Elgon Williams's Blog, page 17

My Thoughts On Microsoft Windows 10

Over the past couple of months I’ve played with the Technical Preview of both Windows 10 Pro for PC and Windows 10 for phones. I used the operating systems daily for a while and put them through the acid test of practical use. Of course there were bugs and things that just didn’t work properly. The versions were beta software and therefore not fully developed. But I have to say I liked the direction operating systems are headed and found them amazingly stable for the most part.

Having said all that, I am reverting back to Windows 8.1, at least for the near term. Microsoft just announced the official release for Windows 10, due out on July 29. Those who are running Windows 7 SP1 and Windows 8.1 can reserve a copy for download and install the moment the new OS is released. To avoid the huge bandwidth traffic jam that might be expected, Microsoft will actually be downloading the new OS onto the machines of those who had reserved copies. The file is around 3GB in size and you will have the option of not installing it. However, the necessary upgrade files will be stored on your computer in advance of the release. If you opt to install the files your computer will be upgraded immediately. Having installed the betas of the software, I will say the process is about as smooth and effortless as anything I’ve ever experienced from any software manufacturer. It really is designed to allow you to sit back and relax during the process.

I have used Windows 8.1 on my phone for quite a while but I really hadn’t worked with the OS on a PC until I purchased a Surface Pro 3 back in April. Although I had a few days of asking my son (who has more experience using the software) how to do this and that, the learning curve was brief. And, like most MS products, if you don’t know how to do something with the new OS there is a way to accomplish it the old way, once you figure out where it is hidden and how to access it. Backward compatibility is important for businesses and that is a large part of the reason for Windows being the ubiquitous OS that it is for professionals.

As someone who had used various flavors of Linux, every version of Windows from 3.1 to Vista and Apple Mac OS from 9.4 to OS X 10.10 Yosemite I think I can speak to user experience and intuitiveness. Linux in all is variations is not for the newbie. Hands down Mac OS has been always the most user friendly especially for a beginner (yes, there still are some of those left in the personal computer world). I’ve personally taught novices how to use the OS in less than ten minutes. My youngest daughter used Windows 98 and XP for years and never really mastered it beyond rudimentary functionality but she learned Mac OS X to a high functional level in about a half day. My oldest sister used Windows 98 and Windows XP for years as well and uses a Windows based machine at work. About a year or so ago she switched to Mac OS X and has been using her new computer more often doing things on it she never learned to do with Windows.

Microsoft attempted to close the gap of usability with the much maligned Windows 8 Metro tiles. For a novice using a touch screen computer it is easier to learn. However, for someone who had used previous versions of Windows the experience of adapting was frustrating, especially if the user had never used a Windows Phone or was running Windows 8 on a machine not equipped with a touch screen. It was a little like playing Where’s Waldo when trying to figure out where the software developers had hid things like Control Panel and the desktop. Windows 8.1 addressed some of those issues, though not all.

Personally I like Windows 8.1. But then, I use a Windows Phone. My entire experience with Windows 8.1 for PC has been on a MS Surface Pro 3 which is designed specifically for that software. In fact, after upgrading to the technical preview for Windows 10 I missed some of the Tablet Mode features of 8.1 that have been removed. The Beta version of Window 10 has a good deal more flexibility and ease of use in switching back and forth between tablet and desktop modes and I found that I was using desktop mode a lot more often with Windows 10 than Windows 8.1, perhaps because it is simple to toggle. However, the version of Windows 10 I was using (Build 10074) had a nasty tendency to crash Tablet Mode when it first booted up, leaving a black screen. The work around was to CRTL+ALT+DEL to Sign Off and then Sign In and by then everything would work. My speculation is that the instability was related to a new feature that allows a transparency overlay for the background when in Tablet Mode.

There were other big issues with Window 10 Preview. One was the incomplete implementation of Outlook for email that prevented me from accessing a POP3 account I use regularly. Another was the OS’s tendency to keep wanting me to renew my Windows Credential. I could not turn that feature off for whatever reason though it is used mainly in Enterprise Editions.  Annoyance level 4/10.

Another issue I had was a random Out Of Memory alert that would pop up that did not seem to be telling me anything at all about the functioning of my computer – i.e., there was nothing halted, crashed or running slow at the time and it even happened when I wasn’t doing anything at all on the computer.

The last thing I found vexing was that an internet based text entry box on Word Press that I use a few times each week runs extremely slow. And I’m talking about it being like entering text on Window 3.0 running on a i386 machine, as in I’d type ahead and the computer would catch up to me eventually. That was the deal breaker that decided me to revert back to 8.1. I’m sure this issue is related to memory management and it may have something to do with the reason for the random Out Of Memory alert. The same problem occurred, by the way, with MS Word if the document was more than 100 pages – like a manuscript.

#Microsoft #Windows #Windows10 #Windows Phone #MacOsX #Linux

Update On Customer Dissatisfaction – (See Previous Blog Post)

Early this morning I received an email asking for me to provide feedback about my customer experience in the Microsoft Store yesterday evening (5/28/15). I was brutally honest. My experience started out well. Everyone was polite as I said in my previous blog post. However, I left dissatisfied because I’d been lied to – whether the Store created the problem or not they did not back up what a Microsoft Tech Support person had told me.

The Store Manager called me later in the morning. I explained everything to him and he offered to replace my Surface Pro 3 from the store inventory. I am having it shipped back to me so that I don’t have to get a ride to the store again (and risk having the same thing happen as before). So the Manager is doing the right thing, what should have been done last night – except why does it take the big boss to solve a problem?

In my previous Blog post on this subject I mentioned my 30 years of customer service experience and that I have trained employees on how to handle customer problems. I have also dealt with my share of situations requiring a manger’s judgment call. There have been times when I did something for a customer that required a bit of explaining. But always, if I did the right thing for the customer, even if what I did was not specifically what my supervisor would have done it was handled as an opportunity to discuss what to do next time it happens, not a cause for punishment. Perhaps I’ve been lucky working for enlightened managers and companies that believe in putting the customer ahead of policy, but i kind of think that any successful organization will have people in positions of authority who believe the job of manager is to do everything in his or her power to ay yes to a customer.

For future reference or whatever, here are some basic truths I’ve learned over the years for dealing with customers.

1. Never lie to a customer. If you don’t know, say you don’t know. Be honest. Nothing pisses off a customer worse than being jerked around – being told one thing and then being told something different. (This was clearly what happened with Microsoft).

2. Be the hero. Take care of the customer at the lowest possible level of authority in the organization. Empower front line employees to make decisions with customer satisfaction in mind.

