Free Books and Things

I forget just where I stumbled across this site, but it's a list of sites that give away books and other things. Click on: 29 Best Sites to Read Online or Download Free Books (Legally) in 2023 and see what you think.

A Worthwhile Site - Onym Resources

I got this site from Jane Friedman's newsletter, and I think it's worth mentioning.  The site features a list of reference sites, such as dictionaries, thesauruses, and other oddities such as name generators and activity or lifestyle slang terms.  I found it useful, and so will add it to my list of good reference sites.

Point your browser at (Onym Resources) and see for yourself.

The End is Near

Instead of working, cleaning house, or going grocery shopping, I'm screwing around on the Internet.  Weird stories (Aliens Possess My Toy Bulldog!), current events (Biden Loses His Mind on TV; Trump is Headed For Prison; Everybody Hates Somebody), scantily clad women of questionable moral character - yeah, all that and a fifth of Jack.

Then I submitted "The Interview", a story about a goth style vampire and the woman who traps him, to an e-magazine for publication - but I'm not holding my breath.  I'm not what the magazine wants, and the story isn't safely inside their bailiwick.

However!

I tripped over an empty gin bottle and found this little gem:

New Myths and AI

Like the sign says, this is a magazine called New Myths.  The article deals with AI and ChatGPT.  Go read it for yourself, then delete your copy of MS Word.  We're finished.

I intend to start drinking heavily.

Time Waster

Old NFO: Yes, I'm an old fart...

Why do I get involved in these time wasters?  I got this from Old NFO.

Eating in the Fifties and Sixties

Pasta had not been invented. It was macaroni or spaghetti.

There was also slumgullion.  My father HATED slum, so we never got any.

Curry was a surname.
Curry was an unknown.

A take-away was a mathematical problem.
If you went to public school, it was.  Otherwise it was poor diction.

Pizza? Sounds like a leaning tower somewhere.
No, we had pizza.  It was a favorite appetizer / bad for you food.

Bananas and oranges only appeared at Christmas time.
We had apples.

All chips were plain.
We had bar-be-que potato chips which were far too hot for the average child to eat.

Oil was for lubricating; fat was for cooking.
And axle grease was used in place of butter.

Tea was made in a teapot using tea leaves and never green.
Truth!  The only tea was Lipton.

Cubed sugar was regarded as posh.
Cubed sugar was stolen, one or two cubes at a time, and fed to the burro.

Chickens didn't have fingers in those days.
When chicken fingers first hit the market I couldn't understand what they were.  Everyone knows chickens do not have fingers - don't they?

None of us had ever heard of yogurt.

None of us wanted to hear about yogurt.  My aunt was on some kind of special diet, and she used to get it from the drug store.  Yech!

Healthy food consisted of anything edible.
Well, sort of.

Cooking outside was called camping.
Cooking over a grill or campfire.

Seaweed was not a recognized food.
Who in their right mind would eat seaweed?

'Kebab' was not even a word, never mind a food.
One of the phrases the blockheads in the U.S. got wrong.  Sheesh Kebab was skewered beef, 'sheesh' being the skewer.

Sugar enjoyed a good press in those days, and was regarded as being white gold.
Yep.  Big Sugar was a political force to be reconed with.

Prunes were medicinal.
And they tasted pretty good too!

Surprisingly muesli was readily available. It was called cattle feed.

Because who in their right mind would eat cattle feed?

Pineapples came in chunks in a tin; we had only ever seen a picture of a real one.
That's about right.  I think mom got a real pineapple from someone and dealt with it; it wasn't all that good.

Water came out of the tap. If someone had suggested bottling it and charging more than gasoline for it, they would have become a laughing stock.

Ain't that the truth.  Bottle water?  Are you nuts?
City water tasted funny.  I couldn't drink it, and then I found out the city charged for it.  Charge money for a glass of water?  Are you nuts?

The one thing that we never ever had on/at our table in the fifties and sixties ... was elbows, hats and cell phones.

Get your elbows off the table!
Put your hat away!  People will think you came from the wrong side of the tracks!
<dead silence, as cell phones hadn't been invented yet>

The formatting on blogger refuses to work correctly.

