Today is Kenneth Passmore's birthday...

My father, Kenneth Passmore, was born 98 years ago on this day. He died in 1979, when he was 69 years old.

We like to remember our parents by their most endearing traits. My father was a quiet gentleman. Sure, he became cranky and obstinate as his life began to end. But, my memories of growing up around him are all good. I wrote a few memories of him earlier on this blog here, where I wrote, " Where he was quiet, humble, and strong, I am, at times, filled with more blather than I should have, too self-absorbed, and weak in a pinch." This still is true.

I will not bore the one or two people who read this blog with the details, but I was an only child born later in my parents' lives (I wrote about this experience here). I was sickly as a young person, too. My father worked at a full-time job. My mother worked as a janitor at a dry cleaning establishment from about 3:00 pm until 8:00 pm. All of this means that I was by myself a lot. So, my father's comings and goings were a big part of the excitement of my day.

He would awake at 5:00 am. I would smell the coffee perking and the eggs and bacon sizzling, and I would get up, too. I sometimes ate a bit of his bacon, and, then, talked to him while he shaved with a safety razor that he had (and kept until he died) from when he was in the army. I would watch him back the old Pontiac hydrodrive out of the garage, and, always with a wave, he would put the car in gear and drive away. Every week day. All year.

In the evening he would come home at 5:30. Tired, but happy. We would eat dinner, and I would watch the nightly news with him while he drank a cup of coffee.

On weekends, I woudl badger him to play with me. He often would be tired and wound up falling asleep on the floor. I don't suppose that driving a little toy tractor over a make-believe field was a very exciting thing to do, but it was great fun for me.

My father meant a lot to me and filled in many of the gaps that occurred because I was the only child, often sick, in the house during long, Niagara Falls winters.

Much of what happens to us today is conditioned by our past. As a Chinese proverb goes, "When drinking water, think of its source."

Oreo grazing...

A photo taken by my daughter, Ann, of Oreo, my greyhound, grazing in the back yard.

Pennsylvania Plastics Benchmarking report completed for U.S. Department of Labor...

A big report complete. With the major load of the work done by Rose Baker, the Penn State Workforce Education & Development Initiative released on 27 June 2998 a report, Benchmarks for Pennsylvania Plastics Industry, a report funded through a contract for the Pennsylvania Plastics Initiative from the Employment and Training Administration of the US Department of Labor. This work has been incubating for almost three years. A companion report, Forecast of Employment and Job Openings in Pennsylvania Plastics Manufacturing, 2004–2017, was delivered to the Department of Labor during Fall 2007.

Although manufacturing, in general, is declining in the United States, plastics manufacturing is growing in many regions of Pennsylvania. Plastics firms in Pennsylvania supply more than one–half of the plastics materials required by Pennsylvania’s fastest growing industries. At the same time, Pennsylvania plastics manufacturers have opportunities to capture an increasing share of the Pennsylvania market for plastics, in spite of strong competition from neighboring counties (Canada and Mexico) and trading partners (Brazil, China, France, German, India, and Japan); out–migration of younger workers; relatively high energy costs; and needs for infusion of new investment and venture capital, for improvement of worker skills to fit the “new economy,” and for reduction of business costs of taxes and real estate.

We have been busy lately. I will chronicle our activities when we can come up for air.

Al Green: Simply Beautiful...

Simple unbelievable!

Kal's political cartoons from theEconomist...

Some great covers on the Economist from Kal.