Foot In Mouth Disease

Tact: noun, a keen sense of what to say or do to avoid giving offense; skill in dealing with difficult or delicate situations.

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I either enjoy social situation or tire of them quickly. If people at a gathering get on my nerves, then most times I drift away, quietly. A lot of the time my BS detectors will be ringing like Big Ben to someone's horseshit and I'll get tired of that. I'll open my mouth and say what everyone else is thinking. I can't help it, my cup runneth over and I have to say something.

Then there's that complete silence as if I just spit in someone's dinner plate at a restaurant.

I hate to admit but I've learned a trick from the Millennial's. I'm not sure if they're X, Y or the Z generation but it's a handy ploy. Today's kids take “ditching” to a new level. If you don't want to hang around someone, you just leave, right then and there w/o any explanation. You just turn and walk away.

If someone is boring the shit out of me, I'll just turn to the next person and start a conversation there. Yep, I'm losing my Edwardian etiquette. Is it rude? Yes. But God as my witness, listening to some one who is just prattling on about a subject I care nothing about, starts create real pain in me. My younger self would've grinned and bear it but not anymore.

“Oh God, Shut Up! Shut Up! Shut Up!” I can hear my brain screaming.

As for opening my mouth and dropping truths onto people's feet like 20lb dumbells, well...yeah, it's true. I do do that on occasion.

A while back, while at the Carousel Bar and Grill, I watched as a young girl was trying to shove $8 dollars worth of quarters into a cigarette machine. She wasn't having much luck and finally her fist load of coins spilled onto the tile floor, scattering and rolling all around.

I was sitting, with my feet up on another chair, sipping my beer when I saw this and started laughing. Out of nowhere, her friend, who I think was about 21, comes right at me and admonishes me.

“You think that's funny? You always laugh at people's mistakes? Who the hell are you?” she barks

“Hey, honey...Don't be upset” I say. “Everyone gets their balls busted, hers, yours and mine, we all are the butt of jokes. Everyone laughs at you and me till the day we die.”

“WHHATTTT!” she yells at me. I guess the truth wasn't the right route, but I didn't care then either.

I sense where this will lead and I start to turn away from her and say;

“Oh look, I'm not getting into a screamfest with a 20-something.”

“YOU SON OF A BITCH! I OUGHTA GET MY BOYFRIEND TO KICK YOUR ASS!”

Meanwhile, the 40 something guys I was hanging with departed in eight different directions. Thanks guys.

I sipped my beer and saw how red faced this chick was. She finally went over to help her friend and I sat there, finishing the chips and beer and leaned back in my chair, caring not one iota for what just happened.

I was actually very calm even with the threat of her boyfriend, who may have been in the joint too. I didn't care. So I sez to myself;

“Go ahead and get your boyfriend and I'll expose your entire relationship from what I have learned about you already (and you've shown me ALOT) to everyone here. It might be worth the bloody nose.”

I was in that mood again. I'm not taking any BS nor am I varnishing the truth tonight. I was tired of tip toeing around eggshells.

I met my friends out in the parking lot as they hadn't left yet or decided where to go. Bill, then looks at me and says; “Man, I can't believe you said that to her...no wonder she was pissed!”

My reply was typical me if in that character. “Oh for God's sake...I really didn't want to get into an argument with someone 20 years my junior...I wasn't in the mood at all for having to explain myself as I didn't feel the whole episode was worth it. So I just told her, that's it, end of conversation.”

I swear, there are times when I just get tired of having to be socially adept, socially acceptable, socially correct; of having to test the waters and say the “right thing.” There's a switch in me that clicks OFF and I won't notice it happening and watch out, I'll say what's right on my mind. God, how I LOVE my independence. I've been throwing conformity into the gutter since I was a kid, when it suited me to do so.

Oh, by the way..what's good for them is good for me. I have told people who know me well enough they can throw any barbs at me as they wish if I happen to be that zone. Go right ahead. If I dump the truth in your lap, you can dump it mine.

But most times, I can be as gracious as butler. No joke, ask around, people will tell you. I haven't completely lost my upbringing, yet.

