albeit a little late to the party. With so many ahead of me who have actual talent, I intend to stay behind the leaders and draft.
That puts me in the slipstream and I am not so much here to protect.
I am here to serve, baby.
I recently posted ro Flickr a few photos of my father's parents in their youth. They are in the set labeled "Family." All are special to
me. A few are particularly appropriate for Memorial Day. I will have some thoughts and photos later about my mother's family as
well.
Both my grandfather's were in the military. My mother's father, David Wilson, was a Navy sailor and my father's father, Albert Luck,
was in the Army. Albert Luck joined the army, as did his brothers, in the summer of 1918. The US had declared war in April, 1917.
Albert and his brothers trained at Camp Travis at Ft. Sam Houston, Texas. Albert served in the 90th Division, 345th Field Artillery,
Battery D and was part of a unit that fired the big cannons.
By July, 1918, there were over 1 million US soldiers in France. One million troops? In the shadow of troop strength arguments for
Iraq, that number is stunning. Wait until you read the eventual number of American troops involved in WWI. More later.
That month, Albert and his unit shipped out of Camp Merritt New Jersey to France and to Germany. This photo is of Albert Luck
and Pearl Yancey and was taken in the summer of 1918 in Blum, Texas, about 40 miles south of Ft. Worth. Pearl was my
grandmother, but these two would not marry until December of 1919 after Albert returned from overseas.
My brother and I suspect this photo on the left was taken (probably by Pearl's sister) on his last trip home after training and before
shipping out. We do not know if they were engaged by then or not. Their sadness and fear in this photo is unmistakable to us.
In the photo on the right, my grandfather is on your right. The other man is one of his brothers, P.A. Luck. There were 8 children
in their family. Two died young. There were 5 boys and one girl surviving to adulthood and I got to meet them all. All the Luck
brothers survived the war.
You wouldn't know it by his presentation here, but as soon as the war was over, Albert became a barber for the next 40 years.
Nice hairdo here, Grandpa.
The facts about WWI are a little difficult to wrap my feeble brain around. Eventually, the US had nearly 2 million soldiers in
Europe near the end of WWI. The US suffered over 112,000 deaths in the war. Interestingly, over 1/2 of them were due to the flu
pandemic of 1918. There were another 150,000 wounded in battle. That flu pandemic killed another 650,000 Americans back
home. Wow.
In this photo, taken in France sometime after November, 1918,
my grandfather is kneeling on the far right. The 90th Division
had an entwined "T" and "O" signifying that most of the soldiers
were from either Texas or Oklahoma. They all went through
training at Ft. Sam Houston near San Antonio. The 90th Division,
including the 345th Field Artillery , first arrived in France. They
soon engaged in battle at Argonne, Rhine. They fought at St.
Mihiel in Sept. 1918 and then were part of the major Allied
offensive at Meuse-Argonne through Nov. 1918.
The 90th Division lost 310 officers and 9,400 enlisted men
in their short time in the European front. Overall in WWI,
there were over 10 million combatants killed and another
20 million wounded (includes all countries). It is so very
difficult to comprehend those numbers.
Armistice was Nov 11, 1918 and the 345th was near the border of France and Germany at the time. The entire 90th Division was
shortly moved into Germany for occupation duty. The Paris Peace Conference was on Jan 12, 1919. I have framed on my wall a
signed day pass made out to Albert Luck for Jan 19, 1919 which allows him to visit Berncastle, Germany for one day and it is
signed by his commander.
In mid-May, 1919, Albert's unit was sent home on this ship, the USS Kentuckian. It took over a month for him to get back home.
The USS Kentuckian made five trips from the US to France between March and Aug, 1919, taking goods to France and bringing
home troops each trip.
I looked up the history of this ship. Amazingly, it was scuttled off the coast of Normandy as a blockship during the D-Day invasion
of 1944.
My brother and I are very lucky indeed to have known Albert Luck. We are in agreement that he was one of the happiest people
we have ever known. Always kind and interested in everyone around him, we are fortunate to have wonderful memories of our
grandfather. He looked pretty good at 23. He looked pretty good at 66 as well. That one on the right below is of him with me at
Christmas, 1959. We remember his white hair and his engaging smile, which he wore all the time.
When I was about ten years old I asked Albert if he was in the war (and I had no idea what war). He was such a happy man and
he adored my brother and me. He laughed and said yes, but he claimed he didn't remember too much about it.
All these photos were his. He remembered more than he let on.
Today I am remembering him well, very well... and am thankful for him and all the other grandfathers in these photos.
