Mama Dean Pound Cakes

My mom was famous for her pound cakes.  Oh they were sooooo good.  Every since she retired she made one almost every day.  I never went in her house that there wasn’t at least one sitting on the counter.  It didn’t matter if you weren’t hungry you still cut a big chunk and enjoyed it.  Oh and if you were lucky enough to get one hot out of the oven.  Well heaven could be any better.  Hot pound cake, a glass of cold “whole” milk (none of that crappy thin milk in her house) and you were at heaven’s door. 

She called it her pound cake ministry.  If you were sick, you got a pound cake.  If a family member died, you got a pound cake.  If you had a birthday, you got a pound cake.  Any friend who stopped by for a visit, you got a pound cake.  You worked on her house, you got a pound cake.  The UPS man made a delivery, you got a pound cake.  Her attorney was paid in pound cakes.  He would do house calls just to get one.

It was unusual to get a whole cake.  It always had one very thin piece missing where she would cut it and see it was acceptable to give away.  Most people never knew it was missing a piece.  She could cut the piece so small it only had one side. 

There are many stories about her cakes.  I sure I don’t know all of them but just to share a few.

Our son’s Paul and Michael were in the First Methodist Youth Group.  Every year they did a mission trip, for which, the youth had to raise the funds for the trip.  One year she volunteered to make pound cakes for them to sell.  Well even though mom wasn’t a member of our church, everyone in our church who had ever been to an event had tasted one of her cakes.  Needless to say, they were a hot item and very easy to sell.  So they sold a lot of them.  As best as I remember, it was like 72 of them that she made.  The good part about her pound cakes is they freeze easy and keep fresh for a long time if you freeze them.  Freeze them she did.  The only problem she ran out of freezer space, so they went to neighbors, friends and anyone else who had freezer space.  The real adventure came when it came time to go collect all of them.  Carole and my sister DeAnn went with mother and it took all day because you had to visit with everyone when you picked up the cakes. 

My business partner in Tuscaloosa loved my mom’s pound cakes.  She declared them the best she ever had.  Jennifer is a real connoisseur of pound cakes, so that really meant something.  She loved to get them and always called my mother to thank her.  Of course that made mom’s day mostly because she just loved Jennifer.  (Hell who doesn’t love Jennifer.)  Jennifer admitted to me that she would hide mom’s cakes and not share with her girls or Forest.  She said they just didn’t know how to appreciate what they were getting and she wasn’t going to waste it on them.  They could eat Win-Dixie cookies and be happy.  Many of the pound cakes never left the office for the trip home.  Of course she got caught a couple of times by her girls and would have to share.

Talladega Tractor would come get my mom’s grass cutting tractor every year and service it.  (She loved to cut grass, until her back got too bad to do it.)  They always got a pound cake when they picked the tractor up and when they returned it.  So one of the trips the guy brought the tractor back and unloaded it.  He gave mom the repair ticket.  But then he didn’t leave, he just kept standing around.  Mom finally asked him if there was something she was supposed to sign or did he need her to do something else.  He told her, he was instructed not to come back to the shop without a pound cake.  Apparently the mechanics at Talladega Tractor had threatened him with his life if he did not return with a cake.  She apologized for not thinking to give him one.  He left with the cake, his life was safe and the mechanics were happy until next spring.

There was one lady who was taking chemo and swears the only thing she could eat was mom’s pound cake.  It was the only thing that kept her alive. 

Of course pound cakes take lots of sugar.  Since sugar is expensive when she could buy it on sale she would.  As a matter of fact lots of people got to buy sugar.  They always limit the amount you can buy when it is on sale.  So she would go to the three grocery stores in Sylacauga and buy all she could.  Often she would go back the next day to the same three stores and buy more if they hadn’t sold out.  She would send my sister to all three stores and Carole would get to go to the grocery stores in Pell City to buy all they could buy.  We were always concerned that the Revenuers would show up and cart her off the jail for making whiskey. 

There were two different periods of time when her cakes didn’t come out they way they always had.  She started working on what the problem was.  She wasn’t happy.  As a matter of fact it was one of the few times in her life she wasn’t happy.  After several weeks of work, she confronted the margarine company; they admitted they had changed their process.  They told her to buy Fleischmann’s Original, it was the old formula.  She did the same thing with the flour company when they changed their process.  She knew her pound cake material.

Michael decided that he was going to learn how to cook her pound cake.  So he went and stayed a few days with her and she instructed him on how to make the cake.  Having a scientific mind he timed each of the different mixing times.  In three days she never varied more than 15 seconds in how long she did each of the operations. 

Mama Dean’s Cream Cheese Pound Cake

½ lb of butter

8 oz cream cheese

3 cups of sugar

6 eggs
3 cups of flour

¼ tsp soda

1 tsp vanilla & lemon flavor

The rest of this is Michael summary on how to do one of her cakes.  One of these days I will do a blog about her life.  But that is going to have to wait.  I will always miss her and her pound cakes. 

Here is the general process for making any cake Mama Dean quality.

Products to use:

Butter = Land of Lakes Salted butter

Margarine = Fleischmann's Original

Flour = White Lilly All Purpose

Sugar = Domino (only from the 5lb bag)

Milk = Whole milk

Extract = Watkin's Brand

Eggs = Large and preferably from Aunt Sally's farm

Sour Cream = any brand just make sure it's not low fat

Stand Mixer = Kitchen Aide (her's was classic white but I assume any color will do)

Any deviation in product will produce a different cake, not necessarily a bad cake, just different.

All refrigerated ingredients should be removed from the refrigerator 1 hour prior to beginning the recipe.  Room temperature of the products should be at least 70 degrees F.

Sifting of dry ingredients:

Always sift the flour before measuring it for the recipe, regardless of what the written recipe says.  If it calls for 4 cups of flour, put four cups of flour in the sifter, sift it and then measure out 4 cups and proceed with the recipe.  Even cake flour should be sifted before you measure it out for the recipe.

Creaming:

To correctly cream the butter and sugar, add all the butter to your Kitchen Aide Stand Mixer.  Beat on high 30 seconds.  With the mixer running, begin to slowly add the sugar to the butter.  It should take at least 30 seconds per cup of sugar.  Once all the sugar is added turn off the mixer and scrape down the bowl.  Make sure you go all the way to the bottom of the bowl (I cannot stress the importance of this enough).  Turn the mixer back on setting 6 and beat for 60 seconds.  Turn off the mixer and scrape the bowl again.  Turn the mixer back on setting 6 and beat for 60 seconds, for a second time.  Turn off the mixer and scrape the bowl again.  Turn the mixer back on setting 6 and beat for 60 seconds, for a third and final time.  Turn off the mixer and scrape the bowl again for the third time.

Adding the Eggs:

Turn the mixer on setting 6 for at least 30 seconds before adding the first egg.  Always crack the egg into a coffee cup before adding it to the bowl and check for a bad egg or a stray shell fragment.  Wait until each egg is fully incorporated before adding the next one.  Halfway through the number of eggs, turn off the mixer and scrape down the bowl, again making sure you go all the way to the bottom.  Turn the mixer back on and add the remaining eggs.  After the last egg is fully incorporated, turn off the mixer and scrape down the bowl again.

Adding the Flour & Wet ingredient:

With the mixer on the lowest setting, slowly add the flour in 1/4 cup increments alternating with the wet ingredient (milk or sour cream).  Begin and end with the flour.  Half way through, turn off the mixer and scrape down the bowl.  Turn the mixer back on and add the flavorings before resuming with the flour.  After the last addition of flour, turn off the mixer and scrape down the bowl again. Turn the mixer back on high speed for a final 30 seconds.

Doneness:

A too hot oven is your worst enemy.  Either calibrate the temperature correctly, or reduce the temperature by 25 degrees.  Set a timer for the lowest time setting suggested in the recipe.  You are looking for 3 things.  Smell: you should smell the cake, this is your first indication you are nearing the done stage.  Your whole kitchen should be filled with the heavenly scent of baked deliciousness.  Look: the cake should pull away from the sides of the pan slightly.  Touch: lightly press the top of the cake; you're finger should leave the slightest impression in the top.  If all else fails use the toothpick test.  If the toothpick comes out clean it's ready.  (Approx 1½ hours)

Follow this process and any cake will turn out as best as it can possibly be.

