What Would Jimmy Do?

Both you faithful readers know that I’ve always been fascinated by technology and have often times come into possession of some of the first ones of the “technologically advanced” devices produced. (One of the very first H-P Scientific Calculators, one of the early TRS-80 computers, subscribed to AOL before it was AOL, etc.) I’ve mentioned several times that my dad had a Motorola television set a number of years before any commercial radio stations west of the Mississippi started broadcasting.

The transistor was invented in the late 1940s, but until 1954 transistors were only used in military or industrial applications. Colleges didn’t even really teach courses on transistors when I went to school in the late 50s and early 60s. I had one course on transistors when I was in school, and that wasn’t even a course on transistors — it was more of a physics course on “holes and electrons.”

But anyhow, I’ve wandered a little bit off course…. The first commercially manufactured pocket transistor radio was the Regency TR-1. It was a novelty due to its small size, but it really didn’t work very well — most people described its performance as mediocre. But nonetheless, about 150,000 TR-1s were sold. I never owned a TR-1, but I did own the 2nd all-transistor pocket radio — made by General Electric. [Just to clarify, Raytheon produced the 2nd all-transistor radio, the 8TP, at the beginning of 1955, but it was a “large” portable radio – not pocket size.] GE’s all-transistor pocket radio measured 5 5/8 inches long, 3 3/16 inches high and 1 1/2 inches deep. It weighed 15 ounces. The retail price was $49.95 — a lot of money in 1955.

In 1956, GE added two more models, 677 and 678, to it’s lineup. I graduated from high school in 1956 and received a shiny model 678 as graduation present — a VERY nice gift! I suppose I fell into the “curious” category growing up, so I immediately took my new radio apart — the insides were like nothing I had ever seen. I’d taken a lot of old radios apart, but this looked nothing like a radio — it was almost all one solid piece, but it did have discrete components, like resistors, capacitors, and a mechanical tuning mechanism.

For any “geeks,” the radio contained five General Electric germanium transistors. And for older “true geeks,” four of the transistors were PNP — one ( the AF detector) was NPN. All the components, including the transistors, were soldered to one side of a printed circuit board.

The battery used to power the radio was an Eveready #239. Batteries have always been a problem for electronic equipment and became more so as the size of the equipment became smaller and smaller. The #239 battery that powered my radio had 3 female pin holes at the top, labeled (-), (9v), and (13.5v). Naturally, I took the battery apart too, and found that it was made up of 9 individual 1.5 volt batteries that were all stacked in series. The battery also had voltage taps at 4.5 volts and 9 volts, and of course all the cells together produced 13.5 volts. The batteries weren’t that easy to find and fairly expensive. If you couldn’t find an Eveready #239, a Rayovac 1900, Burgess XX9 or RCA VS304 would all work.

The radio in the picture was my graduation present — I had the radio for years and it never stopped working, but eventually it became almost impossible to find a battery. As you probably know, most earlier transistor radios migrated to a single 9-volt battery that is still popular today in all sorts of devices, including smoke detectors. As technology advanced, a lot of devices were designed to operate using AA or AAA batteries.

I should note that the radio was AM only — had a tuning range of 540 kHz – 1620 kHz. No one much listens to AM anymore… of course no one much listens to a radio anymore… sigh….
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When last you read this blog, you’ll remember I mentioned a town in Oklahoma by the name of Gene Autry. In my last entry, you may have noticed that I indicated that it was Gene Autry’s birthplace, but if you look close, the word born was in quotes. Just so I don’t mis-lead anyone, Gene Autry wasn’t born in the town of Gene Autry — even though that’s what I was always told when I was growing up. In case you’re interested, here’s the story:

Gene Autry is, in fact, a town in Oklahoma, located south of, and even smaller than, Maysville where I grew up. The 2010 census listed the town’s population as 158. It was located along the Santa Fe railroad that ran through Oklahoma territory before it became a state. The town wasn’t always named Gene Autry. The post office was established on July 11, 1883 when the town was known as Lou — named by C.C. Henderson for his wife. On November 22, 1883, it was renamed Dresden and later changed again to Berwyn on September 1, 1887. It remained Berwyn until November 16, 1941 when it was renamed Gene Autry, in honor of the singer and motion picture star.

