Enthusiasm Makes The Difference!
A, rare, non-fiction story for thejazzmanblog.home.blog
We visited Bath, Maine at the end of May, and we met some enthusiastic Mainers!
We first stopped in at a lovely little store that had a plethora of items created in Maine. They had the most comfortable bar stools that I have ever sat on…and there was no bar…or beer! They also had an assortment of long narrow paintings of ocean scenes from Maine that were both intriguing and which fit nicely above a doorway.
But, what made this store in Bath so special was the wonderful woman who waited on us! Her excitement and energy and total buy-in to the items that she was showing us and her demonstrated love for Maine…was compelling! If you entered the store with no particular desire to purchase something, this resident of Maine would have you wanting to participate in the Maine experience before you left her establishment.
While we in the…
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Campground Meeting!
thejazzmanblog.home.blog
Billy Bump had been drawn to faith since he was a nine year old attending Bible School at the Christian Church. He had walked the four blocks, and around the corner to the little brick church each day of the week long program. Other than a cursory contact with church, Billy had never thought much about the multitude of enjoyable facets of a life of attending church!
On the last day of the Bible School they were studying Moses and Jesus and Elijah on the Mount of Transfiguration found in the New Testament. Billy had been a bit of an introvert for a few years, especially after his mom and dad divorced, but he suddenly felt like answering the teacher’s question regrading what had happened on the Mount?
As Billy began to speak he felt a presence helping him to talk regarding the Bible story. When he had completed his…
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Summer Interlude
The 4th of July has arrived and I am thinking of the many 4th’s that have preceded it. For several years we enjoyed the 4th of July festivities with my brother-in-law and his family. They live on a lake and one of our 4th of July traditions was to ride with them, in their pontoon boat, across the lake and enjoy the unique experience of being on the water…without a care in the world!
We have attended when our kids were still in school and we were concerned about all of the issues that surround teenagers and their development. We have been there when there were many guests and the hustle and bustle of the holiday and the energy of youth was inspiring! We were there when our great niece was a baby…and we marked the occasion with Waterford Crystal Christmas ornaments! Tomorrow we shall attend her housewarming and we are excited and honored and aware of how fast time passes by!
We can not help but notice that not only are we getting older…but we are old in the eyes of millennials!
I retired eight and one half years ago…while Mary Jane retired two months later. I recall enjoying Christmas dinner with my buddy, Ron, and reflecting on our up-coming January trip to Jamaica. I was newly retired and excited about the world before me as a free man! I so enjoyed my time with Ron that I was extremely enthused about our potential to travel together for our retirement years! I could not believe my and Mary Jane’s good fortune!
Ron and I discussed the meaning of life and the joys of old age and retirement and the pleasure of a good glass of red!
Life passes so quickly and it is vital that we savor every drop of the miracle that God has given us!
Roman Candles
Happy 4th of July!
It was another 4th of July at the Bump home. Each Independence Day was somewhat similar to the one that preceded it! Illinois had laws prohibiting the purchase of the ‘good’ fireworks! In their place were the black buttons, that upon being lit by a match…extended out to form a semblance of a black snake, and they were therefore called snakes. Or there were the, lame and safe, Sparklers that had colored and harmless light expelled from them after they were lit, and you held them with your hand.
You could not buy firecrackers in El Dorado. They were Billy and Carl’s favorite 4th pastime! When you lit the wick and subsequently threw them…they made a magnificent loud bang! If you lit the entire pack…it was exciting and loud and Billy had been told that the person taking the risk to light the pack…could loose a finger or more!
There…
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The Lady and The Tramp…and Billy Bump!
Another Billy Bump adventure!
‘Billy, would you like to go to the theatre and see the new Disney Movie, ‘Lady and The Tramp,’ said Jane? It was October 24, 1961 and Billy Bump was four years old and John F. Kennedy was the new President of the United States of America!
Billy heard his mom and dad excitedly speaking about JFK…and he thought the this might be the new President? They believed that he was a breath of fresh of air and the now the country was going to move ahead. JFK had extolled the nation to, ‘ask not what your country can do for you…but ask what you can do for your country!’
Lady had its’ world premiere, in 1955, in Chicago…but it was still playing when Billy Bump and Danny and Paulie and Steve and Susie and their mom, Ivy, attended on October 24th…Billy’s 4th Birthday!
Billy could not believe all of…
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Southern Illinois University @ Carbondale, Is Poised to Rebound!
Having been affiliated with SIUC for over 40 years, I am excited about the opportunities that await our wonderful University!
When I began working at SIUC, Jimmy Carter was our President and the Iranian Hostage Crisis had not yet happened. Pope John Paul II was named within a month of my appointment.
Warren Brandt was the President of the Carbondale Campus while Kenneth Buzz Shaw was the leader of the Edwardsville school.
Clarence ‘Doc’ Daugherty was the Vice President of Campus Services and Anthony Blass was the Director of the Physical Plant. The Superintendent of Building Services, and the man who hired me was, George O’Hara.
There was a cafeteria at Woody Hall and my friend, Thelma Griffin, managed it. My buddy Steve and I enjoyed many breakfast in the Woody Cafeteria before we attended classes.
In those, 1978 days, there was no central leader of Southern Illinois University and thus both Campus Presidents reported, regarding the business of their respective campuses, to the Board of Trustees.
During my first year with the Campus, Kenneth Shaw and Warren Brandt, both competed to become the Chancellor of Southern Illinois University…Shaw was selected and Brandt left SIUC.
I began my affiliation with Southern Illinois University @ Carbondale many years before our Campus experienced it’s highest enrollment during the early 1990’s. At this time having almost 25,000 students caused an excitement and a challenge for the University Community! I recall Housing placing three students in two student dorm rooms by placing another bed and desk in each room…and it was crowded!
