Order In The Court

I must admit that I have never made a plea before the Supreme Court of the United States of America, but I do have a close friend who has done that. His name is Lawrence Alden Aschenbrenner and his issue before the court concerned the native tribes of Alaska whom he represented.  In his career, Larry stood before the Supremes three times. 

That lofty bar of justice is not like the court where you are defending some poor miscreant for driving while seriously drunk.  No, no. To work in that historic room you must have been sworn in as a credible practitioner of the mystic codes of jurisprudence. In 1966 Larry was sworn in by Chief Justice Earl Warren after being sponsored by Oregon U.S. Senator Robert Packwood in a class of five other attorneys that included then Attorney General of the United States, Bobby Kennedy.  Packwood introduced Aschenbrenner to Kennedy which allowed Larry to check off one more box in his bucket list: Have a chat with President John F. Kennedy's brother.

So my lifelong friendship with Larry Aschenbrenner has given me two separations of personal contact with a President of the United States, John F. Kennedy.

The Wayward Bus

In my senior year of high school I turned 18 on February 4, 1948.  This made me eligible to get a chauffeur's license which I did because the principal of the high school, Frank Thomas got me a job driving a school bus. The principal liked me because I played football, was his student body president and was not a trouble-maker. My route to pick up and deliver young scholars to the schoolhouse conveniently followed the roads leading to my home seven miles west on the Redwood Highway.  After my last student was safely delivered to his/her home I would park the bus in a field across from where I lived and then retrace the route the next morning.  With a $50.00 payday that was one sweet deal.

My young bus riders were enthusiastic fans of the driver (me) because every after-school day was race day between our bus and a bus driven by another Frank Thomas favorite student that went south and east of town.  Grants Pass at that time had 6th street with four traffic lanes going through the center of town; two going north,  two going south and both of us had to go south through town where two lanes became one to cross the Caveman Bridge. The race was on to challenge that bottleneck.

Another factor affecting the race was all the citizen drivers who were desperate to not get stuck behind a school bus that stops at every mailbox to let some kid off.  They, too, joined the race to the single lane bottleneck at the Caveman bridge.

Those busses were real rattlers, big yellow hulks that let you know they were coming.  As the two drivers jockeyed for lanes to arrive first at the bridge, the occupants of both busses were wildly into the action with stomping feet and pounding on the metal side panels under the windows.  Not to mention  screaming at the driver by both boys and girls to go faster.  Rolling pandemonium. YeeHaww!!!  Some days we won.  Other days we lost (some citizen stopping in my lane to park). Those appointed rounds were never dull.  Hell riders to the bridge.

The House Buys A Round

Recalling my brilliance in winning the gown order at Glide High School triggered another memory of the Glide High School Principal, Norm Bergstrom. Years after the gown incident, Norm retired and bought a small motel south of Roseburg, Oregon.  One day Georgann and I got a late start from Portland on a trip to visit relatives in Grants Pass and south of Portland I realized we couldn't make it to southern Oregon before late night, I suggested it might be fun to stop for overnight at Norm's motel.  I hadn't seen him in years. 

Norm was working the reception desk when we checked in and he was delighted to see me.  He invited us to come back for cocktails after we got settled in and we found his living quarters behind the office to be large and nicely furnished. Norm introduced us to his wife and took drink orders.  Georgann would have preferred wine but none was offered so we both chose mixed drinks.

We talked about old times in the school house and I asked Norm how he was enjoying retirement in the motel business. "Bill," he said, "Life is good for Alice and me because we can handle everything needed in the small number of units we have.  I'll tell you one good side benefit; we never have to buy liquor because people are always leaving partially filled bottles in their room.

Arrgghh!!!

Timing Is Everything

I worked for years as a salesman for Jostens of Minnesota calling on high schools to sell graduation gowns, announcements, diplomas and school rings.  It was a competitive business with other companies offering the same products and Jostens paid me no salary,  just straight commission on what I sold.  My assigned territory was southern Oregon and one week I was working all the schools north of my home in Grants Pass.

I had a 9:00 A.M. appointment with a Principal at a school in Sutherlin and on my arrival I was told my man was ill and would not be in his office that day.  My next appointment was two hours later in Roseburg and when you work on commission time is money so you don't waste it.  I would use the time to make a courtesy call on another school in the area. Entering the administration office the Principal's  secretary announced me and when he came out of his office he had a strange look on his face. He said to me, "How do you people do that?  I had no idea what he was talking about but I made some innocuous comment and he continued, "The Herff Jones salesman was supposed to take our senior gown orders two hours ago and he apparently forgot the appointment so I'm giving you the gown business.  Meet me in the gym and I'll get the seniors down there."  The seniors arrived with their Herff Jones order forms filled out which I gathered up to transfer to our forms.  Then I thanked the Principal for his business and headed down the road to my next appointment without a clue as to what just happened.

I found out later that an hour before I arrived in his office he had called my boss in Portland and told him he was giving the gown business to us and to have me make an appointment to take the orders.  Then I walk in his door.

