Blackboards: 2021 style

[yogi]

High Tech Blackboard

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Remember back in the old days when you and I were in grammar school? All the blackboards in my classes for those eight years were made of slate; yes, real slate. We used chalk and felt erasers to write on them, and they were on nearly every wall in the room. Even if you didn't go through that experience, you know what I'm talking about.

Here we are in the year 2021 where my youngest offspring is a school teacher in the second largest school district in Illinois. Chicago is the largest. This gal has always been ahead of the teaching curve and apparently got some high tech genes passed onto her from her papa. She has been recognized and given awards for her teaching innovations, all of which sounds like I'm bragging. Well, I am. I'm proud of her. I'm not sure how she acquired the display board in the picture, but it was delivered to her classroom recently to replace the overhead projector she is fond of using.

You might already know that pens and pencils and learning to write in script are sooo last century. Kids today use Apple iPads for in class work and are never taught penmanship. Those iPads came in handy when the current pandemic was at its peak. Zoom style classes were the norm for many months and the kids took to it like a duck takes to water. Of all the teachers in the school, my daughter and one other teacher were the only ones where the students and teachers did very well schooling remotely. So, now they are all back in class with their iPads, and this fantastic 84" monitor on wheels. My daughter, the teacher, uses her iPad to write on the screen of her device. That is currently being sent to the monitor via HDMI but will soon be wireless so that she can roam around the class while writing. As you can see, some of what she penned got translated into a math formula by the computer. The "hello" was just a little extra she put up for the benefit of her sister and me. Her students can interact with the monitor by writing on their own individual iPads. What they write will also appear on the screen. It all makes me want to go back to school where life can be fun instead of a challenge. Apparently this all came about as a result of Covid relief money in the school district's treasury.

All I can say is, you got to love Apple.

[ocelotl]

I remember there was an attempt to install interactive blackboards all over Mexico under the initiative "Enciclomedia" between 2006 and 2008. The idea was to connect all the schools to centralized databases of teaching material to use on classes. The connection was done either through wired Internet connection, when available, or Satellite connection (that's here the company I worked at the time got involved).

At each classrom, the traditional blackboard was complimented with three elements, that were the frontend of the connection within the classroom: A computer, a projector and an interactive whiteboard, that was nothing but a large capacitive digitizer pad where he images from the projector were displayed and served as a big digitizing board.

The technology was incipient then and there... It was badly implemented, yet it had potential, and now we are able to see all of that on real touchscreens.

[yogi]

I found out the digital whiteboard in the photo is actually a Dell product. However, all the students and the teacher are equipped wit iPads that display on the whiteboard. I'm told it weighs 700 pounds and is nearly 6 feet tall. My daughter hopes to do away with the projector as soon as the whiteboard becomes wireless. I don't know at this time if the system will use a central database or not. I'm just aware of the fact that only a few classrooms in that school have this high tech. Basically it's because the teachers are willing and able to use it efficiently.

[ocelotl]

O.K. It sounds like it is actually a stand mounted big All-In-One computer... Given what they used to equip within the so called shmartz TV sets, it would not be an stretch of imagination to think it somehow has Wi-Fi and Bluetooth capability... Scale economy makes the only really expensive part the over the screen touch panel, which should have been purposely designed and manufactured for products similar to this. The rest is readily produced elsewhere, so it's not a surprise for this to be a Dell product instead of something from any "smart" whiteboard company that existed 15 or so years ago.

[yogi]

This morning the technician is in the classroom converting the screen to "wireless" capable. I don't know how that is done, but I have a suspicion it's WiFi, but could be Bluetooth. That all depends on what kind of security the school has in place, if any. I might be able to get more information from my daughter, but she is only slightly familiar with high tech. You are correct to point out that the technology behind all this is pretty old. Coming up with an 84" display screen, however, must have been quite a trick. It's a shame that Dell has such a poor reputation for support because they do have some really cool devices in their catalog.

Judging by what looks to be a Windows task bar along the bottom of the screen I would have to think it's more than just a display panel. I don't know why it would need a sophisticated operating system to run, but then I don't know a lot of things.

