Here we are past Midsummer and are enjoying a beautiful summer so far, there is nothing like summer in the NW.
June’s book club was held at Sherrie Manson’s (202) Unfortunately Edy and I missed the meeting so we don’t know how it went. The book that was discussed was Code Name Helene by Ariel Lawhon. I have read the book and thoroughly enjoyed it. I have read other books about Helene, she was an interesting person
Restaurant Reviews
Vault 177
Location 1430 NW Richmond Beach Rd.
206-546-5000
www.Vault177.com
Hours-Mon-Tues-4:00-10:00PM
Wed-Sunday 12:00-closing varies.
Jerry went to Vault 177 while I was gone. He had a chili burger that he described as “so-so, nothing to write home about” Of course we are so spoiled with Black Bird right across the street that has one of the best burgers in the area. He felt the service was good and it does get some more favorable reviews on the web. So, give it a try and let us know what you think about it.
Recommended Books
Jerry has been reading a series of books by Winston Churchill. There are four books in the series.
He highly recommends them to anyone who enjoys history.
- Birth of Britain
- The New World
- The Age of Revolution
- The Great Democracies
First published in 1956, the series covers Great Britian from the time Cesar arrived on the scene to the beginning of WW1.
I was always concerned that Churchill would be too stuffy but am happy to report that he is extremely readable. Jerry
Traveling neighbors
Edy and I’s trip to Paris was terrific. The flight over and back were uneventful even though we had a fair amount of turbulence. Delta did a good job of transporting us across the pond. The purpose of the trip was for Edy to lecture for 3 days to folks from all over the world. I was so lucky to get to go along since Paris is one of my favorite cities. Our accommodation was great, we stayed in a hotel near the venue in which Edy was speaking. It was in the 13th named the Urban Bivouac. A small boutique hotel, excellent service, my room was I think the smallest hotel room I have ever had but then it was only for myself, and we certainly didn’t spend a lot of time in our room. The breakfast which was included was excellent, fresh parties, eggs, and most anything else you would want to begin your day. I would certainly stay there again and recommend it to anyone who is in Paris.
The second portion of our stay was supposed to be in an apartment in the 16th, unfortunately my friend, who manages apartments in France, had the date mixed up and we ended up staying in an apartment right on the Boulevard Montparnasse. It was lovely, it came with everything we needed except a comfortable chair. www.holidays-europe-rental.fr. Look for the Montparnasse Palace.
Paris was hot, at least it was for me, also very crowded, I would hate to think what it would be like later in the summer. We went to the Museum de Orsay which of course was packed, there were rooms that were so filled we chose to skip them. When we got to the Louvre we sat down and looked at a map and decided as to what we wanted to see, skipping Mona and the more popular displays.
I went by myself to La Petite Palace, it is not on the list of the top 10 museums, hence it was not crowded at all, I had some rooms to myself. One of the things I found on this trip is that we had to buy our tickets to the museums before we left home, no deciding at the last minute that you wanted to go to see the Orangerie, which we didn’t get to see because we couldn’t get a ticket. This isn’t saying you couldn’t see the museum it meant you would have to stand in a line hoping you could get in. I don’t know if this is also the case in other cities such as London or Berlin but I would certainly check. I think of the 6 venues I went to my favorite was La Petite Palace and the Opera
We did our best to see all of Paris, my feet felt like we covered most of it, walking up to almost 8 miles a day. We used the metro a lot, not my favorite mode of transportation. I managed to get lost one day, think I was on most of the metro lines, I felt like Charlie in the song by the Kingston Trio M.T.A. Thank goodness for all the people I asked, if not for them I would still be riding around on the Paris metro looking for my stop.
We found the people in Paris very delightful and very helpful. But, there were a lot of them as can be seen by the line for Versailles.
I’m ready to go back–still lots to see.
Laurie and Karre are in Europe right now, they are taking a cruise around the Baltic. We did something similar a few years ago, I think it was my favorite cruise we have taken, the ports on the Baltic are beautiful. I’m sure they will enjoy themselves.
Shirleen and Matthew went to Santa Fe, they rented a house that would accommodate their family. They had a great time.
Bob and the Terry clan are all going to Texas for a family reunion. Hope they can manage to stay cool.
Travel accessory
One of my favorite travel accessory to make packing easier is the packing cube, you simply pack alike garments or maybe all your tech stuff, cords, adaptors etc. It is especially useful when you are on a trip where you’re moving from one hotel room to another, your clothes are contained in cubes, so can take them out of your suitcase and put them in a drawer. Things don’t get lost or left behind. I use Eagle Creek, Rick Steves has some nice ones. They aren’t all created equally so note how deep the cube is when your shopping.
Recipe du Jour
Meatloaf Casserole
1 ½ pounds russet potatoes
½ cup half and half
5T unsalted butter
1 ½ tsp kosher salt, divided.
3 cloves garlic minced and divided.
