Visiting Pittsburgh--Nigel's First Foster Family

Today we got up at 3:45 am to drive to Pittsburgh for a math conference where my wife is a presenter.  Our girls are working, traveling and otherwise occupied so only Nigel and Jacari came on the trip.  Annalisa had meetings from 10am till 230pm then she and the boys drove to Dormont, 9 miles south of Pittsburgh to visit Nigel's first foster family.  I rode there and got a chance to ride over Pittsburgh's Mount Washington, while they drove through the same mountain in the Liberty Tunnel.

The Sharbaugh family cared for Nigel for the first six weeks of his life--from when he left the hospital the day after he was born until six weeks later when we picked Nigel up and brought him to our home from their home.

The Sharbaughs cared for Nigel and 11 other newborn children in the first weeks of their lives, then turned them over to other families.  Wow!

I admire them very much in the same way I admire running backs who can smash though hulking linemen or hockey players who can speed skate and shoot a blazing slap shot all in one motion.  The Sharbaughs, the running back and the hockey player all can do something I can't do.

Imagine taking care of a newborn for weeks and weeks and then handing that little baby over to strangers--not once, but a dozen times.  I can't.  They are one amazing family.  I'm glad we had a chance to visit them and get reacquainted ten years after they cared for baby Nigel.

[In case you were wondering, we are Nigel's second foster family.  It was almost a year before all the paperwork was approved for the adoption.]

Some of my Favorite Quotes from Women in Iraq

"The biggest stress for me is calling home"--female soldier in Iraq whose family expressed their fear & anger to her, not to her Sergeant brother.


"I wanna light some mutha fu*ka's up"--20-year-old woman I served with disappointed when we did not pull convoy security.

"This place is all drama and no action."--SFC Melanie McCracken, Chinook Maintenance Platoon Sergeant, Tallil Ali Air Base, Iraq.

And the one that applies to every place from the beginning of time:

Stupid Should Hurt!

SFC Pam Bleuel, Drill Sergeant and convoy training NCOIC

Quote for Today

In times of war, you often hear leaders--Christian, Jewish, and Muslim--saying, "God is on our side."  But that isn't true.  In war, God is on the side of refugees, widows, and orphans.

Greg Mortenson, as quoted in "Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time", Penguin Books (2007) p. 239

Porthos Dies in the Night

When Annalisa and I were married 13 years ago yesterday, she had three cats--Athos, Porthos and Aramis.  They are the Three Musketeers if you ready old books or watch bad movies.  Of course the main Musketeer is D'Artagnan, and that is one criticism of the story for most of the past two centuries.

Actually, Aramis, who spent way too much time sitting in the middle of streets, died just before we were married.  Athos, the more adventurous of the two remaining brothers, lived several years longer, but also succumbed to injuries from spending just that extra moment in the road.

Porthos lived a fairly long life for a cat.  He and his brother Athos were excellent hunters.  They left the remains of mice and baby bunnies near the back door so we could see how proficient they were in small furry animal population control.  After the demise of Athos, Porthos was less inclined to hunt and, like many older carnivores, put on a lot of weight.  At his weight peak, his hind feet would disappear under his fat when he sat down.

But like some obese people, he managed to remain healthy despite a sedentary lifestyle.  In the last year he rapidly lost weight.  Last night when I switched the laundry at midnight, Porthos was asleep on a small rug.  He didn't move when I turned the light on, but I thought I saw him breathing.  The next morning he had not moved.  I checked.  He was not breathing.

Porthos is buried in the flower garden near our garage between Athos and our dog Lucky.

We will be getting a dog in September after we return from vacation.  We had been planning to get a dog for a while and now we won't have to worry that a new and energetic dog will torment our geriatric feline.

Flat Out of Luck

This morning I woke up at 0430 to drive 2 1/2 hours to a time trial race.  The 20km race was the Master State Championship.  It's not my favorite kind of race but I need the practice for the qualifying races for the National Senior Games.  I also volunteered to help clean up after the race since it was jointly sponsored by my race team, BiKyle/Mazur Coaching, and the Quaker City Wheelmen.

My start time was 0835:30.  I started warming up at eight.  I felt really good after the warmup.  The course was out and back beside a lake.  It started gently uphill then rolled through a series of rolling up and hills and flats.  I started fast and felt good, 26mph on the initial, hill 29mph on the flat.  I was flying, probably too fast.  But it didn't matter because 1/2 mile inI hit one of the little rocks on the edge of the road and heard--hissssssssssssssssss.

And my race was over.

Reunion Group Photo

Don DeMetz sent me this photo of the reunion group.  We are meeting again in August next year, probably in Colorado Springs.

The Royal Order of the Shim

Sometimes it is hard for a civilian to imagine the power an Army commander has compared to his civilian counterpart.  In my last post, I mentioned that as a tank commander, a sergeant in charge of three men and a very large vehicle, I could make my crew go out for gunnery practice after their friends went back to the barracks and on weekends.  If one of my soldiers screwed up--usually involving alcohol--I could put them on as much extra duty as I was willing to personally supervise.

And I was just a new sergeant.  The battalion commander, the man in charge of 54 tanks, 60-odd trucks and 600 men had even more latitude.  Our commander from 77 to 79 in Germany was Lt. Col. Richard Goldsmith.  He was a genial young (mid-30s) commander with a lovely wife, three kids, and an iron will when he was sure he was right.

Rich Goldsmith created a tradition that was carried on until the unit 1-70th Armor was disbanded in 1984:  The Royal Order of the Shim.  Soon after he took command, Goldsmith became convinced that the problem our tanks had with breaking tracks was caused by a mis-alignment of the front road wheels.  He believed that adding a steel shim to the inside of these wheels would cure the broken track problem.

Our motor officer, Mr. Scanlon, our exec officer, Major Roper, and many others thought this was a bad idea.  The manufacturer said the problem was the result of the rubber pads in the tracks for driving on roads.  Goldsmith was undeterred by experts.  Roper tried to dissuade him.  Goldsmith's response, "What part of 'Get it done' did you not understand?"

The shims were installed on two tanks with eight hours of work.  The tanks drove less than two miles before their tracks broke.

It took another eight hours to remove the shims.

These shims, by the way, were 12 inches round and 1/3 inch thick steel rings.  They were heavy.

Mr. Scanlon welded a three-foot length of tow chain to the shim, making a 30-pound necklace.  At the next officer's call, Goldsmith became the first recipient of the shim.  It was passed on at each officer's call for the next six years to the officer judged by the current wearer of the shim as having made the stupidest mistake since the last meeting.

By missing his plane and not showing up for the reunion dinner on Saturday night, Goldsmith became the final recipient of the shim, which was retired to his safekeeping on Sunday morning.

Some of us enlisted men had the motto:

"When we do good, no one remembers, when we do wrong they never forget" stenciled on helmets and other gear.

It looks like the officers had the same motto.