Here’s how the town came to be named Gene Autry even though the cowboy movie star was born in Tioga Texas. Gene’s family moved to Oklahoma when he was an infant, and lived in a couple of small southern Oklahoma towns, but never in the town now named after him.

In 1939, Gene bought the 1,200-acre Flying A Ranch on the west edge of Berwyn and began extensive construction on the property, intending to make the ranch headquarters for his rodeo. Today two 200 by 60 foot stone stables with inlays of the Flying A logo are mostly all that’s left of the original buildings.

In 1941, Cecil Crosby, the Deputy Sheriff of Carter County and a resident of Berwyn suggested that the town’s name be changed to Gene Autry. In order to accomplish the name change, several townspeople drew up a petition that was signed by all (at the time) 227 residents of Berwyn. After the petition was signed, they had to convince the Post Office Department, the Santa Fe Railroad, and the Carter county commissioners to agree to the change — eventually, they all agreed.

The official change from Berwyn, Oklahoma to Gene Autry, Oklahoma, took place November 16, 1941 — Oklahoma’s 34th birthday. The name change ceremony was a big deal attended by 35,000 people, including the Governor. Obviously Gene Autry attended and he even broadcast his CBS radio show, Melody Ranch, live from a flat car on the railroad tracks.
Three weeks after that celebration, the United States entered World War II and Gene enlisted in the Army Air Corps. After the war, he sold the Flying A Ranch.

As I said, today the population has dropped to 158 but in 1990 the town turned an empty school building into the Gene Autry Oklahoma Museum. In September of 1990, the first Gene Autry Oklahoma Film and Music Festival was held and has been held annually since then. The celebration lasts several days and features live musical performances, a memorabilia auction and terrific food. So if you’re a fan of the old cowboy movies, you might want to check it out.

Those of you not cowboy movie fans, may remember Gene Autry’s name associated with baseball. Baseball was alway an important part of Gene’s life — when he was a young man, he received an offer from a professional baseball team to become a player. (He turned down the offer because it would have meant a fifty-dollar-a-month pay cut from his job as a telegrapher.) Later his love for baseball prompted him to acquire the American League California Angels. Gene held the title of Vice President of the American League until his death in 1998.
So you now probably know more about Gene Autry, Oklahoma than you ever wanted to — but, who knows, maybe it’ll come in handy in a Trivial Pursuit game sometime….
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There’s been a lot of news lately about the immigrants being held in “camps” along our southern border. Many have compared them to the concentration camps of World War II. Although I was young when World War II ended, I was aware of people being incarcerated, although I didn’t actually understand why at the time.

I don’t remember any “concentration” camps, but at an early age I was aware of prisoner-of-war camps. There was a prisoner-of-war camp located in Pauls Valley, Oklahoma — that’s just 11 miles from Maysville, where I grew up.

During the War our Allies, such as Great Britain, were running short of prison space to house POWs, so from 1942 through 1945, more than 400,000 prisoners (German, Japanese, Italian) were shipped to the United States and detained. The POW camps were located all over the United States but were mostly in the south because of the expense of heating the barracks in the northern climate.

Growing up, I was aware that, in addition to Pauls Valley, POWs were being held in Chicasha, Okmulgee and a little town named Gene Autry (near Ardmore.) [Yes, that’s were Gene Autry — the singing cowboy — was “born.” The “town” is really small but is named after him. It’s not very far from Maysville.] All told, there were 19 POW camps in Oklahoma. Years later, when I was working for the Federal Aviation Agency, I learned that the site of the FAA, located at Will Rogers World Airport in Oklahoma City, was also a prisoner-of-war camp until 1945.

Recently, the news has covered demonstrations in Fort Sill (site of another WWII POW camp) by a Japanese group protesting the current administration’s intention to “house” immigrant children on the base — the protesters  say that it’s basically the same treatment they received at the facility during World War II.

