2 Car Garage Floor, with Sprinkles

Today, I was able to get my good friend Bobby to come by and help spruce up our garage. He had done this for me at the old condo up in Manatee County, and I liked it enough to repeat at the new house in Sarasota County.

The garage floor hadn't been painted since the house was constructed in 1988, so there were plenty of stains and scuff marks. The product we were using was an epoxy type paint, upon which confetti sized color bits were sprinkled. You power wash the floor first, then after it dries, you start rolling on the paint. Before the paint starts getting too sticky, you grab a handful of confetti and throw it up in the air, where it separates and floats down to impact on the waiting floor.

Bobby, who is to painting garage floors as Peter Max is to painting Americana, has been commissioned to create works of art over two dozen floors at our old condo association. He has this down to a science, and supplements his regular wage by making properties look better, and easier to clean. Oil stains, tire scuff marks become a thing of the past. Now all I need to do is remember I can't park in the garage for seven days as this masterpiece cures.

Set the Wayback Machine for 1977

Tonight, as I sat down with beagle number six, Ripley, I got to thinking about all of my dogs going back to my first beagle, Shautzie, and after her came Cassie, Fancy, Lucky, Millie, and now Ripley. Schautzie came to us as a stray, back when I was in high school, and she lived with us in Indianapolis where we shared custody (during the week) with my mother, and on weekends she'd try to push my wife out of bed. Schautzie was a very jealous girl, one who didn't enjoy competition from my wife.

Shautzie never lived to see our children, but in 1977 when our son was born, our second beagle Cassie was captured in this photo sharing a bed with me, my new son John Benjamin, and of course, the beagle. Cassie had come into our life during our last Indianapolis apartment before moving into our first home. She was the one who ate the vinyl kitchen apartment flooring, before we knew about keeping bored beagles in a crate while at class and work. After a couple of years in the house on North New Jersey, I took a job in Iowa, and Cassie flew to Des Moines in our first airplane travel crate. Ripley now lives in that same crate, by the way. We peeled off the Ozark Air Lines sticker years ago, however.

When we moved to Des Moines, we purchased Fancy from a pet store, and we had Fancy and Cassie together. Cassie had also been a pet store purchase, but after that time, we never bought a dog from a pet store again. Fancy was the most laid back beagle I ever had. J.B. loved her, and she'd allow him to use her for a pillow. She made a great pillow, and if artist Paul Rubens had painted dogs, she would have been his model.

In 1982 we drove from Des Moines to St. Louis with J.B., two dogs and a cat. It was a long time to be stuck in a small Chevrolet wagon with this collection of dogs, cat, wife and child. On the trip down, I was driving a bit too fast and attracted the attention of a Missouri Highway Patrol trooper. Thinking quickly, I agitated the dogs to start barking by saying "get that cat, get that kitty". They complied, which woke my wife, and five year old J.B. I also yelled at J.B. and told him to "shut up and ignore the cop". He began to cry, so I told him to "shut up" but louder. By this time, my wife started yelling at me while I pulled to the side of the road and rolled down the window. When the cop came alongside, he heard the most unholy noises, with two dogs barking, a cat meowing, a baby crying and a look that could kill on the face of my wife. I made my mea culpas about the speed, but said I was trying to get home before the noise drove me into a ditch. I told him, if you have to write a ticket, please do so but let me get back on the road so I can get the family out of this car. I finished with "hell, a ticket could just make my day, my FIRST day as a resident of your fine state". He said "sir, you already have enough trouble, you don't need a ticket too, but PLEASE slow down.

About five miles down the road, my wife suddenly smiled, looked a me and said "you did all that on purpose, didn't you?" Well, it worked.

Six months later, on Christmas eve in 1982, Cassie ran away during a thunderstorm and despite repeated trips to three different dog pounds, we never found her. Fancy certainly was grieving in addition to wife and child. In the process of looking, and making multiple trips over several weeks, I came upon a beagle puppy that was scheduled to be put down the following Monday. The lady at the pound said nothing could save the dog, unless the owner came and claimed her and paid the fine. I told her "I'm the owner, how much is the fine" and proceeded to dig deep. I came up .50 cents short, and the lady reached into her purse and gave me the final two quarters. That dog, aptly named Lucky, came home to join Fancy.

Fancy lived a full life, but at age eleven her back end went out, and my wife had to take her to the vet to have her put down. Lucky lived to sixteen, before going to dog heaven. By then, my daughter had been born and lived alongside Lucky for most of those sixteen years. When Lucky was no more, Caitlin found a little girl beagle who was part of a recent three dog litter born on acreage out in the countryside, where a high school classmate lived. My wife told Caitlin and me "do not bring this dog home" as we had said "we're only going to look". We brought that dog home and named her Millie. My wife, also known as the animal lady, immediately went to the store to adapt to this development, as we had gone 15 months between dogs and were not prepared for a puppy. My wife is quick to adapt, especially when it comes to me and beagle dogs.

