Spending The Day With - Ben and Mike Turrano - My Former Students - Motörhead's in Common - Owl Creek Dam

Ben Turrano lives across the street from Lulu's old homestead. Ben and his brother Mike were my students in 7th grade. Ben loves old car - planes - boats - trains - and buildings. Ben is a Renaissance Man. He is an admission counselor for the local community college. He also worked as a Realtor and a haberdasher at Ted Block's Clothing Store. But his real love is restoring cars and buildings. He can wield a hammer or a wrench as good as anybody.

OWL CREEK RESERVOIR - A couple years back Ben salvaged an old cabin from his childhood camp. They cut it up into pieces and moved it to the Owl Creek Reservoir. There they assembled it like an erector set. They added a metal roof - a deck - and paint. It looks great.

When I was a kid - Owl Creek reservoir was the water supply for downtown Tamaqua. Later is supplied the Atlas Powder Company. Today the reservoir has been drained and restore. It is now a recreation site for the town. It was being used by the Boy Scouts when I visited. I met Chris and Mike  Conville. They are now adults with kids of their own. It was fun getting the VIP treatment from them. 

MIKE TURRANO'S GARAGE - Next we went to visit Mike Turrano. Mike lives by the White Birch Golf Club. He has a 10 acre farm - but also two big garages full of wonderful relics. The first order of business was to pay Mike a $2 bet I owed him. When Mike was in my classroom - I bet him $2 that he would have a car wreck in the first year of driving. I cheated a little because I knew statistics that 80% of 16 year old drivers get into a fender bender at least once. I had two or three. Mike assured me that he would never wreck. He didn't. I believe him - and I am happy he didn't. I made that bet with many kids - and have seldom paid off. 

Mike was in the middle of a 1938 Packard restoration. Then someone saw it and offered him $8000. The guy was picking it up today. I guess he saw no harm in offering me to drive it - and I was ecstatic. It is a flat head 6 with three speed on the column. I drove her down the road - and Ben was amazed when I did a double clutch to shift it into first gear while moving. He never saw that before - and I was amazed I didn't "grind me a pound." The new owner plans to remove that engine and put a high performance V8 in it. 

Mike also had this beautiful 1955 Chevy - two door wagon - not a nomad but more of a work versions. It is presently a lovely painted body with no engine. 

How about this 1962 Chevy II Nova in excellent shape. 

The 1939 Buick is Ben's. His grandfather gave it to him on the condition that he gives it to his grandson. 

Time flew by. It was time to go home. What pleasure it is meeting my old students as men - with families - jobs - homes - and dreams. It makes me feel that my life was not wasted. Each one of my students could rattle off about 10 quotes from my classroom. We laughed until I nearly cried. 

We flew the drone - took some pictures - but that it for another story. We have 4 days left in coal cracker land. 

Camping In Coal Cracker Land

This is our camper from Lulu's old bedroom
looking south. 

We just spent night number 29 in our camper in Tamaqua PA. It is our 49th anniversary today and also Lulu's Mom's birthday - so today we will celebrate both at the Tamaqua Train Station Restaurant.

This has been 6 straight nights in the camper. We have all the comforts of home here. We plug into the 110 volt outlet in the garage - we have a garden hose to fill the water tank - we get the Internet over our telephones and also from wifi in Betty's home - we even have a drain to dump our sewer tanks. Our TV also works over the Internet so we are set.

Last night we had 2.4 inches of rain! That is major major rain here in Pennsylvania - it causes floods. We are high and dry though.

Yesterday - we woke up to a dead engine battery. The camper has two batteries - one for the engine and one for the camper stuff - they are not connected. I had installed a new battery in January so we went to Costco in Allentown and they swapped out the battery. It appears I had left the key in the ignition on the accessory setting and the battery drain dead-dead. They also said I had the wrong size engine battery - a group 58. The book says I need a group 65 - The group 58 has only 500 CCA - the group 65 has 850 CCA. They upgraded me and the new battery warranty extends me 36 months. All in all - I learned to not leave the key in the ignition overnight.