3. Never argue with a customer and don’t ever cite store policy as an excuse for poor customer service. If a policy gets in the way of taking care of a customer then the policy needs to be modified. If that takes a management decision, then so be it. Get the approval. Be the advocate for the customer, plead their case.

4. Customers probably are not always right but that is irrelevant. No one who has worked retail for more than a few days honestly believes customers are always right but they sure as hell think they are. Knowing that, and that customer will usually win every pissing match if they plead their case high enough up the food chain, why bother creating an artificial barrier that impedes customer satisfaction.

5. A dissatisfied customer will always tell everyone they know about their bad experience. Unfortunately, very few people hear about the good things that happen in a store. Stores spend millions of dollars advertising to gain a customer’s attention. It only take one bad experience and the ensuing word of mouth to sour ten or more potential customers from ever shopping in a store – because we tend to believe people we now before we believe the hype in advertising.

6. Listen to the customer. Most of the time customers have reasonable expectations. You don’t need to give away the farm. Ask the customer what will satisfy them. (I’m not sure why Microsoft couldn’t have just given me a DVD with the image on it to correct my problem, but apparently that is a huge no-no. That would have saved a whole lot of trouble).

7. Customers expect to be the focus – the center of attention. Treat each one as if they are the only customer in the store because if you don’t soon enough you will have only one customer to take care or – if you are lucky enough still have one.

8. Don’t believe your own bullshit about how great your customer service focus is. As soon as you stop trying to improve the customer experience you will start ignoring what customers want.

9. Actively seek customer feedback.  Otherwise you will never know about the problems that were never called to your attention. Don’t be defensive. Respond to customer criticisms as opportunities to learn. Pay attention to what the customer is telling you about his or her experience.

10. Never let a customer walk away unhappy. There is an old saying about marriage that you should never go to sleep angry with your spouse. Consider a customer relationship as similar. If you allow a customer the time to analyze why they were treated unfairly they will build a very good and reasonable case for why somebody needs to be disciplined. (The first thing the Store Manager asked me was who the employee was who didn’t take care of me. Having been on the receiving end often enough, I really didn’t want that to happen but the employee probably needs a re-orientation on customer cultivation discussion or at least how to handle the situation next time).

For the record, I feel much better about Microsoft now. Some of my faith in their customer support has been restored. So the Store Manager did what he needed to do, getting me back in the mindset that if I have a problem they are going to take care of it.

#MicrosoftStore #MicrosoftTechSupport #CustomerSatisfaction #CustomerDissatisfaction #MicrosoftSurfacePro3

Customer Dissatisfaction – or – Wrestling An 800 Pound Gorilla Named Microsoft

Let me tell you a story, but first allow me qualify things and set the stage so you better understand. I have worked in retail as either a manager, sales association, customer service associate or retail vendor support representative for more than thirty years. Also I was a computer technician from 1997 to 2007.  Between 200 and 2007 I worked as the manager overseeing a technical repair shop.

Over the years I have trained others and lead discussions about customer satisfaction. I may not know everything but I have a level of expertise. Also I do not believe the customer is always right but understand that my opinion on that matter as a retailer is immaterial because the customer usually if not almost always believe he or she is always right.

Now then, with all that out of the way, let’s begin. About a month ago I purchased a Microsoft Surface Pro 3 I5 256GB from Amazon. It came with Windows 8.1 installed. My overall experience with the product has been favorable and until yesterday I did not believe there was anything physically wrong with the device. My problem came about from upgrading it to a Beta version of Windows 10. That installation works, albeit with some expected glitches.

The past few days the computers has begun to randomly tell me my computer is “Out of Memory”.  In Microsoft jargon that usually has something to do with how memory is allocated by the OS not anything to do with the physically installed memory, which in this case is 8 GB. Also the computer has a problem whenever it boots up in Tablet Mode. The Tablet View appears to crash immediately leaving only a black screen. Since I have a mouse there is a cursor that still moves about when as I move the physical mouse on a mouse pad. As long as the cursor moves the OS hasn’t crashed . It is just some application or overlay that uses the OS that is to blame. In this case it is a new feature in Windows 10 that gives a transparent mask over the background screen that is color coordinated with the desktop theme.(When it works it is pretty cool.) After  I give the computer the tradition “Three Finger Salute” by pressing CTRL+ALT+DEL I am able to click on Sign Out and then log back on. After that everything works. It is an annoyance more so than a problem.

The combination of the two issues I have with Windows 10 Technical Preview caused me to desire returning the computer to Windows 8.1. When I installed Windows 10 I followed the instruction to a “T” when it came to backing up stuff. I created a USB Recovery Drive. So I didn’t think I’d have a problem reverting to Windows 8.1, but I did. The computer tells me I no longer have a recovery image even though I purposely left the image alone when I created the USB Recovery Drive. The system has the option of deleting it to free up space, but I have enough room in my SSD storage drive. When I tried to use the USB Drive the computer tells me the Recovery image is missing.

So, I think – no big deal. There has to be a way to download the image from Microsoft, right? I couldn’t find the image so I logged into Tech Support. I go through the same process with the online tech and we reach the conclusion there is something corrupted. He tells me they will replace the Surface Pro 3. However that’s going to take a few days. I can either give them a credit card for expedited exchange or they can send me the return authorization and once they receive my Surface Pro 3, they can ship me a replacement. I really didn’t to replace my device. All I wanted was a new drive image. And I didn’t want to be without my computer for a week or maybe 3. So I asked if I could do the exchange at the Microsoft Store – there are two in Orlando but both are a bit of a haul from where I live and certainly now within bike riding distance. When I asked the support tech if the in store exchange was possible he assured me it was and said he’d ensure they had a model like mine in stock to exchange and would schedule an appointment for me. I sent my son a text message to ensure he could drive me there and made an appointment for 8PM last night.

Based on what tech support told me I expected to go into the store, maybe have to explain my problem to them and perhaps have them check to see that the computer wasn’t otherwise damaged. Bottom line was I would end up with a different computer (likely refurbished) when I left the store. I did not expect wrestling with the 800 pound gorilla named Microsoft.

I was greeted when I entered. As Tech Support told me to tell them my name and that I had an appointment (for which I was early, by the way) I thought it would be a ten or fifteen minute consultation at most. I sat down at the service desk to wait for maybe three or four minutes before a service tech appeared and offered assistance. I really can’t complain about anything up to that moment. It was what happened next that floored me. He asked what I needed. I told him Tech Support made an appointment for me to exchange my Surface Pro 3. He asked what problem I was having, which I expected. I explained. He informed me that my warranty was voided when I installed Windows 10 because it was a beta and that they could not replace my Surface Pro 3 and that if I wanted they could apply the image to my device for me but they would need to check it in and keep it for a few days. When I informed him that was not an option because I don’t have a car and had to have someone drive me there he reiterated that was all he could do.