[Kellemora]

I wanted to chime in yesterday, but ran out of time.
Back when a local school changed out all their green 8 foot long chalkboards with the aluminum frame and chalk ledge, I bought six of them. I placed one in each of my kids rooms, and two in my downstairs workshop.
Once the kids were older, and didn't want a chalkboard in their room, I hung them in my garage and office.
I was working at a guys house a few years after that, and he had his living room dedicated to some MLM product he was selling.
He asked me about lining the front wall with a blackboard like a school has. I asked if the more modern green boards would be more to his liking. He said yes. And after I got three of them up on the wide front wall, he asked me to put two more on the side wall. Since I still had one left over, I asked if he would like another one on the left wall between the front and the windows. He said sure, that would be great. So I managed to use them all up on one job I did.
I was at his house again about a year or two later to replace his garage door, and saw that he had painted all the green chalkboards with bright white enamel and used them as whiteboards. I'm sure it was an automotive lacquer he used.

[yogi]

I know that I've seen and used those green boards in my distant past. I"m thinking it might have been in high school, or possibly in some of the classes I took at Motorola. I recall using them because the chalk was yellow and I thought that was odd.

The school district where my daughter works at one time had a lot of Spanish speaking temporary citizens. The student body didn't do too well in state exams and there was talk about the state stepping in and taking over. As you might suspect the quality of education was affected not only by the transitory population but also the lack of funds in the budget. The school got their act together to avoid state intervention and it turned out that a lot of the problem was due to the methods of teaching. My daughter was way ahead of the rest of the teachers being nearly fresh out of school and all, plus she had a high interest in technical matters. There was and still is a lot of resistance to her methods, but the proof of the pudding is in the test results. Her classes consistently get high marks on the state exams, which is something most of the staff didn't think was possible given the demographics. Her success attracted a few other teacher and now there is a "squad" of them setting the standards. It would be a natural for her class to be equipped with iPads and computer integrated teaching methods. The fact that this new toy came out of funds that nobody planned on in advance tells me the district is still under funded. I don't know if my gal has the answer to effective teaching, but they all do have fun learning in her classes.

[Kellemora]

Many long years ago, when had to go to Tempe Arizona to teach two VOTEC classes, which was part of getting my state general contractors license without being union. Most of the books they used to teach from were even hard for me to understand.
But each of these kids had to pass the carpentry class to get their certificates to get jobs.
Teaching from a book in a classroom was crazy. But they did have to learn some things first.
I got them out in the field where I set up problems like was found in the books, so they could see hands-on what the problem really was, and how to most easily solve it.
I also taught many things that were not even addressed in the manuals. Little tricks of the trade you only learn by doing.

Like teaching someone to drive a stick. You can teach them all about how a clutch works, and why, and what steps are used to engage the gears and let the clutch out. But until they do it themselves, hands-on, they will never grasp the feel they need to learn. But once they learn how to let out the clutch properly and when to accelerate properly without burning out a clutch. Then they could also teach it with better understanding of what the mechanics entailed.

The same holds true for carpentry, which way to set framing studs, and how to secure them properly. When to cut on the line or ahead of the line, or past the line, depending on how you measure and use the square.
Once you learn how to cut properly, then you can work as a team with one making the measurement, another person doing the cutting, and another person setting the framing or studs in place. It's things like that which are not clear from a book.

One of the first things I taught was how to get the first base framing perfectly square. The simple 3-4-5 way, which was not mentioned at all in the training manuals, which surprised me to no end.
When it came time for them to take their tests, out of something like 30 kids that finished the class, only 2 failed the tests.
I felt really bad about that personally, when it really wasn't my fault, even so. At least until I got to talk to them afterwards. They didn't want to pass the tests because it meant they would have to go get a job they didn't really want in the first place.
Both of them said they didn't want in the carpentry class, but had to take something and all the other classes were full.
I went and talked to the head of the organization about it, and he said they never have enough volunteers. Had I not been there this semester, the carpentry class would have not been available either to the overflow of students.
On the bright side, all 26 kids in my second class passed all the tests, and moved on to other classes that were open.

[yogi]

I taught both my daughters how to drive stick shift. That's the only kind of cars we had at the time. There was a short session of explanation about what is going in with all those pedals and levers, but neither of the two cared much to know any details. At least they did know the difference between the brake and the clutch prior to getting behind the wheel. LOL They both got the same lesson two years apart and the first gal took to it quickly. Then again it was an Audi we were practicing in and those cars were very forgiving. The second daughter got her lessons in a Ford Fiesta - one of the first FWD cars in America. It certainly wasn't an Audi but the mechanical movements were identical. It took quite a while for her to understand that the clutch pedal must come up slowly and not popped. Once she figured that out, she was like a fish in water. To this day she drives a Ford Fiesta.

