MORE STORIES

It seems as though I’m getting too many stories on the JUST STORIES page so I thought I should start another page. With nothing much to do, I just keep writing more dumb stories. And don’t blame me for the content…… It’s all just stories of what has happened to me over my 98 years…. I had no control over it.

• POOPERS FROM HEAVEN

  Twas the week before Christmas and Ozzy was not feeling well. Ozzy is a small Pomeranian pup who was Helen’s constant companion for many years. After loosing a long battle with vascular dementia, Helen left Ozzy and me and we’re doing the best we can to quit grieving over our loss.

  Ozzy has a little dogie door so he can go out onto the patio lawn and do his business, and I had been noticing lately that he was spending a lot of time out there…. straining to go, and was thinking that he may be constipated and when he stopped eating and became listless and slow, I knew I had to do something about it.

  I took him to the Pomona Valley Veterinary Hospital where Dr. Kahn examined him and they gave him an enema. The next day was the day before Christmas and he was still listless.  Would not eat and stayed continuously on the patio lawn straining to go potty…… I took him back to the PVVH where they said he had a high fever and agonized about leaving him there over Christmas so they could treat him.

  Christmas was not the same without Ozzy. We were all worried about him. During the holiday the hospital staff was treating him with various injections and procedures, and when I picked him up he was so happy to see me and was eating again. I was giving him a laxative as directed but after two more days he was still straining on the lawn and unable to go.  So I talked it over with PVVH and we decided that if he had not gone potty after I got home from lunch with my sisters, I would bring him in again.

  At home, after lunch, the first thing I did was to inspect the patio lawn and guess what I found. A gift from Heaven………Three little poopers ……. And Ozzy seemed to have his old pep back.

  We were both so happy…….. I called PVVH so they could be happy also…. Hip Hip Hooray…..

  

  I really hate to have to add this extremely sad ending to such a happy story, so I’m going to make it brief.

  The day after I wrote the above, Ozzy took a turn for the worst and I had to take him back to the Veterinary Hospital where in spite of everything they could do for him, he passed gently away on the last day of the year.

• MAGIC BOB

  We were just having lunch somewhere and Bob decided to put on a little show.

• MEAT ON FRIDAY

  My good friend Louie was a devout Catholic and was a long time member of our Pomona Breakfast Lions club. We met on Fridays and he would always have to order a special breakfast because he steadfastly refused to eat meat on Fridays which his church considered a mortal sin.

  After many years of this routine, somebody, high-up in the Catholic Church decided to make a change and said…. “OK everybody…. It’s not a mortal sin anymore….. You can all eat meat on Friday”

  Well…….. Poor Louie….. He was very upset and felt like they had made a fool of him. He quit the church completely… Never set foot there again.

  He did, however, contribute generously and upon his death, was given the usual high mass funeral. 

• I ONCE WAS A HERO IN THE ARMY

  It was summertime and I had just finished High School and I was having fun playing around with my favorite hobby which was experimenting with electricity. But I had one problem. My folks were continually after me to get a job and go to work.

  Lucky for me……..I found an easy way out……. On July 15, 1940, I enlisted in the Army.  Not only did I escape going to work, but I became an instant hero. They dressed me up in a fancy uniform to strut around in, and my folks were actually proud of me.  And for an extra bonus, I even got my picture in the local newspaper.

  Since I knew something about electricity, they put me in a new signal corps battalion that was just being formed, destined to be sent to Alaska to construct and maintain telephone lines. They taught us how to dig fox hole and shoot guns and how to set and climb poles, string wire and cable and use all the army communications equipment.

  And that’s exactly what we did in Alaska around Anchorage and later in the Aleutians after the war started with Japan. Since I was almost the only one in the whole outfit of 200 men that knew something about electricity, they put me in charge of the tech section, with a really good rating and pay………. Lucky Me…. I enjoyed being a hero in the army….

