The World of Grandpa Don  

Tuesday morning Marc, Anthony and Sampson arriver at about 9:15. A couple boards needed to be replaced on the door of my shed and the door along with the South facing end was in need of stain, having been bleached by the sun. We found replacement boards inside the shed and a full can of stain in the basement. But there was a hazard to be dealt with before anything could be done. A substantial nest of wasps was in the inside of the door and another on the outside at the S W corner. The guys went to the store to get wasp spray and some screws. Returning, our winged terror problem was addressed but the little pests kept returning. Finally Grandpa knocked down the nests and flipped them far enough away so that they were not a problem. The boys then returned to the intended project and before lunch had several pieces of wood replaced and the front of the shed re-stained. Well done guys.

	<<< Wasps delay the project >>>
			This door needs work.
Carpenters				Painters
Just like new!

I took a couple photos of the flowers as long as I had the camera out. Biscus is in glorious bloom as you can see at the right. And the "Potato Vines" which had been very slow to start have surged upward in the last couple weeks gaining almost an inch a day. They are on the left. After the tools were put away and the workers cleaned up a bit (They clean up well) we were off to Ashford House for a spot of lunch and some relaxation. Back at the house, Anthony reloaded my cell phone with a couple months worth of minutes before the two boys ... sorry ... young men ... and their dog left for home.

Having another task behind us I was feeling great but it was not over. Kevin, my computer guru, arrived with my new external hard drive. In short order it was set up, software downloaded and programmed to do a complete backup of my "C" drive every night. Now I felt even better. I have been backing up the important stuff to a DVD occasionally but not any where often enough. Kevin said that in the morning I should find a notification that the backup was successful.

Morning came with the sound of the phone. It was Bud calling to tell me that his guys were coming around noon to do the concrete caulking. Great! It was time to get up anyway. I decided to go to the computer to see how the first backup went but found instead a notification that Microsoft had done and "important" update of Windows and restarted my computer. It was waiting for me to click a button to complete the re-boot.  Ok ... but then I checked my backup software and found it had successfully backed up 13 files. I know I have a few more than that. I can only assume that the Windows update stopped the backup. I checked the settings for the backup and it looked OK to me so we will see if it is working tomorrow. 

After breakfast, and after my morning coffee on the patio, when I re-entered the house something seemed strange. Then when I went to move the car out to the street so if I had to go someplace I would not be rolling over the fresh caulking, the garage door would not go up. That was the problem ... the electricity was off. I released the drive mechanism and with a little effort raised the door by hand and moved the car. The cell phone which usually resides in the car was taken into the house and a call was made to Com Ed. The automated response was that power would be restored by 11:15. And so it was a quiet morning of reading while sitting on the swing in the yard. I was forced to enjoy a beautiful morning in the yard. It was a perfect day for it. I imagined that the reason for the power failure may have been severe sunshine. It certainly was not excessive power use for air-conditioning because the temperature was perfect. At about 10:45 I went in and realized something was right because I heard my circulating fan running. They had done the right thing by under-promising and over-performing. I hit the button for the garage door opener and the mechanism re-engaged, closing the door The two young men from A1 Concrete Leveling arrived and went to work as I went to check my email and such.

Back-tracking to Tuesday, while Marc and Anthony were here, Peggy Cecora called. She was excited ... A major breakthrough had occurred in our efforts to extend our family line further back in time. She had found a military record for Shepard Packard. We had only know about his life after 1850 although we knew he was born in Massachusetts in about 1818. This new find told us that he enlisted for a five year hitch in the Army when he was 22. It also told us that he had blue eyes, brown hair, dark complexion and was 5'-5" tall. He was discharged at Ft. Winnebago, Wisconsin. His pre-enlistment occupation was of a worker in a Cast Iron Foundry which agrees with his later occupation as a mold maker for cast iron parts. But ... most importantly ... his place of birth was identified as Easton, Mass. We now have a place to start looking for his parents. A quick check of records on line found several Packard families who had lived in Easton at the time. Unfortunately Shepard's name did not pop up. But this news narrows the search to one small locality and a few families. We have now contacted the town clerk of Easton and their office is involved in our research.

Shepard was enlisted in the 1st US Infantry from 1839 to April of 1845 and since that unit had been assigned to Ft Winnebago since its construction in 1828 it can be assumed that he spent his entire enlistment there. I invite you to read of "Early Times at Ft Winnebago". Click on the thumbnail above right for a better view of the full dress Army uniform of the period.

