My Book………………LILAGCS (25)

December 9, 2010

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Most of you have been informed that I have not been sending out Blogs here at LILAGCS for a while. We experienced a shutdown of our Internet from November 22 until a few days ago. I have been working at getting back on-line with my thoughts and answering some of your emails. I ended with my Memories from High School and will now start with writing memories from the many jobs I had. You will find that some of these will overlap, but I can’t think of any other way to write about them. You will also find that I will not include too many pictures in this section. It will be mostly narrative. I will include photos where I can.

 

Life and Jobs I had Before, During and after College

 

I am now going to go through the jobs I had. (This will take several Blogs) You might find that some of the material may overlap and some may be repeated so just bear with me.

The first job I had was working at the filling station where my dad headquartered his Mobile tank wagon truck waiting for customers to call requesting gas or fuel oil delivery.

Norm was the manager of the station. My very first responsibility and job was to keep the men’s and lady’s restrooms clean and washing the station’s windows.

         

You might say my first job I started at the bottom and worked my way up.

After doing a good job at that, I was allowed to come out and wash the car windshields that pulled up to get gas.

                                       

Back in the 50’s they still had “Full Service” which meant oil checked, windshields washed and tires checked. Then it eventually went to mostly all “Self Service” and you had to pay extra for the “Full Service” treatment. (Does that mean we were going forward or backward?)

I enjoyed the job and had some very interesting experiences working at that job. I think I earned 50 cents an hour.

One of the most embarrassing experiences happened during the 1955 Sac City Centennial celebration. Most all or the men had grown beards and many the ladies wore bonnets when they went out.

                               

One day a car pulled up to the gas pumps to get gas. I was out to wash the windows right away. I noticed that the men in the front seat were wearing black suits and all had black hats and also had beards.

The ladies in the back seat all were dressed in colonial type dresses and wore bonnets. I glanced at the license plate and noticed they were from out of state. When the driver went in to pay for the gas, I made the comment “Oh! I see you are having a centennial too.”

He looked at me and smiled. I then went out and discovered the state they were from was Pennsylvania. They were Quakers, Mennonite  or Amish people. I was embarrassed to say the least.

                       

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Now the next real job I had was in the construction business.

Wilber Winchell Contractor

First Real Job

When I was still in high school about a Sophomore, we had moved to a new house on the corner of 13th and Gishwiller in Sac City.

                               

The new house was built by a contractor that Mom and Dad had gotten acquainted with a year or two before.

After we were moved in to the new house, dad noticed that Wilber (that was the contractor’s first name) was in the process of building another house a few blocks north on 13th street and dad  approached Wilber and asked him if he could use any additional help with the construction of the house.

Wilber said that he usually hired school age kids to help him but the one that had been working in the past was not home from college yet.  He said that I could help him by painting the outside of the house so that is when I got my first job.

       

Wilber was an interesting man. He always had a pipe hanging out of his mouth so it was very difficult to understand him when he spoke. I always had to say “Huh?” To everything he said. That is why I formed a habit to say “huh” to anything anybody said and still do to this time.

I had not worked too long before the other boy finished his year at college and joined us. His name was Jerry and we got along very well.

After the painting was finished outside, Wilber had be try my hand at doing finishing work like cutting and applying the wood trim around the doors and the other placed that required wood trim on the inside of the house.

       

Before I knew it I was working everyday from about 6AM until dark which was sometimes as late as 9PM. I forgot how much I was paid, but it was around $1.50 and hour, I think. It was more than $20 a day usually.

After we finished the house I had started to work with, Wilber had already started another house. He did that all summer.

He would get the houses framed up and Jerry and I would usually take it from there. I got a lot of construction experience that would stay with me my entire life. We also shingled a lot of houses.

        

Wilber had one bad habit other than the fact that every other word that came out of his mouth was a swear word. We always had a pipe in his mouth.  

                                                 

It made it very hard for me to understand what he was saying and I would always say “huh?” to every thing he said. I got into such a habit that I still catch myself saying “huh?” to things that others say to me.

Wilber actually did everything except dig the hole for the house’s basement. He did the brick laying for the basement, the electrical work, the plumbing and yard finishing work.

        

I got a very good education working for Wilber.

The beginning of the third summer Wilber was very slow at contacting me to work for him. That is the summer I started painting signs.