  I spent four and a half years in the army, Most of it in the Aleutians. Discharged at 23 years old and married my dear Helen Aug. 18, 1945.

  

• TIPPI HEDREN

  This story is about the only celebrity that Helen and I ever knew…… A truly wonderful person who seemed to feel she had the world on her shoulders.

  Louie and Lorine had three children, as did Helen and I. We met through the Lions Club and became life-long friends. Our families did everything together and were very close. So when Louie divorced Lorene and married Tippi Hedren, we became acquainted with Tippi. Their marriage lasted for ten years while Tippi was managing her Shambralla Lions Preserve and Louie was battling his drinking problem.

  Tippi was a caring and dedicated activist for animal rights and the environment. She once said to me, “George…. What are we going to do about the rivers?”……

  Helen and I felt that Louie did not treat her very well and wondered why she would put up with him. I guess it was because she loved him for the man he was when he was sober. Also, Louie had money which she needed to do good things in the world.

  Helen and I had some good times with them at the Shambralla Preserve and Tippi was a lot of fun but Louie who was normally a wonderful loving guy created havoc with their relationship because of his drinking problem. Tippi did all the driving….. Louie had no license….. too many DUI’s…. Sometimes when Louie was mean to her, Tippi would just take the car and leave, and Louie would have to call friends for transportation.

  Louie was continually complaining about her “Queer” Hollywood friends, as he called them, and would insult them and have nothing to do with them.

  Once while we were dining at a nice restaurant Louie created a big loud scene and Tippi left the table and went into the ladies restroom. Louie followed her in there and took her purse so she could not leave. Helen would always stand up for Tippi and would give Louie hell about the way he treated her.

  Louie had a habit of passing out on a nice velvet sofa and peeing on it in his sleep. When Tippi mentioned it to us, He told her ….”You shut up about that, It’s my sofa…….I can pee on it if I want.”

  I’m sure Louie really loved Tippi with all his heart, and their marriage was not always that bad. Tippi handled it very well under the circumstances. In the years after their divorce, Louie hired a housekeeper to take care of him 24-7 and his drinking problem got even worse. Every night he would drink until he passed out. Then one time he forgot to wake up the next morning.

  Tippi came to his funeral.

  

• SPEED READING

  I’ve always known that I was a slow reader but it never occurred to me that I could do anything about it, however about 30 years ago a friend noticed it and told me about a speed reading course that was offered by the local Night School Dept. of Education and suggested that I look into it. Well…….I thought about it a little and decided to give it a try……. So I did.

  At the start, they tested my reading and told me I was reading 131 words per minute, with 96% comprehension. After taking the course they said I was reading a whopping 405 words per minute with 31% comprehension……..Wow……It really felt good to be able to read all the stuff on the television while it was still on the screen, but I was having trouble remembering what I read, so I looked again at the speed tests and did a little mathematics.

  I figured out that before taking the course I was comprehending 126 words per minute, and after finishing the course I was comprehending the same 126 words per minute.

  Well…… After some high powered thinking about it, I decided that my problem is not slow reading, but slow comprehension, or to put it simply….. slow thinking…. Which of course, makes me slow at everything I do. What I need is a course on speed thinking. But at my present age and doing what I’m doing now,  Slow thinking may be a blessing. My friends and family won’t have to put up with as many GrorgieBoy stories such as this one.

• LEST WE FORGET MYLAI

  While going through some old papers that I had saved, I came upon  three  photos that I had cut from Life Magazine long ago. The first photo shows America’s enemies before our heroes came. The second photo shows America’s enemies after our heroes left. The last photo shows our hero, Lt. Calley, doing his house arrest.

  

  I do not blame  Lt. Calley for this.  He just happened to be one of our American heroes that we send around the world to look out after our interests and kill people. He was only following orders and doing his patriotic duty. He was semi-pardoned, with two years house arrest. Poor guy.

  Hooray for the Red White and Blue…. Home of the Free and the Brave.

