My First Computers

February 15 marks World Computer Day, which the computer industry uses to celebrate computers and make sure everyone knows how wonderful they are.  The event apparently always has a theme; this year's theme is the 80th anniversary of ENIAC, the "first programmable, electronic, general-purpose digital computer."  Well, I don't have anything to do with ENIAC, so I'm going to celebrate by reminiscing about my first two computers instead.

My very first computer was an IBM XT.  The Wikipedia page for it says that the official name was IBM Personal Computer XT and that it was released in 1983.  I think that I got mine just after I graduated college, so that seems to fit.  I remember that the really big deal about it was that it came with an internal hard drive of — wait for it — 10 MB!  Wikipedia also says that it cost a little over $2,000, which I know I didn't have at the time, and I don't remember how I got the computer.

IBM XT photo by Remember the dot; used under license

I was just starting to play around with the XT and figure out how to use it when the brother of a friend said he really, really wanted it.  He was doing some heavy-duty number crunching and could really use the hard drive and faster processor to help speed up his computations.  He offered to trade me his IBM PC and $500 in cash for the XT.  Well, how could I pass up a deal like that?

So I very quickly was on to my second computer, which was definitely a step backward from the first.  The IBM Personal Computer had 16 KB of RAM and two floppy drives but no internal hard drive.  I became quite adept at popping floppies in and out, as I recall.

IBM PC photo by Rama; used under license

It was around this time that the staff in the School of Letters, Arts and Sciences at USC, where I was working, also started getting individual desktop computers in our offices.  I still remember when the administrative assistant in another department called and asked me to help her figure out what had happened to her computer, which was showing only a blank screen.  I quickly determined that she had actually reformatted her C drive and deleted everything on it (yup, people really used to do that).  I was able to restore it for her and earned a reputation for being the computer "fix it" person in our building.

In contrast, I'm typing this post on a Dell Latitude 5580 laptop with 16 GB of RAM and a 476 GB hard drive.  My, how things have changed.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Your (or Your Ancestor's) Personal History Timeline

Tonight's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge from Randy Seaver (via Taneya Koonce, one of my genealogy buds) sounds like a fun exercise.

Your mission, should you decide to accept it (cue the Mission:  Impossible! music) is:

1.  Taneya Koonce wrote a happy birthday post about her own life in Quick Tip:  Create Your Personal History Timeline:  The Birthday Edition 🥳.  What a great birthday idea.

2.  This week, write your own personal history timeline:  every 5 or 10 years, or the most important events.  If you don't want to do yours, write a history timeline for one of your ancestors.

3.  Share your personal timeline in your own blog post or in a Facebook, SubStack, BlueSky, or other social media post.  Leave a link to your post on this blog post to help us find your post.

Thank you, Taneya, for the idea!

Here's mine!

1962 (age 0):  I was born in Los Angeles, California in the County Hospital, the first child of Bertram Lynn Sellers, Jr. and Myra Roslyn Meckler.  My mother listed her address on my birth certificate as being in Whittier, which is where my godmother lived.  I don't know if my parents actually lived with her or if that was strictly a contact address.  I don't remember anything about Whitter.  I do remember County Hospital, only because many years later I volunteered in a pharmaceutical test and went there for the visits.

1967 (age 5):  My family was living at 537 Lochmere Avenue, La Puente, California.  We apparently were at that address at least from sometime in 1964, when my sister was born, until some point in 1968.  Also in the family was my brother who was born in 1963.  At the age of 5 I was probably in kindergarten.  I don't recall anything about kindergarten.

1972 (age 10):  In 1972 when I turned 10 my family was living in either Maroubra Junction or Pagewood, both suburbs of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.  I was attending 5th grade at Woollahra Demonstration School, a school for advanced students that had 5th and 6th grades.  I remember having a sewing class and a physical education class, although I don't remember the names of my teacher(s).  Somewhere I still have my school uniform and my physical education uniform, along with some of the projects I made in my sewing class.

1977 (age 15):  My family lived in Villa Tasso, Florida and had been there for about four years.  I was in 10th grade, attending Niceville Senior High School.  I was in advanced classes; I may have taken calculus that year.  I think my elective was French.  My siblings and I took the school bus 10 miles into Niceville to attend school.  I was a social misfit and did not attend school events.  I think I was working at my grandfather's stamp and coin store.

1982 (age 20):  I was living in Los Angeles, California in the dormitory at the University of Southern California during the academic year.  I was a junior and was on track to graduate the next year as a French major.  I was a work-study student in the Office of Overseas Studies; my boss was Connie Horak.  That summer I went on a student exchange program to Bordeaux, France and managed to take a one-day trip to San Sebastian, Spain.  At the end of the trip, when all the students gathered in Paris, we found a theater that was screening Pink Floyd — The Wall, which was even more surreal with French subtitles.  We went to see The Rocky Horror Picture Show in another theater, where we totally flummoxed the French attendees by doing all of the participatory things people do here.  When I returned from France I went to San Antonio, Texas to visit my family; I almost didn't recognize my mother at the airport, as she had gained a significant amount of weight after quitting smoking.  Back in Los Angeles I worked in the dorm cafeteria at the end of the summer and lived in one of the fraternity houses, which rented out rooms to bring in some money.

1987 (age 25):  In 1987 I was still in Los Angeles; I was either living in a small apartment or had moved to the lower half of a duplex with three housemates.  I had a female gray Russian blue-Persian mix cat named Tamara.  I was working at USC in the French and Italian Department and was in the Trojan Marching Band (The Greatest Marching Band in the History of the Universe).  One of my work-study students in the department was Brian Rhodes; we were co-uniform managers for the band.  At the beginning of the year the band had gone to Florida to support the USC football team, which had competed in the Florida Citrus Bowl.

1992 (age 30):  In 1989 I had moved to Berkeley, California; in 1992 I was living in an in-law house at the back part of a property there.  I still had Tamara.  I was working at Chessex Manufacturing in Berkeley, where I was the assistant production manager.  To celebrate my 30th birthday I took a trip to Hawaii with my then-boyfriend.  We were there when the Rodney King riots occurred; it was surreal to watch the news and see parts of Los Angeles where I had lived being burned, etc.

1997 (age 35):  I bought a house in Oakland in 1993, and I was still there in 1997.  The boyfriend from 1992 was now a former boyfriend but still one of my best friends, and he was my housemate.  I was working at Chaosium in Oakland, where I was an editrix and the convention schnook.  I think the pets in the house were dogs named Cody and Kirby and cats named Hank and Napoleon.  I don't remember anything distinctive about the year, though.