¼ c freshly chopped chives
2 egg yolks
2 T vegetable oil
1 medium diced onion
¾ c diced celery
2 pounds lean ground beef
1 cup tomato sauce
2/3 c breadcrumbs
1 ½ T Worcestershire sauce
1 ½ T tomato paste
Fresh parsley for garnish (optional)
Directions
- Peel and dice potatoes into ½ inch cubes. Place into medium-sized pot with a lid, and cover potatoes with cold water. Cover the pot and bring to a boil over high heat, then remove the lid of the pot and reduce the heat to medium-low allowing the potatoes to simmer until tender, about 15 minutes.
- Strain potatoes and return to the pot. Mash the potatoes until smooth. Stir in half and half, butter 1 tsp. kosher salt, 1 clove of garlic and chives. Once fully combined stir in the two egg yolks until completely incorporated and set aside.
- Preheat the oven to 400F. Heat the vegetable oil in a large skillet until shimmering. Add celery, onion, and sauté over medium-high until completely soft, about 8 minutes.
- Add the ground beef and stir until the meat is fully cooked. Add ½ tsp kosher salt, tomato sauce, breadcrumbs, Worcestershire sauce, and tomato paste.
- Evenly spread the meat filling into a 2 ½ qt. casserole dish. Top the meat mixture with eh mashed potatoes, carefully spreading the mashed potatoes over the entire surface of the meat. Bake for 25 minutes.
I like to make dishes like this, it is usually enough for us for a couple of nights, not that I’m lazy but it nice not to have to cook every night.
Recipe from Southern Living
John Weschler post
IF I COULD RE-WRITE THE SCRIPT OF THAT SCREENPLAY
“One day in the Indiana summer of my childhood, an episode for which I’m not proud ensued. While playing with my neighborhood clutch of pals, I bullied a younger kid named Brian. He must have gone home and complained.
Soon his big brother, Butch, came after me with fire in his eyes. He accosted me on the sidewalk outside Brownie’s grocery store, ready to beat the tar out of me. As this little noisy neighborhood fracas occurred (and long before every tough carried a Glock or a revolver) a crowd of pals soon circled us.
EXCEPT: I wouldn’t fight. Standing there with my arms at my side and trying to still my shivers of fear, I remained a mute wimp. Butch mercifully chose not to sock me, instead gave me a good tongue lashing for abusing his little brother.
If I could have opened my mouth and knew how to negotiate (what frightened kid does?), here’s what I could have said.
“Butch, you’re a pretty good big brother. I’m just not a fighter and as a matter of fact I’m scared shitless right now. Turning to suddenly triumphant little brother Brian I could have said, “Brian, your brother is right I shouldn’t be pickin’ on little kids. He has publicly humiliated me and that hurts as much as a black eye. I was wrong and I hope you will forgive me. I’m sorry for messin’ with you.”
The moment passed, the circle scattered, resumed play and kept sweating it out in that Indiana heat. I doubt that anyone lives and remembers. Meanwhile, I’m repolishing my screenwriting skills.”
Submitted by John W.
Stuff by David Ridge
Special Group / Born Between 1930 – 1946. Today, they range in ages,from 75 to 90.
You are the smallest group of children, born since the early 1900s.
You are the last generation, climbing out of the depression, who can remember the winds of war and the impact of a world at war which rattled the structure of our daily lives for years.
You are the last to remember ration books for everything from gas to sugar to shoes to stoves.
You saved tin foil and poured fat into tin cans. [Mom had a metal can on top of the stove where she saved cooking fat. It was supposedly used to make explosives for the war effort. There was a big call for metal foil and all other scrap metal. A mountain of it was built in the vacant lot across the street from our house. No one ever came to get it, and the city disposed of it after three years due to all the rats that called it home.]
You saw cars up on blocks because tires weren’t available. [Nor was gasoline or oil. To operate a car an authorized windshield badge was required. Mere transportation was not enough to get an operators permit.]
You can remember milk being delivered to your house early in the morning and placed in the “milk box” on the porch. [We didn’t have a box, but we did have a milk man. He delivered from a horse-drawn wagon.]
You are the last to see the gold stars in the front windows of grieving neighbors whose sons died in the War. [These 9” x 12” banners were in the front window on everyone who had a member in the service. A blue star was used for each service member, and it would be turned to gold if death occurred.]
You saw the ‘boys’ home from the war, build their little houses. [Hard times for my generation to find a job while in high school. So many service men dropped into job searches that no one would hire non-service personnel.]
You are the last generation who spent childhood without television; instead, you imagined what you heard on the radio. [We had no radio either. When my uncle went off to the army, we borrowed his table radio. It was a tube type and worked occasionally. New tubes were not available so when the radio acted-up, Dad’s cure was to pound it down on the table. Sometimes it worked.]
With no TV until the ’50s, you spent your childhood “playing outside”.