The 1976 Brewery Protection Act

A couple of our first trips to the Virgin Islands to charter a sailboat were with my former sister-in-law Deb and her husband Stan.  My mother wasn't real happy about us being friends with a former in-law.  She is all for her family and if you hurt one of them then you are on her black list for a long time. 

Stan and Deb were fun to go with.  A little on the wild side that pushed the limits Carole and I had.  Stan is a great mechanic.  If it is broke he can fix it.  If he has never seen it he can still fix it.  One trip he rebuilt the carburetor on the outboard while bouncing around in the dingy.

We had some great times but Stan was a prankster.  Always pulling something and Carole is so gullible he had lots of fun with her. 

That was back in our serious beer drinking days. For some reason we decided to go down the south side of St John.  There isn't anything along that side of the island and few charter boats went there.  We discovered we were out of beer and headed up into Coral Bay to buy beer.  Coral Bay needs to be on your bucket list.  It is known as the place where people go when they find Key West too restrictive.  Coral Bay has several bars but no grocery stores; they are on the other side of the island.  We are desperate and buy a couple of six packs at bar prices to get us back into St. Thomas.  That hurt to pay those kind of prices but a person has to do what a person has to do.  Or if you are going to be stupid you better be tough.  And now you know where that expression came from. 

When we got back into the harbor the next day and starting packing we found two cases of beer stored behind some stuff in a compartment on the boat.  We are mad, mostly at ourselves for not checking there and for having any beer to enjoy on the way back to the harbor.  There was a case of Budweiser (mine) and a case of Amstel Light (Stan's).  I decide to leave the case of Bud to the dock boys, maybe they will remember us next trip and be extra nice.  Stan says hell no you can't buy Amstel Light at home and am taking it with me.  I think it is a bad idea but if are going to be stupid.... 

Stan and Deb are divers and carry a lot of gear to the islands (well it probably wasn't any more that what is required to keep you alive for 30 minutes under the water).  Part of their dive gear is a big expensive camera that goes in the dive bag.  Stan just puts the beer in the dive bag with all the other stuff and away we go to the airport.  Well you know, just saying, beer isn't weightless.  So the dive bag is over the limit and Stan has to fork out an additional $25. 

At that time St Thomas didn't have a customs office.  The airport was a WWII quasi hut with no A/C but several bars.   (It was really easy back then to sail between islands.  No one cared which country you were in, you were just in the islands.)  All of the flights went thru San Juan and that where customs took place.  Your bags came out on a belt and you picked them up walked thru customs and put them on another belt.  To say the customs guys were lax would be an understatement.  They were able to profile people back then and as long as you look like guy and his wife on a vacation. They left you along.  Now if you had too many gold chains or miss babe was a little too hot looking they went thru your bags from top to bottom.  Carole and I clear with no problems.  Deb come thru in a couple of minutes but no Stan.  Stan is waiting for the dive bag.  All the bags are finally off the belt and no dive bag.  He comes on thru but is worried about the bag.  He says the guy from American Airlines tell him "no problem man" them drunks at St Thomas do it all the time.  Your bag will come on the next flight and the airline will deliver it to your house.  He isn't real happy with that answer.  What if them drunks get his camera and just sell it in Coral Bay.  The camera was expensive and probably past what he could comfortably spend in those days.

The next day I call Deb and ask if she heard anything from the airline.  She says not a word and that camera is beyond what the airline will pay if it is lost. 

It is payback time!

I call my friend Mike Callahan.  Now Mike and my dad are good friends also and I know of the stunts they have pulled on each other. I ask Mike to call Deb and tell her he is a customs agent and give her a hard time about the beer.

So Mike calls and introduces himself as a customs agent in Atlanta.  He asks if she has just returned from a trip and where did she go. Deb has a bubbly personality and she tells him a lot more than he asks for.  He asks if she enjoyed the trip and were the customs agents friendly.  So she tells him how wonderful sailing was in the islands, how beautiful the water is and customs agents were just great.  Then Mike drops the bomb.  "Let's not kid ourselves this is not a courtesy call.  You are in violation of the 1976 Brewery Protection Act.  We have been having a lot of problems with people violating this law and we are going to make examples of violators. You are to appear in Federal Court in Atlanta on August 11th."  You could have a pin drop across the phone line. The bubbly conversation is gone.  All answers were yes sir, no sir, thank you sir. 

Mike calls me and tells me I need to call her and tell her this is a joke because she has freaked out.    It is the first day back at work I am busy and it takes an hour or more before I call.  When I do, the first thing out of her mouth is "Oh my god Robert we are going to prison".  I asked “Why are you in violation of the 1976 Brewery Protection Act? “ She knew she had been had and I got a cussing.  In between the calls she had talked to Stan, they knew they were on the way to prison.  What was going to happen to the kids?  Who would take care of them?  A great trip had become a disaster.  They were scared.  Their life was passing before their eyes. Stan was trying to get in touch with his congressman. 

Paybacks or revenge can be pure hell on you sometimes but the can also be very sweet and make great stories to tell for the rest of your life. 

How I met your mother

I had survived my first year at the University.  Survived is the key word here.  I came very close to flunking out before I finally learned how to study.  In the spring semester, I had changed my grades from “D's” and a “C” I had seen in the fall, to “A's” and a “B”.  But I was way behind where I should be to graduate in four years, so it was back to summer school.

I was a sophomore and all sophomores know they are the coolest people in the world, but I was even more cool than that!  I had a Pontiac Grand Prix, red and white with white leather upholstery.  I had an apartment for the first time, no more dorm life for me.  To use one of my mother’s expressions, I was so cool my shit didn't stink. 

My best friend at the time was a guy from Tuscaloosa named John Hewitt.  John and I had met the summer of my freshman year in a drafting class that started at 7:00 in the morning.  You just have to ask yourself, “What were they thinking?”  A 7:00 class on a University campus. No one on a college campus has 7:00 on their clocks. It just doesn't exist. The instructor was a monotone.  The only saving grace was we didn't have nice drafting stools with backs. We had wooden four leg square seat, god awful uncomfortable, drafting stools.  You couldn't really sit on them; you just sort of stood up and propped up on them.  Well to a sleep deprived freshman, with a monotone professor, uncomfortable stools wasn't enough.  John fell asleep and fell in the floor.  The professor didn't see the humor!  My work and John's work were about equal, he got a grade lower than mine. 

John lived at home and worked in his families' business on the edge of campus. It was located in what is now "The Strip".  At that time the strip was a collection of small business but mostly smoky pool halls with some creepy characters.  The family business was "Dixie Cream Donuts".  That probably isn't a politically correct name now, but that is the subject of another blog.  John worked every night rolling out dough by hand and cutting the donuts by hand. I don't know how long he had been doing it, but his little brother could also do the same job, so I assume he had years of experience at this time.  For some reason, I can vividly remember him doing it.  A big ball of dough, flower the board dough, knead  it out with his hands, more flower, roll it to the correct thickness and then cut out the donuts.  I am sure all the donut places today have some big ass machine that does it today, but it was an art form when John did it.  The fun part to watch was the cutting of the donuts. It was a single motion where he made the cut and with the flick of his wrist, the dough would fly up, centering his thumb, knocking the hole out.  He would do four cuts and then put the donuts on a rack, where they would be fried and glazed.  Believe me there was absolutely nothing better than a hot Dixie Cream Donut.  When his dad wasn't around John would push the limits and go for five on the thumb which was about a fifty percent success rate.  Six was virtually unattainable.  It didn't appear to be much of an issue if he missed, the dough just got recycled into the next rolling.  John's dad didn't truly appreciate his abilities and thought he was wasting time.  Sometimes when his dad was there he would pop the fifth one and give a little grin and go back to cutting four.   John was automatic with it, so there was no problem with carrying on a conversation.  This was probably a long way to say I was hanging out at the donut shop and John and I were talking about the things eighteen year old boys talk about.  Girls, cars, girls, football, girls, classes, girls, professors, girls!  Then we hit on the subject of boats and water skiing.  I was on my second summer at the University and was really missing my time on Guntersville Lake, where my family had a trailer and a boat.  I really wanted to go skiing bad.  John said he knew a girl whose family had a cabin and boat on Yellow Creek and maybe if we went up there we might be able to bum a ride.  So the next day we head out in my cool car up thirty miles of bad roads.  Then the pavement ended and the really bad roads started. We finally make it to Yellow Creek, the car is covered in dust and I have some new rattles in my cool car. 

