MY WEST LINE

This is my line as far back as my brick wall, John Cutter West.
I'm the son of Floyd Earl West Jr and Anne M. White
Generations are color coded.

1. John Cutter WEST (b.8 Oct 1802-Plymouth,Ma.;d.24 Jul 1862-Upton,Me.)
sp: Arvilla S. AMES (b.25 Jan 1810-Livermore,Me.;m.23 Sep 1827;d
.25 Apr 1907-Hermon Me)

2. Ann Matilda WEST (b.4 Jun 1828-Letter "b" Township,Upton,Oxford,Me;
d.23 Mar 1913)

2. Asa Atwood WEST (b.11 Mar 1830-Canton,Oxford,Maine;d.Jan 1909)

2. Jonathan Phelps WEST (b.16 Jan 1834-Letter B Plantation (now Upton),Me.;
d.8 Jul 1917-Upton,Me.) sp: Louisa Almata RICHARDSON (b.1837-Wilton,Me.
;m.31 Jan 1865;d.4 Oct 1925-Upton,Oxford,Me)

3. John Cuvier WEST (b.10 Dec 1867-Letter "b" Township,Upton,Me;d.
5 Mar 1927-Upton,Oxford,Me)

3. Philip Jonathan WEST (b.23 Sep 1868-Upton,Me.;d.5 Nov 1954-
Wilsons Mills,Me.) sp: Clara Ford ELLINGWOOD (b.6 Mar 1865-
Dummer,N.H.;d.10 Apr 1901-Augusta,Me.)
4. Floyd Earl WEST Sr. (b.14 Apr 1893;d.28 Jan 1970-Dumaway Me.)
sp: Cora Bertha BARKER (b.27 Oct 1899-Bethel,Me.;m.24 Mar 1919
;d.Jun 1987)
5. Stanley Rayfield WEST (b.23 Feb 1920-Bethel,Oxford,Me.;d.26 Feb 1920
-Bethel,Oxford,Me.)
5. Hazel Linnie WEST (b.2 Jun 1921-Bethel,Oxford,Me.;d.4 Aug 1973)
5. Floyd Earl WEST Jr. (b.17 Jul 1924-Bethel,Oxford,Me.;d.22 Nov
1985-So.Weymouth,Plymouth,Ma.) sp: Anne M. WHITE
(b.7 Jul 1927;m.29 Jun 1947)
5. Dorothy Leona WEST
5. Florence Irma WEST

4. Clarence Philip WEST (b.17 Mar 1895-So.Paris,Oxford,Me.;d.5 Jun 1983)

3. Mark WEST (b.Abt 1878-Upton,Oxford,Me;d.1878)

3. Paul Leroy WEST (b.20 Jul 1880 Or 1876-Upton,Oxford,Me;d.26 Aug 1954
-Farmington,Oxford,Me.)

2. Vienna Ames WEST (b.14 Apr 1836-Letter "b" Township,Upton,Oxford,Me;
d.14 Oct 1913)
2. Hiram Ferdinand WEST (b.18 Nov 1838-Letter "b" Township,Upton,Oxford,Me
;d.Feb 1914)
2. Clarinda Britton WEST (b.29 Apr 1841-Letter "b" Township,Upton,Oxford,Me
;d.8 Nov 1900)
2. Arvilla Electa WEST (b.29 Jun 1844-Letter "b" Township,Upton,Oxford,Me;
d.6 Feb 1862)
2. Leonidas WEST (b.21 Jul 1847-Letter "b" Township,Upton,Oxford,Me;d.28 May
1932-Brewster,Okanogan,Wa.)
2. Ruth Ellen WEST (b.6 Mar 1851-Letter "b" Township,Upton, Me;d.26 Jan
1862-Upton,Oxford,Me)
2. David Pingree WEST (b.6 Oct 1853-Letter "b" Township,Upton,Me;
d.17 Jan 1862)

ANOTHER SATURDAY NIGHT...

Long day at work. Did the now usual old man routine. Shopped for food
on the way home and looked for bargains. Got home and had a couple of
sandwiches and chips for dinner and drowsed in and out until I slept for
three straight hours. Woke up around 1:30 am and came online to sit
here and fight to keep my eyes open staring at screen.

Part of the sleep thing is the knee bothers me in bed. When its really going
good the whole kneecap aches, including the joint at the back of the knee
and no matter which way I try to position it it still aches enough to make it
awhile before I finally drift off to sleep.