2002 (age 40):  I was still in the house in Oakland, although who else was living there had changed.  The housemate/former boyfriend had moved out; I had had two other housemates in the interim, but I think I was the only person at this time.  Hank and Kirby were still with me, but I had surrendered Cody to the Humane Society because she no longer got along with Kirby.  Napoleon had died a couple of years previously.  I had added a new cat named Sassafras, Sassy for short.  I was no longer working at Chaosium but had moved on to the Seismological Society of America, a scientific membership association, where I was the publications coordinator and the junior Web geek.  My friends helped me celebrate my 40th birthday by throwing a big party at a Mexican restaurant whose name is not coming back to me at the moment.  I also had started volunteering regularly at the Oakland Family History Center two years earlier, and I spent a lot of time there researching and helping others.

2007 (age 45):  Still in the house in Oakland, but at a different job.  I was working for a transcription company in downtown Oakland, where I learned a lot about the history of Kaiser, who was one of our major clients.  I also commuted for the first time in my life by bus, which was a much better choice than trying to find parking near the office.  Hank, Sassy, and Kirby were still there, along with another cat, Noodle, plus a guinea pig named Pulga.  I also had added birds:  Peaches (blue and gold macaw), Ray (sun conure), and Zach (green-cheeked conure).  Having eight pets was enough to keep me busy when I wasn't at work or the Family History Center.

2012 (age 50):  Still in Oakland, amazingly enough, considering how much my family moved when I was a kid.  The pet line-up had changed, though:  Ray, Zach, Hank, Sassy, Kirby, and Pulga had all passed away.  I still had Peaches and Noodle, and Caesar and Brandy had joined the family.  Just before I turned 50, I started training to become a train operator at BART, which I really enjoyed.  My friend Anne set up a huge surprise for my 50th birthday; at a costume event commemorating the launch of the RMS Titanic, she managed to coordinate having a band play "Happy Birthday" and about 150 people singing along.  I had announced I wanted a fuss for my birthday, and I certainly got one!

2017 (age 55):  The big event for me in 2017 was moving from Oakland, California to Gresham, Oregon, which I did at the end of the summer, arriving at 9:30 a.m. on September 1.  I still had the same furred and feathered children:  Noodle, Brandy, Peaches, and Caesar.  I sold my house in Oakland and found a similar-sized one in Gresham that had enough room for me, the pets, and all my belongings (which took more than an entire truckload to bring here).  The early part of the year was spent preparing for the move, and the months after arrival were taken up with unpacking as much as I could.  But I did start volunteering at the local Family History Center within two weeks of arriving, and by the time I moved here all five of my grandchildren were within relatively easy driving distance.

2022 (age 60):  This was during COVID, so not a lot was going on anywhere.  I had shoulder surgery in 2020, during the heart of COVID, and was still recovering from it for the majority of the year (it usually takes about two years to fully recover from shoulder surgery, and it did this time).  So on top of COVID, I wasn't doing much of anything else anyway.  The list of pets changed again.  Noodle died in 2018, only a few months after we moved, and I added Frankie to the household to be company for Brandy.  Then a macaw needed a home in 2020, and I welcomed my first female bird, Angel.  Later that same year Brandy passed away, and I fell in love with a gorgeous little female Siamese.  Unfortunately, she and Frankie didn't exactly get along, so they lived in two different parts of the house.

And that's my life broken down into 5-year synopses.  As usual, Randy remembers far more details than I do, but I hit the highlights.  All my grandchildren were born in in-between years, and I couldn't figure out how to weave that in well.  Maybe I'll revise this post later after thinking about it for a while.

Ever Hitched a Ride?

Since 2020, apparently, July has been celebrated as National Hitchhiking Month, at least according to National Today.  What's strange, however, is that when I Google "national hitchhiking month", I get a hit on the Chicago Tribune site that shows a date of July 5, 1995, five years earlier.  Unfortunately, I don't have a subscription to the Trib, so I can't see the page and figure out if Google is steering me wrong.

I searched for the origin of the word "hitchhiking", and the earliest that the Oxford English Dictionary (which I love!) records it is 1921, which is very recent.  I had been wondering if the concept went back to the days of horses and wagons, but apparently it does not.  It seems firmly connected with cars.

Anyway, National Today suggests that people should celebrate National Hitchhiking Month by hitchhiking or by giving a hitchhiker a ride, but I don't feel that adventurous in my old age.  Instead, I'll mark the occasion by writing about the only time in my life that I hitchhiked, which was in France, of all places.

During the summer of 1982, I visited France on a student exchange program.  The woman I was working for at USC, Connie Horak, was the coordinator of the program, which was part of a sister-city alliance between Los Angeles and Bordeaux.  High school students alternated yearly between Americans going to Bordeaux and French coming to Los Angeles.  I spent a good amount of my regular at-work time that spring typing lots of paperwork for the program, including lists of students who had applied for the first time or who were participating for their second summer.

At one point, Connie learned that a female American student who had hosted a French student the previous summer had decided not to go to France.  She asked if I wanted to go to France in the place of the American student, so that the French student would have someone to participate with.  I jumped at the chance.  Not only did I figure this was a great (and relatively inexpensive) way to visit France, but I was actually a French major, so it was also a way to practice and improve my speaking skills.

I know we flew to Orly from Los Angeles.  I think we traveled by train from Paris to Bordeaux, where we met our students.  Sylvie, the student with whom I was paired, had decided that the perfect way to spend the summer was at a campground in Biarritz (more details of which is a story for another day).  While we were there, I don't remember why, but at some point we wanted to go somewhere else.  We didn't have a car, so we hitchhiked.

I was very nervous, because the reputation of hitchhiking in the United States by that time was that it could be very dangerous.  I remember the man who picked us up was driving a Citroën.  I think it was a 2CV.  No memory of the color at this point!

And somehow, we survived.  Nothing untoward happened to us; we arrived wherever we were trying to get to, and the driver let us leave the car with no problem.

I only recall the one hitchhiking trip, so we obviously found a different way to get back.  And I've never even attempted to hitchhike since then.

How about you?  Any good hitchhiking stories?

Image by Tumisu from Pixabay.  Used under license.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Celebrate World Music Day

Well, I better like tonight's topic for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun, since I'm the person who suggested it to Randy Seaver!

