My cousin Kris has never been particularly into science fiction, that I know of. I don’t remember ever hearing her go on and on about a love of or for robotics. She seems like a normal Swede in most ways, a decent, caring sort, with many, many, many issues but the point is, she’s human. With all her many, many frailties.
But I suspect she married an android.
Now, I can’t prove any of this but something is just….different… about her husband John. Not “bad” different, no no no. Hell, he’s wonderful! Salt of the earth, would do anything for you, a truly truly great guy. In fact you might say he’s “too good”. Even “Tom Hanks” good. Yeah.
*Almost* perfect might be a more apt, yet worrying description.
He can perform physical feats that would kill lesser men, yet he doesn’t even breathe hard. Except maybe if you notice that he’s not at all winded. Then he might pretend like he’s breathing a bit. Put on a show of sorts for the “organics.”
I’ve seen him effortlessly launch himself out of a sitting position in a canoe, straight up into the air and onto a big rock in the middle of a lake.
I’ve seen him drive incredibly fast, yet with pinpoint accuracy. Computer accuracy.
I myself have plied the man with alcohol yet it seemingly has no effect on him.
He once built another house behind his house in his backyard. Possibly within 48 hours. With no readily apparent tools except his “fingers”.
He seems to be remarkably efficient at cooking, cleaning, laundry, construction, math, car maintenance, nerve cluster placement and windows. Kris has watched him do these things year after year. He never seems to falter or tire.
WE DO NOT KNOW THE UPPER LIMITS OF HIS STRENGTH, SPEED OR INTELLIGENCE.
I once attempted to try the “Fembot” test on him. It’s a time honored test created on the Six Million Dollar Man tv show in the ’70’s. Drop a pencil in his walking path. If he steps on the pencil and it simply breaks, no worries. But if the pencil is ground to dust as if under the tremendously condensed mass of a two ton walking computer, bingo.
Well, I dropped the pencil several times and he managed to step over or around it each time.
Clever.
No one’s ever actually seen him sleeping unless he wanted them to. Immune to all diseases. There’s been no video proof of his ability to either fly or jump great distances. We can only guess at his *true* age.
Mind you, he has made mistakes, albeit only one or two. But there are SO few, one wonders if they’re intentional. For example:
He’s horrible at card tricks and he makes sure that you *know* that he’s bad at card tricks, over and over.
And he can’t quite get the word dilemma right, pronouncing it “dilemna”.
That was the tiny detail which raised the red flag.
And hey, don’t get the wrong idea. I love the guy no matter *what* his insides are made of, whether it be bone and muscle or polycarbonate steel and composite carbon fiber.
I just think it’s great that whatever his origin, that he’s chosen to spend time with us. And if it happens that he’s an advanced extraterrestrial bio mechanical life form who’s come to evaluate earth’s population to see if we prove worthy as a race…. well as a whole, we’ve kinda screwed the pooch there. I hope Kris is representing us well.
But on the other hand, John might just be a normal human who’s extremely well versed and capable in all things. That works too.
When the social distancing ends, I’ll give the big lug a big hug either way.
The tale I’m about to tell you is true. Code names will be assigned to protect the identities of the participants. Not because they did anything wrong actually, but I thought it would be fun to give them code names. Hee hee!
The Refuge has been an invite only message board for some 17 years now. We were originally assembled because of our mutual dislike of a comic creator. A guy who, once he had his own message board, started acting like a tin pot tyrant, alienating most of his fans (John Byrne). So we left and gathered together elsewhere to chat about comics, life, etc. and have all grown close. In some cases, some very strong friendships arose. We decided back in 2007, to actually attempt gathering together at a comic convention in Baltimore. Geographically, its location benefitted the majority of the members.
And to be clear, although there are technically 55 total members–that’s it–at least half are members in name only as they’ve either only visited briefly and then left forever, or used to be regulars and eventually split forever. No, we’ve got about 25 actual members who are still in the regular rotation.
That first get together, I did not make, although, by all accounts, a good time was had by all. A couple local guys, Editor and Tech stopped by and Beard may have been in the area staying with his brother. But the bulk of the crew, Cajun, Jersey Boy, G-man, Archivist, Canadian, Reporter, Kolchak, Gipp, Gohnny and Sugg, all stayed together in one hotel room. All jammed together in what was eventually to be coined “The Uni-room”.
Ten men enter, no man leaves, something like that. A room capable of producing the most intriguing odors after a while. Forgive me if I got the assemblage wrong, as I was not there that first year. All I know is, Jersey Boy broke the AC that first year.