It was immaterial what Tech Support told me or that they offered to ship me a replacement. He asked me if I had purchased the Surface Pro 3 from the Microsoft Store  as if that mattered somehow. I replied I bought it through Amazon. I told him I was completely dissatisfied. I expected to come there maybe have them check out the Surface Pro 3 I had with me and then exchange it. He said even if that were to happen there would be a $200 charge.

What infuriates me about this whole affair isn’t about a exchanging a defective device. All I wanted in the first place was a recovery image or something to fix my problem. The first rule of customer service is to never lie to a customer. Microsoft Tech Support created an expectation that could not be fulfilled at the Microsoft Store. As a customer I feel they lied to me and in the process I was inconvenienced. To add insult to injury, after I expressed my dissatisfaction they asked if they could get me anything, like a bottle of water – as if that would cool me down. I’d been in the store for maybe twelve minutes at this point. I might have actually accepted the water when I first arrived.

#Microsoft #MicrosoftStore #MicrosoftTechSupport #MicrosoftSurfacePro3 #Windows10TechnicalPreview #Windows8dot1 #CustomerService #CustomerSatisfaction #CustomerDissatisfaction #PoorService #Amazon #USBRecoveryDrive #Warranty

Origin of Pandaman

The other day someone, a stranger, referred to me as Pandaman. I was amused and actually flattered. I’ve always liked pandas. But the reason for calling me Pandaman was more interesting. It seems there is a little girl somewhere in cyberland who wakes up daily and wants her mommy to show her the pandas. And so, the lady logs onto her Facebook account and hopes that I have posted my daily panda pictures. Now that I have a fan I also have an obligation to continue my posts.

It’s funny in a way that a little girl refers to me as the Pandaman though it certainly fits into the grand scheme, I suppose. I have been posting pictures of cute pandas now for well over a year. The reason I began was to gain some attention to my FB account. And my oldest sister, who also loves pandas, sort of suggested I do it.

I started posting a daily picture. Then, after a couple of weeks, I began posting multiple pictures of certain days of the. A few months passed and I started posting daily multiple pictures, first five and now six. I’ve been doing the six picture thing now for several months.

I’m not sure how many people actually see the pictures. There’s no simple way of appraising that with FB’s weird and warped algorithms that throttle one'[s ability to send anything out to everyone – even those who are listed as friends. I post the pictures on FB to my main account which is under the user name “elgone” and to my Google + account which is under my real name. I guess that somewhere between a few dozen to maybe as many as a couple of hundred people see them on a daily basis. But knowing there is a little girl anxiously waiting to see my daily post seems to matter more to me than anything else.

Most of you know I write professionally. My publisher is Pandamoon Publishing, so there is the panda connection if you were seeking one, though in truth one of the reasons I submitted a book, Fried Windows, to Pandamoon in the first place was that I like wore to a Jim Gaffigan concert and had the comedian autograph. In his routine he did a joke about pandas. Anyway, in the world of being and only Elgon, all of that fits together into a neat ball that I’ve adorned with a nice bow. That’s how I became Pandaman, I guess – at least in the eyes of a little girl somewhere.

#Pandas #Pandaman #PandamoonPublishing #FriedWindows

The Way

Originally posted on The Wolfcat Chronicles:

About a month ago I attended a book festival here in Orlando. One of my friends, Steph Post, was a panelist in a discussion on Crime and Mystery writing. Although those aren’t in my usual wheelhouse there is always something to be learned from any author’s experience. Anyway, I believe that for a book to be successful in the modern marketing climate it must have elements of nearly every genre. For example, one of the hottest subgenres in sci-fi right now is Romance.

Following the panel discussion, as I was gathering my stuff together to follow Steph to her scheduled book signing in another building, a guy who had been seated at my table approached me. His first question was, “Do you write?”

“Of course.”

“Me too,” he said. “You know, overtime I come to one of these things I never hear what I want to hear.”

“And that is…

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Update On Just About Everything

Greetings from (mostly) sunny Florida. Lately it’s been hot here. Yes, it’s Florida and all that but it seems unseasonably early to be hitting the low 90’s. It’s especially hard when I commute to or from work in the afternoon. On the bright side I’m losing a little weight in the process. And I’ve been working on my sunburn. – I don’t really tan. (Yes, I am that white.)

I’ve been working nearly full time hours, which is a good thing. I’m able to save a little money. The down side of that is that I don’t have time to spend writing. I worked oink a short story this morning, one that will appear in an anthology my publisher is putting together. It’s about 5000 words now but I doesn’t feel completed yet. It may balloon into a short novella. We’ll see. It’s not my usual fare as writing goes. I’m having some fun with it.

I’ve been spending more time using the Surface Pro I recently bought. This is the first blog post I have done with it. I’m trying get comfortable with the keyboard on the cover. It’s a lot like a laptop’s and I’ve never really liked those. But it is highly portable. I’ve been able to throw it in my backpack and haul it to work where I can use it on my breaks and before I clock in. Yesterday I wrote a review during my lunch hour. So, the reason for getting it has been just justified.

I’m still getting used to Window 8.1. Remember I have a Windows Phone so the learning curve was not quite as steep. Also, I used Windows PC’s up to an including Windows Vista. That disaster of an operating system drove me to use Linux for a couple of years and eventually compelled me to buy my first Mac. I never officially used Windows 7 on a PC, although I have played with a couple of computers that had that OS. Anyway, there are many things I like about Windows 8.1. From what I know about Windows 10, I’m not going to like all echo hangers because a couple of the features I use with Windows 8.1 are going away.

As for hardware, I think the Surface Pro 3 is the best touch screen computer available. I did a lot of shopping around and it was the only machine I played with that didn’t feel cheap and flimsy. Maybe I should have waited until the Surface Pro 4 comes out later this year but I got a  pretty good deal on a slightly used Pro 3 with 256GB SSD. It also came a year’s subscription for Office 365 and a 64GB micro SD. Oh, and there is the stylus pen.

For the record I still prefer Mac OS to Windows. But the touch screen is pretty cool and though haven’t used the pen all that much it is a nice feature intend to play with.

My birthday came and went without incident. I received a lot of well wishes from online friends and a card or two via snail mail. I don’t feel 59, and that’s a good thing. I have a lot of books that need to be published and promoted. Two new ones for later this year?