Your mission, should you decide to accept it (cue the Mission:  Impossible! music), is:

1.  According to Wikipedia, today is World Music Day!  How should we celebrate?

2.  How has music affected your life?  What is your favorite music type?  What are your favorite songs?

3.  Share your World Music Day efforts in your own blog post or in a Facebook, SubStack, BlueSky, or other social media post.  Leave a link to your post on this blog post to help us find your post.

[Thank you to Janice Sellers for suggesting this challenge to me.]

I grew up with music and it has always been part of my life.  My father was a musician — he played piano and guitar and sang credibly well.  He used to play guitar and sing for my siblings and me when we were little.  We heard "Sixteen Tons", "Mairzy Doats", and "Aba Daba Honeymoon" often enough that we knew all the lyrics.  Then as we got older he would sometimes try to cut out a verse, but we knew the songs too well and caught him.

I don't remember Daddy singing so much when he played piano, but I remember listening to a lot of boogie woogie and blues.  One year when I posted on my blog for Father's Day, he commented and said that he started piano lessons when he was 8.  And piano was what he played when he competed on Ted Mack's Amateur Hour with Court's Jesters, although that was swing music.

My mother loved music also, but for listening to.  She unfortunately couldn't carry a tune in a bucket; when she was in a singing class, they decided her part was turning pages for the accompanist.  But she adored Broadway and movie musicals and played cast recordings and soundtracks a lot.  Those were more songs that I learned lyrics to.

At least by the time I was 8, possibly earlier, I was taking piano lessons.  Even when I was that young, I had long fingers ("piano-playing fingers", I have often been told), and instead of holding my hands in the correct upright position and playing the keys with my fingertips, I could stretch my hands out and fudge a little.

I wanted to play guitar like my father.  My hands were big enough when I was young that I could handle an adult guitar, rather than one scaled down in size for children.  Daddy was ready to teach me, but then I discovered that you had to cut your fingernails to play (and I couldn't cheat as on the piano), so I gave up on that for a long time.

Once, for some reason I absolutely cannot recall, I had an accordion lesson.  I took the one lesson and decided I never wanted to try to play accordion again.  That I have stuck to.

When my family moved to Australia, I learned to play recorder (an instrument I still own and can play!).  I also sang in some sort of school musical in the 4th grade.

After we moved back to the States, I had chorus for two years.  The first year was great, but then my voice changed, and I couldn't sing alto anymore.  The teacher, Miss Foster, eventually told me I could stand next to the boys and sing tenor, but I used to sing bass.  After that I had a fairly regimented class schedule, and I didn't have room for any more music classes through the end of high school.

When I went to college at the University of Southern California, I had heavy class loads and still no time for music.  But after I graduated, I started working at USC, and the next year, I joined the Trojan Marching Band (The Greatest Marching Band in the History of the Universe).  I didn't play any band instruments, so I started as prop crew (kind of like roadies).  During the spring semester, when we were at a women's basketball game supporting the team, none of the cymbal players had come, and Mark Laycock called out for someone to play the cymbals for "Fight On."  And thus I started on percussion.  I marched three years in percussion in the band, playing cymbals (and occasionally bass drum for some small gigs when a regular bass drummer couldn't make it).

Working at USC, I was able to use tuition remission for classes.  One of things I did was take percussion lessons.  I had a really great teacher.  I think his given name was Dale, and I cannot remember his surname.  He was a spokesman for Sabian cymbals.  He was allowed to go through the warehouse and choose his own, matching them for tone.  His cymbals sounded so beautiful!  I learned I do not have a good enough ear to play timpani and that my broken right index finger severely hampered the way I hold a drumstick.  Or, as I routinely tell people, I am not a drummer; I am a percussionist who can drum a little.

But in the band I had also become enamored of saxophones, because they just sound so cool.  Jeff, one of the tenor sax players, recommended that I start with flute, then work on clarinet, and finally move to sax.  So I started using my tuition remission for those lessons.  I think I took two years of flute (with Gary Anderson) and then two or three of clarinet (with Yehuda Gilad).  Sadly, I never did take up saxophone.  But my fifth year in the band I played clarinet (and learned, after stabbing all the way through my left thumb with an Exacto knife, that there are exactly seven notes you can play on a clarinet without using your left thumb).

Something else I used my tuition remission for was voice lessons.  I sang with groups, I sang solo, I did recitals, I sang anytime I could.  I still love singing.  I participated twice in Songfest, a big student group singing competition.  Both times the group with which I sang placed.  I think I still have the music from both.

A friend of the teacher in one of my group vocal arts classes came around to recruit people to help fill out a new choir she was hired to create in a local church.  I think it was in Hollywood.  As is common with this type of activity, the number of men volunteering were far outnumbered by the women.  I ended up being a bass soloist for the Christmas concert.  Unfortunately, one of my voice instructors tried to make me a mezzo soprano, and I lost two octaves at the bottom of my range, so I can't do that now.

I played in the USC Community Orchestra as a percussionist for several years.  General percussion, no drums.

Oh, and one semester I took a guitar class.  I actually cut my fingernails and made the effort.  I discovered that chords did not make sense in my head.  I was the only student in the class who preferred to pick out melodies.  And then I decided I liked my fingernails more than the guitar.

Eventually I left Los Angeles and moved 400 miles north to Berkeley, where I had an entirely different musical routine.  But I think I'll save that for next year's World Music Day.

I got a little carried away, didn't I?  But music makes me happy.  Let's see, what other questions did Randy ask?  Well, favorite music type — hmm, I suppose "E, all of the above" is probably not a helpful answer.  I really do like almost everything, but if I have to pick favorites, probably show tunes and country.

And the last question was favorite songs.  Wow, that's even harder.  Anything I know the lyrics to and can sing along with ranks high.  "Danny Boy", because that was one of my mother's favorites.  "Sixteen Tons" is probably my favorite of the songs my father used to sing.  "Even Now" always makes me cry.  "Light One Candle", even after all the revelations about Peter Yarrow.  "Do You Hear What I Hear?", even though one of the most well known versions is by Robert Goulet.

Did You Ever Use a Typewriter?

IBM Selectric II
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.

I discovered that June 23 is celebrated as National Typewriter Day (or sometimes just as Typewriter Day).  June 23 was chosen apparently because a patent was granted to Christopher Latham Sholes on that day in 1868.  His Wikipedia page says that he invented the QWERTY keyboard (which was designed to slow typists down), but the patent awarded in 1868 doesn't seem to be for that version, but rather an earlier model.