My dad was president of the Sac City Little League Association. The Association had gathered funds to build a wooden outfield fence and planned to have advertising painted on the 4’ X 8’ plywood panels to help finance the fence.

 

They had hired a local sign painter, “Buzz” Corderman to paint the signs. They soon discovered he was not going very fast. He would paint one panel then disappear for a few days.

They soon learned about his love of wine and that was when Dad approached me and asked me to try painting the panels.

By then I was an art major at the University of South Dakota. That is when my sign painting business started and I will cover it in more detail when I write about the family business mom and I started in 1962...The Story of DaLe Monogramming & Signs. By the way I picked up the nick name of “Buzz” from my sign painting episode.

My Book……………….LILAGCS (24)

November 22, 2010

High School Years

 

12th Grade – Our Senior Year

Here it is Saturday morning, already 82 degrees outside on the 20th of November. I just sent out my Blog (23) and decided to try and write the final Blog in my High School memories. So far my mind is a blank but I am sure, as usual, if I start thinking of even one event I will begin to remember some things.

I remember we had “Senioritis” pretty bad. We wanted the year to go fast so we could graduate and go on with our lives. Most of us except two in our immediate group went on to college and they decided to go to California (I will tell you more about them later on in this Blog.)

I think I will focus on our basketball team. I have a photograph that I received from Elaine Cook on a CD of the classes in Sac City.

It showed all of the photos of each class way back as far as 1935, From there on back there were no pictures, only the list of students in each class way back to 1986 I think it was. Plus there were selected yearbook photos from various classes through the years.

The photo below was of our basketball team. I wasn’t one of the starters, but was the 6th man. I would normally get to be the first substitute when coach Long would make a substitute.

Coach Long was a graduate from Iowa State and was an excellent basketball player there at ISU. I remember when he graduated the player that took his place was a player by the name of Gary Thompson from Roland, Iowa and he ended up an All American basketball player and went on into a  sports broadcasting career.

  

There was one game that stands out in my mind and I am pretty sure it was a game we played when we were seniors.

The game was against Harlan. Looking at the final score above I know it was our senior year because the score of our first game against them was Sac City 30 and Harlan 32. It was a very low scoring game.

Harlan had a very tall team and was beating everyone they played . Coach Long came up with a strategy that almost helped us to win. But we ended up loosing by one basket.

Harland had 3 of their starting players that were 6 foot 5 inches tall or taller. I think the tallest was 6 foot 8 inches tall. Our tallest player was 6 foot 3 inches tall.

Coach Longs basic strategy was to slow the pace of the ballgame down to make them play “our” game.

You could see the frustration on their faces as we were able to do just that. I think the half-time score was something like 14 to 16 and we were ahead.

Well that’s about all I remember about that game except we really felt like Goliath defeating the Giants and had a good feeling even when we lost by 2 points to them. We certainly won a moral victory.

Boy, my mind is pretty blank to any other events other than graduation night in the auditorium. Our featured speaker at our graduation ceremony was Ray Puge, I did remember that. I don’t remember what he was or if he later became famous.

Oh, I was going to tell you that the two classmate from our group that decided to go to California were Kelley Hoskins and Paul Laughin. They both went on to very successful careers and college graduates and are now a couple of my best supporters of these Blogs!

Well I think I will close out this section on “High School Days and move on to the next section. If you can think of anything you might want me to mention please don’t hesitate telling me.

 

My Book……………….LILAGCS (23)

November 20, 2010

High School Years

11th Grade……Junior Year

Going into 11th grade meant we were only one year away from our last year of high school. We had a very unique class. The class was made up of 58 students and we had 13 straight A students. This was unusual to have that many straight A students in one class of that size.

It made it very difficult for me especially. I was in the top third of my class in Spencer but when I started at Sac City I was struggling to stay in the top half of the class. When teacher’s graded on the curve it mad it especially difficult for me because most of the straight A students were in the classes that I was in. The classes would range from 20 to 30 students. So figure it out yourself. I was always fighting to stay in the grade “C” level when the grading was done on the curve.

With my way of learning, I managed to figure out ways to overcome that challenge.

Our class was a very strong academic group and we were also very conceited about it . We were good and if you didn’t believe it just ask us and we would tell you that we were good! (That was a joke that I made up, it might not have really been true.) But we were a very strong academic class for the most part.