#update #Windows8.1 #Windows10 #MacOS #SurfacePro3 #Microsoft #Office365

Beating The System: Some Thoughts on Tom Brady and Deflategate

Winning at all costs appears to be the mantra these days. Why is that? Everyone looks for an angle, getting the edge or an advantage. Whatever happened to integrity, good sportsmanship, or, simply, playing by the rules. Well, we have been inundated with examples of how the ends justify the means and somehow cheating is okay. Even if you get caught you either deny everything or have your spin doctors make light of it.

This blog is not solely about Tom Brady or “Deflategate”. I’m not really sure how serious deflated footballs become in a championship. It still seems a great deal depends on execution of plays necessary for the win. But the question will always remain: how much did the deflated balls influence the outcome of the game? Would the Patriots be the champions had none of this happened? Who knows? The incident the NFL was investigating happened before the Superbowl in the divisional Championships against the Colts. It seems a lot more would have had to happen for the Patriots to have lost the Superbowl. They nearly did that on their own and how it not been for the Seahawks blowing their chance…well, they would have had to run the ball on the final play of the Superbowl but lets not revisit that.

It’s somewhat fitting that every scandal since Watergate has borrowed the “gate” ending. Maybe that’s where all this rampant cheating to win started – though I doubt it. You see, cheating is as old as people. It’s just that in the annals of stupidity there is hardly anything that rises to the example of a President, almost assured of a victory in his reelection bid, trying to gain an unfair advantage over the opposition. Yes, that was all that Watergate was truly about. Afterwards the denials and coverup were the real reason a President had to resign.

What should be the punishment for Tom Brady? A fine, suspension, a lost draft pick for the team? Ya, know, it probably depends on who you ask and what is their favorite team. Still, it puts into question the integrity of the sport of football an the NFL. It affects the image of the league. That’s kind of serious. I mean – how do we as fans know whether the fix is in on games? What sorts of things go on that have not been uncovered? That’s the true crime, here. The lost innocent belief that there was ever a level playing field. It calls to question whether it is a team using their raw talent and considerable practice at honing skills that wins games.

In America we have reared a generation or two of cheaters. That’s what it looks like. And this is the end result. Winning at all costs no matter how it is done is all that matters in the modern world. No one seems to mind the tarnish on the awards or the asterisk mark next to a entry in the record books. Everything is okay as long as you don’t get caught, right? Fortunes are made and game are won by outsmarting the competition, finding the advantage and seizing the opportunities. There is considerable grayness when it comes to whether something is really cheating.

I guess that in the end it comes down to how much one’s personal integrity matters. If your conscience is fine with the way you won something, then that makes it all right. As long as you can sleep at night. Maybe I’m the dinosaur here. I still believe that rules matter and playing fair is how we should conduct our business whether it is sports or business. It was how I was raised. Then again, I had a pretty sheltered childhood where what is right and what is wrong was pretty clearly defined. I can thank my parents for the lack of ambiguity in how I see things.

By the time the Superbowl comes around next year, all of this will be forgotten unless, perhaps, Tom Brady has returned to the playoffs. Then I suppose the question about Tom’s balls maybe asked again. He has some to claim he is innocent of wrong doing, at least in my book. It taints everything else that he has done with his talent and through hard work.

#TomBrady #Deflategate #Football #NFL #Patriots #Seahawks #Colts #Cheating

Hidden Dangers of Texting While Driving

There are streets in my neighborhood that have bike lanes present, which is kind of nice when you commute everywhere by bike, as I do. I’m told that if a bike lane exists bikers must use them as opposed to the sidewalk. Most of my commute is done on a sidewalk because a the road that leads to where I work doesn’t have a bike lane. Despite what good shape I am in after riding a bike everywhere I go for over a year I can’t sustain enough speed over 4.5 miles to use the actual street. The way people drive not hat road, I’d get killed for sure.

That is not to say that the sidewalk is completely safe either. You see, driver do not expect bikes to be crossing the side streets’ cross walks. I’ve actually been hit in a cross walk. Thank God it was more of a bump than anything else, but it did damage my bike and gave me a bruise. Here’s the math on that: 2500# car vs 10# bike + 230# rider = injured bike rider. Drivers don’t pay attention to motorcyclists, let along bicyclists. Anyway, I’m the one who watches out and so far I have avoiding being run down though there have been well over a dozen close calls.

The point of this blog is a hidden danger, though. You see, I’m aware of the cross walk danger and I am paying close attention to vehicles coming and going around intersections. What I cannot force is a distracted driver swerving into the bike lane from behind me – which happened the other day and resulted in a close call. The cause? Well, the lady had a smartphone in her hand and I assume she had been texting. Then, about five minutes later, I’m at a cross walk waiting for the light to change so I can proceed safely through a busy intersection. There was a duffus sitting there texting away while the light was red . It changed while he was still texting and the guys behind him honked to alert him. Having just experiencing what I did earlier with a car I wondered to myself what if he was texting and didn’t notice the light was red I was crossing with he light in the cross walk?

I have a lot of issues with people and their cell phones. Yes, I have a smart phone too. I use it on occasion, when absolutely necessary. But I refrain from using it whenever I should be paying attention to something else. I don’t know how I could use it while riding a bike although I have seen people riding along with a cell phone in one hand. Really!

What is so damned important that the text message you just received can’t wait? Do you need to answer every friggin’ message immediately? More to the point, is it worth risking your life or someone else?

There have been several studies done that indicate text messaging while driving is by far more dangerous than driving under the influence. The reason school be clear. Even a drunk is paying attention to the road and trying to keep the car between the white lines. I’d be inclined to say let fools kill themselves with their ignorance except there is potential for innocent lives to be lost int he process – other drivers, pedestrians and bikers. Yet, despite laws against texting while driving it still goes on.

I know the laws are difficult to enforce. But perhaps the penalty for being caught doing it should be elevated to make the risk of it a stronger deterrent. You see, drunk drivers can lose their licenses or go to jail. Texting while driving will get you a stiff fine.

I’m gong to sound like an old man here, and since I am turning 59 tomorrow, maybe that’s fitting. But back in the day when people didn’t have a phone with them at all times we had to leave messages on answering machines. The world didn’t end just because the caller had to wait for an hour or two to get a response. Again, I ask: what is so damned important that every message needs an immediate response?

#texting #biking #driving  #TextingWhileDriving

Making Believe

If there is a secret to writing fiction, a difference that distinguishes a professional from an aspiring amateur, it is the art of making believe. In many ways it is akin to all the pretending and playing we did as children. You remember, everything was possible and every day was a new adventure, wasn’t it? The majority of people lose that gift for creative fantasy but writers don’t. Or, at least, writers can find a way back to the childlike mindset.