Now Rufus Deal wasn't a stupid man. With three daughters to protect, he built his cabin on the opposite side of the creek from the road. If you wanted to get to the cabin you needed a boat (which we didn't have) or you had to swim about a half mile.

You are never going to get noticed by girls by swimming at the boat ramp, so we head out on a half mile swim.  I wouldn't think about doing something like that today but I had spent most of the previous year running up and down 72 flights of stairs trying to make Alabama's Basketball Team.  We took off swimming and made it about half way before a boat came by with a high school girl driving pulling a skier.  At least we knew then that the girls were at the cabin and they were skiing. John waves, she waves back and smiles.  Sally goes and drops the skier and heads back to talk to John.  They talk for a few minutes and she tells us to get in the boat. We crawl in and there is the most beautiful thing in the world; an 80 horse power Mercury.  This is going to be a great day!  We had a 35 Johnson, the only way I could ski on one ski was to get up on two skis and drop one once we got going. With an 80 horse engine I might be able to get up on one ski.  She takes off back to the dock and the power that boat had was not to be believed.  This was going to be a great day! 

At the boat dock I got introduced to the prettiest red head freckled face girl I had ever seen.  She had a two piece swim suit and had more curves than the road we had just driven on.   

I have always loved the water but all of the girls I had dated never wanted swim with me because it would mess up their hair or make up. Not this girl, she jumped in, she swam, she skied, she splashed, she had a good time and was perfectly comfortable in the water.  This was the greatest day of my life!  This was the coolest girl I had ever met!  I was in love!  This is the girl I am going to marry and spend the rest of my life with. 

It didn't take me long to figure out this girl was way out of my league. I was a country boy who didn't pronounce words correctly; she was a city girl with culture.  I did get up enough nerve to ask her out for a date.  She may not have been in my league but if I could just have one date with her I could die happy. When I picked her up at home that was my first time to meet Rufus Deal.  John had warned me he was a big guy and all the guys were afraid of him.  I think he was a National Guard Camp the day we were at Yellow Creek which may have been the reason we weren't run off immediately.  When I went in to the house she told me her father would like to meet me before we went out.  She call him in to the house, he had been out working in the yard with his shirt off.  He was just a little shorter than me his shoulder looked to be about three feet wider than mine and his waist smaller. He grabbed my hand and crunched it (he could still do that up to the time he died).  When he did the muscles just rippled up has arm and across his back and chest.  If intimidation was the name of the game, he was a professional.  A lesser person would have run away, me I was just too stupid to know how much trouble I was in. A few weeks later we had a date one afternoon which I figured would go on into the evening with a movie. When I asked about the movie she apologized and said she couldn't because she had another date that night.   Yea I was way out of my league trying to date the most popular girl in Tuscaloosa and she hadn't even started to college yet.  There wasn't a need to try to figure out the best time to propose. 

Shortly after that I got into some trouble on campus (that is the subject for another blog) and dropped out of summer school after the first term and went back home to work. 

Fall of the sophomore year started, I was walking and living in the dorm again.  No cool car, no apartment, Dad had explained how my shit did stink.  John hadn't done well with his classes and was off to a junior college in Mississippi.  I have always felt that he spent too much time cutting donuts and not being able to study. 

I would see Carole from time to time while walking across campus.  It would make my day.  She was always smiling and looking better every time I saw her.  I didn't think I would have much success in asking her out if I had to walk 5 miles to her house and then us walking 5 miles to the movie. So I didn't ask.

Football season came and went with Alabama in the Orange Bowl.  Four of us guys get tickets to the bowl game and do a road trip to Miami.  The semester ends and I have my first "D" in English. I am so happy!  I have finally made it out of remedial English.

Spring semester I am sharing an apartment with John Colvard and Andy Bryant and have a 56 Chevy 4 door sedan.  Not cool but wheels. The apartment is a dump.  I figure out that living in an apartment in Tuscaloosa is a lot cooler than living at home and working greasing truck, so I start looking for a summer job.  I didn't find a summer job; I found a job starting the next day if I wanted it working with McGuire Engineering. If I didn't want it, it probably wouldn't be available in the summer so I took it.  With a job and a full load of engineering courses I didn't have much spare time.  Carole and I had a few dates.  They were lots of fun but I wasn't ready for any form of relationship and she certainly wasn't.  To quote one of her expressions "you have to kiss a lot of frogs to find a prince".  I think there were a lot of lucky frogs in Tuscaloosa that year.  Besides the apartment was such a dump you wouldn't want to invite a nice girl over.  It would just give the wrong impression. 

That summer I am working full time doing engineering work and move into a really cool apartment with Jody Butler.  Most of the time I work in the field cutting bushes on a surveying crew.  It is long days of hard work but I learn a lot and have a blast working.  I am so envious of the guys who got a summer job with the highway department.  They had eight people in a crew and would run about a quarter of mile of line a day.  We had three people and would run a mile of line a day.  Carole and I have a couple of dates early in the summer but no invitations to go skiing.  By the end of the summer she is dating one of my good friends Tommy Farmer.  There is a written rule you don't ask your best friends girl friend out. 

Fall of my junior year.  Jody and I are sharing a cool apartment; he is 21 and can buy whiskey.  It is fall, it is football season, and it is party time.  The apartment is one block from the stadium; it is party central for us and our friends.  We have pre game and post game parties.  The main reason is if you moved your car on game day you lost your parking place and would have to park miles away.  We would pick up dates early and party until the game started.  After the game the party would continue until it was safe to move the cars again. 

One of the games early in the season Carole was there with Tommy and my mother and dad had come to the game. The pre-game drinking was greatly curtailed.  I had a date with a knockout looking girl named Georgia.  Bless her heart, looks was the only thing she had going for her, but she was outstanding in that department.  Carole spent most of her time talking with my parents.  It may have been because she and Tommy were fighting about something. Georgia limited her conversation to hello, nice to meet you.  Carole was witty and charming; mom and dad fell in love with her.  At the end of the dad told me, if he was me, "that girl’s mother would throwing dishwater in my face".  I didn't understand it either.  It was a Sycamore expression that meant that you would be standing by the door of her house every time the door opened.  That was great dad but she is dating one of my best friends.  He told me that shouldn't matter.

Carole and Tommy were having relationship problems.  Carole would talk to me about it since I was one of Tommy's friends.  I was more than willing to give her advice. Probably wasn't the kind that Tommy wanted me to give but it was good enough they broke up.  It wasn't long until we were dating at least once a week.  She was my date to most of the ball games but not all.  Not only were we dating but we had become really good friends. 

Alabama was having a great season and was headed to New Orleans to the Sugar Bowl to play for the National Championship.  Jody and I had to go.  Carole wanted to go also.  She had an aunt that lived there and she could stay with her.  Jody's girl friend could also stay there.  So a plan was devised.  Mother and Dad were also going with their boss and some other business people.  So the girls were chaperoned and Carole's parents grants approval. 

Just before time to go Carole's aunt decides she is going to be out of town for the holidays and the girls can't stay there.  We scramble and get an extra hotel room where my parents, Jody and I are staying. Carole's parents aren't happy but since my parents are there, they are ok with her going.  But now I have to pay for a hotel room that wasn't in my budget.  I head home for the holidays and dad puts me to work at F&B.  I work Christmas Eve and Christmas Day to get enough money to make the trip. 