When we are sitting here - we have the camper plugged into 110 volt AC with a big extension cord. That charges the 2 big camper coach batteries and also allows us to run the 110 volt AC. It has been cool here overnight - so we do not run the AC then - but just keep windows open. Even during the storm - no rain came in the louver windows.

Our friend Ted is not home - but he wanted us to stay in his house and use his pool. We want to stay by Betty - so we declined the house and car - but did visit the pool. It is so nice - that Nancy will take her cousins there tomorrow. Ted remarried so he has two houses.

The camper has so many cabinets and we have stuff stored all over. The worst part is remembering where everything is. I plan to put little tags on each cabinet - with items listed. No use opening up every cabinet to find shampoo - etc. You would think I would learn them all after 6 nights - but then I move things.

I just emptied the camper sewer tank here

I am typing at my office table. I get wifi from the house. 

Costco replaced the battery - even though
I probably left the key on overnight. 

If you are following the camper value tale - $32000 (cost of camper) / 29 nights = $1103 a night. Once we hit night 32 - the price will drop down into triple digits.

Camping in Manning SC - Near Confederate Memorial

Manning - Clarendon County Coutr House
Confederate Memorial 

We drove 400 miles today from Tallahassee to Manning SC. It was bright sunny except for the last hour which was heavy rain. At least it cooled it off a bit - to make camper sleeping a little cooler. We don't like running the air conditioner and generator at night.

Manning is a town of 4000 people - it was mainly the center of a lumber industry and other farming. We walked around downtown and enjoyed seeing the Confederate Memorial. Try reading the pictures of the inscription.

Tomorrow we will drive another 400 miles to Richmond and spend some time there with Drew and Family. It is Jack's birthday Saturday - he will be 12.

Next we will head to Tamaqua - it is only about 300 miles from Richmond to town. We are looking forward to some cooler evenings.

Add caption

Manning Goody's - going out of business

Camper Trip to Tamaqua PA

Traveling North in Our Camper

We left Tallahassee at about 8 AM - this morning. The camper is all loaded for 2 weeks of vagabonding.

We are currently in Savannah about 300 miles up the road. We stopped here to stretch our legs. We will drive 100 more miles today and then find a place to camp.

Tomorrow we will visit Drew and Family in Richmond. then we will proceed to our old hometown.

No hotels - no restaurants - no public bathrooms. We have covid masks and will keep our distance. We take special care at gas stations with disinfectant. We now the plague is not over - it is still rising. We wanted to see the family. We had a covid test on Monday before we came.

I-95 is pretty busy here. We are looking forward to some cooler weather up north.

I understand the president is hoarding diapers.

Florida Hurricane Season and Tri-Fuel Generators

My five year old Honda 2000 Tri-Fuel Generator

June to December is hurricane season in Florida. During that time we are often without power. During Hurricane Michael two years ago - we were without power for 6 straight days. Thanks to my little Honda Generator - we had 2000 watts of power. That is not enough to run a whole house - but it will power your refrigerator - lights - television - microwave - fans - and many small appliances.

We were able to wash our clothes using the washing machine - but we had to hang the laundry out - because a dryer uses too much power.

My Honda 2000 tri-fuel generator is 5 years old now. We have gotten a lot of service out of it. I paid $1300 for it when I bought it new in 2015. Simply - I have a tap on my house for natural gas for our grill - I can plug the generator into that tap - and it runs continuously. There is not need to stop to refill the fuel. There are other benefits of running on natural gas. It is clean burning - no you cannot run it inside - but the exhaust does not have carbon monoxide in it. Natural gas also burns much cleaner than gasoline. You can also run it on propane from the bottle on a gas grill.

My neighbor had a Generac generator installed on his house and it cost $8000. It does not produce enough power to run his air conditioner - but it does turn on automatically during a power failure. His generator feeds right into his main power box on the house.

