The Best Years of our Lives

Michelle Obama and Dr. Jill Biden, wives of our nation's President and Vice-President, have been touring the country talking about the focus of their charitable cause: lay-citizen support of military families, and making us all more aware of the sacrifices they make.

These families experience many challenges while their loved ones are away on deployment in military service. They face single parent struggles financially, the challenges of parenting children alone, loneliness, and other stresses. Meanwhile, their spouse may be endangering his or her life in the defense of our freedoms. Many of us don't know lots of military families, unlike in some of the previous wars of this nation, in which most families had one member or another serving.

Seeing the First (and Second) ladies on their press junket reminded me of the movie "The Best Years of Our Lives," in which three men return from the hardships of World War II and face the challenges of assimilation back into society. Released just after the end of World War II, it won seven Oscars and dealt with themes that ring true today, in which servicemen and women struggle to find their places again once they return home.

So many of the themes are the same - soldiers with limbs blown off, trying to rehabilitate. In this movie, the real actor lost his hands in the war and had learned to manage with hook prosthetics. Homer lights a cigarette, shoots targets with a rifle, takes piano lessons, and delicately scoops ice cream with a spoon at an old fashioned soda fountain.

There is even anti-war sentiment: not in hippie garb, but in regular suit clothing. A man feeling sorry for the hook-armed sailor tells him the United States shouldn't have entered the war. The sailor is told he lost his arms for a less-than-noble cause. The debates about going to war are nothing new.

We see PTSD - although no one calls it that, of course. The airman Fred has nightmares and sweats, dreaming of being shot down, bullets and planes crashing, men on fire. His wife tells him to "snap out of it," get on with the business of living. If only he could.

But let us not hate the people we fight. The anti-racial remarks, against Asians or people of Arabian decent, is very old in this country. Here, the line is "last year we were killing Japs. This year it's about making money." I've heard the same things from men in other wars, such as those who fought in Vietnam. Many things, including types of food from the foreign countries, were of no interest to these veterans.

There is also the generation gap, in which the devoted teenage son has trouble becoming excited about the Samurai sword his father has carried home. He's more concerned that if another war begins, "everyone will just be blown to bits the first day." Such was the legacy of our post-war baby boomers.

The real-life double amputee in this movie, Harold Russell, is wonderful, and carries the movie. Myrna Loy is so poised and classy, a real lady: a standout in Hollywood. But to be honest the acting is sometimes overdone, the dialogue or screenwriting not completely natural. Hoagy Carmichael, the songwriter, is actually a good actor here, and plays the piano.

Mrs. Obama and Dr. Biden are right. We need to think about and support our military families in any way we can. Maybe base housing segregates them too much from other families, I don't know. We can't ignore the sacrifices they make. And we don't seem to be any closer to putting an end to all wars.

That One Place on One

It's not easy to find a good restaurant around tiny Leo, Indiana, but I was impressed with the new menu from "That One Place." Someone couldn't help but make a play on words here. It's the latest name for the restaurant on the curve at Highway 1 and the Imagination Station in Cedarville (officially Leo-Cedarville). It's changed ownership several times in the past few years, despite its good location, so hopefully the economic climate won't get in the way of "That One Place" staying open.

A very casual, sporty place, with a couple of large flat TVs for watching games, and a spare amount of local, area sports memorabilia - but not cluttered with that kind of stuff everywhere. Warm pine-cabin logs and bench-booth seating - good-looking but my back and seat became really sore - easy to clean, I suppose, but most of us would rather have a little padding. Especially considering most of the morning clientele was folks 50 and over.

The food, though, was excellent - I had scrambled eggs and links. The potatoes were American fries, I'd call them, rather than shredded hash browns; but browned and crispy, and I'm picky. The toast was good - grilled, I suppose; crunchy and soft, great texture.

There are a lot of different dishes on this menu. Crepes, waffles, pancakes. I saw several patrons eating pancakes - it must be the thing. Egg dishes, omelets, skillets. Biscuits and gravy. This much selection is unusual for Leo, and I hope they get enough customers to keep the menu choices going. I think the locals still have no idea what they offer here now.

