Bart "J.B." Hopkins's Blog, page 37

Presidential Debates

Okay.  This post actually has nothing to do with the debates.  It isn’t that I don’t care; I adore my country.  I love democracy and I’ve already voted.  But, this isn’t a political forum.  This is a Bart forum.

It appears that I have commitment issues with my blog.  It’s been 7 hours and 15 days…since I made my last blog entry…

Random thought: what is this dubstep madness?  Couldn’t we come up with a better name for the latest hip and trendy sounds?  At least GRUNGE sounded tough and against the grain and dirty and your parents won’t like it.

I have been making some headway with Texas Jack, my next book.  Several good writing sessions recently, against all odds and obstacles, have left me pleased with where it’s going.  Cross your fingers and whisper February for me.

Have a good night, world!

I’m Bart Hopkins and I approve of this message.

CDP-101

Where were you on October 1st, 1982?

I was seven years old and in second grade at Parker Elementary School.  The day was Friday – something I celebrated at that age and still celebrate 30 years later.  Some things really don’t change.

It’s easy to visualize Galveston at that time of year.  It’s an island off the coast of Texas with pleasant year-round temperatures (my opinion).  It was probably high 60s in the morning, maybe a little humid.  A nice day on the island.

While I practiced multiplication tables, or tugged on some girl’s ponytail, something amazing was happening.

Sony released the very first CD player that day for about $1K bucks.  The CDP-101 (creative-betcha that stands for Compact Disc Player).  The first CD?  Billy Joel.  It was a revolution (feel free to hum the Beatles).

Of course, I wouldn’t know what a CD was for several years.  I listened to my first one four years later – Invisible Touch by Genesis.  One of my “wealthy” friend’s parents owned a magnificent, modern stereo system and we routinely blared it when they stepped out.  Believe it or not, Genesis was cool back then.  To some of us…still is cool (think nostalgia).

In 1995, just 13 years later, I bought my first CD player.  And, thanks to Columbia House, my first CDs.  They had me at hello.  It was a pretty magnificent day in my life – finding that music-packed cardboard box in my mailbox.  The crystal clear sound and hassle-free track selection…wow!

It took me a little extra time to buy those additional albums at regular club prices, but I eventually did it – man of my word, after all.

Here’s to you Compact Disc – Happy Birthday – you will not be forgotten!  Well, at least not by those of us born in the 1970s.

New Pair of Shoes

My youngest daughter, Jacqueline, frequently idolizes her big sister, Racquel.  If Rocky’s favorite color is green, Jackie’s favorite color becomes green.  She often denies that she is copying her big sister.  It’s just coincidence that they favor all the same things.

And, this adoration–I think this is natural and good–better this way than anger and fighting.  (There is still some of that, too, but not so bad).

Recently my wife had the girls out and they were looking at shoes.  I wasn’t there–so I cannot say for certain what happened–but apparently they both liked the same pair (style) of shoes.  Inside of my brain I imagine that Racquel liked the shoes and, therefore, Jackie did, too.

Unfortunately, the shoes were not available in Jackie’s size, but they were available in Rocky’s size.  To avoid a meltdown, no shoes were purchased that day.

But, we found ourselves in the store again a week later…and we bought the shoes for Rocky.  Jacqueline, to say the least, wasn’t pleased.

She didn’t notice the next day that her sister was wearing those shoes when everyone boarded the bus for school in the morning.  But, on the return ride home, she saw them.  Jackie told her older sister, “You’re wearing those shoes.”.  She then sat down in her seat on the bus and wrote a note to her mom:

The note was delivered after school.  Several hours later I got my first peek at it when I got home from work.

I’ve written about it before–it’s a topic that I frequently think about–little people have big emotions and big memories!

Bad feelings were quickly forgotten and a day or two later Jacqueline was happy for her sister.  I admire the ease with which my youngest daughter ran the gamut of emotions and learned from it.  She cursed the Pisa, but she didn’t curse the shoes or her sister.  I have once again learned about life from my children.

If only we could come to terms and make peace so easily as adults!!

That Was The Day…

Have you ever played the “If I could go back in time I would want to meet so-and-so” game?  Maybe you played the variation where you chose a historical event to see…or  where you assassinate a bad guy and save some people?

When this comes up in conversation, I think about The Beatles.  I would love to go back to when The Beatles were getting really big and see one of their concerts, watch the fans go crazy, and just soak it all up.  I would love to feel the electricity that was in the air.  The British Invasion!

