Nothing worth reading here.

Grampa Don

Grampa Don

Yep, that's me
Location
Orange county, Calif.
You've been warned. I haven't posted in a while and holly dolly was kind enough to ask if I was OK. And, oldman suggested that I should post at least once a week so people wouldn't think I departed this mortal coil. So, here I am. Since this is about me, it will be pretty dull, but I will rattle on anyway unless Matrix stops me.

I'm older than most on this forum, born in '39. So, I'm a pre-boomer. It was a good time to be born; a kid in the '40s, a teen in the '50s and a young adult in the '60s. And now, an old man in the '20s with all these neat gadgets like the internet. I've always lived in the L.A. basin, and only been in snow a few times.

I'm a widower. I lost my wife a little more than two years ago. We had been married 60 years and we grew up on the same block. So she was a major part of my life. It was tough, but the folks here were very helpful and I appreciate it.

I used to be an engineer. My titles included Test engineer, QA engineer, Manufacturing engineer, and Process engineer. I only have a two year AA degree in electronics, but I graduated shortly after Sputnik and there was a shortage of degreed engineers at the time and that gave me a break. It was a good career. It was sometimes stressful, but I got to do some neat stuff and it was never boring.

I was in the naval reserve and served two years aboard a diesel submarine. I was an ETR3 (SS). That's electronic technician radar third class petty officer. The SS meant that I was qualified for submarine duty. I stood radar and sonar watches at sea. It was my life's one big adventure.

I'm going to stop for now. In a week or two I'll blab on some more if I can think of anything.
 

Grampa Don said:
You've been warned. I haven't posted in a while and holly dolly was kind enough to ask if I was OK. And, oldman suggested that I should post at least once a week so people wouldn't think I departed this mortal coil. So, here I am. Since this is about me, it will be pretty dull, but I will rattle on anyway unless Matrix stops me.

I'm older than most on this forum, born in '39. So, I'm a pre-boomer. It was a good time to be born; a kid in the '40s, a teen in the '50s and a young adult in the '60s. And now, an old man in the '20s with all these neat gadgets like the internet. I've always lived in the L.A. basin, and only been in snow a few times.

I'm a widower. I lost my wife a little more than two years ago. We had been married 60 years and we grew up on the same block. So she was a major part of my life. It was tough, but the folks here were very helpful and I appreciate it.

I used to be an engineer. My titles included Test engineer, QA engineer, Manufacturing engineer, and Process engineer. I only have a two year AA degree in electronics, but I graduated shortly after Sputnik and there was a shortage of degreed engineers at the time and that gave me a break. It was a good career. It was sometimes stressful, but I got to do some neat stuff and it was never boring.

I was in the naval reserve and served two years aboard a diesel submarine. I was an ETR3 (SS). That's electronic technician radar third class petty officer. The SS meant that I was qualified for submarine duty. I stood radar and sonar watches at sea. It was my life's one big adventure.

I'm going to stop for now. In a week or two I'll blab on some more if I can think of anything.
Click to expand...
good to hear from you again Don! đź’•
 

I’ve only been to the east coast once. In March of 1979, the company I worked for sent me, Bill and Ali to Boston for a two week class on a new computerized tester that was on order. Ali was a native of Pakistan.

I was told it could still be cold and snowy, so I prepared by buying long underwear, corduroy trousers, a puffy warm jacket and a pair of rubber overshoes. And, at my wife’s insistence, dead bolts for our front and back doors.

We met at our local small airport and took an air taxi to LAX. That service doesn’t exist here anymore, but it’s definitely the best way to get to LAX. Can’t recall which airline we took or the type of plane, but I loved the flight. The view of the country from 30,000 feet was fascinating. Five and a half hours later we landed at Logan airport. It was already dark.

