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This message forum is an ongoing discussion about anything and just about everything ... within reason.  One thing our class was good at was having opinions.  Almost 70 years of life experience certainly qualifies us as experts on most everything!   Ask a question ... give an opinion ... share some insights ... it's our web site, it's our forum.  That said, it's probably not a good idea to get into arguments about politics, religion, and the like.  While we're experts on everything, we also have a wide range of values and beliefs. This site belongs to all of us ... the whole range ... and we are not here to isolate, alienate, or subjugate anybody.  Of course insults, humiliation, sophomoric barraggadocio, and demented humor is expected behavior among some of us less mature people.
 

Jim Cejka

Nancy - think it's too late to make that our class motto?

Nancy Davison (Boerger)

It's got my vote.🙂

Jim Cejka

We have 'Jeopardy' again - they even had a bassoon question!

Jim Cejka

It's true, even in California - 

This is CALIFORNIA, the big, long valley in the middle, we just finished a 5-year drought, It's May - won't rain until at least November.

So, I washed both my cars two days ago, and it's been raining since then. 

Terri Levenhagen (Hoornstra)

Love that car-in-the rain graphic, Jim. It is true that in CA usually from May on we don't have to worry about rain. We ordered a portable treadmill for home exercise, and, although the manual says it should not be used outdoors, we thought we'd just put it under the patio cover outside on a mat with a cover to protect from the dew, and we'd be fine from now on until the rainy season. So TWICE now, in a box waiting for the "expert assemblers" to put it together, it has rained! I have been running out to tarp it, and remove the tarp so it could dry out. (The patio cover doesn't work well when it's windy!) It would have made one of those good "Three Stooges" era comedy movies. Oh, and we have rain in the forecast next week too. I love the rain, but. . .  On another note, it looks like the Jeopardy Teacher's Tournament will be a runaway. 

Lauren Dieterich

An update on my son's drowning. His body was found this morning. Today is his birthday. Must be some kind of mystical meaning. It's a relief; but, still does not relieve the pain. He was found 6 miles upstream; so, the tide was coming in, not going out like we were worryed about. If the tide had been going out, his body probably would have never been found.

Jim Cejka

Jim Cejka

Barbara Blair (Brenzel)

Lauren,

One of our Milwaukee news stations had a very nice "piece" on your son just a short time ago - after his body was recovered.  I can not remember which station it was as I never watch just the same station.  Thought you would like to know this.

Barb Brenzel (Blair)

Lauren Dieterich

Thanks, Barb.  It was Ch 58. My ex posted it on Facebook; so, I was able to save it. It was my second daughter that they interviewed. I'm surprised that Ch 58 devoted that much time to something that wasn't really that noteworthy to the average TV viewer. My daughters are in Maine to see the couple who found him and to bring him home. The couple own a greenhouse and have planted a flowering crabapple tree in his honor.

Barbara Blair (Brenzel)

Lauren,

It was a really lengthy piece when usually the news stories are so short.  Spoke very highly of your son.  Glad I saw it & glad that you saw it too!

Barb

Lauren Dieterich

Jim,

An interim death certificate was issued so that he could be cremated and brought home. A final death certificate will take several more weeks. I'd like to know why that will take so long.  I will have to hear what my daughters have to say about that. But, at least he will be home.

Lauren Dieterich

Garry,

    I'm sure that I can come up with even more; if I could only remember them.

Jim Cejka

Some observations made on moving to South Carolina:

-Driving across the country when I’m 75 was much different than when I was 25, especially the distance between potty stops.

-Green, like in trees and grass, still exist during the summer.

-Freeways are not a requirement for daily living. 

-SC has humidity, I’d forgotten what that was.

-Hot is hot, CA or SC, humidity or not.

-And, when you fill out things on the internet, when they ask for an address, and you get to ‘state,’ you can’t just put in the postal abbreviation. You have to click on that little drop down list of all the states. In CA, it came up on the first page. In SC, I have to scroll almost all the way to the bottom (at least still not as far as WI.)

Jim Cejka

Until I retired, I couldn’t wait to go back and live in California. So, when my son (Coast Guard) was stationed there, I figured it was a good chance to do so. But, believe it or not, CA had changed in the 30 or so years since I’d been there. There were more people, it never used to get over 100 degrees (except Death Valley), and you could actually drive from A to B on a freeway in a reasonable amount of time. So, the son thing again, he’s been transferred to the east coast. Why not follow him (now with a family, grandkids, and all) this time. Or, maybe it was my Bohemian ancestry. They were the original gypsies, so I guess I move a lot. 

