What Would Jimmy Do?

We went to church this weekend and like always, during the service, there’s a time when we offer each other a “sign of peace.” That involves shaking hands. We usually sit in the same place in church and usually shake hands with those around us, who also usually sit in the same place. But when we have visitors, I end up shaking the hand of someone new. Whenever I do that I always think about that handshake. I’ve heard that a handshake is much like a person’s handwriting — it supposedly gives a clue into their inner nature. I don’t know if that’s true, but I got to thinking about handshakes. Quite some time ago, I discussed hugs and how there seemed to be lots of different kinds of hugs. I think the same goes for handshakes.

I didn’t do my usual extensive research on the subject, but I suspect that some form of handshaking has been around from the time of the very first humans. I’ve been fortunate enough to travel quite a bit over the years and most places I’ve been, handshaking is a custom, but some places, like parts of Asia, a short bow is a more polite greeting than a handshake. In the Mediterranean, hugs seem to be a favorite style of greeting. But, still, handshaking is almost universal.

During the 60s, I spent some time in Monrovia, Liberia — on the west coast of Africa. Years ago, Liberia was settled by freed, or escaped, slaves from (primarily) the United States. When I first shook hands with a “Liberian” it started out an an ordinary handshake, but ended with the hand being dragged straight back — and while I didn’t notice it at first, there was ‘snap’ sound created. I learned that all Liberians shook hands in that manner and the pressing of their fingers together to create the snapping sound was very significant. It seems that prior to being freed, slaves were not allowed to snap their fingers, because that’s how the slave owner, or master, called them. The snapping sound became a symbol of their freedom.

Handshaking can be a pleasant experience or, sometimes, an unpleasant or even weird experience. Handshakes have been in the news lately, due to the long, “who can squeeze the hardest,” handshake between the U.S. and French Presidents not too long ago.

The one type of handshake I hate more than others is the “dead fish” handshake. People just sort of stick their hand out in your direction — there’s no grip, no squeeze, no nothing. It’s like gripping a dead fish. I’ve heard that people that shake hands like that have low self-esteem. That could be, but I won’t attempt to analyze what handshakes mean…. some others that I’ve noticed are:
The two-handed handshake — someone just grabs your hand and starts to shake it and then puts his/her left hand on top and just keeps pumping. This one seems to be used by politicians a lot for some reason.
Some people extend their hand, not in a vertical position but horizontally, so their hand is on top our yours. Again, there’s probably some hidden psychological meaning here, but I don’t know what.
The bone crusher — some people squeeze your hand until you cringe. I think a nice, firm handshake is nice, but these guys are too much for me.
I probably shouldn’t even mention this one, but it creeps me out sometimes to get the sweaty hand handshake. I’m sure it’s usually not their fault, it could be some sort of a medical condition, or they’re just nervous — but — still creeps me out a bit.
Some people just sort of stick their hand out like a robot… when you grab it, there’s no response on their part —it’s kind of like shaking a stick.
Some (quite a few) people do a no-eye-contact handshake. They just stick their hand out and never look you in the eye. For some reason, that just particularly annoys me. In my mind it’s rude.
I’m not sure what to call the kind of handshake when someone grabs your hand , shakes it, and sometimes touches your shoulder or rubs your forearm with their other hand — I never know how to react to this one.
There’s another handshake a lot like the two-handed handshake — they just grab your hand with both their hands, sort of cupped around yours and they shake up and down, and up and down and up and down…. its hard to know when to try pull away.
Another particularly non-favorite of mine is when someone grabs your hand and pulls you closer to them — they usually have something to say, like, “nice to meet you.” These people usually pull you so close it’s uncomfortable.
And of course there’s the royalty handshake. These handshakers don’t shake your hand, they just extend their hand, usually with their palm facing down and it just kind of waves around a little so you have to time it just right to grab and shake it.
And then there are handshakes that aren’t really handshakes, they’re fist bumps, or high-fives, or maybe even elbow bumps. Sometimes people that know each other well do all of them sequentially and it looks as if it’s choreographed like some sort of a ceremonial handshake.
When I meet one of these “bumpers” or high-fivers, our handshake usually becomes the confused handshake. Usually, we’re both confused as to whether to fist-bump, shake, high-fiver, or whatever… first.