Now, having that ability to fabricate something from nothing doesn’t mean the process is childish. Certainly there will be those around you, the ones who consider themselves practical, who will tell you that you’re wasting your time or daydreaming on paper perhaps. But for those of us who write stories and novels it is a process that grows and develops over time. Eventually you reach a point that it is nearly impossible to turn it off or disconnect from the creative flow – then again, who would you want to, right?

There are times when being creative isn’t an asset. I’ve worked in business for most of my adult life. there have been times when my creative mind waged war on the part of me that paid the bills. It wasn’t pretty for others to watch and it was painful to experience. You see – if you want to write professionally there is a point of balance you much reach with your other life, the part that shows up on time for appointments, makes it to work at a day job when scheduled and ensures that the money to pay bills reaches the appropriate parties in time. You must figure out how to control the creativity to a certain extent. Otherwise the line between reality and fantasy becomes blurred.

I’ve found setting a schedule and observing a daily routine works best. There are times that my appointed times to write conflict with other responsibilities but usually I can get up early in the morning a knock out a few thousand words. It is quietest then and, other than the dog wanted some attention, there are no interruptions or intrusions from the outside world. I can enter the zone and be creative, channeling the flow directly onto a virtual page in my computer.

To write fiction effectively I’ve found it is almost necessary to disengage from the real world for whatever duration necessary to tell a story or part of a story to oneself. If your story is ever going to engage the reader enough to offer and escape from their own reality you must make the fiction believable, regardless of how farfetched the tale you are spinning. That is the art to writing fiction: making believe or more aptly making believers out of skeptical readers. The first step in that direction be selling yourself on an idea and building a world around it into which you can enter and, for whatever time you need to write the tale, jot down every important detail of what your imagination has conjured within your mind.

Writing creatively is as addictive any drug but it can be mentally exhausting. I suppose in some instances it has been painful as well. I believe there are many people who have a creative impulse but substitute substances in lieu of being creative out of avoidance. It is easier to engage the imagination while under the influence. However, it is difficult if not impossible to sustain an artificially induced creative episode long enough to write a story. However, a glass wine or a couple of beers can take the edge off, I suppose, allowing the mind to slip into a relaxed state that is more conducive to facilitating the creative flow. The problem with substances is that abuse comes easily and ingesting or imbibing more doesn’t lead to better products. It is difficult to capture in words what one experiences and almost impossible to fully recall. However, if you expend the effort to regularly engage your creative mind you will need no chemicals to make the magic inside of you happen. Making believe will come to you are regularly as you desire if you are willing to invest the effort and time necessary to train your unruly mind to work for you.

#Writing #Creativity #WritingProfessionally #MakeBelieve #FictionWriting

An Ethical Man’s Family

Note: The following is something I wrote a few years ago as a tribute to my father. It is accurate to the best of my knowledge, though I suspect when and if my sisters read it they will tell me things that need to be corrected – especially the stuff that happened before I was born or too little to know much about. I am publishing it here as a memorial to my father who passed about fifteen years ago around this time of year.

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Bruce Williams, my father,  was born in April 1914 near West Liberty, Kentucky. He was an honest, decent man who was raised on a farm. All he knew was farming. So, it was natural that it would become his life’s work.

When he was starting out, he worked for the government in a federally funded recovery program called the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). Dad worked on reservoirs in the Tennessee River valley and helped construct roads throughout Appalachia. He saved his money and, after two years in the CCC, he returned home and married Alta Ferguson, my mother, in the early spring of 1935.

Jobs were scarce in Morgan County, Kentucky, where my parents grew up. Bruce heard there were better opportunities in Ohio. So, in late summer, he left my pregnant mother behind with a promise he’d send for her when he saved enough money.

He found a job as a laborer in a feed and grain store that serviced farmers in west central Ohio. The last throes of the Great Depression still stifled a good portion of the economy. He worked all week for enough money to buy denim overalls to wear at work. He saved every cent he could spare. Mr. Ballenhoffer, who owned one of the largest farms in the area, offered Bruce a small place to live. It was actually an old chicken coop that my dad cleaned out to make ready for bringing his wife from Kentucky to live with him.

My brother, Barris, was born on May 4, 1936. Shortly afterwards, Bruce brought Alta and the baby to Ohio.

Despite his responsibilities as a new father, one day he had an argument with his supervisor. He never told me exactly what the argument was about, only that it was a matter of principle and ethics. So, I’m sure it was something he considered wrong. My dad hated no one except for liars and cheats and would never compromise his beliefs for any reason. I’m sure his personal integrity was challenged. What he did tell me was that being right does not always matter in an argument. When his supervisor threatened to fire him, Bruce quit.

The same day, Mr. Ballenhoffer hired him as a farmhand. Maybe they didn’t need another hired hand, but Mr. Ballenhoffer knew Dad from the feed and grain store. He witnessed first-hand how hard Bruce worked.

It was a struggle for my parents to survive their living conditions in those first years of marriage. To keep out the cold winds of winter, Alta had to chink rags into the cracks between the clapboards of the chicken coop that was their first home. She blamed those harsh conditions for why my brother Barris was sickly as a young child.

In time, Bruce was offered a sharecropping position on a farm near South Charleston. As part of the deal, my folks could live in the property’s farmhouse. During that time, Dad suffered a severe injury. While attempting to straighten a nail to be reused in repairing a loose board, the nail snapped in two, and one piece flew up into my father’s face, putting out his right eye.

Bruce’s position as a farmer was considered critical and exempted him from being drafted into military service. Although Dad was patriotic and wanted to serve, he was not allowed to volunteer. His eye injury prevented him from going to war. Perhaps the reason my sisters and I were born was that he lost his right eye in an accident – if you want to believe in accidents.

In 1945, a few weeks before his birthday and the end of the war in Europe, my brother Barris, died. He succumbed to seizures that my mother called Epilepsy, though they could not afford proper medical treatment and so the illness was never diagnosed. He was buried in Kentucky, at the Cold Iron Cemetery, near where my parents were born.

Bruce and Alta were devastated as they grieved the loss of their firstborn child. Parents are not supposed to outlive their children. It was several months before the emptiness in their life seemed bearable. It was over a year before my mother and father attempted to replace him.

During that time, Bruce was offered a job managing the farm where he had once worked as a hired hand. It was considerably more money and so he decided to take the position. Still, my father left on good terms with the Wildman’s, whose farm he had been operating for several years. He helped them find someone to replace him.

