Thanksgiving has come and gone.  Tomorrow it’s back to the old grind once again.  I’ve been off work for five days and accomplished very little during that time.  I attempted to cut up the tree that fell a few days ago but, as it turns out, my chainsaw needed new fuel lines.  I guess I’ll get that done next week.  I worked on the Hootis a little but it has been so cold and rainy for the past few days it’s not a fun way to pass the time.
    The other day I was having one of those “train of thought” episodes where I think about one thing for some reason and then find myself a million miles away on another subject.  For some reason I was thinking about an old apartment I lived in years ago.  It was very close to downtown Jackson, MS, actually behind the state capital.  I used to go to a restaurant/bar called George Street Grocery that was on the same block.  Quite often there were state legislators and TV news people there having a drink before or after work.  This was years ago when pagers or “beepers”, as they were often called, had just gotten popular.  They were rather large and heavy with a limited range and all they did was beep.  You had to call an answering service to get a message or phone number to call in return. I was sitting at the bar one evening wearing my beeper when this drunken guy asked me what I did for a living.  I told him (at that time I wasn’t an engineer) and he looked at my pager and asked me, “then why are you wearing a tape measure?”
    Anyway, when I lived in that apartment, Roger Wolbarst was my next door neighbor.  Rod, his nickname, was sportswriter for the newspaper and quite a character.  He was probably in his sixties when I first met him.  I remember it was right after he had heart surgery.  Even though he was still recuperating from his surgery, he had his ever present cigarette and drink in his hand.  He had been a sergeant in WWII and had a rather strong opinion about the USA doing business with the Japanese.  During one of his diatribes I remember telling him that his car, a little red Plymouth, had a Japanese engine in it.  He argued until the cows came home that it didn’t.  It did and it was a Mitsubishi, but I didn’t bring it up again.  Rod died just a few years after I moved away from Jackson.  I’m really glad that I got to know him.  He was an interesting guy.
    Another interesting fellow that I had the privilege of meeting was Dan Guravich, a well known photographer.  Dan was an old friend of some friends of mine.  I remember the first time I met him he had been out picking wild mushrooms and cooked them for us.  Dan had an intelligent air about him so it was easy to be trusting of what he said.  Obviously there weren’t any toadstools mixed in the batch.  Dan was known for his polar bear photos which appeared in National Geographic as well as many other prominent journals.  He founded Polar Bears International, www.polarbearsinternational.org  an organization for the conservation of polar bears and their environment.  I didn’t really get to know him. I can just say I met him a time or two and that he was a very dominant figure in the gathering.  Dan died in 1997.
    Funny how thinking of something totally unrelated can bring back all those memories.  I’d say this is a perfect example that, contrary to what your school teachers said, day dreaming is an excellent recreation.