Post 462: “Are you up!?”

I noticed in Facebook my friend Ralph’s birthday was yesterday. I looked at my brother and said, “That’s odd. I thought Ralph’s birthday was July 10th…!” After a pregnant moment, I thought out loud, “Oh! This is July!”

What can I say? I’m nearly two-thirds of a century old and the inexorable process of entropy has robbed me of some of my, um, “mental acuity”! 🙂

In 1971, I think it was, Ralph and Deborah came to Kaiserslautern on a visit. They’d been great hosts when I visited Paris, so I wanted them to have an equally memorable visit to Germany. One day trip we made was to Heidelberg, where we climbed the hill to Schloss Heidelberg.

ralph tim deborah doug Schloss Heidelberg 1971

The foot scene above is from the climb to Schloss Heidelberg with Ralph, Deborah, and army friend and Beethovenstrasse roommate Tim. We were strong. We were fun. We were playful. We wanted to have a different way to remember our day trip to that city. I believe Deborah proposed the idea above. My big foot is in the foreground. Counter clockwise, the feet belong to Ralph, Deborah, and Tim.

Then, on a trip to Paris — the one Tim was able to take with me — Tim, Ralph, and I stopped by an Alsatian bar (best beer!) Ralph liked for ambience and product. Low light, slow ASA 100 black and white film — this was 1971, I think — and this surreal scene revealed itself to us all.

alsatian brasserie tim and ralph paris 1971

I also took a photo of the proprietor, a happy Alsatian who insisted I take his photo, too. He was an institution there and a camera ham, so the proprietor’s photo turned out heroic: “Noble barman at the helm of his bar, awaiting the next onslaught of thirsty patrons demanding perfectly pulled draughts of tasty Alsatian beer…!”

I suppose I could post the proprietor’s photo with no issues, but I am hesitant to post anything with recognizable people without their permission.

Anyway, the point and purpose of this entry today is to honor the birthday of a well-tested friend, someone responsible for many of the happiest times in my life, if not a few of the more horrific…. Given my age, he must be a real antique by now!

Ha! Just kidding, Ralph! I love you and cherish our friendship so much I hope I die before you so I don’t have to know a world where you aren’t there, waiting to ask that famous (infamous) question that always lead to adventures of a life time, “Are you up!?”

Post 262: the gift (re-edited)

Mandarin ducks don’t occur in Western Nebraska, not naturally. There are people who raise exotic birds who sometimes breed these handsome little Asian birds, and one time (October 1992) one managed to land at Laing Lake, where he spent the winter among a small flock of six male and female wood ducks.

A woman visiting from Arcata, California, a birder, spotted the Mandarin duck. She was very excited to see this life bird, but hesitant to count it because she didn’t think they occurred here.

She contacted the local newspaper and talked with the managing editor, who sometimes wrote about birds in his column. He suggested she contact me since I had some notoriety as the person who had the first and only ever Nebraska phainopepla appear in his backyard.

The phainopepla stayed a couple of months, used the bird bath for water but found food elsewhere. I took photos and reported the sighting to the Nebraska Ornithologists’ Union, the organization that reviews rare bird records in this state and determines what class of record to accord each one. Mine got a Class 1 – Photo, just about as good as it gets.

The managing editor felt I probably was sufficiently competent to answer her question because of the phainopepla, but it was just a matter of dumb luck that it chose my backyard and is an unmistakable bird for purposes of identification!

Margaret called me, told me about the duck, which I hadn’t yet seen. I knew wood ducks were up there, having seen them earlier in the season, but the Mandarin duck…! Though I had no doubt she’d see the real deal because they are unmistakable, I told her it probably was an escapee from an exotic bird farm. I promised to go up to the lake and verify the sighting just the same.

After verifying the sighting, I called Margaret back to let her know she was right about the bird, and had she taken any birding outings since coming to Nebraska? She hadn’t, so the next few months I introduced her to the areas and birders that make this part of Nebraska a great place to bird.