On Hosler Road in Leo is a small buffalo farm. (The farm is small, not the buffaloes.) Anyway, these nice folks raise and sell their buffalo meat, and some of it winds up on this restaurant's menu as buffalo burgers. I do like the "act local" approach to the offering, as I know their ranch is very cute, clean and organic.

The menu has a few "Leo" items - one is a taco meat omelet - sounds good with beans, onions, green peppers, tomatoes and cheese. The only connection I can make is vague on my part. All I've got is that Leo schools are famous for serving the kids a lunchtime "walking taco" - a single serving bag of chips, such as Fritos or even Doritos - into which is dumped taco meat and ingredients, and one eats it from the bag with a fork. I actually like this, but would never dare to serve it at home - sans plate. It tastes good though, and the kids like it. Don't know what made me think of that, but that's the only "Leo taco" I've got.

There is also a Leo Burger, which the menu reports to have a cheddar cheese skirt. So - I guess it looks like a cheeseburger cheerleader? Your guess is as good as mine.

Wrap sandwiches, salads, pasta. I think I have seen more cars here for lunch and dinner, and I've seen regular 'specials nights' advertised, seemingly a routine for the after-sports gathering place for local families. They have lots of pies advertised, and displayed in a nice case - they are trying hard. Cute fancy cupcakes were decorated uniquely and tempted me as I walked by. If you walked around the block in this neighborhood, you'd see the old boat ramp by the spillway and the dam at the St. Joe reservoir, and the oldish church by the river - lots of walnut trees, squirrels, and oaks on this corner. The Imagination Station playground across the street is famous. Built by volunteers and designed by locals, buses come from Fort Wayne and all around to bring kids here to climb and play.

Nothing fancy, with small town wait staff, and good looking pies. Go try "That One Place." I give it a thumbs up.

Camper/Trailer Hall of Fame

Elkhart, Indiana, can easily be accessed from the I 80-90 toll road in north central Indiana. For decades, there was a large recreational vehicle manufacturing industry in the idea, but the whole market declined drastically when the economy tanked over the past few years. As a result, the RV manufacturing businesses have been very hard hit.

Located in Elkhart is the RV/Motor Home Museum. We heard the museum may soon close, with the nearby factories sitting idle. I suppose the museum isn't getting enough visitors to pay bills. That's a shame. I think they are trying to raise funds to remain open, but we decided to make a trek here from Fort Wayne, in case the place closes down and we were never able to see its collection.

And what a collection it is. There is memorabilia from the 1920's and '30s, the earliest of pull-behind-car camping trailers. Some of these were tent trailers, some nearly replicas of covered wagons.

But with the technological advances before WW1 to the present, designs changed, materials improved and makers could take advantage of mass manufacturing processes. Better woods and laminates, fiberglass, aluminum. A plethora of ways to go.

I had never seen some of these things - a 1913 Earl Trailer and Model T Ford, with the most gorgeous wood sides, in and out. A bench seat to drive and in the back a wood stove, dining table and sleeping benches.

There was a 1915 Model T with a wooden telescoping apartment that slid in and out for camping. Drawers slid out on both sides and the back slid out to make camping beds. Ingenious and slick.

A beautiful thing was a 1931 Chevy Housecar custom made for Mae West, to get her to leave vaudeville and come to the MGM movie studio. Plush grey velvet seats, all luxury, it was like the first version of the studio trailer (didn't Charlie Sheen just kidnap his?).

Things progress to the futuristic aluminum Airstream trailers - capacity in post-war airplane factories opened up this industry and created lots of good American jobs. Come back, economy - we need to go camping and we need our jobs! The 1958 Airstream Flying Cloud - what a name. What a slice of the best of Americana.

A lot of this museum is kitch, to complement the flavor of trailer parks, perhaps - I noticed weird matching statuary and such set out for decorations by the exhibits, as if they came loaded in the trailers - must be part of camping culture. Imagine a garden gnome or flamingo stuck out by the 1954 Shasta 'canned ham' style trailer. Oh, the life.

They even have a recent model plush Winnebago to walk through, I suppose to tempt whomever they can into seeing how wonderful they are and buying one. It'd be great to drive to Yosemite or some where like that in one. Dream on - you never know.