Even though I was young, I remember some of the prisoners near Maysville working with local farmers to help them harvest their crops. There were guards, but never any kind of violence. I suspect that many were relieved to have been taken prisoner and were probably thankful they weren’t still fighting. The POWs probably received better treatment than the immigrants being held today. I did some extensive research and less than 1 percent of the tens of thousands of POWs ever tried to escape. By 1946, all prisoners had been returned to their home countries.

So how far we’ve come as a compassionate nation since World War II is debatable. If prisoners from a country actively at war with the US actually were treated better and enjoyed better living conditions than the immigrants being held today — and I don’t know if that’s a fact — it makes me a little sad.

We are all different — we shouldn’t judge, we should try to understand instead. There’s an Amish proverb that, if we could all adopt, would make things pretty simple….”Instead of putting others in their place, put yourself in their place.”
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Yesterday I rambled on about forgetting what day of the week it was — memory lapses can be frustrating, but most of the time they aren’t cause for concern. When I was doing extensive research for yesterday’s blog, it became clear that age-related memory changes are not the same thing as dementia.

As you grow older, you experience physiological changes that can cause glitches in brain functions. It takes longer to learn and recall information. This slowing of your mental process is often thought of as memory loss but in actuality, it just takes longer to remember. We’ve all misplaced items, forgotten a phone number or gone into a room and wondered what you went there for. But in most cases, the information will come to mind. If you don”t recall the information after a period of time that’s a possible sign of dementia.

The brain is capable of producing new brain cells at any age, so memory loss isn’t an inevitable result of aging. However, just like you have exercise to keep up muscle strength, you have to use your brain to keep it functioning at its best. The old saying “use it or lose it” seems to apply here.
I read an article that listed the types of memory lapses that are considered a normal part of the aging process — not a sign of serious mental deterioration. Some of them are:
Occasionally forgetting where you left things (keys, glasses, etc.)
Forgetting names of acquaintances or calling someone by the wrong name
Occasionally forgetting an appointment
Walking into a room and forgetting why you entered
Becoming easily distracted — having trouble remembering what you’ve just read
Not quite being able to retrieve information you have “on the tip of your tongue”

Most “experts” agree that we should all do mental exercises to make our brains work better. They agree that the more pleasurable the activity is to you, the more powerful its effect will be on your brain. Some examples of these types of “exercises” are:
Play games you aren’t already familiar with that involve strategy
Get in the habit of learning new things — take a course in an unfamiliar subject that interests you
Improve how well you do existing activities.
Take on a project that involves design and planning

Well so much for blogging about memory — on to bigger and better things next time… although I’m a little concerned about my memory. My dad suffered from short term memory loss — I hope it doesn’t run in the family because my dad had it too…..
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A friend of ours has a terrible time remembering what day of the week it is. She’s well into her 80s and I think she worries she may be getting dementia or something like that. Well, of course I got to thinking about that and did some extensive research.

I actually found a lot of research that indicates that losing track of what day it is becomes more frequent as you get older. Actually I don’t find that surprising at all. I often find myself trying to remember what day it is. One article that I read suggested that the days of the week is a set of temporal markers that don’t really have any inherent meaning on their on. We usually recall the correct day of the week because it follows the same pattern every week. A change, like a long weekend, can easily mess up the days of the week for you simply because the pattern is temporarily disrupted.

I think we’ve all experienced brain fog and can’t remember what day it is. It might be because you’re tired, or especially busy, a holiday week, the general hustle and bustle of life, or maybe even boredom.  One study found that people were quicker to identify the correct day of the week as Monday, as well as Friday through Sunday. When you think about it, there’s usually nothing particularly significant about Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday to look forward to. Retired people usually don’t have a strict schedule like they did during their working years, so that makes it harder to distinguish the days — every day can be a weekend for them.
Sometimes I think there should only be three days — yesterday, today, and tomorrow. But I guess I’d probably get them messed up sometimes too.
Someone said you go through growing pains earlier in life, and later in life there’s growing forgetfulness.

