The Foundation

Posted on by Thor

After driving for several thousand miles, too and from Oklahoma City, it felt good to get back to Lake County and relax. The second I arrived however, I had a virtual student online waiting to join the zoom classroom. With the last tank of gas I had been racing against the clock. Google Maps showed my exact arrival time and when I stopped to get gas, that arrival time slipped by 4 minutes. I had to start speeding to be sure I got back in time. Driving 5 or 10 miles per hour over the speed limit slowly gained me a couple of minutes.

I was in charge of taking care of Boo Boo, an adorable grey toy poodle,  for a couple of days. When I got in, he was locked in a bedroom. It turned out that the robot vacuum cleaner had managed to close the bedroom door, locking him inside. He was beside himself frantically barking to let me know how horrible it was to be locked up for several hours. While consoling him, I set up my iPad and tried to join the Zoom meeting. Since I had used the computer in Oklahoma City, Zoom didn’t accept my present location. It took 10 or 15 minutes for me to wrangle the settings and get online.

To say I was stressed starting the lesson is an understatement. However as the student and I started animating that stress melted away. By the end of the class the student had to remind me that the lesson time was over. I could have kept animating for several more hours.

I needed a nap. Sitting still, I still felt like I was in motion. My seat swayed with the imagined bumps in the road. I sat down on the couch but outside the lawn guy had decided it was time to trim and cut the lawn. Despite the racket, and the occasional stone striking the window next to me, i nodded off for a much needed rest. Boo snugged up next to me in his dog bed made from a small wicker basket and a pillow. When I awoke it was past midnight. I wanted to write an article, but decided I had lost the day anyway. I stumbled off to bed.

At 7am the next morning, I awoke the the sound of construction. A cement truck was churning out cement and an M shaped crane was pumping out the slurry next door. One particularly big fellow, that looked like John Henry was smoothing the surface with a trowel. I was wide awake at this point, so Boo and I set up in the shade of a tree in the front yard and sketched the proceedings. The foundation is much higher than the foundations of the houses on either side of the construction site. When the next hurricane blows in there will be no flooding on that property, but all the water will drain down onto the much lower property I was sitting on which will become a lake.

Apple Store

Posted on by Thor

In preparing to go to Oklahoma City for the 75th Infantry Reunion, and Oregon to screen my short animated film, COVID Dystopia, I felt I needed to replace the faulty chord on my iPad. Apple sells chords that are made to fall apart in a year’s time.  The chord Apple included with the purchase of the iPad was only about a foot long and some hotels and motels don’t have outlets conveniently located. I needed a longer and more robust chord.

 The Apple Store at the Millennia Mall was insanely crowded. Apparently everyone had faulty power chords. Tourists were coming in and buying chords using their foreign currency cards. I went up to the iBar and waited. Someone asked what I needed and pointed me towards a table covered with boxes of power chords. I wasn’t sure which plug s were needed. I should have brought my iPad, but I came in on a whim while shopping for clothes for my Europe trip.

The sales person was able to scan my iPhone to figure out exactly which chord I needed. I was impressed with his digital detective work. All my devices seem to communicate to one another and are shouting out when they need better power chords.

After I purchased my chord. I decided to stay and get a sketch of the digital chaos. Some people took more than an hour to buy a digital device wile others were in an out quickly. My purchases was pretty easy, but others must have been considering life altering purchases.

The lady in front of me was agonizing over her purchase of an Apple computer. She wore a Lady and the Tramp tee shirt. The Tramp would have made a decision quickly but Lady needed to weigh every option. She did make a decision before my sketch was complete.

Bus Ride to The Woodring Wall and Museum

Posted on by Thor

Mt father was a 1st Lieutenant of the 75th Infantry Division. The 2025 reunion for the 75th was being held in Oklahoma City, so I had to go to see what I could find out that might help as I make plans to follow in my fathers footsteps through Europe.

There were several day trips planned. One to the Oklahoma National Memorial & Museum and the other to the Woodring Wall & Museum. The bus ride was a solid one and a half hours, so I had plenty of time to get a sketch done. I was also given a paperback book that was a history of the 75th Infantry so I read that on the bus ride back.