Some of the instructors that I remember were; Mrs. Farmer, our English Literature teacher, Lowell Perry, our History teacher, Dana Wall, our English grammar teacher, Mr. Wallinga, our science teacher, Mrs. Earheart our math teacher, Mr. Ole, Our Civics teacher to name a few.

I’ m not sure if I got all of their subjects correct and some of them we had in both our junior and senior years.

I remember Mr. File, our vocal music teacher and Mr. Marshall our instrumental music teacher. I had trouble playing a record player so I was not in the instrumental music classes but I did like to sing.

I remember that each Thanksgiving season we had the opportunity to try out for “All State Choir”. If we made it we got to go to Des Moines over the Thanksgiving vacation and participate in the “All State Choir Program”.

Well I really wasn’t that good as a singer, in my opinion, but I tried out with 3 others I remember I was the bass, Dick Schram was the tenor, LuRay Sharp was the soprano and I can not remember who was our alto.

This was the tryout which was an honor just to get selected. I remember singing in front of the judges and I was standing next to LuRay. I started shaking so bad she had to help steady the sheet of music I was holding. We were not among those selected to go to “All State”, but it was fun to say that we got to try out.

I think our junior year was the year that I was selected as president of our science club. I remember that David McCauley and I made Lithium by electrolysis. We took Lithium oxide, I think it was, and by electrolysis we created a very small amount of pure Lithium. Now that might not mean too much unless you realize that Lithium is more volatile than either pure sodium or potassium. If you throw pure sodium of potassium into water, it literally explodes. That is definitely something I remember.

Now talking about exploding has triggered my memory to another event that had an explosive result.

I always has a chemistry lab, I called it, down in the basement. During these days of school you were able to purchase at the local drug store, all of the chemicals to make gun powder. Charcoal, Sulphur and Potassium Nitrite.

Needless to say, I was experimenting with those chemicals to produce fuel for a small rocket ship I was building.

I took a “spent” skyrocket tube and with the nosecone of a plastic model airplane and some balsa wood wings I formed and created my rocket ship. (Keep in mind, this is just a short time before they outlawed making your own rocket ships using solid fuel like gun powder.)

I had this rocket ship all ready to launch and my parents were not home when I had a small accident. I was testing my gunpowder formulation and I accidentally caught my backup rocket ship on fire and it streamed across the basement where I had my chemistry table. It ended up in the corner where our fuel oil barrel was located.

Fortunately I was able to get it extinguished before any more damage took place. I think the smoke came from the fuel that had too much Sulphur in its mixture created a total smoke screen in the basement.

I opened the basement windows to get the smoke out and found out later that our neighbors noticed the smoke coming out the windows and almost called the fire department. They didn’t, however because they knew I was experimenting with the rocket fuel.

I was more careful after that. I did continue on to launch my home made rocket. I took a common doorbell button ,connected it to a dry cell battery and hooked the wire ends to a flashbulb (That was back when we used flashbulbs for the portable light source when taking photographs.) I made the wires

I connected to the flashbulb long enough that I could get down behind a barricade for safety  when I launched the rocket.

I placed a pencil down the center of the spent sky rocket tube and packed my home made rocket fuel down around the outside of the pencil and the side of the sky rocket tube. I made a fast burning fuse from the gun powder mixture and placed the fuse down the center of the rocket tube after removing the pencil. I then positioned he rocket ship over the flash bulb so then the flash went off it would ignite the fuse to the rocket.

I knew I needed a witness so if I recall correctly I talked Tom Wellindorf, a fellow classmate over to witness the event.

I had a stop watch ready to time the rocket as it left the ground and hoped I could track it to see where it landed. I knew there was a physics formula that I could use to determine how high it traveled if I knew the time it left and the time it hit the ground coming back.

Two things I forgot to do. I forgot to install a parachute for its decent and I didn’t think about where and how fast it  would come down.

Well Tom and I got down behind our barricade and started the countdown. We came to “0” and I hit the doorbell button….there was a short pause after the flash bulb went off and “swish” off went the rocket. I kept track on my stop watch, Soon the smoke trail went out of sight. A few seconds later we saw the smoke trail come down as the rocket returned to the ground. (We estimated it went over a mile in the air)

There was one big problem. The rocket came down about 2 blocks from where it was launched and it came down in the yard of a family with 6 kids all out playing in the yard.

I located the rocket stuck about 4 inches in the ground less than 5 feet from the side of their house.