Anyhow, handshakes are apparently here to stay — at least for the foreseeable future. But unfortunately, handshakes don’t mean the same, or as much, as they once did. My dad and granddad were in business for many, many years and I would bet that they rarely, if ever, signed a contract. They made their agreements (and stuck to them) with a handshake. My dad once told me, “If a man’s handshake is no good, all the legal paperwork in the world won’t make it good.”
— 30 —

As both you faithful readers know, I don’t like birthdays. Specifically, I don’t like my birthday. I don’t really know why, I just don’t like my birthday — never have, even when I was a kid. I don’t think its because I’m getting older… I get older every day. There’s just something (that I’ve never been able to put my finger on) that I don’t like.

But — whether I like it or not, birthdays come along every year, and I don’t disagree with the saying that “getting old is better than the alternative.”
And today’s the day — I’m no longer in my seventies and fear that I’m rapidly approaching my ‘best before’ date. Being this old, I’ve learned everything. Now I just have to remember it.

I’m pretty new to being 80 — but now that I’m here, I feel no sense of “achievement” — I just wonder how the heck I got to be so old. When you reach any age, it’s really not an achievement — there’s a lot of luck involved. A couple of people have asked me if I dreaded getting to this age. Well, no. It just happened.
So here I am at 80 — am I happy? Actually, I am. Happier than I’ve ever been? No, I’ve been so fortunate and blessed in my life that just about everything has made me happy. When I met Claire, when we got married, when David and Kelly were born, when Emily, Locke, Rory and Ellie were born…. certainly all those times were happier than turning 80. Of course if I listed all the things that made me happier than getting old, this would be a very long blog.

Some people seem to think when you reach a certain age, you can speak your mind, do what you want and even be rude because you no longer have to worry about what people think. But actually, politeness and good manners are important no matter what your age. I do still care about what people think and I still worry about many of the same things…like what the future holds for our children and grandchildren.

Maybe one of the more comforting things about growing old is an increased ability to not take things too seriously. Another thing that’s changed, is my ideals. I usually don’t admit, or at least tell people that I don’t have ideals. When I was younger, I had loftier ideals and thought I could actually change things and make them better. Today, I still rant and rave, but now I’m more or less content to simply deplore the state of things. I don’t think that means that I don’t care, I’ve just become more aware my limitations — and sort of accepted the limitations of our leaders — and everyone in general, I guess. I don’t try to convert people to my way of thinking and try not to feel superior because some of these people appear to be lacking in intelligence.

The last 10 or 12 years that I worked, I had a sign in my office that read, “You Just Can’t Fix Stupid!” I thought it was true then and I think it’s true today. You can try to fix most everything and you can fight a lot of things, like evil. But if you’re up against stupid, you’re helpless. I have come to accept the fact that human beings are inclined to behave in ways that are often unimaginable — sometimes its factors like evil, but sometimes, I’m convinced, it’s stupidity. And everyone seems to think they’re “right.” God is always on their “side.” Even athletes thank God for being on their side and helping them to victory.
I guess as I ponder life in, here, my 80th year, my good luck, long life and years of happiness is not so much as a result of having God on my side, but more the result of having God by my side.
— 30 —

Those of you old enough to remember will recall that the TV show “Hawaii Five-0” currently appearing (on CBS, I think) isn’t the original show about the police force in Hawaii. The original show premiered in the 1960s — and — was filmed in Hawaii.

In the early 70s I was assigned to a project that required extensive travel between Washington and Honolulu — I made the trip at least weekly for some time. We were there so much that our organization rented an apartment on one of the upper floors of the Ilikai Hotel. The apartment was owned by a Japanese business man and only used by him on rare occasions. It was very nicely furnished and we were able to leave our belongings there and not have to haul them back and forth on every trip.