It is off we go.  We take my mother's Duce and a quarter (Buick Electra 225). I pick up Jody and his date in Anniston and Carole in Tuscaloosa.  Mom and dad are supposed to drive his boss to the game the next day.  Mr. Floyd is suffering with cancer and it is beginning to look doubtful if he can make the trip. 

We arrive at the St Charles Hotel and head to Bourbon Street.  For a boy raised in a very church going small town this is a different world.  I can't believe all I am seeing walking down the street. 

The big deal on campus is to have bar glasses from some famous bar, so Pat O'Bryan is our stop.  They have a $10.00 per person minimum. We pay our money, get the drink tokens and wait in line to get in.  While we are in line, a group of people leave and yell Roll Tide.  We Roll Tide them back with handshakes and pats on the back.  "Are you Alabama students?"  "Oh, yea Roll Tide Roll."  "Hear take these."  They give us a double hand full of tokens.  It is like giving an alcoholic a credit card in a whiskey store.  We drink all the drinks we can handle and then buy drinks and pour them out to get the glasses.  No we weren't stealing them they were souvenir glasses that were included in the cost of the drink.  Did I say we had all the drinks we could handle; well I actually had two more after that.  I am lead by our merry crew back to the hotel and put to bed in my clothes.  I vaguely remember Carole kissing me and saying she had to go out to the drug store and get something. I knew I shouldn't let her go alone but I am in no shape to think about moving. I need to lie real still with a foot on the floor so the room won't turn upside down.

She will have to give you her version of that night because apparently she had to leave before went nuts and fell into the throws of passion.

Mom and dad arrived the next day.  They didn't hardly get there before they got the call Mr. Floyd has passed away and they had to head back the next day.  Apparently he was living to get to go to the game.  When he couldn't make it he just gave up and passed on from the earth. 

They did stay long enough to take us to the Playboy Club.  That was a real treat for a college boy.  I will never forget one moment. It was noisy and the bunny was trying to get orders. She was standing beside me and I was trying to relay orders.  I turned around to tell her what I heard, at the same time she bent over to listen better.  When I turned, my nose landed between her boobs.  What a moment. We both jumped back but that wonderful memory is implanted forever. 

I don't remember anything about the game; do remember the trip back home.  Carole snuggled in the seat next to me.  I could feel her warm body for the next six hours. It drove me nuts.

Back for the start of the next semester I was still dating another girl, Carole says she never dated anyone else after that trip.  A few weeks later I called the other girl Carole one night.  I guess it showed where my mind was.  That was the last date I had with anyone except for Carole.

Spring semester was good.  We had some great time together.  The summer was even better.  I stayed in Tuscaloosa and worked.  I was a party chief on a survey crew.  I got to go skiing every few weeks.  Most of the time I was invited to spend the night.  Her mom was a great cook.  I probably ate too much but her mom just seemed to accept the fact that boys that age ate a lot. 

The fall of my senior year I got a different car.  It was a 54 Oldsmobile.  I was going down in years but it had a heater and you couldn't see the ground thru the floor board.

We spent most of our free time together.  When I went home for weekend visits she went with me.  I stayed in Tuscaloosa for the Christmas holidays to work and she got me a little Christmas tree for my apartment.  We had talked about everything and the "M" word had come up several times.  All this time I was trying to scrape enough money to buy a ring.  I knew the ring size. She had a ring she wore on that finger I had figured out it would fit on my left pinkie finger but not my right.  So off to Goldsboro Jewelers I went with $225 hard earned dollars.  By today's standards that isn't much but when you are making $1.35 and hour it was a lot of money. 

On Valentine Day with her family watching I gave her the ring.  We went to see every relative and friend she had in Tuscaloosa that night.  We started planning the rest of our lives together.  I was going to work for Harbert Construction Company as an assistant project manager on the I20/I59/I65 interchange.  She would do her practice teaching in Birmingham to finish up her degree.  You know she is much smarter than I am; she finished her degree in three and a half years I finished mine in four and a half years including three summer schools. 

I have never felt like you can plan your life, you just walk down the path and see what happens when you take the fork in the road.  You can have goals you work on but you never can plan your future.  There were only 16 of us that graduated in Civil Engineering that year so you knew all of the professors as friends, mentors and role models.  I was hanging out in the Civil Engineering Building one Friday afternoon, Ed Segner, the meanest, bad ass, no nonsense; best professor I ever had saw me and told me to come in his office.  I didn't even have a class with him that semester but I was scared to death.  There were a lot of professors that would call in to their office and tell you a joke or kid you about some stupid thing you had done in class.  Ed was not one of those professors.  He told me he had just got a call about an AISC fellowship to pay for graduate school and he want me to apply.  He worked with me over the weekend and I meet the Monday deadline.  I didn't think I had much of a chance to get it but I didn't want to get on Dr. Segner's bad side.  A few weeks later I got a telegram (you actually got them back in those days) saying thanks for your application but... You know the rest.  Well what the hell at least I had tried and Dr. Segner wouldn't be mad at me.  I have never figured out if he saw possibilities in me or I was just a warm body hanging out in the fall.  Then low and behold several days later I got another telegram.  The person who was awarded the fellowship did not accept it and I was now the recipient of the fellowship.  I have often wondered if they had more than two applicants.  "Sudden Change".  I had never even considered graduate school.  I have to take the GRE and apply to graduate school.  You had to make a 1000 on the GRE to get into graduate school, I made 1020.  You had to have a 1.5 (on a 3 point system) to get in on probation, I had a 1.48.  Ed and several other professors wrote letters of recommendations pointing out my grades in engineering courses exceed 2.5.  I had a lot of people told me I was one lucky person and I had better not let those professors who wrote the letters down.

This caused a lot of scrambling. Carole had to get her practice teaching changed to Tuscaloosa; they really didn't want to accommodate her.  We had to find a place to live in student housing which wasn't easy to get.  We both were working, me still with McGuire and her at the Arts and Science Dean's Office.

In August all in one week, I had a birthday, graduate from college and find myself on the 25th standing in the front of the Forest Lake Baptist Church.  Recently the church was damage in the tornados that went thru Tuscaloosa.  I spent several months making repairs to the church and strengthening the church to make it meet today's codes.  (One day while at the church I almost fell thru the ceiling to the floor below.  I am not sure I would have survived the fall. Luckily I had enough strength to catch myself and with the help of Lance and Tim I was able to crawl back up.) After an inspection of the sanctuary I was in the front of the church talking with the preacher, the building committee chairman and the contractor and I looked up at the back of the church.  There she was!  It was Déjà vu all over again.   The prettiest girl in the world walking down the aisle.  That day in August was the best day of my life.

Azores and Tristan Jones

Wednesday, May 8, 2013 Punta Delgada, Azores
Land ho!  Finally!

Blue and Green Lakes

Carole always plans our shore trips. She doesn't like the ones I pick.  It is like the guys on "Big Bang Theory" picking movies to attend and expecting their girl friends to like them.  FYI she also picks the movies we watch.

Village near lake

We had several options of trips here. One of the recommended ones was a trip to Crater Lake where there is two adjacent lakes one green and the other is blue.  There is a romantic legend about how a princess and her poor Sheppard boy friend cried the lakes full because of their forbidden love.  She had blue eyes and he had green thus the color of the lakes. There is a beautiful little town adjacent to the lake in the bottom of the crater you can visit.  There are estate homes and little peasant cottages where the laundry ladies took in wash and washed clothes in the lake, making the people on the island have the freshest clothes of anywhere.

Cows have Right of Way

That wasn't the one she picked!  We rode around the island, on a bus, in the fog with the guide telling us what we were supposed to be seeing!  The bus was stopped a couple of times while cows were moved between fields.  Most of the cows are for milk production.  They don’t have any milk barns; they bring the milking equipment to the field and milk the cows in the pasture.  From what we could see in the thirty feet thru the fog it is a very lush island with flowers everywhere.  They used hydrangea plants to divide the fields in lieu of barbed wire.  The dirt looked like it could grow anything.
We head out again at 2:30 today to France.
I am more than certain that Carole has picked out a better shore trip for the next harbor.