I did show up the next year, me and my compulsive planning. Where as the previous year, the boys were a half hour away from the action and the convention, I booked the new Uni-room at the local Days Inn, a small room with two double beds, that would be accommodating 11 men and guests. This would more or less be the pattern for the next several years. The Inn also had the advantage of being right around the corner from the con and also the outdoor bar we would end up spending so much time at over the next 5 years or so, the Pratt Street Ale House. For a number of years, we did shift to the Lord Baltimore Hotel which had a wider variety of Uni-rooms and was only another couple blocks away,
Now in these early days, sure, it was a bit of a gamble. Traveling to a different city to share a hotel room, a bed(!) with people you’d only met online, on a comic book message board at that…on the face of it, yeah, a bit sketchy. Try explaining the arrangement to your wife. But the vast majority of the guys turned out to be great. Sure, one eventually went to jail but that wasn’t until over a decade later and really, the less said the better.
We usually spent that first day of each weekend whiling away the hours at the Ale House, chatting, while the varied members drifted in on flights from across the country. We usually didn’t travel too far from the area either, as once you left a certain radius, you were in a fairly dangerous area, especially late at night. Yes, there were a couple nights over the years, where we ventured over to an establishment here or there and were venturing where we shouldn’t have been in the wee hours but –INSERT REASONABLE, RATIONAL EXCUSE FOR BEING DRUNK — and when I thought I’d lost my phone we actually went back–IN AN UNFAMILIAR TOWN, HERE– so there you go. We could probably blame the Archivist for wanting to stop in the sketchiest place in Baltimore at 1am for steak and eggs but we were all complicit. That first year I was there, though, we did have eleven guys crammed into one room, in sleeping bags, huddled under the sink, you name it. Me, Jersey Boy, Canadian, Kolchak, Reporter, G-man, Archivist, Gohnny, Gipp and Sugg, and damnit, I know I’m missing someone. Anyway, Beard, Tech and the Editor all visited through the weekend as well, and it was the biggest turnout we’d have, until the big anniversary. Leading up to it, we’d had many an adventure. Inadvertently crashing private parties, sharing massive beer towers, touring ancient sailing ships, Jersey Boy almost dying from energy gum, chatting with and/or harassing comic celebs, etc. We had a lot of laughs with different line ups of attendees, and much celebrating was done, with a dash of silly stupidity. The Uni-rooms even got a bit larger and more luxurious.
In 2013, we celebrated the 10th anniversary of the Refuge. For this, we committed to pitching in for a much bigger Uni-room, because we had more people coming. There was a lot of back and forth communication with the Lord Baltimore hotel in the planning stage. I wanted to book one of their Crown Suites, a giant accommodation that took up the entire floor on top of the hotel. Long story short, the staff were oblivious as to what went on in their own hotel but in the end, I managed to get the group four regular, rather nice rooms, plus we had the entire run of one of the Crown Suites at our disposal, free of charge! Bonus — it had roof access. And so, we all gathered for a long weekend and we had 19 of the regular 25 in attendance. In addition to everyone mentioned earlier, Cucamonga showed up from the west coast, as did the Texan, the Gator from Florida, the Clay-man showed up and we even got the pleasure of the Brit showing up from across the pond. Oh, and Turtle called in.
One bittersweet side trip during the weekend was a handful of us driving over to Bethesda hospital to basically say goodbye to one of our own. Even though the time was sad, I was lucky to be able to say goodbye to Kerry (Sugg). Not only a great guy, but one the greatest artists it’s been my honor to know.
The rest of the weekend was quite the affair to remember. The Crown Suite was a great setting for the get together and we utilized it to the fullest. A bunch of us were out on the roof talking, debating, reminiscing and even shouting at times, to the city below. (The shouting was all the Texan.)
Jersey Boy had brewed up a tasty couple batches of beer for the occasion, which we were all enjoying, until the Cajun’s family stopped by (staying elsewhere in the hotel) and stole a bunch of it, rendering the rest of the night dry. Still, we enjoyed each other’s company, well into the wee hours. It really could not have worked out better. Earlier that year, we’d each taken part in contributing to a couple illustrations. One Marvel and one DC, where we’d each draw a couple characters, then I’d assemble them via photoshop, resulting in a giant group shot of all the drawings/heroes. I’d then printed up posters and at the big weekend, everyone got one and we all signed each other’s posters. It was very cool.
After that giant, extended gathering, the yearly trips pretty much ended, with the group only getting together again in ’15, I think. But the friendships remain. Once in a while, one Refugee will be in another’s town and there will be the occasional meet up. Jersey Boy actually came out this way and visited a couple years ago. It was great to see him again. If world events are kind, there will be more of this in the future.
Note: This *might* be the last one regarding the oddities of me. Maybe. Don’t hold me to it but it’s possible. You see, the other day, I turned on the A.C….
