This is the one. This is it. Finally, after all of these years, this is the post that is going to make me FAMOUS.
Oh! combien de temps j'ai attendu ce moment!
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And it’s also going to help all of you to become more “continental” and refined and good at talking French.
Yes, I am going to teach you all how to parle Francais! In French, even! And in three French Dialects! When I’m done with you, you will be able to travel almost anywhere where French is the spoken language and be able to order a hamburger or a wind up toy train!
Here’s how it’s going to work:
First, I will display a photo which contains an object labeled in English, followed by the French translation of the English.
Next, you will click on the audio file and listen carefully to the pronunciation (which I remember entirely from Mr. Twohy’s French class in my sophomore year at St. Bonaventure High School in 1966 – 67).
Next, you can listen to the subsequent audio files to get the Southern France and French-Canadian dialects, if you so wish.
One of the things that every guitar owner must take into consideration when he or she makes an investment into a new instrument is – “Where am I going to keep this thing?”
This is not as easy a question to answer as one might think. Especially if you have a wife in the house. You can’t just make room for it on her side of the bed and expect her to be OK with it (wives can be funny that way). And you also can’t just pop it into the refrigerator and hope she doesn’t notice.
No, you have to be more imaginative than that.
Fortunately, you have me to show you how to be more imaginative than that…
After you have decided to display the instrument (assuming you are going to display it, that is – but what good is it to have such a fine piece of art unless you are going to make it visible to anybody who walks into the room – or even into the immediate neighborhood?), one of the first considerations to, well, consider, is the dignity with which the instrument is displayed.
Here are some things to think about NOT doing:
Never, under any circumstances, keep your guitar sitting on the back of the toilet. This is not a dignified storage method. You can keep it in a closet, just not a water closet.
Refrain, if at all possible, from keeping it on top of your wife’s grand piano. While this is certainly a more dignified and public place to display the instrument, the resulting marks on the piano may lead to some animated discussion between spouses.
Don’t just leave it in a case somewhere. To do so completely negates the real reason for the acquisition in the first place – people will not think you are cool and groovy if they don’t see your guitar out in plane sight. That’s because they won’t know you have it. (Yes, it’s true. You don’t have to know how to play the instrument as long as company sees it and THINKS you can play it.)
Now, The best way I can think of to demonstrate the proper method(s) of displaying your guitar or collection of guitars is to show you what I have done over the years.
First attempt:
The Guitar Love Seat
While this presentation looks nice, and even comfortable, it was not a permanent solution. The issue was that I either had to 1) take them down when company came (removing the “You play the guitar? You are soo cool and groovy!” display factor) or 2) try to squeeze everybody onto the piano bench to visit.
Second Attempt:
The Original Guitar Wall:
This, actually, worked pretty well for awhile. The only real issue was the sparse population as evidenced by all of the extra space on either end of the line of instruments.
Third attempt:
The Guitar Wall – Fuller, Cooler and Groovier
While this rendition of the wall was certainly cooler and groovier, it still lacked a couple instruments because there wasn’t enough room to hang all of the available instruments… Of course, there was room on the adjacent wall for the snake, so it wasn’t all bad.*
Third attempt, part B:
The Guitar Wall and Floor
Even though they wouldn’t all fit on the wall, a small investment in guitar stands enabled the inclusion of two more instruments. I had completed the display of coolness and groovyness…
Third attempt, part C:
The Charred Guitar Wall
Unfortunately, Third attempt, part B didn’t endure the fire…
Third attempt, part C (cont’d):
The Empty Guitar Wall
This isn’t as cool and groovy as it was when there was an actual room around the wall and actual guitars available. But it DID lead to…
Fourth attempt:
The Guitar Driveway
Sadly, none of these instruments survived the fire. The firefighters, though, laid what was left alongside the driveway in a rather respectful manner…
Fifth attempt:
The First Replacement Guitar Wall
14 months later, most of the instruments had been replaced, the house had been replaced and the Guitar Wall had been replaced… All was good. For about five years…
Sixth attempt:
The Guitar Closet
When you move, you have to make adjustments…
Seventh attempt, fourteen months later (last week):
The Second Replacement Guitar Wall
When you have a guitar closet, it’s not cool or groovy because nobody can see the instruments. Especially you. When you can’t see the instruments, you don’t play them. When you don’t play them, you get rusty and your caps (calluses) go away. And when you pick one up, your fingers hurt. They might even bleed. You can’t leave the instruments in the closet…
Seventh attempt, part B:
The Guitar Wall and Floor
When you don’t have enough wall space, you go back to the floor…
*On a sad note, Monty (pet snake) did not survive the fire, either. I had hoped for a long and happy life for him and used to joke that I would turn him into a guitar strap when he passed. However, I couldn’t bring myself to do that when we found him and we buried him under a tree (see “Guitar Driveway” above), next to the driveway. Rest well, Monty. I really do miss you…
I have been married to Judy for a little over forty-six years. That’s 16,844.5 days. Rounded up from 23 hours and 56 minutes per day, that’s approximately 404,268 minutes. 24,256,080 seconds, give or take. (I would keep going but my calculator won’t allow me to compute nanoseconds.)