I wasn’t long at all after that launch that home made rockets of that nature were banned.

The only other thing that stands out in my memories is the junior/senior prom when I was asked to be the master of ceremonies. There were some things that happened there that I can’t really share with you, but I made a big Boo Boo in my trying to be humorous.

My Book…………………LILAGCS (22)

November 19,2010

High School Years

10th Grade (Sophomore Year)

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editors note:  There are not too many photographs in these High School Blogs because I didn’t have many to use because I lost all of my High school yearbooks in my move to the Philippines.

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Going into 10th grade meant I was going to be a Sophomore in high school. I am racking my memory to try and place some things in order. I remember specifically that I was a Sophomore when mom and dad purchased our first television. I think I talked about that in a prior Blog when Kelley Hoskins sparked my memory about the TV set.

I am not sure what part of the year it was, but mom and dad also purchased our first house when I was a sophomore.

                               

                                               Our first house in Sac City

I also now remember that I was active in our MYF (Methodist Youth Fellowship) and about 6 of us decided to go to church camp located up on West Lake Okoboji.

It was our local Methodist church camp (the one we attended) and my grandfather’s sister, Matilda (aunt Matilda, I called her) owned a small cabin that was located with in the camp’s area. She would allow MYF students to occupy her cabin during the summer camping days.

A previous Sac City Methodist Pastor before I moved to Sac City also owned a small cabin in the same area of the camp as my great aunt Matilda. He had moved to Eagle Grove, Iowa from Sac City.

As we prepared to travel north from Sac City to the camp on Okoboji we were all excited because there were going to be three towns that would be sending MYF students to our same cabin. They were from Eagle Grove, Algona and Sac City.

      

                                       Views of Lake Okoboji

We arrived there at the cabin first and waited for the ones from Eagle Grove and Algona. The 2 cars caring the kids from the other two locations arrived.

                       

As they filed from the cars into the cabin, one of the girls caught my eye as someone that I knew. She came directly up to me and said; “ Do I know you?” I replied without blinking an eye; “Yes, I kissed you in the cloak closet in 3rd grade at Reynolds grade school in Spencer, Iowa.”

I was correct and we became inseparable the rest of the time at camp. We were always together during the classes and at meal time. In the cabin, the boys slept in the converted garage and the girls slept in the cabin. There was always the pastor and a girl’s chaperone present.

It was very difficult when camp was over to say goodbye. I remember my grandmother came up to the camp from Spencer to pick me up to take me back to her house in Spencer. The girl, Caye, and I wrote letters back and forth all the time. I became very stressed because I had no transportation to drive to Eagle Grove to see her.

One time, we attended a dance at WOI-TV in Ames, Iowa that was patterned after the national dance telecast “Bandstand”.

               

                                           Betty Lou McVay

It was called “Sixteen” and hosted by Betty Lou McVay, ( also she was originally Mary Lou Varnum, a previous family name) a kids program called “The Magic Window”  and Dick Green another WOI-TV program host. We danced and people back in Sac City watched us on television. We had a great time.

That was the only time we managed to get together until I finally had to quit writing to her because it was starting to affect my school grades. That is when I met Father Tolan, the little league baseball coach that I use to dread because he was always talking loud and hollering at the players.

                                     

Father Tolan use to spend a lot of time watching us play basketball at the high school gym and we actually became good friends. He gave me lots of tips about how to be a better basketball player.

He came out of his parsonage one afternoon as I was walking home from school. His home was very close to where I lived and I would walk past it on the way home. He saw I was really troubled about something and came up and ask me what was wrong.

                                  

I broke down and told him the whole story right there by the fireplug on the corner near his place. We became close friends after that.

As I mentioned above I had actually gotten acquainted with Father Tolan through my basketball playing in high school. There were 4 or five of us including one Jewish boy that use to go over to Father’s place after Friday night basketball games instead of out carousing around like some of the others. We would verbally replay the games at his place and watch his color TV while having Pepsi and popcorn.

                

Father taught me a lot about growing up. He had sayings like “The Road to hell is paved with good intentions” and always made sure we showed respect when somebody did something nice to us like taking us out to eat.

Father was very ecumenical and didn’t ever mention anything about religion except that we should go to our own church and Sunday school every week.

My brother Jim played baseball for him and we attended most of the ball games. After every game Father would always come over to our house for strawberries and ice cream. He would come over in his T-shirt and just really enjoy himself.

