Long Term Memories

Sunday, October 30, 2005

Springfield, IL memory - The Race for Sheriff

Springfield was in Sangamon county (the Sangamon period of geohistory is the warm period between the Illinoisian and the Wisconsonian glaciations). There was a election for sheriff of the county. The incumbant was Jim Purdy and challenger was Tony Sacco. Tony Sacco was a retail politician and went campaigning door to door. He knocked on our door one day. Ann answered,

"What will it take to get your vote?" said Tony.

"I want the juvenile delinquent (Derrick Pacora) across the street out of the neighborhood" said Ann (the paradigm of the single issue voter).

"If I'm elected you can count on me doing my best" said Tony.

Well Tony lost the election but within the year, Jim was arrested for drunk driving (by a State cop) and had to resign and Tony was appointed to take his place. Within 2 months, Derrick had enlisted in the Army. ¶ 7:34 PM

Springfield, IL Memory _ two scoops of ice cream

One day (1984 I think), the Illinois lottery prize was up to $14 million which was the highest total to that date (it has been over $200 million recently). At work the people were discussing the first thing they would do if they won. Several people would quit their job, others would buy a boat or a house or a car. Someone asked me, "what would you do if you won Weiss?"

"If I won," I responded, "I would go to the Baskin-Robbins ice cream store nearby the office and I would say to the server, 'I'll take a chocolate cone with TWO (appropriate hand gesture here showing two fingers) scoops". For awhile, I was called 2-scoops Weiss. ¶ 7:29 PM

Friday, October 14, 2005

Irwin was an Expert at Finding Ping Pong Balls in the Basement

Back in the 60s, we had a ping pong table in our basement. Balls were lost occasionally went they went off table and got in with the stored items elsewhere. Irwin had a knack for finding them. Once, Stanley Cohen and I were looking for a ping pong ball. Irwin came down and said, "Let the Expert do it."

We used this expression occasionally over the next few decades. I remembered the expression today. Stanley remembered why we had started to use it. ¶ 10:42 AM

Saturday, October 08, 2005

Homework

We had someone over the house who was discussing her son's homework. He is in high school and spending about 1.5 hours/day. She thought this too little. I remembered that when I was in high school, I told my parents how much homework I had in miles (4 miles was about 1 hour but depending on how I was feeling it could be as little as 30 minutes or as much as 1.5 hours). My parents got used to this. It seemed to me that I was then 'hiding' something from them and I felt better about it for some reason. G (who was in the audience when I told this story) was somewhat amused by this. ¶ 11:57 PM

FHWA Memory #35 - Phantom Approval of an Experiment

I was for a few years in charge of experimental projects. These were projects where the State wanted to try something that wasn't in their standard procedures or specifications. We could say 'yes' and they would then try it out and write a report. One day I received an application for an experimental project. It was a reasonable idea; I recall it was a new type of culvert. However, the quantity of pipe was way too high; something like 2000 linear feet. Normally with an experimental project you try out only a little in case it fails. I arranged to travel to the State office (it was near Chicago) to speak to people about it. When I got there we all went into a room and the chief person from the State asked me what kind of report we wanted. I asked why they had to use so much of the new product. He told me it had been approved by my boss's boss (who apparently decided not to bother telling me or my boss). It was about a 400 mile round trip for nothing. I was pretty ticked off; not because the project was illegal-- really its not very likely that the culvert would fail; I was ticked off at traveling for no reason.
¶ 11:19 PM

Sunday, October 02, 2005

FHWA Memory #34 - The war on Hazardous Mailboxes

The #2 person in the office was in a tough position because the #1 person was such a control freak. One day, he decided to mark off his territory. In about 1983, he began a war on hazardous mailboxes after seeing a slide show presentation on the subject (I think the show was done by the Texas Transportation Institute). The presentation showed cars hitting a mailbox post that had been reinforced and turning over. It showed the new standard USPS mailbox groups that also looked quite solid.

So one day, the #2 guy told each district engineer (they typically supervised 2 or 3 area engineers) that they had to produce 2 pictures a month for the next 3 months, showing hazardous mailboxes. Well, not enough pictures were taken so first each area engineer was told to gather pictures, then all the other employees (financial people, planners, the environmental guy, the bridge engineers and the land acquisition people) had to do so.

One day I had a meeting in Chicago, about a 3.5 hour drive from the Springfield office. My boss told me that I should get off the interstate and take hazardous mailbox pictures. I said, I would be willing to do this but it would add about an hour or more to the trip so I would stay overnight in Chicago. At first, my boss said not to do this but I said that if I ended up driving for 10 hours in one day and also going to a 3 hour meeting I would be tired and might have an accident and the govt would be very liable. He agreed.

It turned out that I stayed at a very nice hotel in downtown Chicago - a beautify lobby; old world style. However, I ate a 'premium' breakfast before leaving Chicago - Eggs Benedict. It didn't go well and I ended up throwing up on the Stevenson Expressway (I pulled onto the shoulder and opened the passenger side door but a little got into the govt car).. ¶ 8:49 PM