My friend Bob sent a story called "Friends". He knew it was "my kind" of story and he knew that even though it has been circulating for some time and I probably (and did) see it a number of times before, I would like to see it again. He, of course, was right. You can read it at this link without all that drivel about being "Friendship Week" (it apparently has been that every week for the last 4 years or so) and sending it to 10 friends because I know that you are the kind of person who will share it without needing to be shamed into it. See "Friend" It is a great parable for modern times. Thanks Bob.

When Bud told me I should caulk my concrete joints he said he would tell me how to do it and where to get the materials. He said that if I know some young men or boys they could do it a lot cheaper than he would charge. I asked what he would charge and then told him to do it.  That was a wise decision. They started before 11 am and it was after 5 pm when they finished. They ran out of materials and Bud had to bring more. Some of the joints are very wide and others very narrow and it needs someone who knows how to work with the materials. A "rope" of the correct size must be forced into the cracks so the liquid caulk (self leveling) will not go down below the slab. Some areas need additional fill with a limestone powder. If the caulk spills on to the surface of the concrete it must be cleaned with mineral spirits immediately or it will stain the concrete. This is a job for someone who knows what they are doing and it is worth paying the price. They had not done any leveling on the patio, no need, but the joints were wide open and so I had them cauk there as well. Everything now looks great.  

July 30 in 1955 was an unbearably hot day. The little church had no air conditioning and Father Donald Duffy did a great job in keeping Anne calm, if not cool, while I went home to get the ring I had let on my chest of drawers. But the wedding did get done and later the reception in the basement of the restaurant on Archer Ave was wonderful. So was the ensuing marriage, a little bumpy in spots, but very successful and very fruitful, ... in my opinion.  Anne took a big chance in getting engaged to a sailor with no money and just dreams of the future but in general, the dreams came true, not as planned maybe, but in intent. Thank you God ... Thank you Anne. You had faith, ... a lot of faith.  Faith works!

On Thursday morning I went out to inspect the previous day's work and found two spots where there was a small hole where the caulk had drained down. Jeff had told me to look for that and to call them if I found any. But I also discovered that they failed to caulk the joints in the walk on the side of the house. The call was made and later returned. Jeff will be back on Saturday and all will be fixed. He didn't realise that his dad had included the sidewalk in the project.

Mary Moskal sent "The Price of Raising a Child". Precious! And oh so true. Again, it was something I had seen before but this presentation was outstanding, a most enjoyable accounting of the benefits of raising children.

 

. When we lose God,  it is not God who is lost.  ~ Anon. .

Today, Friday, is a beautiful morning. I woke Mikey up when I got out of bed at a quarter to 8. We were on the patio with my coffee when the lawn maintenance people arrived so we relocated to the living room until they were done. They applied the grub control to the lawn today. Sorry to do that to the little creatures but it is either them or the lawn and the lawn is much more attractive and beneficial.  

When I got to my computer, the backup that was started during the night was waiting for instructions from me because it couldn't open a file. I am sure that there is a setting that I will need to make to prevent this. Another "learning experience". However, I am making progress in learning to use the software because it had backed up thousands on files before stalling at that point.

Jean Dean told me that something was wrong with the link to the "What's New" page on the email notifications I send every week. She had not been able to visit these pages for several weeks and when she went to look at the pages she missed, using the links on those saved notices, she kept getting the newest week's page, not the one described on the email. Well, I never dreamed anyone would save those emails and so it was working just like I planned. But ... that is a problem. So, I have added a button to that email (which is actually a web page sent as an email). The button will take you to the archive list where you can select any past week in the current year.  We want to be "User Friendly"

It has been an eventful and productive week. Good things are happening. I feel sorry for those who dote on gloom and doom. There are many who are so pessimistic, indeed paranoid, about the condition of our country and our future that it clouds their minds to the good all around them. They cling to falsehoods that seem to support their concept of the world. They are otherwise good people but they live in fear and try to draw others into the dark side with them. Maybe I tend towards being a Pollyanna but life is too short to dwell on the dark side when it is so much more pleasant and yes, productive, to be an optimist. Some see their glass half empty and cry about it while others see it half full and are glad. In between is the one who realizes that what he has in the glass is what is most important and that is what he has to live with. To him, the glass is twice as large as it needs to be. We live with what we have and, at least from my view, it is abundantly great. I don't worry about loosing it. If I do, I will deal with it then. I have done what I can about keeping my house secure and sleep soundly. You can take that literally and figuratively. The world has its ups and downs and so does every life but ...

Grandpa Don Plefka

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Free JavaScripts provided by The JavaScript Source	Anne wanted everyone to be 'Nice'. This button was in one of her dresser  drawers I cleaned out in August of 2004