  This story was completely covered up and would never have been told except for army photographer, Ron Haeberle, who took the photos. More than a year later, when he returned to his hometown of Cleveland,  Ohio, he shared some of the pictures from the massacre with the city’s newspaper, the  Plain-Dealer, which published them in late November, 1969.

• ME AND THE AMERICAN LEGION

  Lately I’ve been getting a lot of mailings from the American Legion asking me to join their great organization, Sending me all kinds of patriotic plaques, certificates, decals, and goodies…..so I used their membership form and self-addressed stamped envelope to send them this reply.

  Dear American Legion:

  Please take my name off your mailing list and forget that I was once a member. You are promoting the greatest evil of all mankind. The great philosophers and thinkers down through the ages have preached that PATRIOTISM is the root cause of all wars and human suffering that goes with them.  Einstein said, ….Nationalism is the measles of mankind.

  It is so easy for well meaning and good people to become caught up in the Patriotic spirit as happened in Germany. (World wars one and two) I wish there was a way to give all the patriots from all the different countries of the world what they desire, and let them have one big war and kill themselves….. Then there would be no more patriots and no more wars.

  I am optimistic, however, that soon with the help of the United Nations and communicating over the World Wide Web, we will realize that in spite of different countries, religions, and thinking, we are all truly human beings of equal value, And PATRIOTISM and NATIONALISM will be looked upon as childish and idiotic.

  I am a member of the Human Race…. That’s the organization I belong to and I wholeheartedly support it.

  George Streit

• HOW GEORGIE-BOY GOT THE BIG HEAD

  

  Lately I’ve been noticing the increasing size of my head. It’s getting to be a heavy load to carry around. After giving it some deep thought I finally figured out how it got so big. I put this story page on my website so I could explain it to my to my sisters whom I have lunch with on Saturdays.

  So if any of you guys here have been noticing the size of my head I want you to know that It’s not my fault.  It’s all a result of compliments from friends that I shared stories with on a website ….. www.thealzheimerspouse.com ……….

  I had no way of preventing it and am really not that way.

• BILLY WENDEL’S STORY

  In the year 1940, our army company was stationed at Fort Richardson, Alaska just outside the little town of Anchorage. Billy Wendel was a quiet little guy whom we never paid much attention to until one time he happened to tell this story. After that, the word about his story got around and everybody wanted to hear it. After spending Saturday night in the Anchorage bars the company drunks would come back loud and plastered and wake Billy in the wee hours of the morning to get him to tell his story. So now I’ll going to tell you Billy’s story, as I’ve heard it many times. but I’ll have to clean it up a little to make it presentable.

  Billy made a living as a trapper in the far northern state of Maine. He had a trapping route setup where he would set traps at certain places in the wilderness and during the winter he would traverse the route on snowshoes carrying his sleeping bag and tools on his back and would be out on the route for two weeks at a time. He had food and supplies stashed in trees along his route and he would skin the foxes he trapped and hang the furs in trees for later pickup. It seemed like Billy had everything perfectly organized but there was one problem…… There were no restrooms along his route where he could do …You know what….

  Now this is where his story really begins……… On this particular occasion, the snowpack was very deep with lots of fresh snow covering the pack making it difficult to walk because the snowshoes would sink deep into the snow, but Billy didn’t mind because that’s when the trapping was the best. However the…… you know what….. problem was much worse in the deep powdery snow and Billy was on his 6th day without a movement and felt like he couldn’t put it off any longer.

  In telling his story, Billy went into great detail about how, in this freezing weather, he had to prepare a place under a big tree, remove the snowshoes, remove his pants, put the snowshoes back on, and hang onto a branch of the tree while he squatted down and painfully pushed, grunted and groaned his way through the ordeal. And then he had to put himself back together again. And when it was over he was so tired and exhausted he could hardly stand.

  After resting a while, Billy said he got up and made his way over to take a look at what he had done. All he could see was a big black hole in the snow with steam pouring out of it.