Joyce, my oldest sister, was born on February 7, 1947. She was not the son Bruce wished to replace his loss, but he doted on her all the same. My family’s living conditions were dramatically improved from when my parents last lived on the Ballenhoffer farm. They were allowed a farmhouse as part of the compensation, and land to use for a garden and raising their own chickens.

Two and a half years later, William E. Bailey, a young attorney in Springfield, contacted my dad. His last surviving parent passed on, leaving him the family’s two farms. The Wildman’s recommended Bruce to Mr. Bailey. My father accepted the position, establishing a business relationship and friendship borne of mutual respect that would endure for their lifetimes.

Subsequently, when Mr. Wildman died of a heart attack, Anamelia Wildman offered the operation of the two farms she owned and the farmhouse where my parents lived before. Between the Wildman and Bailey farms, Dad was overseeing the operation over 2400 acres and had four hired hands working for him.

Still, Bruce wanted to have a son to carry on the family name and to inherit a farm he dreamed of buying, a goal for which both my parents were saving for since they were married. Again, they tried to replace Barris.

Genette, my other sister, was born on January 10, 1952. Once more, my parents brought a beautiful daughter into the world. At that point, with the doctor’s recommendation, my parents decided two children were enough.

Over the next three years, many things changed for my mother and father. The crops were good and the livestock markets were rewarding. My parents saved enough money from their share of the profits from the farms to buy two acres of land from Mrs. Wildman. They planned to build a new home.

My mother told a strange story that I am sure she believed happened. Dad was convinced it happened, too. She heard a voice telling her to have another child. When she consulted with Dr, McIntyre, the family doctor, he confirmed that she was not too old but he warned her, as he had after Genette’s birth, that it would be very risky.

It was not an easy pregnancy. There was a point when she was convinced she would miscarry. With her faith and the prayers of others, she weathered the crisis. On May 7, 1956, eleven years to the day after the end of the war in Europe, I was born. Finally, my parents had a son to replace Barris. I grew up in my dead brother’s shadow, more so than either of my sisters.

My dad asked his cousins who were carpenters to come stay for the summer and build the new house. When it was complete, my parents moved the family into a modern home, the first they ever owned.

As I grew up, Dad referred to me as his buddy – his little helper. As I grew older, I could help with the chores and a good deal of the backbreaking labor of working on a farm. The days that I worked with my father wore me out. It was time well spent, though. I appreciated how hard my dad worked for a living. I was amazed at how smart he was. He seemed to have the solution for every problem. Nothing was beyond him.

When I was big enough to reach the pedals and steer the tractor, I spent many a summer day in the hot sun. Whether it was piloting a tractor towing a baler along windrows making hay bales for my father to stack on the wagon we pulled behind or cultivating the corn and soybeans, it was what I did and Dad paid me a man’s wage.

Joyce graduated from Southeastern High School in 1965. The event fulfilled a part of one of Bruce’s personal goals, that his children would earn diplomas. Dad always wanted a high school education. But when he was a teenager, the Great Depression began. He had to quit school to work on the farm and help support and feed his family. He had a ninth grade education. Mom finished the eighth grade. Education of their children was paramount in importance to both my parents. They wanted to offer their children the opportunities they never had.

Around that time Dad and Mom realized their lifelong dream; they bought a farm. It was adjacent to Mr. Bailey’s farms so, even though father now had an additional 160 acres of his own land to work, it was close enough to some of the other farms that it was not as much of an increased burden. The new farm also allowed expansion of beef cattle production. The problem was that operating Mrs. Wildman’s farms, which were several miles away from our new farm, was increasingly difficult. Bruce continued to do it for an additional year, but all the time he was seeking someone to take over the operation from him.

The other logistical consideration was that we still lived in Selma, on land adjacent to the Wildman’s farms. Mom wanted to build a new house on our farm so she could correct all the deficiencies she found with our present house. I was ten at the time and had mixed feelings about moving away from the only house I remembered living in. The idea of a new house excited me and living on the new farm made a lot of sense. But I had memories. The house where we lived was my home.

Once again, Bruce called on his cousins to come spend the summer while they built another dream home. Meanwhile, Dad and Mom were remodeling the interior of the farmhouse on our new farm, with the intention of Joyce, her husband Jerry and their newborn son, Jame (Jay), living there.

While driving back from working on the old farmhouse, Mom, Genette and I were in a car accident. Other than the bloody nose I received from slamming my face into the back of my sister’s hard head and the resulting knot on Genette’s noggin, my mother was the only one injured. Her wrists were badly sprained from where she braced herself against the steering wheel in anticipation of the impact. Her right kneecap was shattered. Our car, a Candy Apple Red 1963 Chevy Impala, was totaled.

Mother spent the summer in a full leg cast in a house that was built before central air conditioning was common. She spent a lot of time sitting on the front porch, with her cast propped up on a chair while she hoped for a cool breeze. When it didn’t come, she used a box fan and an oscillating fan to fend off the heat.

Despite recovering from her injuries, she had to take care of the new baby while Joyce worked. Of course, Genette helped, not only in caring for the baby, but also doing housework and cooking.

It was not an easy summer for anyone. We had two house guests. I gave up my room  to Marvin, one of my dad’s cousins. Norman, the other cousin, slept in the room we called the breezeway, a family room we had made from enclosing a walkthrough between the house and the garage. My bed was a foam rubber pallet on the living room floor.

Mom’s cast was removed in early September. She was leery of driving but she liked our new car, a 1966 Chevy Caprice.

A few weeks later, we moved into the new house. Regardless where I lived, I was still  attending school in Selma. That was where the school district’s consolidated middle school was located. The only difference was I rode a bus to school instead of my bike or Mom dropping me off.

I matured a good bit over the next couple of years. My dad and I began to work together as a team and sometimes we traded places. My muscles recovered much more readily from the aches and pains of strain and overexertion. It was a welcome relief for Bruce to have someone he could count on to do some of the things he was never able to trust to hired hands.

As I entered the eighth grade, the newly constructed elementary school in South Charleston was ready to open. My class received the honors of naming the school and selecting a mascot. There were several suggestions and a good bit of campaigning, culminating in a school assembly, after which everyone was allowed to vote. The school’s name became Miami View. It was apt as a branch of the Little Miami River flowed behind the school. The mascot for every athletic team was The Patriots.  Of course, the school colors were red, white and blue.

The chores continued, either in the morning before going to school or in the afternoon after I returned home. On weekends I helped my dad on the farms. Sunday was the only day either of us had off. Dad refused to work on Sunday, except to feed the livestock. Dad believed that God understood His animals needed to be fed. Otherwise, Dad refused to do any business whatsoever on a Sunday.