The story of the friendship that blossomed is long. It turned out we shared identical tastes in hobbies, books, and music. As far as birding was concerned, Margaret was super at shorebirds, my weakest area for identification, and I was stronger in Eastern birds, many of which occur here along with their Western North American counterparts and, of course, local birds. We were a complete team in the field, though she found the Western Nebraska birding by car method strange enough to comment on! (You have to move around to find the little buggers!)

She had personal family reasons for being here, reasons I needn’t discuss. By late spring of 1993, she returned to Arcata. She came back here for a short time later, but by 1994, she returned to California for the rest of her life.

It turned out that her daughter’s boss at the time was a hobbyist who made decorative duck and shorebird carvings when he wasn’t tied up with his work as an attorney. Coincidentally enough, he also was from Alliance, Nebraska, where I live! Margaret asked him to make a Mandarin duck as a gift for me. He’d never seen one before, but, working from photos created this:

Picture 256 mandarin duck

Margaret died in 2006 from cancer. Her gift is one of my prized possessions, a remembrance of a friend who was good company, a great birder, had excellent taste in new authors she shared with me (and I shared my favorites with her), and classical music (she liked late Romantic and Modern; I like Baroque, Classical, and Early Romantic). What we shared in person and in our letters made Margaret the best of friends, even though she and I spent most of that friendship 1435 miles (2310 km) apart.

One idea she had and shared that really stuck with me had to do with fate. She was a daughter of Polish immigrants. She wrote a brilliant commentary back to me about a Rameau opera I shared with her (“Les Boréades”), noting that had her family not come to America, she’d be a farm woman pulling potatoes out of the ground, unaware of this exotic music only the upper class heard and enjoyed in Rameau’s time. “We live in the best of times to have access to such beauty!”

RIP, Margaret. I think of you each time I see this little carved duck. Oh, yeah, same with blue-winged teals in all those little puddles and lakes in the Nebraska Sandhills. That little puddle duck you were so excited to see, that I found too common to get excited about every time you pointed another one out along the road now is “our bird” as much as the Mandarin duck that brought our paths together in the first place.

Yeah, blue-winged teals are special, too.

Post Nr. 250: a hard lesson

A few years back, Weggieboy received a call at home from Work Friend. Friend needed a co-signer on a telephone contract, and would Weggieboy sign for Friend?

Weggieboy’d never co-signed for anyone before, but had worked with Friend for decades at the hose factory. Though Weggieboy knew Friend had some money crises from time to time, Weggieboy also knew Friend worked these out. Though Weggieboy wasn’t really thrilled to co-sign for Friend, Weggieboy also felt Weggieboy could if Friend understood Weggieboy was doing it with the condition that Friend keep up with the bills. Weggieboy’s credit rating was at stake!

Things went well from August until April. Weggieboy got a letter from Viaero noting the telephone bill was two months in arrears, and Weggieboy needed to pay up to the tune of $267 (Weggieboy thinks it was) by a certain date, or the bill would be turned over to a collection agency. Friend’s bill..!

Weggieboy stormed down to Viaero to deal with the bill, to pay it before hell struck Weggieboy’s credit rating. Weggieboy’d deal with Friend at work! By coincidence, when Weggieboy was getting ready to write a check for Friend’s delinquent bill, Friend walked in, ready to pay the bill. Friend and Weggieboy discussed the letter. Weggieboy reminded Friend of the condition Weggieboy’d made to co-sign for Friend. Friend was apologetic. Friend’s Adult Child (whom Weggieboy didn’t know at first was going to be on the contract, too, and whom Weggieboy likes but knows Child isn’t always responsible in money matters) had a Buddy who owed Child money, but left town before paying it to Child. Child, then, was unable to pay that part of the bill that was Child’s responsibility: Friend was stuck with the bill, couldn’t pay right away, and it rolled over into a threatening collection letter to Weggieboy.

Child, once again, had put Friend in a bind. Some Adult Children are like that. But (it seemed) this time Child got a taste of Child’s own medicine, was the victim of a deadbeat not paying money owed Child. Irony. Weggieboy loves it, but this time was blinded by it, too. Weggieboy forgave Friend, felt sorry for Friend because it wasn’t Friend’s fault Child’s Buddy stiffed Child.