• LIONS CLUB FUN

  Our lions club always won the costume parade trophy at our yearly district convention. These photos, taken from old 8mm movie film, show some of our costume themes. I seemed to be the costume engineer and most everything was made in my garage….. Great Fun….. We also would march in the Pomona Xmas parade with this stuff.

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• GUNS

  I found a poster on the internet that I really liked. The definition was a bit poor. So I made my own version of it with a little more definition. Also I wanted to give our National Rifle Association some credit for the great work they are doing in helping these 9,484 Americans die.

  

  IN ONE YEAR GUNS MURDERED
  17 PEOPLE IN FINLAND
  35 IN AUSTRALIA
  39 IN ENGLAND AND WALES
  40 IN SPAIN
  194 IN GERMANY
  200 IN CANADA
  AND 9,484 IN THE UNITED STATES
  GOD BLESS AMERICA

  THANKS TO OUR WONDERFUL NATIONAL RIFLE ASSOCIATION

• WAR…….THE GREAT MIXER

  Many times, I’ve heard that war, is a great mixer. War seems to move people around to far away countries and integrates the population with other races and cultures. Without war, most marriages would be between home town couples. I know that in my own case, I would never have met my life’s partner if I had not been a soldier boy stationed far from home, and without the Russian Revolution, which brought her folks to this country, she would be living in Russia. The same with three of my sisters who married soldiers from other states who happened to be stationed in our town.

  Three of my best friends migrated to the U.S. from Europe because of World War 2and I would like to tell their stories……

  KARL STROCHIEM

  Karl was from a part of Poland where everyone spoke German, and when the Germans invaded Poland, they rounded up all the able-bodied young men and trained them to be soldiers in the German Army. After several months of training, Karl’s infantry company was sent to the front lines to do battle with the French. On the first day of battle, they shot their German officers and surrendered to the French and Karl ended up in a French prison camp.

  About this time, American farmers were quite shorthanded harvesting their crops because most all the young men had been drafted into the military services and the French started sending some of the war prisoners to the U.S. to help the farmers. Karl was sent to a wheat farmer in Ohio where he helped with the farming and started to learn to speak English.

  After only a couple of weeks on the farm, the authorities made him register for the draft and the farmer was having a fit about it. In spite of all the farmer could do, they made him take the physical and drafted him into a boot camp. Karl said that on the second day at boot camp, all the draftees were standing in a formation and an officer was calling their names and asking a few questions. When he called Karl’s name, Karl answered him with “Ya vol”, in German, then telling him, “No sprechen english”. The officer couldn’t believe it, but it wasn’t long before Karl was back with the farmer.

  Karl liked the farmer and stayed with him a few years until the farmer sold the farm. Then Karl married the farmer’s daughter, got his citizenship, and came to California, where he raised a family of his own.

  LEON DE’ROOSE

  Leon was a fighter pilot in the Belgium Air Force. During world war 2, the Germans waited a while before they invaded Belgium because they were busy invading France, but when they did invade, Leon was called in the middle of the night to get his plane into the air before the Germans could destroy the air field. Leon and several others were to fly around over the border and shoot down any German aircraft they could find. As it happened, there were Germans all over the sky and Leon was quickly shot down himself. He parachuted down into German occupied France and with the help of some French citizens he was able to escape capture.

  In his efforts to get back to his Belgium home, however, he fell into German hands and was made a prisoner of war in German held France, from where he migrated to the U.S. after the war. He then  was able to send for his wife Marguerite, and they both became U.S. citizens.

  FRANK  TAKUS

  Frank made it to this country from Romania after his brother came during WW2. Frank then sent for his son and daughter and they wasted no time in becoming U.S. citizens.  

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  I learned from these friends that the people of Poland, Belgium and Romania are much the same as we Americans. Why do we need to have these different countries and borders to keep others out?

• SHORT STORIES

  My 70yr old nephew told me that he was really excited about attending his 50th J.C. class reunion, but when he got there,  all he saw was a bunch of old people.

