Picture Monday, May 5, 2008

More pictures of me again. I tried to take a break from focusing on me; but after all this is my blog and sometimes it's all about me.

Here I am with my Grandmother. This is Ethel Creswell, my Mother's Mother. I knew her as Grand Mammy. It looks like this is when I was doing my residency and having to make house calls.

It's me again, the tall one in the back. This was my Cub Scout Pack. We were a strange looking lot back in those days weren't we? I like the sneakers on the guy up front.

Here I am at my brother's wedding. I am holding my niece, Meredith. Look at those sideburns would ya.

I guess it's not all about me. Sometimes it's about Christmas, Christmas 1958 to be exact. I was two. I'll bet the little stool, the Fisher-Price Popcorn Popper, spinning top, and the other box was mine. I'm just guessing that the bike was a might too big for me and I certainly hope the doll was not intended for me. I love the curtains. If you look close you can see the little pom-pons on them. Ahhh, the height of home decor fashion in the 1950's.

© 2008 Barry T Horst

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A Few Memories From Hillcrest

This may seem like a funny thing to say but, I have a lot of memories of Hillcrest Hospital, A.K.A. Hillcrest Baptist Medical Center, in Waco, TX. The first thing I want to share is not a memory though. It is a statement from some very reliable sources, "Barry, you were born at Hillcrest Hospital!" Now I don't remember this because I was much too young at the time of my birth, but as I said, many people that should know have told me this many times in the past.

My first memories of the hospital do not really occur until I was in the 7th grade at North Junior. My family had just moved 2 blocks away from the hospital. Often times ambulances would fly by our house heading north on 30th Street with sirens wailing. Boy, for a 12 year old guy in the 60's that was really neat. I would run out of the house when I heard them just so I could see them race by, not really realizing that there may be a battle between life and death taking place inside the ambulance. After it went by I went back to my own little world not thinking of what may be taking place in the nearby Emergency Room.

Then one day I rode my bike to a nearby convenience store. The store was just across the street from our local A&P Grocery. At the time the store was named Milky Way Food Stores, then it changed to Zippy Foods. It later changed again and eventually closed. In order to go to the store I generally rode my bike in front of the hospital and down the street to the corner where the store was located. I can't remember what I bought anymore because the trip home was much more memorable. While on my bike riding home I was zig-zagging in front of the hospital. Now I know why they told us kids not to zig-zag on our bikes. I fell and smashed my chin on the pavement. An elderly man was in his yard and asked if I was OK. I told him I was and started home. I didn't realize I had sliced my chin open when I hit the ground until I got to the end of the block. I then held my hand under my chin to catch the blood and would then sling to the side to get rid of it. When I got home my brother took me to the hospital emergency room. At the time it was upstairs. We had to ride the elevator up to the waiting room and wait for my stitches.

When I was a little older I got a little bolder. I would occasionally ride my bike to the hospital and watch them unload the ambulances. I did this one day and watched as they took one of my cousins out of the ambulance. He had been in a wreck but soon recovered. I didn't go to the hospital to watch this anymore.

I went to the hospital to visit people a lot. The younger brother of a friend of my sister was involved in a motorcycle wreck. He was headed back to The University of Texas when someone pulled out in front of him. He was not doing well and was in the hospital for many months. I remember going to visit him often. His room had a stereo in it and I thought it was great. I would sneak in one of the back stairways to visit him after visiting hours. This was before better security and more lenient visiting schedules.

I even visited my brother in the hospital once. He had to have a hernia operation. He was in junior college at the time but the only room they had was in the children's ward. It was funny to see him there.

My mother told me that many of the injured and dying from the failed raid on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco were brought to Hillcrest Hospital. She said there were ambulances and helicopters coming and going at the time. I remember that Chris and I came to Waco shortly after this had occurred and we saw helicopters circling the hospital. I can only assume that they were police helicopters that were running security for the hospital due to the nature of the emergency. If we only knew all that went on I am sure we would be amazed.

While some of the memories are, well memorable; there are some that are much less so but still a part of me. This is the hospital where I saw my father fight cancer. It is also the hospital where I was with my father in the last moments of his struggle to overcome. He lost the fight but won the war when he went home to be with the Lord on that particular day. This is also the hospital where my mother fought many of her battles with cancer. She too lost the fight but overcame the war when she went home to be with the Lord.

In the past for various reasons I have had to visit Chris' parents. These were not good times either. I have been to the hospital to visit newborns. Now that is always an enjoyable visit. And, I have even been there to visit students from my pre-kindergarten class that had to be hospitalized for one reason or another.

Why all the memories? Hillcrest Hospital is building and will be moving to a new location sometime next year. They are leaving their north Waco location that gave them there name some 80+ years ago. You see, they were located on a hill, the highest in the area. They are relocating to IH 35 and State Hwy. 6 in Legend's Crossing. They will keep this location open and use it for more long term care and other needs.

