on ketosis to drop your weight rapidly.  It is tough to stay on, but it works.  I went from 267 to 240 in six weeks.
 
I fell out of touch with Betty and was living down on Riverside at Place One in 1988.  I came out of my apartment and saw her cruising around in her car looking lost.  I waved her down and we chatted.  Seems she was doing home checkups for patients AIDS patients and was looking for an address when I happened to see her driving around. 
 
I helped her get oriented and pointed her in the direction of the address. 

I really regret not getting to know her better, but she had a lot going on in her life.  Either she wasn't over her ex, or he had been enough to scare her off relationships, or it could have been the parents.  Her parents seemed the very religious types and had convinced her that her ordeal was divine retribution for her wayward lifestyle.  Anyway, they kept her on a short leash since she was living under their roof.

 

Friday, February 20, 2015

Chapter 30 Third World Souvenirs

I have had my share of experiences in the lands south of the border.  Today I have strong feelings about mass illegal immigration but what is one person to do?  I have worked in Bolivia, traveled to most of the countries in South America, and worked and traveled in Mexico.  I generally like Hispanics, but just what is a Hispanic or Latino?  Are not most of them just Native Americans of some percentage or other who's people at one point or another in their history were forced to adopt Spanish as their primary tongue and expunge their native religions and languages?  How does that make them Latin or Hispanic (from the word Hispanola, the first island Christopher claimed for Spain)?   Actually a Peninsularo is the correct term for anyone who was born on the Iberian peninsula of Spain.   A Creole is anyone who was born here in a colony or can trace lineage back to a Spaniard or French colonist.   Most of the so-called or self proclaimed Hispanics, or Latin Americans, are in truth, merely Spanish speaking Native Americans with some varying percentage of Spanish or Native American in their lineage.  They are not that special a breed, but are pretty much like what we call African Americans.  They have a varying ancestral genetic makeup that could include Spanish, French, or English genes along with the African.   In fact in the Caribbean basin, what pasts for Black and Hispanic are indistinguishable.  Throw in a bit of Indian, the Hindu kind, who were brought over to Trinidad, and other British colonies, and you have a real genetic stew going.

But I digress.

When I was living in Tulsa over at Place One off Riverside Drive, I had occasion to go to the Post office on Peoria.  I was waiting in the seeming endless line one day and met this gal from Colombia.  I struck up a conversation with her and had more than enough time to chat her up.  We agreed to meet later.  I took her out for drinks and I think we had dinner then went back to her place.  One thing led to another and we hit the sheets.  Now I can only assume I was great at the art of seduction, or she was fishing around for a husband to put her on the superhighway to citizenship.  In either case, I was in like Flynn in no time.
 
Being a considerate partner I decided to sample cuisine south of the border, and being a good Catholic girl, she was intrigued but not entirely relaxed and comfortable with my endeavors.  We finished our assignation and parted ways.  Before we could meet again, I noticed this familiar itching.  It wasn't in my nether regions, but in my beard.  Seems I got a few unexpected garnishes with my Colombian snack.  I once again hit the drug store and eradicated the little bastards before they spread.  I did my lower regions as well, just to be sure that I got all the sons of bitches.

Now I’m not picking on our friends from South America, but don’t they notice when their privates come alive at night and feel like a pack of mosquitos just took up residence?  I mean you have to be numb not to feel the little critters crawling around and the itch when they start to feed.  Is it that our Third World neighbors just get used to it?
 
I guess it is one of those questions we will never know.
 
Update...I wrote the above years ago, and as you can no doubt tell from the frequent news reports, new diseases are cropping up like mushrooms after a shower due to the flood of our southern neighbors across our borders to get on board the Gravy Train of the Western World.  From Kissing Bugs to Bed Bugs, the Central, South and Mexican Americans are bringing their national treasures to share with us in exchange for a better life on the Gravy Train. 
 