Thursday, May 9, 2013 at sea
One day in port and the sea doesn't seem as forbidding as before.  It is definitely getting cooler.  We lose a degree or so every day.  We started with sea and air temperatures in the low 70's, now we are down to 62.
Several years ago I installed an app, Latitude, on our phones. It makes it easy to find out where Carole is without calling and asking. Back when she was spending a lot of time with her mother in Tuscaloosa I would know what kind of progress she was making getting home.  Michael has it on his phone, so I know where he is also.  (So does Paul, but he keeps it turned off so we can't track him.  Makes you wonder why.)  Michael said he has been tracking us across the Atlantic with the app. I guess when I log in to check email that is just one of the background things going on with the phone.  I thought it was a cool app before but if it will track you across the Atlantic, it has been moved up to really cool now.

Friday, May 10, 2013 at sea
I feel like I should start this with "Onboard Infinity, Star Date May 10".  Today is one of those days when you have to sit down to pee.  We are rolling so much you have to hold on with both hands to keep from falling.  You go down the hallways bouncing off each wall as the ship rolls.
I have officially caught up on my sleep. 5:30 is as long as I could stay in bed.  I can just take so much resting before it starts to hurt.  I have instruction to not wake Carole up before 8:00.  She has always needed more sleep than me.  I can operate very well on six hours a night, she needs seven to eight.  I like to get up early, have my coffee and some quite time every morning.  4:30 was my normal time before I started this retirement thing.  I have worked my way up to 5:30 now, but it wasn’t easy.
So what do you do on a ship at sea all day?  Well you just piss the day away but you don't start doing that until about 10:30.  We have been reading a lot, something I rarely do.  Maybe I should rephrase that, because I read all the time.  I normally do not have time to read fiction because of all the technical stuff that is required reading.

Tristan at the Annapolis Boat Show 1987

Yesterday we went to a lecture on the author Tristan Jones. Tristan_Jones Wikipedia Link I have read all his books and would recommend them to anyone.  The books are autobiographical and tell of great adventures. He died about ten years ago and had lost both legs due to his adventures. The books when I read them were a little too adventurous and had some things that were a little too inconsistent.  There has always been speculation that much of the adventures were fabricated. The speaker had spent several years researching Tristan and his adventures and found most of them to be pure fabrications of Tristan's mind.  I personally don't have any issues with an embellished, semi true story.  (I have been known to do this myself.)  The man was quite a character, con man and chronic liar.  He lost his legs from being diabetic cause from hard drinking.  In the books his loss of limbs is from wounds suffered in a war.  Of course there is no record of him being in a combat position in wartime.  I still highly recommend reading the books.  Read them as he intended them and don't worry about the details.  They are fun to read.
The California couple that are our table mates are a lot of fun.  We have enjoyed getting to know them and sharing semi-true stories.  Dinner normally takes two hours or more by the time you work thru all different courses on the menu.  After that we are off to a show in the theater.  The shows are great, which is one of the reasons we like Celebrity Cruise Lines.  We have sailed on three other lines but I don't think you can beat the quality of Celebrity.

I don't like going to funerals

I went to a funeral today.  I don’t like going to funerals for several reasons.  The main one being someone I knew died, Hack Sain.  I have known Hack since 1971.  He died at the age of 90.  Went to church on Wednesday night came home and died in his sleep. 

Although I have known him for a long time, I didn't know him all that well.  I saw him from time to time.  Our paths would cross on projects and we would see each other at meetings.  We were both active in engineering organizations and I would see him at meetings.  He was a talented engineer and was actively involved in the engineering community up until the time of his death.  He was like a big dog.  He would come thru the center of the room with a loud voice happy to see everyone.  I never saw him when he wasn't smiling and had a story to tell.  He was the mentor for a lot of engineers.  Always willing to share his knowledge.  The funeral was a celebration of his life. 

When I come time for us to leave the earth let’s all hope that we can be remember for the good we do and the legacy we leave behind, like Hack.

Week one May 1st to May 7th.

Wednesday, May 1, 2013 Ft Lauderdale

I need to get a quick note off before we head out to sea after we head out then at&t gets more difficult.  2870 miles to the next stop.  We arrive next Wednesday at Ponta Delgada, Azores.  The ship is beginning to untie lines and fire up the engines.  I have about 4 books on my iPad to read, with only a couple of hours of internet connection each day I may go into withdrawals. 

I have been following a blog on tiny houses; our cabin reminds me of that blog.  It amazing how you can be totally comfortable in a small space.  Kind of makes you wonder why we have such a big house. 

This cruise is full of people who have made multiple cruises.  I was looking around at the muster drill and I saw only about a half dozen couples younger than us.  I think there are about 6 kids on board.

Tuesday, May 2, 2013 at sea

What would Columbus have done?

We are about 400 miles from Florida and about 2500 miles from our next stop.  How do I know that; I looked on my phone.  Poor old Columbus left Spain thinking he might fall off the edge of the earth.  When he got to where he was going he didn't know where he was.  He had to abandon part of his crew in this new place and then couldn't find them on the next trip.  He may have been called the great navigator but if he was alive today his wife would make him stop and ask for directions if he was driving.  Today all we have to do is look at our phones and see where we are in the world with about 6 ft accuracy.  I think it is totally amazing.  It has made it where any fool can cross the ocean (as long as their batteries last) without any technical knowledge.  I don't know if that is a good thing.  (BTW, Carole still wants to make me stop and ask for directions.  She doesn't trust Google.) It is also possible to connect with people all over the world from the center of the ocean with an internet connection.  Although I must admit it isn't quite as easy as it is from streets of Pell City.  Posting the blog thru the ship's wireless system is somewhat of a hassle and is expensive.  I may have to go to posting every few days rather than each day. 

Our course is 75 deg with a speed of 19 knots.  (My phone told me.)  We are currently in to an 18 knot head wind which puts the apparent wind at 37 knots on deck.  (I had an engineering course in vector analysis that taught me how to do that calculation.)   For anyone who doesn't deal in knots that is about 42 mph.  Either way if you are in an exposed area it makes walking difficult and cool since the air temperature is 72 deg. 

Tonight is formal night, so it is put on the tux and look like someone important.

Friday, May 3, 2012 at sea

It is Friday and how do I know that?  My phone told me!  Otherwise I wouldn't have a clue.  The days are running together.  The view well it hasn't changed much in the last couple of day.  We are in the "shipping lanes" so you do see ships from time to time.  We spent most of the day passing a cargo ship.  I first saw him around 9:00 this morning and he disappeared about 4:00.  We must have been making about a half a knot more speed than he was making.  And that my friends, was the total excitement for the day. 

We had a very unique dinner tonight.  We have two other couples we share a table with at night.  One couple is from California and are a lot of fun, the other is "interesting" and I will leave it there.  The interesting people were no shows at dinner.  The California couple had been to the Martini Bar.  You know they say martinis are like boobs.  You really need more that one, two is perfect and three makes you really strange.  The guy had enjoyed at least three before the meal and had one waiting on him at the table.  He may have been one of the funniest drunks I have been around in quite a while.  He is a retired mechanical engineer (he is not prototypical).  After he retired he went to school and became a hair dresser, then to school to become a furniture maker.  Now he is just retired.  His wife worked in health care for her lifetime and recently helped establish a clinic for children with a very rare disorder.  It is the only one like it in the US.  They have children from all over the world come there for treatment.  I told them we would meet in the Martini Bar tomorrow night before dinner so we could be entertained again.  Pat the wife vetoed that idea.  Arlen was led away to bed at 8:00. 

The entertainment other than Arlen was a piano player.  The guy had the largest hands of anyone I have ever seen.  His playing was amazing.  He will do another concert tomorrow at 2:00.  I will be there to see him. 

I bragged on the internet at sea too early.  Tomorrow I will take the iPad to the Internet cafe and see if I can get a connection.  So far I can't get the wireless to recognize me.  Where is Mike Ash when you need him? 