You know about my past interest in astrology. At the peak of my interest I decided to become a teacher instead of merely being a practitioner. There is a very little amount of math involved with drawing charts, and it is incredible how different each person is in regard to learning. Of course nothing important was at stake but they all came to learn something. Some did better at learning than others.

You bring up some old memories once again. There was a time when I knew exactly how to cut wood and why you cut on or on either side of the line. Those were the good old days.

[Kellemora]

You can laugh, but I learned to drive a stick first on farming tractors, then in the many trucks we had around the farm and florist. Many of those old early trucks were actually open trucks, no roof over your head, hi hi. A couple we had to crank to start too, but I steered clear of those.
The very first car I could call my own was a 1946 Ford Deluxe. Loved that car! Put a lot of work into restoring it too.
Nearly every car I've ever owned, up until I got the 1997 Blazer were all sticks, 4 on the floor naturally.

Some of our big trucks, like the semi's had interesting shift patterns, one of them was downright crazy and you had to memorize the shift pattern, it was the only one we had with that crazy shift pattern too.
It ran like this, 1, low, high, 2, low, high, 3, low, 4 low, 3 high, 4 high, then 5, low, high.
All the rest of them were simple, even the 15 speed road rangers. In numerical order, and you used low, mid, high.
So technically, whether it was a 5 speed, 10 speed, or 15 speed, it was still only a 5 speed transmission, the rest was handled using split axles. Most of us only used low in 1st and 2nd gear if we had a full load, then jump to 2 mid, 3 mid, then high.
At least around town. You get in a hilly area, or in the mountains and you used every single gear, hi hi.

I never got into Astrology, but was interested in Astronomy for quite some time. At one time, a lifetime ago, I could name most of the constellations, and knew where to look to find them. Now I have trouble finding the North Star, hi hi.

The guy who built the deck for my wife, and way over budget, didn't even know which way to lay the boards down.
So his work was not only shoddy, it has tons of problems too, like cupped boards and the like.

Working in historic homes, we had a lot of trouble finding original size fir tongue and groove. More often than not we had to special order it. It was not uncommon for some to come not cut on the proper side. Took me forever to tell them NOT to cut the bead down the face side for walls when we were using them for porch decks. without the bead we could flip the board over the right way when they cut it wrong, hi hi.

Different folks I've worked with over the years did things the same way, whether they were working with wet or dry wood.
And if you didn't watch them close, they would always do it wrong, especially on outdoor decking. It is normal to butt wet wood up tight, because it shrinks when it dries, like Wolmanized lumber. But you can't butt dry wood up tight because it expands from the humidity and then buckles.

And speaking of wood, the quality of the woods back when I was using same, is nothing at all like the quality of wood today.
Not even close in many areas of wood grading.

[yogi]

My first house was built with rough cut studs. We bought it when it was at least 50 years old so that some unusual things could still be found between the walls, such as lead plumbing. I wanted to expand the upstairs bedroom for the girls. That project involved moving an existing wall three feet or so. I took out the existing studs and was amazed that the 2 x 4 was actually 2 x 4. It was some kind of hard wood too. I took a chunk of it to the local lumber yard, they still had lumber yards back then, and asked if I could buy some of this stuff for my project. They laughed and told me what kind of wood it was (I don't remember now) and said that is has been unavailable for dozens of years. When the house was built that wood was plentiful and every farmer built their structures with it. But then the forests got used up. It either takes a 100 years to replenish, or that particular tree is extinct. It's a bit like plywood. The trees used to make that are becoming non-existent. You can still get plywood for the right price, but it too will be extinct when the last tree is cut.

Given all the restoration projects you got involved with I'm a little surprised you didn't acquire your own saw mill to cut your own materials. I guess even then it would still be difficult to get good hard wood. Today hard woods are hard to come by. Southern yellow pine is plentiful and fast growing so that a lot of lumber is made from that. I always heard about the stuff but never seen a southern yellow pine until we visited South Carolina one year. I was not impressed. LOL

My neighbor was a truck driver and I got to see the inside of a cab or two when he brought his rig home for one reason or another. That gear shifting system is why they need to send the drivers to a school before they get a CDL.

