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The Wonder Dog

Gunny the Wonder Dog
Our dog Gunston passed away at 0920 EDT today.  He will be sorely missed by all who knew him.  My brother noted Gunny’s passing with this quote:

There’s no doubt he’s in Doggy Heaven running the fence line; barking at passing motorcycles.

One detail he forgot to mention was that Gunny did not waste his time chasing after any old motorcycle.  He was a Harley aficionado!

Gunny was known by everyone, including his Veterinarian, as the “Wonder Dog.”  Early in life he contracted a canine autoimmune disease known as Pemphigus.  He almost died from the disease, but made a miraculous recovery once he was put on a steroid regimen.  Even with the steroids he was not expected to have a normal lifespan, but he fooled everybody and lived a great doggy life for 13 years.

Farewell Gunny, we will miss you more than you can ever imagine….

RIP Gunston, 01 February 2001 – 12 May 2014.

1826 Days

My bionic left hip was five years old on 23 March 2014.  It’s gone through countless miles on the treadmill and behind the lawnmower, along with all of the daily stuff that requires its services.  It lets me know every once in a while that it needs some down time, but all in all it soldiers on without complaint.

The Transformation

The single family housing in our town is undergoing a transformation. I sometimes wonder if this transformation is another sign of the changing makeup of what we view as the middle class here in the United States.

The original single family housing in our town dates from the late 1950s and early 1960s. The vast majority of this housing consists of ranch-style tract housing. Each has a little over 1000 square feet of living space. In 1957, these houses sold for about 18 thousand dollars.

This is around 152 thousand in today’s dollars. Many of these houses now sell as “tear-down/rebuilds.” Developers buy them, tear them down and build new homes on the property. The new houses usually contain 4000 or more square feet of living space. The typical asking price for these new homes is over 1.0 million dollars. The latest of these new homes in our neighborhood sold for a little over 1.2 million dollars. This is about 142 thousand in 1957 dollars.

The following pictures show the difference in size between the original and new houses. The picture on the left shows a completed new house to the left of a late 1950s vintage house. The picture on the right shows the same house with a new house under construction to it’s right. Click/point on the pictures to enlarge the photos.

This table shows a comparison of an original versus new house.

What’s the moral of this story? In 1957, people who could afford an 18 thousand dollar mortgage bought homes in the town. In 1957, 142 thousand dollars was equal to the 1.0 million dollar cost of today’s new homes. A large majority of these people could not afford to buy a house here back then if the price of a new home in 1957 dollars was equal to the price of a new home in today’s dollars.

 

Groundhog Day 2014

groundhog-day-more-winter-black-white-thumbPunxsutawney Phil saw his shadow today, so we can look forward to six more weeks of winter.  Or can we?

Potomac Phil, his “stuffy” counterpart here in the DC Metropolitan Area, also predicted six more weeks of winter, which is quite a feat since he’s been gone from this mortal coil for a number of years now. Potomac Phil, who fancies himself as an “inside-the beltway” know-it-all, also had this not so surprising comment.

Groundhog image courtesy of MyCuteGraphics.com. It is subject to the usage terms and conditions cited therein.

What’s in a Name?

My parents were part of the Greatest Generation.  In our family just about everyone of that  generation in my Dad’s family had a nickname. While nicknames are still around, they are nowhere near as common as they seemed to be for folks of that generation.

My Dad’s name was Harry and his nickname was “Boots.”  I have no idea why and I was not smart enough to ask him while he was still with us.  I never heard anybody call him anything but Boots, other than my Grandfather.  My Dad had two brothers, Lionel and Joseph, whose  nicknames were “Duck” and “Piggy,” respectively.  Again I have not a clue of their origins.  When I was a kid, everybody except my Grandfather called them by their nicknames.  To him they were always Harry Bruce, Lionel and Joe Henry.

My dad had four sisters: Loretta, Margaret, Olive and Joan.  Aunt Loretta’s nickname was “Sis.”  Aunt Margaret was known as “Marg,”  Aunt Olive was called “Ollie” and Aunt Joan was known as “Jo Ann.”

Loretta never married. I don’t think Aunt Margaret’s husband John had a nickname, but his son John, Jr. was called “Junior” well into his high school years by all in the family.  Aunt Ollie’s husband Francis, who everybody called “Frank,” was the only person I can remember that always called her by her given name Olive Marie, or most of the time, Marie.  Uncle Frank was from southern Maryland.  He called the men “Hoss” as in “Hey Hoss, how you doing?” I don’t recall  Aunt Joan’s husband Ralph having a nickname.

My Mother’s name was Mildred and her nickname was “Medee.”  as in “Me Dee.”  Again, everybody called her by her nickname, including my Dad.  And as for me, my name was Harry Bruce Jr., but everybody in the family called me by my middle name as did friends, schoolmates, teachers, and whatever.

I had to own up to my first name of Harry when I joined the US Air Force.  It was just much less confusing to everyone to be known as Harry.  Most of my adult life I’ve been Harry or “HarryB” to the outside world, but I’m still “Bruce” as far as the family is concerned.