This is the knee that has always creaks and pops when I get out of a
chair or bed. So I expected it might be arthritic as I aged. Falling heavily
on it twice since last June no doubt hasn't helped either. But I can live with
it. I have to, I can't afford to baby it. As long as I remember to put some
Flex All or Ben Gay on it before bedtime, I'll survive.

Wish there was Flex All for everything.

TIRED

Hold onto your hats folks. This is going to be long and ugly.

The Manager Who Must Be Obeyed is back from vacation and
company business and the long calm period of grace is over. And
something happened last night that I'm still fuming over.

We have restrooms at the store and I'm about the only male
employeewho bothers to check the guys room to clean up the
paper towels, tp, magazines and newspapers that the customers
leave lying all over the floor in there. (It seems the American people
can program their cell phones in a breeze, but deciphering how to
step on a pedal to open the trash can lid is beyond their ken.
Ironically (and you'll see why in a moment) I had just returned to
the salesfloor after making a bathroom call and cleanup when one
of the AMs, (we'll call this one X) told me that TMWMBO
wanted to see me in the office.

Right away, I knew this didn't bode well, most likely.

I entered the office and TMWMBO had an email on the computer
screen.It seems that a customer had complained about the state of the
restroom to the home office. Said complaint was from March 2_th.
TMWBO asked if I recalled an incident from gee..only a month ago.
Customer said that the faucet he tried to use didn't work and that an
employee "whose nametag said Bill" told him it didn't work. Also that
the restroom was littered with paper towels that I kicked into a pile
and then left.

Now, the faucets in the restrooms are motion detector or heat detector
activated. I'm not sure which. No one ever fully explained them to me, and
frankly, I'm a bookseller, not a plumber. However, the left hand faucet has
always been erratic and I've mentioned it many times over the oh..two
freaking years..to those in management. Customers tend to get angry standing
there with liquid soap on their hands and it's quicker just to tell them
(If I am there when this happens) to just use the right hand faucet instead.

As for the paper towels, if it was one particular day I can recall a few weeks
back, there were paper towels all over the place. I moved them all into the empty
corner of the guys room with my foot so that no one would trip or slip on them
before I could return from getting the broom and long handle dustpan. (We only
have one set for use between the two bathrooms because one of the two we had
was stolen. I cannot figure out how they could have been snuck out of the store
other than in the trash bags dumped by the contracted janitorial crew in the early
morning. No doubt they needed equipment for another job and took ours.)

Also, I won't pick up stuff in the restroom barehanded. Call me silly, but it's a
cleanliness thing.

So, I tell this to TMWMBO.

TMWMBO: "Did you tell the customer you were going to get a dustpan?"

ME:"No, he hadn't commented about the paper towels. I normally don't
discuss them with customers. I just go get the broom and dustpan and
sweep them up."
TMW etc.: "Did you report the faucet to a manager?"

ME: "I've told people several times.

TMW: "Who?"

ME: "I don't keep a log in my head of who I tell about these things. And this was
over a month ago."

TMW: "Then you didn't tell anyone. (flat statement, in effect calling me a liar.)

Aside here..Look at the conversation above. The reason I never give her a
name is because then those people will be exposed to this, and then angry
with me for putting them into this position. For the record, it was another
manager, who we will call Y.

TMW: "Are you sure the faucet doesn't work?"

ME: "Yes"

TMWMBO: "Let's go look at it."

And so, dear reader, we walked to the guy's room and after checking to make
sure it was empty, I showed TMW that when I waved my hand under the
faucet, nothing came out.

Since I am obviously incompetent, TMWMBO then did it herself.

We then left the lavatory laboratory. More discussion ensued, during
which I might have become a little more heated and pointed out to her
that I was the only male staff member who ever checks the damn guys room
and that I do my best for the store only to get this sort of grief.

Discussion ended there. A little while later, TMWMBO approached me
again about two other points in the letter. Was one of the stall doors not able
to be locked? (No. The lock on it is a replacement for one broken nearly
three years ago. It's a bolt lock instead of the dial lock built into the door
and the door now opens in and out of the stall instead of just in, but it
does lock)

How bad is the grafitti in the room? (Not much grafitti. There had been some
small writing over the tp dispenser in the stall in question but someone had
covered it over with black marker)

So, I spent the final two hours of my shift fuming. Upshot of all this is that
TMWMBO hopes I see the importance of engaging customers in positive
comments in the restroom ("Hey,gosh, I AM going to clean that right up!")
and that more female staffmembers will check the guys room because after
all, they do outnumber us guys on the staff. I'm sure the male sustomers will
be surprised.