While shopping at Costco this week - I saw this tri-fuel generator. I do not endorse it - I have no idea how good it is. The name is Firman - and most products that Costco sells are pretty good. It produces 7000 watts and is $800! My Honda generator is very very quiet - I do not know how loud this one is. At 7000 watts that would power a whole home.

Again - I have not tested the Firman Generator. I just found it very interesting at that price - being able to get a trip-fuel generator for $800 - any generator - is a bargain - if it is any good. I figure that with one hurricane - these will sell out quickly. One problem with Costco - they buy products in lots. Once they sell out - you never see the product on their shelves again. It also has battery power starting - no ropes to pull.

As a backup - our camper has a 3000 watt generator - but it is not as quiet as our Honda - and it runs only on gasoline.

We love the service our Honda Tri-Fuel has given us. Five years of quiet continuous 2000 watts of 120 volt AC power. My Honda also has a 12 volt DC outlet that will charge car batteries too.

This is the Costco Tri-Fuel 7000 Watt Generator

I don't know the quality but the price is right.

Check out this video of my Honda generator operating -

See My Honda Running Here -

Oak Tree Nearly Hits The Knott House

Knott House - Tallahassee

We had 4 days of really heavy rain thanks to a Tropical Storm that hit New Orleans. Usually storms do a lot of damage to Tallahassee trees because the soft ground gets soaked and wind pushes the trees over.  Although we had lots of rain - it was mostly straight down rain because of little wind. We can use the rain because we are well behind this year in rainfall amount.

Yesterday a giant oak fell and nearly hit the famous Knott House. What is surprising is the root ball was not ripped out of the ground. The tree was probably rotted and just broke off at ground level from the weight of the water. The ground is virtually undisturbed.

The Knott House is famous because after the Civil War it was the headquarters of the Union Army. On May 20th 1865 - the Emancipation Proclamation was read on the front porch steps. 80% of the people in  Leon Country were black slaves. With this law - they were declared free.

I parked my electric Leaf  near the trunk to show size.

Oak tree broke off at ground level

Historic marker at the Knott House

My Vespa Scooter Odometer Turned 1000 Miles Today

1000 miles - 2017 Vespa

Our fleet
Honda - Vespa - Nissan Electric - Roadtrek Camper

I just got back from McDonald's getting some takeout sandwiches for lunch. Life is really bland when you must write about getting sandwiches on your scooter. Anyway - to my surprise - my 2017 Vespa Scooter just turned over to 1000 miles. 

In 2018 - I saw this really nice scooter on Facebook for sale. It was one year old with only 500 miles on it. A new one would cost $6500 - but this one was only $3500. It was up in the boonies in Georgia. I drove up with the trailer to take a look. It was really nice - so I bought it and brought it home. I had to go to the seller's bank to get the title which was encumbered.

The Vespa Scooter is the only one with an all-steel monocoque body. The nicest features of this one are fuel-injection and ABS brakes. It is very smooth and can go 70 MPH - but I seldom go over 30 on it. It get 100 MPG. Since we have been overseas so much in the last two years - we do not put lots of miles on it. Lulu likes to take it to campus for parking - but right now campus is closed. 

I hope you are enjoying the plague and now the protests.

Scanning Old Slides - Meeting With Congressman Gus Yatron - At Nixon's 1973 Inauguration

Harry - Nancy - Congressman Gus Yatron
She was 19. 

Old  un-touched Kodak Insta-matic Slide

This week I borrowed my friend George Dawson's slide scanner. He showed me how to scan old slides  - it was tedious - but it took about one minute per slide - doing 4 at a time. We first sat down with a slide projector to review all the slides before selecting 350 of the better ones. Now we have a computer file of 350 pictures - some looked pretty blurry. 

Nancy does a pretty good job cleaning up pictures - and if her first piece of work is any indication - I think we are going to be happy. 

The photo was taken in 1973. It was in Washington DC - in Congressman Gus Yatron's office - almost 50 years ago. We had driven our little 2 cylinder Honda car to the event. The temperature was in the teens. At the time I was a Republican Committeeman in Tamaqua - and Yatron was a Democrat. All three of us had gone to Kutztown State College to become teachers. Yatron was a teacher - then went on to be a school board member - and then to the House of Representatives. 