We got our friend a clock that spells out the day of the week in big letters so she can keep her days straight. Sometimes I think I should get one, although I know tomorrow is Sunday. Wait, is it? I think I better call Anne to be sure….
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I’ll be the first to admit that I’m a little (maybe a lot) out of touch with all the current trends. I’ve noticed lately that some people talk and use words that I’m familiar with, but I don’t understand what they’re saying.

A good example is the word “shade.” I’ve used that word most all my life. When I was a kid, on hot summer days, we used to sit under the shade of a tree to cool off. I also remember calling my sunglasses “shades” when I wanted to talk cool. My dictionary says (1) shade is the blocking of sunlight by any object, and also the shadow created by that object. (2) a color, especially with regard to how light or dark it is or as distinguished from others nearly like it. (3) comparative darkness and coolness caused by shelter from direct sunlight. So far so good.

But a few minutes ago, I read the following “headline” to a story on the Internet: “Was Taylor Swift Throwing Shade in ‘Shake It off’ Performance?”

To someone that grew up sitting under the shade of a tree, this doesn’t make any sense at all. But the truth is I’ve heard “throwing shade” used a lot lately…so I figured I better do some extensive research to see what these people are talking about.

Apparently, in today’s language, to throw shade means to insult someone or to trash talk to someone. I believe throwing shade falls into the idiom category — an idiom is a word, group of words, or a phrase that has a figurative meaning that is not easily deduced from its literal meaning. I think “throwing shade” meets that criteria.

Turns out that the phrase came into use in the African-American and latino drag-performing communities in the 1980s and was introduced into the mainstream in the documentary Paris is Burning in 1990.

Now if you’re going to insult someone by “throwing shade” there are rules…the insult has to be subtle and not necessarily appear to be insulting at first. Here’s an example: someone is ugly — but say they already know they’re ugly, you say something that’s not directly an insult that gets the ugly person to think about how ugly they really are. Sounds complicated to me, but rules is rules….
So the insult isn’t a direct criticism or maybe not even a negative comment — of course it’s not a positive comment either. It’s like a dishonest, or shady comment. As an aside, “no shade” means “no offense meant for what I said.”

It seems that “throw shade” has been around for more than twenty years and I’m just now noticing it being used. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to catch up — I’m still learning to “text.”
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Just a quick update for all of you that were as concerned as I was… the Porta Potty has arrived!! Of course it’s not the same as in years past — looking out the front door on the 4th of July and not seeing the Porta Potty just seems wrong some how.

But now for the next week or so we can enjoy having this great view. It didn’t arrive in time for the fourth this year, but it’ll certainly make part of July more pleasurable.

Hope everyone had a nice Independence Day.
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I usually update this blog on the 4th of July every year — I often mention the Porta Potty that arrives across the street annually somewhere around the first of July and sticks around for a week and a half or so. I also usually try to write something about the history of our Independence Day celebrations. This year, the traditional celebration on the National Mall is going to be bigger, better and more beautiful than ever, so maybe next year, I can talk about that.

Every year it seems to get a little more difficult to mention (without repeating) “facts” or interesting things/stories about America’s Birthday… but nonetheless, here’s this years attempt:

We all know that Thomas Jefferson was the drafter the Declaration of Independence, but not everyone knows that he did it on what was, I’d say, the “laptop” of the time. It was a kind of writing desk that could fit on one’s lap.

Jefferson’s original draft of the famous document contained the words “the pursuit of Property” but he changed it to “the pursuit of happiness.” (Not that it matters, but I think he made the right decision to change it.)

The Liberty Bell had nothing to do with July 4th. It wasn’t even called the Liberty Bell until the 1830s — that’s when it also got its famous crack.

Thomas Jefferson’s original draft of the Declaration of Independence was lost and the one eventually signed is kept at the National Archives.

The printed version of the Declaration was called the Dunlap Broadside — 200 were originally printed, but only 27 are currently accounted for. One of the 27 was found on the back of a picture frame at an auction and sold for $8.14 million to television producer Norman Lear. It now travels the country to be displayed to the public.