The bus driver gave us all one important warning. He said that there was a bathroom at the back of the bus but he advised against against any number twos. I’m guessing the thing doesn’t flush very well. He also advised that men sit down since he didn’t want anyone falling down with all the side to side movement of the bus.

What I recall most about the bus trip was all the gorgeous wide open countryside and and endless line of wind mills. Like an airline, there was a safety video on the multiple screens hanging over the seats.

When the buss pulled into the air field, I could see the Vietnam memorial wall. There were few name to start and then each panel filled up to it’s full height. At the far end of the long wall the names compressed once again as the wall angles down in a triangular fashion. This wall is a miniature replica of the Memorial in Washington, DC designed by then undergraduate,  Maya Ying Lin. To find the name of a loved one it is best to use the index which tells youo what panel to look at. Names on the wall are arranged chronologically, so it might take a long time to search the 58,318 names of Americans who had been killed in action. The printed index allows you to search fr the name alphabetically.

On the bus ride back to Oklahoma City, I read the 75th Infantry history ind underlined sections to double check against the list of cities and engagements I was compiling for my trip through, France, Belgium, Netherlands and Germany. Many accounts of what happened in the later days of WWII don’t pin point the actual days or even the cities, so I have to cross reference everything to come p with a unified plan of attack.

75th Infantry Reunion

Posted on by Thor

I drove for two days to get to Oklahoma City for the 75th Infantry Reunion. The drive was gorgeous at sunset and early in the morning when the golden light lit up the wide open landscapes. Huge hap cylinder shaped hay bales were arranged in neat rows in lush green fields as far as he eye could see.

A registration table was set up in the hotel lobby. Each attendee had a yellow manila envelope with all the events and plans. I met a 75th Infantry historian who is going to arrange for me to swing by the 75th Infantry museum on my drive back to Orlando. The museum is in Texas, so I would just have to take a more southern route to get back to Florida.

The lobby buzzed when Charles Atchley entered in his wheel chair. Charles is 99 years old and is the oldest and only living veteran form the World War II Division.

I sat down with Charles for maybe an hour before the room grew to loud to talk any further. He explained that Germany didn’t have an access to the sea in WWII. They had a lot of Submarines. One submarine went into New York Harbor and sunk one ship. Charles went to Europe on the Queen Elizabeth. They went to Glasgow, Scotland in four and a half days. The USO would have supper and then a show. The troops went on a railroad and went all the way own from Glasco to South Hampton England, where the troops got on three ships to go to France. There were 19,000 in the group. From there they went up to Belgium. All up north, there used to be camo caravans. They would bring food and supplies for Europe.  That trail was as wide as a football field. On the American side there was a swamp. The German tanks if the got too gar off would slip into the mud. General Eisenhower had four divisions. The 290th Division was among the four.something else. The Germans had to stop because they were running out of gas. Charles survived the Bulge he said because he was so small. He only weighed 102 pounds. He was also had some incredible luck. The one thing he could not escape was the cold. The troops were not outfitted with winter clothing and it got unbearably cold in the fox holes. Charles had to go to several hospitals to treat his frozen feet.

Charles was in the mortar squad. He had a backpack that two mortars in it. If those got hit by anything, they would explode. There were two men carrying the mortars. Charles learned to run in a zig zag pattern to be sure the mortars were never hit. The army would get the soldiers a hot meal every day which was hot oatmeal with raisins.  Charles sill had hot oatmeal with raisins every morning. He had oatmeal in the morning of the reunion.

After the battle of the Bulge the 75th went to the Colmar Pocket which was in Alsase France. The day the 75th got to Colmar, Charles was 19 years old. Charles was in the A-Company. He was one of 10 soldiers to get a blue Combat Infantry badge that day. Audie Murphy was already stationed in Colmar. Audie was 10 days older than Charles and he grew up kn the next town. Audie was from Princeton Texas and Charles was from Lucas which is close to Allen Texas. He never saw Audie when he was in Europe. Audie was in the 3rd Infantry. Audie made a lot of movies. Charles graduated from high school in 1047 with a friend, Charles wanted to join the navy, but you had to be 18 years old.