Saturday, May 4, 2013 at sea

I looked out the window and saw ocean.  OK that is all I have to tell you.  There is just ocean and more ocean. 

This internet thing just isn't working for me.  I was able to download email today but then when I started deleting them it locked up the iPad the connection on the uplink because it was so slow.  I guess I am going to have to wait until I find at&t in Europe to upload the blog. 

I had gumbo for lunch.  Bless the cook’s heart he would have been killed for calling that stuff gumbo in Mobile. The same is pretty much true for grits. I was afraid to try southern fried chicken after those experiences.  I guess you have to have been raised in the south to understand how to fry food and cook BBQ.

Sunday, May 5, 2013 at sea

There is a nice swell in the ocean this morning.  The boat has a nice rocking motion, so much so Carole isn't having anything to do with getting up.  It is like rocking a baby to sleep.

We have gone thru our forth time change so we are officially four hours ahead of Alabama time.  Carole struggles each year when we change to daylight savings time and this is really giving her a hard time.  So when I wake her up at 8:30 she reminds me her body thinks it is 4:30 but then I have to point out she went to bed at 6:00 last night.  Yea, I know never argue with a woman, the only way you get in the last word is to say "Yes dear".                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

I have been reading Rick Bragg's book "It is all over but the shouting".  It is a book my mother wanted me to read.  It is unusual for her to ask me to do something so when she does I generally do what she asks.  Besides, the book looked interesting.  It is autobiographical and based on his life in the Jacksonville/Piedmont area.  I think mother had ulterior motives for wanting me to read the book.  It is very much like the lives we had growing up.  OK I want to qualify that real quick, my father wasn't a drunk who abandoned the family.  He did drive a truck in his earlier years and would be gone from time to time for several days.  We didn't have indoor plumbing until I was eight years old.  I do remember taking baths in the wash tub and having a pee pot under the bed so you didn't have to go to the outhouse in the middle of the night.

The book is an accurate view of the south during that period of time.  If you grew up in a southern mill town then it describes your life, your relatives and the people you grew up knowing.  It has everything from the town drunk, town idiot, to the uppity white ladies who had maids’ everyday to clean their houses and take care of their children.  It deals with the prejudice we all have.  If you live in the south yours are just different than people in the north or west.  We are, I think, just more willing to be open about them than they are.  If you want to understand the rural south you should read this book.

Rick was driven by his fear of failure.  I can certainly identify with that internal drive that forces you to work harder and longer than anyone else.  I discovered a long time ago that if I wasn't the smartest or best at something, if you worked hard enough you could certainly get about 95% of the way there. 

The best part was when he discussed his aunt Edna which was pronounced Edner.  My mother's name on her birth certificate is "Edner".  They spelled it just like they said it.  While she has always used her middle name of Dean there are a few of the great aunts who always called her Edner.  When I want to make sure I have her undivided attention I will call her that now.

I officially gave up on posting a blog until I get a good connection.  After 45 minutes I finally got my mail to sync with the office. I had to do it early this morning when no one was on the Internet on the ship.

Monday, May 6, 2013 at sea

OMG. Will the view ever change!  I am not a very relaxing person; I have to be doing something every day.  So the fifth day at sea is getting to wear on me.  Carole and I took a vote last night and decided to limit further trips to no more than two days at sea.  I think I will ask the captain if he has any woodworking projects on board that he needs help completing.  If I get truly desperate I might even volunteer to paint something.  At least we are down to about 800 miles to the next port.

This morning around 9:30 the boat took a right turn of about 110 degrees and headed due south for about 2 miles, reducing speed to 12 knots, then back on course and speed.  I don't know why but it makes you wonder.

Tuesday, May 7, 2013 at sea

There is nothing but ocean out here, maybe I am not made for long ocean passages.  I have always wanted to cross an ocean on a ship; I will officially be able to cross that off my list and don't think I will ever want to do it again. Our table mates, the interesting ones, do it twice a year.  There are several places we have been that I like to go back to see again.  Virgin Islands, Wooden Boat School and Alaska but to spend six days crossing the Atlantic twice a year for ten years, it would make me interesting too.  Hell no it would make me the town idiot! 

April 30, 2013

And so a new adventure begin.  We are off for about 7 weeks.  We will cross the Atlantic on a cruise ship and then spend time in France, England, Scotland and Ireland.  

We flew to Ft Lauderdale today to catch the ship tomorrow morning.  It was pretty hetic in trying to get away.  Lots of last minute details that had to be taken care of before we caught the big bird south.  We won't talk about packing, we had 2 large suitcases each weighing close to 50 lbs each plus backpacks and roll on's.  It makes it hard to get thru the airport and shuttles.  

Thanks to Candice and Nix for taking us to the airport in her van.  I don't think all of the stuff would have fit in any of our cars.

26 hours and 3 quality points

Not many people know that in addition to my engineering degree I have a minor in English.  By understanding this you may come to realize why my writings are the way they are. 

English was never my strongest subject.  Mostly because my spelling is very creative, not that is wrong it just doesn’t conform to the way the rest of the world thinks it should be.  It started in jounior high school.  I was your basic straight “A” student that coasted thru school well ecept for this one course in English.  Acutally the spelling thing started back in gramer school.  I just hated to memorize anything so my best spelling test were in the 80’s.  (That is test score not years.)  By the time I got to junior high this English thing was a pure bore.  I hated it!  I would love to blame it on the teacher but it really isn’t his fault.  He was also way my math teacher and I just loved math, algebra, geometry, it just made perfect sense.  I just couldn’t figure out why this English stuff was so important.

On to high school and another great teacher who I dearly loved and still think the world of today.  Even though he tried very hard to pour the information into my head it just seem to run off or flow through from in one ear and out the other.  He even tried beating it into with the “board of education”.  Of course I had a limited attention span that pretty much didn’t go past the girl with the big boobs that sat near me.  She was a hell of a lot more intresting than the teacher.  Probably the best think he did was let us choose the books we wanted to do book reports on that year.  I picked “Munity on the Bounty” and was totally hooked on sailing for the rest of my life.  The romance of the see, tropical islands, large ships under sail and RUM!

One of the true benefits of going to engineering school was you didn’t have to take as much math as the other students and no foreign language was required.  Well that was only true if you did good on placement test.  Well I didn’t do good on any of the placement test.  So I had to take remedial engish.  I don’t  think the U of A does that anymore.  If you can pass the placement test they just tell you to go somewhere else.  So I was doomed to take an extra course in English.  So instead of two 3 hour courses and one 5 hour course.  I was up to three, 3 hour courses.  Well at least I didn’t have to take a foreign language.  Although it could be argued that English was a true foreign language for a boy from Sycamore. 

Actually English wasn’t the only remedial class I had to take, I had about 12 hours of remedial work before I could officially start in my classes.  The classes include a couple of math classes and physics.  Maybe Winterboro wasn’t the best college prep high school in the nation.  Out of a class of fifty only about eight of us went on to college and I know of only one other person to graduate from college out of that class. 

If I struggled in high school, I was totally lost in college.  Actually I even struggled in math classes.  This was a totally new experience for me.  No one to tell me when to go to bed, tell me when to get up or tell me I need to take a bath.  Did you know our dorm had a pool hall in it!  That was just too cool.  They also had all the donuts you could eat every Sunday morning if you got up before noon. 

I am going to shorten this story a little but at the end my first sesmester in college which was summer school I had a rip roaring 0.8 GPA.  “F” in English, two “D’s in Math and the only “C” was in a drafting class.  Two semesters of that and you were off Viet Nam.  Well the fall semester rolled around and incase you haven’t heard the University of Alabama has a football team.  Football season at the University is a special time.  You are supposed to be able to go to football games and have plenty of time left over to go to classes.  Well at the end of that semester I had things completely under control, knew how to do this college thing.  At least I was consistence with another 0.8.  If I hadn’t started in Summer school I would have been out on the street and in the line at the draft center.   