Or, maybe I could be a fly on the wall of the church where John met Paul on July 6, 1957.  There is a placard on the wall of that church (St. Peter’s) with a quote from Lennon: “That was the day, the day that I met Paul, that it started moving.”

I recently traveled to Liverpool and went to St. Peter’s.  Of course, I was 55 years too late.  Still, I was in silent awe, just being there.  The place where these two met…the place where it “started moving.”  Wow.

In my opinion, that day was one of the most important in music history.

You don’t necessarily know when a moment like that is happening.  You don’t find out until later.  Maybe you feel it somewhere inside.  Maybe you don’t.  I feel this way about the book Dave Elliott and I wrote.  By no means would I ever say it’s going to have a Beatles-sized impact on the world.  I’m more than happy – I am ecstatic – if just a few people enjoy it.  But, for me, Fluke is that pivotal moment in my own history, when things began, when it started moving.

September is Tomorrow

My youngest daughter is buoyant today.  Why?  She told me that September is tomorrow.

Hmm.  September would be the month of her birthday.  When you’re going to be seven years old, birthdays are still very exciting.  The promise of a trip to Disney has been given and we’re all pretty excited about that, no matter what the age of the family member.

My first journey to Disney in Orlando was as a 34-year-old adult.  I had a blast.  We had so much fun, we made two more trips down from North Mississippi in the 2 years that followed.

And, so, times are good.  Mickey – we will see you again soon, my friend.  Very soon.  You can use those gigantic hands and fingers to point the way to the It’s A Small World ride and we’ll be appreciative of your help.

Happy September!

Step Lively to the Way Out

We just had an amazing 13-day trip to the United Kingdom!

I found myself frequently thinking about cultural differences.  Not surprising, right?  It’s already a topic I consider often since we are living in Germany.  I would guess it’s at the forefront of any traveler’s mind when they journey to a foreign country.

However, this time the language differences were something I could really sink my teeth into…since we were in a place where I actually spoke the local language.  Or, in theory I do, ha ha.

From the moment we stepped off the plane, we couldn’t always understand the people we shared conversation with.  Just as is true regionally in the U.S.A., there are many variances of British English depending on where you are (or where the speaker is from).  There are the fast talkers and the slow talkers.  There are those that have come from other countries and learned English.  So, it was almost like a foreign language.

The main thing that interested me were the different phrases and nouns that we

encountered.  Here are some of my favorites from the trip.

1) Way Out – The exit is still the exit, but it’s mostly called the “way out” in England.

2) Tube – This is the subway.  People will still acknowledge the word subway, it’s just not as common.

3) Flat – An apartment.

4) Mind the Gap – this means to watch out when you get off the tube…sometimes there is a gap between the train and platform.

5) Queue Up – Form a line!  The English are really quite excellent at queueing

up, which I sincerely appreciate.

6) Take Away – Food which you are taking with you, to go.

7) Loo – Restroom

It doesn’t take a writer to notice and appreciate the contrast of how language is used.  It’s one of those things that makes life interesting and kills the tedium which would exist if we were all the same.  God save the Queen!

 

Arm Pigs

Several years ago, my youngest daughter used to occasionally confuse individual words in common terms and phrases.  Two of my favorite examples: 1) lightning strikes, which she called lighting sharks, and 2) arm pits, which she called arm pigs.  Whenever the weather was dreadful, and there were lots of lighting sharks outside, we stayed inside and I tickled my daughter’s arm pigs.

I always attributed this, in part, to her vivid imagination.

Yesterday, this same daughter said, “Dad, you’re going to be 37 next month.”

She’s still our baby, yet has matured so much.  She makes astute observations that seem beyond a six-year-old in my opinion.  I nodded my head: “Yes, I am.”

“That’s pretty old.”

I looked at her with some amusement and thought about the 30 years that separated us.  The great divide.  While I could probably, and accurately, be described now as middle-aged, I could also concede that from her perspective, I was probably pretty old.  ”I guess it is old.”

She nodded her head matter-of-factly and turned her attention to something else for a moment.  She then turned back to me and said, “I’m surprised your hair isn’t white.”

I laughed a little bit.  My oldest daughter, who was at the table with us, then passed along some pre-teen wisdom: “That doesn’t usually happen until they are in their mid 40′s.”  I think they meant old people.  Like me.

They continued on a different conversation at that point, their old father forgotten momentarily.  I listened to them for a little bit.  Man…maybe 37 really is old.

Nah…it’s just right.

 

The Loaner

My wife dropped our vehicle off at the dealership today.  They loaned us a car to use.  Well, more like half a car.

The Loaner is a Mini.