One day myself and a co-worker had just arrived a few hours earlier when we got an urgent phone call informing us that we must return to Washington immediately. Reservations on a flight had already been made for us and there was a car waiting downstairs — we had less than an hour to get to the airport. (Flying then was much easier and more expedient that it is today.) Anyhow, we grabbed our briefcases (everyone carried a briefcase in those days,) jumped in the elevator, and raced out through the lobby to our waiting car.

We were not aware at the time that a scene for the (original) Hawaii Five-0 TV show was being filmed in the lobby of the Ilikai. Of course we went racing through the scene and were obviously caught on camera, although it was very briefly.
The lobby had been cordoned off for the scene, but we burst out of the elevator so fast that the “guard” by the elevator was caught by surprise.

I’m sure the scene was ruined and had to be re-shot, but the project we were working on was considered to be very sensitive and our security people went to the production crew and demanded (and got) the film/tape of the scene. When I heard that the film was confiscated I inquired about it, but was never shown the film. I asked if the people that had seen it thought I might have a career in television. I mostly just got scowls — it turns out that our group had to “pay” for the film.
I don’t watch today’s version of Hawaii Five-0, but when I see it advertised, I often think of my (very) short stint on TV.

As an added bonus, for reading this blog, do you happen to know the significance of “Five-0” in the shows title?
The show was about an (elite) force of police in the 50th state. So the 5-0 stood for the 50th state. On the show, the cops would announce themselves by shouting, “police, five 0!” The term became widely adopted as a way to announce the presence of police.
— 30 —

A couple of days ago we stopped by some friends house for a few minutes. They had just returned from a short trip to Maine. During our conversation, they mentioned being amused by some of the terms and phrases used by the natives in Maine.

I’ve touched on this subject a couple of times in the past, but after our visit, I got to thinking about some of the phrases and words that I used when I left Oklahoma that made people look at me funny and sometimes, I’m sure, question my sanity.

One of the terms I remember my dad using was “tarnation” as in “what the tarnation were you thinking?” (I think it’s another way of saying, “what the heck.”)
When we had lots of rain (like we’ve had around here lately) we’d say “that was a real gully warsher. Note that the “washer” is spelled with an “r” — that’s the way you pronounce washer in Oklahoma…with an “r.” When I moved to Washington, my parents told everyone that I was living in “Warshington.”

Another word that I don’t remember hearing since I left Oklahoma is “pallet.” When I was little, my mother would often make me a “pallet” on the floor to take my naps. I think a pallet is kind of like a pile of blankets, or at least something soft to lay on.
If we were just wasting time when I was growing up, we were just “piddling.” I’ve rarely, if ever, heard it used since leaving home. When I was growing up, we put our groceries, or other things we bought in a “sack” — I don’t remember the word bag ever being used.

I remember one of my grandmothers referred to a storm cellar (something that most people had back then) as a “fraidy hole.”
I think a lot of our “terms” were just bad language — I remember we always used to say things like, “j’eet chet?” (Did you eat yet?) just to annoy our teachers.
Anyhow, I reckon most, if not all states, have their own unique words and phrases. I reckon….
— 30 —

In the late 50s, early 60s, I worked for the Federal Aviation Agency, located at Will Rogers Airport in Oklahoma City. I was also going to school at the time. The FAA facility in Oklahoma City was best known for its school (later known as the “Academy”) that trained Air Traffic Controllers and engineers and technicians that built and maintained the nations air routes. Also located on the same site, next to the training facilities, was a huge warehouse that stocked all the parts for FAA’s navigation and communications equipment. In addition, it housed spare parts for the Agency’s fleet of aircraft. The aircraft were used to check, and ensure the accuracy of, electronic navigation sites all over the United States.