Dad purchased an adjacent 90 acre farm that had belonged to a man we referred to as the Old Bachelor. He was descended from the family that had once owned not only the farm where he lived and our farm, but also much of the surrounding land. He died in his house. As I was on friendly terms with him and went to see about him from time to time. It was an unfortunate circumstance that I discovered his body.

The family farm was now 250 acres.

When I  worked I was constantly analyzing everything, figuring out more efficient ways to doing nearly every task. Dad said it was because I was lazy, but really it was not. When given the option of working hard or working smart, I opted for the latter. If an easier way could be determined to do the exact same thing with less effort, I would take that course. Anyone would.

The problem with my father’s dream for me to take over the family farm was related to my allergies. A day of baling hay, for example, would result in irritated, itching, swollen and watering eyes. I’d sneeze throughout the day. At night, I was beset with coughing fits. Still, by the next morning, I was ready to go at it again. I had to endure the discomfort. However, it was obvious I was not cut out to be a farmer.

Genette’s goal was attending Wittenberg University in Springfield. It was an outstanding private college with high academic standards. If she attended Southeastern High School, he believed she could not receive the sort of education she needed to qualify for admission. From her sophomore year to graduation, Dad and Mom paid tuition for her to attend Shawnee High School in Springfield, reputedly the best public school in the county. As a result, Mom drove her to school every day until Genette was old enough to get her driver’s license. Once Genette was able to drive, Dad bought her a 1968 Plymouth Barracuda.

In the early summer of 1970, Genette received her diploma from Shawnee High School. She was preparing to attend Wittenberg in the fall, to study art education. She became the first of our family to go to college.

My dad and mom wanted me to follow in Gennete’s footsteps. Obviously, Shawnee prepared her well for college. But, because of the overcrowded conditions in all the public schools due to the ‘baby boom’ of the 1950’s, Shawnee was no longer accepting tuition students.

At the time, I was seriously considering a military career as an officer. I wanted to attend the United States Air Force Academy. I felt that if I attended a military school it would be a great help in meeting the admission requirements. Mr. Bailey, my godfather, was a personal friend of Congressman Brown who represented the US Congressional District where we lived. So, obtaining a letter of recommendation for appointment was no problem.

Greenbrier Military School in Lewisburg, West Virginia accepted me and I began classes in late August 1970. Although I got over homesickness and adapted to the structure of the school, there were very few students who were there for the sake of getting a quality education. Most needed correction and many of them were still resisting the effort. Drugs were a problem and my roommate was one of the people involved.

Shortly before Thanksgiving, I told my parents what was going on at school. My father called the school and had a lengthy discussion with the administration about what I told him. They promised my father I would be moved to a private room. It seemed everything was resolved.

While I was home for Thanksgiving break, my father and I discussed everything and I was fine with going back to school. But when I returned, the new room to which I was assigned was a disaster. It needed repairs and there was a big inspection coming in a few days. There was no way the room could be made presentable before the inspection. It was obvious to me that I was set up to fail. It was punishment for opening my mouth to my parents about what was going on in the school. In the minds of the school administration, I broke a code of conduct. If I had a problem, I should have gone directly to the administration. No parents needed to be involved. The reputation of the school did not need to be tarnished.

I was in fear of the retaliation I might suffer from the other students. I called my parents to come take me back home. While I waited, I did anything to avoid being in my room.

When my parents arrived at the school, they had a lengthy discussion with the administration after which I packed my things into the family car and returned home.

Although I was prepared to attend Southeastern High School, my dad and mom insisted that I not. They rented an apartment in the Springfield Local School District so that I could live there, ostensibly with my mom, and attend Shawnee High School. I was never to tell anyone at school that I lived alone. Not only was it no one’s business but also I knew my parents trusted me. If anyone found out Mom wasn’t living with me, she could get into a lot of trouble with the State. Despite my emotional and mental maturity, I was still a minor.

At first, Mom came to the apartment regularly, almost daily. I always had food. Although I could do my laundry and knew how to cook for myself, whenever she was there, she took care of those things. She let me clean my apartment, vacuum the carpet, mop and wax the kitchen floor, clean the bathroom and carry out the trash. At night, I set my alarm clock to wake up in time to get up and get ready for school. The bus stopped for me in front of the apartment complex.

Twice, my mother slept in the apartment. That way she could say she stayed there without telling a lie. The phone was in her name. Each morning, when I woke, I called home. Each afternoon, when I got off from school, I called home. Mom would call me some time in the evening to see how I was doing. She called at random times, even two times in an evening. Although she said she trusted me, I understood she didn’t want me to think I could get away with anything. She was minimizing the opportunity for me to become a bad boy. On Friday afternoon, when I got off the bus, Mom would meet me at the apartment. I slept at my parents’ house on the weekend and helped my dad on the farm every Saturday. On Sunday morning I did the chores and then went to church with Mom. In the afternoon, I did my laundry and folded it. In the evening, after dinner, Mom drove me back to the apartment.

As far as anyone at school knew, I lived with my mother. They assumed my parents were divorced. No one bothered to ask for clarification, and so, I never provided any details.

Over the summer before my sophomore year, I periodically stayed in the apartment. I told my parents that for appearance’s sake I probably should spend time there. Besides, I liked some of the freedom and privacy I acquired. All of my things were there, so when I was at my parent’s house, it felt a lot less like home to me.

One of the nosier neighbors at the apartment complex stopped me in passing and asked where I had been all week.

“Oh, I was helping my dad. He has a farm,” I said and started to walk away.

“Where’s your mom been?”

“She was seeing her sister. She’s been sick,” I replied. It was true that my mom had seen her sister and Aunt Verna was sick. Despite my inference through omission of detail, Mom did not stay with her sister, though.

“Where’s she now?”

“Working,” I said. That was also true. My mother was a housewife. So, when was she not working? Then, I smiled at my neighbor. “Okay, it’s my turn. Why is any of this your business?”

“I was wondering where you’ve been?’

“I always help my dad on the farm when he needs help. He pays me. I can always use the money.”

Apparently that satisfied her. No one else at the complex ever bothered to ask me anything about my business.

Sometimes, Genette came to see me. She was taking summer school classes at the university. She moved onto campus when she pledged to join the Sigma Kappa sorority. Although Mom maintained her room at home, like me, my sister was seldom there.

Genette and I would see movies together. Afterwards we went shopping in Springfield or at the Upper Valley Mall. She took me to her sorority and hung out with her sorority sisters and her friends who were in fraternities. I sat in on some of her classes and met her professors. We went to the library and the Student Union. I really liked the learning environment and the campus atmosphere.