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  On Veteran’s day, at our Lion’s club meeting, we were all telling of what we did in the military service.  When it was my turn, I told them that the reason I enlisted in the army was that when I was 18 yrs. old, Just out of high school, my parents were after me to get a job and go to work.  So I needed to get out of town. I escaped work for three and a half years and was a hero in the Army while having fun in Alaska and the Aleutians.

  When it was Ken Sherwood’s turn, he told us that he was classified as unfit for military service because he had a misdemeanor conviction for underage beer drinking at the Mission Drive-in Theater.

  We really got a bang out of this as Ken happened to be a past District Governor and the most highly respected Lion member in our club.

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  At 98 years old, I’ve almost completely lost my hearing in my left ear. But strangely, I can hear my heartbeat in that ear. My doctor told me that it was a fairly common occurrence in old folks my age. So I listen to my heart beating all day and all night long.

  Now I’m thinking……. Is this of any value? …. Does it serve some purpose?….. I think the answer is  “Yes” ….. When I can hear my heartbeat,  I know I’m still alive.

  Also…….. There’s no need for anyone to check my pulse anymore.  If my heart quits beating, I’ll let everyone know about it.

• OLD CARTOON

  I found this cartoon that I had clipped from the newspaper 50 or 60 years ago. It was from a time when many poor souls were trying to escape a horrible life and sail to the U.S. in homemade boats that didn’t make it.

  

• CAPT. HOOKS

  He wasn’t our company commander. I think he was our company administrative officer. He was quite different than our other three commissioned officers in that he always seemed to be alone, quiet and aloof and never associated with any of us. I don’t think I ever exchanged more than a few words with him over the years. So why am I telling you about him?…………I’ll have to give you this little story.

  Electricity was always my hobby and when I enlisted in the army at 18 years old, they put me into a signal corp. company that was being formed and destined to serve in Alaska. I was almost the only one in our newly formed Signal Corp. company of 150 men that really understood electricity so they put me in charge of the technical section where in about one year I attained the rank of Tech Sargent with three times the pay of a buck private. I was really proud of my stripes and happy for the extra money.

  In July 1943, our company was on the little island of Amchitka in the Aleutian chain trying to build telephone communications across 40 miles of mountain peaks and frankly not doing too well. We had been there for a year and the conditions were so harsh that it was about all we could do to survive. We were only 18 miles from the Japanese-held islands of Kiska and Attu, and constantly on the alert.

  It was there that I developed a bad case of osteomyelitis in my lower right femur. At the infirmary on the other end of the island, the doctors operated on it and drilled some holes in the bone so it could drain and I was airlifted step by step back to Barnes General Hospital in Vancouver, Wa. where I was treated with a brand new drug called Penicillin and more operations. I was in pretty bad shape and sometimes delirious from the infection, but after two and a half months in a hospital bed I was starting to feel pretty good. And I was looking forward to my mom and dad coming to visit me from our home in Pomona, Calif.

  I hadn’t received a paycheck for about three months so when it finally caught up with me I was surprised to find that the amount was only a third of what it should have been. In army hospitals if you have any problems, it’s customary to get help from the ward chaplain so I asked for him and when he came by I explained my problem to him. That is when I found out that I was no longer a Tech. Sargent…. I was a buck private….. Wow…. What a shock.

  The chaplain showed me the demotion order. The reason was called…. Returning from a combat zone for reasons not in line of duty. He said that there were numerous demoted returnees at Barnes General whom be had tried to help but there was nothing he could do about it…… I felt so bad……. I was Private Streit again…… I didn’t care about the money, but how could I face my mom and dad  …….Poor George………. My self-esteem was shattered.

  I was not religious but I must have put out a little prayer because two days later, the chaplain came to me all smiling and happy and told me that a war dept. order had reinstated my rank retroactively. He said he could hardly believe it because it had never happened before, in spite of all the efforts he and others had made. I later found out that it never happened again. My reinstatement was the one and only. ……… Did I have some guardian angel looking out after me?