I think it is a measure of how wretched the refuse is, that in all my days in South America and Mexico...I never once brought home any souvenirs, rather I had to come home and get them from the recent arrivals. 
 
Such is life and the New World Order.

Monday, January 19, 2015

Chapter 29 National Cash Register

Now, if you are asking yourself, if this guy has a steel trap for a memory, I do have a pretty good head for recollection, but to be honest, I wrote most of these entries years ago in a journal of sorts.  To post them I am just updating them a bit, like with this intro, and then cutting and pasting the rest in.  So why didn't I finish posting these years ago?  Good question.  Too many things going on, procrastination, you know the normal list of things.

There was a club off of Peoria, which for a while in the mid 80’s, had a late night TV broadcast on a local station.  I can’t remember the name, but for a while it was a very popular place.  They put cameras in the club and telecast about an hour or so of the club’s goings on.  I use to go there frequently, making the drive from Bartlesville.  This is the club I took Dana to on our abortive date.  On another night I met a somewhat older gal that turned out to be the tri-state manager for National Cash Register or NCR.  We danced a while and then did the obligatory getting to know you routine, then decided to leave.  She had a condo nearby that we drove back to. 

It amazes me how trusting women can be, or were back then at least.  I must look like a nice guy, but then so did Ted Bundy.  My point being, I could have been a real crazy and here she invited me back to her place.  I did meet a couple of her girlfriends, and I may have shown them my driver's license just so they knew I was who I said I was and to increase her comfort level.  But there have been other times, when it was "how do you do, lets screw!" and we were off to the races without so much as an exchange of names that I can remember.
 
In the event, things worked out well for her and me.  She was a nice woman, probably about 9-10 years older than me.  Don’t get me wrong, but I was thinking sugar momma and gigolo.  Alas it was not to be. 
 
She didn't appear to be a cougar on the prowl, I think it was her celebration with her gal pals of her new promotion.  I just happened to be the icing on top of the cake.
 
She too was headed out of town, to Louisiana shortly after that.  She had gotten promoted, and was leaving in a week to take the other position.  So I guess I was a going away present so to speak.  It was too bad she was leaving, she was a hoot and fun to be with.  She turned out to be my one and only shot at a sugar mama.  She was probably near to pulling down six figures in the mid 80's, making almost twice if not three times what I was making.  It could have been fun, but turned out to be all too brief.

Back in the days of the Reagan Era, it seemed everyone was drunk on excess.  My god, there were new clubs popping up in Tulsa on Lewis and Peoria like mushrooms. There were clubs that I can't even remember the names of, nice glitzy upscale places on Yale and Sheridan.  Most were on Peoria or Lewis.  I used to go to the Double Tree for happy hour.   On Friday I would drive to Tulsa from B'ville to make a happy hour or two.  This was when Disco International in B'ville was beginning to fade. 

It seems that the down turn in oil prices hit the high rolling big spending locals first.  As stripper wells were shut in and plugged, more than a few locals in Washington County learned that the royalty money that all of a sudden seemed to be raining from heaven during the boom could just a quickly dry up.  I've heard of a lot of sad stories that would have ended differently had the individuals only put the money away; rather than spend it as fast as it came in.  They would have been set for life.   Instead they spent way too much and got in way over their heads and lost everything and then some when the tap was closed as the prices dropped.

As they say, only two things fall from the Heavens, manna and airborne rangers.

Trooping to Tulsa introduced me to a whole new group of people.  Like the nice buxom (yeah, that characteristic again) Catholic girl , who happened to be a nurse at St. Francis.  She had a nice personality, but struck me as a bit needy.  But what the hey? I liked her.

