[Rebels1972] How's the Weather?

Sat Sep 13 21:58:34 CDT 2008

Hey, Coop,

    We didn't get much of anything.  We did get a day or two with some
residual rain (which is unusual as our monsoon season is over at the end
of August and we usually get very little rain during the rest of the
year until the monsoon season starts again at the beginning of July).
They say we get three hundred and thirty days of sunshine per year.

    I'm glad you didn't feel much of it.  Hanna missed South Carolina
(where some of my family and a few close friends are located)
altogether.  It went inland somewhere in North Carolina from what I
heard.  But from what I saw on Fox News, Ike did some serious damage in
the Houston and surrounding areas.  I have a colleague that lives down
there.  I've shot him an email but I have no clue when I'll hear from
him (remember that power outage is rampant in the Houston area at this
time).  Unless he finds a computer terminal that is up and running, I
probably won't hear for a while.  I hope he is OK.  But then Chris has a
good head on his shoulders.  I'm sure he probably evacuated himself and
his family.

    I'm so amazed to hear from people here how people from other states
think that New Mexico is outside of the continental United States.  When
people from NM called Atlanta to reserve tickets for the Olympics years
back, they were told they'd have to call the international number since
there were outside the United States.  When they asked to speak to a
supervisor, the supervisor told them the same thing.  The coworker that
I share an office with told me that his son's school once went outside
the state to a sports tournament and the people there thought that New
Mexico was actually in Mexico.

    I'm glad that our Rebels were better educated than that.  It's
discouraging that there are Americans who don't know that New Mexico is
a state and is not part of a foreign country.  We have quite a heritage
including Native American code talkers from this state.  I was browing
the NM Motor Vehicle Web site and they have a special license plate that
they issue you for free if you were a Navajo code talker during WWII
(did you see the movie 'Windtalkers' with Nicolas Cage and Adam Beach?
The story was fictitious.  But the truth is that the code talkers saved
our asses against the Japanese during WWII.  The Japanese broke every
military code we threw at them.  They always knew what we were going to
do next and were prepared every time we struck.  When someone remembered
that there had never been anything published about the Navajo language,
the military recruited Navajos to train as codetalkers.  As they didn't
have words for tank and battleship, they had to substitute the Navajo
word for tortoise (tank).  I don't remember what the Navajo word that
was used for battleship was.  But that was the one code the Japanese
could not break.  It helped us gain an advantage on the Japanese as they
no longer knew where we were going to strike next (the element of
suprise is a tremendous advantage in combat).  Sadly, the code talkers
didn't receive their medals until just a few years ago.  I saw the
ceremony on the news.  They were presented under the dome of the Capitol
in Washington, DC as it should have been.  And of course, many of the
medals were awarded posthumously.  But it made me feel a little angry
that they had to wait that long to get their well deserved medals).

    People here are very courteous.  It is not unusual for a perfect
stranger to strike up a nice conversation with you.  It is much like the
way it was in Gadsden when I lived there (and it still is if I can judge
Gadsden by the last few times I've been there).  In most of the east
coast cities I lived in over the years, many people kept to themselves
and only spoke to you when they had to.  When I moved to South Carolina
in the middle of my junior year at Sansom, I discovered this was very
true there.  It was a big readjustment to be among such friendly and
outgoing people as the people from Gadsden were and then move to a
culture like that.  I wanted to come home to Alabama and finish high
school with all of you.  But my parents wouldn't allow it.  That's
something I still hold against them.

    Remember that I always tell people 'Emma Sansom' when they ask where
I went to high school.  If the ask me where did I *graduate* high
school, I still tell them Emma Sansom.  It's a little bit of a whopper,
but I'm proud to associate myself with ESH.

    It's been a busy day.  I got all of my errands done except my
laundry.  I guess I'm going to have to do that after church tomorrow.

    I keep thinking that I am finally settled in enough to have a
Saturday to just do fun stuff.  But it didn't happen again.  Maybe next
Saturday.  I'd like to ride up to Alamogordo and see the White Sands
National Monument on the way.  They have a bunch of pistachio groves
(did you know that pistachios grow on trees?) in Alamogordo and you can
walk through them.  And I haven't been over that mountain road yet.  I
imagine there is some beautiful scenery there.  They were some fantastic
mountains and lakes along I-25 when I rode from Las Cruces to Albquerque
a few weeks ago (about a two hundred and twenty-five mile ride).  We had
to stop at a border patrol station on I-25 (all vehicles did).  They had
a drug pointing canine sniffing at each car as it stopped.  There is so
much drug activity just over the border in Mexico from here that they
are always looking for vehicles carrying drugs here.  We drove in,
stopped, the dog sniffed and didn't point, so they sent us on our way.

    A few weeks ago, I drove I-10 to Deming on a Friday night after work
and had to stop at a border patrol station on I-10 as well.  This time
there was no dog.  I suspect they were profiling drivers.  They waved me
right through and I ended up in Deming.  I had dinner at a Chinese
restaurant there before driving home.  Deming is a small and not so
impressive little town.

    I found a really good computer and electronics store near my
apartment.  They have old computer, amateur radio, electronics items and
they have a lot of state of the art things as well.  I could've gotten
lost in all of the halls in his store with all that equipment in it.
Since I work on electronic and computer items, it's a good resource to
have nearby.  You never know when you will need a part.

    The job is off to a slow start.  But I am going to try to do some
things to bring up the momentum a bit.

    Let me know how things are going with 'The Rebels'.

    Later,

                                                                    Fred
Atkinson

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Dale Cooper" <unkidale at centurytel.net>
To: "Sansom Class of 1972" <rebels1972 at mishmash.net>
Sent: Saturday, September 13, 2008 8:15 PM
Subject: Re: [Rebels1972] How's the Weather?

> Hey Fred, Hows it going ? Hope Ike didn't bother you very much.
Everything
> is ok here in Ala.. The Tide won & its not raining. How is the job
going?
> Keep me posted. Regards,  Coop.  ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Fred Atkinson" <fatkinson at mishmash.com>
> To: "Rebels 1972" <rebels1972 at mishmash.net>
> Sent: Saturday, September 13, 2008 3:56 AM
> Subject: [Rebels1972] How's the Weather?
>
>
> > Folks,
> >
> >    How's the weather in Alabama?
> >
> >    I've been watching Fox News' reports on Ike.  They said it was
six
> > hundred miles wide.
> >
> >    Regards,
> >
> >
> >
> >                                                                Fred
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Rebels1972 mailing list
> > Rebels1972 at mishmash.net
> > http://mishmash.net/mailman/listinfo/rebels1972_mishmash.net
> >
>
>
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