I was thumbing through a magazine recently and came across a short article titled, “The Pan Am Experience.”  Next to it was a picture of what appeared to be the internal organs of a glamorous 1970s passenger airplane, complete with smiling flight attendants dressed to the nines.  From the gist of the headline, I gathered that it was an advertisement to eat how you did on Pan Am in the 1970s. 

For only $295 ($355 if you want the fancier upper dining deck) you can board a replica Pan Am 747 and never actually go anywhere.   At the check-in desk, instead of getting strip-searched and herded like cattle, you get a ‘70s boarding pass complete with ticket jacket and carry-on tags.  Using your boarding pass, you now have a chance to enjoy the lounge without having to sign up for the airlines’ outrageously heavy interest Mastercard program.  In the lounge, with drink in hand, you can visit the authentic Pan Am "memorabilia". 

Now, when I was growing up, my father was a graveyard airline mechanic for Pan-Am at San Francisco Airport.  Without implicating my family in the demise and eventual bankruptcy of Pan-Am, I believe it’s okay to mention that at one time or another we lived on much of the Pan Am memorabilia that you will see in your Clipper Club lounge.  Our coats and luggage all featured the logo, having been “borrowed” from the airline.  My childhood art masterpieces were done on the Pan Am computer punch cards of the 1970s. Many of our food items, including the Chateaubriand served on special family occasions, were “leftovers” from Pan Am.  Just seeing the logo for me is like many of you might feel seeing the wallpaper that adorned your childhood home. But back to the tour.

After you peruse the items of my childhood, you will board the Air Hollywood replica of Pan Am’s first Boeing 747.  Having not actually experienced the Air Hollywood version, I can only imagine that you get to board this without the person behind you crashing your heels with his luggage or the woman in front of you taking the last spot in the overhead compartment while yelling into her cell phone. 

Once boarded, your Stewardess (not flight attendant) will be wearing the original tightly fitted uniform and you will be offered another cocktail while soothing music fills the cabin of the fake airplane.  While they perform a safety demonstration, you get to sit back in comfortable, roomy seats, rather than being shoe-horned into the spot between the smelly bible salesman and the extremely large woman who may or may not be a circus performer. Rather than having peanut packets thrown at you, you are served a gourmet four-course meal on fancy China (that may or may not have been used with the Chateaubriand during my special family dinners).  And instead of having plastic cups thrown at you with 6 precise cubes of ice and four exact fingers of cola, you are served your choice of beverage in crystal glasses that may or may not have been my childhood everyday glasses.

During his decade at Pan Am, my father made lifelong friends.  It wasn’t until Dad’s funeral that I learned that some of these friends had only worked with him for a couple of months before moving on from Pan Am, but they never moved on from one another.  There are many stories I cannot share that I learned about Dad during the after-funeral party, and most also featured Pan Am in some way or another.  Maybe.  I'm not implicating anyone.

Pan Am was a pioneer airline, in both its early routes through continents and in its fostering of a family-like atmosphere for the employees.  The Kelly Act of 1925 authorized government mail contracts to private carriers.  As a result, many aircraft owners began air carrier services, including Pan American World Airways in 1927, when it won a contract to deliver mail to and from Cuba and the United States.  By 1930, it expanded to include mail between Mexico and Latin America and the United States. At this same time, air carriers were forced to carry passengers not just cargo to remain competitive.  In 1939, Pan Am was the first United States passenger service to Europe and then provided military transport to Europe, Africa, and Asia.  By the middle of the 1970s, Pan Am had become one of the world’s largest air carriers.  Deregulation, recession, turmoil in world politics, airline airfare wars, and high gas prices, caused Pan Am to lose ground in the mid-1980s.

With their fleet aging and no money to purchase new aircraft, Pan Am was spending too much money on keeping their flights in the air-- over $800 an hour for maintenance costs for every hour an aircraft was in flight.  I'm pretty sure my family didn't borrow enough items to contribute to much of that $800 an hour, but just in case, we GAVE IT ALL BACK. That is what I will say if I'm ever asked.  WE GAVE IT ALL BACK.  Even the Chateaubriand.  

It also should be well noted here that my mechanic father was not earning a cent of this $800 an hour per aircraft, as he was no longer working at Pan Am.  He was in the lay-off program of years before.  But if he had been among the mechanics left, he would have used his Macgyver-like skills to use spit, glue, and duct tape to keep those planes in the air for far less than $800 per hour.  We should all be thankful for that lay-off...  Pan Am filed for bankruptcy in 1991 and, while they tried to reopen in 1997, they had to shut their doors once again when they couldn’t pay their creditors.

While they may not have been the best of business people, I will forever be grateful to Pan Am for my “uncles,” for my winter-wear, and for giving this poor child from a poor family the taste of Chateaubriand, which I found at the time tastes best with just a hint of catsup.

Dear Bubba,

Today you turn nine years old.  I remember 9 years ago so clearly.  It was a wonderful day, the day you were born.  We went to the hospital in the morning, as you were trying to escape.  You were brought out that afternoon and were the sweetest cutest baby I'd ever seen and you've been my big bub ever since.