I had to get my act together!  So in the spring I didn’t take English which guarnetted I wouldn’t make at least one “F”.  I had to learn how to study, change my life style and get new friends.  It worked!  Spring semester saw a 2.5 out of 3.0 GPA and I was off probation and the draft board was just a distant memory for at least a few years.  (By the way, none of those friends lasted thru to the next fall.)

Well I finally got my life together, took english over and over until I got my “D” and was so damn proud of that grade.  I actually was finally able to make a “C” in my last English class.  In the end thanks to W² Wilson I was able to make it in to graduate school.  (That is another story for another time.)

Graduate school was a dream except for one thing, I had to write a thesis.  It wasn’t easy and took two years to get it approved.  They kept finding misspelled words and I would have to do it over.

I am so thankful that we have word processors and spelling checkers.  Word processors, very good administrative assistance, and a wonderful wife has let me survive in this world.  I have been able to have several technical papers published and have author parts of many documents that are in print today. 

I have purposely not run a spelling check on this document although many of the words were auto corrected.  I didn’t get Carole to edit this for me so you could get a snapshot of the true me.

I don’t know if there is a moral to this story.  If there is, it would probably be keep trying until technology catches up, have some good help and a wonderful spouse along the way. 

The great yachting adventure

Well 99% of this story is land based.  About 15 years ago my brother-in-law John bought a boat.  Now you have to remember that new or even slightly used isn’t a word in his vocabulary.  For the most part, if it doesn’t need some work on it, he doesn’t buy it.  Maybe that says something about my sister.  Yea I ain’t headed down that path.

Back to the story.  John found the boat on Lake Guntersville.  It is was a very cool boat.  Very classic, maybe one of the first in a series of fiberglass boat.  That would have made it about 25 to 30 years old when it bought it.  It was your classic cabin cruiser, with great classic form and lines.  The running gear was in good condition but it was pretty tired on the inside.  I really thought it had a lot of possibilities and was looking forward to spending some time on it.  I even thought we could take a few weeks and take it down the river system to the Gulf.  It would have been a fun trip thru all the locks. 

After some deliberation John thought the best course of action was to have the boat trucked to his home in Talladega County to do the work there.   He was right, the hull need some cleaning and a LOT of sanding and polishing.  He constructed a shed over the boat to keep it out of the rain and elements, and started to work.  Well this wasn’t his paying job, so it didn’t get his full energy, his paying job keeps him in Montgomery a lot and thrown in a couple of weddings, moving and remodeling a house, the boat project suffered.  So after 15 years the boat is still under the shed and he has completed about two of the eighty weeks of work required for the project.  My sister may have had something to do with this decision but John decides the boat needs a new home.  Ads are placed on Craig’s List and EBay.  You know there aren’t a lot of people jumping up and down to buy a 45 year old boat in sad condition.  Even photo shop isn’t doing a lot of good here.

I have never been told what he paid for the boat but I think he accepted the offer $1,500 from one person in the entire world who wanted the boat.  (John called me and I have to correct the amount to $2,500.  He doesn’t want anyone to think he sold it too cheap.)  Everyone else just offered to remove it, but at least it would be gone.  Now you have to realize that John rarely fails to make a profit on any of his transactions so this has to be a troubling return on investment for him.  He does realize that sometimes you just have to take your loss and move on.
 

After several phone calls with, we will call him, Jake; John isn’t real comfortable with the guy buying the boat.  Jake has to bring money with him, no checks!  Jake is an old guy, probably a not a lot older than me or John but he is really old.  On oxygen, so he is pulling a little cart around with a thermos of oxygen.  He is taking the boat to some Midwest state and putting the boat in a small pond to be his getaway place.  Jake can’t move very far without stopping for a rest.  So how in the hell is this guy going to crawl around on the boat up and down ladders pulling his oxygen cart?  You just have to wonder what the lack of oxygen has done to his brain. 

Once John finds all of this out, he is pretty sure the guy is crazy.  After a few more phone calls, where the guy wants to stay on the boat while it is moved John is sure.  Being used to selling used cars to people who can be in “PeopleofWallmart.com” photos, John lays down the law.  It is a cash deal!  No one can stay on the boat while it is on the property, any injuries or damage, Jake is responsible.  John and “Friday” (John’s almost full time helper) won’t do any work.  Jake has to arrange everything.  John also stresses the importance of having professional marine movers do this work.  This is a twenty-four thousand pound boat that takes serious equipment to move.  Well Jake is apparently one of those people who knows everything about everything.  If you don’t believe me just ask him.  He has the boat moving detail under control and knows what he is doing. 

The planned day arrives and the boat moving crew show up. John gets his cash before the guy can get out of the truck.  Jake assumes the director’s position in a lawn chair to direct and watch.  The boat has to be jacked up four feet for the trailer to get under it.  Seems like a lot but John hasn’t seen the trailer so what the heck.  Well you know, just saying, you can’t lift twenty-four thousand pounds with car jacks.  But some people are just smarter than you and don’t take advice well.  Can you picture, this isn’t going well the first day.  John and Friday pitch and go to work.  John has some hydraulic jacks; Jake buys a couple of more.   I stop by on my way somewhere else the next day (work still in progress) and Friday is telling how John and him are doing most of the work. 

If you have never tried to lift a boat is isn’t an easy process.  Well actually it is, you just rent a big ass crane and pick it up.  But their method is to jack a little and add cribbing under the jacked portion.  You have to jack at all locations or you can torque the boat and either cause damage to the boat or it will fall off the cribbing.  Under Jake’s expert direction they almost lose the boat a couple of times.  He is relieved of command! 

After several days of hard work under the direction General John and First Sergeant Friday the boat achieves its correct elevation.  A semi tractor trailer arrives to move the boat.  Well it is a flat bed trailer which is about four feet tall.  Well four feet plus twelve feet, you can do the math, won’t fit under any bridge on any highway.  The truck driver, who got this job based on bidding Jake’s specifications on eBay, informs Jake he is F*%k!@g crazy and he wants his G#% D!@m money.  This does put a kink in the plans.  Jake returns to the Midwest to regroup and John just wants the boat gone. 

 

Backhoe isn't enough

Several weeks later the crew returns with a new plan with a different truck and trailer arrangement.  Well this trailer isn’t four feet tall so you have to reverse the process of raising the boat and get it back down to about eighteen inches.  After a few days, they come down easier than they go up; the boat is on the trailer and ready to go.  Well almost, you know it has been raining a lot lately.  That truck ain’t moving anything.  John’s front end loader won’t do any good so a wrecker is summoned.  The wrecker frees the train from the shed.  As soon as the trailer hits hard ground tires start to pop.  Ok we are going to give the crew the benefit of the doubt; most boat trailers don’t have heavy duty tires.  New tires are purchase and put on the trailer.  At this point John and Friday have retired from their positions and Jake has assumed his rightful position of Director.   It is getting late so they move the train about two hundred yards to get it out of the way.  That must have been a very hard trip because one of the axel breaks.  Ok it is too late to deal with this today.  You just don’t go to Wal-Mart and buy an axle.  It takes a while to find the right parts.  All the time this is presenting a very monumental statue in my Mom’s yard.    My sister is now giving me daily updates with photos.  Being the pessimistic engineer I am telling her, “I can write you an equation and tell you that ain’t going to ever work”.

After a couple of days of expert direction and several oxygen containers.  My sister says it wouldn’t take as many cylinders if he would just quit talking for a second or two every hour.  They find a replacement axle and install it.  Hooked up and ready to roll everyone says good bye and thank God he is gone.  Well about twenty feet later, the new axle breaks.  My sister is saying “Oh my god will we ever get rid of Jake.  What if he abandons the boat in Mother’s yard?”

t

The Palm Tree

Multiple phone calls later a new trailer is located in Ft Lauderdale, Florida, so off the team goes.  They show back up on Sunday late with a new trailer.  Well a new trailer plus a twenty foot tall palm tree.  Exactly how long will a Florida Palm Tree live in the Midwest were it snows?  Yea you have to jack the boat back up get the trailer out and put the new one under it.  The Palm tree is under the boat with the fronds dragging on the ground.   That has to be good for the tree. 