Our destination was Concord, so we rented a car and I drove. I found that you have to be bold to drive in Boston. If you wait for someone to give you a break, it ain’t gonna happen. You just barge in and they give way. We drove through the under water tunnel and before long encountered our first expressway toll booth. That was different. In those days all our California freeways were free. That’s no longer true.

After we checked in at our motel, we looked for a place to get some dinner and stopped at a small diner. I figured, Oh Boy, I’m going to get some great clam chowder here. Nope! Campbell’s makes better.

The class was in the company’s old brick two story building. It was an old established company. For lunches we ate free in their cafeteria and the food was good. At the end of the day we explored the area and tried different restaurants. One evening we came across a small place the specialized in lobster. When you walked in you could see this giant pot of boiling water that they would toss them in. Bill and I each had one, but Ali who was Muslim wouldn’t eat one and ordered a steak.

I had never seen French onion soup on a menu before. Here, it was on all of them. I tried some. It was OK.

Concord and Lexington were neat little towns with lots of old buildings and shops. The only snow we saw was in small piles where it was shady. I didn’t need the rubber overshoes. It was cold, but dry and the vegetation was mostly bare and dead. March is probably not the prettiest season in Massachusetts. We saw Walden pond, which was a bit of a disappointment. I don’t know what I expected, but it’s just another pond.

We found one pond that was still covered with thin ice. That’s something I had never seen before and had to walk down and pick up a piece that had broken off. And we saw the bridge where the shot heard round the world was fired. Driving through the countryside felt kind of claustrophobic. With all the trees and hills the line of sight was never very far. I’m used to seeing more sky.

pond.jpg


The Saturday between our two weeks was St. Patrick’s Day. A great day to be in Boston. We parked on the outskirts of town, took the subway, and did a walking tour of the city. I don’t remember any walk/don’t walk signs at the intersections. The way it worked was when a critical number of people wanted to cross, they just crossed regardless of lights. Everyone seemed OK with this so we went along with it.

Another thing that seemed acceptable was double parking. One whole block had cars parked two deep next to the curb. I don’t know how the ones on the inside could get out, but they must have figured out something.

We saw Paul Revere’s house, the old north church, went aboard Old Iron sides, and strolled through Quincy market. We ate dinner in a restaurant where everybody sat at long tables. I don’t recall what I had, but the lady next to me was eating raw oysters. My Mom used to fry oysters and Dad liked oyster stew, but I had never seen anyone eat them raw before. She was slurping them up.

On Sunday, we took a drive north up the coast. We stopped at a rocky beach and I put my hand in the water just to be able to say I touched the Atlantic ocean. I looked up and the sky was full of what looked like tiny white moths. It took me a minute to figure out that they were snowflakes. It didn’t last long.

We stopped at Salem and went in the Witch Museum, saw the House of Seven Gables, and the office where Nathaniel Hawthorn worked. Maybe it was the weather, but Salem struck me as a gloomy place.

We continued north as far a Gloucester and drove around the harbor a bit. Ali wanted to look at antiques, so we stopped at a couple places. I bought a fancy teacup and saucer for my wife’s collection.

Coming back we stopped for lunch at a seafood place along the shore. I ordered steamed clams and they were full of sand. I didn’t want to make a fuss so I ate them anyway.

Overall, we had a good time. I hope I don’t offend any Bostonians, but my impression of the people was that they were more reserved and blunt than I was used to. They seemed sort of cool. For instance, once we asked a waitress if we could have separate checks. Back home I would expect her to say something like “I’m sorry, but I can’t do that.” This waitress just said “We don’t do that” and walked off.

At the end of the two weeks we flew back to LAX and a chartered van drove us to our homes. I don’t remember anything of the class we took. Ali was the only one who ever worked with the new machine. Bill and I went on to other projects. Before long, Ali left the company for greener pastures and they hired new people to take his place.
 
Yes! Thanks for sharing @Grampa Don ! And checking in! 🤗
I grew up a little bit up the road from Lexington and Concord. March was a long month waiting for some signs of spring. 🌼
 

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