I was supposed to take her on a canoe trip but things got mixed up and it never happened.  I think her background was German.  Her biological clock was ticking and she wanted to have kids.  That gave me pause.  She struck me as one of the type who wanted about 8 or so, but she had the figure for it.  As my Ex Wife #1 would say she had "kartoffel stumpfers"  or potato stomping legs, and tiny waist and yes, as set of DDs. If I had to guess I'd say about 36 DD.  She would show up for happy hour with her blond hair hair up in a bun, channeling her grandmother, no doubt; her nursing uniform on, and this angelic look on her face.  This gal was like a rumbling volcano ready to spew hormones all over the landscape.  I had known two good Catholic girls just like her in college. One of them from very large family of 10-12 siblings from good practicing Catholic parents.  Birth control was not what they were practicing obviously.

I could tell our late 20’s something nurse was just waiting to sink her teeth into Mr. Right after about 25+ years of celibacy.  As Mr. T would say, "I pity the fool..."  It wasn't me, sorry to say, I would have liked to give it a go, but it never happened.  The happy hour crowd drifted on to another locale as they are wont to do, and I never saw her again.

I went to the New Year's Party there the following year in hopes that she might show up, but I didn't see her.  I had to go into St. Francis for knew surgery about 5 years later and never saw her either, but hopes of that were on the slim side, unless I knew exactly what unit she worked on, and I didn't. 
 
 

Chapter 28 Wow! Its 2015. and Time to reminisce about the S&J Oyster Girl

Okay, its been 4 years: really has it been that long?  I guess it has been.  Well then its time for another trip down memory lane.

Who here remembers the S&J Oyster Bar on Peoria?  There was one on Peoria and one on Yale. Not sure if they exist now.  I see there is one down town on 1st Street.  Well the one in Peoria was a meat market, and I don't mean seafood flesh.

Well, I think I might have made mention in a previous post about how I met a young lady who rescued me from the seductive intent of a gay co-worker from Phillips Plastics.

She was a nice young woman who I struck up a conversation with sitting there schlepping down oysters and doing oyster shots (Vodka, oyster and hot sauce).

She wasn’t model pretty or anything like that, but she had a rack that would knock your eyes out.  But I think what attracted me to her the most was her sense of humor and her outgoing personality.  My erstwhile gay seductor had gone next door to a little bar, the name for which has long faded from my memory.  Well I used that opportunity to move to the bar swivel seat next to her's and to fill her in on my situation, setting her up to be my white knight.

She smiled and was more than game.  So my ride came back and much to his surprise I told him my new friend would be accompanying us the rest of the evening.  I think this was a Wednesday or Thursday night, hump night or the day after.  You know it was much easier back then to spend the night out and then put in 8 hours the next day and function than it is today.

After we finished out food and cocktails, we went over to the place next door for a while, I recall it was kind of a dive, outside was painted black, and it had a coffeehouse atmosphere to it.  We hung there for a while, them my ride suggested we go to a place on the east side, a gay bar called Zippers.

Now I don’t know if he thought my new female friend would bail on us due to our new destination, but she didn’t.  I rode with her, much to his chagrin.  We all made it to our destination in one piece.  The place wasn’t too busy, with a few lesbian and gay couples milling around on the dance floor and swapping spit in the booths.

My new friend decided to follow suit and we continued the make out session we had begun on the drive over.  Hey!  Her hands were busy driving, no one says mine had to be idle.
 
I wonder what changes come over a person when they hit middle age.  Do the hormones stop pumping, does the adventurous edge dull, or do the insecurities of fading looks, hair loss accumulate?  As I sit here writing this, it hits home how much fun it was to meet a one night stand, hit it off, go crazy on each other, and then say goodbye.  Do we as we get older see something inherently wrong in that now that even if given the chance we wouldn't do it?  My current wife, when we were dating in our forties did things that gave passing truckers an eyeful of her nicely formed naked derriere through the passenger seat of my SUV while they passed us driving on the interstate.  Could I get her to do that today?  I doubt it, and its only been 15 years since she was an enthusiastic accomplice.  I guess folks change, but its disappointing.

Okay...so we were working ourselves in to a sexual frenzy, we saw no sense in staying around any longer.  She wanted me to come home with her, and I agreed once I got assurances from her that she would drive me back to Bartlesville in the morning.  I had to go break the news to my ride, that he would be driving back to B’ville by himself.