People You Have Known

The Smartest Person I Have Ever Known #1 (there's two actually)

Alan H. perhaps wasn't the smartest but he's the one who taught me the most. He represented me in a civil case decades ago. In my late 20's, he pushed me to make mile long strides in my knowledge and maturity. It was the maturing process that secured me the largest boost, albeit it was a rotten, painful process all along the way. When I came out the other end, when the dust had settled, I managed to think back on all that had happened and then realized I was no longer that fresh and green person I was. I had been forged, annealed and galvanized. That involvement taught me a lot about people and life. In short, my skin was thickened. I still manage to maintain my general “giving people a chance,” but I had learned universal precautions too. CDC doctors will try to help you, but they'll first be sewn up tight in environmental suits, as you are lying there crawling with Ebola viruses.

Alan made me grow up. Here's how he managed to do that. When you hire an attorney, they always hold a constant suspicion of their client or their client's story, no matter what. After a career's worth of being lied to and perhaps losing money or being made to look like a fool, a good lawyer will always view their client with some skepticism. It's needed in order to keep their practice alive. A lawyer suspects everyone, though they barely pull off that “I'm in your corner” stance to make you think you're not alone. Alan managed to do the work to help me to win my case, with all four Aces, but he never once trusted me. My radar surely did pick up on that. That, was what forced me to be independent.

Add to that, a lawyer also has his own needs, that of secretaries and an office to nourish with money. So, I was forced to learn to keep my own guard up when Alan quoted me various price scenarios. Each, of course, was expensive. I had hired a firm that was incestuous with the Rhode Island Senate, so you had better be ready to pay for it.

What Alan forced me to do was to stand on my own. I became an adult. I was quite aware of how he acted and it obligated me to defend my turf as well. I couldn't wait to be befriended nor could I rely on that in my particular situation. It was a business arrangement and did I learn that...quick. I needed my case to be won, entirely. It was MY case, not his, and it was I that had to be in the spotlight in that courtroom persuading others of my story. The only person who would profit or lose from any decision was me. He advised, period. Alan would be paid in either direction, win or lose.

He never said it but he pretty well intimated it. “You're own your own, kid.”

Parents are forever telling their growing kids, “Do it yourself.” They are forever pushing their kids, inch by inch, to the edge of the nest to where one day, they must fly on their own. Alan, the tough bastard he was, shoved me, in a few months, to that precipice and then finally kicked me over.

I flew.

The Happiest Person I Knew.

There have been many, but I'm talking about that long lasting sunniness, not about that ever fleeting joy that can come and go. It's not about someone who can laugh all the time either, it's about someone who is a pleasure to be around. These people are natural springs of contentment. I'll use her real name, Tammy DaPonte.

I've seen her angry, pissed off, tired and depressed at times. But for her, it was never lasting. She had, underneath it all, this long lasting, unshakeable positive outlook. At times it could border on a childlike happiness but good for her, as most of us have long since lost that.

I'm not sure how she managed to stay upbeat. How can someone be normally “up” most of the day? She certainly had her rough spots in her life. I knew of them. But her experience of them didn't sour her. That was it, she never soured. Tammy was a forever opened carton of milk that never went bad in the refrigerator. (Sorry for the odd analogy!)

I once said this to a friend who forever worked by my side that Tammy “won” at life, even though hers was cut way too short. Tammy, who suffered along with the rest of us with daily irritations and the occasional torpedo that slams into each of our lives, managed to to right her kayak and float once more...with her eyes on the next best thing and paddled toward it. That's a gift.

I forget who said it but they say by forty, you inherit the face you wore all your life. There are some faces that are lined, craggy and forever irate. Tammy had those wide, toothy smiles all the time, right up to her end. She inherited smile lines on her face by her late 40's.

Did I learn anything from her? I never did learn her trick. Well, it's not a singular piece of knowledge to learn I guess. I think for her, she had a lifetime of liking most people and wanting to be around them and that may have been it. I can say that I found her a pleasure to be around. Maybe that's all I could “learn” from her and that may have been enough.

Small Heroes

I read my own writing here. Some of the stories I find banal (due to poor ideas) and others, with a bit more work aren't half bad. As I re-read these little stories, I'm struck with the cynical tone in a lot of them. Is this a surprise to me really?  Well...no. In college, others noticed my humor was “caustic” due to it's being sardonic and black. But, I've already written on that subject on why I came to enjoy that.

There have been on occasions, where I did see people acting like heroes. They were naturally unselfish and helped to weaken that cynicism I can honor a bit too much at times.