I'm tired. I'm tired of being the only person who pays attention to the rules
and getting shit on as a consequence. I'm tired of being the one to soldier
on and getting nothing but grief for it.

I'm tired.

CHECKING IN

check....
(((runs))

BLOG THIS!

Okay, after several occasions of going crazy trying to figure out
what was wrong with the blog (the posts were showing up in a small
column under the archive and links lists) I decided it must be a template
problem so I "changed" templates by rechoosing it and republishing it.
The upside is the setup looks normal now.
The downside is that my links list is gone.
I'll try to add them back later.
Damn you, Blogger! ((shakes fist at screen..ow..))

JOHN PRESCOTT

Another nut from the family tree:

"The name of Prescott deservedly holds a conspicuous place in the annals of Groton. John, the first of whom we have any precise and authentic account, was born in Lancashire, England, and married Mary Platts, of Yorkshire, by whom he had three sons and four daughters. On leaving England, he first went to Barbadoes, where he was a proprietor of lands, in 1638. About the year 1640, he came to Massachusetts, first stopped at Watertown, but soon settled at Nashua, afterwards incorporated and [p. 286] called Lancaster, probably from his native county in old England. He was a blacksmith by occupation, and was also a builder of mills. He had in his possession, brought from England, a coat of mail armour [a long footnote appearing here is reproduced below], and habiliments complete, such as were worn by field officers of that day; whence it had been supposed, that he or some of his ancestors were warriors, and some one of them might have received the order of knighthood.


"Of this armour and its owner the following anecdotes are told: --

"'John was a sturdy, strong man of a stern countenance, and whenever he had any difficulty with the Indians, he would clothe himself with his coat of mail, helmet, curiass, and gorget, which gave him a fierce and frightful appearance. They having once stolen from him a horse, he put on his armour and pursued them; and in a short time overtook the party. They were surprised to see him alone, and a chief approached him with uplifted tomahawk. John told him to strike, which he did, and finding the blow made no impression on his cap, he was much astonished, and asked John to let him put it on, and then strike his head, as he had done to John's. The helmet being too small for the chief's head, the stroke settled it down to his ears, scraping off the skin on both sides of his head. They gave him up his horse, thinking him to be a supernatural being.

"'At another time, the Indians set fire to his barn. Old John put on his armour, rushed out, drove them off, and let out his cattle and horses from the burning stable.' 'Again, the Indians set fire to his saw-mill. The old man, armed cap-a-pie, as before, drove them off and extinguished the fire.' 'Once more, they attacked John's house. He had several muskets in the house, which his wife loaded, and he discharged upon them with fatal effect. The contest continued nearly half an hour, John all the while giving orders, as if to soldiers, so loud the Indians could hear him, to load their muskets, though he had no soldiers but his wife. At length they withdrew, carrying off several of their dead or wounded.'"
- Caleb Butler, History of the Town of Groton, Including Pepperell and Shirley, from the First Grant of Groton Plantation in 1655, Boston: T. R. Marvin, 1848.

ONE MORE TIME!!!!!!!

They say third time's the charm...

The World is Too Much With Us (1806)

The world is too much with us: late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
The sea that bares her bosom to the moon:
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for every thing, we are out of tune;
It moves us not.- Great God! I’d rather be
A pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.
-William Wordsworth

TEST

Now is the time for all good men to er.....scream at blogger.

THE EARLY WHOSIS CATCHES THE WHATSIS

Thought I'd post earlier than usual because I have an early shift again in the
morning.

Not that I've much of any brilliance to post, mind you. Work goes on. Camelot
endures.. Not much joy there lately but there's not much that can be done at the
moment but wait. Most of those left after what I now mentally refer to as The
Great Schism are deeply involved either with work or school or even both.
We no longer have the ones who seem to spend their entire day glued to their
kb while rping in Camelot and 4 or 5 other channels at the same time. Hell,I've
spent some days off in front of the computer for 5 or 6 hours and have to take
a break at that point. Lord only knows how those certain other parties are able
to spend 8 hours and up at theirs.