I’ve mentioned how I was allergic to virtually everything when I was little. Including my sweat. But even though I was allergic to a ton of foods, there were equal dangers outside. As soon as spring sprung, I was usually in misery when outside. Ragweed, pollen, whatever the usual suspects were, that’s what I had trouble with as a kid.
Never had the slightest issue with peanuts though. How about that? Then again, as far as I knew, nobody did back then. But I’m no doctor.
There were good days too and I was sometimes out and about but no matter what, I couldn’t roll around in the grass, otherwise, I’d be itchin’ and scratchin’ like a maniac. I was one step away from hives.
So quite a bit of the time, I was in my bedroom with the air conditioning on to provide relief. It was probably a hardship on the family too, as the rest of my grandparent’s house was not air conditioned, just the window unit in my room.
And for quite a long time, I went around outside in bare feet, possibly because I always got blisters incredibly easy with this goofy skin of mine.
So basically, at four or five years old, if the conditions were amenable, I was often shooed out of the house by my grandmother to go play outside. But I had to go outside in bare feet (because of the blisters), stay off the grass (allergies/itching) and do… something. This was probably where the imagination started to kick in. Initially, I was hesitant to *ever* leave the comfort of my air conditioned room and go outside in bare feet, because one of the first times I did, a bee stung me on the bottom of my foot. Admittedly, that left a bit of a mental mark.
So, when I wasn’t holed up in my room or outside dodging bees and grass, I was inside drawing. Circumstances seemed to point me toward an indoor activity like that. Drawing and tv. Go figure.
Again, just wanted to give you a little insight as to why I am the way I am now.
Everyone is shaped by their life experience, I’m no different.
We’re already headed into June. I can’t believe how fast this year is going. Work is quiet. Days blend together.
Starting to feel like this should be a “do over” year.
Did… did we just do it over? Just now? Couldn’t tell. Went too fast.
Going in for a routine CT scan today, and regular maintenance therapy next Monday. A change in the routine!
Chopped some wood Monday. Haven’t done that in years. Feelin’ it.
It’s astonishing. I can do the 500 rep challenge, do the walk/run, different P90X workouts, but chopping wood still utilizes different muscles that will remind you exactly how old you are.
–I’m actually writing this Tuesday to post up Wednesday before the scan, so I chopped wood yesterday. My spine aches. I might chop more today, to either loosen up or go into traction. Either way, it’ll tell me whether or not I’ll be chopping more wood.
Ah well, better go check out front. The mailman either just dumped a load of mail on the front porch or fell down the stairs.
While Duolingo is a pretty cool, FREE app for learning languages, having finished my first month (34 consecutive days), I have some observations, notes, etc.
The cartoon mascot of the app is a little owl named Duo. Duo will try and manipulate you and your emotions. He will also try to encourage you. Sometimes shame you. It is important to remember that the app is for all ages and the owl doesn’t mean you any harm. So resist the occasional urge to kill it.
20 questions in a lesson, 4 lessons to get a crown, 5 crowns to complete a category. I think there’s like 100 categories. The app teaches you in a variety of ways. We’ll refer to Spanish for the sake of this blog but they teach pretty much all languages.
*They print a sentence in Spanish and you have to say it out loud into the speaker.
*They print a sentence in English, give you a selection of Spanish words, you build the correct Spanish sentence.
*They print a sentence in Spanish, give you a selection of English words, you build the correct English sentence.
*They give you a selection of words in Spanish and English, you tap the corresponding pairs.
*They print a sentence in Spanish, you write it out in English.
*They print a sentence in English, you write it out in Spanish. This is the one that often trips me up. Some things I can’t grasp, sometimes I make mistakes, sometimes, dumb mistakes and I aggravate myself. These dumb mistakes are the occasional masculine/feminine gaffes, verb screw ups, etc.
There are two speakers in the Spanish app, a man and a woman. As the program progresses, they are saying longer and more complex sentences that I have to decipher. They offer a regular playback option and a slower playback option, which is them slowly saying each word, ….one….at….a….time. I hate to have to resort to the slow playback but the regular playback has them rattling the sentences off and blurring words together to a sometimes incomprehensible degree. Sometimes, quite often really, when I type out the answer, I play back the sentence at slow speed to confirm I got it right before I enter it. Otherwise, I “lose a heart”.
In any given session, you start out with 5 hearts. If you make a mistake, you can lose a heart. You lose all five, you’re either done for the day, or you “buy” more hearts with gems that you accumulate as you play. It’s always good to have a plentiful stock of gems in case you’re having a horrible session and run out of hearts quick.
