FATHER’S DAY SPECIAL part I

FATHER’S DAY SPECIAL part I

A father's Day re-run from June 2012

My brother, Chris, recently found a letter he sent to my Aunt Nancy years ago to be read at a reunion he was unable to attend.  It gives wonderful insight to my dad and I thought it a perfect post for Father’s Day.  As it is somewhat longer then my usual posts I have divided into two parts.

Part I “The Ultra-Intelligent Dad” and

Part II “The Human Dad.”

Dear Aunt Nancy:

I am so sorry that we will not be able to join you and the others at the Hagy reunion later this month.  Carolyn asked that I drop you a line with a few stories about Dad that you might rehash or read to the group as a reminder of whom he was, and who we are.

Dad was an exceedingly bright individual with an insatiable, intellectual curiosity matched only by his confidence that he could do anything.  But he didn’t just read about it or think about doing it, he did it.

When we lived in Tulsa after WWII he read about hydroponics, a then developing field fueled by the belief that plants could be enhanced and prolific if they were fed directly the nutrients they needed rather than having to extract them from the soil.  A chemical engineer, this inspired him to believe that he could grow the world’s biggest vegetables if he grew them in a greenhouse in gravel and fed them chemicals by injection at their base. But he just didn’t think it, he did it.  While raising 3 boys and working full time at Sun Oil, in his spare time he built a large (30' x 100') greenhouse and installed an injector system throughout the rows of hip high boxes that he installed in his greenhouse.  He then developed a chemical container system, determined what nutrients, and how much, each type of plant would require, filled the boxes with gravel, planted lettuce, tomatoes, corn and other vegetables, fed them injected chemical nutrients and, in fact, grew the biggest vegetables imaginable. 

Mom and Dad kept busy harvesting his crop year round and sold to grocery stores. When we moved to New York the property (a 4 acre “farm”) was sold more for the greenhouse than the house, and my recollection is that the purchaser became a full time grower and made a nice living off of Dad’s greenhouse. 

(As an aside, we hated to leave that farm because we had a pony, black haired and sassy, and appropriately named “Nancy”.  You will recall that you took her and kept her on your farm and renamed her “GG”.  She was so much fun that I think she was more aptly named after you, and to me she will always be Nancy.) 

A Cranky aside – Aunt Nancy’s real name was Eleanor, but that is a different story.

When we left Oklahoma Dad got out of gardening and into boats, and he struggled long and hard sanding and painting first a sailboat on Long Island and then a “stinkpot” in Southern California.  He spent more time working on them then using them, and I think that is why he became infatuated with the possibilities of building boats of fiberglass. 

Unfortunately, unlike wood, fiberglass boats sank like a stone if capsized and that stunted the initial appetite for them.  But Dad conceived of the idea of building a hull inside the hull of a fiberglass boat and filling the core with foam.  Tests demonstrated to Dad that this construction would not only  give the boat a firmness not present in initial fiberglass boats, which felt like you were sitting or standing on eggshells, but, more importantly, it could make  fiberglass boats even more buoyant than wooden ones.  He then set about making a fiberglass boat. 

He designed a racing sailboat that fit the allowable dimensions of the moth, a type of 1-2 man 11 foot racing sailboat then popular at the Ocean City Yacht Club, and set about building it in our basement on Long Island. 

He did this from scratch.  It required building a wood frame, upside down, then covering it with chicken wire and ultimately plaster.  A separating compound was then spread on the plaster and fiberglass on top of that.  When it set, the fiberglass was popped off the plaster mold and it became a mold for the actual fiberglass boat that was built inside of it so that, on its removal from the mold, it would have a smooth exterior.  He then built a second, smaller hull, installed it within the larger outer hull, filled the gap between the hulls with Styrofoam, and eureka, he had created one of the first (if not the first) fiberglass boats that would not sink. 

This is now essentially the method used in constructing all fiberglass boats even to today.  Not only would the boat not sink, his design was so good that the boat dominated the moth class for some time. My brother Jim sailed it to third place against far more seasoned competition in the first regatta the new boat was entered in, the International Championships, which had more than 100 entrants.  Because it was fast, and would not sink, there was a demand for the boats and we made and sold 10-15 over the next few years as a hobby for Dad and summer job for Jim and me.

And then came the computer and digital age.  Dad was just a little early for it.  Too bad, he would have reveled in all that has come in the past 20 years.  But he was fascinated by what he did see of the new developments and the potentially powerful new tools that could be developed. 

I remember how he applied his intellectual curiosity and “can do” attitude when Aunt Phil came to live with him and Mom as she battled cancer.  She was bedridden and helpless at times.  That distressed Dad, but he was intrigued with the then developing use of electric garage door openers and remote TV channel changers.  He wondered how that might help Phil, and he developed a remote for her that she could use to turn on and off lights in the room, summon them and, I think, control the radio.  All pretty standard stuff now, but he developed it from scratch.

To be continued:

Dentist and Health Insurance

Dentist and Health Insurance

Many years ago, a cranky young man had three younger children and a job which allowed his family to live pay check to pay check.  Health insurance was mostly subsidized through work, that was good.  Health insurance that was subsidized through work paid for 50% of normal health problems, and 80% of serious stuff like operations and hospitalization…after a $1500 deductible (or well over one month’s take home pay), that was not so good. 

