Today is an important anniversary. As Jimmy Durante would say, a “What a coinkydink!” (coincidence).

First of all, it is my seventyfirst birthday. The picture is Archduke Ferdinand, not me. I am much older and have a better moustach.

Thanks to Encyclopedia Britannica's reminders on Yahoo's homepage, it is also the day when Archduke Francis Ferdinand was assasinated in 1914 and when the Treaty of Versailles was signed in 1919. The beginning of The War to End All Wars and the beginning of World War II.

Archduke Ferdinand's assasination was one of the ultimate terrorist acts. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archduke_Franz_Ferdinand_of_Austria. There are nine Archduke Ferdinand's in wikipedia). A stupid terrorism act by a stupid Bosnian kid in a stupid bunch of Bosnian separatists. Add in a bunch of stupid politicians and diplomats still living in the 19th Century and you get 20 million dead or missing and four empires gone. Those who do not study history are doomed to repeat it. Is it possible that in the 21st Century, a stupid terrorist in a stupid fanatic group could be used by a bunch of stupid politicians and diplomats to precipitate a war that would cause the death of thousands and wipe out nations?

The end of that war at the Treaty of Versailles (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_Treaty_of_Versailles) was once again a throwback to the 1800's, the Franco-Prussian War. At least there was some effort to look at reasonable effects by President Wilson and Colonel House in the League of Nations. But politicians, isolationist and conservative Republican Senators Lodge and Borah, cut it off at the knees. Once again, those who do not study history are doomed.

We all have our pet peeves. One of mine is people who are late. It may come from my childhood, my genes, definitely from the Naval Academy and the Navy. The Navy put up with absolutely no tardiness or excuses. We were expected to plan time for unforseen circumstances. An extra amount “just in case”. If we showed up late, we would better be missing both legs and have our head in our arms. Traffic, flight cancellations, death in the family were not listened to. Left the Navy over forty years ago but I still leave time for unexpected circumstances and look for contingency plans

In our ordinary society there are, of course, acceptable reasons for being late to an agreed meeting, meal, entertainment, etc. Reasonable extenuating circumstances. In the vast majority of the situations where I have run against folks being late, however, the reasons have been trivial and definitely not even close to acceptable. Especially hours and hours late!

Being late makes several statements about the person doing it. The first being a lack of organization and the capacity to navigate ordinary life. Taking a shower, dealing with children and significant others, fixing lunch, etc. Scheduling the day. Not a compliment.

The most significant statement, however, regards what the person thinks about those who are kept waiting. It says they are not worthy of consideration, low in the priority ladder, A plain old rudeness, an insult, a put-down. Fill your hands with iron, you sons-a-bitches.

And then, it violates a contract. Not the same lying, cheating, and stealing as marital cheating or the Enron stupidity, but an agreement is an agreement. You learn valuable lessons about the person when they break a contract and you know they will do it again.

We just returned from a trip to see some of our children and grandchildren. Almost a grand tour of Virginia. Many hundreds of miles, up towards a thousand. The exact amount is not available because the odometer stuck at 222,451 a year and a half ago. The Grand Marquis is 14 years old, has an airconditioner problem that will take $800 to fix, uses a little oil. But after all that time and about 250K, that's pretty good. Thanks Ford Motor Company for another good car.

There was an article on the news about Ford surpassing the other companies in something or other last month. I knew it all along.

When I graduated and we married in 1958, I bought a tan 1948 Mercury. Ran like a top. When our first son was born a year later, we decided we needed a better car (should have kept that '48 Merc) and bought a red Morris Minor. A great little car. Small and underpowered (38 hp) but so simple to work on so reliable. We enjoyed that car for ten years. Another I should have kept.

Our next car was a light blue Ford Gran Torino wagon. A sports car in a station wagon body. That 350 Cleveland could make is stand on end. Got our family of now five children through everything that a family wagon is supposed to do. Including a bunch of trips to Florida to see my retired parents and the boys learning to drive. Our neighbor said they have never seen a car go up and down the driveway as much as the Gran Torino did. Almost ten years on that one, too. Should have kept it, too.

Then five years with a Volvo. Five years too long.

Back to Ford for a black Grand Marquis Colony Park wagon. I could put a 4X8 piece of plywood lying down in the back of that tank. We moved to West Texas with it and it brought us back and forth to Virginia a bunch of times to see children and grandchildren. Three days and well over thirty hours of actual driving each way. It survived our youngest daughter's learning to drive. She had an accident with a Chevy. Totalled the Chevy but only dislocated a piece of trim on the wagon. Once again, almost ten years with it. Should have kept it, too.