Sometimes, if I’ve run out of hearts but did so with a stupid mistake, I’ll buy more hearts. Or if I just had a really bad run and lost them all, I might also re-up. But often, they’ll give you the chance to earn a heart by watching a short ad. Worth it. Gives you a chance to stretch. You can also subscribe and pay for the course with a monthly fee. Then you have unlimited hearts, but I actually like having the heart limit. Keeps me on my toes. But I digress.
I was talking about replaying the recording at the slow speed just to hear what exactly is being said. The guy speaker is pretty decent. The woman, though….
There are times when I want to kill this mush-mouthed bitch. I just had an instance where she said a sentence that was so difficult to understand, I must have listened to the regular playback ten times, and the slow playback even more. And I STILL got it wrong because she pronounces her “B’s” SO softly, I thought she was saying “V’s”. I thought she was saying “vive” instead of “bebe”. So, even after going over everything with a fine tooth comb, I still got it wrong and lost a heart. I was furious.
But in general, I’m doing well. Took a mastery quiz and after a month, I’ve “mastered” 14% of the language so far. And in the rankings, depending on how you do each week, if you’re in the top ten with points, you are in the promotion zone and able to level up to the next league come Monday morning. If you’re in the bottom five of point getters, you risk getting demoted. I just made it to the Emerald league, which is the sixth of ten levels. If I manage to keep up this pace, I will make it to the ultimate level, “Diamond”, which really only means you are doing consistently well. It’s not like you’ve finished the course or anything.
Now, in a perfect world, I’m hoping to be in a position where I’m about done with Spanish by year’s end, so maybe I can switch back to Swedish. We’ve got a potential family reunion in August of ’21, so it’d be kind of nice to have some Swedish in my noggin.
When I started this a month ago, I tried Spanish, Swedish and Italian simultaneously, but that started to seem confusing, and I figured at one point to just focus squarely on Spanish for now and go back later for the others. No idea *when* I’ll get to Japanese or Klingon, if ever.
New Orleans, 1867. The once proud town is now under martial law and the criminal element runs rampant since the Union victory. But a favorite son, former Reb captain, scoundrel and gambler have returned home with his friend– a Pawnee warrior, his blood brother. This son of New Orleans has come home to clean up his town from the wrong side of the law, doing whatever needs to be done. His name is Yancy Derringer. And he’ll clean up the town with his wits, his gambling, his fists, his charm, his derringers, his knife, his sword or just by charming the ladies. Think one part Rhett Butler, one part Maverick, one part Zorro.
There are times when you happen upon a true gem in the annals of television history. Although the name Yancy Derringer was only vaguely familiar in my memory, when I chanced upon it on Amazon Prime, I thought I’d give it a look. I am SO glad I did.
Yancy Derringer was based on a short story written in 1938 by pulp writer Richard Sale. It’s the story about former confederate soldier, gambler and scoundrel, returning to his home town of New Orleans three years after the Civil War. The reigning union administrator of the town, John Colton, asks for Derringer to become his secret agent, without pay or protection, cleaning up the post-war lawless frontier the town had become. Hoping Derringer’s love of his home would sway him. Derringer agreed and he, along with his friend Pahoo, a Pawnee, battled against the criminal element.
Richard Sale and his wife, writer Mary Loos, scripted the series that ran only one season, 1958-59 and brought on Jock Mahoney to portray Yancy. Mahoney, of French, Irish and Cherokee descent and a former stuntman, plays Derringer with a playful twinkle in his eye. On the surface, when hearing a stuntman is playing the lead, one may tend to get wary but Mahoney is fantastic. He’s charismatic and light hearted, but can also kick serious ass in style. He keeps 3 derringers hidden about his person, along with a knife in his belt and a sword in his walking stick.
Mahoney being a 20 year stuntman really comes in handy here, as the 6′ 3″ athlete is every bit as dynamic on his feet as he is endearing with his lines, as the southern gentleman. Mahoney (an interesting French, Irish and Cherokee mix), almost 40 during filming, fit the part like a glove. Seemingly the role of a lifetime, which, in the past, included stunt doubling for Errol Flynn, John Wayne, and Gregory Peck. He was also the oldest actor to play Tarzan at age 43 in 1963’s “Tarzan’s Three Challenges”, where he contracted Malaria, Dengue Fever, pneumonia and dysentery and *still* managed to finish the film. He did all his own stunts in that movie, as well as on Yancy Derringer. He was one of the most respected and sought after stuntmen in the business.