                          

My dad was always pretty straight forward about everything and ask him one time why a catholic priest would come over to a protestant’s home like he did all the time. Father answered by telling dad that at our house he didn’t’ feel like he had to be a priest. (whatever that meant).

Father was the first one to ever take me to a fancy restaurant. I remember he took two other boys and me to “The Gold Coast Restaurant” in Fort Dodge, Iowa one night. I had never been to a restaurant like that before.

He would also take us to basketball tournament games in Carroll, Iowa at the Catholic high school.

         

                      Our trip to the Blackhills of South Dakota

One time he took another protestant boy and myself on a trip to the Black Hills where we met my blind uncle that was a chiropractor in Bella Fourche, South Dakota and stopped  at Father’s aunt’s farm near Wall, South Dakota. Father never did anything to make me disrespect him, ever.

I must say that I had some challenges with my dad’s mother, Grandma Logan. She was very narrow-minded when it came to Catholics. She wouldn’t even walk on the same side of the street as the catholic church she was so narrow-minded.

One weekend afternoon after on of my brother’s little league games Grandma Logan was visiting. Our phone rang and I answered. It was Father Tolan and he asked if he could come over for strawberries and ice cream. I had already told him about her narrow-minded attitude toward Catholics but he insisted. He ask me, however, if he should wear what he always did (T-shirt etc.) or his priest’s habit. I told him that it was up to him.

About 15 minutes, the front doorbell rang. (Usually Father always came in through our side kitchen door). It was father in his black habit and white collar. I opened the door and he made a bee-line right to my Grandma Logan who was sitting on the couch across from the front door.

He started taking to her and before the strawberries and ice cream were done they had discovered that both he and Grandma and some of her widowed lady friends all went down to the same place in McAllen, Texas about the same time in December and that the following December they were all going to be there at the same time.

Well there was a turn of events and attitude, to say the least. Father took Grandma and her friends out to eat and from that day forward you didn’t say anything bad against Catholics in front of her again. I don’t know what they talked about, but he had changed her narrow-minded attitude.

Father had advised me to forget about the girl in Eagle Grove which I was able to do without too much trouble and my sophomore year ended.  I was relieved to have gotten out of the girlfriend situation and my grades started getting better as well as my attitude.

Remember last year as Freshman we had won the “Red Jug” at homecoming  for the best homecoming skit? Well we won it again our sophomore year.

Next Blog I will pick it up in our Junior year…….

My Book………………..LILAGCS (21)

November 17, 2010

I want to give you an idea of the magnitude of this writing exercise (My Book LILAGCS). To do that I am going to give you an idea what I have left to cover in an outline I have been trying to follow.

This outline picks up where I left off in my High School years at Sac Community High School and continues to my move and now residing in the Philippines.

I have been entering all of this in Microsoft Office Publisher and so far I have just over 90 pages entered. (I have entered it in 12 point type) I have divided it into sections and just started Section 3. I estimate that I am only one third completed so there is a lot more to come.

Each of the following topics has a lot of memories involved (some more and some not so much) but they all are a part of my past. Here is the remaining outline:

Remaining Outline

High School Years Finish 10,11 &12^th grades

University of South Dakota

Tau Kappa Epsilon

Difficult Times at USD

Decision to Transfer from USD

Founded DaLe Monogramming & Signs

Buena Vista College

Work after BV graduation

US Army Reserves

Getting married in 1966

Adopting 2 boys 1970 & 1974

Trip to Florida wife Sharon got sick

Dealing with Wife’s Brain Tumor (Cancer)

Son Chad’s difficulty with substance abuse (oldest adopted American son)

Losing our homes/cars and etc.

Positive Support from Youngest son, Bart (youngest adopted American son.)

Caregiver for 14 years

Jobs I had worked at between 1957 and 1987

Wilber Winchell Contractor (First job while in High School)

Sac City State Bank

Felco Regional Cooperative

LeFebure Corp.

