Today is Ducky Days in Lowell.  I call it Ducky Days because they have a plastic duck race down the river.  They also have a parade and fire works.

The Ducky Days event started out as just a 4th of July duck race.  Each plastic duck has a number on it.  Contestants rent a duck for a set fee and if their duck wins the race, they get a set amount of money.

But, as time went on, they decided to have the event on another day other than the 4th.  That way, the event doesn’t have to compete with the 4th of July celebrations in other places.

So, what started out as a 4th of July celebration has now turned in to a Lowell celebration. Merchants can now sponsor a ducky sign which display their name on a street post.  There is food and music and street vendors and a parade and fire works  as well as the ducky race.

Driving and parking are a nightmare.  The event is becoming as big as what the Gus Macker used to be.  But, it does draw people into Lowell.

Unfortunately, it is raining today so the event will somewhat subdued.

The talk of Danny Hernandez brought back memories of my youth. The high school that I attended had just hired a young single guy for a combination basketball coach and typing instructor.

Well, this instructor was not really the country type and much preferred the action and excitement of the big city. So, in a effort to liven up the place, he decided to open a teen center/dance hall.

He found an old motel a few miles outside of town and decided that he could turn that into a night club for teens. Essentially, his plan was to gut out all of the individual rooms and turn the place into one long room. But it was going to take a while for that to happen and he was anxious to get started, so he opened the teen center in the coffee shop that was a part of the motel property.

The first season of the Sceen wasn’t much of a hot spot. They had a juke box, soft drinks and your typical teen junk food. In some respects, it was not much different that the student lounge at high school. But, the idea was that only cool people went to the Sceen.

The following summer, the main room opened and with it came live music and room to dance. They increased their menu selection and seating capacity.

It was the live music that was the real draw. Every Friday and Saturday night there was a different band and a cover charge. Some bands were hot while others were just OK. Of course, during the week, there was always the juke box but the place was only hot when the bands played.

Teens came from all over to hang out at the Sceen. Besides the Lakewood school district, they came from Grand Ledge, Charlotte, Hastings, Ionia, Belding, Greenville, Grand Rapids and Lansing.

Of course, anytime that you have revile school districts, you have revile teenagers. And when you have revile teenagers you have revile fights.

The fighting problem wasn’t too bad in the summer time, but once school started, that was another matter particularly if it was a home game. The Sceen was too close to the high school and athletic disputes had a tendency to move 3 miles down the road. And while nothing seriously happened with these disputes, the intimidation factor was still there.

The Sceen was around for maybe 10 years. And then one day the school teacher quit his teaching job and walked away from the sceen leaving it to the local bank. This was about the same time as the end of the draft. At that time, teachers were exempt from the draft so I thought it highly coincidental.

After a few years, the Sceen fell into disrepair. The bank was not savvy at getting rid of foreclosed property and no one wanted a teen night club in the middle of no where.

The buildings are gone now and nothing is left but the land. I had forgotten that the Sceen had even existed even though I occasionally drive past the spot. It was only when I read an article on Danny Hernandez that I remembered the Sceen.

Danny Hernandez is dead. He died in 2000.

I know I may seem a little morbid in my posts lately. It is just that I have some time to surf and I am actually remembering some of the things that I was going to look up on line. And one of these happens to be Danny Hernandez.

I realize that the name Danny Hernandez is as common as Dave Smith so there are a whole lot of people with that name. But, the Danny Hernandez that I am referring was a musician.

Back in the 60s, most of the people from the Lansing area had heard of Danny Hernandez. He headed up a band called “Danny Hernandez and the Ones”. There main claim to fame was a hit single called “you haven’t seen my love”.

The band toured the US for a while and eventually broke up in the 70s. Danny continued on in music while other members of the band became gainfully employed in other professions.

I was sad to learn of Danny’s death. His talent will be greatly missed.

We live across the street from a cemetery. If the weather is nice and we have the time, we often walk up and down the roads just for some exercise.

The other day when we were walking, I noticed a series of three tomb stones on a family plot. The first said “Morse”. Next to it was “wife of Morse”. And besides that one was “brother of Morse”.

Since these stones were in the oldest section of the cemetery, I assumed that they had been there for awhile. Still, I had to wonder why there were no first names on the stones. After all, wife of Morse sounds very cold and impersonal; more like a commodity that a human being.

At first I thought that maybe that was the custom back then to only use last names on the stones. But, when I checked on other stones in the area around the same time, they all had first names listed.

Maybe it cost too much to have first names carved on the stones. Or maybe their first names were too long to fit. Certainly, first initials would have been cheaper than “wife of Morse”

Then I thought that maybe they were a recluse family. After all, many immigrants were loners and did not trust other people. Morse would be known when he came to town to buy supplies but being a loner, he did not socialize. The woman with Morse would be known as his wife and the other guy that came with him would be known as the brother of Morse.