I worked at the school and because of my own schedule of college courses, I often worked non-conventional hours. One day I arrived at work about mid-afternoon. It happened to be one of those times that the FAA school was between courses and there wasn’t too much to do except update some of the material and prepare lesson plans, etc. When I arrived that afternoon I stopped by the warehouse to pick up some parts for some of the schools training equipment. One of the pilots that I knew was there and asked if I’d like to take a trip. I asked him how long a trip because I had a class before noon the next day. He said, “Oh, no problem, we’ll be back in plenty of time.” I asked him where we were going…he said, “Montana.”

It turns out that one of the aircraft had cracked a windshield while on a calibration flight and was stranded in Billings, Montana. So we loaded a new windshield and an aircraft maintenance man into a 707 jet — at the time it was the only big jet in the FAA fleet. And off we went to Montana. We unloaded the windshield and the maintenance tech stayed to replace the windshield and returned on the repaired aircraft.

We were back in Oklahoma City fairly early the next morning. I got to be co-pilot both going and coming. It turns out that I was to be “co-pilot” on a lot of airplanes over the next couple of decades… but that’s the subject for another blog.

I arrived in plenty of time for my class, and one of the guys I usually sat by, asked me what I did last night. I replied (truthfully) “went to Montana.”
— 30 —

To finish what has turned out to be the Vietnamese Trilogy series, I’m reminded of another story about my time in Vietnam. I traveled fairly regularly from Saigon to various other locations outside of Vietnam but within the region.
Often, trips included a stop in Hong Kong. As many of you may know, Hong Kong was, at the time, a shoppers paradise (even more so than today.) It was a duty free port and all sorts of things could be purchased about as cheap as they could be found anywhere in the world. The US Navy had a large presence there and the China Fleet Club was well known, pretty much world wide. It was (among other things) a huge duty-free PX.
If anyone from Saigon was going to (or through) Hong Kong they always left with a huge shopping list from people that wanted things like stereos, sewing machines, china, crystal, silverware and even furniture as well as lots of other stuff. Hold that thought for a moment…

I mentioned before that I lived downtown Saigon and one of the restaurants I frequented, usually several times a week, was the Tài Nam. I became friends with the owner and his wife whom were extremely nice and obviously good business people. The owner’s brother owned and operated a tailor shop in Saigon and specialized in making men’s and women’s clothes. It turns out that the Tài Nam owner’s uncle owned a clothing making business in Hong Kong. One of the items that was apparently hard to come by in Vietnam was zippers. So… one night while having dinner at the Tài Nam I mentioned my upcoming trip to Hong Kong. The owner asked if it would be possible to pick up some zippers from his uncle for use in his brother’s shop. (During the war, things couldn’t just be shipped into and out of Vietnam via international mail because they’d be stolen and sold on the black market.) I agreed that it’d be no problem to pick up the zippers and send them to myself, via FPO, at the embassy.

Okay… now back to the story. My boss in the embassy had asked me to pick up a new stereo receiver/amplifier for him at the China Fleet Club — again, I said it wouldn’t be a problem because I didn’t anticipate being pressed for time in the few days I’d be in Hong Kong.

I met the Tài Nam owner’s uncle one evening in Hong Kong and he and his wife took me to dinner and a couple of clubs and drove me back to my hotel. When we arrived at the hotel, he handed me a box filled with zippers — a big box filled with zippers. There must have been hundreds of various sizes and colors of zippers. The next day I took the box of zippers with me to the China Fleet Club and purchased the stereo for my boss and a few more things for other people back in Saigon. I wrapped them all, addressed them to myself at the American Embassy in Saigon and took them downstairs to the Fleet Post Office and mailed them. It turned out that the stereo receiver and the box of zippers were just about the same size and the largest two packages — all the other packages were noticeably smaller.

