Lamar Thames

With the Westminster Dog Show just around the corner starting Feb. 15, I am reminded of Uno, the most famous beagle in the world after his improbable victory as best of show winner in the 2008.

For my money, Rusty the Wonder Dog is every bit his equal. Wonder Dog, as in “I wonder what he does all day?”

Rusty is the other man in my wife’s life. But I am OK with that. He’s a 10-year-old beagle who came to us with remarkable coincidence from a teacher who once taught at the same school as my wife.

I say coincidence, because in May 2007, my wife quit teaching at Paterson Elementary

Rusty the Wonder Dog

School with every intention to begin a life of leisure in retirement after 36 years in the classroom. Since she was going to be staying at home for the foreseeable future, she said she would like to have a dog to keep her company. OK, I said. Let’s start looking.

A few trips to Safe Animal Shelter, some pet stores and Clay County Animal Control, plus a couple of referrals from some friends, produced nothing as far as an acceptable pet for us. That’s when my wife saw a notice on the Paterson bulletin board that Alice Snyder had a dog for whom she wanted to find a good home.

We made an appointment to see Rusty on a Tuesday night. He was cute and loveable, as most beagles are, and completely acceptable to me as a new member of our household. My wife said that we would talk it over and get back to them about Rusty, but I knew differently. This dog wasn’t going to be going to any home but ours. As soon as Rusty licked my wife’s hand and rolled over for her to rub his belly, I knew the decision had been made.

I made it easy for her when I told her we should get him, but I really did want him. I had not had a dog in my household for more than 20 years and I thought it was about time. I am just glad she didn’t want a cat. I am not a cat person, for reasons that I could never be described in a family newspaper.

In another turn of events, my wife went back to work that fall as a curriculum specialist with the county school district and then the next year I “retired” from The Florida Times-Union and I am not Rusty’s daytime caretaker.

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Lamar Thames

OK, that is enough dillydallying. Let’s get this thing done.

I am referring to my annual Christmas column. At least the one I used to write when I was the editor of a North Florida community newspaper. It was about Christmases past and present and contained images that ranged in my mind from the good, the bad and the ugly of Christmas.

Notice I have used the word Christmas four times already, not holiday. America’s national holiday is Christmas and it is about both giving and receiving and Christ’s birthday. As well as it is about Hannukah and all the other religions that celebrate their deities in some way. Let’s get over this idea of we have to say Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas. Celebrating the plurality as well as the original intent of the day is what makes this such a wonderful and great national.

So, Merry Christmas to all. Now let me try to entertain you with some of my holiday merriment.

Emma loves to watch the Christmas train as it makes its rounds under the Christmas tree at Nana and Papa's house.

First, the good has already occurred. It happened recently when my granddaughter Emma came running up to me and squealed, “Papa’s home! Can we turn on the train now?”

It was a night I had to pick up my grandson from basketball practice and meet up with my daughter at our house. Emma had obviously been instructed to wait until Papa arrived before the train could be turned on but she didn’t wait a second before popping the question.

“Of course, we can, Emma,” I answered. We proceeded to the living room where the Christmas train was assembled under the Christmas tree and I showed her how to turn it on and let it make all the sounds of the season that we all enjoy so much: “Ho, ho, ho” and “Merry Christmas,” as well as ringing the train’s bell and Santa shouting, “All aboard.”

Emma is the just the latest in the line of grandchildren who have enjoyed the train and one of these days we hope there will be one more. We haven’t gotten a commitment on that score, but we keep our fingers crossed that we will be blessed with one more grandchild who will someday enjoy the tradition of the Christmas train at Nana and Papa’s house.

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In years past, I have had some sort of calamity with either the Christmas tree or the decorations, both inside and outside.

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Lamar Thames

I see where former Florida Times-Union publisher Carl Cannon is trying to revive the fortunes of the Jaguars, the pro football team that he helped bring to Jacksonville in the early 1990s.

Good for him. I hope it works. I would hate to see the Jaguars move to another city. It may take longer than anyone anticipates at this time, however, to solidify the fan base and ensure that doesn’t happen.