In all of that time, I may have heard Judy utter anything that resembles any sort of naughty word once. I say “may” because I must have done something to elicit some sort of swear word somewhere along the way…
One hour ago, I was deeply asleep, dreaming about my new Ryobi model RY08420A Backpack Leaf Blower with the large 2 cycle, 42cc engine for excellent clearing power, with a unique air-flow orientation and angled air nozzles, a variable speed throttle and a cruise control setting to make quick work of the toughest of clearing jobs; and with the shoulder and back harness designed for ultimate comfort, that features a contoured back and easy strap adjustments; when I was awakened by the sounds of 1)Murphy (the dog)panting and whining and 2) Judy saying…
Judy: “Bill, do something about the damn dog!”
Bill (Me – suddenly and unexpectedly waking up): “Huh? What?”
J: “Do something about the damn dog! He got me up at 3:15 and I fed him and gave him some water and he won’t shut up!”
B (M): “Do you kiss your husband with that mouth?”
J: “Not if he doesn’t do something about the damn dog!”
Judy: “We could rent a motorhome to go to Utah. I’m kind of afraid to go to Utah, though.”
Bill (Me): “Why? Are you afraid you might want to move there?”
J: “No. I’m afraid to come home and get a call that Dean had a heart attack in Hawaii. Besides, if we moved to Utah, you would have to become Mormon.”
B (M): “Well, what would I have to become if we moved to Arizona?”
J: “You would have to become a ‘Free Spirited Artist’.”
B (M): “I could do that. I could be a ‘Free Spirited Artist’. I could become a Free Spirited Photographic Artist’… I could be a ‘Phartist’!”
Hahaha…
Hahaha…
Hahaha…
Hahaha…
J: “The next time somebody asks me what I have learned being married to you I’m just going to say, “I have learned not to be sipping a soda through a straw while having a conversation with him in the car,” and they will ask “Why shouldn’t you sip soda while having a conversation with Bill?” and I will answer “because I’m afraid of what will come out of his mouth.”
B (M): “No you’re not. You’re afraid that what comes out of my mouth will cause your soda to come out of your nose.”
Judging by what happened next, Judy, apparently, has yet to learn that lesson.
Once the catheter was inserted, things were better. For the nurse. She got to leave for a few minutes. Judy stuck around for a couple of minutes and had to go do something with paperwork, or some such thing.
I was back in the room alone again. It was just me and my catheter…
A couple of minutes later, I heard Steve’s voice outside the door asking if he could come in to see me. The wheels started turning in my head and had finished prior to the time he received permission to enter…
He walked in.
He looked at me.
My eyes were open, glazed over, staring into nothingness. My jaw was slack, my mouth a gaping cavern. I was holding my breath…
When the sixty year old man had finished his story, the forty-ish balding nurse stood in silence for a few moments, gazing in admiration. Or was he staring at the clock wondering if the tale had finally ended, or if the sixty year old man was just taking a breath (his first in the telling of the saga) and would continue his story?
Who knows? Whichever the case may be, he made sure the telling was over because he completed his “paperwork” and called for transportation to a treatment room.
The journey from the “check-in” area to the treatment room was rather boring, so Man of Action started telling his tale, again, to the orderly pushing the gurney. He was interrupted about every fifth word by with word “Si” coming from the orderly. Apparently, the gentleman either didn’t speak English, or he was warned not to let me think he did, by the forty-ish balding nurse.
So I just shut up for the balance of the trip.
Once in the treatment room, I was left alone for a few minutes to contemplate my situation. Actually, my condition didn’t seem so bad at the moment, in light of what I could see through the crack the door to the hallway…
There was a foot occupying the end of a gurney just outside the door. On the foot was a big toe. On the big toe was a big toe nail. The unfortunate part of that was that the nail was positioned at a ninety degree angle from the toe.
Warning: This will make you say “owee-ooh-ee-ooh-ooh-oweezowee“. If you are OK with saying “owee-ooh-ee-ooh-ooh-oweezowee” , click here to see a pho-toe of a toe that looks very similar to the one I had to look at for thirty minutes before anybody came in and shut the door all the way.
Fortunately, when someone did come into the room, one of them was Judy.
