Short-circuit at Circuit City
The new Circuit City location in North Charleston, SC, opened formally this afternoon at 6 p.m. I was there at 5:10 p.m. and was shocked to find close to 400 people already in line. Some were sitting in lawn chairs, at least one was in a wheelchair and others were eating and drinking out of picnic coolers. In the paper this morning, CC advertised they would give a free DVD player to the first 100 people in line. I believe tickets for the new James Bond movie are also being given away. I actually thought by getting there 50 minutes early I would have a shot at one of the DVDs. Who knew that many people would be reading the paper this morning? Don't these people have morning jobs? Anyway, I turned my Lincoln (Ford Co. motto: "There are those who travel. And those who travel well.") around and parked discreetly near the mess hall (aka: K&W Cafeteria) and went in for my dinner. I treated myself to a slice of apple pie since I wasn't going to get a free DVD player.
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#95
Monday, October 28
A friend passes
I learned today my long-time friend Albert "Bud" Sessoms, formerly of North Charleston, S.C., died on October 10, 2002, in North Carolina, after being admitted to a hospital. He had been in a nursing home where it is believed by some members of his family he was given incorrect medicine for his emphysema. At the hospital, a reaction set in and he passed within two days. My e-mails to him of recent date had been returned.
I contacted one of his sons, Eugene, who is on staff at the College of Charleston, and he told me what he knew of his father's passing. Bud was a good friend, had some strange ways and was always waiting for the next big deal to come down the pike. He was interviewed for a head waiter's job one day and the interviewer asked, "You do have a tux, I hope?" Bud replied, "Certainly, doesn't everyone." He told me later he rushed out and rented one immediately after the interview.
Bud and I frequently met to talk and discuss world events (we solved many a problem, but no one listened) over a few beers and to eat one of those big, delicious hamburgers at Harold's on Dorchester Road, North Charleston. On occasion we would also shoot a little pool there.
I hired him as a counselor when I was director of the South Carolina Commission for Farmworkers. He had a bad set of tires on his car and an African-American on staff took him to a place to get new tires on credit. Bud said he was embarrassed to have a black man vouching for him (remember this was 1966) and left without the tires. In later years he would not have thought twice about a black man doing him a favor. Bud was not a racist. One Christmas, to teach his four sons the true meaning of Christmas he had them gather up all their unopened presents and the family took them to the John C. Calhoun homes and distributed them to poor black children who otherwise would have had nothing for Christmas.
Bud was what we would call a character. There are not many like him who have passed this way.
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#94
I learned today my long-time friend Albert "Bud" Sessoms, formerly of North Charleston, S.C., died on October 10, 2002, in North Carolina, after being admitted to a hospital. He had been in a nursing home where it is believed by some members of his family he was given incorrect medicine for his emphysema. At the hospital, a reaction set in and he passed within two days. My e-mails to him of recent date had been returned.
I contacted one of his sons, Eugene, who is on staff at the College of Charleston, and he told me what he knew of his father's passing. Bud was a good friend, had some strange ways and was always waiting for the next big deal to come down the pike. He was interviewed for a head waiter's job one day and the interviewer asked, "You do have a tux, I hope?" Bud replied, "Certainly, doesn't everyone." He told me later he rushed out and rented one immediately after the interview.
Bud and I frequently met to talk and discuss world events (we solved many a problem, but no one listened) over a few beers and to eat one of those big, delicious hamburgers at Harold's on Dorchester Road, North Charleston. On occasion we would also shoot a little pool there.
I hired him as a counselor when I was director of the South Carolina Commission for Farmworkers. He had a bad set of tires on his car and an African-American on staff took him to a place to get new tires on credit. Bud said he was embarrassed to have a black man vouching for him (remember this was 1966) and left without the tires. In later years he would not have thought twice about a black man doing him a favor. Bud was not a racist. One Christmas, to teach his four sons the true meaning of Christmas he had them gather up all their unopened presents and the family took them to the John C. Calhoun homes and distributed them to poor black children who otherwise would have had nothing for Christmas.
Bud was what we would call a character. There are not many like him who have passed this way.
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#94
Tracing phone calls
From Slate magazine on the Internet today:
Laugh the next time you see a TV cop tell someone to keep a caller on the line to help trace the call because:
"Digital switches have sped up the process of tracing phone calls by the police. Beginning in the mid-1980s, phone companies began using electronic switching systems (ESS), which can automatically identify any caller's number within a fraction of a second. Those numbers can then be correlated with information from an automatic location indicator to find the phone's address. There is no foolproof way to avoid tracing on an ESS network when making a direct-dial call. (And don't think for a second that hitting *67, which masks your number to Caller ID boxes, can foil a police trace; it only works against civilians.)"
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#93
From Slate magazine on the Internet today:
Laugh the next time you see a TV cop tell someone to keep a caller on the line to help trace the call because:
"Digital switches have sped up the process of tracing phone calls by the police. Beginning in the mid-1980s, phone companies began using electronic switching systems (ESS), which can automatically identify any caller's number within a fraction of a second. Those numbers can then be correlated with information from an automatic location indicator to find the phone's address. There is no foolproof way to avoid tracing on an ESS network when making a direct-dial call. (And don't think for a second that hitting *67, which masks your number to Caller ID boxes, can foil a police trace; it only works against civilians.)"
