good talk

The only thing my father brought back from WW II was a silver-plated tennis trophy that said "British Officers Club at Oran." Why somebody would want this is beyond me as it even had a dent in it. There hasn't even been a British Officers Club at Oran since that time maybe that was it. I've never been to Algeria strange that my father would be one up on me in that regard. His lifelong friend beginning then was Pat Sullivan who sought out a French schoolteacher to teach him French vowing that he would never live in the U.S. again, after the War Pat was Honeywell's rep in Paris for decades. They were both Mechanical Engineers and Officers in Tank Ordinance, Pat was 5'6" my father was 6'6". Pat never married, the Irish at that time often didn't but would have a brother or sister with 10. A friend of mine, Rick, from the gym told me yesterday that his father had died at "60," Rick's a real nice young fellow, "26." He said his father had had a blue-collar job with the same company for 31 years and that he had lost his job 2 months before he suddenly died (died sitting down). I asked Rick if his Dad had any life insurance and he said he had but that the half-mil policy was through the company and that they had told him and his Mom that the policy went out of effect when his Dad no longer worked there. I said that doesn't sound right, I would think it would continue on for awhile, I told him to check this out with the State Dept. of Insurance and he said he would. People will often try to avoid kicking out a half-mil I'm going to keep on him about this. Rick's all worried that his Mom who's worked for Costco for over 20 years won't have enough for her old age. Rick himself has only been working 20 hours a week or so for the past couple years, tall with a strong lean build he has skills at carpentry and can drive a truck and unload heavy boxes and he quite possibly has good cerebral ability, he's been thinking of joining the Coast Guard for gainful employment sounds like a good idea. Rick and his Dad were real close, pity. It was nice weather in St. Louis and I went to the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis built from 1907 to 1987 it's quite impressive. The Gateway Arch was opened in 1967, it's 630 feet high and is the tallest monument in the country. I've been inside it it's quite large inside with all kinds of things and an elevator goes to the top. I went to Forest Park this is the site of the St. Louis World's Fair of 1904, something was invented there, the hot dog? In Forest Park I went to the very good St. Louis Historical Museum and the very good St. Louis Art Museum, the park is very expansive walk and walk. It's been said that our ballparks are America's cathedrals. On April 5, 2011 I went to beautiful Busch Stadium to see the Cardinals beat the Pirates 3-2 behind Albert Pujol's 2 RBI's with a crowd of 33,666, you get $10 off the ticket price with a AAA card, I've had one forever I know guys who are multimillionaires who are too cheap to belong, the AAA is one of the best things going, I used their maps and travel-books throughout my trip. Wells Fargo recently was fined 85 mil they're a dishonest stable.