I learned to touch type (typing without looking at your fingers) on a typewriter in high school in a semester-long class offered for that specific purpose.  My mother had suggested I learn to use a typewriter because it would be a useful skill.

During the semester, I got up to 54 words per minute overall and 51 per minute with no errors.  This was with the older style of typewriter that had the carriage you had to manually push back at the end of every line.  I don't remember the name of my teacher, but she was so excited by my speed that she wanted me to to secretarial school.  I didn't have the heart to tell her that I had higher aspirations than being a secretary, but I did figure out that my rate was better than average.

My mother was right:  I was able to apply my touch typing skills almost right away in college.  Before desktop computers became the norm, I typed lots of papers for people and made money doing so, which was really helpful, because I went to the University of Southern California on scholarships, not on my family's money.

After I graduated, desktop computers began to be introduced to many of the departments at USC, and my typing skills gave me a leg up on keyboarding.  Every time I applied for a job in a new department I was timed again.  The fastest rate I remember was 108 words per minute; I think that was with no errors.

For a long time I owned and maintained a typewriter, before I could afford a computer.  I favored the IBM Selectric (I think I owned a blue Selectric II), and I had a decent collection of elements, which were how you changed your typeface in the old days.  I remember I stored them in plastic cases specially designed for them (I think I had four cases!).  You had to change the element each time you wanted to change your font, say from regular to Italic.  I loved that typewriter!  But eventually I was able to afford a computer, and the need for the typewriter diminished to the point that I couldn't justify keeping it anymore.  I don't even remember if I was able to find someone who wanted it or I just had to dump it.

IBM Selectric elements in storage case
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: What Was Your First Real Job?

With Labor Day just around the corner, Randy Seaver has decided to focus on work for this week's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun.

Here is your assignment, if you choose to play along (cue the Mission:  Impossible! music):

(1) It's Labor Day weekend in the USA.  Do you have memories of your first real job?  What and where was it?  What did you learn from it?  How did it affect the rest of your life?

(2) Tell us in your own blog post, in a comment to this blog post, or on Facebook.  Be sure to leave a comment with a link to your blog post on this post.

My first "real" job came after two jobs that weren't quite as formal.  Those first two were babysitting for neighbors and working in my grandfather's stamp and coin shop.  For both I was paid in cash, no deductions.  I count myself fortunate that I did not need to have a regular job before I graduated high school.

Then I went to college at the University of Southern California (USC) in September 1979 and got a job through the work-study program, which was part of my financial aid package (because USC is really expensive and I was not and still am not rich).  I don't remember how I found the job; there probably was some sort of listing of available positions?  But I began working for the Department (or Office) of Overseas Studies pretty much the same time that I started classes in the Fall semester.

When I started, the department head was a man named Bill Gay.  I don't remember much about him other than that he was stocky, was reasonably nice, and also happened to be gay.  I do recall that he hosted a Christmas party for the office staff that first year.  One of the other people working in the department was a Jewish woman named Miriam (Mimi) Kaplan.  She was upset that even though I identified as Jewish, I sang along with all the Christmas carols (because I love singing Christmas carols!).

The work was mostly administrative stuff:  typing, filing, answering phones, stuffing envelopes for mailings, that type of thing.  Those kinds of skills are always useful to know, and it definitely helped with jobs I had later in life.  I still remember lots of area codes and ZIP codes from working there, because of mailings and lots of phone calls.  I kept the job throughout my four years of undergrad studies.  It was part-tiime, because that's how work-study is set up.  I took full-time courseloads all four years also.

Something I learned there that wasn't par for the course:  One year we had a work-study student who was half Japanese and half Korean.  She taught me how to count to 1,000 in both languages.  Unfortunately, all I can remember now is up to 10 in Japanese.

I don't remember when it happened; maybe after my first year?  But Bill retired(?) and Constance (Connie) Horak took over as head of the department.  And Mimi wasn't there anymore.  Anyway, Connie was my boss for the rest of the time I worked in Overseas Studies.

After I had been there for a while and was a known quantity, Connie had me sign lots of paperwork for her.  I learned that imitating someone's signature well enough to fool people is extremely difficult.

At one point we wanted to paint the walls in the offices to refresh them, but we learned that the only colors officially approved by Physical Plant were four shades of off-white.  So instead of going through the university procedure, we painted the offices ourselves.  It was some kind of burnt orange that I wasn't crazy about, but it was definitely more interesting than off-white.

Connie and I got along well.  She had season tickets for the Los Angeles Dodgers and took me to a game against the Montreal Expos (my favorite team at the time) every year for my birthday.  Now that's a great boss!

One of Connie's volunteer activities outside of USC was coordinating a Los Angeles–Bordeaux, France sister city student exchange program.  In alternating years, students from one city would travel to the other city and be paired up with students from there.  The visit was for six weeks; the students were with their exchange partners for the first five and a half weeks or so, and then everyone got together for the last few days.  One year an American student who had hosted a French student the previous year didn't want to go to France, so Connie asked if I was interested.  I jumped at the opportunity, and that's how I was able to visit France economically.  It didn't quite turn out as expected (which I really should write about some day), but it was a great experience and I'm very happy I was able to go.

I don't know why, but I didn't stay in touch with Connie after I left that job, even though I continued to work at USC for six more years.  I only discovered while writing this that she passed away two years ago.  She apparently had stayed with USC since starting work there in 1975.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Tell Your Life Story in Two (or Even Five) Minutes

Talk about ourselves?  No genealogist likes to do that.  We love to talk about our ancestors!  But that's what Randy Seaver wants us to do tonight for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun.

Here is your assignment, if you choose to play along (cue the Mission:  Impossible! music):

(1) Everyone has a life story, and mine is still ongoing.  Tell us your life story — start with today and go back to your birth.  Do it in 200 to 500 words, so you could tell it in two to five minutes.

(2) Tell us in your own blog post, in a comment to this blog post, or on Facebook.  Be sure to leave a comment with a link to your blog post on this post.

And backward, no less!  Let's see how I do.

My name is Janice Marie Sellers, and I am 59 years old.  I live in Gresham, Oregon.  I am not married and never have been, but I have two "stepsons" from a former significant relationship.  Through the older of the two I also have five grandchildren (with very complicated interrelationships that would drive a genogram designer crazy), and I stay in touch with both of my former daughters-in-law, who live in Vancouver, Washington (15 miles away, with three of the grandchildren) and Lebanon, Oregon (95 miles away, with two of the grandchildren), respectively.