One day, while working in my old healthcare job, I was walking down to one of the wings when I saw some people clotting up the hallway...sigh...again. I stopped to wait instead of pushing my way through them to solve some petty problem that in the long run, meant nothing. You see, corporate culture can treat every problem, no matter how small, as an impending disaster never known to mankind before. If you don't solve it RIGHT NOW, all will be lost.

I patiently waited while the nurses and the CNA's were trying to calm down a man with Alzheimer's. I paid little attention to his worries, as you sort of get numb to all the irritations and anxieties these people can pull up from a long forgotten past that doesn’t exist now. Battle field surgeons have that numbness, after seeing so much blood and gore, it doesn't effect you at all after a while.

Alzheimer's has, for years, been given over to humor. The old jokes about some senile old geezer forgetting just what a toilet is for can make anyone laugh. But, see it up close and in person, you see just how completely destructive it is...and not so much of a joke anymore.

The old dude in his wheelchair was tearing, going on that he “couldn't find his Mom”. Ok, I say to myself, here's another Alzheimer's one. But as he kept calling out for her, it started to get under my skin. I at one time knew what it meant to lose your parents in a store or whatnot and the instant fear that brings on. I no longer saw an old man in that chair but a scared silly five year old boy.

Finally, one of the CNA's just darted out the side door to the front parking lot, and for what reason at the time I didn't know. She comes back with a large, blue and purple stuffed bunny rabbit doll. She puts it into his hands saying;

“Your Mom told me to give this to you, she said she loves you very much.”

The CNA then quietly says to me, “It's my son's toy, it's been in the back seat of my car forever...”

The guy's Mom has been long since gone for god knows how long. It didn't matter, in his mind he was a kid and Mom had sent him a toy. He held it, stopped crying and started to brighten up quickly.

Guys won't admit to emotion publicly. And I swear in a lot of cases they have no idea how to handle it when it does come up. They just put on a stone face and shut down, hoping no one forces them to admit or be forced to display any of it. God forbid the spotlight shines on you and you're the center of attention during some heart wrenching scene.

I'm not disparaging those guys. I understand it. You can't know what you've never been taught. And yet, they do know... but just not how to lower the radar/defense screen enough to allow it.

What did I display? Nothing. Life went on and I retrieved some equipment from the cellar that would solve the stupid problem. What did get to me was the CNA's answer to the old man.

My cynicism melted a bit that day. There are people out there who do help soak up life's pain, someone else's pain, immediately and expecting no compensation.

We Have Met the Enemy, and He is Us

The next has nothing to do with Earth Day, although the above cartoon did. Though, in a sense, we pollute the shit out of our own lives and have a fun time cleaning that swamp up.

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I find it curious how I can have the same conversation with people who never met and was separated by decades.

Tonight, Dave drove by, honked at me, pulled over and we spoke for about an hour. As we compared gossip, the subject of Frank came up. Frank's been steadily married now for over ten years and is perhaps henpecked to the nth degree too.

Dave goes on: “He can't leave his house for more than an hour without her bitching? Oh c'mon now. He can't run to the bar to see us in the old neighborhood? That's no way to live.”

“That's no way to live.” That struck me. That came up in a conversation I had with K1 in the 90's.

K1 and I were discussing her then boyfriend who was depressed, full of anxiety and seemingly not responding to medication nor therapy. He wasn't about to slit his wrists, he just had that constant ennui and “ill at ease” manner about him he just could never shake.

“Ron, how can he put up with it? It's no way to live.” says K1 to me.

I tried to explain to K1 my take on it all.

“He can't live any other way. It's all he knows. That's how he sees the world. All his experiences proved to him this is the way to respond to everything. To him, this is normal. To the people in China, speaking Chinese makes all the sense in the world. They were born amongst it, experienced it and to a large degree...know no other language. Speaking Chinese is the infallible right thing to do.”

“That's why when you, K1, “come at him” with logic, with YOUR perspective on things, he rebuffs you, as it makes NO sense to him at all. Your experience with the world is null and void to him.”

“And to prove this, you're aghast and shocked at how he see things his way. You have heavily invested in YOUR perspective that to you, is the TRUTH AS THE (You) WORLD KNOWS IT. There isn't another way for K1 to see things on a daily basis, is there?”

