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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

I remember the phone at our place on 35th St. was on a party line, had about a 6 ft. cord, and was on a little phone-seat thingy. Now they fit in your pocket, get mail, give directions, and connect you to a "party" of a few million strangers. Somehow, that little seat and phone had a lot going for it.

Nancy Davison (Boerger)

And remember, Jim, when those phones, that came in one color - black, had a dial on the front? You could dial "O" and speak to a person who would actually help you. I spent a few years in college as a long-distance phone operator in Milwaukee when the "board" still used long cords to connect people. Traffic on the boards reflected what was going on in the country. I was working them when JFK was assassinated and it seemed that every person who had a phone called someone to tell the news, or hear if it had been heard. Overnight shifts made me wonder if some lonely people just wanted to hear a human voice. Perhaps a few Covid-quarantined souls would welcome the revival of the helpful voice summoned up by "O".

Jim Cejka

Ah Ha Nancy, confirmation - you really were a smoooooth operator.

Garry Sellers

I don't know about your homes but we had one of these in our kitchen.  Suppose our grandkids would know what it's for?

I think we had a party line until the "HIlltop" and then "HOpkins" exchanges came into being.  But I do vividly remember staying on my grandparent's farm out on National Ave near Mukwanago and watching Grandma silently picking up the phone and listening in on her neighbors!  She had to know everything everybody was up to.  This was my fire and brimstone, sin-no-more Christian grandma!

Nancy Davison (Boerger)

As children, we visited our aunt and uncle's farm and loved guessing who, on the party line, was getting a phone call - judging by the pattern of the ringing (their "number" was three long and two short). The oak phone was about two feet tall, and hung on the wall with its speaker unit protruding and the listening portion attached to a long cord hanging on the left side. A cute little crank on the right side (did these things come for lefties? probably not) generated the ring. The operator in town was always available, and not only knew everyone, but also could advise a caller if someone was out of town or visiting someone. I suspect there were a great many other details she might have shared.

Jim Cejka

Nancy, this is the phone I have in our kitchen. 

Nancy Davison (Boerger)

Jim - That's it!

Jim Cejka

But I haven't figured out how to text on it yet.

Jim Cejka

Jim Cejka

Nancy,

I originally found that phone in our attic on 35th St, and I have carried it with me ever since. In the last 40 some years, we have moved a lot. It still has all its insides and weighs a ton, because there's a big heavy magnet in there. It's almost a ritual that the first thing that goes up in our new house is that phone.

Nancy Davison (Boerger)

I love it! Truly cool....

Happy Thanksgiving.

Kenneth Pallaske

Luanne and I contracted covid-19 a couple of months ago. Fortunately, it was mild for both  us.

Jim, I love your virtual Thanksgiving.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL.

Jim Cejka

Garry Sellers

Hope some of you are enjoying the Christmas videos.  I'm wondering how the pandemic is affecting your Christmas plans.  We had rented one of the small theaters (only $125) and the whole family could watch a movie together and exchange gifts safely.  But in California, everything is shut down ... and I mean everything.  We're afraid to hold a gathering at anybody's house, espeically since we have a college student driving home for the Holidays ... and we would never exclude her.  So we're still searching for solutions ... and it's not Zoom!  What's happening in your family?

Nancy Davison (Boerger)

Small gatherings; small groups. Older daughter and partner drove from Minneapolis for Thanksgiving - quarantined and tested before and drove straight through. Planning to do the same for Christmas. Boulder daughter and grand daughter will stay there.

We just finished a nice visit with another couple, friends from across the lake, with whom we shared mulled cider and cookies on the deck next to the chimenea, all bundled up. As the Scandinavians say, "there's no bad weather, just bad clothing". We'll just fire up the chimenea whenever the precipitation and wind let us out, and visit with anyone we can. 

Melody Jones (Parker)

Really no different for us this year.  We have been very blessed; all three adults working.  Grandkids at their essential jobs and son from home office.  All 4 of us decorated the tree.  Christmas Eve service at church with masks and social distancing.  Christmad ham dinner as usual.  North Carolina govenor made new rules effective tomorrow, setting a curfew for 10 P.M. and no alchol sales after 9 P.M., until Jan 7th.  Spoils New Year's Eve for some but will have no effect on us.  We stay home and watch the ball drop on TV.

Jim Cejka

Through a number of jobs, and the military, I managed to spend a number of Christmases away or without family. At first it was difficult, but it grows on you and you learn to accept it. Today, or if it were a day without covid, stores, restaurants, the gas station on the corner, and about everyplace would open on Christmas, and there are lots of people who would have an interrupted family Christmas anyway. Here too, our daughter, who lives with us, will be at work on Christmas and Christmas Eve. She manages the kennels at a veterinary clinic, so she’s taking care of everyones pets so the owners can have their Christmases. 

Christmas with us is more of a mood than just an event, and my whole, and scattered, family, have come to appreciate that. When the decorations in the neighborhood, including ours, go up and the Christmas music starts on the radio stations, the excitement and feelings begin. From my kids scattered around the country, to the son in Norway, we have that “It’s a Wonderful Life” Christmas feeling, and share our togetherness, no matter how far we are apart. We’re family, were still together.

So, Christmas will be with my wife and, at some time, daughter. A little special breakfast (somehow a Kringle always manages to show up), walk the dogs, watch the grand girls Christmas program at church on whatever computer magic they use, and see what Santa might have brought (I’m not sure which of his lists I’m on, so I don’t get my hopes up.) Maybe a toast to Christmases and family and friends past, and, of course, “A Christmas Carol.”

We’ll still get to see the kids and grandkids now with Skype or Zoom or Go or whatever, and see their happy faces, and share their happy time. Never dreamed part of Christmas meant that we’d have our 3 and 6-year old granddaughters understanding that grandpa and grandma still love them, but that covid thing says we can’t be there. 

The nasty bug can alter the celebration, but not the spirit.

Karsten Boerger

Gary

I fell old enough as it is, do not make me older.

I must be the oldest of the gratuating class since I wasted so much time in South America without going to school.

But oh, I had a lot of fun

Karsten

Jim Cejka

Garry, cool vids on the home page. One is the 1967 Bob Hope Christmas tour. Here's one from the 1966 tour in DaNang. As you can tell, I had one of the "Uecker" seats. Someone must have liked us, the monsoon stopped for about an hour and we got to see the girls without their raingear.

William Nelson

Jim,

It appears we wound up in the same area as you were to see the Bob Hope show. We were there in '67. It's fun to see the show highlights from a much closer vantage point. Raquel Welch looks better from that improved position. It was one of the nicest surprises we ever had in the Army. Right up there with a week of R&R in Sydney, Australia and getting out of RVN two weeks earlier than anticipated in May, 1968. 

Jim Cejka

Oh sure Bill, you got Raquel Welch - we got Phyllis Diller.

Garry Sellers

Jim- This one's for you!  1966 with Phyllis Diller!  I think I saw you in the crowd!!!  You were the guy sitting in the tree naked, right?

Jim Cejka

Tree? What tree? C'mon Garry, I had my caduceus on so they could tell I was a corpsman.

Lauren Dieterich

Jim, I don't remember if I mentioned this before; but, my oldest daughter is a corpsman. CPO Rebecca 'Doc' ( FMF) Dieterich.

Jim Cejka

Yeah Lauren, I think you said she was at Pendleton then. Good for her. Pendleton is on its third hospital since I was there.