My daily activities are family history research, taking care of my two cats and three macaws, and (still!) trying to finish unpacking everything from when I moved to Oregon in 2017.  The latter was delayed because I came here with a torn rotator cuff in my right shoulder and then proceeded to tear the cuff in the left shoulder (I guess I wanted a matched set).  After surgery on the left shoulder in summer 2020, I am much more able to move things around again, although I have to be careful not to push it.  I try to get six hours of sleep each night, which I am getting better at accomplishing.

My last regular job was as a train operator at BART in the San Francisco area (that's the job that gave me the torn rotator cuff in the right shoulder).  I was an employee there for five years.  Recent employment before that was transcriptionist, "office manager" (really a door guard) at an upscale daycare in a poor neighborhood, and more than 35 years as an editor for various companies and print publications.  I also was able to travel for business as an editor, primarily in the United States but a few times internationally.

My formal education ended several years ago with courses in computer programming, music, and library science, none of which culiminated in a degree or certificate.  I earned a Bachelor of Arts in Humanities (emphasis in French), which functionally was a B.A. in French with minors in Spanish and Russian, from the University of Southern California in 1983.  I attended Niceville Senior High School in Niceville, Florida for my diploma.  I detailed my pre-high-school education for a Saturday Night Genealogy Fun post a few years ago; suffice it to say that I attended schools in many locations.

I was born in 1962 in East Los Angeles at the Los Angeles County hospital (prior to its association with USC), the first child of Bertram Lynn Sellers, Jr. and Myra Roslyn Meckler.  Both my parents were born on the East Coast, my father in New Jersey and my mother in Brooklyn, but they met and married in Miami and then drove to California to start their life together.  My family lived in multiple locations in east Los Angeles County until we moved to Australia in 1971, living there for two years before returning to the United States in 1973 and going to Florida.  In California, we saw my mother's parents often, as they lived relatively close by in Las Vegas.

The highlight of my life has been my grandchildren and their parents.  I did not have children of my own but always wanted a family, and I love being a bubbie (Yiddish for grandmother).  I wish I could spend more time with the kids and parents.

Did I go over my five-minute limit?

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: When You First Left Home

I tend to think of people leaving home when they go to college.  I wonder if that's most of what we'll see with posts for this week's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun exercise from Randy Seaver.

Here is your assignment, should you decide to accept it (you ARE reading this, so I assume that you really want to play along; cue the Mission:  Impossible! music!):

(1) When did you first leave your parents' home?  Why did you leave?  Where did you move to?  What was it like?  What did you learn?

(2) Tell us about it in your own blog post, in a comment to this post, or in a Facebook Status post.  Please leave a link in a comment to this post.

Of course, the main reason I think of people leaving home to go to college is because that's what I did.

I left home permanently in 1979, when I was 17 years old.  I graduated high school in June, and I left in August.  I never again lived with my parents, but I did visit several times over the years.

I graduated from Niceville Senior High School in Niceville, Florida.  (Yes, that's really the name.)

I was accepted to all of the universities to which I applied:  University of Southern California (USC), Los Angeles; University of Chicago; University of Miami (Florida); and Trinity University, San Antonio, Texas.  I restricted my list to universities which would allow me to use my National Merit Scholarship and which offered a sufficient number of foreign languages, because that's what I wanted to study.

For many reasons,  I didn't want to stay in Florida, so that knocked University of Miami off the list.  (I think I applied there only because my mother wanted me to, so that I would stay in Florida.)  I wasn't crazy about the prospect of living in Texas, so there went Trinity.  And my mother talked me out of the University of Chicago, because she didn't think I would deal well with the winters (I have figured out since then that I probably would have been fine).  And that left USC.

My mother traveled with me to Los Angeles for freshman orientation; I think it was in July.  I packed up all my belongings in suitcases and brought them with me on the trip.  (Well, everything except one very large, unique bookcase, which when my parents moved from Florida to San Antonio I begged them to bring with them, because I really, really wanted to keep it.  They didn't.)  From there we went to Las Vegas, where her parents lived.  I stayed with them until the fall semester started in September.  My grandparents drove me and my material belongings (and a bicycle that my grandfather bought for me for $25, so I would have transportation) down to Los Angeles when it was time for school to start.

During my four years of undergraduate school, I lived in dorms.  My freshman through junior years I had roommates, and my senior year I had a room to myself.  In the dorm I didn't do any cooking (although I already knew how to), because the rooms came with meals plans for the cafeteria, which was conveniently downstairs.  The dorm also had laundry facilities, so I didn't have to go anywehre to wash my clothes.  Lounges had TV sets, so I had entertainment.  So my life was pretty self-contained on campus.  When I graduated I continued at USC as a full-time employee and found a place to live near campus.

Why did I leave my parents' home?  Not only did I want to go to college, but I wanted to get out of Florida.  I hate humidity, and I hate 95/95 weather (95°, 95% humidity) even more.  I'm from California originally, and I like that weather a lot better.  Plus the part of Florida that I was in was the first place that I experienced anti-Semitism, and I didn't feel like sticking around for more.

What did I learn?  During my undergraduate years I had the opportunity to meet a much broader range of people than I had known previously, and that even takes into account the fact that I had lived in another country for two years when I was younger.  I had Philippino, Chinese, and Black roommates over the years.  I learned that I can support myself, because after my freshman year I didn't get financial assistance from my parents, even though USC is a grossly expensive private school.  I had scholarships and financial aid through the university, but I also worked 40 hours a week during the school year while carrying a full academic load and 60 hours a week during the summers.  And I learned that I really, really don't think life is worth living without a cat (no cats in the dorm, of course).

Wordless Wednesday

 

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Moving On Out

It's Saturday, so that must mean it's time for Randy Seaver's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun.  Let's see what tonight's theme is:

Here is your assignment, if you choose to play along (cue the Mission:  Impossible! music, please!):

1.  Where did you go the first time you moved out of your parents' home?  Did you have roommates? Did you live by yourself?  Did you get married right away?  Tell the story — your children and grandchildren will want to know!

2.  Share your story in your own blog post, in a comment on this post, or on Facebook.  Please leave a comment with a link to your post here.

The first time I moved out of my parents' home was when I was getting ready to go to college in 1979.  But instead of going straight to college, I lived with my grandparnents in Las Vegas during the summer.