So for the moment not much rp to report. I have a rant about work but I'm going
to save that for sometime this weekend when I am ..er... (cough) in front of the
comp monitoring a mostly empty channel for another 5 or 6 hours.

WHAT I DID TODAY

zero.

And with that dear reader, I go now to bed, too tired to strain my brain
after finagling a way to get into the blog to post. Early shift tomorrow.

MALDEN

I've been in one of those moods lately, thinking about the past. It's gotten so
out of hand that I found myself recalling an obscure 1970's tv Western
yesterday down to the cast and the names of their characters.It's useless
knowledge like that which gave rise to Trivial Pursuit.

Anyway, I found myself thinking of Malden this morning.That's a town north
of Boston where my folks bought a two family with my uncle and his family as
co owners. They had the first floor and we took the second and we lived there
from shortly after my 1st birthday until my 8th.It's weird sometimes but I have
more vivid memories of Malden and Dorchester as a kid then I do of Abington
as a teenager. Same thing with school. Go figure.....
...Aunt Emily(who I called Mimi and the name has stuck over the years) is
Italian and kept her living room furniture covered in those clear plastic things
for years. I am not sure what the occasions were, perhaps the birthdays of my
cousins but there were some family celebrations with her uncle Luigi who played
mandolin and would pause for an occasional glass of wine "for gas in the engine".
One party was mostly outside in the big back yard that had a huge lilacbush at the
back end.
.....the house was on Beach St , one house from the corner of Beach and Clapp.
That house belonged to the Coriellis (sp?) who had three sons, Vinnie, who was
a teenager and the twins, Ronnie and Richie who were my age. On the other side
were the Tedescos, Pat (who ran a cobbler's shop) and Rose and their two kids,
an older daughter whose name I forget(well, she was a girl! I wasn't old enough
yet to pay attention) and the boy Michael who was my age. We all played together
and attended the Linden School together up the street.
.....the twin's mother, Jo, and Mike's mother, Rose, had a tremendous argument
outside on the sidewalk one day and it got physical with slaps and hair pulling. My
grandmother (whose name was Agnes but will always be Nanny to me) came out
and broke it up, lecturing them on such behavior in front of the kids.
....Saddles our dog was out on the sidewalk with me one day and the boxer from
across the street charged over. My mom always claimed Saddles was defending me.
I don't recall the dogfight, I was only 5 or 6 at the time. I do recall the ride to the
Angell Memorial Animal Hospital wtih my uncle holding Saddles in the back seat
with a cloth over a bad rip in the dog's neck. There was nothing the vets could
do and they put Saddles to sleep.
....the house was across the street from a small grocery store and behind that
was the Linden Creek.(Linden is a section of Malden and Linden Square was
just up the street. Pat Tedesco's shop was there). During a hurricane in the
mid 1950's the creek overflowed and flooded the street, and a motorboat actually
came down the middle of Beach st. ...followed by my Dad in the 1954 Pontiac
that we had at the time. The engine block was up high enough to let him get
through and pull into our driveway.
...Linden Creek was also the site of a death. I can't recall if it was accidental or
homicide.
....the infamous Indian attack. I was Sgt Preston of the Mounties.Ronnie and
Richie were the Indians. One of them threw a lance (aka a tomato plant stake)
at me as we were running along and it hit me right on the bridge of my nose,
just missing my eyes. Much yelling between the moms over that one. I had
a small scar there for years but it's faded away.
...Mom feeding me tablespoons of something to improve my appetite because I
was such a scrawny kid back then. It must have been time release stuff.
..Davy Crockett...the white football I got for a birthday, the same one where
I got my first two wheeler, a Schwinn..the cool black campus jacket with
the collar that was bright red underneath when you turned it up like all the
tough kids did.

We moved to Dorchester shortly after my grandmother died in 1956.
I had a reunion of sorts with Mike Tedesco when we both entered
Cathedral High School in 1962 as freshmen. Then my folks bought
the house in Abington, and that was the last connection with Malden.