Millie also was with us for eleven years, but was struck down by cancer, and I thought we'd go perhaps a year without a dog, but I couldn't handle it. I wasn't a happy person without a beagle, and thanks to Tampa Bay Beagle Rescue and the Internet, we found our sixth beagle dog, and our first boy. You all know him, as he is the joy of my life. Riply will hopefully be with me for fifteen or so years, and maybe at age 80 I might not want beagle number seven.........but I'll always be a boy and his beagle dog.

Sassy comes to visit

Ripley loves Sassy, who lives with our son in an apartment in Bradenton. His apartment is small, and does not include a washer or dryer. Our house is large, and does include a washer and dryer, so we can count on seeing our son on his day off. Sassy is always invited, because she's a really great dog. She's not the brightest lab/chow mix in the world, and she sheds enough hair to knit a new dog after each visit, but she likes us, and we like her, and Ripley is the most sociable of us all - he loves everybody, man or beast.

I like to take pictures of Ripley (you'd never guess, huh?) but I've also featured Sassy in past blogs. I remember when she was discovering her "inner Lab" and running on the tidal flats of Sarasota Bay behind our former condo. This past week, most visits for Ripley have been short sniffs on the street, where he might greet another neighborhood dog. It's been doggone cold this past week, although Florida was the only state in the lower 48 without snow on the ground. So when Sassy came to visit for several hours, they managed to have their fun running and chasing in the house. On wood floors, its like a kid's "slip & slide" and hilarious to watch. Then, after tiring out, they settled down for their pictures to be taken.

In my other post tonight, I wrote about our new island church. I'll close this with "all dogs go to heaven" and Ripley who came into my life to ease the pain of losing my beloved Millie, is certainly heaven sent. Dogs are not only a man's best friend, they're a gift from God too.

The New Church Rises

Several months ago, I took some pictures of the empty lot where our new church would rise, and never published anything (or if I did, I cannot find it now). Today, my wife was enlisted to supply her painting skills at the 6400 building, which was on the one finished lot out of the four lots where Christ Church of Longboat Key - Presbyterian (official name) had set out to build our barrier islands newest house of worship. She had volunteered to help revitalize the pink building several times in the past, but today she got the call at 9 AM to come pitch in. So off to the garage to find her painting tools, which she kept even though our new condo was freshly painted three months ago, and into her little car she went. Ripley, the best photographers assistant in the beagle world, joined me later to visit and see the progress made.

The new church will seat 300, which may well be necessary come Christmas 2011 and Easter 2012. We Presbyterians are exceptionally faithful on "C & E" as some call it. This past week, attendance was just over 200 in the seats, and many of our "snowbird" associate members are still up north, stuck in the snow. Church attendance seems to swell as children and grandchildren often visit sunny Florida during the winter months, and make the perfunctory appearance with family on Sunday.

The old building was what could have been described as a "live/work" unit, but the entire three lots purchased were commercially zoned, adjacent to a single family homes neighborhood, and further east on General Harris street (where the new church will face) there is a home business (flower shop/sign shop) and the Town of Longboat Key's Public Works building and yard. The upstairs of the pink building is a three bedroom apartment, where two years ago we had Thanksgiving dinner with perhaps 50 others in the congregation. It will ultimately become the parsonage for whatever minister might follow our current retired minister. We've had two retired ministers shepherding a flock of retired pensioners, by and large. While the new building will feature a nursery in addition to the offices of the pastor, and meeting rooms downstairs, our youth movement consists mostly of 50 year old early retirees. In its most recent prior life, there were four separate small shops/office located on the lower level, where a beauty shop, an architect, and a Realtor rented space. They're gone now, and interior doors have been installed, several non-load bearing walls removed, and the inside space all connected together. A tower on the corner closest to Gulf of Mexico Drive and General Harris will identify the campus as that of a church, and ultimately the pink building will be painted the same as the church to tie them together.

Oh, I think my dear wife is inspecting her work, not looking upward to heaven to pray for the soul of her husband, thou the Lord knows I could use his help sometimes.

Ripley, for his fans everywhere

Ripley the beagle boy, has taken over "the office" and made it his room. No longer need his daddy to be sitting in the Bark-o-Lounger for him to jump up there, he now stakes out this chair as HIS own. Ripley however has bonded so well that he cries whenever I leave the house, and turns himself inside out when I return. Dog's apparently have no real sense of time, so being gone for five minutes or five hours, the risk is the same that my boy Ripley will voice his joy when I return. Otherwise, he's a fairly quiet beagle, which after five female beagles appears to be the exception to the rule. Every one of my beagles over the past forty years has maintained a distinct personality, and I've loved them all - this guy is special however, and I'm so glad he's always happy to see me. He still sleeps in his crate at night, but certainly enjoys a snuggle in bed with us when we let him out, before the day begins with a walk on the leash while the coffee brews.