I don’t dislike them; I don’t love them.  My feelings are somewhere in between love and hate.  Somewhere in that large swath of gray is where I stand.  But, I certainly never imagined I would be driving one.

There was that Mark Wahlberg movie a while back, The Italian Job, that had some Minis zipping around in a chase scene.  While that didn’t rev me up and send me to the Mini dealer, it helped me identify the appeal or attraction for other people.  They looked agile, peppy, and versatile.  I’ll give Mini some credit for their branding in that movie – excellent work.  It would have only been better if they placed a copy of Fluke on the dashboard in every Mini in the movie.

During my lunch break I stopped by the Ramstein post office to check my mail.  A large truck pulled in next to me.  A massive, muscular guy got down from the truck and glanced over at me in my Mini.  He was so big that his muscles had muscles.  He appeared intimidated and scurried away quickly.  I knew it was the Mini.

Okay…not really.  Muscles looked amused.  Or, maybe that was my imagination.  He definitely was not intimidated.  He probably could have picked up the Mini and put it in the bed of his truck.

And so ends my mini experience with the Mini.

 

 

Human Remote Control

I used to be my parents’ remote control.

They would tell me what channel they wanted; I stood by the television and made it happen.  The first television I can remember was probably a 19″ model with two large dials on the front.  The main knob was on top and had 12 channels, 2-13. It turned with a bass thunk-thunk-thunk.

The other knob was directly below the first. It was the same size, however, it controlled a much larger number of available channels – the UHF spectrum. The feel and sound was higher pitched when you turned it (jink-jink-jink) due to the the smaller cog required to stop at so many channels. That cog, of course, being behind the scenes, under the plastic knob.

Oddly, there weren’t as many active UHF channels even with the greater potential for it.  There were fewer stations that focused on news, which appealed to me as a tike.  Combined, both dials may have yielded 8-10 stations.

Volume adjustments were my responsibility, as well.  And, power – never forget power.  So, even though we didn’t watch TV excessively, I always had job security.

Or, I thought I did.

I went over a friend’s house one day and discovered something amazing.  They had a television with a remote control.  It was wired, but completely blew my mind.  The channel could be changed from across the room with minimal movement.

It was a technological feat of the highest order, of the largest magnitude.  Waistlines everywhere got bigger simultaneously as we relaxed in our recliners sipping soda.

What amuses me most now is that I’ll spend 10 minutes walking around my living room searching for the remote control.  All the while, though I am skilled in the forgotten art of changing channels manually, I rarely think about simply walking over to the television set (now a big flat screen job) and just tapping on the buttons…

 

I curse the Pisa

Yesterday, my six-year-old daughter randomly told my wife and I, “I curse the Pisa.”  She said it in a very conversational tone.

I crinkled my eyebrows and looked at her and asked, “What, honey?  What did you say?”

She repeated herself.  “Dad, I said I curse the Pisa.”

I asked her why, and when she explained, it made perfect sense.

We took a trip to Italy earlier this year.  (Again, taking advantage of the Air Force plopping me down over here in Europe.)  We visited Rome, Florence, and then Pisa before flying RyanAir back home.  In Pisa, we were pretty excited about seeing the Leaning Tower!  Yep, we are touristy tourists – big time – and this is about as good as it gets for our lot.  So, we snapped off photos “holding up” the leaning tower; we got shots “leaning” against the tower; and, we snapped off pictures jumping in front of it.  We even spelled out Pisa with our bodies with the tower behind us.

Finally, after our photo extravaganza, we were ready to climb to the top.  We walked to the building nearby where you buy tickets.  That’s where we learned that you had to be 8 years of age to go to the top.  My son was 8, my other daughter was 10 at the time.  This made my baby the odd person out on our Tower of Pisa adventure.

Well, we bought four tickets after some deliberation.  It wasn’t an easy decision.  My son and I went up and when we came back down, I could see that the baby in the family had been crying.  It crushed my heart.  Some things in life aren’t fair and it just made me ache for her.  My wife and oldest daughter took their turn next in the tower; I tried to console my little one.  She wasn’t really having it.  She calmed down, but you could tell she was sad.  And, rightly so, in my opinion.  She deserved to participate as much as anyone.

Small in stature doesn’t mean small in feelings (or memory).  I picked up my baby just now and gave her a good hugging and squeezing.  She doesn’t know it’s because I am thinking about our conversation from yesterday and Pisa.

But, that brings me full circle to my daughter cursing the Pisa.  For her, for that moment in time when things treated her unfairly and the world wasn’t quite right, I curse the Pisa, too.