On The Fly

Fender Stratocaster “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” I’m sure you’ve heard that mind-numbing cliche many times. Well, I’m here to say that education is not a bag of tricks and humans are not dogs. Some do resemble their  ole’ dog, anyway . . .  For years I heard that platitude from students who would use it as excuse for not being able to successfully learn a new skill to their satisfaction or expectation. Agreed, learning a new skill is challenging. Let’s be honest, it’s downright hard. We tend to get entrenched in our comfortable ruts. Think back a minute. Remember what it was like to learn to ride a bicycle? It was exhilarating! Well, maybe not at first. Did you have training wheels? I’m sorry. What happened when your Dad removed those training wheels. I’ll bet you fell - over and over again. But with a determination that refused to quit, you learned to ride. It was simply a matter of learning the tricks.    You see, to remain young and ...

On January 24, 2015, at 1:08 p.m. Donald Lee Ball, my Dad, made the transition to heaven. He was a devoted husband, father of four, grandfather to seven, and yes, a great-grandfather to four healthy babies. He loved his family and nature’s bounty. He was always active, an athlete, and an outdoorsman. A mans-man who taught his children to work hard, be honest, and treasure family values. His spirit (our gift) lives in all the people he touched.  My best memory of my father was his love of baseball. Not spring training or a visit to a major league ballpark, nor was it meeting a famous ballplayer. For me, it was learning to catch lightning and field line drives with my Dad. My attention was not on major league baseball (see, A Budding Cubs Fan ) as a youngster. The game, at that level, was always background noise from an old transistor radio tuned to WGN Chicago. In Cuba, Illinois baseball fans chewed on one another every season over the battle between the Chicago Cubs and the S...

What Doc Burch Taught Me About Staying Active. We talk a lot about "life hacks" these days, but most of them don’t have a very long shelf life. Usually, they’re forgotten by the next app update. But back in 1972, I received a piece of advice that came with a 50-year warranty. It’s the reason I’m still on my bike today, still chasing a golf ball around Carlsbad, and still—mostly—in one piece. The Kick That Changed Everything It started with a literal kick in the pants. A kid at school in Cuba, Illinois, was joking around and caught me just right. By the next morning, my lower back was screaming. My mom didn’t reach for the Tylenol; she reached for her car keys. "Let’s go see Doc Burch," she said. "He’ll fix you right up." Harry E. Burch, D.C., was a fixture in Lewistown. He’d graduated from Palmer College in ’59 and had been our family’s go-to for years. He was a man of practiced hands and steady eyes. After a quick exam and an X-ray, the mood in the room s...

Let me take you back to the days when “MaBell” dominated how you communicated with distant family and friends. I’d venture to say your primary means was a rotary dial telephone, undoubtedly a party line, some had to crank, attached to the wall in your home. Getting social meant the neighbors were listening in to your phone conversations. How times have changed! Today’s pilot can communicate with their friends and former squadron mates worldwide on a variety of devices. A cellphone, laptop computer, tablet, smartphone, or a television connected to your home WiFi network. Social media, via the internet, provides a much broader range of options. Thousands communicate daily from a visit to a museum, a video segment from an airshow, or post a compelling story shared with a veteran.  For our patrons, it all begins at the Foundation’s website . This is the launch point for all our public activities, educational outreach, and social media outlets. We’re proud to report our activ...

“Its more than a feeling, when I hear that old song they used to play (more than a feeling). I begin dreaming”. . . . Allow me to set the stage for you. Bradley University, Saturday night, 1977, Peoria, Illinois, the rock band Boston had just released their first album the previous year titled “Boston.” I wore that album out, playing it repeatedly. When Boston played that night on stage, it was magic. We were there! Musician and mechanical engineer Tom Scholz was the first to recreate the exact sound of their hit album live. We were impressed. I fell in love once again with the art of playing the guitar. So, 40 years later, I’m playing the intro licks to Boston’s most famous song, More Than A Feeling. Sounds a little crazy at my age, but this year Santa finally brought what I’ve always wanted: an electric guitar. “Santa knows; he always knows.” It’s a beauty. A Fender Sunburst Stratocaster. Well, technically, it’s a Squire made by Fender, but who cares - it’s magnificent. And ...

“There are over 3,000 known minerals. About 150 gem minerals. They are classified as: Group, Species, and Variety.” For example, “Can you identify the green stone now on the screen? Remember, there are a lot of possibilities.” Recently, I was invited to do a presentation on gemstones for two local North County San Diego clubs; Treasure Seekers of San Diego, and the Temecula Valley Prospectors. Their principal hobby is panning for gold. However, some dabble in mining gemstones. We had enthusiastic audience decidedly interested in learning more about gemstones, a proverbial “gold mine” for educators if you will. So, we dipped our fingers into some gem identification, discussed possible treatments, and reminded them to always suspect glass or plastic when they found something. I popped up a slide, gave them a few clues then asked the audience to identify the stone. Thankfully, this technique involved no awful smells from the use of refractive index liquid. The crowd lov...