I don't remember now why that decision was made.  It could have been my desire to get the hell out of Florida during the summer.  My grandparents might have offered to have me visit.  I'm pretty sure, however, that it wasn't my mother's idea, because she didn't want me going to the other side of the country at all.

We made a big trip out of it.  I packed all the clothes I thought I would need for the school year.  My mother and I flew to the San Francisco Bay area first and visited my aunt and uncle (my mother's brother and his wife).  I think we stayed about a week or so and did a bunch of touristy things.  One place we visited was Pier 39, where we ran into one of those age and weight guessers.  I decided to take her on.  She went on about how "the eyes are the windows to the soul" and would let her know how old I was.  She finally wrapped up her shpiel by saying I was 27.  I told her that I was only 17, and it really seemed to throw her off.  She was very disconcerted.  I offered to show her my driver license, but she said it was okay, she believed me.  I don't remember what I won for stumping her.

After that visit, Mommy and I flew down to Los Angeles for my USC freshman orientation, which was a few days or so.  Walk around the campus, kind of figure out where things are, see the dorm.  Get blown off by the advisor in my academic department (yeah, I still remember that).  Nothing exciting.

Then we flew to Vegas, where I stayed and my mother then went back to Florida.  I don't remember if I had my own room or if I slept on a couch, but I had a lovely time staying with my grandparents, except for when my grandfather would kvetch that I wasn't getting enough exercise.  He kept telling me I should go out for a walk, so one day I did.  I walked around in 107° and came back after an hour, long enough for him to be worried.  He didn't complain about me not exercising after that.

I was still living with them when the annual Jerry Lewis–Muscular Dystrophy Association Labor Day Telethon was being broadcast.  Zadie (my grandfather) asked if I wanted to see the telethon in person, which I thought sounded fun, so we went to the Sahara Casino, where it was held, and watched for a couple of hours.  Then they shifted another audience group in.  The main thing I remember from that year's telethon is that Charo was a guest and was dancing with a just-barely-large-enough-to-completely-cover-everything tube top that then started sliding down bit by bit.  The cameras cut back and forth between Charo dancing and Jerry sitting off to the side sweating while he worried if the dancing would end before the top fell.  (It did.)

Before the fall semester started, my grandparents loaded me, my clothes, and a bicycle Zadie had found for me into the car and drove to Los Angeles.  They helped me get set up in my dorm room and headed back to Vegas.  And I've always found my own place to live since then.

Wordless Wednesday

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Major News Events during Your Life

This week's theme for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun from Randy Seaver is certainly appropriate given what's going on in the world right now.

Your mission, should you decide to accept it (cue the Mission:  Impossible! music), is:

(1) What are the major news events that happened during your life that you remember where you were when you heard about them?

(2) Tell us in your own blog post, in comments to this post, or in comments on Facebook.  As always, please leave a link to your work in Comments.

Okay, here are mine.

• The first major news event that I remember where I was when it happened was the Moon landing on July 20, 1969.  As I wrote last year for the 50th anniversary of that, I remember my mother having us three kids sit and watch the Moon landing on TV, but I don't actually remember seeing the landing itself.

• The explosion of the Challenger space shuttle on January 28, 1986 happened during the day while I was at work in the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the University of Southern California.  I don't recall now how we heard that it had happened, but when we got the news we found a TV set somewhere and set it up so everyone could watch the reports.  I remember that the office supervisor was extremely annoyed that people wanted to learn what had happened, and we had to turn off the TV after a short while.

• I had been living in Berkeley, California for only a few weeks when the Loma Prieta earthquake struck on October 17, 1989.  This became a major news event because it occurred just as a World Series game between the Oakland A's and the San Francisco Giants was beginning, and a lot of people call it the World Series earthquake.  The film footage that was seen the most in other parts of the country was the liquefaction in the Marina District in San Francisco, the collapse of the double-decker Cyrpress freeway structure, and the part of the Bay Bridge that fell, although the most damage and devastation were actually in downtown Santa Cruz.  I was in the house in Berkeley when the shaking started, and I could tell it was significant.  In the living room, three of the four tall bookcases collapsed into the center of the room and all the books spilled out.  We lost power and I couldn't make outgoing phone calls.

• On September 11, 2001, I was working at the Seismological Society of America.  Someone called to let us know about the collapse of the Twin Towers, and then we followed the news online.  I don't recall that we were allowed to leave work early.  I remember when I got home and turned on the TV, all the channels but two were showing the same CNN footage over and over.  The Food Network had a static slide expressing sympathy, and Comedy Central was running its regular schedule.  I watched The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, and the guests were They Might Be Giants.  Then I gave up on TV for the evening.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Your School Yearbook Photos

It's always fun to have a timely subject, which is what Randy Seaver has done this week for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun.

Here is your assignment, if you choose to play along (cue the Mission:  Impossible! music, please!):

(1) Ancestry.com updated their School Yearbook collection and it is FREE to access until 2 September.  Use https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/yearbooksindex/.

(2) Show us your school yearbook photos from the Ancestry collection, or from your personal photo collection.  Tell us the school and year.  Add your spouse or best friend or children if you wish!

(3) Tell us about it in a blog post of your own, in a comment on this blog, or in a Facebook post.

Here's what I could come up with:

So first of all, I was surprised to see that my high school — Niceville Senior High School, in beautiful Niceville, Florida — actually is represented in the collection.  Unfortunately, none of the years I attended (1976–1979) is there, and I have no idea where my yearbooks are in the house.  I know I bought them and kept them, but they're in a box somewhere.  So much for high school photos of me!

I did find the USC yearbook for my senior year in the collection.  I graduated in 1983.

Janice Sellers, University of Southern California yearbook, 1983, page 174

Next I tried looking for my parents.  I didn't find my mother, but I did find two photos of my father in the 1954 Seminole High School (Sanford, Florida) yearbook.  I wish I had found these three months ago, while my father was stil alive.  I could have asked him about his experiences in the Pan American Club, Projectionist Club, Camera Club, and Glee Club (although I think the first three might have been in Moorestown, which was spelled incorrectly in the yearbook).

Salmagundi, Seminole High School yearbook, 1954, senior photos, page 28

Salmagundi, Seminole High School yearbook, 1954, Glee Club, page 59

I couldn't find any of my grandparents.  I looked for my best candidate for my paternal grandfather's biological father and struck out.  I did, however, find my ex, who went to Santa Monica Catholic High School in Santa Monica, California.