I am so proud of how loving and smart you are.  You are also braver than the rest of us, willing to try any and all new things.  Not a week goes by where I don't hear how polite you are and how nice and refreshing you are to be around.  You say please and thank you, even when you don't need to, and that is very nice to hear.  I am honored to have you call me Momma.

I think you will face some challenges this year, but I know you will handle them with grace and smiles.  And you will be just fine, because you are a wonderful person, inside and out.

I love you, my little baby man.

-Momma

I hate to sound like I'm 100, but kids these days have it so easy. In my day, the Internet didn't answer our every trivial question. And in my day, there was a dad who wouldn't take, "I don't know- Let's move on," for an answer. If I asked a question and he didn't know the answer, by God, he'd find it. Not only would he find the answer, but he'd show me how to find the answer. In detail. Great detail.

One time, we were in the car on Highway 101. We had to take 380 to get over to 280 to get home. "Where did the highways get their numbers?" I asked to make conversation. I was 11.

Pause.

"Well, Shorty. I don't know." At that moment, I realized that my weekend was over. We’d spend it researching how highways got their numbers.

When we got home, we sat at the table and went through the Ma Bell Phone Book. DMV? No. They do motor vehicles. Department of Transportation. Yes, they handle the roads. Dad helped me write a letter (several of them until it was right— no backspaces or Control X/Control V available). We then went and got stamps and mailed the letter.

A few weeks later, we got a letter back telling us that North-South highways are odd numbered and East-West highways are even numbered. It went on with more detail, but I didn't really care by then.

Just now, I googled this question. I got 28,500,000 results. The first is Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Numbered_Highways), “United States Numbered Highways," which explains it in great detail without having to use the Ma Bell Phone Book, pen, paper, draft letters, final letters, envelopes or stamps.

But Googling isn’t nearly as memorable, either. Nor as endearing, like the sleeping bags.

When I was nine, I'd saved up $50 and I wanted us to have sleeping bags so that we could go camping. Dad said that he'd buy his and Mom's and that I could buy mine and Todd's, but I had to research different sleeping bags to find the best for what we had to spend. I was nine; I didn't know anything thing about sleeping bags. But not to worry-- Dad was to teach me how to research. At age nine.

This process would have been a lot different today. Today, I could teach my kids to open their Internet browser on their iPods and search, "best sleeping bag." Done.

But back then, there was no internet, internet browser, or Google. What did we have? The library and store clerks. Dad explained that we couldn't just go to the store and trust the clerk. Sometimes they are stupid and sometimes they just try to sell you the most expensive. So you have to know before you go.

Dad took me to the library and we we were there for hours. We first asked the librarian where the best place to find this information would be. She directed us to the issues of a magazine called, “Consumer Reports”. Dad had me look through them and I found an old issue about camping equipment that including sleeping bags.

I read the article and made notes. It outlined the different outer and inner materials with pros and cons. We talked through it and decided we wouldn't be camping in snow so crossed those off the list. Rain wouldn't be on purpose, but dew could happen, so while water-PROOF wasn't imperative, water-RESISTANT was.

I remember deciding on an nylon exterior with a Dacron II interior. I remember this clearly almost forty years later. In my quick Google search just now, Dacron had is founding by Dupont in the 1950s and by the 1970s it was in it's second rendition. It's still used in pillows and, likely, sleeping bags.

Dacron Advertisement from Backpacker Magazine, Winter, 1975

So then it was time for the shopping. Did we just go to the store and buy them? No. We went home. To the telephone and back to the good ol’ Ma Bell Yellow Pages. Dad had me call Montgomery Wards, Best, Sears, and a local camping store. I asked if they had Dacron II filled nylon sleeping bags and the cost. I made a chart of each and then we chose Sears. The next day (yes, this took all weekend) we drove to Sears and I chose our sleeping bags and counted out my dollars to the clerk. I got green, Todd got orange, Mom got brown and Dad got blue. We used them for many years and my pride at having shopped for them never dwindled.

All of that said, I still just teach my kids to open their Internet browser and search. It’s a different world and they need to learn the skills of the new world, too. Not all old school skills are still necessary. That said, they did have to listen to this story about road numbers and sleeping bags. No sense in wasting a good story about how I had to walk 5 miles in the snow to get to school research all weekend to find answers.

For a few months now, Dad's my car has been overheating randomly in traffic.  It doesn't happen all the time and it never happens when I take it in to get fixed.  Just randomly have to turn the heater on full blast as I'm commuting to or from work in horrible traffic. 

Last week, I took it in for an overdue oil change.  Since they have to run the car idly, it happened to them!  And because they are all really nice, I had every mechanic there huddled around my car trying to figure it out.  They finally determined it was the fan but couldn't figure out why.  They had me come back the next day when the head mechanic would be there and it took him awhile to get the car to overheat, but then he quickly found the problem: not a bajillion dollars!  It was just the wire housing unit that the fan connected to and it was all corroded inside.  He replaced that and now... now it doesn't overheat AND I hadn't noticed, but sometimes it was hard to start.  It is no longer hard to start.  So YAY!  Not expensive AND fixed.

