Visiting Katy at school, at Yosemite, October 2005.
Katy draws her own pictures, and does her own art like "Part One of
Dad's Ideal Meal" among other pieces at a high school art show. The
remainder of the meal (banana split, onion rings, cherry coke) is
unfinished.
Here is a poem that John wrote about family vacations:
Every Summer
John Duncan
11/3/05
I walk around the stacks and shelves of interesting tid-bits and
things.
The smell of leather wallets runs in and out of my nose.
We trot back to the car, to ride for another few hours.
Two bed hotels and bad cots or role out mats for me, and a
complimentary breakfast in the morning.
More riding in the van, with a story-on-tape playing in the
background.
Snuggling with one of my sisters in the back seat so we could nap.
Grandpa and Grandma's house, filled with old model airplanes, and
needle point stitchings.
Running around a Wal-Mart, hiding from my mom and dad.
Pizza and orange soda for my birthday.
Saying good-bye to friends and family and heading back home.
Here is another poem John wrote in his first semester at college:
Chimes on the door
John Duncan
11/21/08
They alert the fat Cat to any chance of escape
He spends most of his time there
At least when he is not eating
Chimes on the door
A reassurance and welcome home
Out of the heat
Out of the cold
Not that it is ever cold
In out of the trials of life
Into the safety that is home
Chimes on the door
Signal the return of
Mom
Dad
Depending on the day and time
Who and what mood are determined
Regardless, it is a little occasion for celebration everyday
Chimes on the door
The last thing heard before the day truly begins
Before "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" are loosed
Before the good and the bad of the day are faced
Before the safety of home is forsaken in hopes of self-improvement
Chimes on the door
The last piece of home before the beginning of one of life's biggest
journeys
Chimes on the door
Home
And now that John is in college, here are a few of my own thoughts
on
Empty
Nest.
You know John isn't here when
- you go to the 'fridge' and there's any kind of Kern's left in
there,
- you go to the freezer and there's any kind of corn dog left in
there,
- you go out front and either vehicle is parked there,
- and that vehicle isn't stuffed with nerf,
- you go up to feed Cleo and she's hungry and lonely :-(
- the score of the Baylor game shows up on your phone as a text
message.
For completeness:
You know Viannah isn't here when
- you go to the mailbox and there is any mail in it.
You know Katy isn't here when
- you go to the 'fridge' and there is any milk in it.
The
Adventures I stage intentional adventures with family members.
Our Flags
That's, Old Glory, the Republic of California flag (9 days),
the Republic of Texas flag (9 years), and
the "Come and Take It" flag
from the battle at Gonzales that started the
Texas war of independence from Mexico and
ultimately completed Manifest Destiny
for the U.S.
2004 September 26 Neighborhood Ice Cream Social
In the street in front of the house.
There it sits by the struggling grapefruit tree,
Half of the trim missing, some of that in the trunk,
Half of the other half askew.
We drove in you to California,
Viannah a toddler and 'Katy the Baby'
-- Katy the infant --
in car seats
Our stuff piled up around our ankles, knees.
Under a car top carrier, assembled in
K-Mart parking lot near Houston
Struggling against the wind near Indio.
Lived by Rex, by Maggie, still going.
Ashley and 'her crew'
Rear Ended
Bent Frame
Lights unfocussed, unfocussable.
I said, "We need to replace it"
That was seven years ago.
Gene and Mike took care of you.
"Second Class Transportation Beats
First Class Walking," Gene says.
And I kept putting on cheap tires and cheap batteries,
going to Jiffy Lube a couple times a year.
Then Viannah drove it,
Then Katy was learning to drive it.
... the babies in car seats in the back.
Doug and Liz followed our example
and bought a new Honda Accord, but they
don't keep cars long so we
bought it from them for
$5K and soon drove west.
Now we joke, "It's totalled," whenever
it's out of gas, 'specially at $2+/gallon.
And there you sit, half full,
Half way through an oil change,
Tires OK,
Battery works,
Lights point down,
Shocks shot,
Hood sprung,
Upholstry rotting,
Glove box in the trunk
A perpetual night light up front - when in operation.
Clutch Slipping -- The End.
There it sits at the struggling grapefruit tree
headed down,
wheels in.
Waiting for its last trip
Its last trip.
Another ending in a life full of endings.
It's old, and tired, and sad.
The "New Honda" slips into that part of
the universe called "history" and is gone.
Sister: Wilda Duncan, Lithographer Chief, US
Navy, Retired Wilda's Website Pictures
of Wilda and our "family of origin"
She is Retire (2010) Chief Petty Officer, USN and living in San
Diego.
Now a full time student pursuing a bachelor's degree in Information
Technology at American Military
University.
In 2003 when she was stationed on the Bonhomme Richard, Katy, John, and
I went on the Tiger
Cruise.
Mother: LouellynDuncan Did live in Hillsboro, Texas where the local newspaper is The Hillsboro Reporter and the
local radio station is KHBR
1560 AM.
On 2011 August 16 she moved to La Canada to live with us.
80th birthday, 2008 July 28. Katherine
and Liana at the party. Threesome....
Here's the trip
log from the birthday trip and the one two weeks later to take John
to Baylor.
Joel
May, a casualty in Viet Nam, was a youth at the Roxton, Texas
Methodist Church, where my dad was pastor, about the time I was
born.