There are a myriad reasons why it will be a monumental effort. Here are just a few in my humble opinion:

1. It’s the economy, stupid! A lot of Jaguar fans have been hit hard by the economic slowdown and that has struck a tremendous blow to the ticket-buying public, despite what some of the so-called financial experts say. The true-blue Jaguar fans are middle-management types and blue-collar workers, groups that have been especially impacted by the economy. I know because I am one of them. My wife and I were season-ticket holder from the very start — until this year. Without a job and our retirement nest egg in shambles, it has been hard for us to justify spending upwards of a grand per year to continue supporting the Jags. And I know we are not alone. An acquaintance of mine has gone through five different jobs in the last two years and is currently unemployed. No more Jags tickets for him either.

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Lamar Thames

A couple of months ago, I told you about a new web site my son was developing for me to operate and I said I would let you know when it was up and running.
Well, it has been available for a while now and it has 10 articles on it for your reading pleasure. It is called www.wanderingtourist.com. It is a travel web site that mostly features articles about lesser-known tourist venues in Florida and the Southeast, with a couple of exceptions.
One of those exceptions is the series of submissions a friend of mine, Wayne Bolla, is posting about his sailing adventure to the Mediterranean Sea, with a couple of stopovers along the way. I think you will like Wayne’s writing and the photographs he took.
Another article was written by my son, Robert, about his excursion to a family reunion during the Taste of Chicago Festival around the Fourth of July. It is well done, even if I say so myself.
The two web sites are my attempts to both generate some income and keep my mind occupied while I try to figure out what to do with the rest of my life. While I have not given up hopes of returning to work, I know that reality grows dimmer with every economic report published showing a stagnant job market.

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Lamar Thames

Now that the  Great Recession is officially over (according to newspaper headlines and television reports, at least), I just want to know one thing: WHERE IS MY JOB?

I understand it will take some time for the unemployed to return to work. I just hope it is sooner rather than for a lot of people. I honestly don’t think I will be able to return to the workforce anytime soon, however. There is the age thing, a lack of qualifications and, well, just the time it will take for the job market to rebound to anything resembling a healthy economy.

Thankfully, I was able to draw unemployment (which may be extended another 13 weeks), so the blow might not have affected my wife and I as much as it did others.

Like I have said before, and news reports are confirming, there are some silver linings to the dark side of the recession. Such as, laid-off construction workers are adapting to different lines of work, prices are coming down (grocers and restaurants are offering considerable discounts) and the nation’s per-person savings rate has more than doubled in the past year.

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Lamar Thames

Sorry I haven’t a lot written lately, but I just have been too busy. I hope you will forgive me.

I know; I know. How can a supposedly “retired” person be too busy to write a column at least once a week? Let me count the ways.

1. At least two days a week, my wife and I are the designated sitters for three of our grandchildren as our daughter works at night. Since I am not currently working that means I cook dinner for all five of us. Of course, I am in charge of dinner for my wife and I two or three other days of the week, too, but the meals for the grandchildren are extra challenging trying to find the proper combination of healthy foods that all of us will eat. Since I am still not very good at meal preparation, it takes me longer  (A LOT LONGER) than most people to, a. choose a menu; b. buy the groceries; and  c. actually do the cooking. Time allotment: four hours, or one day a week. (Retirees don’t work eight-hour days, remember.)

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Lamar Thames

I frequently get asked how I am enjoying retirement.

I’m usually taken aback by the question because I don’t consider myself retired.  It is true that I don’t have a job, that I am 65, that I receive a Social Security check every month and that I have not gotten a job interview since I was laid off by the Florida Times-Union in November 2008. Still for the life of me, I can’t come to grips with the idea that I am retired. Let’s just say I’m between jobs.

Of course, I really don’t expect anyone to hire me at this stage of my life, especially considering the state of the economy these days. A lot of people who are younger and more educated than I am are in the same situation in that they can’t find jobs either. That makes my chances of returning to the workforce even more unlikely. Still, I persevere.

I currently have applications in for two positions I feel I would like and am qualified to handle. And there are a couple Read the rest of this entry »

By LAMAR THAMES

Tuesday, May 5, is my birthday, and while that doesn’t have anything directly to do with this story, I mention it as a way of telling you that the month leading up to the 65th celebration of my birth has been enormously satisfying — and possibly even life-changing. More about that later. Right now, let’s talk about the satisfying parts. In the past month, I:

• Visited an elderly aunt and took her out to lunch on her birthday
• Visited a bed-riddden cousin in a nursing home
• Spent three days at Easter with all six grandchildren and took them to church Easter Sunday
• Spent a few days with my sister and favorite uncle in the Tampa area
• Attended my eldest son Robert’s acting performance in the play Holy Ghost
• Took two of my grandsons to play golf
• Played golf with a Rotary friend
• Attended a most satisfying elementary school musical with my wife and three of our six grandchildren
• Finished it off by listening to another son, Joe, sing at a charity concert a song he wrote honoring my father and I. 