My primary means of transportation throughout that summer was a ten-speed Schwinn. I rode it everywhere, into Springfield, across town to my friend Brice’s house, and sometimes to Wittenberg to see Genette. Sometimes I rode the bike to my dad’s farm, which was thirteen miles from my apartment.

I rode the bus for another school year. It was pretty much the same routine as during my freshman year, except I spent some weekends at the apartment. My dad decided to get out of the livestock part of farming and so he raised grain only. There were fewer chores to do and less need for me to help him on weekends.

The summer before my junior year, I took driver’s education in summer school. I was eager to get my license. The irony was that I had been driving for years. As a farm kid I was allowed to drive farm equipment on the roads between farms. On the farms, I drove my dad’s trucks to and from the fields.

I rode my bike to school every weekday until the conclusion of the course. The day I received my certificate of completion for the course, I took my driving test and received my license. I acquired the gold 1972 Camaro my mother had been driving. As she liked Camaros, dad bought an orange and black one as a replacement for her.

Once my junior year ended, I was grandfathered into attending Shawnee for my senior year. I did not need to live in the school district. So, I moved back home and drove to school each day from my parent’s house.

It felt strange being back home, especially since I had grown accustomed to considerable personal freedom. I also played bass guitar in a rock band and had a number of outside activities. During my senior year, I think I tried my parents’ patience to the limit more times than not.

Wittenberg University accepted me a few weeks after I submitted my application. I figured that since my sister was a senior there, they would not turn me down. But I wanted to attend a major university and study journalism, a course that was not offered at Wittenberg. So, I applied to some Big Ten schools. Purdue University accepted me.

In the early part of the last summer I lived at home, I received my diploma. Bruce and Alta saw the last of their children complete a goal neither of them ever reached. A few days after my graduation, Genette received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Wittenberg University, making her the first in the family to graduate from college. I don’t think I ever saw my dad and mom as proud as they were of Genette. She worked hard and even struggled at times to receive her degree, but she would not quit. I was proud of her, too.

At the end of the summer, when I moved to West Lafayette, Indiana to attend Purdue, for all intents and purposes, all of my parent’s kids were grown up. I think the realization that I would not be following in his footsteps disappointed my dad. The dream of carrying on the family farming traditions would perish with him. He and my mother had saved to buy a farm that they could pass on to their children, yet their only surviving son was not going to be a farmer and neither of my sisters had any interest or inclination toward owning a farm, let alone operating one.

After a year of substitute teaching in the public schools, Genette decided that she really did not like teaching as much as she thought she would. She enlisted in the United States Air Force in 1975.

My oldest sister, Joyce, her husband, Jerry and their son, Jame (Jay), moved to Clearwater, Florida in 1978. Joyce became a successful administrative assistant for an executive before leaving to handle the office work for her husband’s private business.

Having endured the blizzard in January 1978, Mom said she was tired of living in a cold place. My parents sold their farm and some of their household furniture at auction. My dad had always dreamed of living in the southwest, so they moved to Texas – just about as far south in Texas as they possibly could go. They relocated to a little town called Mission that was just north of the Rio Grande River, near the cities of McAllen and Edinburgh. Genette’s first husband and I helped them make the trip.

At some point during the next year, Genette divorced Andy, her first husband. She received a commission through Officer Training School and, after a few years ended up in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, where she eventually met her second and present husband, Michael ‘Scott’, an Air Force pilot.

When I finished my degree in Mass Communication, the economy was suffering from a curious mess called ‘stagflation’, a combination of double-digit inflation and double-digit interest rates. I interviewed with several prospective employers but no one offered me a job. I spent a summer with my parents in Mission before moving to Austin to attend the University of Texas, majoring in Marketing.

Shortly before I graduated from UT, my parents moved to Clearwater, Florida and eventually to Palm Harbor, just to the north of Clearwater. I lived with them for a time, and then moved out into an apartment in Dunedin while I worked for a small advertising agency. A year later I joined the Air Force and learned Chinese Mandarin.

Before I left for my first overseas tour of duty in Korea, I sat with my dad on his driveway in front of his garage. There was a cool breeze that afternoon as we enjoyed sitting in the shade of a large oak. The subject was one we discussed before but never in as much detail as that day. He was a little concerned about what I was getting into with the Air Force. Genette was an officer. He was concerned about her but figured she was safer somehow. He did not understand what I was going to be doing and, frankly, I really could not tell him much because nearly everything I worked with was highly classified.

Dad expressed how proud he was of each of his children, not because of what we accomplished but that we were decent, caring people.

“I’ve had to work hard all my life,” he said. “I didn’t have the kind of education a man needs to get ahead. Your mom and I scrimped and saved everything we could because we knew what it was like not to have anything. We didn’t want for our children to know that kind of hardship.”

“I don’t know how you worked as many years as you did as a farmer. It’s hard work.”

“It’s honest work,” he responded. “I love the land. I enjoy watching things grow and taking care of animals. It’s not an easy job feeding the world. But that’s what I did with my life.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t take over the farm.”

“Farming isn’t what it used to be. It won’t be too many years before having a family farm is nothing but a memory. The world is changing very quickly. I’m not sure how it is going to work out. I’ve always heard that the world will end sometime after 2000. I don’t know if it will. Only God knows those things. But I think if you are ready, it doesn’t matter when it happens. Until then, you need to live as good a life as you can, be honest and always keep your word. When you make a mistake beg forgiveness. When you succeed, be humble. When you have children, teach them how to be good people. That’s the best anyone can do.”

I married in 1985. My son was born in 1986 and my daughters were born in 1988 and 1990, giving Dad and Mom three more grandchildren. My nephew married in 1986 and had a daughter in 1987, my parents’ great granddaughter.

Bruce Williams was an ethical man who raised his family to honor what he stood for and what he believed was right. He fed us, clothed us, and gave us a roof over our heads with warm beds to sleep in. We never worried for a thing as children. If there was not enough for everyone, he would do without. I never knew a soul who didn’t like him. Most respected him and considered it an honor to know him. He was generous to a fault. He helped people who had nowhere else to turn, cosigning for loans when the bank would not give them the money they needed for something urgent.

My father died a few days before his birthday in April 2000. The family gathered together for the funeral. By then Mom was in a nursing home with Alzheimer’s and could not attend. She would pass on nearly on her birthday in April 2003. People came from everywhere my parents had lived to pay their respects. My parents both lived to be nearly eighty-six.

#Family #Memorial #BruceWilliams #AltaWilliams #Ohio #Wittenberg #Purdue #UTAustin #GrowingUp