May 25, 2006 Puttin' on a Nice Spread
Hello, Amarillo, Texas. First of all, why do the good folks in Amarillo get to pay $2.64 per gallon of gasoline while we in Dallas
fork over $2.99? Splain that.
Beavers is near the gas station where we filled up about halfway to Denver. It's not far from the Big Texan Steak Ranch. At the
Steak Ranch, if you order a 72 oz. steak...uh...that is about 4 lbs. of mastadon...and you eat it all in an hour, you get it for free.
Don't eat it all and you have to pay for it. I'd like to see some kind of combo promotion between the Big Texan and Beavers. You
know, because the naked ladies just don't bring 'em in like they used to.
The sight of Beavers is always good for a few miles of tired jokes fired between me and Bunny in the car about stopping in for the
buffet. You know, because they put on a nice spread. You get the idea. For days, whenever one of us is ready for lunch, we look
at the other with big eyes and yell, "Beavers!"
May 22 2006 Colorado or Bust
Another couple of days and we'll have all Bunny's crap on board. I get one carry on. Yep, that's me on the ground by the truck. Fell
off the bale full of snowshoes, bundt pans and bric-a-brac.
Call him for all the insurmountable computer problems an old fat guy could possibly create.
I mean it. Call him.
One bit of computerized irony from the most recent computer repair in their office. Their high speed internet connection would not work.
Bwah-ha-ha. Sorry, boys.
See. It isn't just me. I immediately gave everyone in their office the name of my high blood pressure medication. But Brian the patient
cranked out the phone cord and fixed it on DIAL-UP. Awesome. Turned out to be the settings in Internet Explorer which were all reset
when they set up the new hard-drive. The new settings were not allowing some things to happen so Brian the awesome reset the
medium speed vertical chrome disc mascilator (whatever) and we are off to the races. Now I may just give you an extra photograph
just because I can. Now, if we can just keep Amanda out of Iraq, I might just have a great day.
Here is last night's sunset in Dallas just because.
Let the website archve rebuilding begin.
May 17, 2006 Life Without Computers
To those of you who asked, Amanda is back from Iraq in one piece. Thank you.
Yahoo is ignoring me. They have joined the legions of corporations and individuals who have banded together to ignore me. I have
blitzed them with emails that have remained unanswered. I am used to it. Mr. Gates has offered his software so welcome to
Frontpage if we don't hear from Yahoo soon. We will see. To the three of you who are under thirty, I am telling you right now that life
without computers was better. Better, I tell ya. I am prepared to declare that the main reason I must take blood pressure medicine is...
computers. Without the medication, my pancreas would implode because of...computers. Either that or golf. Stupid game.
May 15, 2006 Yahooooo-ooooo, Help Me
The computer has beaten me into submission. I have emailed Yahoo to send help or stop billing me, one or the other.
My brain may explode any minute. Anything I do to the computer is equal to the net effect of turning it off and rolling
my aching head across the keyboard for the rest of the day. Will keep you posted.
May 13th, 2006 My Book and My Niece are Being Flown to Iraq
If you have read some of my baloney before this, and before it was eaten by the www and my dissolving computer hard
drive, you already know that I have a niece who is a loadmaster on a big transport plane for the US Air Force. Tonight,
she and her colleagues are on their way to or already in Iraq. They have been many times before. I could use some
help with some good thoughts for them and all our troops in harms way about now.
As she was leaving this time, she sent me a mid-reading book review of my novel, “Most Fortunate Son.” It may be the
best review ever written for a book of any kind and I am certain she would not want me to post it here.
So I will.
Love you, Amanda.
Here it is:
Uncle Eric,
Well…I finally did it! I am graduating from college! Wooo Whooo! Only took me 6 years! =) Or as I like to call it….2
victory laps…(I think you were the one that told me that one). Well I was kinda busy doing some other “stuff” for the
past few years too….seeing if we could get that Bin Laden guy.
This has been the first time in what feels like forever that I have been able to sit down and read a book I actually
WANTED to read, instead of a text I HAD to read. So…naturally, I bee lined for your book and I am reading Most
Fortunate Son. Honest critique…..it started a little slow for me. But, then again…for like a week I was reading one
page and then passing out (probably catching up on all that sleep I lost in the past 6 years). Once I reached Chapter
3, I couldn’t put it down. I am halfway through already and loving every minute of it. It’s awesome!
I am on a mission right now and currently we are getting some crew rest in Charleston, SC. I read your book the whole
way here last night. We are headed to Europe next and then onto the wonderful desert. Keep us in your prayers.
