Sometimes problems bring good.

A few weeks ago, our gas clothes dryer of 18 years quit heating. I messed with it enough to see that I couldn't fix it easily and our laundry room is quite small and difficult to work in, so we decided to go ahead and get a new set. It couldn't be delivered until the following week, and we had planned a get away to celebrate 52 years of wedded bliss, so our son met the guys and got it installed.
We got home last weekend and of course had dirty clothes from the trip to try out the new stuff. Really cool with honest to goodness bells and whistles, though we tried to get the most simple set we could find (within reason). However before the first load got dry, it stopped and flashed “Check Vent”... I wrestled the washer over so I could look behind the dryer and maybe that flimsy flexible duct that hooked it to the outside vent was kinked. Moved it out a bit and tried again. Over the next couple of days,  3 times I had moved the units around and checked and messed with the vent thinking with the tight room it was that the flexible connector was getting kinked. After making sure that wasn’t the problem, I decided to go in to Dick Van Dyke’s (where we bought it)  and talk with them about the sensitivity of their machine. I took the reading material with me that I had quickly scanned. Before I turned onto the interstate, the thought hit me (I must believe it was that still small voice), to pull over and look at them again. This time my eyes went quickly to the details of checking the vent and rested on, “make sure it is clear to the outside”. Since our washroom is in the center of the house, there is a long run between floors to the vent out back. I remembered that a few years ago, the flapper on the outside had come off and birds were trying to build in there before I got a new one up. I thought I had checked that and put up a new one. (Don’t get ahead of me here.) I had seen some helpers online about clearing ducts (heating ducts) a few weeks ago, and had thought about doing that with the dryer vent before installing the new one. However with the trip, etc. things got too tight to do that. Part of the “helper” was to stick a blower down the vent and put a vacuum on the other end. Well I couldn’t do that. The outside vent is at least 10 feet off the ground since our laundry room is on the second floor. Anyway, I came back home and moved the stuff again and stuck a blower down the vent and all kinds of lint came back into the room and it was obvious that it was plugged. So I went outside, crawled up on a ladder and stuck a long stick with hooks on it that I had put together to string outdoor Christmas lights in and pulled out all kinds of nesting material and lint. Then went back in and hit it with the blower. After going back and forth between blowing and pulling, I got it all cleaned out and you could see daylight from the washroom by looking down the vent. After cleaning up the mess and showering, I ran another load of wash and this time no “Check Vent” warning. I do believe that problem is solved. So, maybe the old drying going bad (It had no sensor on it)... saved us from burning our house down???? Will never know, but will always think that the failure of the dryer saved our house from burning down. Of course it is possible that the plugged vent caused the dryer to fail, but I would have expected the motor to fail rather than the heater.... Who knows???? Now of course the deck on the back of our house is decorated with little tufts of lint until the weather finishes cleaning it up.

Kellners, Kellners Everywhere

As long as I can remember, my last name has been a problem. I remember my dad pronouncing it "Kneller, K N E L L E R" or sometimes "Kneller K N E double L E R".... Wondered why he did that. Didn't take long for me to find out. Probably the most common misheard version was "Miller". Don't know how many times if I just said "Kneller" (For those uninformed, the K is silent), the clerk would look and look and not be able to fine my file. Sometimes I would say "Kneller with a K". Well that would through them for a loop and I would need to start over. So I would then say, "It's like your knee, the K is silent". After fumbling around a bit they would then find the file and I would feel embarrassed as if it was my fault that they couldn't figure it out. Then comes the written version. I started putting a card, driver's license, or something that had my name written on it so we wouldn't have to go through all that. Invariably, they would then say "Oh, Kellner"... I do remember hearing my dad say, "Look at it" Where is the "n"? Tending to be a bit less confronting, I would go back to the "It's like your knee KNELLER". Of course I don't know why this confusion should surprise me. How many people do you know who pronounce "Pharynx" as Pharnyx or "Larynx" as Larnyx?????
So why am I boring you with my daily cross to bear? You see, the only time I had ever heard Kellner or saw it was when folks confused my name. I have been known to look in phone books for Knellers and Kellners and rarely found either one. Recently my world came crashing down. A new apartment complex went up on my route to work. This is the same route I've taken to work, hospitals, etc. for 19 years. Here is the sign in front of the complex:

I almost drove off the road. Of course at first, I thought it might be a relative, but quickly noted that the "n" was indeed after the "ll" and it was truly Kellner. You realize that now, all Knellers in the CU area now have our frustrations turned up a notch or 2 because there is no chance people will get our name correct now that they have seen this wretched sign. So should I call them and complain? Probably not. There may be a time that I do call them and ask them to read this post. Surely they will get a kick out of it.