[Kellemora]

Nearly every old house I worked in had studs of all sizes in them. But that old hardwood is nearly impossible to work with, because it only turned harder with age.
Although expensive, we would buy Oak 2x6 lumber and cut it down to 4 inch to replace the old studs where needed. But not always, sometimes we used fir or pine if it was not exposed to view.
Even in more modern houses, 2x4s came in all different sizes, getting smaller and smaller each decade.
Some of the brand new houses I had to do work in, had used 2x3s for walls between bedrooms that had closets on those walls too. They used a little trick for the adjoining room, like a living room on one side and a bedroom with closets on the other side. Where the electrical outlets went on the living room side, they were placed where the divider between the two closets were, as that was the only place deep enough to put in even a slim style pull box. On the closet divider side, it meant the wall stud there was in two pieces instead of one also. Strange way of doing things, that's for sure.

We did have a saw mill at the florist, but for my work I had table saws and planers, and jointers, and also a Shopsmith System with all the attachments.

As an aside: If you are working on an outdoor project and need wood that will not rot, and don't want Wolmanized, Yellow Pine is the way to go, it will outlast cedar easily. Unfortunately, what furring strips they sell and call yellow pine are not really yellow pine at all, but white pine, which rots away really fast.

The fanciest semi I ever drove was a Chevrolet AstroCab. It was neat inside, but everything back then was the old style of dashboards and controls. Heck, I wouldn't know what half the knobs and buttons are in a new semi cab without studying up on them all. They all use a standardized icon now on the knobs, some of which don't make sense to me at first glance. But I hear they are still just as hard to work as they were back when I used them. You could break a finger if you didn't know how to open or close some of those knobs. You press down on it, and it snaps back like shot from a gun.
It has been at least 35 years if not longer since I was in a big rig, and most of those I was in was at least 5 years old or older then. The ones I drove for the florist down to Florida to pick up greens were made in the 1970s, and a whole lot has changed since then.
I rented a straight truck from a local truck rental place about 12 years ago. It did have a split axle, but it was totally automatic. Even so, you had to let off the gas for a second for it to change axles. But it had lights on the dashboard to let you know to let up off the gas to give it a chance to change, then put the hammer back down again. But there was also a switch that allowed it to stay in the Hi axle gear too, and just run up the automatic transmission that way.

Somewhere in my diary notes, I have the makes and models of a couple of the semi's I drove for a long time. Like anything else you drive though, you get used to the one you drive all the time, and changing to another one is like getting a new car and having to learn how it handles.

[yogi]

It's crazy, I know, but I seem to have an attraction to dials and levers and displays. LOL My earliest ambition was to be a commercial airline pilot. I got to tour a jet cockpit back in the days when security was not an issue. The cleaning crew walked me through, which today would probably get them fired on the spot and perhaps arrested. The thought of being suspended in free air was part of my imagined thrill, but the cockpit surrounding the pilot on all sides with control systems is what got me all excited. When my neighbor showed me the inside of his truck cab I got nearly as excited as I did at the airport. The truck, however, didn't have quite as many knobs, dials, and levers. LOL Never been in the pilot's cabin of a big ship, but I'm guessing something similar is in those boats that move 5000 people at a time.

Ever since I found out what a cabinet maker does, I had an inner desire to own a plainer and a joiner and a few other things for wood working. When I win the lottery and buy that Bentley, I will also build myself a woodworking shop fully equipped. I realize that I will be too old and fragile to lift even a white pine 2x4, but at least I'll have the satisfaction of finally realize a life long dream. I never really wanted to work in the trades, but carpentry always was of special interest to me.

[Kellemora]

You would have loved the cockpit of our PacV SK5 hovercraft. It had just about as many dials and knobs, and gauges as a commercial airliner, hi hi. Even though we were on water, it still had an altimeter of sorts which showed how high the underdeck was above the surface of the water. Plus gauges to show the air pressure under the deck. As funny as this may sound, but too much air pressure under the deck would actually cause the ship to ride lower in the water and have more drag than it should have. Today these hovercraft are known as LCAC or Landing Craft Air Cushion. Since more folks were familiar with the term LCAC, I used it most often when I really shouldn't have, because it makes what I'm saying sound wrong for the era. I even had one guy say, you couldn't have done that, they were not invented until such n such a date. So I told him exactly which craft I piloted, the PacV SK5 UNIT NUMBER 3 was my girl. But most of my time was spent at Tillar Camp working with submersibles, that never panned out and the project discontinued, after heavy loss of life I might add.

I sold my entire Shopsmith system at auction before I moved south. Along with a Belsaw tool sharpening shop with all the machines, and the rest of my woodworking equipment. I replaced a couple of items with cheaper tools after I moved down here, but never used them because they didn't do the same things, nor as convenient. A couple were more of a pain to use than doing it by hand or with another tool instead.