I left Hong Kong the next morning for stops in a couple more countries and didn’t return to Saigon until a little over a week later.
I returned to Saigon on an evening flight and didn’t go into the office until the following morning. As soon as I walked through the door, my boss was standing there, and said, “What’s with the zippers?” Not, “Welcome back” or “How was your trip?” But, “What’s with the zippers?” Apparently what had happened is that the packages that I had mailed arrived in the mail room at the embassy over a couple of days time and the “zipper box” arrived a day or so before the stereo receiver. My boss saw it and it was just about the right size, so he opened it thinking it was his receiver/amplifier — but — it was a box full of zippers. (“His” package arrived a day or so later, so he was happy about that.)  He kept asking me about the zippers until he finally realized he wasn’t going to get a straight answer from me.

I delivered the zippers to the Tài Nam shortly after I returned to be passed along to the tailor and everyone was happy.

My boss kept asking be about the zippers every so often until he finally decided it was useless. But he apparently took one of the zippers and kept it in his disk drawer and periodically, until the day he left Vietnam, I’d see him take it out of the drawer and look at it. I kind of feel bad that I never told him the true story…..
— 30 —

Another item that I ran across in addition the the Curfew Pass mentioned in my last post, was an “appreciation” gift. In Vietnam, one of my primary duties was to work with the Vietnamese military to establish a country-wide VHF radio network. Actually that isn’t what we were really working on, but that was supposedly our mission. I spent a lot of time in the Presidential Palace in Saigon working with a communication group headed by an ARVIN Colonel by the name of Phói (I think that was his real name, but the American pronunciation sounded like Lung and he always insisted that I call him by that name and even spell it as “Lung”.) Col. Lung went to college in California (Stanford) and returned to Vietnam in the early sixties, just about the time the war with the North was gaining momentum. 

I could not have picked a nicer (and more knowledgeable) guy to work with. While the project never achieved the magnitude originally intended, it was by all accounts a success and given a different set of circumstances, I’m pretty sure all the original objectives would have been met.

Col. Lung was aware of who I really worked for and the sensitivity of the program we were implementing. Before I left Vietnam, he presented me with a plaque that displayed the American and Vietnamese flags crossed above an inscription that read

Jimmy
Thank you for doing you know what,
for you know who, you know where, you know when.
Col. Lung

I thought that was very clever, but at the bottom was the graphic shown above… a subtle reminder that we should never take ourselves too seriously.
— 30 —

A couple of days ago, while looking for something else, I ran across a couple of items from the past that I’d forgotten about. One was a curfew pass from Vietnam.
During the war there was a curfew — depending on the “state of the war” the curfew was essentially “all the time” or it varied up until about midnight.

Anyhow, I lived in an apartment in downtown in Saigon — right across the street from City Hall. Since we usually worked fairly late, I was almost always out after curfew. Most of the curfew “checkpoints” were on the outskirts of Saigon, not downtown on the main streets. There was a  military and civilian curfew. Again, depending on the situation, the (American) military curfew was generally a little earlier than for the civilian population.

Since I was technically a “military” employee, I was often stopped by the American Military Police (MPs) for being out after curfew. They usually “wrote me up” for violating curfew and I didn’t think much about it until I was called into our office at the embassy.
I apparently had been written up more times than I thought — there was a “stack” of offenses against me.

After some discussion, it was agreed that I was probably going to continue to violate curfew and in order to counteract the situation, my superiors came up with a plan — they issued me a Curfew Pass. I guess they made it up in the office and it looked pretty official to me… had my picture on it and everything. The words on the pass said something like “…. the person whose photograph and signature appear below is an official of the United States Government and is authorized to travel and conduct official business during curfew.” It was printed in both English and Vietnamese with both my signature and that of the MACV Provost Marshal.

There was just one problem — it apparently didn’t work… it seems that none of the MPs had ever seen (or even heard of) a “Curfew Pass.” It also turned out that the serial number of the pass was 001. A few MPs asked how many people had curfew passes and if this was the only one (it was.)