Or, another possibility might be that they were traveling through when they met an untimely death. Morse may have conversed with someone as he was passing through saying that he and his wife and brother were headed for ….. Later, they were all found dead. Since the man was only known as Morse who was traveling with his wife and brother, that is all that they could put on the stones at the time.

The stones are quite weathered and hard to read. Maybe I can do a rub on them and find out if they all died in the same year.

Interesting.

On a Friday night, one summer, a Lowell police officer noticed a pickup trunk on the side of the road near the edge of town. It looked as if the pickup had run off the road and gotten stuck in the mud.

There was no one in the truck at the time thought there was a large dog in the front seat. The doors to the truck were locked and it appeared that the driver had left for the night.

When the officer ran the plate, he discovered that the truck belonged to a known local trouble maker. And while he felt it necessary to pay a visit to this person, he didn’t wish to do so by himself. So, he called for backup.

The local trouble maker lived in a house just outside of town. When the two officers approached the house, the house was dark though they could see someone moving inside in the shadow.

They knocked on the door and announced who they were. There was no response so they knocked again. And again there was no response.

Suddenly, a man came screaming out of the garage. He had a large knife in his hand and was headed for the police car. When he got to the police car, he started hacking at it with the knife.

Mean while, the two officers, who were still standing at the front door of the house, called for back up. Neither one of them wanted to challenge the crazy man with the knife.

After a few whacks, the knife blade broke. So, the man ran back into the garage and reemerged with an ax and continued to whack at the car.

When the sheriff arrived, the man ran back into the house. A few minutes later, he went running out of the back of his house and into the woods. He was naked and was firing a pistol into the air. The officers decided not to pursue the man. Instead, they would put out a warrant for his arrest and pick him up at a later date.

As it turned out, he was arrested the next day. The police car had about $2,000 worth of damage. It was brand new. Alcohol was involved.

When we first had our house built, we needed to put in a lawn. Of course, since all we had for a yard were rocks and building debris, we needed to do some serious raking. And for serious raking, we needed a serious rake. We needed a garden rake. Since all we had for rakes were the springy leaf kind, we headed for the hardware store to buy, well, a garden rake.

When we returned from the hardware store with our garden rake, we began raking the yard. And all was going well until all of a sudden, the rake broke. Now, I am not talking about the head separating from the handle. I am talking about the metal rake head breaking in half.

I returned to the hardware store with the broken rake expecting a replacement and an apology for the defective product. Instead, I was given a replacement rake and a stern warning not to use the garden rake in the garden.

Don’t use the garden rake in the garden? What am I supposed to do with a garden rake if I can’t use it in the garden?

Maybe it is ornamental only. Perhaps I just hang it in my garage to give the garage that garage look. I’ll put it right next to my ornamental shovel and my ornamental hoe.

Well, since I needed a garden rake and since I purchased a garden rake, I used my garden rake in the garden. And, since I did not heed the warning in the store, this rake also broke. Fortunately, a friend of mine had a welder and welded it back together for me. It worked just fine after that.

I suspect that there was a design flaw in the product.

Every so often, my doctor sends me in for a nuclear stress test. Basically, what happens is that they inject you with a nuclear dye and then let you sit for 45 minutes so that the dye can be absorbed by your body.

After 45 minutes, they do a 15 minute scan of your heart using some sort of electronic imaging device. When the scan is done, they send you to the tread mill to see how well your heart performs under stress.

Just before you finish the tread mill, they inject you with some more nuclear dye. After the tread mill, they have you sit and wait for another 45 minutes before they do their final heart scan.

Now, the key word through all of this is NUCLEAR.

When the nurse first arrives, she is carrying a little metal box. Inside that box is a syringe which containes the nuclear dye.

At first I thought that the metal box was a bit much but then I realized that they were afraid of nuclear contamination.

When I got on the tread mill, I noticed two absorbent pads on either side of the tread mill. Thinking this to be a bit odd, I asked if the pads were for catching sweat from the walkers. They told me that the pads were there in case any nuclear material spilled during the last injection. OK.

After my last injection of dye, the nurse told me that she was now going to give me some saline to wash out the IV. Ah, nothing like a little cleanliness. After all, we wouldn’t want that IV to be dirty now would we.

But wait. Why did she wash out the IV and then remove it from my arm? Oh right. Nuclear contamination! She is going to dispose of the IV and wants to make sure that there is no nuclear material present.

After she pulls out the IV, she puts a piece of gauze over the entry point. As I usually do when I get blood drawn, I reached over to hold the gauze in place. She tells me that she has to hold it because it is radioactive. OK.

Now, lets see if I have this straight. The stuff that they injected into my body is the same stuff that they are afraid might contaminate the place. It kind of makes me wonder how long the stuff stays radioactive.