Hugh Singh, Compass, Santa Monica Catholic High School yearbook,
1966 (freshman), 1967 (sophomore), and 1969 (senior)

I also found the younger of my mother's two brothers (but not the older), about a dozen members of my aunt's family (but not her), and all three of my ex's brothers (but not his half-sister).  Obviously, one could spend many, many hours searching through these for family members.  They sure are fun!

It's National Motorcycle Day!

A Honda CB750, but not quite like mine*

And just what is National Motorcycle Day, you may ask?  Apparently it's a blatant marketing push by a Wisconsin-based company that offers motorcycle insurance.  But motorcycles have been an important part of my life, and I felt like posting about them as part of writing my own story, so I searched to find if a national motorcycle day existed, and I found it.  This year it falls on July 12, ergo this post.

I've decided the first bike I'll write about is my Honda CB750K, because it was the most distinctive of the motorcycles I've owned.  Based on my recollections of all of my vehicles and the fact that I now recall that I already had it when I had my knee surgery, I think I bought it about 1985.  I was living in Los Angeles at the time and had been riding a Suzuki GS550 for a while but had decided it wasn't big enough.  I bought it used, as I have done with all of my vehicles.  I don't remember what year it was, but according to the Wikipedia page about the model, the 750K was made from 1969 to 1982, so it could have been anywhere in there, and I don't know the submodel.  I'm inclined to think it was more toward the later end, as it was in reasonably good condition.  Maybe there's a way to research that kind of thing with the California Department of Motor Vehicles?  Hmm, if so I could get copies of all of my vehicle registrations and learn more about them, like their license plates.  I'm pretty sure I had a vanity plate for the Honda, but I don't remember what it was.

My Honda was blue.  It was designed as a touring bike, to be ridden long distance over highways, so it had a large gas tank for a motorcycle, 5 1/2 gallons.  This was probably my favorite feature, because it meant stopping less often to gas up, particularly helpful when I was driving regularly between Los Angeles and Berkeley on I-5.  With the Honda I only had to stop once each way for gas, whereas all my other bikes required two or three gas stops.  Because it was my primary vehicle and I hauled around various things on it, I had saddle bags and a trunk.  I also had a full fairing for highway riding.

Some of the features described on the Wikipedia page I remember:  electric starter, kill switch, dual mirrors, flashing turn signals, and air-cooled engine.  One of the problems I discovered with the air-cooled engine was that if you weren't moving, you weren't getting air to cool the engine, so on really hot days when I was stuck on the freeway it would often stall on me.

Three things I remember about my Honda are not described on the page.  First, it was extraordinarily tall, so tall that I had trouble getting on it for the first few months after my knee surgery, which was in the fall of 1985 if I remember correctly.  I had to very carefully pick up my right leg and gently slide it over the bike, letting my foot just barely tap the ground on the other side before I could tilt the bike to an upright position and rely on my left leg.  I'm lucky that you shift with your left foot, or I probably wouldn't have been able to ride at all until I was fully recovered.  None of the images I can find online of 750K models looks like my bike; all of them look like normal-height street bikes.  Second, it was very heavy and had a very high center of gravity, more than any other motorcycle I've owned, even the 920.

The other "feature" of the bike which is not mentioned is the fact that it was necessary to take the side panels off of both sides to gain access to the battery, which I think of as a serious design flaw.  I remember the problems I had with that after one year at Band Camp (from when I was in the USC Trojan Marching Band, The Greatest Marching Band In The History Of The Universe).  Not only was I out of town for four days (I think?) with band camp in San Diego, but I broke my finger while there (which was an adventure in and of itself that I should write about sometime).  So when we returned to Los Angeles I couldn't ride for a while.  By the time I finally had a chance to check on the bike, which I had left parked on campus near the band office, the battery was dead.  So here I was, my right (dominant) hand in a cast, fumbling with this stupid layout to undo bolts to get the battery out so I could take it home and charge it.  I eventually did manage to do this, but when I brought the battery back, for some reason the charge had not taken, and I had to do it all over again!  The second time the battery did charge, and I was able to start the bike (yay!).  I vaguely recall that I rode the bike home slowly and carefully and had someone else drive my car home.

The center stand on the Honda was extremely difficult to maneuver.  I was never able to get it up by myself.  I never learned if that was normal for the model or if mine was just stiff.  This became a big problem once when I was riding south on the 405 during rush hour and the rear tire blew out.  I was in the fast lane, so I pulled over onto the shoulder and tried to get the bike to stand up on the side stand.  Nope, that didn't work; the bike kept trying to fall over.  This was well before ubiquitous mobile phones, so I didn't see a lot of choice of what to do (although I suspect if I had stayed there, someone would have alerted the police).  I got back on the bike and started it, got up to speed, and moved over two lanes.  I could see the Warner Avenue exit coming up, but I had to move two more lanes to the right to get to it.  Some absolute angel in a station wagon in the third lane saved me.  Somehow that person figured out I really needed to move over and waved me over to the third lane.  Then he (she?) moved to the right lane and covered me for that move.  I was able then to exit the freeway!  The first place I found to try to park the bike was some fast food place.  I still couldn't put the bike on the center stand, however.  I don't remember how at this point, but I was able to call AAA.  At that time AAA had pretty much no assistance for motorcycles except gas and water.  When the dispatcher asked for details about the vehicle, I said it was a Honda CB750K motorcycle with a flat tire.  He told me they couldn't really do anything for the bike because they couldn't repair or replace the tire, and I explained I just needed someone to help me put it on the center stand.  He sounded doubtful but said he would send someone.  The AAA driver who arrived was a big, beefy guy.  I explained the problem.  That center stand was so stiff he couldn't do it by himself, and I had to help him!  But we did manage to put it on the stand.  My landlord very grumpily came to retrieve me from Orange County (I lived just on the edge of East L.A. near the USC campus), and the next day I called the one local motorcycle towing company to retrieve the bike.

After my knee surgery, I no longer had the leg strength to pick the Honda up when it fell over.  One time this became a problem was when I somehow managed to get the shoelace of my left shoe tangled with the foot peg.  I tried but could not fix it while I was on the bike, so rather than risk some kind of horrible accident because I couldn't control the bike, I pulled up to a median, laid the bike down, and untangled my shoe.  Then I looked around at people and asked if someone could please help me pick it up!  Happily, someone walking by did just that, and I was able to go merrily on my way again.