Time passed. A second time Friend asked Weggieboy to come down to Viaero to co-sign a contract. Weggieboy reminded Friend of the incident above, pointed out Weggieboy probably wouldn’t have signed in the first place had Weggieboy known Adult Child was also on Friend’s contract.

“Oh, it won’t happen again!”

Until November 22 of this year.

Viaero once again contacted Weggieboy, by telephone, but this time Friend’s arrears bill was $449.39, an amount equal to what Weggieboy pays for telephone service for NINE MONTHS! Weggieboy can’t relate. Weggieboy can’t ignore Friend’s bill either, because Weggieboy’s credit rating typically is in the low 800s. No wonder Viaero liked Weggieboy’s signature on two separate contracts! The poor service representative was very tolerant while Weggieboy ranted about Friend’s perfidy, Adult Child’s irresponsibility, and the fact the there was another name on the bill, Absolute Stranger Of Whom Weggieboy’d Never Heard, and that was particularly galling! The first two have spotty records, but the latter could be God only knows what.

Weggieboy notified Friend, who in the recent past (Weggieboy guesses) moved out of state, that Viaero told Weggieboy Weggieboy owed $449.39, and that Friend’s name, Adult Child’s name, and Absolute Stranger Of Whom Weggieboy’d Never Heard’s name, too were on the back of the bill, that it was not Weggieboy’s account number, but Friend’s: The bill would be paid, Weggieboy told the customer service representative, but Weggieboy had some questions.

Question 1: Was the contract the second one or a third one Weggieboy was unaware of. It seemed to Weggieboy enough time had passed that Friend surely was on a third contract. Weggieboy wasn’t on the contract (Weggieboy thinks the customer service representative thought Weggieboy meant was Weggieboy listed on the contract, not had Weggieboy signed it, but that’s another day’s issue.) “No, I don’t see Weggieboy on it,” said the customer service representative.

Question 2: Since Weggieboy seemed to have liability as a co-signer for Friend, did that give Weggieboy authority to cancel the contract, too? Weggieboy repeated Weggieboy would pay the bill and any fees to cancel the contract, if the latter was possible. “Yes, that can be done,” said the customer service representative. “And Weggieboy guarantees Weggieboy will NEVER co-sign for Friend or anyone else again, ever, no matter how much boo-hoo is tossed in Weggieboy’s face!”

Today, Weggieboy went down to the Viaero office in freezing cold (1 degree F or -17.2 degrees C) to get clarification. Weggieboy explained Weggieboy’s concerns to the customer service representative. She looked up Friend’s account: cancelled! Weggieboy asked about early cancellation fees since Weggieboy wanted to clear all matters today, put the Viaero part of this nightmare to rest so Weggieboy could work on the next part: Collecting $449.39 from Friend, who noted there’d been financial stress in Friend’s life lately, but Friend’s good intention is to repay Weggieboy “by Christmas”.

Weggieboy has all the documents Weggieboy needs to file a small claims court case against Friend if the money doesn’t arrive in time for Christmas. “What a shitty thing to do to someone at Christmas,” Weggieboy thought. “On the other hand, it was a pretty shitty thing to ruin someone’s Thanksgiving AND Christmas with a phone call telling Weggieboy Weggieboy had to cough up $449.39 at this time of year, the time car insurance and assorted other expenses hit!!!”

Those who know Weggieboy best know Weggieboy has no sense of humor about money matters. Weggieboy manages Weggieboy’s limited funds, and doesn’t understand others who don’t or can’t manage theirs.

Weggieboy doesn’t hate Friend, but Weggieboy thinks Friend, who lopped off the “X” on Xmas*, now wears a Scarlet “X” in front of “Friend”: X-Friend. It is a hard lesson indeed for all concerned.

X+X+X+X+X+X+X+X+X+X+X+X+X+X+X+X+X+X+X+X+X+X+X+X+X+

* Before anyone gets huffy with me about “Xmas”, note that the usage is old.