Friday's Dispatch

• Of course everybody who is anybody knows Boxcar Willie but did you know he was a B 29 bomber pilot and a flight engineer on tankers in the Texas Air National Guard ?
• I got three chilrens and number foe on da way. I can't afford to feed dem on no minimum wages. Actual statement I heard made by a protester over minimum wages for fast food employees and I promise you- I am being kind and not wanting to make her look bad- she was much less well spoken and rambled on with a couple more lines just as damaging and yeah- comical. They want 15 bucks an hour- or more than a medical assistant will make after 9 months of expensive and intense classwork and dangerously close to an LVN after a year+ of school or a dental assistant after 8 to 12 months of school. They are if not crazy, oblivious and ignorant.
• My uncle was a US Steel worker in Gary Indiana. He took me and my dad around and showed us around the mill in the early 70s. We walked across the slag heaps where impurities off the steel would be dumped. Uncle told me about boys who stepped on not completely cooled areas and would pull their feet up after breaking through the crust and there would be nothing but bone- or nothing there at all. Their feet would be burned completely off. Omigosh- I just realized- he totally lied to me to keep me close to them and out of trouble. That old fart. Well, it worked, not only did I stay close, I kept them in front and judging as uncle was fatter than dad I walked perfectly in his footsteps.
• I loved him though. He was one of my heroes and both he and aunt Beulah indulged us kids.
• Perhaps, we should know the story of Gennie Polarski.
  
  
  
  
  
  

  

  Hannelore Schmatz died on her descent from Everest's summit in  1979. She sat to rest on the way down and died in place. For years her body was along one of the routes and climbers would see her body in a sitting position leaning against her pack. They would comment on her eyes being open and the way her hair blew around. She eventually fell over as you see in the bottom picture and then was later blown away. Someday I will have a boat or ranch named Hannelore.