Fantasy of Flight Video

Several weeks ago, I wrote about the need for a tripod, so my camera handling would be smooth. Naturally, once I got one, I forgot to take it with me when I visited Fantasy of Flight in Polk City, Florida. However, I do offer this clip as my best effort to be a human steady-cam, and it does capture the majesty of this veritable war bird, the P-40N Warhawk.

P-40's were probably the front line fighter of the late 1930's, and were flown by multiple allied air forces during the war. They served in China (most famously with the American Volunteer Group or AVG), Africa, the South Pacific, Russia and to a lesser extent Europe. This P-40 was manufactured by the Curtis company, and was a two passenger model, but was as equally armed as the one seat version. This one, of some 15,000 manufactured, was probably used stateside as a trainer, for those pilots completing advanced training, but not yet comfortable with solo flights right off the bat. In combat areas, it often would be used to fly senior officers where unarmed transports were considered imprudent (never take a knife to a gun fight). My father served in the CBI (China Burma India) theater of war, much later than the AVG which was actually disbanded in 1942 following Pearl Harbor - half its pilots returned to the states, the others took Army Air Corps commissions and continued flying. By the time my daddy was flying supplies across the Himalayas to General Chiang Kai-Shek, Japanese Zeros were not as plentiful and threatening - ergo I am here today because he wasn't shot down in his twenties. He did manage to log 136 missions flying C-46 and C-47 aircraft before the war ended.



Kermit Weeks, the owner of this plane (and the other 39 flyable aircraft at this large private collection air museum) brought out the P-40 for the day's flight. Every day he flies a different aircraft, and he owns several P-51's which arguably was the last great fighter plane of the second war [on our side]. My prior blog spoke about Mr. Week's PBY, and B-17, and some still shots of this P-40N. Since it takes an interminable amount of time to actually "load" videos to the blog, I won't include some shots of low level passes by this same aircraft, but suffice to say that Kermit Weeks puts on a good show for twenty minutes or so. He also spoke of his dream to make Fantasy of Flight a place where people could see their own potential. Of course it helps if your grandparents made enough money in the oil patch to help one's potential come through.

One final though to share, and that would be flight has always offered us freedom to go beyond the mundane and everyday earthly existence. Going up in an aircraft truly does allow us to slip the surly bonds of earth, reach out and touch the face of God.

Fantasy of Flight

Yesterday, I went TDY to a PBY, traveling with my Corvette Club to Polk City, Florida to visit Fantasy of Flight. My "TDY" (temporary duty) was all day long, and a great way to spend a day. Fantasy of Flight is perhaps the world's largest PRIVATE collection of aircraft, featuring no fewer than forty flyable examples from the first and second world wars. It is the dream of Kermit Weeks, who owns everything on the field, and flies everything he owns. The day I visited with the Gulf Coast Corvette Club, we saw Mr. Weeks fly the P-40N, which is a two-seat WW II fighter plane that served throughout the second world war with distinction. Kermit has two of these, and the other one wears the livery of the AVG (American Volunteer Group), better known as the Flying Tigers.

There was so much to see, and our group convoyed from Bradenton to Polk City arriving around eleven, and stayed until closing at 4 PM. With help from a childhood friend who joined us as #15 (allowing us to qualify for group discount), we took advantage of the full package including guided tours. The facility features a 5,000 foot landing strip, as well as a nearby lake where amphibians like the PBY Catalina can land and take off on the water. The PBY is low and slow, but was the primary search and rescue aircraft of the Navy during the war - perhaps the most famous PBY was "Strawberry 5" which spotted the Japanese carriers at the Battle of Midway. My buddy took my picture with Mr. Weeks alongside the P-40N as well - my profile isn't too flattering, and I'd never fit in some of the stuff there. Take for example a "ball turret" from a B-17, as pictured. Our tour guide reminded us that during the war, B-17's would often feature 22 year old pilots (referred to as "the old man") and crews made up of 18 and 19 year old youth - the smallest of which became top turret and ball turret gunners. I wouldn't have fit in that thing, even as a 19 year old when I entered the Air Force.

The B-17 (a non-flyable exhibit) in another picture was a great "walk-through" with narrow passageways in the bomb bay, and gun positions at the waist, top and ball locations. I took quite a number of pictures, and perhaps should offer a second entry later - for now these will have to do, as often I have more words than space in my life's vocabulary - add pictures and I'm one giant tower of babble.