They still don’t like us infidels and like to pop off some rounds after dinner at that big noisy beast in the sky. Ok…so I
have only a few things about the book I don’t like so far. The “landing strip” comment on BlondieLegs…eww! My
delightful Uncle Eric wrote this. In any other novel it would have been read over with a chuckle and moved right
passed, but my Uncle Eric wrote this. He’s not suppose to think like that….and I don’t know who represents who in this
book, but if Aunt Cheri has a peach silk nightgown…I don’t ever want to know. TMI! The f-bomb was a little gasper for
me too. Again…its only because my Uncle Eric wrote this and not some guy I don’t know. Otherwise…its great. I cant
wait to see what Jerry uncovers as I fly over Baghdad. I may even be done before then. =) I love it. Its great. Fix
your computer so we can all read the 2nd novel…..just no peach nightgowns and landing strips. =)
Cheers,
Amanda
Since I have embarrassed her well enough by now, I will also give you my response to her:
Amanda-
Repeat after me…
“it’s just a story.
It is fiction.
It isn’t real.
Uncle Eric is not Jerry.
Cheri is not in the story.
Neither of them has a peach nightgown.
Neither of them has ever been completely naked.
Uncle Eric is still delightful.
Aunt Cheri is really, really extra-double mean.”
That is the finest book review I have ever received. I adore you.
Please stay as safe as you possibly can.
Love,
Uncle Eric
PS: See, college was easy.
Wherever you go, find all safe and well maintained landing strips.
Bwah-ha.
May 12th, 2006 Forging My Own Blackhole in the www (careful!)
Let’s try a new approach. It will be blogalicious, but only if it works. The carpet guys spoke very little English. After I explained that my
hard drive had failed and ever since the Sitebuilder software would not publish any graphics to the www and asked them if they could
do anything, they responded with a full one minute soliloquy in Spanish that resembled, “Donde esta la biblioteca?”, except that I know
what that phrase means and I have no idea what they said to me. I think they have a future in www work. As long as no one can
understand you, you too can have a career in www work.
I’m still working on it and hope to have the old stuff back in the near future. In the meantime, amuse yourself on my Flickr page with
photos of dubious quality. Click this: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lucky_e/ . Talk to you soon…maybe.
5/10/2006 I KNOW IT IS NOT WORKING.
I AM NOW STARTING TO HALLICUNATE. IT IS NOT GOOD.
WILL KEEP TRYING. I HAVE PLACED SEVERAL CALLS TO BILL GATES AND EXPECT POLICE CARS OUTSIDE MY HOUSE ANY
MINUTE.
THE CARPET GUYS WILL BE HERE IN A FEW MINUTES. I MAY GET THEM TO HELP.
5/9/2006 Yes boys and girls, we have a working computer and it includes a new, improved hard drive.
However, the old website records have to be completely imported from the internet in order to make it work
again. It will take me a few minutes so bear with me. Some stuff might look a little different, but we will be
back in action soon. Bunny left town. Who can blame her? New carpet installation begins in the a.m. and it is chaos again. Just
one more reason for me to sit in a corner and mumble to myself. As a topper, the weather in DFW has turned
soul-sapping hot along with that insta-sweat humidity. Delightful. Here is the plan: Get the carpet installed.
Go to Colorado. Pass the gravy.
5/8 STILL NO COMPUTER -
I hate computers. Maybe I'll just start sending out postcards if I have anything to
say and that is always questionable. They say sometime today. Sure. Tomorrow, Bunny leaves town for the
rest of the week and Wed., the carpet guys return for the THIRD TIME to yank out all the carpet and install
new stuff. This time we have to pack everything again just like we are moving...again. Major suckage. You
don't want to read anything from me anyway right now. Trust me.
5/4 HARD DRIVE A GONER -
The bad news is the hard drive is no more. The good news is that they claim
to have saved the manuscript to my second book and will transfer it to the new, improved hard drive. I haven't
been shaving until we got news on the computer. Bunny says I look like I just came out of the movie "The
Quick and the Dead" and if I don't shave I will only be dead. Gotta go.
5/3 COMPUTER TRIBULATIONS -
Phrases are being thrown around like "reformat the hard drive". I am not yet convulsing about, but am gulping for air like a bass in the
bucket. We'll see. Go see my Hawaii pictures on Flickr, if you are really scraping for entertainment. Link is at the bottom of this page.
4/30 NEWS ALERT:
My computer has passed on to the next plane. Local Hawaiian experts on such matters
advise the hard drive has failed. Texas experts will evaluate the extent of the disaster next week. Updates will
be sporadic and cursory. Not much different than usual. We are limping along with Bunny's computer.