Frank and K1's boyfriend aren't oddities. In fact, we're all the same as those two.

The older I get, the more I believe people are programmed like computers. They run the same sub-routines over and over again as if there is NO other routine to run. Also, you know how damned hard it is to change an aspect of yourself, never mind some global change within your own personality. I'm not saying it cannot be done, but it's stubbornly hard to do so. Most people aren't aware of themselves that deeply to be aware of those unconscious thoughts that trip you up minute to minute.

I'm no different. I can run 40,000 thoughts in the back of my head a day and some of those..aren't deciding in my true, best interests. They can run like sub-routine number 42.949a/4, doing some low level housekeeping function that I don't have to be aware of.

Try losing weight, cutting down on the butter or change your self esteem and you'll know where I speak of. Hell, you already know this.

I've told people that therapy is about finally owning and adapting what was done to you. As a youth you didn't have great control over what you experienced, but you OWN it lock, stock and barrel, whether it was justified or not. Now, as an adult, the saving grace is that you can look at your own self and start that long, slogging work of getting to where you'd like to be.

No cheap, quickie fixes here huh? Don't worry, I slog through the morass like everyone else does, so will Frank and K1's boyfriend.

Wherever You Go...

Interesting morning. I was minding my own business, peddling along on my bike on Armistice blvd when I see a car slam on it's brakes for no apparent explanation, then get rear-ended by a utility van. This occurs about twenty feet from me. I'll tell you, the sound of metal crunching makes my gut sink.

I peddle out to the van and find that those guys are fine and were dialing 911 already. They can't believe why the woman up front jacked up on them when there was no reason to stop. I then peddle over to women and ask them, “Are you guys ok?” The driver just stares at me. She was just stunned about what happened. At that moment is when I met another of humanity's heels.

I was half out into the street with my bike when some guy comes buy in his SUV tooting the horn to get out of his way. I yell at the guy, “Hey, there's just been an accident!” He responds, “You're blocking the street!” I tell him “Give me a minute to find out if these girls are OK.”

He then says “What” to me in a tough guy voice.

Oh, OK, I get it. I then say in a sarcastic voice. “Give.me.a.minute.”

“How about I get out and bash your face in? Huh? What do you think of that!” says the lummox.

“Yeah? Do it! Then you can explain to the cops behind us why you're punching me out!”

Luckily for me, 911 had a great response time. There was a cop car pulling up behind us that moment when Tough Guy was probably going to get out of his SUV. The cop car must have been two blocks away when he got the call.

The moron who was threatening me hits his accelerator and takes off down the street.

Jesus H. Christ. How many of these LOSERS do I have to run into in my life? There happens to be far too many of them. I can't explain why, but I've been running into at least three a week. I get to meet people who are thisssss close to going Postal due to their shitty lives.

The girls were fine, no ambulance needed.  I came to find out the woman driver had just lost her husband a week earlier. Perhaps she was was too stunned still to pay attention to anything.  The cop looked like he was a twenty-four year surfer dude from the beaches south of LA. Sun blond hair and a very obvious worked on tan.

I have better luck with this world riding on forest trails. At least the swans don't get riled up when I ride by. Or, does my bike need an attachment to keep an ax handle ready for the next jerk I run into? Ah, I prefer the woods...people are getting crazier by the day I think.

Teensy Weensy Little Rhody

How many times have you met an attorney in a swamp? I have. Once. Today.

My bike rides take me off the paved path in Seekonk and East Providence. The trails I can ride on wind their way around a reservoir and swamp that encircles it. The tracks are about one foot wide and are filled with tree roots, stones, mud and what have you as well. I do this because riding the same old paved roads gets boring. Plus I really like the trees and the lake.

Here's a satellite shot of where I roam. The big red X is all goo, slime, frogs and mud.

I was peddling along a path when a guy passes me on his bike. He was decked out in a helmet, elbow and knee pads and an iPod strapped to his arm. I, of course, have none of this safety equipment because I grew up in an era where crashing your bike was a badge of honor.

As he passed me, on a trail about six inches above the mud, he yells out, “Hey Ronnie!”

As I passed him I think, “Huh?”

I had no idea who that was...and how would know anyone me in this mosquito filled mess?

I stop, then he stops, and we both turn to meet. I realize it's one of my attorneys I've used off and on again throughout the decades.