Visit My blog Visions of My World for a few pictures of Hillcrest Baptist Medical Center.© 2008 Barry T Horst


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Retro Saturday, May 3, 2008

There was a TV show that I remember watching when I was young. I seem to recall that my brother used to watch it with me. The show was called "Whirlybirds." It premiered in the spring of 1957. I couldn't have watched it then. I wasn't even one yet. The show ran until 1960. I watched it in reruns. I guess I liked Classic TV even when I was little.There are a lot of shows that I watched when I was little that you just can't watch on TV anymore. I wish you could find some of the old game shows on TV. I mean besides "Password", "I've Got A Secret", and "What's My Line?". I would like to see "Concentration" or maybe "Truth or Consequences". Or how about "The Art Linkletter Show". Boy, those were good shows.

Speaking of game shows, how many of you remember the game show scandal of the 1950's? Obviously I don't remember it. I have just read about it. If you would like to see the episode of "Twenty-One" with Gene Barry that was the beginning of the end, I have Part 1 posted below. You can watch it and then click through and watch Parts 2 & 3 on YouTube. Give it a watch. It changed TV game show history.© 2008 Barry T Horst


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It's Over, Sort of

The latest round of TAKS tests are over. YES!!!

It has been quite a week for us at school. In order to maintain a quiet, orderly environment for the older students to take their test, at our campus we did not have "specials" or recess on testing days. "Specials" are better known as Music and PE. Testing days this week were Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Rather than go to "specials" the counselor and aides kept the students in the classrooms to give the teachers a break. (At least they did it for Kindergarten.) Do you know what it is like to keep 18 5 and 6 year old's in the classroom all day with no break to run off energy or play? It's not easy but we did it. The kids made it through OK but you could tell that it was beginning to wear on them, just as it was on the teachers.

The magic time came and it was announced that all testing had been completed. HALLELUJAH!! We immediately went outside to celebrate and run, and celebrate, and play, and celebrate, and shout. We were tired of being quiet. Goodness, that is hard to do when you are 5 and 6 years old and full of energy.

With all the excitement of TAKS testing being over we do have to come back to earth. It seems that our campus has a special visit today. It is from the Texas Institute for Measurement, Evaluation, and Statistics (TIMES at the University of Houston). This is the group that comes to each Texas Reading First campus and collects data related to implementation of the Texas Reading First Initiative (TRFI). Just the thing we need the day after 3 days of TAKS testing. We will make it through though. We always do.Now we start the Texas Primary Reading Inventory (TPRI). It's all never ending.

© 2008 Barry T Horst

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When Spell Check Doesn't Work

It's amazing the things you find when you're not looking for it. I was scanning some of my picture files and lo and behold I came across the image of an e-mail that I saved some months ago. Actually the United States Mint sent this out as a mass e-mailing in August 2007. As I was reading the e-mail I had a word jump out at me. See if it does the same for you.The same type of thing popped off the page for me when I was preparing for our Kindergarten field trip to the zoo a couple of weeks ago. As some of you may know, we went to the Cameron Park Zoo. It is in Cameron Park which is just a few blocks away from our school. I was doing some research at the zoo web-site on their "General Information" page. If you go down to the section of the page titled "The Weather Factor" and then go to the sub-heading "Finally-....". In the heading the word "lightning" is misspelled. It is incorrectly spelled "lightening". The same misspelling is repeated in the text of the paragraph. Apparently the zoo puts the animals away when there is a storm threatening to cause them "to lose weight or become lighter in color".

Hmmmm!

Again, I guess this affliction that I have is all due to having been in education for 20+ years.

Did you find the problem in the US Mint e-mail? It is the word "configuration".

© 2008 Barry T Horst


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Songs and the Sound of Splat!

I spent most of last night working with and learning the eccentricities of the new program. The program is Sound Editor Deluxe version 3.9. After many trial and error (mostly errors) attempts I was able to get 2 mp3's recorded and then uploaded to my phone.

I know that it sounds like that is probably not much to show for the evening, but I was also trying to watch American Idol and then my daughter started playing her Wii on our TV. She likes the big screen for her gaming enjoyment. She is engrossed in the latest Lara Croft-Tomb Raider game. She has the part of falling off the ledges and splatting on the floor down pretty good from what I saw.

Check out my "Easily Amused" link on the bottom of the page. Julie called me at school this afternoon and told me about this web-site. A couple in Cleveland, Ohio put on a display every year at Easter by taking brightly colored egg shells and making a themed display. This year the theme was "Zoo's Who" . However, due to weather conditions the display was scaled back and "Zoo'z Who" has been rescheduled for 2009. They were supposed to use 42,650 egg shells for the original but ended up using 6,223. It is still awesome and they have been doing it for 50 years. Check out CabanOnline.com for a look at Eggshell Land 2007.

Once again, the link is on the bottom of the page in the "Easily Amused" section.

Check it out. I know you will enjoy it!© 2008 Barry T Horst This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Please visit the Giveaway of the Day at the bottom of the page for free software downloads daily.