The “offenses” against me kept piling up and after another meeting I was issued a new pass — with a different serial number, but it also had a stamp prominently displayed that read “OFFICIAL” in both English and Vietnamese. That seemed to do the trick…. I received very few, if any, violations after that. So I guess if you’re going to carry documentation, it should clearly state that it is “official.” Or…. maybe they just got tired of writing me up.
— 30 —

Today is Be a Dork Day. That got me to thinking about the word Dork. I remember dork, nerd, geek, and terms like those at one time being insults or certainly not something you’d call your best friend. The terms geek and nerd are no longer used as insults… when people are referred to as a nerd or geek, people don’t “look down” on them — while the may be “quirky” they’re usually held to a normal “level of esteem”

Not so, with dorks, though. A dictionary definition of dork is, “a socially inept, unfashionable, harmless person.” Naturally I did some extensive research on the term and was surprised to find that many, many Internet sources claim that the word “dork” is derived from a part of the whale’s anatomy. However, I couldn’t find any reliable source that indicated that the word is in any way associated with whales. I did discover that apparently the earliest known use of the word in print occurs in a novel published in 1961 — “Valhalla,” written by Jere Peacock. A character in that book says, “You satisfy many women with that dorque?” The context appears to refer to a male sexual organ, but the spelling is different, so I’m not sure dork derived from dorque — but, I suppose it could be.

So once again my extensive research has failed to produce a definitive answer… but no matter. Today is Be a Dork Day, so if you happen to be one, I guess you should be proud of it and bask in the glory of the day. And I guess if your secret desire is to become a dork, today might be a good chance to go for it.
To all dorks and wannabe dorks, enjoy your day along with all it has to offer….
— 30 —

The World Cup is in full swing and the excitement around here is almost unbearable. Is that sarcasm, you ask? Yes, yes it is. When I was growing up in Oklahoma, I never even heard of soccer. By the time I was a teenager, I’d heard of it, but never saw it being played until I moved to the Washington area where it was played frequently on the National Mall. Both our kids (and at least one grandkid) played soccer, so I attended a lot of games, but I just never got into the game. A few days ago I watched one of the World Cup matches on TV… nothing has changed for me — I just can’t generate much interest for the game.

When our kids played, all the games (to me) seemed to be about mobs of kids chaotically running around in circles. Unlike football, baseball, basketball, etc. the gamed doesn’t seem to have any “plot.”

I’ve been told that soccer is gaining momentum and becoming more and more popular in the United States. That may be true, but unless I missed something, the United States national team lost enough games to be knocked out of qualifying for the World Cup tournament and I don’t hear a lot of talk about the tournament around here.

A lot of Americans, including me, are more partial to the type of football in which players are allowed to pick up the ball and run with it. As long as I can remember, Americans have bought into the romance of baseball and football. Basketball also has a fairly large fan base and for a number of years, you could add boxing to the list.

Sometime in the late 1960s, I think the North American soccer league was formed. Since the sport didn’t “take off” at that time, the league signed a number of international soccer stars who’d passed their prime. I remember when supposedly the best soccer player in the world, Pelé, came to the United States to introduce us to the true greatness of soccer. Although I never saw him play, Pelé succeeded in attracting huge crowds to watch soccer.
There was a problem, though… the crowds showed up to see Pelé — not to watch soccer and by 1984 the North American soccer league was kaput.

About the time we moved to West Virginia, the famous British soccer player David Beckham was signed to play for the Los Angeles soccer team and paid a lot of money I’m not sure it’s true, but I read somewhere that during the time Beckham played for the Los Angeles team, he scored just about one goal for every $2 million dollars of his salary.

It seems to me that the more people that play a sport would be more likely to be interested in watching it. But a high percentage of kids in our area, at one time or another, played soccer and few follow the sport as adults. Soccer is by far the most popular sport globally, but only 2% of Americans list it as their favorite sport.

In my opinion, soccer is boring — a lot of running, but nothing happens and the rules seem to be subjective, giving the referees a lot of power to influence the outcome of the game.
Now all that said, I’m sure soccer can be dramatic and entertaining… probably more people watch the World Cup than any other sporting event. I’m also aware that soccer continues to be the world’s most popular sport and the world doesn’t care what I think about it…. but like a true American, I can’t keep my opinions to myself.
— 30 —