“Damn, Billy, you sure have some great recognition. I had no clue about you!” I say

We stand there, surrounded by the marsh and recount old times for a few minutes when he alerts me to fact he left his practice to pursue another avenue.

“Yep, I'm done with civil litigation for a bit. I'm managing a start up company that's going up against the toy maker Mattel. I haven't been paid in four months and probably the next four but if this works, we'll get into a niche Mattel has ignored for a while.”

“You burned your bridges huh?” I ask. What balls. He had a practice that wasn't doing too poorly either.

“Yeah, you could say that, but I told my partner he needs to move on as well. We're both getting bored with the same old cases.”

So for about twenty minutes, we discuss the likelihood of his representing a new company trying to push Mattel out of the way, how this can be done and which new markets they can exploit, all this while swatting mosquitoes in a quagmire.

I know Rhode Island is small, but Jesus, this small? I guess so. It's so small you can meet your own lawyer in a protected wetland!

Bring Out the Can of Raid

Every Fourth of July we meet and have one of those pre-made clam bakes you can order from most seafood stores. It's not bad really, they pack it full with all you need, you add water/beer and fire up for thirty minutes and then you're done.

For some reason we've always had the ones created with a Portuguese twist, it's filled with chorizo. Along with it is the lobster, steamers, corn, mussels and red potatoes which is pretty standard.

I never had lobster until I was thirty and here's why. When our family went to the beaches down in South Kingston, we would end the day in Galilee to poke around and eat at the Portside Restaurant. Today the Portside would make me vomit with it's dishwater chowder, but that's another story.

Each time we ended up there, my Dad would order the boiled lobster. I'd get the scallops prepared in whatever way I was feeling that night. So, the waitress would finally come with our order and I'd see her lay down in front of my Dad, the ugliest insect you could imagine, a red lobster.

By the time I was twelve I've seen a lot of those lobsters, alive or cooked and they looked like freaks of nature. Or, they reminded me of the world's largest evil looking spiders. Those spindly legs with two huge weapons in front and antenna just proved to me they meant me harm. I couldn't understand my Dad's reaction to eating them, how could anything like that taste good? To top it off as well, you had to tear it apart, smash it open in order to get at the “meat” inside. Of course it was a GIANT INSECT, all insects have an exoskeleton, just like this lobster had.

In my 20's, when we had some spending money from our first jobs, we'd all go out to eat at times and I'd see my friends order these repulsive varmints. Again, I'd hear them “ooohing and ahhing” over the taste. “How come you never get a lobster Ron?” I'd always get asked. I would say I was interested in something else and they retorted that nothing was better than a lobster.

Years passed and I finally had one, back in 1994.

I was at Johnson & Wales culinary division when this Austrian Chef was showing us how to prepare these things. Lobster Thermidor, Lobster Newburg, Baked Stuffed Lobster with Alaskan King Crab, Lobster Fra Diablo and just plain steamed. We had about forty of these crickets cooked up and I decided, “I'm going to have one just to find out what the excitement is all about.”

I chose the simplest, the steamed lobster. I sat down, quietly busted mine open as I didn't want to show my virginity on “how do you eat this thing” at my age then. I dipped the claw meat into the butter and popped it into my mouth, waiting to see Jesus.

I chewed, noticed a slight ocean flavor and...and...nothing.

“This is it? I thought to myself. “This is what they go ga-ga for?”

I was NOT impressed. We had an Austrian Chef from the Tyrol skiing region who managed the best hotels in Innsbruck cook these. If a competent chef, who prepared this, can't make me see the Promised Land as I ate this, then lobster was waaay over rated. It struck me as pedestrian.

I've ordered them several times after in various ways and each time my reaction was pretty much the same...'Yeah, this is lobster...I guess it's alright.”

When it comes to seafood, nothing can beat out scallops, fried ones at that too. If you want to see someone in near ecstasy, watch me eat scallops. It's too bad they are so small and it takes a ton of work to get them from the ocean to my plate, but then again, so are diamonds. To me, both are rare and take a bit of work to bring out the beauty.

Now after writing this, I want scallops, lots of them.

Now that I have a bike, I can tour my home town at ease and take a few pictures of the places and things that mean something to me. Above is Saint Raphael Academy I attended a long while back and talk about fairly often on here. It looks wonderful now but back then it was a bit shabbier.