For the first time, the big 4th of July bash on our street is not being held on the 4th — it will supposedly happen Saturday of this week. They may call it a 4th of July party, but it’s not. A 6th of July party just have the same impact and to make things even more disturbing, there is no 4th of July Porta Potty. I’m guessing it’ll arrive before Saturday — I’ll keep you posted….
In the meantime, Happy Birthday America — hope everyone has a safe and happy 4th!
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Well, here we are rapidly approaching a major American holiday — Independence Day. And honestly, I’m becoming a little concerned — as both you faithful readers know, by this time every year we have that great American Symbol of Independence — the Porta Potty — delivered to our neighborhood, right across the street from us.

Now I don’t like to be critical, but how can we truly celebrate America’s Birthday without the Porta Potty? Why, you might as well not fly the flag. Last year we were able to enjoy looking at the Porta Potty for 12 plus days… the 4th is only two days away, so even if it arrives today or tomorrow, and we get our normal 12 days, a lot of that time will be “after the fact.”

I’ve heard that the big party may not be held on the 4th this year, it may be pushed back until Saturday. If that’s true, it’ll be a shame — like celebrating George Washington’s Birthday on a Monday rather than his real birthday.

Obviously I’m a little bummed, but I’m probably not the only one — I know all of us here on Field Crest Court anxiously await the arrival of the Porta Potty every year. I’ll probably blog on the 4th, but until then, keep your fingers crossed that the Porta Potty arrives soon….
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Claire got a message from Mike and Sue who were apparently driving through or by a corn field. I guess that inspired them to wonder how high the corn should be since it’s getting close to the 4th of July. Naturally they asked that Claire pass the question along to me — the smart uncle.

There are a lot of “old adages” that have been passed down through generations. One of those old adages that is still in circulation today is that corn should be “knee high by the Fourth of July.” Besides being kind of a cool rhyme, it was probably somewhat accurate at the time the phrase was coined — probably back in colonial times. Actually there is really no clear explanation as to where, when (or why) the rhyme got started.

When I was growing up a lot of the farmers around Maysville grew corn, even though the “next town over” was considered the broomcorn capital of the world. (You can check the archives of this blog if you don’t know what broomcorn is…) But I remember corn being about 18 to 24 inches high by around the first of July. So “knee high” was probably pretty accurate. However I noticed driving around Shepherdstown this week that all the corn was a lot higher than ‘knee high.”

There’s actually a good scientific reason for this — back when I lived in Maysville, if the corn crop had gotten as high as you knees by the 4th, it meant that the crop was doing well, and the farmers could plan on a good harvest. But today, the corn farmers plant isn’t like the corn the farmers around Maysville planted. The genetics of corn have improved tremendously in the past 70 or 80 years. Corn (and other crops) is much more stress tolerant. That toughness has allowed the corn to be planted earlier in the spring — sometimes it I can even be planted in less than ideal conditions.
So because of the improvements made to the corn, if the crop is only knee high by the 4th of July, that’s not a good sign — it’s a bad sign.

I think the knee high phrase is still popular, but the phrase “corn as high as an elephant’s eye” may be more accurate today. (The elephant’s eye phrase originated in the Oklahoma musical as part of the lyrics from “Oh What A Beautiful Morning.” There’s a bright, golden haze on the meadow. The corn is as high as an elephant’s eye and it looks like it’s climbing up to the sky.) To put this in perspective for you, according to Google, the average size of an elephant is 10 feet tall. So today, a corn stalk’s growing success is held to a much different standard.

While I was doing my extensive research for this blog, I ran across one theory that claimed that the “knee high” rhyme came about during colonial times and meant knee high by the 4th of July to a man sitting on a horse. Of course this begs the question, how tall of a horse? I think horses are measured in “hands” so that complicates things even more.

So today, knee high by the fourth of July isn’t a good thing but it’s got a nice ring to it and it’s fun to say.
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