Free Lance Forms Designer

Golden Sun Feeds

Wallace’s Farmer (Farm Progress Publications)

Garner Publishing Company

Preferred Risk Insurance Company

Casey’s General Stores

Directory Services (City Directory) Company

Part time Jobs while caring for Sharon

Fareway Food Store (Meat Market)

Radio Announcer KLSN – Jefferson, IA

Perry Lutheran Home (Cook)

Methodist Manor (Storm Lake, IA)

Spurgeon Manor (Dallas Center, IA)

Perry Care Center

Under went foot surgery in Iowa City (toe amputated)

Part time Volunteer Jobs in Iowa City/Coralville, Iowa

Television Program Producer at Iowa City Senior Center

Foster Grandparent Program at Coralville Daycare

University of Iowa Hospital/Clinics Volunteer Program (Pastoral Services)

Trips to Brother Jim’s in Massachusetts (Thanksgiving 2004 and Caregiver 2005)

Decision to move to the Philippines in July of 2005

Life in the Philippines since 2005

Five plus years and many details

My Book………………….LILAGCS (20)

November 16, 2010

This Blog will be a short one because I am making a correction in my Blog record. I think something got messed up with the last couple of Blogs. I will restart my DrDave Memories Blog (LILAGCS) in Blog (22). I will pick up in my high school years of grade 10 through graduation, Thanks for your patience. …Dave

Special Weekend Blog ….LILAGCS 3

November 13, 2010

….continuation of the Nov. 8th Blog about my decision to go to the Philippines.

Decision to Move to the Philippines

After receiving the telephone call from my brother Tom that Jim was in need of a “Caregiver” for a while I didn’t think very long to decide that not of the volunteer jobs I was working with were more important that my brother.

   

Volunteer work at Foster Grandparents, U of I Hospital

& Senior Center TV Studio

The fact that I had already made a trip out there to Massachusetts less than 3 months before was also an important part of the decision.

I had already started checking into how I would obtain a US past port and visa to make a trip to the Philippines but had not actually gotten it yet.

                              

I was still dealing with what I was going to do with my “stuff” that I still had in my apartment in Coralville, Iowa.

I can remember going down to the greyhound bus depot and by now I had gotten pretty well acquainted with the agent there. I told him that I was going back to Amherst, Massachusetts to help out my brother. The agent told me he could schedule me the same route that I had taken last November and that sounded good to me.

I packed pretty much the same things that I had taken before and in a couple of days I was ready to depart.

This time Jim was going to meet me in Amherst with his friend Dave  at the bus depot.

             

the lower left portion of the above photo is where the bus stopped

Then I could drive him back to his place.  I would give him a call from Springfield, Massachusetts  which was about 30 minutes from Amherst.

I met a number of new people including a Jewish Rabbi and a Catholic Nun on the trip out plus I didn’t have much trouble getting there.

I recall the route took me through Chicago again but no delays this time then to Cleveland, Cincinnati, and on to Albany New York. I don’t recall the distance from Albany to Springfield, MA was, but it was a pretty straight shot and I remember thinking that this is the last stretch before I get there.

The entire trip took almost 13 hours and actually I didn’t mind it too much. We had lots of stops along the way. As we pulled into Springfield I saw the connecting Peter Pan Bus arriving also.

        

Well I got there and Jim and I went on to his home to unpack my stuff. I remember that we stopped to eat at a really cool place just outside of Amherst and had shrimp, French fries and a neat salad bar.

Jim made up a room for me (it was actually his room) and he took the spare bedroom. He also fixed me up so I could hook up my laptop computer and chat with Evelyn in the Philippines when ever I wanted to.

He had taken some time off school to go to Boston to the eye doctor which we did in a day or two after I arrived. I was a bit cautious driving, but did just fine.We got to Boston and found the hospital.

 

 

Jim’s daughter, Sarah, met us there and we had lunch together after Jim’s appointment. Jim was told not to lift anything while his eye went through the healing process and his doctor asked me to be sure he followed those orders.

Sarah works tor the Boston Red Sox and runs the large Teletronic scoreboard out in center field of Fenway Park. (see below)

           

 

An awesome job. She also told us that she would get tickets for a game so we could go and watch the Red Sox play.

As it turned out, Sarah got us tickets for a baseball game in early April between Boston and the New York Yankees WOW, my two favorite teams!

                        

After the very thrilling game which Boston won, Sarah gave us a tour of the area where she did all the video recording and a walking tour of the “Green Monster”. For those of you that are unfamiliar with the Green Monster, it is a section of the Fenway stadium that is located in left field.

Below are photographs of the “Green Monster”in left field at Fenway

    

This Blob about my decision to move to the Philippines is much, much more detailed than I first anticipated. This is the third section and I am just getting a good start. I will write more in the next part of moving to the Philippines.