Then you have Yancy’s partner, Pahoo, the Pawnee tribesman played by X Brands. Pahoo speaks entirely in a sign language known only to Yancy and perhaps other Pawnee. He often emerges from the shadows with his sawed off shotgun or flinging his knife. You can tell Mahoney and Brands did plenty of rehearsal for the choreography of not only the bigger stunts but the smaller routines as well, especially when they’d fling their knives around to each other in the middle of a scene as casually as your average juggler. You really believe these two characters are blood brothers. In the show, it’s stated that once long ago, Pahoo saved Yancy’s life, and now feels responsible for it, thus forever bonding them together.
The writing on the show by Mary Loos and Richard Sale is snappy, intelligent, funny and grounded. The regular female actors also had good, strong roles in show, with Frances Bergen–Candace’s mom (as Miss Francine) and Miss Mandarin/Mei ling (Lisa Lu). Both formidable in their own right and somewhat uncommon for the time. All the characters on the show were very well realized and I think it’s a testament to the care and dedication Loos and Sale gave to the scripts and production.
Yancy Derringer only lasted one season with 34 episodes for the most unfortunate of reasons. A second season was all set to go but the network wanted to take partial ownership of the show. The owners, including Loos, Sale and Mahoney refused to give away part of their baby and the show got cancelled.
I can not recommend this show enough. They’re an easy watch at only 25 minutes an episode and available on Amazon Prime and probably a few other places as well. You won’t be sorry.
Patrick Troughton’s whimsical second Doctor is credited with being the most looked to Doctor when portrayed by the next generation of Doctors, starting with 5th Doctor, Peter Davison.
Now, while both the Hartnell and Troughton era’s are plagued with having episodes missing, due to the BBC’s short sighted practice of wiping old tapes to make room in their warehouse, the Troughton era was the hardest hit. Some adventures have been completed via animation.
*Note, the second Doctor’s era focuses on a wide variety of monsters and alien threats/planets.
This time, we start with an honorable mention or two. Power of the Daleks is the first Troughton story, a six parter which is not top level Troughton material but is worth watching as we see the very first post-regenerated Doctor, early in this fourth season. It also features the Daleks and is fully animated. Evil of the Daleks is a seven part story that finishes off the fourth season and is mostly missing but is available on audio with linking narration and is highly regarded. On to the regular recommendations.
1)The Moonbase is a four part adventure which is a great showcase for the second Doctor. It features the return of the Cybermen and is a well done story with wonderfully designed sets. Two of the four eps are animated but the biggest draw here is watching Troughton at work.
2)Tomb of the Cybermen is perhaps my favorite of the Troughton era. This four parter kicks off season five with some of the best writing, characterization, cast and set design. A brilliant piece of work which has influenced future actors portraying the Doctor and how to utilize the Cybermen in future stories. Troughton at his very best.
3)The Abominable Snowmen is a six parter that’s missing but a rich story featuring the Yeti, some prime Patrick Troughton and is available on audio.
4)The Enemy of the World is a miracle in that the remaining five episodes of this six parter were recovered after a 50 year gap and the adventure is well worth it. International espionage and intrigue, as the Doctor faces off against the dictator Salamandar, a villain who looks remarkably like him.
5)The Web of Fear features the Yeti again and the first appearance of Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, the military man who would soon become the Brigadier. Five of the six parts exist and are required viewing. Easily one of the most suspenseful and eerie adventures of 1960’s Doctor Who. Top notch.
6)The Mind Robber is an imaginative five part story, all intact, which is top notch sci-fi mixed with make believe. Fun and adventure.
7)The Invasion is an eight part epic that is the blueprint for future UNIT (United Nations Intelligence Taskforce) stories and is a thrilling yarn. The Doctor, Jamie, Zoe, the Brig and the Cybermen. Parts one and five are animated.
8)The War Games. This massive ten part masterpiece is Troughton’s last story and an excellent one to go out on. The threat is so big that the Doctor eventually has to call his own people, the Time Lords for help in taking care of the problem. But after doing so, he’s put on trial, exiled to Earth, forced into a new face and all knowledge of time travel is taken from him. Highly recommended.
She stared into the mysterious black hole, not knowing what was in there or how big the cavity, but it looked ominous. The tree wasn’t that large but when she reached her whole arm in, and couldn’t feel where the back wall of the tree should be, she knew the hole led somewhere else and certainly not the other side of that tree. She made the decision to crawl through the creepy, stringy, organic, hellish hole and that’s how that episode of Stranger Things ended, leaving one a bit disturbed and creeped out. It was a fantastic show.
I was exponentially MORE creeped out, when Linda asked me to come outside and see something. A mysterious gaping hole to blackness in our backyard. It was summer, 2016. She had been in the backyard setting things up for Matthew’s high school graduation party the next day when it happened. She set a stool down and one of the legs sunk into the ground as far as it would go. Surprised, Linda looked at the small hole, maybe an inch wide. She poked at the edges with her finger and they fell away. Now the hole was three or four inches wide. Inside, only blackness. She stood and poked it with her foot, but more of the edge gave way and her foot went in to the ankle. The hole of nothingness was about half a foot across now. At this point, she got me, straight from watching the Stranger Things ep.