And now our white 1993 Grand Marquis LS. $20K. 20 miles a gallon. It is one of those cars that Ford Motor Company should use for its ads. At 200K, the transmission started to hesitate so we needed to make a decision. And we fixed the transmission and are keeping the old girl until it really is the end. Here we are at close to 250K and she still gets us around to see all of the children and grandchildren. It looks like we are keeping this one.

I originally wrote about this in 3 October, 2006. It came back to me when I went to a blog I like, http://thepeever.blogstream.com/v1/pid/223207_THAT-LYING-SMIRK.html#TP, and commented on politicians and their honesty. It applies to politicians at all levels, I have noticed. From the Town Council to The Commander in Chief

I have been at a series of educational institutions that stressed having honor systems. “I will not lie nor cheat nor steal nor tolerate those that do”.

The Naval Academy definitely had one. The main deterent against evil forces there, however, was the chain of command. If an upper classman became aware of any breech of honor and did not take strong action, then the upper classman was the one in hot water. I am proud of the fact that in my years there, I did not even think of cheating – nor did I know anyone that did.

After the Navy, I taught in private schools. Much of the time at very good boys boarding schools. There, the “I will not lie nor cheat nor steal nor tolerate those that do” principle was always alive and well and very much a part of the education. Boys became men. I did see an occasional breech, some very ingenious, and reported every one. Many of our graduates went to The University of Virginia, Mr. Jefferson's University. The University is noted for its honor system. After the Vietnam War, the “tolerate those that do” part disappeared at some of these schools (not The University, however). I think that was wrong.

Will Rogers said that the biggest accomplishment Congress makes is that it collects the five hundred biggest liars and puts them all in one place. Watching the news and the latest political ads from our elected Representatives and Senators, this is certainly true. Some boys did not become men.

Since that posting, in the process of observing news articles on politics and diplomacy, I have found that a reference to “lie, cheat , and steal” has come up with disturbing frequency. And the thought as to where a man learns honor. Nature or nurture? Home, school, real life? What and where are the men separated from the creeps?

A momentous day. On this date in 1977, the Apple II was introduced. True, it is also the anniversary of Normandy, Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon, Bobby Kennedy's death in 1968. But, I loved my Apple II.

Back in those days, the middle 70's, along with teaching chemistry and some other stuff, I did schedules and grades for a good boy's boarding school in Virgina, VES. Each Advisor recorded the grades for his advisees on cards which then were kept in the Headmaster's office. Each card had the grades for a couple of years for that student. One recent college graduate Advisor could not find the cards for his advisees. They were somewhere in the mess on the floor of his apartment. Finally retreived them but it demonstrated the very real possibility of a disaster.

I convinced the Headmaster that we should try using a computer. The Apple II had not yet been invented. We got a DEC PDP 11/34 ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDP-11 ) which we shared with another local girl's day school, Seven Hills. It had a background-foreground system (could do 2 operations at a time! ), big enough to take up a closet, used 8 inch floppies, and failed lots. There were no programs to do what we wanted so, thanks to a teacher in Woodberry Forest, I learned BASIC and wrote some. The actual computer was located at the Seven Hills. We communicated with the computer via a teletype but most of the time it was going to the computer and making backups of backups. It worked, with a lot of time and TLC.

And then the Apple II came along. ( http://www.apple2history.org/history/ah08.html , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_II ) It was an answer to our prayers. Learned to keep programs tiny and use Applesoft BASIC. Worked beautifully and did not crash daily. 16 K memory!. And 5.25 inch floppies! Loved it. Some talk about going to the TRS-80 (Trash 80) but luckily we stayed with Apples. And then the II e! Talk about technological miracles. 32 K memory! Could handle new programs to do schedules and grades. And then the II c. This is the one I loved the most. Still have a II e and a II c up in my attic. Can not make myself get rid of them. I added another 48 K of memory to mine. It used the 3.5 floppies and was “portable”. I could carry it from my home to my lab – even though I needed a big box to carry the CRT and the drives along with it. The down side of that was a lot of time at home, late nights, spent in front of it. Boarding schools do not give you a lot of “time off” to work on grades and schedules. A good library of Applesoft BASIC programs I had written. Even used matrices. I was a true “hacker”. Back then a “hacker” was someone who did not follow Pascal's parameter passing. You just wrote the goto's and changed parameters as you flew. Applesoft BASIC was good for that. And they worked just fine, thank you very much.

A change of schools, Pascal, and upgrades to the Mac sort of left me behind. Sort of wish I had kept up with programming. One of my children is a great programmer. I can follow C and the new BASIC a little bit. But the commands and structure have changed significantly. Left me behind in the dust.

So, the Apple II, and the II e and II c, are still the computers that I look back on fondly. Thanks Steve and Woz.