There was no little league. There was no city playground for kids. [Very little in the way of organized sports. We did have an old park nearby, but the equipment was dilapidated. By the late 40’s most summertime play with other kids was stifled by the threat of polio.]
The lack of television in your early years meant, that you had little real understanding of what the world was like. [World news was managed during the war years. The newspapers were the source of our knowledge of world and national events.]
On Saturday afternoons, the movies gave you newsreels sandwiched in between westerns and cartoons. [Usually a double feature, a newsreel, a cartoon, and a serial or two…Flash Gordon or Zorro or…]
Telephones were one to a house, often shared (party lines) and hung on the wall in the kitchen or on a table in the foyer…..(no cares about privacy). [We got a party line about 1947, with two other parties. Phone No. 29250. Got a single line in about 1950. The telephone was stashed in a phone nook in our hallway. Long distance calls were expensive. Lessons learned then made it hard to keep Mom on the phone in later years after things got cheaper. Telephones had rotary dials…not push-button.]
Computers were called calculators; they were hand cranked.
Typewriters were driven by pounding fingers, throwing the carriage, and changing the ribbon. [I worked at a La. Highway Dept. material testing lab one summer. We had to type material reports on “Onion Skin” paper and make nine carbon copies. Carbon paper laid between each copy, making 19 sheets in a pile. It was necessary to pound the keys really hard to get a readable copy on the last sheet.]
‘INTERNET’ and ‘GOOGLE’ were words that did not exist.
Newspapers and magazines were written for adults and the news was broadcast on your radio in the evening.
As you grew up, the country was exploding with growth.
The government gave returning Veterans the means to get an education and spurred colleges to grow. [When I started college in 1952 the last of the veterans using the GI Bill were just starting also. Most had families, held one or two jobs, and lived in “Vetville”, a not-pleasant set of WWII shanties with lots of cockroaches. These guys were driven and dead serious. If you were a lab partner with one of them, you had to be sure and hold up your end of the partnership…or else.]
Loans fanned a housing boom.
Pent up demand coupled with new installment payment plans opened many factories for work.
New highways would bring jobs and mobility. [Interstate highways started in the 1950’s. Almost all highways before that were two-lane.]
The Veterans joined civic clubs and became active in politics.
The radio network expanded from 3 stations to thousands.
Your parents were suddenly free from the confines of the depression and the war, and they threw themselves into exploring opportunities they had never imagined. [Our parents got a 1948 Chevrolet, used, in 1949. They used inheritance money from Mom’s mother’s death. All our transportation before this was by bus, trolley, train, or taxi. Truly, the car opened new opportunities for them. Their favorite thing was to climb in the car and drive somewhere, anywhere.]
You weren’t neglected, but you weren’t today’s all-consuming family focus.
They were glad you played by yourselves until the streetlights came on. [A nice world. No particular fear of scuzzy people or of thieves. We did lock our doors at night but never in the daytime. There were probably 50 or more kids in a two-block radius and lots of at-home parents.]
They were busy discovering the post-war world.
You entered a world of overflowing plenty and opportunity; a world where you were welcomed, enjoyed yourselves and felt secure in your future, though depression and poverty were deeply remembered.
Polio was still a crippler. [One of my high school and college buddies, Jerry Modisette, had polio when he was about 8, lived in an iron lung for a time and then in a bed for some years. He lost the use of a muscle under his right arm permanently. Bed boredom forced him into reading science and math. He graduated college with a math degree and went on to get maybe the first Phd in Space Science from Rice University. Another kid from my childhood got polio around age 6. He was eventually led into body-building exercises and by age 11 was immensely strong. He was stunted by polio at 5’ 6’’ height with short legs but had huge shoulders and long arms. Roger Hampton was eventually named “The Louisiana Athlete of the 20th Century.” Roger set state records for the 100 and 220 yd. dashes, long jump, discus, and shot put. And he could outrun our miler and go further than our hop-step-and-jump guy. He led our high school to state championships in football and basketball and had college scholarship offers from both.
Roger could beat anyone on our tennis team, and in the summer,he played softball as a pitcher, setting city records for strike-outs and home runs. Polio would not necessarily ruin your life, but no one wanted to live months or years in an iron lung.]
You came of age in the 50s and 60s.
You are the last generation to experience an interlude when there were no threats to our homeland.
The second world war was over, and the cold war, terrorism, global warming, and perpetual economic insecurity had yet to haunt life with unease.
Only your generation can remember both a time of great war, and a time when our world was secure and full of bright promise and plenty.
You grew up at the best possible time, a time when the world was getting better.
You are “The Last Ones.” More than 99 % of you are either retired or deceased, and you feel privileged to have “lived in the best of times!”
Submitted by David Ridge
I hope you all celebrated our country’s 247th Birthday in a special way. Getting together with friends and family, appreciating all this country stands for and being thankful for all freedoms we enjoy and so often take for granted.