Unfortunately, the other one was a young nurse.
Normally, that wouldn’t bother me too much except that she had something ominous looking with her. She called it a Foley Catheter.
I knew what a Foley was – it was a guy with the first name of Terry with whom I graduated from high school. I had no problem with that.
My problem was with the “Catheter” part of the equation. I also knew what that was…
Warning: This will make you say “owee-ooh-ee-ooh-ooh-oweezowee“. If you are OK with saying “owee-ooh-ee-ooh-ooh-oweezowee” ,click here to see a photoof what, if you are a guy, at least, you never want to tangle with.
I couldn’t think of anything to say so I said, “what’s that for? “
She responded, “Well, we have to give you a way to eliminate waste from your body.”
I said, “Oh.”
Then, neither one of us said anything for a minute or so. We just looked at each other. Then I looked at Judy. Judy looked at me. The nurse looked at Judy. Judy looked at the nurse. A doctor came into the room. We all looked at the doctor. The doctor looked at the nurse. The doctor looked at Judy. The doctor looked at me.
The doctor said, “Excuse me. Wrong room,” and left.
I looked at Judy. Judy looked at the nurse. The nurse looked at me.
I looked at the nurse and said, “I don’t suppose that thing goes down my throat while I’m under anesthesia, does it?”
The nurse said, “No.”
I said, “Oh.”
The nurse said, “This is going to hurt a bit.”
I said, “How much is a bit?”
The nurse said, “It has been compared to what a woman feels during childbirth.” She continued, “if you are ready, I’ll start.”
Judy grabbed my hand and said , “Breathe.”
The nurse began the procedure.
I said, in my most primal screaming voice, “COWABUNGAHHHHHHHHH!!*$#@!”, and turned to Judy, gritted my teeth, looked her straight in the eye and screeched, “YOU DID THIS TO ME!”
Then everybody started laughing. Like it was funny or something…
I, on the other hand, was just wondering if they could just tear my toenail back ninety degrees and call it a day…
This is part .6. If you would like to catch up, I would suggeststarting at part .5.From there you can come back here, or go to Part 1, which is the first of 8 parts relating to the actual trip up Half Dome and back…
1949 Indian pitcher Bob Lemon hits 2 HRs to beat Senators, 7-5
1951Edward Gomes is born
1953 KEYT TV channel 3 in Santa Barbara, CA (ABC) begins broadcasting
1959 500,000th Dutch TV set registered
1961 Beginning of a trend, a US commercial plane is hijacked to Cuba
1961 Roger Maris hits 4 home runs, in a doubleheader
1965 Bob Dylan release “Like a Rolling Stone”
1967 The Beatles sign a petition in Times to legalize marijuana
1968 Hoyt Wilhelm’s 907th breaks Cy Young’s record for pitching appearances
1969 Apollo 11 returns to Earth
1972 Jigme Singye Wangchuk becomes king of Bhutan at 16
…
There are too many events to list everything, but I think you get the picture.
There is, however, one event that happened on this date in 1971 which, to my mind anyway, blows past all of these events combined. And it is the one thing that qualifies for the description of “Famy“ (as defined above).
July 24, 1971 Judith Joy French becomes Judith Joy Kammerer.
Happy Anniversary to you, my loving, beautiful, amazing, spectacular, awesome, groovy wife…
After a couple of whiles, I was having to stop every few hundred feet of downhill progress and get the pressure off my legs and toes. Shawn stuck with me initially, but we finally reached a point where he decided that I needed the motivation to keep going, so when I sat down on a rock, he just Kept going.
I called after him.
He stopped and turned around.
I asked him if he had a knife.
He said “yes”.
I asked him to “please cut off my toes”.
He said “no”.
I explained that I was referring to the tips of my boots, thinking that it might relieve the pressure.
He came back, took out his knife and said, “How about if I just slit the toe of one boot to separate it from the sole and we’ll see how that goes?”
That sounded good to me, so he hacked away. We then proceeded to the next switchback to see how it worked out. It was actually much better, so we stopped and did the other boot.
This really helped a lot, for a couple of whiles. My legs were still a bit stiff, but the toes were better so I just ignored the legs.
Going downhill is actually tougher than going uphill, so in addition to my downhill boots, I always bring a pair of downhill knees in the form of braces. I don’t usually put them on until I am fairly well into the downward trek because the knees don’t bother me initially. This day was no exception.
But we finally got to the point where the knees started giving me problems, and I went ahead and installed the braces. They helped for awhile (which is, actually, just a bit less than “a while”).
By the time we had gone another while, the legs, toes and knees were giving me issues again and I was utilizing two hiking sticks for support and balance. (I cannot tell you how many times my hiking stick has saved my life over the decades. Literally.)