Check out the website at rvmhhalloffame.org. You can see photos of some of the exhibits without having to drive there and pay the admission costs. If you're on the toll road on a trip to or from Chicago, though, it's worth the exit at #96. I hope the museum can stay open and more people can walk inside the 1976 custom Cadillac Eldorado camper donated by a family from Cape Coral, FL. It's great that with so many of the campers, one can actually walk in and experience the living arrangements inside. People are so creative.

March Rain and Folk Songs

Tulip starts are peeking up through the leaves. March weather in Indiana is moody - very up and down. After some beautiful sunshine earlier this week, it's raining big slow drops this afternoon. Sometimes a quiet, unexpected indoor moment calls for a bit of music. Time to get out the old guitar and have a song or two.





One form of music I've been drawn to for years is the old folk songs I remember from childhood. Classics such as "I've been Working on the Railroad" and "Home on the Range" come to mind. Another old favorite of mine is "Clementine."





The history of the song is, reportedly, it was popular during the civil war. The song itself is about the western Gold Rush during the middle of the 1800s. Clementine's father was a 'miner; '49er.'





At first play, it sounds like a sorrowful song: 'you are lost and gone forever, dreadful sorry, Clementine.' But if one keeps going through the verses, one finds the song is very tongue-in-cheek. Her shoes were actually herring boxes without tops. She had big feet.





Clementine actually drowns in the song when she falls into the water, after driving farm ducks down there for a swim. The miner himself doesn't survive the song either, yet the whole thing is sung with great fun and relish, most often. You just have to love old American folk music, it's very rich in storytelling and emotion.

Another favorite of mine is the haunting song "Shenandoah." The word itself, an Indian name for a river in Virginia, is beautiful in any language. The song rises and flows like the rolling river it describes.

Romantically, the singer is bound to go away, across the wide Missouri; another beautiful-sounding river name. Such a sweet and ancient-feeling song - perhaps timeless is a better word. Something to think about while the March lightning flashes outside.

What'cha Got in that Suitcase?

I've never seen an actual rocket launch. It certainly would have been exciting, to have been in Florida or California or such place to have seen one. Several members of my family have done so, and love rocket science, astronauts, the idea of space travel, and flight in general.

To travel, or fly, from Fort Wayne, one must do something like make a journey from the Fort Wayne International Airport. I drive past the mega-stores popping up opportunistically next to the highway, around borrow-pit lakes formed near highway road overpasses, and through quaint, rural Indiana to the airport.

A couple of summers ago, a transplanted Lebanese man made the mistake of trying to bring a bottle of rosewater perfume with him after a flight overseas. He didn't make his connection at the Chicago/O'Hare airport to Fort Wayne; but his suitcase did.

The bag had quite a journey on its own; it had gone through O'Hare's notorious "chute," a mechanical device that sorts and transports suitcases in the airport. There's a stretch of the chute that whips bags along at some speeds reportedly approaching 70 mph. At some point in this overseas trip, the bottle in the bag broke or began to leak.

Somewhere along the way, the contents of his bag became contaminated with the leaking rosewater. To make matters worse, the bag sat unclaimed in Fort Wayne because of the way-laid passenger. Reportedly the bag went unnoticed for a couple of hours until someone smelled it. A couple of people went near it and then began to complain of feeling faint and nauseated.

The story blew up in the news media. Areas were blockaded off, traffic was stopped. It was 'post-terrorist-induced-fear syndrome' colliding with 'overpoweringly-smelly-perfume syndrome'.

People were actually being decontaminated. You know, hosed off by workers in full bio-terror suits and then sent to hospitals in trucks, and the airport shut down. All over a perfume essence, a strong, pungent rose water. Who knew? I guess all's well that ends well. Lessons learned.

Garrison Keillor holds the floor

At the historic Embassy theatre in Fort Wayne, built in 1928 and originally named the Emboyd, Garrison Keillor put on a one-man show Tuesday night. The restored theatre is grand, ornate, and has wonderful acoustics, according to Mr. Keillor. He came in singing some sort of liturgical canon or hymn, and his voice sounded much richer on this stage than he comes across on his radio show. He was happy with his voice on the microphone so much around the room, he went on to lead the crowd singing the Star Spangled Banner, rather slowly. Everyone stood and sang dutifully.