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#93
Thursday, October 24
Richard Helms, spymaster, dies
The shadows have darkened forever for Richard Helms who died at his home outside Washington on Tuesday, October 23, 2002. Helms was a career intelligence operative who headed the Central Intelligence Agency during administrations of Presidents Johnson and Nixon. He was fired by Nixon for refusing to use the CIA to head off the FBI Watergate investigation. During his career Helms hid in the shadows of the intelligence world and is only known to have made one public speech - to newspaper editors. I would rank Helms as one of the top three CIA directors along with Allen Dulles and Bill Colby. Helms was a role model for the current director George Tenet who had Helms' portrait temporarily moved from the directors' wall at the agency headquarters to hang in his personal space.
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#92
The shadows have darkened forever for Richard Helms who died at his home outside Washington on Tuesday, October 23, 2002. Helms was a career intelligence operative who headed the Central Intelligence Agency during administrations of Presidents Johnson and Nixon. He was fired by Nixon for refusing to use the CIA to head off the FBI Watergate investigation. During his career Helms hid in the shadows of the intelligence world and is only known to have made one public speech - to newspaper editors. I would rank Helms as one of the top three CIA directors along with Allen Dulles and Bill Colby. Helms was a role model for the current director George Tenet who had Helms' portrait temporarily moved from the directors' wall at the agency headquarters to hang in his personal space.
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#92
Wednesday, October 23
On the train, October 2002
I rode the Amtrak to Washington last week prepared to give some advice to President Bush on foreign and domestic policy but he was out hustling the party faithful for dollars for political cronies - old and wannabe - he hopes will jump up and salute when he sends a note to Congress. Any congressman who gets elected with the President’s help better tow the line least he or she be called on the carpet by the leadership and condemned as an ungrateful, miserable little shit. Since the President chose not to be at home when I was in the city I transported myself to the suburbs for four days. Life in the Washington suburbs is not comparable to life in South Carolina. It is all get up and go in heavy traffic and everything seems to cost more. During my stay a shooter was terrorizing whole communities from southern Maryland to southern Virginia. He or she had shot eight or nine people and killed seven or eight. There were more shootings while I was there. I was happy to be heading back to Charleston. My mother, before she died in the spring of 2002, reminded me I once said I would never live further south than Washington. I also said in my youth I would not smoke nor drink. Three plans that went astray. I did give up the smoking in January 1974. Actually I had quit earlier but started again in the winter of 1973 when I went to Saigon after Secretary of State Henry Kissinger initialed the cease fire in Paris. Back to the Amtrak. Along the route between Charleston and Washington the train passes through innumerable small towns in South and North Carolina and Virginia. At one time when automobiles and personal transportation was minimal the train stopped at many of these towns but now limits stops to the larger cities. Passengers are expected to travel on their own to these stops to catch the train. Where the train does stop, and in between, looking from the window one can see shops and businesses closed, buildings empty and in some instance a ghost town appearance. Did these earlier businesses move to the other side of town, perhaps to a mall or out to the suburbs where they are more people? Or had the shops and stores dried up or been replace by Wal-Mart and Costco? Had the proprietors died off without any survivors willing to work the long hours necessary to make a small success of hardware, drugs or dry goods stores? What happened to all these people and where did they go? The homes along the railroad are largely what used to be called trailers but in today’s politically correct world are referred to as mobile homes. Some yards around these are littered with broken auto parts and children’s toys. There is an abundance of folding aluminum and plastic lawn chairs around trailers. Some of the sticks built homes are in need of repair, especially paint, but occasionally one is a pleasant surprise and model for others: fresh paint, yard tidy, grass cut and an American flag flying from the porch. Who are the people who still live by the side of the tracks, especially in the well-kept homes? It must take a lot of effort and hard work to keep a house neat and looking good alongside the tracks. The train rolls on and riders are as ignorant of the people who live along the tracks as they are of the riders. It would be nice to know if one of them was wondering who I was looking out the window at the same time I wondered about them. Would this be thought confluence?