At this point, I had run out of remedies and the only things that were keeping me going were my mantra, “I will go as far as I can and this ain’t it” and Shawn coaxing me on.
My legs hurt. My knees hurt, My toes hurt. My back hurt. My upper torso looked like the spillway of the Hoover Dam because I was sweating as much as ever, and replacing the perspiration with more and more water.
And then Shawn reminded me that I needed electrolytes.
Fortunately, he brought several packets of electrolytes to add to the water. Unfortunately, I didn’t add them to the water, I simply threw them directly into my mouth as he tried to warn me not to do that.
Are you familiar with “Pop Rocks”? Well, that’s what these were like. If you just throw them into your mouth, they start exploding. This causes one’s mouth to foam over rather quickly. It’s kinda like popping an Alka-Seltzer into your mouth.
The problem with doing that is that you cannot swallow the foam fast enough to get it out of your mouth, and if you try to close your mouth to prevent it from escaping and embarrassing you, you will choke to death on the foam being forced down your throat and up into your sinus cavities and out of your nose.
I lovingly refer to this as the “mad dog effect.”
Believe it or not, there are actually benefits to being in such awful physical misery (I’m always looking for the bright side).
One of those benefits manifests itself in one’s ability to completely not give a rip about the multi-colored stains appearing as approximately three and a half gallons of Pop-Rockian/Alka-Seltzerian foam slithers its way out of your gaping mouth, down your chin, traversing the front of your shirt, across your beltline and and taking up permanent residence in the crotch of your favorite hiking shorts.
The chagrin comes later when you discover that the stain doesn’t come out in the wash, but at the time of the event, you’re just happy not to be drowning or, maybe worse, happy that you didn’t just swallow them whole the instant you threw them into your mouth. That would be really bad, I think…
As the day went on, so did we. Shawn be-bopping down the trail and me doing my best “ET” gait imitation.
By the time we finally reached the top of Vernal Falls and approached the Mist Trail, I had lost enough weight that my shorts were slipping badly. And I was out of notches on my belt. The only thing that was keeping them up was my rump, and that was about to give way. This is when I started hearing comments from strangers about a man my age dressing like that…
Luckily, the mist was extremely heavy, and I put on my rain poncho to 1) keep me dry (there’s some sort of irony in there, somewhere) and 2) hide the fact that my pants were about 50% of their way down to my ankles. .
It was extremely slow going down the steps on the trail, but I thought I was doing well enough until, about halfway down, I heard a woman’s voice behind me say, in heavily accented English, “Excuse me prease.” I moved as far as I could to the side and watched – I’m not kidding – a little tiny Japanese lady, who appeared to be in her 80’s, USING A WALKER, glide effortlessly past me.
It was at this point that it began to dawn on me that I might be in trouble…
After slowly making our way downward for what seemed to be an inordinately long period of time (probably because it was), we finally got down to the footbridge:
View of Vernal Falls from the footbridge – This was actually taken a couple of months prior to the hike, but I couldn’t make myself get a shot while I was there on this occasion (except the night shot)
We decided that I would wait at the footbridge and Shawn would go the rest of the way to the valley (just under a mile further down the trail) and get help. He was gone for some time, and I decided that I would start my way down myself.
A few minutes along the trail, I met Judy coming up the other way. She had met Shawn on the trail (she was coming to see if she could find us – it was getting late) and he told her where I was waiting.
She helped me down the rest of the way to the trail head where we met Shawn – walking a couple of bikes.
He had gone back to camp and got his and Megan’s bikes so that I could ride back to camp and relive the pressure on my body. AWESOME!! (I mean, GROOVY!!!)
It took a minute to get me up on the bike, but when I got on, it was an amazing relief. I was able to pedal back without any problem, and Judy stopped to get me a 50 gallon drum of ice cold root beer and brought it to the camp site.
It was a little after 8:00 PM. Everybody else had made it back by about noon…
I was helped off the bike, carried to a picnic table, sat down and froze in that position for a short time. Donna sat across from me, told me to raise my right hand and swear to never do Half Dome again in my lifetime. At that point, I had no problem doing that (although I kinda regret it, now).
After eating some dinner, Judy and Shawn helped me to the tent and into my sleeping bag. I didn’t even undress, though Judy took my boots and socks off.
And that, dear friends, was as far as I could bloody go.
Saturday morning, July 16, 2011…
I woke up and couldn’t move much. Judy had to help me change my clothes and helped me get out of the tent. We walked around for a few minutes until I got loosened up a bit and was able to hobble around.
We ate breakfast, and I was able to get around a lot better, so we packed up and drove home.
Things With Six Strings 