See my
rememberance of Major May's burial at Roxton in 1969.
Here is what mother writes about Joel May, January 2006:
Joel and his younger sister, Lou Carolyn were in high school the
years we were in Roxton ('53 - '56). Also in our church youth group
were Philip Rutherford and Douglas Cooper. (Buddies).
Philip and Doug camt to visit you often wh en you were crib size. They
nick-named you Sam.
You never cried when you woke. they would slip into the room where you
were napping and find you awake. Philip would say "Sam's in there
singing to himself."
Philip was our church yard man. One day I looked out the kitchen
window - toward the church - and saw Doug on one side of the hedge
(between church and parsonage) and Philip on the other. They were
holding the power mower over the hedge to trim the top! Very
dangerous. I was only about ten years older than those two but I knew
better than that!
I don't remember which year but Philip and Lou Carolyn came to our
house while we were at Frisco to get married ('57 - '62). Just the two
of them. You and I were the only witnesses. They had no camera so I
took pictures but something went wrong -- I don't remember what -- but
they have no wedding pictures.
I was sitting at the sewing machine in the front bedroom in Taylor that
day when Lou Carolyn called to tell us about Joel, and asked if we
could come. Daddy wasn't home so I said, "give me your phone number
and he'll call as soon as he gets here and we will be there." And you
remember that trip.
All these years we've kept in touch with Christmas Cards.
"If things don't clump, they're not random." -- Steve
Schlaifer
January 1. The first asteroid, Ceres, was discovered on
the first night of the 19th century, January 1, 1801.
January 8. My dad, A. Bailey Duncan was born in 1926. Elvis Presley was
born on his 9th birthday, Stephen Hawking
on his 14th.
Three great NASA disaster occured within a calendar week:
1967 January 27 - Apollo 1
1986 January 28 - Challenger
2003 February 1 - Columbia
(The same Columbia mentioned on April 12.)
February 2. Two of the greatest violinists of the 20th
century born. Fritz Kreisler
in 1875 and Jascha Heifetz
in 1901.
February 9. Viann's dad, John Henry Owens, born 1918. Carole King is born
on his 24th birthday.
February 12. Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin born on the same day,
1809.
February 24. My high school friend (and valedictorian) Denise Carter
was born on Steve
Job's 1st birthday.
February 26. I was born on my sister-in-law Elizabeth Skemp's
7th birthday.
November 10. Viann born on the 180th birthday of the U.S.
Marine Corps, 1775.
November 14. Aaron Copeland
born on my grandfather F. H. Pennington's 1st birthday,
1900.
Unique events and cirmstances
of my privileged life:
In the early 60s I was a kid riding my bicycle down to the train
station in Henrietta, Texas to see the Burlington Zephyr (northbound)
and "Number Seven" (southbound) come in daily. Now, I work in
exploration of space. This spans from the end of one romantic era to
the beginning of another.
On May 1, 1978 I was the soloist with the Baylor Symphony in the first
movement of the piano concerto of Aram
Khachaturian. Word had just reached the west of Khachaturian's
death earlier that day in Moscow. This was doubtless the first
posthumous performance of that movement.
First
Man Neil Armstrong got his pilot's license at age 16 (1946) before
he got a driver's license. He first learned to fly in an Aeronca
Champion. This is exactly what I was doing in Taylor, Texas with
my dad as instructor in 1972: getting a pilot's license before
driver's license at age 16 (riding my bike to the airport) and learning
to fly a Champion and later a Cessna
150. Neil did more with his flying career, however. Thanks,
dad!
Speaking of flying, and this is a lesser accomplishment and coincidence
than any of the above, but my first solo flight was from an enourmous,
jet-capable runway at what had once been Connally Air Force Base out of
Waco (on the Texas State Technical Institute (now College) campus).
This was March 9, 1972 and was logged as 0.5 hours solo time with 3
landings in Cessna 150 tail number N5508G by A. Bailey Duncan 1385303
CFI. (Dad never let me write in my own Pilot Logbook.) One day in
2005 or 6, driving down I-35 from Hillsboro to Waco we were paralleled
by Air Force One on final approach to the same air field (possibly the
same runway) from which I had done that first solo. This would have
been then President George W. Bush on his way to Crawford for the
weekend.
None of this exists anymore. The wallpaper is different, the furniture
arrangement is different, the computers and microwave are long gone.
Mimi died 6/29/14 and InDebt followed on 7/3/14.
This is "Ptomaine - Son of Hadjidakis", the first cat for which I
was "responsible." Hadjidakis was the "Tom Cat who had Kittens", a
stray brought in from a ranch outside of town (Henrietta, Tx, circa
1965). We thought it was a Tom Cat but it had six kittens, one of whom
was Ptomaine. All of the kittens had names starting with P but the only
one I can still remember was Pterwilleger, the runt. There was also
Pfluffy, but I think she was a sister to Hadjidakis. All but Ptomaine
were run over in the streets by cars. Kids told me he was a "black cat"
but see that spot of white under his chin? That's not a collar.
Ptomaine was the only one left when we moved from Henrietta to Pleasant
Grove in summer of 1966. He didn't show up to be fed that morning,
probably because of the moving truck, and we never saw him again.