When I get home, I tell Kathy about the contamination concerns. She is not sure if she wants to kiss me. I might not be safe. I am thinking about hot romance. She is concerned that muffin will glow in the dark.

I finally convinced her that I am safe. After all, if I wasn’t, would they have let me leave? But then again, if I stayed at the heart center, I would put them at risk for contamination. Go figure.

When I was at Calvin College, there was a set of double doors in the hallway between the library and Hieminga Hall. And, since these door were on the inside of the buildings, they were always propped open. Then, one day, the fire marshal decided that the two building needed to be isolated. And so, a mullion was installed along with panic hardware on the two doors. And to add insult to injury, the mullion was added during the summer when the students were gone.

Now, for those of you who do not know about mullions, a mullion is that metal post that stands in the middle between double doors and is what the doors close against. It also holds the brackets that the doors latches on when they are closed.

When school started in the fall, confusion and chaos prevailed as usual. And as usual, this hallway was always full of students traveling between buildings. While the doors were now officially closed most of the time, when an in flux of students would hit that hallway, the constant flow of students would force both doors open for an extended period of time. It was during such events that the students learned an important lesson; watch where you are going.

It seems that on any given day, when the flow was at its peak, some student would walk into that mullion. At best, they would be startled. At worst, they would get a bloody nose. And, judging by the blood spots on the mullion, it would appear that this was a problem for the shorter students.

Presumable, the taller students could see the mullion and avoid it while the shorter student were just lost in the crowd. Regardless, you need to pay attention and watch for the mullions of life or you will end up with a bloody nose.

The campus here at the Capitol has a lot of surveillance cameras which monitor the activities on the grounds. Besides being able to move and zoom the cameras, they are also equipped with special circuits which allows them to operate on low lights.

One night, the Capitol security noticed a couple leave the city police station and walk across the street to the Capitol building. They then slipped into the bushes up next to the building and disappeared from sight. And when they didn’t emerge after 5 minutes, security was dispatched to check out the activities.

When security arrived, they found the couple fully engaged in what the police report referred to as “copulation”. They were arrested, of course, charged with indecent exposure, and moved back across the street to city police department where they were incarcerated.

It seems that the woman’s husband was in jail awaiting bail. And the woman and his best friend had come to Lansing to post his bail. Unfortunately, they did have enough money so they called someone to come down to Lansing and help post the bail. So, while they were waiting for more bail money to arrive, they decided to partake of some carnal pleasure. And the bushes across the street at the Capitol seemed like the ideal place for such activities.

Unfortunately, by the time that the additional money arrived, they now needed enough to post bail for the three of them.

Hey, what are friends for.

I was on my way to class at Calvin College one January morning when I was strickened with a severe pain in my lower right abdomen. The pain was awful! I was sure that it was appendicitis. After all, I have had a life long fear of this so it would stand to reason that I would get it.

I went to emergency figuring that surgery was on the horizon. But, the doctors thought otherwise. Instead, they did some tests and declared it to be a kidney stone. They gave me a strainer and told me to strain my pee. Nice. A college student using public restrooms having to strain his pee. Oh, I am sure no one noticed, particularly when I had to wash the strainer in the sink.

Well, this was interim at Calvin College. Interim was a month long program where students took fun classes for 3 hour every day for a month. Fortunately, my class was watching Hitchcock films every day for a month.

I arrived late. And keeping with his promise that the doors would be locked when the movies started, I arrived late, only to discover that the doors were locked. Bah! Fortunately, I had the master key to the campus and let myself in.

Quietly, I entered the auditorium and took a seat in the back. Unfortunately, when my eyes adjusted to the light I realized that I was sitting next to my professor. I looked at him and he at me and we said nothing. Both of us sat there and watched the movie.

Later, after the movie was over, I asked some intelligent questions. My first obstacle was over come. Great!!

But, I still had the problem of straining my pee. And since I was determined to drink lots of liquids, pee straining was an event that occurred several times a day.

At first, I’d always used a stall but I still had the problem of rinsing the sieve. People always had comments such as panning for gold? So, I just gave up and started using the regular urinals. No problem. But still no stone!

After awhile, I just gave up. No stone. No sieve! But, then one night, as I was getting ready for bed, I took a pee and BINGO, the stone came out!

Now, I wasn’t using the sieve so the stone went into the toilet. Rats!!

I had this thing about fishing things out of the toilet. I don’t use my hands! So, instead, I took the fish net from the aquarium and used it to retrieve the stone. SUCCESS!!

I put the stone in an old pill bottle and dropped it off at the doctors. A few days later the doctors office called and told me that the stone was calcium. YES! If you can name it, you can claim it.

Many years later, I changed doctors and he asked about my medical history. I told him about the stone and I told him it was calcium. He said that they are all calcium but asked what kind of calcium was it? I didn’t have a clue.

Oh, well. At least I strained it.