1939 OLDSMOBILE

I learned a lot about fixing cars when I lived in Southie. My friend from my old neighborhood, Bob Bumstead, (he lived on West 6th St and I lived on West 5th ) owned a 1939 Oldsmobile. We used his car to commute to MIT from Southie every day for 4 years. Although mostly reliable there were times when the car broke down. On Saturday we would trek down to Quincy to Goldie’s where cars were heaped one on top of others. We had to bring our own tools and disassemble the needed part, pay the fee for the used part then back to Southie to make the repairs. Cars were simpler then and DYI selfers could actually manage to make the repairs.

After graduation we lost touch with one another. He ended up at Cape Canaveral in Florida and worked on the Space Program and I ended up in Colorado with the Bureau of Reclamation. A couple of years ago I thought of Bob and looked him up in the Alumni Directory. We went to lunch and spent a good part of the afternoon reminiscing about our daily commute and the fun we had figuring how to keep his old rust bucket going for 4 years.

I thought it would be good to have lunch again but when I checked our Monthly Alumni Magazine I discovered he had passed. I am so glad I had a chance to see him one more time. If you have a friend you haven’t seen for a while now would be good time to touch base again.

BOSTON GARDEN

Back in the 1950’s a group of us had season tickets to the Boston Bruins in the old Boston Garden. Our seats were high in the rafters in a Section known as “Nig….rs Heaven” I know it is a terrible name but that is what it was called. We eventually lost those seats when the section was converted to luxury suites.

At the time I was single so my attendance at the games caused no particular problem at home. That wasn’t the case with some of my married friends. One in particular, Louis Shkliew (pronounced Sklow) had a problem. Some of you may have known him since he ran a successful barbershop on E. Broadway on Pill Hill, called that because most of Southie’s doctors were located there at the time.

During the game we often heard over the public address system “Would Louis ‘ Shik-a-loo’ please call home” Louis often ignored the call. Unfortunately, he later told us when he returned home after the game he found his apartment completely empty. Not a stick of furniture was left. His wife had backed up a moving van and removed the entire contents of the apartment and returned to her mother in Worcester.

The moral of the story is that if your wife calls during a sporting event do NOT ignore the call. Better still, give up your season’s ticket.

New EPA Administor

Yesterday’s News Conference in Houston:

Reporter: EPA Administrator—“Do you believe Co2 is a contributor to global warming”

Pruitt "I think that measuring with precision human activity on the climate is something very challenging to do, and there's tremendous disagreement about the degree of impact, so no, I would not agree that it's a primary contributor to the global warming that we see. ... But we don't know that yet. ... We need to continue the debate and continue the review and the analysis."

Fact: 97 percent of Scientists say it is a major factor. There is no dispute except among the Climate deniers.

Reporter: As a follow up question do you believe an apple falling from a tree is due to the Laws of gravity?

Pruitt: “No, there is a dispute among Scientists and more study is needed”

Fact : in 1687 Newton stated “Every particle of matter in the universe attracts every other particle with a force that is directly proportional to the product of the masses of the particles and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them.” No one has disputed that in over 300 plus years
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Pruitt Should stick to lawyering and leave Science to the Scientists

SCOTT PRUITT NEW EPA ADMINISTRATOR

Those of us who were EPA employers in the 1980’s remember Ann Gorsuch. She was appointed the Administrator of the Agency by President Ronald Reagan with the sole purpose of dismantling EPA. Ann Gorsuch slashed EPA’s budget by 22 percent and aggressively rolled back clean air and clean water rules and other protections. In the first year of the Reagan administration, there was a 79 percent decline in the number of enforcement cases filed from regional offices to EPA headquarters, and a 69 percent decline in the number of cases filed from the EPA to the Department of Justice. She cut the total number of agency employees, and hired staff from the industries they were supposed to be regulating.

In 1982, Congress charged that the EPA had mishandled the $1.6 billion toxic waste Superfund and demanded records from Gorsuch. She refused and became the first agency director in U.S. history to be cited for contempt of Congress. In those days Congress had a backbone and had the courage to face down the President who claimed she need not turn over the documents citing Executive Privilege. In the end she had to resign her position after 22 months as Administrator.

Today Scott Pruitt was confirmed by the Senate to become EPA’s Administrator. He has the same mandate from President Trump as Anne Gorsuch had from President Reagan. This Congress has no backbone so I fear the worst for our Environment.

BOSTON HARBOR 1969

Boston Harbor before the Cleanup

https://vimeo.com/174398217e

JAPANESE TOILETS

Someone asked me the other day whether I had encountered any Japanese toilets when I was in Japan. In the Hotels I stayed in Tokyo and Osaka we had western style toilets. However in the offices were we met our Japanese Engineer counterparts, there were only Eastern style toilets. Was there privacy? did you manage?, was there toilet paper?--- these were some of the  questions that were thrown my way. Fortunately I never had to use these in the way that would require that I needed to squat.

On the bullet trains between Tokyo and Osaka most of the Toilets were of the Eastern variety. There was one car that had a Western style privy. The Japanese never felt privacy was an issue when it came to nudity or toileting. The baths are coed and whole families engage in the enjoyment of the hot tubs.

See picture attached

50TH ANNIVERSARY

50 years ago today I made the best decision of my life when I married my sweetheart Jane-- then and now.