I often felt very sorry for the guy’s wife, the beard.  She was such a nice woman, a bit on the rotund side, obviously Jewish, but in that fun effervescent way.  She reminded me of Mamma Cass Eliot of the Mommas and Pappas.  There didn’t seem to be a bad bone in her body.  Her husband was a real hound, I only hope he didn’t give her HIV on down the road.

Now let me tell you about my new friend.  She was a darling.  She had the best set of breasts bar none that I have ever seen.  Not huge but big and firm. The kind you dream about.  Nipples out to there, puffy aureoles, the whole enchilada.  She decided to take a bath so I joined her and we had a glass of wine and talked in the bathtub.  Well she talked I played.

Imagine how crest fallen I was when she told me she would be leaving Tulsa to get married.  Her fiancĂ©e lived out of state and was blind.  She wanted to have one last fling before she hung up her spurs.   I was devastated.  Here I thought I had met a really fun gal who I hit it off with right away, but it was not to be.   We had a great night and I saw her again over another weekend before she left for parts north and marriage.

 This was one of those nights that guys dream about.  I mean I just fell into this wonderful young thing’s bed by chance.   I wish I could remember her name, to put it with the wonderful memory of the love making we had.

There was one downside; she gave me gift that I will forever link her with.  They were very intimate and I didn't realize I had been given a gift until a week or so later when they began to itch like crazy.  Yes, she gave me the crabs.  Unfortunately I passed them on to at least one other person with whom I was intimate at the time.  We discovered them together actually, one weekend.  I saw them on me, so I inspected her and low and behold she had a menagerie too.  So I made a quick run to the drug store and we doused them with Rid and did away with them.  Don't ask me how I talked my way out of that, but I did.

Monday, January 4, 2010

Chapter 27 Happy New Year its 2010!

Flash forward to 2010! Wow! Has it actually been almost three years sicne I wrote in this blog? How time marches on, it waits for no man. A lot of things have happened... I got married again. My father passed away. My daughter started college and my son turned into a rock star. He plays in a red dirt country band out of Stillwater called No Justice. He tours the midwest and they just signed with Sony Red. He plays regularly in Tulsa, Dallas, Houston and as far north as Chicago. He has recently been spending time in Nashville laying down guitar tracks for their upcoming CD. On a recent trip to B'ville I saw from the news that the wheels had fallen off the life of the Danish Pastry. Her son and husband were arrested on drug related charges and her business burned along with the May Bros. Building. It is a shame...the May Bros was always such a nice building. Seriously, it is too bad. We all hope our kids avoid the kind of pitfalls her son apparently willingly stepped into, selling drugs. His father claimed the marijuana growing in the garage was his, probably in a a misguided attempt to protect his son. I don't know how this might affect the father's postion with the city and community center. As to the cause of the fire..I don't know what the final out come of the investigation is or was, I am aware the owner of the restaurant and his buddy were prime suspects. I have been in the vacat spaces that held the reported meth lab. I find it hard to believe that the tenants of the second floor did not smell something amiss, whether during the labs operating period or after. I would suspect strong odors of cooking chemicals would be a tip off that something was amiss. Those spaces were like someones old attic. Dusty, debris ridden and a perfect place for pigeons to roost. That is the reason the suspects had keys to the spaces it was reported. I have reconnected to three people mentions in or starring in this blog. At least one died this past year, my old branch manager who was so interested in my conquest of Carolyn B. I don't know the cause of his death, I only read the obit. I made a trip through Bartlesville on the occasion of my daughter's graduation with honors from Union in Broken Arrow. I was saddened to see the old homested on Cherokee and shocked to see that they had dozed the stately homes on Cherokee at Adams. I guess they needed a place for the middle schoolers to loiter and leave their litter. Ah-h! Progress. This must needs be short. I'll have to dig out my old journal and see what if any, entries I wrote for inclusion, but have not yet posted.