Well that isn't the end of this tale. Last week Georgia and I finally got to take a trip to Door County, Wisconsin. We had gotten a late start and were nearing the end of the trip when lo and behold, a road popped up, then again, and again. Somewhere between Milwaukee and Green Bay Wisconsin there is a little town named ....... yes..... a town; Kellnersville. Anquish rose. There it is again. Why must I be tormented by these people? Here is some info: http://www.city-data.com/city/Kellnersville-Wisconsin.html Kellnersville

I'm trusting that all you Knellers whether by birth or by mate choice fully understand my problem. Only those female Knellers who "married out of the name" can chuckle as they escaped this issue. I know some really great people who carry the name (Kneller) and although we have traced our lineage to Bavaria, Sir Godfrey Kneller did his part to give us a bit of status in old England.  Godfrey Kneller
Of course, if you look too closely at him, you will get more confusion over the name. Gottfried Kniller
Kniller, Kneller, Kellner, Miller..... I give up. Guess I will continue to be Kneller K N E L L E R and just smile as I got through the process of getting folks to understand who I am. I must wonder how many young ladies hesitated before "taking" that name, or felt duped once they too realized the difficulty of bearing the name!!! 

More things to notice on this trek through life.

After working for a week at the Missouri VMTH we are "stuck" in the Tiger Hotel 
because Georgia is feeling punky and not up to traveling today. So to make use of the time, I thought I should do a posting since the last post was just after my cardiac bypass surgery. 

Plaque on Tiger Hotel

Let me start by saying that this locum was great. The residents I worked with were wonderful and everyone I interfaced with was just super. A really fun time, except that Georgia couldn't get out much. We decided to step it up a bit in housing and rented an Executive Suite at the Tiger. Pretty swanky place for a refurbished old hotel. Not sure I would ever get used to depending on hotel employees for everything when I'm so use to doing things myself.  

Georgia in Louisiana, Missouri on the Mississippi

I may come back to this, but I started thinking about writing a post when we crossed the Mississippi River in Louisiana, Missouri where we stayed in a refurbished 1850's building at The Eagles Nest Bed and Breakfast. It was a great mixture of modern and quaint (again much like the Tiger). One of the things we liked about that place was that we didn't feel pressured to interact with others. The breakfast was great. Louisana seems to really be working on becoming a touristy river town, but may have a long road because although the main street of town is going through some really nice renovation, when you get away from there, you see lots of empty buildings run down residences. Not sure they will be able to overcome this enough for folks to want to come and visit. Hope so, but not sure. We came here because it was on the route from home to Columbia, Missouri, home of the Missouri Tigers. 

So as we left Pittsfield, Illinois and I-72 to head across the countryside toward Columbia, we had noticed that we were in Pike County, Illinois. As I walked around Louisiana Sunday morning, I noticed on one of the town's 20 murals that it was dedicated to Zebulon Pike, the caucasian discoverer of Pike's Peak in Colorado. We started seeing his name around town and as we pulled out, it was clear that we were in Pike County, Missouri. My mind flashed back to our many trips on I-74 between Champaign County Illinois and the various places we have frequented over the years in Indiana. On that trip, you go through Danville, Illinois which is in Vermillion County, Illinois. You go from there to Vermillion County, Indiana. So I got to thinking..... I'm betting the area names probably came about before the State lines were drawn and many lines were drawn through communities. So now of course, I wonder how many adjacent counties of the same name in different states actually exist. Not sure I have the gumption to research that. Maybe that would be easiest done as a Facebook project by asking folks to list the ones they know. Hmmmmmm... OK, Guess that's all on that subject. Any thoughts? 
 
Back to the locum work. One very important thing to note is that as a St. Louis Cardinal fan, it certainly is an honor to be working in Clydesdale Hall. Need to see if it was named after some person named Clydesdale or if it could be named after the horses. I must wonder because all over the vet school are images of mules, so I think the Missouri Mule has taken up residence there. So here is a picture of Clydesdale Hall. 