Of course, most of these activities, except the golf, were shared with my companion and love of my life, my wife, Barbara. So truly, I have been blessed with an exceptional month. Read the rest of this entry »

Like most men (and a few women, too, I might add) I have had a long-standing love affair with the automobile. That is why I was so excited to see the Times-Union’s contest to pick the coolest American-made car ever. 

Lamar Thames

Not that there is any doubt about which car will win, is there? I mean, who wouldn’t vote for the 1957 Chevy Bel Air as the coolest car ever made anywhere? Its sleek lines and impeccably shaped fins seemed to perfectly capture the imagination of a young nation of automobile-lovers who were just starting to purchase vehicles because of how they looked, not how they ran.

I know because I was one of those who bought on looks rather than on performance. That is why, too, that my love-affair with the automobile could be better described as unrequited love.

I made careful choices but like many other parts of my life, I could never get it just right when buying a car. Take the first one I ever bought, for instance. It was 1964 and I was two years into a four-year enlistment in Uncle Sam’s military, stationed at Gunter Air Force Base in Montgomery, Ala.
I had saved a few bucks with an account at the base credit union and wanted to buy my first car.
A buddy of mine knew a guy who had a car for sale and I went to check it out. Well, it was a convertible, late 1950s model Chevy. I fell in love and agreed to buy the car on the spot (without even taking it to a mechanic to see if it was a sound investment. I know; it was a dumb move, but like I said, I fell in love with that car with its sleek lines and unusual fins.)

Photo by Douglas Wilkinson from www.Chevrolet-Archives.com

I know you are probably thinking that I was pretty smart to make my first car a 1957 Chevy Bel Air, right? If you were thinking that, you would be wrong. I chose a 1958 Chevy instead. Like I said, I always seemed to be a little off in my decision making back then. Besides, the ‘58 was cheaper than the ‘57, even back then.

Oh, the ‘58 was nice looking, too, but you didn’t see it in the Times-Union’s lineup of America’s coolest cars made in America, did you? And you won’t either. Primarily because I don’t think it was a very good car.
Mine developed a carburetor leak, never ran exactly right and left me stranded around 2 a.m. on a lonely stretch of highway southeast of Tallahassee once. I abandoned it and because I was wearing my uniform I was able to hitch a ride into Tampa, where I caught a bus to my parents house in Plant City.
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Lamar Thames

Well, I am back from a two-week “vacation.” I know, you are thinking, “How can a guy who is retired go on vacation?”

I used to think the same thing about other retirees. Now I know. Going on vacation when you are retired is taking your wife or significant other out of town on a trip that you really can’t afford but you do it anyway.

Getting out of town accomplishes two things. It means you don’t have to do any yard work and it means you don’t have to do any house work. So, from that standpoint, retiree vacations are extra special.

We didn’t do anything really extravagant but it seems like even small trips can add up when you are trying to watch your pennies. We spent two days at a bed and breakfast in St. Augustine before heading south and taking two of the Orlando grandchildren to the Universal theme park. I am hoping to turn both of those activities into travel articles on a companion web site that I am developing. I’ll let you know what the address is when it is up and running.

Universal Theme Park, Orlando

Part of the two weeks was also spent hosting all six of our grandchildren at our house on Easter weekend, coloring Easter eggs, doing the egg-hunt thing and going to church on Easter Sunday. I am firmly convinced that God gave us grandchildren as a reward for the trials and tribulations of raising our own children. (Not that mine were bad, but raising children is just different from raising grandchildren. Grandchildren are like eating cake, while your own children are sometimes like broccoli. As Jim Varney would say, “Know whut ah mean, Vern?”

After Easter, we were back home and all alone for two days before my wife headed to Lakeland and the state science fair competition along with two other curriculum specialists from Clay County and 14 students who were competing in the fair. I took advantage of the time alone to visit my sister in Lutz (just north of Tampa) and then my uncle in Tarpon Springs. Read the rest of this entry »