REALITY AND THE HOLY SPIRIT

First of all, I join the rest of the world in mourning the passing of John Paul II.
While I like many other American Catholics might have found his views on
modern issues a bit conservative, I admired his vitality and his humanity towards
the poor and frail. I also believe he did indeed play a larger part in the fall of
Communism in Eastern Europe than most Western Catholics realize. Just his
election itself sent events into motion that are still ongoing.
That being said, it's also true that like others in the Church, he failed in dealing
with the shameful secrets of recent American Catholicism.In this he followed the
old tradtional view of sweeping it under the rug and stonewalling in order to
preserve the image and reputation of the Church. That Cardinal Law, the former
Cardinal of Boston at the height of the scandals, should be interviewed about the
death of John Paul II on national tv this morning only serves to remind Boston
Catholics of the readiness of this Pope and his predecessors to engage in a
shameful cover-up.

As to a successor, I believe the next pope will be an Italian. There has been speculation
that it could be a third world nation cardinal, either from Nigeria or from Brazil, but I
have doubts that will happen. The majority of the cardianls eligible to vote are Italian
and over 70 or close to it, and Holy Spirit or not, they are only human. JPII was a
compromise choice, elected on the third ballot after a similiar group of cardinals back
in 1978 were deadlocked between more popular choices. Many of the present group
were either newly or not yet appointed cardinals. They have had 26 years to watch
that earlier generation's dreams of reaching the Papacy fail and might have learned a
lesson from that.

Also, the Vatican is more than just the papacy. It is a large bureaucracy. Popes come
and go but the Curia remains. A third world pope might mean an influx of officials from
outside the establishment and rather than see that happen, they would work to influence
the selection to preserve their power and position.

Finally, there is the money. The majority of funds that keeps the Church afloat comes
from America and Europe.Given the sad aspects of human nature, a black or hispanic
pope might prove popular in the Third World but it is the Old World that fills the papal
coffers and that might lessen without a white face in the Papal See. An Italian or
European pope won't discomfort that smaller percentage of Catholics who contribute
the larger amount of donations to the Church.

There's some talk of a young (62 is young in the ranks of the Cardinals) Italian candidate
but I'm not sure they will feel moved to select him and then wait another 20 years or so
for the next chance.

I suppose we'll find out if I'm right in two weeks or so. I'm sure if I am a lot of people
will be critical of the church, but hmmm..has there been a black Archbishop of
Canterbury yet?

WORDS AND DEEDS

Here in this firehall, squires were once heard
To take solemn oath and to give their word
To be ever true knights and by word and by hand
To serve Camelot and the folk of the land.

Not by your words but your deeds are you known
And by those same deeds are your true natures shown.

Here in this firehall, you knelt down and swore
To serve Camelot's people in peace and in war,
To serve Arthur's dream and from evil defend
Until the walls crumbled or `til the world's end.

Not by your words but your deeds are you known
And by those same deeds are your true natures shown

Now your words all seem hollow, and only a few
Faithful remain who are good knights and true.
I swore to reward loyalty back in kind
But loyalty in you I no more can find.

Not by your words but your deeds are you known
And by those same deeds are your true natures shown
©4/2005 Bill West

AND INTO APRIL

Another month comes and goes.

Work is work. It doesn't pay much, but it keeps the roof over my head
and food in the cupboard. Barely keeps the wolves from the door, though.
I think I am now part of the "working poor" masses. I lose my job and the
skids are greased, let me tell ya.
So I try to stay a happy peasant and bite my tongue when some new rule or
policy comes along that makes no sense. As Chico used to say on that old tv
show, "Is not my yob,man" anymore.

Writing is at a temporary standstill. Mostly, I think, because it's close to the
end of the Hundredth Tear series now and I think I am reluctant to close that
series off. I have a mix of emotions about it. It was never intended to go this long,
but instead was going to serve as the intro for a quest. When the circumstances
that triggered the idea changed, I had to change the reason to look for the Tear.
By this time, some of the people I wanted to run the quest for were away from the
channel and I certainly didn't want to run it without them and have a certain other
rp powergame their way through it. And as I became more and more frustrated
with events, HT became an escape for me.Nice eh? An escape from an escape?
And now of course, while some of the rps have returned, others haven't. The last time
I brought up the Tear and Merlin's Tower in rp was over two months ago, now.

I doubt I'll ever run it now. Doesn't matter really since it was most like not going
to be a major quest anyway.

And since then, it's been harder to write. HT has been effected by my mood and by
events and there's been little joy in working on thses last few segments. I think this
is the first time I've written something where I'll be relieved when I finish.
No doubt some of the readers will be too.
And yet, I will be a bit sad it's over.

Go figure.

And so another April arrives.

Rah.