A Little Bit of Kindness, Please.

Recently, I was in the checkout line at my local grocery when a somewhat unusual incident occurred.  The line was getting quite long and was not moving. It seems there was an elderly lady having a bit of difficulty scanning her credit card.  The more the cashier tried to help her the more frustrated she became. Customers in line were beginning to get unruly. I overheard some saying such things as: “She ought to be in a home”, “poor old thing”, and “why don’t they do something about her?”  Soon a young man with a necktie joined the cashier.  Slim in stature and with a young-man-on-the-way-up attitude he took over the cashier’s job.   His nametag said he was a management trainee. The young man had an air of condescension toward both cashier and the elderly customer. He quickly took charge by grabbing the plastic card from the elderly woman’s hand and swiping  it.

“See,”  he says, “there’s nothing to it! Now move along!”

I felt a bit of empathy for the elderly lady. It occurred to me that one day we would all be old and much like her and probably have a problem with modern technology. Yes, one day every frustrated person in that line would be having problems too. Growing old is a gradual process and not necessarily one easily adapted to.

I remember when I was a child attending a rural school, one of the treats of the first day of school was a new ruler. It wasn’t very fancy or anything.  Just a wooden ruler with a metal straight edge. The local Coca-Cola bottler would give every student a new 12-inch ruler. On the back of that ruler was printed: “Do Unto Others As You Would Have Them Do Unto You”.  I don’t guess they give them out to students anymore, or maybe that young management trainee just didn’t get one.

It Was About Cats

A few years ago we were in Montreal for a short visit. We were staying at a bed and breakfast,  the Auberge de La Fontaine. It was a beautiful old building, quite charming really. There was sort of a breakfast room on the ground level where guests would gather in the mornings. The breakfast fare was croissants, muesli, a selection of cheeses and a variety of American dry cereals. I noticed that one fellow put water rather than milk on his corn flakes. He was a tall man, lanky, with a slight stoop. His head was topped with bristly red hair and there were bright blue eyes peering from under bushy brows. There was a slightly hooked nose over the thin lips with a perpetual slight smile. He ambled across the floor with the gait of a farmer or outdoorsman and sat at a small table in the corner.

My curiosity about his eating habits led me to join him at his table. Just why would someone put water on their cornflakes? He welcomed my intrusion and introduced himself as Al Pennington of Morganton, NC. He said his wife was a late sleeper and he would enjoy the company. I said that my wife and I were visiting the city on our second honeymoon and Al said he and his wife had won a trip to the Canadian city in a contest sponsored by their local dairy co-op. After a bit  of talk about the weather, the city and such, I finally got around to asking him why he put water on his corn flakes.  It was quite simple he said. I got us two more black coffees and he began his story.

“As you might have guessed, I was raised on a farm. It was a rather small farm in western North Carolina. My daddy was farmer who also worked in a cotton mill to make ends meet. There were four of us in the family and he hardly made more than minimum wage. We all had our chores to do on the farm too. One of my jobs was to milk the cow in the morning. However, when I was about ten

years old I got the notion that milkin’ was girl’s work. I complained to Momma but she told me to “hush up” and to get down to the barn and not to be late for breakfast. I think I might’ve poked my lip out a little bit as I headed for the barn.” He sort of chuckled. “ I put new hay in Betsey’s food trough and set to work milkin’. I complained to  the milk cow too but all I got was a tap on the head as she swished her tail.

After a few minutes I heard something in the corner of the stall. It was a big yellow cat. It wasn’t our cat though. I had passed Thomas sleeping on the back porch steps on my way to the barn. The big cat stretched and opened his mouth. I shot a stream of milk across the stable into his mouth. I continued milking and not liking it very much. I thought I heard the cat again. Across from me in the corner was the yellow tom plus a gray tabby and a calico. They looked hungry.”

He took a sip of coffee from his cup and continued his story. “I was getting kind of anxious when more cats showed up. Some were hissing. I squirted more milk their way. Betsy was giving up her milk a little slower and my milk bucket was only half full. I guess I had been giving too much milk to

the cats. There were about twenty-five cats in the stable now. Betsy was getting nervous. I had only gotten a couple of more squirts of milk into the bucket when the cow kicked over the bucket. By the time I got back to the house I had only about a cup of milk left. My mother was really upset. I tried to explain about the cats, but she wouldn’t listen. She said, ‘From now on, you eat your cornflakes with water.’  After a few years they didn’t taste quite right with milk. So...That’s why you see a dairy farmer from North Carolina eating cornflakes with water.”

It’s been a few years since that incident but every time there is no milk in the fridge for my cornflakes, I think about that farmer.

Machine Guns, Bombs and Bow-wow!

As many of you know I have a fondness for airplanes.  I also have a passion for creating YouTube videos. I have, over the years, created nineteen videos specifically about aviation. Also about eighty about other subjects. Recently, I have become more interested in making more documentary videos. In creating these aviation videos, I frequently use archive video footage from the U.S. government sources. I like to research my subject thoroughly. whether through internet, library, or personal interview. In researching my latest project I was reviewing some archival footage from the Cactus Air Force during WWII. The Cactus Air Force was comprised of Navy and Marine Corps Squadrons operating in the South Pacific to route out the Japanese from the South Pacific islands. In the grainy moving images of the vintage film I saw a naval Lieutenant Commander climb aboard a F6F Hellcat fighter plane with a small dog under his arm. That led me to reevaluate the phrase, "man's best friend". Upon further research I found that this was not an usual occurrence  Indeed, when Wilbur and Orville Wright made that historic flight at Kill Devil Hill there was a dog in attendance.