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#91
I rode the Amtrak to Washington last week prepared to give some advice to President Bush on foreign and domestic policy but he was out hustling the party faithful for dollars for political cronies - old and wannabe - he hopes will jump up and salute when he sends a note to Congress. Any congressman who gets elected with the President’s help better tow the line least he or she be called on the carpet by the leadership and condemned as an ungrateful, miserable little shit. Since the President chose not to be at home when I was in the city I transported myself to the suburbs for four days. Life in the Washington suburbs is not comparable to life in South Carolina. It is all get up and go in heavy traffic and everything seems to cost more. During my stay a shooter was terrorizing whole communities from southern Maryland to southern Virginia. He or she had shot eight or nine people and killed seven or eight. There were more shootings while I was there. I was happy to be heading back to Charleston. My mother, before she died in the spring of 2002, reminded me I once said I would never live further south than Washington. I also said in my youth I would not smoke nor drink. Three plans that went astray. I did give up the smoking in January 1974. Actually I had quit earlier but started again in the winter of 1973 when I went to Saigon after Secretary of State Henry Kissinger initialed the cease fire in Paris. Back to the Amtrak. Along the route between Charleston and Washington the train passes through innumerable small towns in South and North Carolina and Virginia. At one time when automobiles and personal transportation was minimal the train stopped at many of these towns but now limits stops to the larger cities. Passengers are expected to travel on their own to these stops to catch the train. Where the train does stop, and in between, looking from the window one can see shops and businesses closed, buildings empty and in some instance a ghost town appearance. Did these earlier businesses move to the other side of town, perhaps to a mall or out to the suburbs where they are more people? Or had the shops and stores dried up or been replace by Wal-Mart and Costco? Had the proprietors died off without any survivors willing to work the long hours necessary to make a small success of hardware, drugs or dry goods stores? What happened to all these people and where did they go? The homes along the railroad are largely what used to be called trailers but in today’s politically correct world are referred to as mobile homes. Some yards around these are littered with broken auto parts and children’s toys. There is an abundance of folding aluminum and plastic lawn chairs around trailers. Some of the sticks built homes are in need of repair, especially paint, but occasionally one is a pleasant surprise and model for others: fresh paint, yard tidy, grass cut and an American flag flying from the porch. Who are the people who still live by the side of the tracks, especially in the well-kept homes? It must take a lot of effort and hard work to keep a house neat and looking good alongside the tracks. The train rolls on and riders are as ignorant of the people who live along the tracks as they are of the riders. It would be nice to know if one of them was wondering who I was looking out the window at the same time I wondered about them. Would this be thought confluence?
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#91
Saturday, October 12
New leads
On this happy weekend (a daughter's birthday today, the wife's tomorrow) it is noted that the web site Arts and Letters has filed for bankruptcy and is up for sale. Two of the major web site managers are combining their talents at Philosophy and Literature (http://www.philosophyandliterature.com) and this has been substituted for the A&L link on my web site (http://www.archibald99.com) The P&L is fresh and interesting with great links to major publications, essayists and writers. H
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#90
On this happy weekend (a daughter's birthday today, the wife's tomorrow) it is noted that the web site Arts and Letters has filed for bankruptcy and is up for sale. Two of the major web site managers are combining their talents at Philosophy and Literature (http://www.philosophyandliterature.com) and this has been substituted for the A&L link on my web site (http://www.archibald99.com) The P&L is fresh and interesting with great links to major publications, essayists and writers. H
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#90
Saturday, October 5
Sightings
Yesterday I saw a man driving his car and shaving with an electric razor. Later, I observed a woman in the Walmart parking lot engaged in conversation on a cell phone she was holding between her shoulder and her ear while she simultaneously opened a car door, helped a small child to get in, and put a large box on the back seat. (Also appeared in The Post & Courier, Charleston, SC, Oct. 9,2002, letters section.)
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#89
Yesterday I saw a man driving his car and shaving with an electric razor. Later, I observed a woman in the Walmart parking lot engaged in conversation on a cell phone she was holding between her shoulder and her ear while she simultaneously opened a car door, helped a small child to get in, and put a large box on the back seat. (Also appeared in The Post & Courier, Charleston, SC, Oct. 9,2002, letters section.)
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#89
Thursday, October 3
Renovating till my birthday
Within a couple of weeks of our return from Canada (see 8/21/2002, below) we started to renovate my study and the family TV area. This week we are almost finished, needing only to get some furniture, blinds for the windows, and hang pictures. Except for the painting this was a DIY job. We put in an engineered floor and while it was a tough, four-day job it has turned out well. We also installed four French doors (two operative) to separate the two areas and allow some privacy. The choice of colors, while initially seemingly brash, is softer and more pleasing to the eye after re-installing the book shelves, desk and furniture. I converted my old desk and credenza into a computer work area by enlarging the credenza top. I had a new top made using walnut planks joined together (72" x 20") and fastened it to the original base and desk. Yesterday was my 71st birthday and I admit to that age only because I feel good and life is good. Being still able to do the work involved in this renovation is a pleasure. Next week I will amend this entry with a picture or two. I am waiting on furniture.
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#88
Within a couple of weeks of our return from Canada (see 8/21/2002, below) we started to renovate my study and the family TV area. This week we are almost finished, needing only to get some furniture, blinds for the windows, and hang pictures. Except for the painting this was a DIY job. We put in an engineered floor and while it was a tough, four-day job it has turned out well. We also installed four French doors (two operative) to separate the two areas and allow some privacy. The choice of colors, while initially seemingly brash, is softer and more pleasing to the eye after re-installing the book shelves, desk and furniture. I converted my old desk and credenza into a computer work area by enlarging the credenza top. I had a new top made using walnut planks joined together (72" x 20") and fastened it to the original base and desk. Yesterday was my 71st birthday and I admit to that age only because I feel good and life is good. Being still able to do the work involved in this renovation is a pleasure. Next week I will amend this entry with a picture or two. I am waiting on furniture.
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#88
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