In memory of Marian

I must get these thoughts on paper before they drive me to distraction.

She was one of "The Girls" who ate lunch every Tuesday at McGuire's Pub in downtown Hickory, NC along with Marcia Copper and me. She was a tiny woman, less than 100 pounds soaking wet, about 5 feet 1 or 2. In her youth she had been a strapping 5 feet 7-plus, still slim, but had built an athletic physique from being a championship swimmer. I didn't know her then. She had 3 husbands and 4 children, her children by the first 2 husbands and her true love was the 3rd, Joe Belk, a world-class trombonist. She, a French Horn player, and he had been married too short a time when cancer took his life. She was devastated but never let anyone see her cry. She said often, "I don't stew." Meaning she didn't dwell on the past; if she remembered it all she remembered the good times.

She was 82 when she died and her luncheon companions were 69 and 76 at the time of her death. We had known her 20 years, give or take, and had steadily watched as illness and finally death claimed her.

But we'll never forget her. She had strong opinions, such as she couldn't abide cell phones in public places; she loved classical music and when she worked it was to the accompaniament of a classical music station; She maybe didn't stew but she was prone to anger when something displeased her, such as when she needed a haircut. She would say, "I need a haircut! I've kept putting it off. You know, don't you, that I have 7 crowns (points on the scalp from which her hair grew) and nobody can cut my hair." She said this with arms flying all around her head to emphasize the point.

She kept up with everything relating to current events and could tell anyone who asked about the presidential candidates. She kept up with the best and worst of them and their associates. She read only two newspapers but she read every single word.

Among her most indignant comments had to do with those newspapers: misspelled words and incorrect grammar. She could tell you every rule of grammar and she frequently wrote letters to the editors about some sin a reporter had committed when it came to grammar, spelling and punctuation.

Songs? She could remember songs most of us had long since forgotten. "Poor little Rhode Island," she would sing. "You are my sunshine," she sang another time. Then there was "Toot, Toot, Tootsie Goodbye" and "Goodnight Sweetheart." She sang them acapella -- and in tune. Just for her friends.

There is much more to be said for Marian Belk. Someday I might come back and tell you some more about her.

Introduction

OK, well I've started a handful of blogs and haven't continued with any of them. Finally I thought of an idea. We'll see if I can keep this one going.

This is stuff that happens to me or somebody else, or something I've learned, or something I want to teach somebody else.

For instance, I love my computer. It's 7 years old (bought in 2001 by my son and his wife, who became prosperous and bought a better one so they gave me their old one. That's fine. It's good enough for me.) In the last two months I have reinstalled my system at least half-a-dozen times, which shows you how proficient I am. I can find my way around a PC. I used to say that about my Mac, but it got old and won't meet my needs any more and I couldn't afford a new one and besides, I didn't like what I had learned about OSX so when the free PC popped up, I jumped at it. I figured it couldn't be too much different from the Mac. For the most part, I was right.

The nice thing about a PC is that you can burn your own CDs. And there are all kinds of CDs to burn: CD-R, which is a permanent effort, you can't erase bad moves and put in something better; CD-RW, which is erasable but won't work in certain situations; and there's even a 3 1/2" floppy, which is obsolete in most cases.

Just a few weeks ago, my CD started giving me trouble. This is about the beginning of my reinstallation of the systems. The ROS, as I'm going to call them, in the fashion of today's acronyms, call for backing up your data but to keep email you have to have to find out where to put the icons that represent folders in your email program. I couldn't do that. (For instance, I had several folders for email I wished to keep for later purposes; in the case of one of the ROS, I couldn't do that. In later ROS, I didn't think about saving them so they're gone forever.

Now, to the purpose of this blog: one of my disk drives had developed the annoying habit of not closing or opening in response to the little button that is supposed to make that happen. Then my son sent me a passel of grandbaby pictures (My first one!!!! I can't get enough pictures) and I couldn't read them off the disk. I tried everything. I finally decided to take it to CVS for printing and their machine could read it just fine. The prints were beautiful!

Then began my trek of trying to fix disk drives. I tried every trick I could think of. I asked a friend and he gave me a routine. It didn't work. Then I Googles the situation and found a users' group to see if there was a situation listed. There was, and I tried it. It involved un-installing the drivers for the disk drives so I did that, the PC reinstalled them for me. But nothing different happened. Except...the disk drive began working properly again!

Ain't that a hoot? That's the way most things happen. The late columnist Syndey Harris (whom I admired extensively) used to have something he called "Things I Learned on the Way to Look Up Something Else," so I guess that would fit this situation: something I learned while looking up something else. From that came an axiom: never discard any knowledge...there might be a nugget of wisdom in there.