December « 2014 « Kenny Smith | A remarkable thing happens …

December, 2014

You’ll be jealous of my errands, and these ads

Finals day today. My students feverishly were emailing in the last of the work I’ve challenged them with and made them endure this term. Well, some raced. One student turned in the final work on Friday.

The rest, well, they knew they had until 3 p.m., the end of our scheduled final block.

“Three p.m.,” I said, “does not mean 3:01. One minute after means that’s one less I have to grade.”

They’re going to live in a deadline-driven world.

The last paper came in at about 2:28, so the message was received. Also, I must now grade them all.

Want to see an amazing story?

“Why do it?”

“It makes me feel normal and whole.”

Watch this video. But you have to watch the entire thing. And it is absolutely worth watching the whole thing.

I ran errands today. Here are the three least exciting parts of that: I visited an eye doctor’s office to make an appointment for later in the week. A nice young lady answered all of my questions with a laugh an assuring assurance. They booked me for Thursday.

Are you riveted?

I washed my car. And then I took the floor mats out and dropped them through this shaker machine that gets 98 percent of the grass and leaves and crumbs off of them. And then I vacuumed the rest of the trash off of the mats and the floor boards. I noticed that my car wasn’t completely clean, but it was closer to clean than it has been in a while. I’d been enjoying an industrial grade of autumn dust lately.

I got gas. I dropped my card at the pump twice.

The other thing I did was slightly more interesting than that, somehow, and it will be the subject of Wednesday’s post.

To wrap up today, and in honor of finals — and because these are two of the last four clips I have at the moment, here are two old ads from mid-1980s Crimson issues. Two things you don’t think about so much any more, I’d bet:

John’s is closed now, but it has a special place in history. It was opened in 1959, the first color film processing lab in the state. John was 24. There used to be at least four locations. Two were in strip malls. One building is now vacant. The other now has either a hotel or a car dealership on the old lot. Based on some canceled trademarks registered to the owner, I’m assuming the stores closed about two years after this ad ran. He died just over six years ago.

Bet you haven’t said “I need to run to Kinko’s!” in a good long while:

There are apparently still over 2,000 FedEx stores, which is the brand now, of course. It is the seventh largest printing chain in the country and Kinko’s is nothing but a memory. And it was so close to becoming a proprietary eponym, too.

family / history / maps — Comments Off
8
Dec 14

70th anniv – My great-grandfather’s war

This is the 70th anniversary of my great-grandfather’s service in Europe, so I’m bringing back this map I put together two years ago. Tonice was a combat medic, but he never talked about his service, so it was always a mystery to most of his family for decades. Key help from the Alabama Department of Veterans Affairs and further research helped bring to light what we know, but even that is somewhat vague. He was attached to some element of the 137th Infantry Regiment, which fought in the famed 35th Division. We don’t know which company, or even which battalion, so this is only a regimental overview with some movements down to the company level.**

So, then, for Dec. 8:

The 137th Infantry Regiment moved by foot to approximately nine miles east, in the direction of Sarreguemines.

Regimental Headquarters, Anti-tank Company, and the 1st Battalion located themselves in Hambach. The 2nd Battalion moved into the Foret de Sarreguemines, just south of Siltzheim The 3rd Battalion closed into Neufgrange and the Service Company was located in Gueblange. The 1st Battalion then moved to Sarreguemines, to occupy the town and patrol the south bank of the Saar River.

All was quiet in the towns occupied.

View Tonice in the Bulge in a larger map
View Tonice in the Bulge in a larger map

Because my great-grandfather always changed the subject about his time in the war the entire family learned as much about his experience in the war at his funeral — and later, through this project — as anytime in his life. This information is derived from the unit history, found here and here and from this unit overview. His quiet choice means that these markers are rough estimates and are meant only to be illustrative. Any errors are mine alone.

photo / weekend — Comments Off
7
Dec 14

Catching up

The weekly post of leftover snapshots, some have a purpose, but most do not. Otherwise they would hardly be leftover, now would they?

Just a few quick ones this week, so let’s get on with it, then …

The light was nice, I took a shot of the building my office is in. I have a pretty nice setup:

Those unending Cyber Monday emails finally stopped, but just before then I got one offering a great deal on some new tires for my bike. I figure I’ll have to replace my Gatorskins eventually, and they’ve been good to me, so I’ll just stock up on a few at this great price. I ordered. This very tall box arrived. Inside there were two tires. There was more material protecting the vulcanized rubber than there is actual tire.

Allie has been very cuddly lately. Come over and take your turn.

football / friends / photo / weekend — Comments Off
6
Dec 14

All of the football

Our old friend Brian is here. He and I used to work together. He’s known The Yankee and I as a couple longer than anyone, we think. We’ve done and been through a little bit of most everything in life with Brian and his family. He’s a great friend that we don’t get to see nearly often enough.

This weekend, we are catching up some. And we are having a watch party.

If you look closely, you’ll see his two phones — because Brian is that kind of guy, sitting just beneath the television. We didn’t watch it like this, really, but we wanted to see how many screens we could pull up at one time. In the last five years, at various intersections of schedules that allow watch parties, we’ve gone from two games to five, then six and eight and, now, 10. There are 10 screens showing a football game in the picture above.

Ten!

We were also taking pictures with two more phones, and I think there were two laptops down the street we weren’t borrowing, so this could have been an even more ridiculous photo.

The first point: football.

The second point: I give Charter their fair of grief for this and that, because they deserve it from time to time. But that’s some nice bandwidth right there. Kudos on that.

The third point: Brian’s a good guy. It is great to see him.

family / history / maps — Comments Off
6
Dec 14

70th anniv – My great-grandfather’s war

I pulled this map together two years ago, but given that this is the 70th anniversary of my great-grandfather’s service in Europe it seemed like a good time to bring it back with daily updates. Tonice was a combat medic, but he never talked about his service, so this was all something of a mystery to most of his family for decades. Key help, after he passed away, came from the Alabama Department of Veterans Affairs and further research brought to light what we know, but even that is somewhat vague. He was attached to some element of the 137th Infantry Regiment, which fought in the famed 35th Division. We don’t know which company, or even which battalion, so this is only a regimental overview with some movements down to the company level.**

So, then, for Dec. 6 and 7:

The 137th Regimental Headquarters opened in Hirbach with the 1st Battalion in Helving and 2nd Battalion in Bettring. No enemy artillery fire was received during the day.

View Tonice in the Bulge in a larger map
View Tonice in the Bulge in a larger map