Since I was there, the school has managed to amass fat alumni donations to redo it's entire campus and add a few buildings. When I graduated, the entire school may have held 500 students, that's including all from freshmen to seniors. If you compare that to Saint's football adversary, Tolman High School, it had an enrollment of about 1,300 easy.

We were small, yes.

There are many times I drive by the school in order to get to Route 95. When I pass it, I often see the kids walking between classes and I'm amazed at how young they are. Hell, some look like they're twelve. I then have to realize kids in this school will always be 14-18 in age no matter what. I'm the one that's getting older! Did I look that young at one time? Was I that skinny (yes I was, painfully so!). Can I go back? (Nope, the teen world forever bars anyone from re-entering).

Cue the line from Neil Young's song, “You can't be 20...on Sugar Mountain.”

Do I miss it? Well, the problem with nostalgia is that you tend to focus on the good and forget all the rotten times that did exist then. I miss the youth. I miss that excitement at discovering things I never knew about or did. I miss the natural enthusiasm you have when young.

I don't miss the silly teen conformity. I don't miss the Vesuvius type zits I once had. I really don't miss that insane teen need to “belong.” And with that, the perfect weapon other teens use against their own by wholly ignoring you and declaring you “outcast.”

It would be a something to step into a time machine and see yourself, the people you knew back then. Even if you could only observe and not give frantic warnings to those you knew or even yourself, about decisions that weren't going to work out well. Hell, if you could warn yourself or others, none would believe you. And sprinkled in there, are those small, wonderful choices that you made, that made all the difference!

(Listening to van Morrison as I write this...cool tunes!)

Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme...Remember me to one who lives (ate) there.

This is the East Side Checker Club on Benefit St in Pawtucket. As a little kid, my parents would take us here to eat on certain Fridays. I was six then and I thought the food was horrible as they spiced and herb-ed their fare to death. I have since grown up and can tolerate the spices and such, but as a small kid, it was over the top for me.

Here's what I did sometimes to escape from having to eat it.

The Checker Club has these very thick, heavy, high backed booths where they sat you. If you wanted a more open table, they had those too but it was the same rough hewn, Medieval furniture. The chairs probably weighed 40lbs a piece.

Since I was a very young boy, my Dad would forever order me the half chicken with penne pasta. Time after time he'd order it. The chicken was strongly flavored with garlic, oregano and thyme. The tomato sauce was just as potent. These seasonings made me gag on it. I wasn't ready for such robust spicing at that age. Don't forget, none of us had any experience with Italian food in Pawtucket way back then as we were either, Irish or Polish.

I would pick, push and prod the chicken and eat it as slowly as I could, gulping down a good dose of soda to kill the flavor with each swallow. I would then be harangued to “finish” up what was on my plate and it became a quiet battle. “I had enough” I'd say. “Nope, finish what you have there.” he'd say back. We'd go on like that till I hoped he'd get tired.

What was first rate about those monster booths were that they had a good sized gap between them and the wall. I'd sit there, eating like an anorexic, letting the food fall from my fork as I stuffed it into my mouth and waiting for the right moment. It would come eventually, as Dad lost all focus on me as he was enjoying his Manhattan cocktails with dinner.

I'd then deftly sneak the half eaten chicken I hated so much down into that gap between the booth and wall. I'd plop my napkin on the plate and sit there, quietly, as if I finished up. Dad never figured it out. The waitress would come, clean off the table and my parent's would order coffee and finish up.

I managed to do this for a couple of weeks or more, I forget. When we returned one time we were given an open table in the middle of the restaurant. My Dad asked why and he was told that the only booths were “reserved.” He thought that odd as they never reserved the booths at all before.

Later on that night while waiting for our coats from the coat girl, I overheard the owner/manager telling one of the waitresses that he figured out where that awful rotting smell of meat was coming from. It was in between the booth and the wall and that it was always a half eaten chicken. I then surmised that we were given the open table because I could not hide any food out in the open like that.

As he told that story to the waitress, I thought it odd how he was smirking at me. I now know he wanted me to hear.

He figured me out.

But today, the food there is top notch if you like family fare in a restaurant that decors itself in dark Elizabethan furniture, deep pile orange carpets and walls like Olde England. I swear the same, sort of piggish waitress from 1969 might still be serving there.