Another time I laid the Honda down was not quite so . . . planned.  I was turning left at an intersection when the engine suddenly cut out.  I was in the middle of the turn and leaning left, and the bike just dropped.  I tried to catch it with my left hand, but because of the weight it slipped off my fingers (and caused a hairline fracture in my pinky).  So there I am, standing in the middle of the intersection, with a downed bike.  I shouted for help!  Someone came and helped me pick the bike up, and I made it out of the intersection safely.

The last time I had to get help picking up the Honda was after I had moved to Berkeley from Los Angeles.  It was the day of the Loma Prieta earthquake, October 17, 1989.  I was in the house when the quake hit.  At the time I was a nanny/cook/housekeeper.  After the shaking stopped, I left to pick up the 2-1/2-year-old daughter of the household, who was in daycare.  When I walked outside, the Honda had fallen over, and onto the wrong side, no less.  Motorcycles are designed to lean to the left on their side stands; it was on its right side.  That makes it even more difficult to pick up.  I didn't want to just leave it there, because gasoline from the tank would have leaked out.  I was fortunate in that someone was walking past the house at that moment, and she helped me get the bike up.

By that point I wasn't actually riding the Honda anymore.  While I was still in Los Angeles, it was stolen from outside the USC Hillel, where I was working as a kosher cook.  This was between the fall of 1988 and the spring of 1989.  I walked out after finishing work one evening and poof!, no motorcycle was there.  Beyond the annoyance factor, this was suspicious because this particular model was not popular and therefore not worth much money.  I reported it but didn't end up waiting for it be found.  I got fidgety without a bike and only lasted about a week before I bought my Virago.  About two months later, the police recovered the Honda on the side of a freeway (I think the 10), where it had been abandoned by a man who was trying to get away from the police.  I was told that the engine was still running when they found it.  It had been in some kind of accident.  I don't remember how I transported the Honda to Berkeley.  I tried to sell it, but no one wanted it.  Not long after the earthquake, I gave it to my landlady's lover just to get rid of it.

And so ends the tale of my Honda CB750K.

*Credit:  yoppy.  Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Your School Graduations

Since I still have some energy left, I'll try to catch up a little on some posts.  This Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge was posted on June 22, a little more than a month ago.

Here is your assignment, if you choose to play along (cue the Mission:  Impossible! music, please!):

(1) Most of us graduated from elementary school, junior high school, high school, and perhaps college.
 
(2) What schools did you graduate from (and when, if you dare!), and do you have a photograph?

(3) Tell us about it in your own blog post, in a comment on this post, or in a Facebook post.

Well, I don't remember having any kind of "graduation" ceremony for elementary school or junior high school, and I definitely don't have any photographs of either.  But I do have something for high school and college.

I graduated from Niceville Senior High School in Niceville, Florida (yes, that is really a place) on June 1, 1979.  This photo was taken at our home in Villa Tasso before we left for the ceremony.  My grandmother came to every graduation in the family that she could.  I don't have any photos of me in my cap and gown.

Back row:  My mother, my sister, my grandmother; front row: me, my brother

I graduated from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles on May 13, 1983 with a Bachelor of Arts.  Technically my degree was in Humanities with an emphasis in French; functionally I was a French major with minors in Spanish and Russian (I created my own program for a foreign language major).  We were told we were the 100th graduating class of the university.  The program is actually available online, although I haven't found my name in it yet.  My mother, stepfather, and maternal grandparents flew to California for my graduation.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Super Bowl LIII (2019) Sunday

Randy Seaver has an annual tradition of focusing Saturday Night Genealogy Fun the day before the Super Bowl on the big game, and this year is no exception.

Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is:

(1) What is your favorite National Football League team?  [For those who are not American football fans but fans of other sports teams, substitute your favorite team.]  Why are you a fan of this team?  How long have you been a fan of your favorite team?

(2) What is the genealogy of your favorite team?  When did it start playing, what leagues has it played in?

(3) Have you worked for the team in any capacity, or attended games?  What is your best memory of your favorite team's history?

(4) Predict the score of the Rams-Patriots game on Sunday.

(5) Tell us in a blog post of your own, in a comment to this blog post, or in a comment on Facebook.

Here's my contribution.

1.  My favorite NFL team is the Minnesota Vikings.  Way back when I was very young, I remember watching a football game and thinking, "I should really have a favorite team."  I picked the Vikings, who were playing in that game, because I liked their helmet logo better.  That was about 1969 or so, so I've been a fan for almost 50 years now, the great majority of my life.  I have stuck with them through all four Super Bowl losses, which was a record, for most times going to the Super Bowl and not winning a game.  In fact, I was upset when the Denver Broncos broke the record with five losses and no wins; it was a lousy record, but it was ours.

2.  According to Wikipedia, the Vikings joined the National Football League in 1960 and began playing in 1961.  It was in the stand-alone National Football League and then became part of the new National Football Conference after the AFL-NFL merger in 1969.  Something I just learned from reading the Wikipedia page is that the Vikings were the last (old) NFL champions before the merger.

3.  I have never worked for the Vikings.  I have attended only one game, when they played the Houston Oilers (now the Tennessee Titans), on December 21, 1980.  That was my mother's big surprise Christmas present to me (and the rest of the family) that year.  My parents were living in San Antonio, and I was going to visit over Christmas break from college.  My mother told me that she had a very special present for me.  I read in the newspaper that the Vikings were going to be in Houston and managed to correctly guess that was the present.  I was very excited to go to the game (my first NFL game attended) but dismayed (not surprised, unfortunately) when the Vikings lost.

I know one person who played for the Vikings.  I met Joey Browner when he was at the University of Southern California.  I was thrilled when he was picked by my favorite team.  I also met Fran Tarkenton, the great Vikings quarterback, once, at a golf tournament in Monterey.  He was grumpy and snapped at me when I wished him a happy birthday (but did recover and apologize).

My favorite memory of the Vikings is from when they played against the Oakland Raiders (coincidentally my second favorite NFL team) in Super Bowl XI in 1977.  As I had already been through three Vikings Super Bowl losses, I was anticipating the worst, so while I made some bets with friends for the Vikings to win, I also made several other bets to mitigate my losses, in particular that the Vikings would set a record.  While that was the year that they set the record for most Super Bowl losses without a win, I knew going in that they would have a record for the oldest starter in a Super Bowl, which was Alan Page.  They also set the record for most Super Bowl appearances that year, as they were the first team to go to the big game four times.

4.  I have read that the Patriots are favored in the game.  I have no idea what the score will be, but I will predict a Rams victory because I absolutely do not want the Patriots to tie the Steelers for all-time Super Bowl wins.