On Monday goodbyes are share again everyone has a good cry about how they will never see each other again.  My sister’s tears are from pure joy.  They make it to the highway and turn north.  So far so good it is off the property.  Such a beautiful sight of tail lights going over the top of the hill at Ledbetters.  My sister is just praying “Please God, let them get out of Talladega County and Alabama”.  Well part of her pray was answered.

I teach a class at “The” University of Alabama on Mondays and Wednesdays.  Wednesday was Ash Wednesday and Carole was headed to church for dinner and the service.  I normally don’t get back from Tuscaloosa until about 7:00 so I had to fend for myself for dinner that night.  Golden Rule sounded like a good place and after a good hamburger steak, I headed home.  And what to my wondering eyes should appear but a big ass boat parked at the Shell Station just south of the interstate.  It looks just like John’s old boat!  It is John’s old boat!  (Note that at no time during this story have I referred to this boat as my sister’s boat.)  I couldn’t believe it.  I was past it before I had time to think I need a photo.  I can tell this thing isn’t going anywhere too fast so I figure I have time.  Well how long do you think it takes me to call my sister?  About another hundred yards and she is on the phone.  I barely make it home before I get a call from John.  I promise a clandestine operation the next morning to do photos.  My instructions are to under no circumstances is anyone supposed to know who I am and what I am doing. 

The clandestine operation reveals some very informative information.  The trailer supports has buckled from laterally unsupported compression flanges of the stringers.  That is the engineering description.  The Talladega County description is “the sun-of-a-bitch folded up”.   I find out from John the trailer was salvaged from a fifth wheel travel trailer that burned.  I can write that equation also about what heat does to the strength of steel.  Besides a travel trailer doesn’t come close to weighing as much as that boat and part of the design of trailers is the box forms a huge beam to support the weight so the beams don’t have to support the entire load.  That thing never had a chance to work. 

Of course this story has to get passed along to Dennis and John who have to take trips to the Shell Station to observe the lateral buckling of unsupported compression flanges.  You don’t get to see many engineering failures like this.  Yes, Andala had to take the kids by so they can observe a true marvel of engineering testing to ultimate load.  Hopefully we never see one on our projects.  You know I had to go back and get gas at the pump closest to the boat later in the day.  It was hard to get some photos but I snuck a couple in while I was pumping gas.  The only route out was around the boat and there was Jake on the opposite side in his director’s chair doing what he does best.

They are in the process of jacking it up again.  I bet they are getting good at it by now.  Maybe it will be gone by the weekend.  On Friday, Carole and I leave to spend the weekend on the boat with instruction for John to go check on the boat over the weekend.  The trailer gets removed and repaired by Goodgame.  Sorry Jason if I had known I would have warned you. 

John, while trying to document the repair to the compression failure of the laterally unsupported beams gets a couple of more photos over the weekend.  They have gone to the local big box, purchased some house paint and are painting the boat with a brush.  There are so many things wrong with doing that I wouldn’t know where to start.  It may be the only fiberglass boat in the world painted with house paint.  As you can see in the photo the guy painting has his fall protection on but it isn’t attached to anything. 

I get home on Sunday and Carole tells me I can’t go check it out to see if they have left yet but from what we have found out later they didn’t leave until Monday morning.  I do make a trip up that way on my way to work and see it is missing.  Well at least they are on I20 and out of the county by now.

Dennis comes in the office a few minutes after 8:00 and says “Hey that boat that was up at the Shell Station is broke down going up the hill at Karr Gap”. 

OK I have to back up to the previous week.  On Tuesday, I take my truck to Murray’s Garage in Leeds to get some work done on my Air Conditioner.  They have trouble getting parts and it is Thursday late before I can pick it back up.  I tell Kerry and Chip about the adventures of the boat.  We get a good laugh and I tell them they will probably get a call to drag him off I-20 in the next few days.  I also recommend that they might want to carefully consider if they want to get involved with Jake.

So you know I have to leave to go to Tuscaloosa as soon as I can to see what is going on.  Just as Dennis reported it is on the side of the road near Karr Gap.  The boat is on the trailer “Backwards”.  I have never seen a boat on a trailer stern first.  I can’t say you shouldn’t do it but I have never seen it.  As I get close there is Murray’s truck.  I have to call Kerry and ask why he got involved with Jake.  His first words were “Oh Shit, is that who that is”.  The local tire company has called them and asked them to go fix a flat for someone of the interstate.  Kerry reminds them they don’t do flats on the interstate it is just too dangerous.   The tire guys say it is for an “elderly gentlemen who has health problems and is on oxygen”.   Kerry’s weak spot kick in and he goes to help.  On my way back from Tuscaloosa the boat is gone so I think just maybe it was just a tire and it on its way up I-65. 

On Tuesday morning an article appears in the local paper about Jake.  (OK the paper gives his correct name, but I will continue with Jake.)    http://www.dailyhome.com/view/full_story/21750749/article-Ahoy-Mate--Missouri-man-gets-stranded-in-Pell-City-with-his-41-foot-yacht-and-palm-tree?instance=home_news_right This is the first I have heard of the desire to rent the boat as a “honeymoon” suite.  You need to read the article.

The flamingo is a nice touch

Dennis on his way to the office sees it again on Tuesday and gets some more photos.  It is on the side of the road at Brompton.   Note the photos shows the addition of a fender on the side of the boat and plastic flamingos around the boat. 

Wednesday is back to Tuscaloosa and I don’t see the boat on my way down.  Actually I didn’t know where to look and you probably couldn’t have seen it from the interstate anyway.  While killing time waiting on a meeting to start, I pull out the Ipad and check on my BFF on FaceBook.  There is an appeal on FaceBook from the local radio station to “elderly gentlemen who has health problems and is on oxygen”.  He is offering $10 per hour cash to help jack the boat up.  On my way back home, my low fuel light comes on and I stop at the Brompton exit to fuel up.  I thought the boat was at the service station and when I didn’t see it I thought it was gone.  As I am pulling back out on the highway and look to the left I see some lights on the side of the road and think Oh My God there it is. 

I was in meetings all day on Thursday in Montgomery.  On my way home Kerry from Murray’s give me a call to let me know he had got another call on Wednesday to go help the “elderly gentlemen who has health problems and is on oxygen”.  He informed the person that he had been fooled by that once and wasn’t going down that path again.  Apparently they had figured out there is a good reason that boats are put on trailers bow first and had turned the trailer around.  Thus the need for day labors.  Today when things were squared away they took off for points west.  But just as they pulled on to Highway 78 the trailer broke half in two and it was blocking the highway.  Well at least it wasn’t I-20.  Kerry said he heard there was a wrecker there trying to get it out of the highway.

On Monday (OK we are going on three weeks now) we here there is an interview on the local radio station.  I get to listen to a little of it while on my way back to Tuscaloosa again.  It is “interesting”.  Later that day I get an email from one of the guys in the office that there is going to be interview with him on the local television station.  http://www.abc3340.com/story/21345876/missouri-man-and-his-boat-making-trek-through-alabama  In the interview he mentions his FaceBook page.  We are now BFF’s on FaceBook.  You can friend him and see the photos of the boat and what may be a new girl friend who comes to visit him in (OK I will give her the benefit of the doubt) lounging pants.  From the interviews, he supposedly has hired someone else to move the boat. 

On Wednesday my mom calls and tells me to watch the news on Fox 6.  http://www.myfoxal.com/story/21420278/yacht-stranded-near-i-20-finally-sails-on-home   He is Jake has left Brompton.  There is an update on Facebook that he is in Tennessee.  You know that I will have to keep track of this adventure, so there will probably be another post later.  But for right now this has to get posted for the world to enjoy. 

There has to be a moral to this story.  I will have to edit this later when I narrow it down from my list of the top twenty I have now. 

PS  Like all great adventures this is a semi true story with the names changed to protect the innocent.  Actually to hell with the innocent, I don’t want my ass sued by Jake.