The biggest bandsaw I had was an old antique Ideal brand. I could cut 16 inch logs with that thin into nice planks. I had folks bring me things like Cherry, Oak, Walnut, and other logs to cut into planks for them. Many of which I also ran through my planer if they were narrow enough. My stand mounted planer was only 8 inch, and my Shopsmith fine planer was only 4 inch.
The only jointer I had was the Shopsmith, but I actually used a bench mounted Router most often to do a joint or two.
I learned I could put my beading tool into the Router and use it with greater ease than the beading attachment on the Shopsmith.

Although I'm no longer capable of using any of those things, it was sad to see them all go at auction for pennies on the dollar.

[yogi]

I guess I knew about hovercrafts but never so much as got close to one. The pictures I've seen of them were taken in swamps and such places that were home to alligators and crocodiles. They seem to be a lot safer than anything airborne, given that you are not that far off the ground/water. But I can imagine it would take quite a bit of skill to master controlling one. I would not know what you meant by calling it a LCAC. lol

You are the undisputed champion of collecting stuff, but I think we all accumulate it over time. I never realized how much stuff I had until we moved here to Missouri. All my life's savings were in the basement and it took several weeks to go through it all. We didn't have anything worth auctioning, nor even garage sale quality. In a way it was sad having to sort it all out because I was reminded of how I came to own much of it and knew it would all end up in a dumpster somewhere. All I got to bring with me is this computer and one tool chest. Maybe a few garden tools too. The rest of my life is in a landfill somewhere in northern Illinois.

[Kellemora]

The LCAC's are much nicer than the PacV SK5 - Our unit did not contain much armament since it was used for rescue missions.
It could carry up to a dozen troops, or 4 to 6 small submersibles.
The units used by the team I was in were the model 7232, while those with heavy armament were model 7255.
As the one shown in this video.
Here is a video of the full armament military PacV.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qoenobTfGxM
Ours was only used to run from a hospital ship to the beach to bring injured soldiers back to the hospital ship.
The submersibles were repurposed and used to jump the cliffs along the beach to go in and bring back injured soldiers. The submersibles were very short lived because they all failed miserably, except for the few that were repurposed and no longer submersible.

I have amassed way to much junk here again also. Most of it will end up in dumpsters as well.

But back when I was doing general contracting and the like, having things on hand, sorted and placed in clearly marked boxes made it easy to see if I had some strange item of the right size. This came in very handy when I was doing older historical homes, because I kept a lot of the old things from houses we renovated to modern standards and codes. My collections of junk saved the day many times back then.

FWIW: When we had the auction before we moved south, we made enough money to pay off all my debts and still had over 3 grand left over to buy a trailer to help move what little we did keep.
But then you have to remember, I had all the machines and equipment from several businesses, things that were sought after, even if they didn't bring much at auction.
35,000 dollars worth of electronics parts, all new in their original boxes, of which I probably could have returned most of it for a 20% restocking fee. Ended up going for like 30 bucks is all. Sad.
Plus my gold stamping equipment, and type in cases. Empty those cases normally sold for 135 bucks each.
I got less than 50 bucks for everything, including over a grand worth of foils and ribbons.

But in the end, the house was empty, and I was 3 grand richer, and totally debt free. A very nice feeling!

[yogi]

The PacV SK5 certainly is/was an impressive machine. It looks like it might be fun to pilot one of those things, but I have to be honest and say I am thankful to the gods that be that I never did.

I didn't get involved with general contracting, but there were only rare occasions when I couldn't find what I needed in my basement. That included a large variety of tools and about half the stuff my dad collected and passed on to me. LOL I still have a cigar box he used to keep miscellaneous screws and fasteners in. I kept it because the cigar box was made of wood. Not that cheap stuff they packed some cigars in when I was a teenager but some real hard wood with a hook and eye clamp. I'm guessing that box alone is worth something today. Maybe $4..95 or more. Certainly less than the price of a cigar today.

Apparently you didn't get what your stuff was worth at the auction, but you did get something better than cash. You got peace of mind and some change left over. It's hard to say if we are happier here compared to back near Chicago. The future does look better because the real estate taxes here will not deplete my retirement savings before I die. Then again, there is that branch of the Gestapo known as an HOA.