We went to his office to pick up our tickets to be on the Capitol grounds. Gus invited us into his office - let us sit as long as we wanted - and served us hot chocolate. I am sure he did that for many people - he was all dressed up to be on stage - but he took this time to be with us. A couple years later - I followed his lead to the school board. 

We enjoyed the ceremony - watched the parade - even sat on the limo Nixon rode in the parade - it was a different time. I swear to this day it was the same Lincoln that Kennedy wrote in Dallas 10 years before :-) I am looking forward to showing many more pictures - to prove not all the stories I have told are baloney. I hope Lulu can continue doctoring the photos - after all she is "that kind of doctor."

I Replaced Our Home Wireless Router - A Nest Mesh

New Nest Mesh Wireless Router - Old Apple Wireless Router

During a thunder storm Tuesday - the lightning damaged our Apple Extreme Wireless Router. It is strange because none of the televisions - or modems - or anything else was broken. They just kept working. My son recommended the Nest Mesh System sold by Google. It is a series of wireless routers that you put around the home. He said they were on sale at Best Buy for $199. He said to order online and they would bring it to your car at the store - which is one mile away.

I picked it up - came home - plugged it in - downloaded the Google Home App to my iPhone. I put one unit on each end of our home. It worked immediately. I am getting signals of 238 MBPS all over the house. It is the fastest signal I have ever gotten.

Now - I am wondering if I can sell the old Apple AirPort Extreme Wireless Router in this condition. the yellow light flashes but I cannot connect to it. It tried rebooting it - with the paper clip - etc. Life during the plague.

Remember Saturn 5 on Dragon Manned Launch Day - Teaching Earth And Space Science

Saturn 5 Rocket to Moon - 1969

Spacex Dragon - Manned Rocket to Space Station - 2020

ROCKET LAUNCH DAY - The big launch is today at 4:33 PM. It really flashes me back to the summer of 1969 - when I was a student at Kutztown - taking 15 credits about space science. I was working as a life guard 5 hours a day in Tamaqua - and driving to Kutztown for two classes a day in the morning. I was driving a brand new 1969 VW - cost $1649 - long low payments. I really needed a good car that summer - with work and school. At the end of the season - in August - I drove that VW to Woodstock with Bob LeMaster and Bob Rowan. Also in August at the end of the life guard season - I drove the VW to Miami Beach. My friend Richard Kantor went along to split the gas money. It was a 30 hour trip then - all along Route 1. We did stop at Cape Canaveral to tour the space station. I would have given anything to stay there to work for NASA - but I had a year of college left to do. 

I met Lulu that summer at the swimming pool. We started a two year romance that ended up with eloping in 1971 - to Miami Beach. We got a hotel there on the beach for $8 a night - and just enjoyed touring around Miami and swimming in the surf. There was a big planetarium in Miami and I dreamed of just staying and doing planetarium shows - I was certified to do that. Kutztown had a program called Astronomical Instrumentation and I was in that program when Apollo landed on the moon. 

The Saturn 5 Rocket was essentially a big dumb booster powered by liquid fuels. It was designed by Nazi Doctor Werner Von Braun. It has less computer power than a standard cellphone. But boy did those boosters thunder your guts when it left the earth. NASA tried to make it seem possible for normal human flight - but the laws of physics will always make is very dangerous. Today - we are doing essentially doing the same thing - using a tremendous amount of fuel to get objects into earth’s orbit. 50 years I was teaching how it would get easier and easier - but it has not. 

Maybe it was because I was 21 - and so full of pee and new knowledge - bravado. Now 50 years later - it seems more risky and dangerous than it did back then. NASA was America’s blonde haired wunderkind. It could do no wrong. After burning up 3 astronauts on the launch pad in Apollo 1 and two full Space Shuttle crews - we know poo happens. 