A Young Adult Writing Experience

 I haven't written anything in a long while, despite my good intentions.  To get started again requires something I'm in short supply of: self-discipline.

This morning I was inspired by a Calvin & Hobbes cartoon which neatly summarized something that happened to me a few years back.

RIP Sandra Lee Pross

 RIP Sandra Lee Pross, January 3rd, 1958 - February 10th, 2023

I first met Sandi Pross at the Fred Astaire Dance Studio, at the Holiday Plaza in Maumee, Ohio.  She started as a student around the summer of 1976, and after a few months transitioned to being an instructor.  The owner of the studio was Dan Nash, and he realized that Sandi was not independently wealthy, so selling her five or six grand worth of lessons just wasn't going to happen.  Sandi told Nash (and several other people, notably Robbie Robbins) as much on one occasion when they tried selling her a competition package.  When Robbins asked if she'd like to compete, she responded, "Sure, if you'll pay for it," and laughed.

A week later Nash decided to make her an instructor, a position she eagerly accepted.  Sandi loved to dance, and was extremely talented.

There are three difficulty levels of American style ballroom dancing that are universal throughout the United States: Bronze, Silver, and Gold.  All chain studios have an item called a breakdown book, or breakdown manual.  This manual describes all step patterns for all the dances in a given standard.  The theory is that if you want to learn a particular standard and the dance director is too busy to teach you, you learn to read the manual (reading the manual is an actual skill - not everyone can do it) and so teach yourself the step patterns that way.  The bronze standard is easy.  Silver takes everything to a whole new level, and the manual isn't all that easy to interpret correctly.  The gold standard is complex and presumes a certain level of dance knowledge, and it's hard.

Sandi started in bronze like everyone else, but she learned quickly and was easy to lead.  As a result, instructors that were working on their gold standard would often take Sandi as a partner and would carefully work a pattern out with the gold manual in one hand and Sandi in the other.  It was common to hear one of the male instructors call out to Sandi and ask her to stand in for his partner while he worked through a complex pattern, or to demonstrate a pattern to a student he was teaching.  Sandi was always happy to oblige.

While Nash owned the studio, he decided that it would be a good thing to increase the dance standard.  To that end, he'd hire out of town dance champions and their coaches to come in and train the staff.  Some of these people were personable and easy to work with, such as Lee and Peggy Santos.  Others, not so much.

Vernon Brock and Linda Dean were dance champions in the U.S.  While Linda was pleasant and would teach anyone who wanted to learn, Vernon Brock refused to teach singles - he'd only work with couples.  Any of the studio instructors who wanted to have a lesson with Brock had to have a partner, and in some cases that made things difficult for everyone... except Brock.  In Sandi's case, Brock made an exception and taught her solo for an hour.  At the end of the day, Brock and Dean had a meeting with Nash and his wife Judy.  Brock explained that there was one staff member who was talented, and who had a chance at a U.S. title.  Nash guessed they were referring to his brother Dennis, but they weren't.  Judy guessed someone else, and failed.  Nash demanded an answer.

"Sandi Pross," Brock said, "She's got what it takes to be a champion."

I'll give Nash credit.  He told Sandi what they said about her abilities, and while she was pleased she never let it go to her head.

I have many good memories about Sandi.  We used to go out dancing and close the place down, but like everything else - things change.  The dance studio closed amid a flurry of tax bills and bad checks.  We had a daily business meeting at one in the afternoon, followed by dance session (teachers learning to dance) at two.  One memorable Friday Nash handed out the paychecks as usual, then cashed them all himself.  I'm not sure how many employees understood what was going on, but it sent up red flags with fireworks for me.  I got out the following week.  I think Sandi worked there until the place finally closed up for good, then she moved to Dayton, Ohio, and that was the last I saw of her for several years.

We got together again some years later, and three of us went out on the town on a regular basis.  We enjoyed each other's company, and enjoyed dancing.

Ellen & Sandi / Ellen & Me / Sandi & Me

That's how I remember Sandi.