Throughout the world wars aviation squadrons have had dogs for mascots. During WWI the Americans had a dog named "Spad", the mascot of the 94th Aero Squadron.  The Spad received his name from the Spad S.VII airplane they flew. On the other side of the conflict the Red Baron, Manfred von Richthofen had a Danish hound named, Moritz, for a mascot. Throughout the wars fighting men of the air have had their dogs.  Sometimes they were simply referred to as hanger dogs. On occasion more than that. The commander of the 614 Squadron RAF Dam Busters used the squadron dog's name for a code to signify completion of a mission. At times the squadron dog would take to the air with their master as with the commander of VF-33 in the South Pacific. These dogs aren't to be confused with modern military dogs which perform sentry duty and  bomb, cadaver, and drug detection.

As an afterthought; a personal note.  When I served on the U.S.S. Bon Homme Richard, an American aircraft carrier. We had a dog, a beagle.  I don't think an onboard dog complied with Navy regulations. His name was "Rumor". I don't know why he had that civilian name rather than the Navy translation to Scuttlebutt. Maybe some sailor's girlfriend named him.  Each division took their turn caring for Rumor. His picture was even in the ship's cruise book. He was pictured with the Captain's battle helmet on. When we returned to Long Beach Rumor had a rough time. Like us he had sea legs, except he had twice as many. He was a quick study though and got his land legs back almost as fast as I did. Unfortunately, Rumor went AWOL and them was finally considered a deserter. But we preferred to believe that his enlistment was up.  Some said his demise had to do with a female of his species.

Could happen to any sailor.

Click here for more of Lt. Cdr. Hawley Russell and VF-33 and the squadron mascot.

Random Conversations

McCombs Mill McCormick County

As a painter, I often sought picturesque landscapes and interesting buildings to paint. One Sunday in the fall of 1972 I was working on a painting of Long Cane A.R.P. Church in McCormick County just about a quarter of a mile from the ruins of McCombs Mill. McCombs Mill had long been one of my "to do" paintings. The problem was the mill was in ruins and had no roof.(I wanted to paint the mill the way it was before falling into ruin.) But on this particular day I was creating another painting of Long Cane Church. I was alone and a soft breeze was rustling the newly fallen leaves. Yellow butterflies flew spastically seeking the nectar of autumn flowers. I was indeed enjoying my creative experience in solitude. The building is in Greek Revival style and very picturesque. The silence was broken by onlookers. As a plein air painter I long ago reconciled myself with the fact that onlookers were an occupational hazard. It normally doesn’t bother me except when they begin to tell me how to paint. This man and woman did not. Only an occasional “O-o-h !” and “A-h-h!”. They kept their conversation low and unobtrusive. I finally engaged them in conversation. They were from Lexington, South Carolina, and searching for relatives in the old church cemetery. I told them a bit of the history of the church and how my family had attended services there since the 1700s. I had almost asked them about their hometown of Lexington when they told me their surname was Cuttino. Remembering the grisly murder of thirteen-year-old “Peg” Cuttino, I thought I would steer the conversation clear of such subjects.  During our conversation Mr. Cuttino (I don’t remember his first name.) said that his grandmother was a watercolorist. As a painter you get used to someone always telling you that they

sketch by Tony Young

have a grandmother, aunt or some other relative that is an artist. However, Mr. Cuttino  said his grandmother had painted a picture of the mill, McComb’s Mill.  I could barely contain my excitement when I asked about the roof.  “Oh, it had  hip roof,”  he said.That made my day! I would finally be able to do that painting of McCombs Mill I had always wanted to paint!

Lower Long Cane Associated Reformed Presbyterian Church

Making a Documentary Video

I have made over one hundred YouTube videos in the past few years. However, I've never considered any of them that great. Perhaps it was because my methodology was backwards. Or maybe I'm just too much of a perfectionist. Probably 90% of my videos are about travel. I would shoot photographs or video on vacation and upon returning home make my YouTube video from these. 

Ken Burns

In my most recent video, the SO Young Story, I had began collecting data, still photos, documents, and video clips pre-production. That's moviemaking speak for: "getting your stuff together".  My normal process. I had an idea of what I wanted to do, and that was to tell the story of my great grandfather. As a part of my ongoing educational process, I watched a video about film editing featuring Richard Speziale. Then I realized I had no definite plan. I wrote a script, something I had never done before. Previously I added commentary after I completed the

Casey Neistat

video part of the project. Now I set to work using photos, video, etc. to illustrate that script. I found that one of the secrets is to get more material than you can possibly use. Part of the difficulty in making this video was that I had only three photos of the subject of the video. I had to come up with new and interesting methods to present information. In any work of art whether painting, film or book you must create interest and entertain the viewer/reader. For example, when I told of my ancestor buying property I showed the bill of sale of the property with money laid bill by bill on top of the bill of sale. The documentary filmmaker Ken Burns shows considerable creativity in his films. A procedure for filming still photographs is called the Ken burns Effect. On perhaps the opposite end of the spectrum Casey Neistat uses creative yet different techniques than Burns. I borrow from both.

The most important part of the process is to never forget that the purpose of the video is to tell a story.

This is my most recent video.  This was the first video I wrote a script for before beginning. The S O Young Story video is special and personal.

This video I made, which has no narration (it isn't necessary), was made after I found interest in paper engineering. The video is quite short  I had learned the importance of brevity.  Television commercials tell a complete story in 30 seconds. But it is hurts to discard footage ( to use film nomenclature). One must CUT, CUT, CUT and cut some more.