I really didn't realize how much this was wearing on me until it was fixed.  I feel this load of stress off my mind now when driving.  Huge load of stress just GONE! Love that!

Plus, today I had a new client meeting in Napa.  Not only did the car NOT overheat, but the new client happens to be a conglomeration of wineries and they let me shop in the employee store for 50% off.  My wine cabinet (also known as the dining room table...) is full of great wines.  Good thing we never eat in the dining room...

I'm going to post about the kids soon.  Signa sent me some pictures of things they did for school, but I can't figure out who did what, so I have to wait until I can discuss with her.  But they are both doing really well!

She shouldn’t have been working a call center for AAA and he shouldn't have been the driver called to assist me. But she was and he did.

Just before Christmas, I went out to my car and the rear right tire was flat as a pancake. It was raining and dark and I pay for AAA so I called, rather than tend to it in the dark rainy night on my own. Yvonne, my customer "service" rep didn't listen to a thing I said. She kept to her script ignoring me completely. "I need to have my tire changed."

"Where do you want to be towed to?"

"No, I just need the tire changed."

"Thank you, Ma'am. I'm happy to serve you. We have service guarantees at several locations close to you, for instance, Blah-blah-blah and Blah-blah-blah, which are mere miles. Would you like to be towed to either of these locations?"

On it went. Finally I said that if I needed towing for any reason, I would like it to be America's Tires so that we could move on.

Mike should not have been sent to me, as he isn't supposed to change tires. He had part of a lung removed four years ago and so they like him to just tow and not do heavy lifting. But he said he could do it; he'd just have to take it slow and I'd have to chat with him and hold the flashlight. Not a chore in the least, as despite his looking more like a 62-year-old hippie than my nearly 70-year-old republican dad was, he reminded me so much of him.

We chatted for nearly 45 minutes while he changed my tire into the tiny donut and filled the donut with air. He hates the donuts, too, and longs for the days when you held back the best tire for your spare when you got a whole new set. He works hard, loves his job and his family, and had that quiet all-knowingness about him like Dad did.

So Yvonne shouldn't be working the phones and Mike shouldn't be changing tires, but she was and he did and I got a lovely Christmas gift of spending 45 minutes with my dad just one more time.

Thank you, AAA, for being slightly incompetent.

So much in my life is still entirely still unresolved, but I have to say one thing that is comfortable is my memories of Dad. I smile when I think of him and sometimes shake my head while smiling, as he sure was something.

Dear 2014:

I had to disappear for awhile. Quite literally. So much has happened these past few... years, really. It all seems to have culminated in kicking my butt. Deaths, funerals, housing problems, commuting problems, cancers (several), a fire (with more death and housing problems), surgery, illnesses, family troubles, etc.

I thought 2012 was the worst year possible. But then we had 2013, which sucked. Then came 2014 which was the Big Bad Wolf of Horrible Awful Fucked Up years. So, to be honest, I’m nervous for 2015. Each year I say, “Well, thank God that’s over.” And then 2014 happens.

So for 2015, I guess I have to say that I’ll just do what I can to again mitigate any horror it brings. Deaths, funerals and housing. Commuting, cancers and fires. Health and relationships. I will do what I can to not let them get to me. I don’t feel like it’s fair to set resolutions when life can be this shitty, as sometimes just getting through the day is enough of a resolution. I can only promise that I will continue nurturing my children, that I will focus on things that bring me strength, and shed the things that drag me down.  And that will continue surviving.

Here is to hoping that 2015 is a fantastic year for all of you. I hope it redeems my faith and allows me to say in 365 days, “I sure hope 2016 is as great as 2015 was!”

And so that I don’t leave you with this depressing piece of crap writing, I started writing a new book today. It will take years to write, but I have almost 5000 words into it already and some plotting. I’m also going to do a fix-up of the Dukes of Mixager book for a genealogy project, adding footnotes and citations for the information. It will require some rework, so I may need to do some corrections, too.  I will be posting those here.  As well as some other fun things I'm sure will happen!

www.mascotmanor.org

A few weeks ago I took an online class about blogging via Hack Genealogy. It really sparked me to do something I’ve been only contemplating for over a year. REDO MY WEBSITE. Not really the website, but the structure and organization. I still have a ton to do, but here is what you will now find…

If you visit my usual home page (www.mascotmanor.org), you will get to my main site, which now actually leads somewhere! All my blogs and information are drilled off of that. This has helped me so much, as I didn’t have a ground before. I had my family webpage and my genealogy one and then wanted to do a homeschool one, as well. But it was disjointed and made me not want to do any of it.

So now you can visit www.mascotmanor.org and get to my family blog (mascotmanor.blogspot.com), my genealogy blog (mmgenealogy.blogspot.com), and to my homeschool blog (mmhomeschool.blogspot.com). In doing this, I’ve also changed the structure of the sidebars and other items. I think it’s much nicer and easier to work with. And easier to write on, as well! So expect some posts.

Finally!