There was no dental insurance, and having a baby was considered optional and was not covered at all.  On the plus side, doctors and even the hospitals accepted monthly payments without charging interest.  As long as you sent something every month you were good.  

I used to send the dentist $10 every month.  There was always a new charge before the original bill was covered.  I paid about $20 a month for the cost of child birth.  I paid for about ten years.  When the medical costs of my children’s births were paid off, my insurance decided they would cover most of child birth expenses.  Too late, and I did not take advantage of this new benefit…three children was plenty…well one more came much later and that cost was covered.

Recently my dental insurance would not pay me to use my dentist of over 35 years.  He was not covered under their plan.  I used the insurance for some specialist procedures, and paid out of pocket to my regular dentist for normal dental needs.  I did not like the specialists that were in my plan, they worked in dental factories and patients were treated like a piece of meat.

A year ago, I needed work done and I wanted my regular dentist of 35+ years to do the work.  I changed dental plans to do this.  My insurance went from $50 a month, to $150 a month.  The $150 a month covered my youngest son who never uses it because his step-father is an oral surgeon.  Mrs. C does not go to a dentist, because, well she just doesn’t, so essentially, I pay $150 a month just for myself and my crappy teeth.

This year I went to my regular dentist, who was covered by my new expensive plan and had the work done that I had been putting off.  The proceedure cost $3500.  At first my insurance only wanted to cover $500 as they questioned the need for some of the work.  Eventually they paid the maximum covered by this plan, $1500.  They cover a maximum of $1500 for each member on the plan.

I did some quick math and realized that I was paying $1800 a year to cover a possible $1500 of dental work for me, and maybe $1500 to my son’s step-dad if my son needed work, and I really don’t give a flying frig if he is paid anything…just saying; and maybe $1500 for Mrs. C if she had a dental emergency. Not a very cost effective plan.

Next year I am simply going to have a $150 portion of my SS automatically deposited in a special account to be used just for dental costs.  I am going to insure myself and take my chances.

The trouble with health insurance is companies want to make a profit so they fight every payment, the insured want their monies worth and will take advantage of the companies if given the chance.  There is fraud on the insured side and also from a small segment of crooked practitioners.  It is a very cold sterile process of rampant distrust and dissatisfaction. 

I kind of miss the old days where Doctors, in effect subsidized those who had difficulty making payments. They accepted low monthly payments or barter and probably charged their wealthier patients a bit extra.  Maybe not so great for the doctors, but I don’t remember doctors driving anything but new cars. 

Of course, medicine was cheaper in those old days, because they didn’t have the machines and medicines to cure you like they do today.  The service was great, the bed side manner was great, the cures not always so much.

One thing for sure when it comes to health care and insurance, it will never be fair, it will never be inexpensive and there is no solution to make everyone happy.  After all, the only people who get their monies worth out of health insurance are those who are real sick.

The Ring

The Ring

A few weeks ago, I posted about a curio cabinet and its contents that I inherited from my Mom.

http://joeh-crankyoldman.blogspot.com/2017/05/the-curio-cabinet.html  

It contains an assortment of about a zillion pieces of memorabilia, some that have monetary value; all have some sentimental value.  I know every piece has a story explaining the sentimental value, I just do not know all the stories.

My daughter read the post and asked about a paper swan she had given her Grandmother years ago, wondering if it made it to the curio cabinet.  I did not think so, but the other day I double checked.

Now I definitely do not know everything in this cabinet, but I have had it moved twice and in doing so I have had to take out every item and then put them all back, so I am familiar with most pieces and especially if it was an item with more than sentimental value.

As I looked for the paper swan, which sadly I did not find, I came across these rings.  I have never seen them before.  I have no idea how I could have missed them in two moves and why I suddenly have found them.  They appear to maybe be an engagement and wedding ring.  Perhaps from my Grandmother or a favorite great aunt.  My SIL who knows more of my family history than I, also had never seen the rings and knew nothing of them.

The gold ring with the emerald and small diamonds would look very pretty on Mrs. C’s pinky.  The other ring will stay in the cabinet.  There is some special kind of irony that springs from this ring.

My mother did not have a lot of jewelry.  She was not a jewelry kind of gal.  She had three very nice rings which she inherited.  One was given to each daughter-in-law as an engagement ring or a wedding present.  Years later, when mom’s possessions were distributed among the three sons, my second wife whined that she never got a ring. 

She was jokingly told that her ring was in the UK (with my first wife).  She did not see the humor in this and went into one of her classic rages which shocked those who had never experienced her tantrums.

Long story short, she was given a necklace as consolation, but she always resented the fact that she did not get a ring.  Sometime after, our marriage ended when she decided she was happier connecting with a former fiancé, a doctor who left her 20 years before when he married the nurse that he knocked up.

Now, seven years after being married to Mrs. C, another ring shows up.

This is also just a few days after seeing a clock reading 11:11 at the same time that two unrelated out-of-sync analog clocks pointed to 10:15.

http://joeh-crankyoldman.blogspot.com/2017/06/what-are-odds.html 

When I wrote that post it did not occur to me that my Mom was born November 10, 1915...11-10-15.

A sign?

My Mom never met Mrs. C, but I believe she approves.