[Kellemora]

Almost all of my time was at the SDS testing the submersibles. This is where we lost many members. And the reason it was eventually shut down.
Contrary to what the video showed, it really only took two of us to run the PacV but we did have three counting the navigator. Had to have him to find our way back to the hospital ship which was over the horizon so out of sight, just ocean when we turned around to head back. And with the currents in the ocean, we could be way off course before we saw the ship if we didn't have that navigator with us.
The newer LCACs are much nicer than the PacVs ever were! And probably a lot less noisy, hi hi.
There is one super funny thing about the PacVs as we pulled into the hospital ship to moor inside.
As the lift fans slowed down, the bags would vibrate and sound like a super massive fart, hi hi.
This was caused by the bags against the water at just the right prop speed, and inside of a ship it was ten times louder too.

I had many wooden storage boxes, originally file boxes from the 1940s in the flower shop and document storage warehouse.
Great little boxes to have around.

When I was in real estate renovations. For each 100,000 bucks that flew across my desk, I was lucky if 10 to 50 bucks of that was left over for me to keep. Seems like all I did after work was accounting and bookkeeping and writing checks.

[yogi]

I only dealt with a general contractor on one occasion which was to build the last house I lived in. Near the end of the project and before it was entirely completed he presented me with a $10,000 bill. That was HIS fee for doing whatever it is general contractors do. To be honest I don't know what that covered but I'm guessing not all of it was pure profit. But it might have been. Renovations might be done differently, or maybe it's just the work ethic down here not being the same as up north. Either way the general contractor got more than $50 to build my house.

When I viewed the movie about the PacV I did wonder why they needed a navigator. It never occurred to me that you could not see your home base in some cases and I guess over the horizon radar wasn't invented yet.

I think I told you the story about the time my son-in-law was a captain in the US Army. We went to visit him when he was stationed in Colorado with some tank unit. I got to ride on top of a Sherman tank, but I had the option of going down inside as a passenger. I looked down the hatch and didn't see much room in there, and certainly no windows. So I chose to sit on top of the turret while on the joy ride. I'm thinking the visibility from inside a tank like that can't be very great. I don't recall if there was a navigator involved there but I doubt anyone would be sticking their head out a hatch in a combat zone. I have no clue how they can tell where they are going.

[Kellemora]

WOW, ten grand, I only wish, hi hi. I only got 1% of the total cost of materials and labor as my fee. That being said, I was usually one of the main laborers also, but that was shown separately on the invoice to the customer. I never marked up the price of materials either, they would get a copy of my invoices from the suppliers to prove it too. I'm proud of one thing though, no matter who they got estimates from, I always did the work cheaper and to a much higher quality. This is why I had repeat customers, and real estate agents who called me when they needed work done at their own houses.
This won't mean much to you, but I was considered one of the best predication workers in a 50 mile radius. Probably why all the real estate agents loved me so much, hi hi. I was cheaper and better! Oh, and could do things others said were impossible.

That was a pretty poor movie, most of the nice ones are about LCAC's not PacV's. And the one in the video was with the covers in place. I can tell you, we rarely if every had those steel covers over the upper deck. And as I said, ours only had minimal armament, no big guns at all. The biggest job of the navigator on our ship was to get us to the right location on the beach. And often that fairly safe area was only like a 25 to 50 foot spot that was clear enough to get up there and get the injured back out again. On our second to last trip out to the hospital ship, a 50mm grenade hit the back of our deck, then into the water before it went off. Had it gone off on the deck it would have taken out our rear thruster fan. I figure it was coming in at such a low angle, it just hit on its side then bounced off. Don't know if it had a nose detonator or was on a timer. Honestly we are not sure what it was, other than we could see it coming. Others said it was 50mm mortar, some said grenade, so I don't really know.

I've never been in a tank, but have been in a submarine as a visitor, and got to ride in a Huey with my cousin for a few minutes is all.
Pilots flying in from east of the Mississippi are not allowed to cross it, same way coming in from the west. So how he pulled off landing in our ball field and taking me for a ride, he never disclosed to me.
And I think I told you about his flying in SAC and my getting to talk to him on the phone at an unknown hangar somewhere.
Scared the bejesus out of him, because when he heard he had an impossible call from home, that perhaps one of his parents had passed away. Even so, when he found out all was OK, we chatted for about 10 minutes then he had to go. He didn't tell me where he was at either until years later. He drilled me pretty hard to find out how I managed to find and talk to him which was supposed to be totally impossible to do, hi hi.

I'm glad those days of war are behind us. It truly was a most horrible time, and I had one of the cushier jobs, sorta.
The worst part was getting back home and finding out everyone hated all of us who served in Nam.