Another important fact is that Clydesdale Hall is across the street from several Agriculture building including the Dairy Department's Bucks Ice Cream  where one of the imaging residents took me the last day during a light point in the schedule. Not sure, but I'm thinking he is a frequent partaker. He also knew quite a bit about Sparkys Ice Cream downtown. I have to agree that it is pretty tasty ice cream (Mizzou).... (Didn't make it to Sparky's). Well, that reminded me of our days on the Purdue campus where the Dairy Department's Ice Cream was also a favorite. And According to the Edam Cheeseballs that are shipped to us each fall by our friend Mike Thomas, at Mississippi State, the Dairy folks there turn out some really good cheese. Guess that could be another research project, to see what the different universities put out that is good besides students.  

I can't close this without mentioning other food. Friends took us out to eat at a couple of really tasty places,  Addisons  is right around the corner from us at the Tiger. A happening place with really tasty food. Then I got to

reconnect with a former imaging resident from Illinois Jesse Nagy and his fantastic wife Dusty who took me to Chris McDs  for some more tasty goodies. Speaking of seeing former colleagues, There was Keith Branson in anesthesiology and Keven Keagan in equine (although Dave Wilson was away and I missed hooking up with Philip Johnson, but did get to see one of my favorites from Oregon State, Shannon Reid. Dusty by the way works with Food Animals. Before I get off the food, I must mention that our next door neighbors are familiar with Columbia as their daughter did her college work at the U of Missouri. The place they mentioned that stuck in my mind was Shakespeares Pizza    which is temporarily on 8th street, just down the block from us. We ate there twice. That tell you anything???? As an aside, here is a cute little thing that occurred while eating with Jesse and Dusty. Another former resident with whom I wrote the book, is a graduate of the vet school at the University of Missouri and knows Jesse and Dusty well. While we were eating he sent me a message pertaining to the book and asked if I had run into Jesse. Shortly after that, he texted Jesse to tell me "Hi" if he saw me. So I snapped this picture and texted it to him.... His reply, "I take it that Jesse said "hi" for me."    

I think I have rambled enough for now. while we were in Missouri, we missed the gender reveal to unveil our 4th great grandchild (and first girl) Penelope Jane and  a celebration of completion of high school work for our grand-daughter CJ. It was fun and fulfilling, but ready to get back home. Wondering what shape the gardens are in at this point.     

Musing of an old fart again

These past few weeks as you went searching for that perfect pumpkin to carve into a face or scene for that one night of celebration of something that I will never understand, called Halloween, you surely ran into at least one cardboard bin of "Pie Pumpkins". These are small pumpkins, really too small for carving, but may be used as part of a harvest display or maybe painted. I have talked with several ladies into their 50's who admit that they have never made a pumpkin pie from pumpkins, but always from a can, and now the instant pumpkin pie which is even less of a process.
I think I'll start this right out with my complaint rather than with the reason this issue has come to my attention. Yesterday, I went looking for "pie pumpkins". Wow!!! What a deal. I distinctly remember that for the past few years, you could get pie pumpkins right up to Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving..... you remember. It's that Holiday where families gather together to eat and watch Football. We associate it with the mistake the Native Americans (at the time) made in welcoming the Europeans, but it wasn't an official holiday until the Civil War and declared by Abraham Lincoln. Thanksgiving origin Have you noticed that the most important thing about Thanksgiving today is the fact that "Black Friday" has encroached on this peaceful holiday of being thankful for being born, or assimilated into the best nation on earth so we can scratch and claw in monster stores to save a few dollars? Which brings me to my complaint, that Halloween has grown into a major holiday and as soon as it is over, it's Christmas season. Thanksgiving is just a glitch in many calendars that gets in the way of preparing for Christmas or other religious holiday of "the season". So I went out looking for pie pumpkins yesterday, just a few days after Halloween. I ran all over town and folks I asked gave me that dumb look (Like I'm dumb, not them!!!) and said, "No we don't have any right now".... Right now????  One even said, "no, once pumpkin season is over they are taken out"..... Pumpkin season is over????? Halloween is over, when people mutilate pumpkins and set them around to look at and smash in the streets, and of course, feed the squirrels, but pumpkin season includes the glory of Fall, Pumpkin Pie..... All those pie pumpkins were available before Halloween. Anyone make a nice pumpkin pie from scratch for Halloween???? But now as Thanksgiving approaches, it's time for pumpkin pie. Am I right? How many of you will eat several pieces of pumpkin pie within the next 2 months? Of course most won't make them from "pie pumpkins"... So I must wonder why in the world they label them "pie pumpkins" and then remove them before pumpkin pie eating season begins. After hitting Schnucks, County Market, IGA, Aldis, and Walmart, I was about ready to make the trek out to our local orchard Curtis Orchard and Pumpkin Patch, where I was sure I would find what I needed, but swung by Meijer as a last check. Lo and Behold, after wandering around the produce section, I stumbled onto a display of "Pie Pumpkins" Glory Be, someone is thinking. I'm sure I would have enjoyed the trip to Curtis Orchard, but would have bought much more stuff than I needed. I gathered up my pumpkins and gleefully checked out. Of course I had to stop and tell one of the "greeters" that Meijer was the only store in town with pie pumpkins. Everywhere there were a few left over "gourds" for decoration, but pumpkins were nowhere to be found.