We stared at the hole. I can’t even tell you what was going on in my mind at that moment. But my wife used me as an anchor and holding onto my arm, stuck her foot back in the hole and it kept going all the way up to her knee. Now, we were concerned. Not only was this hole worryingly deep, and we’d yet to find the bottom of it, and it was only about three feet from the stairs to our back deck and house, but we were also going to have dozens of guests walking around the yard the next day.
We didn’t have time to start investigating this thing– what we really feared was probably a giant freaking sinkhole. At least, not before the party, so we covered it with a door Linda had elsewhere in the back yard. It was an odd visual and a big topic of discussion at the party the next day, especially considering we had absolutely no idea where that door now *led*. I was really just hoping that if it was a sinkhole, it wouldn’t suddenly cave in during the party and that the door would be a proper temporary solution. It was. The day progressed without incident.
The next morning, Sunday, we were up early as the curiosity was killing us, so we began the investigation. Linda took a push broom, turned it around and stuck the handle in. All five feet or so went right in. We tenderly, at first, poked away at the edges a bit and hit… a hard edge. You have to remember that underneath the grass and the dirt, there was also some of that black plastic tarp Linda put down in that section to kill weeds, etc., so that was also obscuring our visual of the edge.
But the edge turned out to be cement. A cement lip to be precise. Pulling away the excess dirt, grass, plastic, etc., the hole was revealed to be a semi circle, about two and a half feet at its widest point.
This was a circular hatch, which had a cement lid, half of which had cracked, broken open, and fallen into the hole.
Now, on one hand, this was excellent news. This wasn’t a sinkhole. A sinkhole was a terrifying possibility that had me worrying that our entire house was going to collapse into it. But no, this was a man made hatch that led to a man made hole.
On the other hand, WHAT THE HELL WAS IN THE MAN MADE HOLE IN OUR YARD?
A mysterious hole in our backyard leading to blackness said Stranger Things. A *hatch* leading to blackness was more of a LOST vibe. The semi circle was wide enough now though that a bit of light was at times reflected on something inside — water in the hole. I grabbed a long, tree trimming pole that extended to about 15 feet and started sticking that inside the hole. Probing around, I felt some resistance here and there as there was some mud with the water in there but in the end, we had some rough measurements.
The space was about 6 feet deep straight down and the floor was circular, about 11 feet wide. Having mapped that out, I asked Theresa to utilize her cell phone attached to her selfie stick, put that in the hole, with the cell’s flashlight on, and record a 360 degree video of the walls, to see what we could see.
Brickwork. This was an underground, igloo shaped, brick structure with a lot of mud and water in it. Okay. This was a bit of a head scratcher. When we bought the house 24 years earlier, we had no idea this was here or when in the last century this was put in.
Monday, I called the village and they sent a guy out. I figured this was something they would handle or have some helpful advice. He took a look, said, “Yeah, that’s probably an old cistern. You’d probably better fill that up.” He also said that elsewhere in the neighborhood, construction for a new house revealed a 20 x 30 foot bomb shelter in their back yard. That would have been a bit cooler, if I’m honest.
SO…. I had to fill up the hole. First, I broke open the other half of the hatch and let it drop into the hole, so I’d have easier access to the full open circle. In the end, I figured that logistically, it’d be best to use pea gravel for filler, as it’s smaller, easier to shovel, would still allow water to seep through if necessary and any excess was an attractive enough of a stone to put down on the garden paths. I ordered seven tons of pea gravel and used probably five of them to actually fill the hole. That’s a good workout.
All that having been resolved, it was only later that I realized that *another* mystery had also been solved.
We moved into this house in 1992 and we eventually realized that we were the lowest point in the neighborhood. When the big rains came, we had significant flooding in our front yard and back. But not in our basement. Our basement was unfinished with a six foot high ceiling, cracks in the cement floor and no sump pump. But remarkably, it would have to rain like three weeks straight–Noah level flooding, before we’d get some seepage in our basement. But it was rare.
We just *assumed* that this was a tight, well constructed basement that kept water out because we really never had any problems.
Come 2004, we had a whole new kitchen and back deck put in. And suddenly, *every* time it rained, be it a deluge or a drizzle, we got water in our basement. I couldn’t figure it out, except somehow, the construction changed the topographical situation concerning water flow or something. It was SO bad, in 2005, we had to contact Perma Seal to come in and do their thing, with the full basement trench system, sump pump, etc. To their credit, we haven’t had a drop of water in the basement since.