  Why lucky me….. and no one else? The answer to that puzzling question finally came to me in a round-about way.

  Six months later, I was stationed at camp Pinedale, Fresno, Ca. which served as an army relocation center and to my surprise, I met an old friend, Sargent McCallum, who served as First Sgt, of our company. He told me that everyone felt bad when I fell ill and they took me away, but when the demotion order came through, they just could hardly believe how the army would treat one of their own. He then told me about Capt. Hooks… (I started this story with Capt. Hooks)….. Capt. Hooks was particularly upset over the demotion order and made up his mind to do something about it. He sent a letter up through the chain of command in protest, and when he received no action from the letter. he wrote another, and sent it directly to the office of the Adjutant General which resulted in the reinstatement.

  I’ve often thought about why Capt. Hooks would go to the trouble to do this for one guy that he hardly even knew, and a guy whom he or the company would never see again……. What was his motivation?…… Why would he care about me?

  I think the answer to this question confirms my long time belief that the purpose of life is to seek happiness and the way we do it is to make others happy.

  I’ve always wished there was some way I could thank him. Not only for what he did for me, but for the wonderful humanitarian lesson he taught me.

• FOOTBALL and ME

  I was never much into macho sports, but when I was in Jr. High-school (7th and 8th grade), it seemed like football was the thing to do so I went out for football and gave it my best.

  I could run fast and did well at catching the ball, so they gave me the position of Left End on offense.  The problem I had was that I didn’t like being tackled.  I guess I was afraid of getting hurt.  So if there were tacklers nearby when they threw me the ball I would just not catch it, but if I happened to be in the clear, I would catch it and run like hell and nobody could catch me. I was a fast runner and a good catcher.

  Now being on offense, I wasn’t required to tackle anyone unless an opposing player caught the ball that I didn’t catch.  I didn’t like tackling anyone either, for the same reason.  So what I would do, was to chase them but not so fast as to catch them, or I would fall down or whatever but I never tackled anyone.

  I think the coach understood all this, but he let me play anyway because if I caught the ball in the clear, it was almost always a touchdown. Now I have to tell you about Arnold Huss.  Arnold’s dad was a great football player in collage, and above all else, he wanted Arnold to play football.  Arnold was really a nice guy.  Everybody liked him.  He was an excellent student, at the top of the class, but had very little athletic ability.  He was not interested in football, but he wanted to please his dad.  So Arnold and I shared the Offensive Left End position.

  Arnold’s dad loved to come and watch the afternoon games when he could get away from his job.  And that’s when Arnold got to play and I sat on the bench.  I didn’t mind because I understood the situation,  but I felt sorry for Arnold.  He tried so hard to please his dad but I don’t think I ever saw him catch the ball.

  In the later high school grades, football was out of the question because my big thing was the marching band, and the band always played at every game.  I did enjoy football while I was doing it.

  I think football is a great game for kids but when I see pro football on the TV, what I see is a bunch of guy’s running around on a nice green lawn and falling down on top of each other and sometimes they are jumping up and down and are so happy because the ball went where they wanted it to go.  I really don’t understand it.

• LETTER TO BIG SISTER

  When I was a hero in the army I used to exchange letters with my family. Recently my sister, Audrey, handed me some letters that I had written to her and told me to read them, which I did.

  They were pretty much like what any 19 year old hero might write home to his family, but I was intrigued with one letter in particular because of a drawing at the end of the last page. The envelope was postmarked Alaska, 1941, three cent stamp. After studying it, I realized that it depicted each of my four sisters and one brother doing what they best liked to do.

  Mary liked to play football, Mildred was a singer, Ruth loved horses, Audrey was learning to drive, David was a violinist. (I should have added myself as a hero in the army, defending my country.) I never realized that I was such a great artist.

  Amazingly …… this was all drawn with an ink pen ….. No erasing ……..