So why was I on such a quest for pie pumpkins?
Several years ago I stumbled onto a recipe for stuffed baked pumpkins. The first one was stuffed with chili components and although it sounds strange, was really quite tasty. I found other recipes and of course concocted variations using apples, cinnamon, raisins, marshmallows, etc. Since neither Georgia or I were up to doing the whole Halloween thing this year, but wanted to enjoy the little guys, we invited family members to come out with their costumes, eat pizza, and hand out candy at our door as well as hit the neighborhood. I decided to bake a few pumpkins as a treat. The cold wind kept the number of trick or treaters down, but there were enough to make it worth while and the boys did get to warm up at the fireplace after they ventured out for a short trip up and down our street. Although Greg and Pam enjoyed the pickled eggs I had prepared, Jeff and others weren't so cracked with them, but the stuffed pumpkins were a hit, especially with a bit of vanilla ice cream and cool whip. This week we got an invitation to one of our kid's house for Thanksgiving (Actually, I think we are invited to 2 different ones on different days).. That is great considering our physical situation. So I asked, "what can we bring?"  The answer was quick and precise; "Those Pumpkins"... Thus began my search for pie pumpkins after Halloween and you know the rest of the story.

Jack and "Baby Jack" in his "outer" outfit.

Pretty amazing that both Bruno and Aaron showed up as kings/knights with swords without conferring.

No matter how you mess them up...... still gorgeous!! Grand-daughters.. Love the red eyes (a camera trick, right?)

Baby Jack in his "jammy" outfit.

A stuffed baked pumpkin; not mine

So that's my latest excitement. Many have asked how I'm doing at 6 weeks after bypass surgery. Walking a lot and trying to be obedient about not using my upper body and waiting for cardiac rehab to start next week. All my medical people tell me I'm doing very well. I don't feel as good as I did before this all began, but I'm thankful to be here with an outlook that a heart attack probably won't be what takes me out. Looking forward to regaining my vigor. There's to much life to be lived to lie down and quit now.... Right??????

More memories popped up

This morning on my walk, I was listening to Zydeco music on Pandora. This song came up that they were singing in Cajun French, so I didn't understand the words, but the tune brought back a flush of memories. The tune was "The Bully of the Town". I can't tell you how many times I heard that song while growing up. If it wasn't at the square dances we attended with mom and dad where dad often was the "caller", it was mom singing it. My guess is that very few people who might happen to read this have ever heard the song or have any idea of what I'm talking about, so of course, here is your education for this session. I'm writing this in my blog, but will also try to copy it to Facebook for a wider audience. For those who do know the song, enjoy the memories. The first link I'm posting is Jerry Reed from "Jerry Reed rides again".  Hard to beat Jerry Reed (in my opinion). The second is some guy singing it. Not very "professional", and he forgets some words, but it's a start. Actually the link "Guitar only" has some words. I wonder how many versions of the lyrics there are out there. Then I'll add some instrumental versions.   The only response I would really like is to get a recording of my sister singing this song while accompanying herself on mom's accordion. Enjoy.

Jerry Reed Bully of the town 

Bully of the town sung.