But it wasn’t until after the discovery of the cistern that everything finally made sense. All those years, those decades–probably unbeknownst to several previous owners–that cistern was doing a pretty fantastic job of keeping that excess water away from the basement. Until the construction company that was building our new kitchen, oblivious to the existence of the cistern’s existence, destroyed its workings and put it out of business. 12 year old mystery solved, thanks a forgotten, century old water control system.
It was around September of 1973. I was in Michigan with my mom as we often were during Labor Day weekend, visiting my cousins. We’d visit and half the weekend was dedicated to watching the Jerry Lewis Muscular Dystrophy telethon. There’s a strange, morbid curiosity involved in watching a man put himself through the grinder, live on tv for 48 hours straight. Jerry usually grabbed some shuteye in the wee hours of Monday morning, that rest period grew longer as he got older, but I think at the beginning he may have rode those entire marathons out live. It was Vegas after all. It was very interesting to see these folks live, tired, wired and whatever else they may have been on, but my cousins and I usually were up late Sunday night watching the festivities and the big time celebrities of the day–hey, here comes Tom Jones! (Look it up, kids) but I really digressed here…
So that Friday night, as was the tradition back in the ’70’s, they’d show a preview of the new Saturday morning cartoon line up, starting the very next morning and 11 year old me was very excited. You see, there was a new superhero cartoon premiering and it looked like it had something to do with the Justice League. The preview was a bit worrying though. They played the new theme song and it was pretty great. Go ahead, click here for that taste.
Bombastic, inspiring, exhilarating… the announcer started giving us the line up…. the four greatest heroes…. well, ok……Superman, yeah, ok, he’s saving a train…Wonder Woman–wait, Wonder Woman gets second billing? Okay, she’s flying the invisible jet, yeah, yeah, okay, here we go…Batman! Oh, he’s got Robin with him….all he’s doing is driving the Batmobile, and what the hell is this? Two kids and a dog try to hop a ride in the Batmobile? Wait a minute, first off, the Batmobile has not now, nor ever been a four seater. What the….. the dog’s wearing a cape, oh come ON! Oh Jesus, here comes Aquaman, great, grab some fish. The hitchhiking kids are identified as Wendy, Marvin and Wonderdog. Wears a cape.. so does Marvin. Hmm. That scraping sound heard the world over at that moment was my eyes rolling to such an extent as to escape through back of my skull.
Arguably the only cool hero in the group is shuttling around kids in a Bat-station wagon. This was worrisome. The last time I’d had the opportunity to watch a Batman cartoon was maybe five years earlier with the Adventures of Batman by Filmation. The look of the cartoon was a nice mix of sensibilities from the comic of the time and Carmine Infantino’s costume designs and the pacing and adventures similar to the Adam West live action version. Some limited but dynamic animation as the caped crusaders would throw Batatangs and punches on screen, tackling the usual bunch of villains. It came on the heels of the West show and of course, that was the gold standard at the time, punch outs producing giant sound effects and featuring wild death traps and cliffhangers as the dynamic duo fought the bad guys. The West show ended in ’68 and a mere five years later, we’d now descended to Batman driving children and their pets around the neighborhood? And seriously, where was the Flash and Green Lantern? I’d always ranked them higher than Aquaman, COME ON, NOW!
The following Saturday morning confirmed all my fears. The new, gentler 1970’s seemed to have stricter rules in place for tv. I guess that might have been fine for some Disney ‘toon or Strawberry shortcake or whatever the hell else was on for kids but for the Superfriends, the new rules were ridiculous. I guess “the world’s four greatest heroes” –and Robin, Wendy, Marvin and Wonderdog– just hung around the Hall of Justice each day waiting for the Trouble Alert or whatever they called the warning system then some politician, scientist or general would come whining for help. Supes of course would fly off to the scene of the disaster, Wonder Woman would zoom off in her invisible jet, Aquaman would mount a dolphin and Batman would wait for the whole family to hop in the Batmobile. Because you wouldn’t want to head off on the mission without the dog in the cape.
Side note: there’s a school of thought in comics that you need a stupid kid sidekick so the kids will identify with them, relate to them. That’s true IF you make the kid sidekick a truly capable, cool, ass kicking asset to the partnership. If said sidekick is an incompetent joke that always needs saving, I think kids will tell you they hate the sidekick, that the sidekick should just die already, so the cool hero isn’t always held back by the stupid kid. Kids don’t WANT to identify with lame sidekicks. And if you add two more who are even more annoying, less capable, and throw in a scaredy cat dog with a cape, you deserve whatever you get.
But what ho, Rick… if the show was so bad, why did you watch it?