He held the crowd captive for two hours, spinning his yarns about life in the Midwest, growing up Lutheran, and being an obsessive and awkward teenager.He said he had flown into Fort Wayne, and that "March was to show people who don't drink in Indiana what a hangover is."

The leftover snow and slush, grey weather and rain - he has a point.

Born Gary Keillor in Minnesota, a middle child of six (he said) he went on to create the live A Prairie Home Companion radio show in the 1970's. He's continued it on National Public Radio ever since, and he starred in the 2006 film adaption of the show with Meryl Streep and others. He is also the author of books and has performed with orchestras, etc. But here he just paced the stage randomly and told a long tale about ministers in a pontoon boat, a parasail and human ashes in a bowling ball dropped by same. He stopped for no intermission and never left character. He is one old-fashioned storyteller, brilliant at his craft.

I read in a newspaper interview last weekend he is looking for someone else to host his weekly show, while he hopes to move into the position of producer. After having a stroke a year or so ago, he's doing well but thinks it might be time for a younger person to take the torch. He said he would like it to be a musician, someone who would continue a "Midwestern format." He really has a passion for his work.

Red shoes, red socks, but no glasses; he was otherwise plainly dressed. 68 years old, he said, and has a grown son and a 13-year-old daughter. He talked about a road trip with his family when he was a teen and being left at a filling station: as the tale went on I'm sure this one wasn't true because he said the family went on to North Dakota and didn't come back to get him for two days - just called to check on him. But you had to wonder, he told it so well.

This was a baby boomer crowd, but I saw some familiar faces, and GK has a loyal following all over. There must have been one child in the crowd, because near the end of the show she cried out a little, or whimpered, and he moaned with her, sympathetically - it was funny. I enjoyed him very much, and still would like to see a performance of the radio show with the whole crew.

A Little March Sunshine

There is open water on the river, and the snow is melting away. In the sunshine, it's warm enough to walk outside, but the melt-off and the humidity feel chilly in the fresh air.






The geese are returning, and my thoughts were with a movie that debuted in 1983, based on the Tom Wolfe bestseller. The Right Stuff won four academy awards and was nominated for best picture. Sam Shepard was nominated for his portrayal of Chuck Yaeger, test pilot and the first man to break the sound barrier.


The beginning of the movie is visual, with little dialogue, and lots of great aural stimulation or sound scene-setting. The Joshua trees in the desert, the romance and mystery portrayed in this story - its exceptional. Themes of human greatness - men pushing the outside of the envelope - intermingled with wonder and ethereal beauty.


The narrator spoke of a spiritual demon that lived in the air, behind the sound barrier. Men had died as their planes shook apart as the test craft approached Mach 1 - 750 MPH.


Although much of the movie goes on to explore other men's paths to becoming astronauts for the NASA program, there is an iconic scene early on that is hard to forget. Sam as Chuck comes riding up upon the airfield from the desert - sees the Bell experimental craft X-1 fueling up, frozen liquid jet fuel billowing out like stream from a locomotive, the hiss eerie - the contrasts in the desert make it look like a space ship.

Sam Shepard rides an unusual roan horse - it's a gorgeous reddish brown, with some subtle white speckled spots in its coat - and the horse is unique, intelligent. There's another movie horse; the one from Dances with Wolves. Only a few stand out.

There is a cat and mouse game on horseback between Glennis and Chuck Yaeger - breathing hard, pounding hoof beats - the couple so happy - but then CY falls off his horse and cracks a couple of ribs.

Chuck is sent off by his wife to punch a hole in the sky. On Oct. 14, 1947, Chuck's X-1 was dropped from under a B-29 to beat the sound barrier and push the envelope. He got it done. He pushed past Mach 1.

Because of the pending Cold War, The press was not allowed to report the breaking of the sound barrier. We had secrets from the Russians, The movie goes on to explore the debut of the Mercury Space Program, and to follow the lives of the first seven astronauts. Scott Crossfield, another pilot, would reach Mach 2, or 1500 MPH, in a D-5. But space programs need funding.

An astronaut's line in the movie is, no buck$ - no Buck Rogers. The sky's the limit - but somebody is going to have to pay for it.