I forgot to mention that in this version (above) there is a "washtub bass" which is a one string "stand up" bass made of a washtub turned upside down, a fork or shovel handle tied together with a heavy string (preferably a real "bull fiddle" string) The guy (called Jerry) on the left with the Hopalong Cassidy cowboy hat is playing it. We have one of these in our basement that my dad made years ago to be played along with our many impromptu "jam sessions around the piano. Our boys used to play this when they weren't tall enough to reach the top. 

Bully of the town Don Norman

Bully of the town Guitar only

Bully of the town Goins Brothers

And here's one more site with a set of lyrics. Could preach a sermon on these alone.
Bully of the town lyrics

OK, that's enough, you get the idea. If you can remember dancing to this tune, let me know.... 

If you still do dance to this song, I would love to hear about that also.


And then another memory old song popped up the next morning.
More old song memories.
Another one of the songs that mom used to sing as well as was played at square dances, usually at the "round dance interludes" Was: "There is a tavern in the town"... SO here are a couple of sites including a version of the song being sung by Rudy Vallee.
MMM have I lost all those under 70???? 
Rudy Vallee singing Tavern in the town (laughing version)
Info on the song Tavern in the town
Sheet music Tavern in the town

Treasures

If this works it will be a blessing to me and maybe others. I posted both of these videos on Facebook recently. The first is Rod, Greg, and Jeff singing the song Treasures which Georgia and I claim they wrote for our 30th wedding anniversary. A year later they sang it as part of a church Christmas program accompanied by our dear departed brother Michael Day, one of the best musicians I've ever known. The second video was made this past May 31 at Ava's blessing celebration. The song was impromptu with Blaine helping out on lead guitar. It is 20 years after the first one, so Blaine wasn't born when the first was recorded. This second recording starts out with them horsing around with some lines from Jerry Clower, a southern "comedian" whose recordings they pretty much memorized as kids. Jerry didn't tell funny stories, he told stories funny. You will see that some of the words slipped their minds in the second recording. Gatlin Brothers, move over. Couldn't get the videos to copy here, so I tried another tact. Here are links to the locations on my Facebook timeline. June 15 and June 25. Hopefully this will get you there. IF not, guess you'll have to navigate Facebook to see them.

Treasures 1994

Treasures revisited

More Chairs

While I'm on a roll (and putting off income taxes), I took stock of our family situation. Many of our grandkids are moving into and through the teen years and we have grafted 2 members in via marriage. So when we have family functions, we need more chairs.
As long as I can remember, our mom and dad had these 2 straight chairs. I'm thinking at least one of them occupied the bedroom I shared with Uncle Joe and his wintergreen liniment until we built onto the house which included separate upstairs bedrooms for my sister and I. Seems in addition to the chair(s) and our bunk beds, I had a dresser and Joe had this fantastic huge dresser (that of course wreaked of wintergreen) Oh, did I mention that wintergreen is one of the few flavors I don't care for? That dresser sold in the auction. Hopefully a relative got it. I really don't know. It really was a gorgeous piece of furniture. Back to the chairs. We did get these 2 chairs at the time of the auction. Dad set up an interesting clause in his will. Anything that either my sister or I wanted, we could have, with the idea that we should work out some kind of equality. Anything that both of us wanted, would be put in the auction and we would then each have the opportunity to buy it, leaving the other person with the "profit" from it. I thought that was pretty equitable. However, I think we worked things out so well that we didn't need to take it to the degree of the auction. So anyway, we got these chairs. The cane seats had rotted out, probably back when mom and dad got them, so they put these fabricated seats on them. The seats were actually made of fiber, but looked like leather. They are still available. Here is a site from Rockler to show you a new one. A picture of the old one will come later. http://www.rockler.com/fiber-seat   I have some sort of memory of when those seats were put on the chairs, but that could be conjured rather than reality now which is probably 60 years later. We used them in our East Main Street house for some gatherings, but when we moved to this more "modern" house they didn't seem to fit. Georgia and some of the girls were into "Shabby Chic", so after I removed the fabric seats and recaned them, we set out to modernize them by painting them. That project never really got finished. So while I was in the "restoration" mode, I went ahead and stripped them and refinished them. So here they are, ready for a family Easter gathering. Oh, I also got Georgia's grandpa's rocker out and dusted it off in case anyone needs to rock that precious new great grandson.

The 2 reclaimed chairs

One of the chairs so you can get a better look.

Fabric seat removed before recaning. Yes, somehow, I still had it.