Oh, that is a great question. Here’s the answer. Ready?
BECAUSE IT WAS THE 1970’S, IT WAS SATURDAY MORNING, WE ONLY HAD THREE TV CHANNELS AND NEITHER CABLE, THE INTERNET OR VIDEO GAMES EXISTED YET.
Satisfied? Good.
(Also, it should be noted that being only 11, it would be years before I was surreptitiously searching out remote tribal porn within issues of National Geographic in the library)
Anyway, all superhero fans were left with was this and only this on Saturday morning tv. There was only so much of the Sid and Marty Kroft acid trip shows like HR Puffinstuff I could take. They eventually got rid of Wendy, Marvin and the dog and did a slight upgrade to the Wonder Twins, Zan and Jayna, who, thanks to a sibling fist bump, could transform into animals and ice/water products respectively. “Shape of..a goat!” “Form of … a puddle!” And that was helpful, I guess. They also had a blue space monkey named Gleek.
A few years passed, and now it was the late ’70’s. I watched it less, went to the library more, read comics more, finally got PONG. But they did eventually add more heroes to the mix, like the Flash, Green Lantern and Hawkman (that’s more like it). The producers also wanted to add a bit of diversity to the extremely White cast of heroes, so they set about grabbing some of DC’s heroes of color.
Oops.
DC wasn’t really packin’ a lot of diversity at the time.
Taking a quick inventory, I think DC had:
*Black Lightning –the title kinda says it all, but he was a C-lister.
*Teen Titan Mal Duncan, the Hornblower –I don’t really remember much about him, but he was a C-lister that may have already retired. I don’t remember what the horn did. Not sure anyone did. So, no go.
*Bumblebee, another Teen Titan, C-lister, maybe quit the biz to be with Mal. No go.
*Jon Stewart Green Lantern. This was unfortunate on a couple levels. First, he was usual portrayed as a bitter, angry black man when he premiered years earlier. Second, he was designated as the “alternate back up” GL, behind Hal Jordan and then Guy Gardner. Third, they already brought Hal’s GL into the show. So no luck there.
SO, Black Lightning was a good possibility BUT DC, cheap bastards that they were, didn’t want to pay BL creator Tony Isabella residuals or for using Black Lightning in the show. So they created the knock off Black Vulcan. To this day, Tony is very loud about what he thinks of DC.
Yeah.
Then, after seeing DC had no Asian heroes available, the producers created Samurai, an Asian guy who dressed up more like a genie but had wind manipulation powers (think Red Tornado), invisibility, fire manipulation and could cast illusions! It was a crazy set of very impressive powers but you can see how well they parlayed the character into legendary greatness because surely everyone remembers… Samurai!
Also, no Native American superheroes to be found at DC, so in came Apache Chief, who could grow to giant size, which was pretty cool.
Finally, added even later, representing Mexico, was El Dorado. *This* guy had super strength, telepathy and teleportation. Geez, this guy sounded impressive too, but I think maybe I’d stopped watching by this point or just no longer paid attention. Frankly, looking back at the description, all four of these sounded more interesting than the regular line up but don’t worry– as written, these new heroes were just as bland and uninteresting as everyone else. Imagine if any of the creators of this show actually gave a damn or made an effort to write the characters in an interesting manner? Nah, kids aren’t worth it, right?
The show, in its different incarnations and titles, like Challenge of the Superfriends, The Legendary Superpowers Show, Galactic Guardians, etc. went until 1985 but I was long gone. It would be the following century before we got a cartoon worthy of the Justice League when wunderkind Bruce Timm did the honors but I’ve got a separate blog on that.
Ah, the ’70’s. Three channels. Good times, I guess. If the library was open.
26 years ago, Theresa Renee Lundeen slid into the world, possibly because she thought there was a party out here. I understood her confusion. Being first time parents, we were trying to go for a mood and were playing Bob Marley in the birthing room.
She resembled Tweety Bird for quite some time when she was little. She’s turned napping into an art form and if it could be a vocation, she’d make it happen. I’d say she no longer hoards stuff but I haven’t been to her apartment in many months. (She comes here)
*At a very early age, she was hanging with our friends, much more mature than her actual years.
*She’s excellent at planning, organizing, getting things done.
*She skillfully shifted her major at SCAD from illustration (can be dicey getting a job), to User Experience (an incredibly in demand vocation regarding making it easier to navigate websites).
*She’s a very good designer.
*Is learning Swedish.
*Was gainfully employed within two months of graduation.
*Has successfully maintained an 8 year relationship, even though five years were long distance.
*She has an interesting mix of Lin’s and my sense of humor.
*She’s a considerate and thoughtful person.
What more could I ask for? Lin and I are both very proud of her.
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