In 1970 - I had a student Peter. He loved science so much that he took there of my courses. He was very motivated. We lost touch after a few years. I had wondered what became of him. 50 years later we made contact on the internet. We exchanged life histories. He became an engineer and worked on building the International Space Station. He also bought and flew a helicopter - which included a very serious wreck. Today he lives near Huntsville Alabama - where spaceships are made. It is also where Werner von Braun used to live. Pete has all sorts of radio equipment and he is following the space launch intently. 

It was fun teaching earth and space science all those years. I had lots of maps - pictures - movies - models - and trips. In the 1980s - we added computers. Kids loved that stuff. Growing up in coal country in Tamaqua - there were very few really good jobs. Being a teacher was one of them. When the rocket blasts off today - all that comes racing back. 

Doohan iTank Electric Scooter

Doohan iTank

I really enjoy riding my Vespa Scooter. It is fast - quiet - smooth - dependable. It is just approaching its first 1000 miles. But I have always wanted an electric one. I had one way back in 1975 - but it was not practical - slow and short range.

The Doohan iTank seems like a nice combination for an old rider. It has the added stability of two front wheels that articulate like a Jeep for off-read riding. This also adds braking and stability - something older guys need. It has 3 big disk brakes that are controlled hydraulically - not by cables.

It goes about 40 MPH with a range of 50 miles on a charge. You just plug it into a 110 volt outlet for a full charge in 6 hours.

It can easily haul two adults. The batteries can be charged in the scooter or taken out and charged in the home. The price is listed at $3500. Supposed there ia a company connected with Tesla - renting them out in Vegas.

Graduation at FSU

She is so busy with other projects - like China - Germany - and her new book - sometimes I forget that Lulu is a full professor at Florida State University. She teaches classes like everyone else. So yesterday she participated in the spring graduation program a bit. Using live Internet - students and faculty celebrated the spring graduation. The professors dressed up in their caps and gowns and saluted their students. It is not the same - but it was very nice.

Lulu will not be teaching in London this summer - but no one else will be at the FSU Study Centre there. She will be doing a little grant work from home - the rest of the time we will be waiting for the plague to lift. This has not stopped Lulu from planning some new exciting projects. She keeps going and going.

Since Lulu started at FSU in 2004 - most of her classes have been taught online and at the graduate level. I have had the pleasure of seeing Lulu teach FSU classes back home from - Germany - Australia - France - Hong Kong - Iceland - New Zealand - Scotland - England - Italy - and Greece. Sometimes we frantically were searching out a free Internet connection to squat on minutes before class started.

No one knows when the plague will lift. Until a vaccine is found - we will enjoy things from the safety of our home. We miss the kids. Lulu had a trip scheduled to London and Paris for May - but it was cancelled by the airline. She was going to take her sister Lori to see the kids and tour Europe for the first time. There will be plenty of time for that later.

Congratulations to graduates all over. I am sorry the plague has rained on your parade.

Lovely Lulu Discovers Thinning Shears

Our Amazon thinning shears - $12

AFTER - Harry after the shearing - 72 is not pretty

I did not have a haircut since January when we arrived home from China. The plague has had us under quarantine. One thing about being an old man - hair grows everywhere - even from my teeth. I could not stand it anymore - so we went on Amazon - and ordered a pair of thinning shears. They are scissors designed to cut only some of the hair - leaving some a little longer to blend in.

Back in 1971 - Lulu tried to cut my hair once - to terrible results. I ended up taking it down to a buzz cut with dents. But now that Lulu's eyes are better - and I am really desperate - I figure that the only difference between a good haircut and a bad haircut is a month.

The worse part was getting Lulu used to opening the shears before she moved back from my head. If you back out with the shears closed it hurts as it plucks the hair. She got good at that about half way through. I kept reminding her to only take 1/4 inch - but I could see 2 inch long hairs falling like white snow.

I honestly think she did a good job - and could probably get better if she wanted to. She seems to like what she did - and you know me when it comes to a bargain.

BEFORE - You can't buy color like that

BEFORE - I may look like a Q-tip - but it is all me

BEFORE

AFTER - Harry the red neck