Our staff in Building Services would stock the chalkboards in the classrooms with several, full, sticks of chalk, each evening and return the next evening to find only powder!
Housekeeping had over 200 hundred student staff, and the majority of them were international students and the majority of the international students were Malaysian. When I was the Building Custodian for Parkinson Lab and the Allyn building, in 1980, I had a Malaysian student worker as a member of my staff, and his same was Salman. One night we were on the third floor of Parkinson and I was training Salman in his custodial duties. Now, Salman was a very pleasant young man…and I told him to, ‘run down to the other end of the hall to retrieve a dust mop,’. Salman began running, at top speed, to the other end of the third floor hallway and then he turned around, on a dime, and ran back…just as fast!
I learned that colloquialisms do not translate to our international friends!
When we had students everywhere we looked…I wonder if we appreciated them as we should have? Now we desperately want to invite and convince students to join our family!
I met with the nicest and most impressive group of dedicated and professional civil service staff, yesterday, and it was my honor to be included in their midst! These are people that have been elected to represent their colleagues and who have taken on the work of two….three…and four…or more open positions of their former co-workers! They have done so out of a supreme love for their University…and to think anything else…would be an insult to these great Salukis!
New businesses are coming to Carbondale! Quality hotels are coming to Carbondale! New restaurants are coming to Carbondale!
Illinois now has a Governor that believes in the importance and priority of higher education! SIUC is to receive the best state budget that it has in several years! Our Campus is being led by a good man and a leader that has, deep, experience with the needs of Southern Illinois University and the Southern Illinois Region!
The SIUC recruiters are working over time! The enrollment projects are looking promising! Civil Service staff are working their fingers to the bone to ensure the success of their campus!
Let us continue our success by rebuilding the people that are working tirelessly for the renaissance of our School!
Let us realize and acknowledge that the only reason that SIUC has made it though the long valley of suffering that was predicated, in our past, by a Governor and political leaders that did not have Southern as their priority, and affirm that a well cared for staff and faculty…equals happy students who tell their friends about the secret to Little Egypt…Southern Illinois University!
Sammy and Jenny at the Eighth Grade Dance
Another Awesome Jonathon Brooks Blog, Enjoy!
I invite you to read my latest flash fiction story.
Life is supposed to be lived with all or nothing courage. I kept this thought close to my heart when I walked up to Jenny at the dance. Sammy, play it cool. Play it cool, Sammy. This thought raced through my mind at a million miles per hour. It might’ve even been one billion miles an hour.
And there was Jenny in her beauty without a cup of punch. I wondered if she was a blue punch sort of lady or a red punch gal. I decided to ask her. “Jenny, what kind of lady are you?”
“Excuse me?” she said as her face turned the color of one of the punch options.
“Are you a blue punch lady or a red punch lady? I’d like to bring you a cup of punch, but I did not know whether you…
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A Christmas Miracle!
Santa Is Real!
Billy Bump was excited! It was Friday after Thanksgiving and it was time to do all things Christmas! Billy and his mom had just moved to West Street in El Dorado.
Times had been somewhat hard, financially, for Jane and Billy. They were renting from Jane’s sister, Gertrude, and she was a good landlord! Gertrude would often stop by with soda pop and some garden vegetables. Billy enjoyed the pop and tolerated the veg!
However, Christmas was coming and all routine worries and cares melted away in the face of a visit from Santa Claus! Now, Billy was a fan of Santa since his days in Chicago. His mom and dad, before they moved and divorced, had given him a Laughing Santa for one of his first Christmases! Billy loved Laughing Santa and when he came out of Christmas storage…everything was right again!
Laughing Santa had was about a foot…
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Six Months Until Christmas Eve!
Does it seem to you that Christmas Eve was a week or two ago? Or at least not more that a month back?
We were talking about a trip to Maine during the last of May and the first of June…and now we have been and are looking forward to returning!
Little Wallace was with us and now he is gone!
And, so, 2019 scurries by…and waits for no one!
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I often wonder if time, as we understand it, is an illusion? In our reality we are ruled by the clock and the calendar. The hourglass is running!
Einstein believed that time was the fourth dimension. He postulated that time was an illusion and that, in theory, time travel was possible.
Photo by Public Domain Pictures on Pexels.comi
Regardless we live within the construct of time and it is imperative that we make the most of each day that is given to us. Whether it be Christmas Eve or a trip to Maine or a loved one who needs to hear from us that we care!
This life is a bit like a rollercoaster or a fast moving locomotive, the European kind, and it does not pay to take your eye off of what is important to you…for to long.
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Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com
Babysitting…
Another fiction story from thejazzmanblog.home.blog
Billy Bump enjoyed Babysitting! Now, he did not babysit…but he enjoyed being babysat by his cousin Linda!
Linda was Harry Hayes sister…and Billy’s favorite! If the truth was revealed…he had a little crush on her!
Linda usually babysat Billy on Friday nights. This was the night that Billy’s mom, Jane, liked to honky tonk! Billy thought that honky tonk was a very unusual term for dancing and drinking slow gin fizzes…but it was a common vernacular in Billy’s day.
Billy and Linda and, often, Carl, would watch the Friday night Science Fiction Theatre. It ran everything from the movies, This Island Earth, to the, Mole Men, and It Came From Outer Space. Also, every other week it had horror movies such as, Dracula, and Frankenstein, and the, Curse of the Mummy, with Boris Karloff.
Dracula was one of Billy and Carl’s favorites and Billy had purchased a model of Dracula…
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The Happy Traveler 