It was a tough decision. I mean, the reservoirs are full again, we had an extra two weeks of green this year before everything turned brown, and the city where we lived is repairing its sidewalks, and the latest shooting in the neighborhood was over 2 months ago.

Besides, I’m not the only CCC migrant. Remember, Melody moved last year too.

Gas here is $2.19 a gallon, it rains about once a week, and I have yet to get stuck in a freeway clog. 

So, Garry, you can still play golf in an oven, soar with the 49ers and Jimmy G, curry hopes that the basketball year was only a minor speed bump, and watch your tech companies come up with things I’ll never understand or use. I’m going to go sit under trees, in the shade, sip iced tea, and discipline myself to avoid the use of y’all, in conversations with the locals, just to maintain my WI roots. 

.

Melody Jones (Parker)

Welcome Jim to the Carolinas!  We are glad to have you here!

When I lived in Florida for 6 years in the 1980's, the phrase y'all crept into my communication, so it is not a new habit that I picked up in Carolina.  It feels natural to me.

Something that might be new to you is the threat of hurricanes; last summer was a particularly hard one with three hurricanes hitting our state. But, as I have been through tornadoes and earthquakes, I'll take our hurricanes any day.

Garry, you don't know what you are missing!

Jim Cejka

Why thank you Melody. We are certainly enjoying it. 

As for those hurricanes, we’re 150 miles from the ocean, at 500 ft elevation, and in a sturdy brick house, so I can be not so much worried. If anything, we’ll probably be a sanctuary for that son and his family, who the Coast Guard put in Miami instead of South Carolina. 

Garry, as he admitted, sounds like the one with too much sun. 104 degrees? Playing golf? You’d think that the ball would get all soft and mushy in that heat, so when you hit it it would just go splat against the club. Or, melt a bit out of round, and roll like a football. I thought Ms Custer made us smart kids.

Jim Cejka

Now, having become a father, and grandfather myself, all I can say is, "Thank you Dad, for the example you set."

Jim Cejka

Garry,

I shall refrain from any more referrences to your golfing "accessories", but I would add something to your list of California-isms. 

In the rest of the world, people refer to interstate highways as "I-5," or "Interstate 10." 

In CA, it's "The 5", or "The 280."

Jim Cejka

Yup Garry, y'all got that right.

Terri Levenhagen (Hoornstra)

Just to clear something up: only since I've come to LA do I hear "THE Five" or "THE Ten" referring to freeways. We didn't say that in the Bay Area. Also, "y'all" is a very convenient expression, since in standard English "you" can denote singular and plural. When addressing a group of people, you say, "Why don't you come over later?" It leaves everyone to wonder, "Did they mean ME?" Our more confident ones will assume that's the case and come over, but the shyer ones among us will assume "you" meant someone else, and not come. I am learning Spanish on the Dulolingo app, since it is such a popular language here in SoCal. It helps my learning  because   I can read the many signs, pamphlets and posters everywhere printed in both languages. Hopefully someday I will be able to speak more effectively with gardeners and contractors, many of whom are at their same point in English as I am in Spanish. ANYWAY, they have a wonderful word "ustedes" that translates as - you guessed it if you didn't already know  - "y'all"!

Jim Cejka

So there Garry, the TEACHER has spoken . . . y'all.

Lauren Dieterich

This is a fairly new Facebook page that I joined about 8 months ago that I think that all of us will find very interesting and informative " Historic North Milwaukee " 

Jim Cejka

So, we're finally getting settled into our new house, sort of. Actually, 2 lawn chairs, a bed, and a tv. It's the 4th of July, the temp is South Carolina hot and humid, there are fireworks booming all over the place . . . and the TV is showing 2 weeks of Christmas movies. Wonderful.

I expected some kind of cultural changes moving all the way accross the country, but somehow our arrival here has triggered some kind of time-warp or something. The good news is that the cables out here show Hogan's Heros, same time even as California, so there is still some connection with sanity to help me through these apparent abberations in the in the space - time continum between July and December, and West coast vs East coast. 

Jim Cejka

I have been through several of "the big ones" out there, and will admit to a bit of "wow, this is a quake, really cool," moments before the onset of terror. I actually believe that making Nevada the next west coast is part of Mother Nature's plan to secede California from the rest of the country.