You don't have to be a great salesman if your timing is excellent.

Max

Max Coley, whose mother was a full-blooded Cherokee, was a better than average running back in college.  He would not have looked out of place bare chested astride a galloping horse.  Max coached running backs and quarterbacks for Len Casanova at the University of Oregon where he and I became friends.  We investigated after hour establishments from time to time and I grew to appreciate his deep knowledge of the game of football.  One Saturday morning I called Max to suggest we go to a track meet that afternoon and he said no, he didn't think so because he didn't really enjoy sports where people didn't hit each other.

At a scrimmage in 1969 Max was putting in plays for the next game.  Jim Fegoni was the center who would form the huddle and Max would lean in over Fegoni's back and call the plays he wanted run.  Sometimes when Fegoni left the huddle he would take a chop step back and plant his cleated foot right on top of Max's foot.  Ouch.  After the play Max would collar Fegoni and tell him, "DO NOT CHOP STEP OUT OF THE HUDDLE".  Fegoni would do fine and then he would forget and drill Coley again.  The third time it happened Coley limped up and confronted Fegoni. He placed his hands on the kid's shoulders and looked him in the eye saying, "Jim, I think I now know why the Italians lost the war".  Fegoni,  not blinking,  replied,  "How'd the Indians do, Coach?"

Max went on to a long,  successful professional career in the NFL and was Terry Bradshaw's coach at Pittsburg in those great Steeler years.

A football Memory

Senior year. One of our early games after the Grayback pre-season training camp was against Myrtle Point High School on their field, about 70 miles from Grants Pass. We would make the trip in one of our ancient yellow school buses that had all the comfort of a railroad boxcar with benches. Coach Ingram never embraced the idea of football as a fun activity for young scholars to engage in; he saw it as a character building opportunity that required the players to observe a disciplined regimen of physical and mental commitment. And that long bus trip was an opportunity to study your book of plays and concentrate on the game plan.

Yeah, right.  Larry Aschenbrenner is going to sit quietly on a bouncing bus for more than three and a half minutes before sneaking up the aisle and sticking a paper match in somebody's shoe sole and setting it on fire for a "hot foot"? Or maybe tying somebody's shoe laces together? Or instigating plots with others to keep the laughter rolling to the distress of the coaches?

Our high school is three times the size of theirs and the game in a pouring rainstorm is essentially over by the end of the first quarter. With about one or two minutes left in the game Ingram has cleared the bench of back-up players and on the last play of the game our third-string quarterback calls a pass play to show our coaching staff why he should be a starter. His pass connects and the receiver is off for the end zone.  Whoever is running facility control for Myrtle Point figures the game is over and he throws the master switch for lighting. The field plunges into total, deep-in-the-coal-mine darkness. People are shouting as chaos ensues.  In just a few minutes the lights come back on and we see our receiver lying flat out on the grass in the end zone.  He had run full speed into the goal post.

The kid came around without major injuries.  But we never got to kick the extra point.

The Face of Safe

                                                             

In every historical decade there is opportunity for creating a solution to what 99.99% of your fellow voyagers haven't yet realized is a problem. The prescient opportunist is then rewarded with fame and fortune.  "What if I could pick up a device at the Happy Hour Bar & Grill and tell you I was working late at the office?" Alexander Graham Bell said to his wife. "What's new about that?" she replied.  But Alex saw the future and he owned it. Just as Orville Wright did.  And Bill Gates. And Steve Jobs.

Like those visionaries, I've seen the future but my opportunity to get there has been roadblocked by the Grim Reaper. So I'm handing off my insight to whomever wants to seize the brass ring and throw it in the slot.

Think face masks.  The current pandemic we are experiencing is just a shot across our bow.  New and improved coronas are in Mother Nature's pipeline and always will be so the future opportunity is how to confront that reality with a creative solution.  That is, make the face mask a fashion statement that will become as important to the individual as his/her other clothing, underwear and outerwear.  Forget that thing that hangs on your ears or drops a plastic shield down from a headband.  Think total head conversion with a helmet that when worn covers everything from your neck upward. It won't be cheap but it will be a must-have device with a patent worth $billions. You will go to a salon to have your faceshield (get a copyright on faceshield) designed and fitted. Much high concept research and development is required here but everything is doable now or could be with engineering.

A mould of your head will be created in ubiquitous Headquarters Salons with whatever equipment is required.  Simulated skin needs to be developed and the client can choose tan coloring or any other tones desired.  Natural blemishes away.  Hair to clients specification like any wig construction.  More high tech development for air vents, filtered with openings from the back.  The faceshield will be designed in two parts for ease in putting it on and taking it off.  The front and back sections will be joined by a new-easy-to-use, sealing system.  Identification chips in the headpiece will be a requirement.

The eye holes will be prescription ground if necessary and fit over nose like glasses.

Voice and hearing is technically enhanced when face is closed.

So lots of research and development would be required to make this work but concerns about safety from the virus is the future reality.   

No, no, don't thank me. Just take my idea and buy yourself a yacht.