William T. Johnson and Model Railroading

I've recently acquired an interest in model railroading, not that I plan to really get involved, since I have friends who are interested in the hobby. The picture shown above was taken at random from a series of pictures about a setup in Bryson City, NC. Today I've watched videos on making parts for HO gauge locomotives. Very interesting.

William T. Johnson and Google

This is a picture of some Google employees working on one of their projects, as shown in the Google blog. I've never worked for Google nor been anywhere near it, but I admire the company immensely, particularly since I discovered their version of Blogger.com and Google Chrome. Both of them are wonderful!

William T. Johnson and Future Businss Leaders of America

At the weekly meeting of the Washington Kiwanis Club today I introduced as speaker the advisor to the local chapter of FBLA, Future Business Leaders of America. Ms. Tonya Morgan introduced her associate, Ms. Harkins, and two students, Hannah McTier and Britney Guin, who will attend the national conference in Anaheim, CA, next summer. From their remarks and what I had already learned, FBLA is a very large national organization with more than a quarter million members and organized to serve persons from the fifth grade to their death. The image above was seen at the state conference in March. Among the organization's purposes is to make students confident of themselves.  The three parts of FBLA include the Middle Section for students from grade 5 to grade 12, the Phi Beta Lambda Section for students from grade 10 through graduate school, and the Professional Section for people who have graduated college and are in professions.

William T. Johnson at Traun See, Austria

This is a picture of Traun See, Austria, at which I spent a day or so on R&R (rest and relaxation) near the end of May 1945. We had no billets there and slept on a grassy hillside. I went on a motor boat ride around the lake and enjoyed it immensely. I guess now that we carried C-rations and our sleeping bags with us.

William T. Johnson in Kempten, Germany

This is a picture of the RatHaus (City Hall) in Kempten, Germany, from Google Earth. I spent a few months in Kempten from December 1945 to March 1946. I had been in school in England for a few months before and my unit (Co M, 14th Inf, 71st Div) had moved to Kempten from Memmingen while I was gone. I was pleased to find I had been promoted to Corporal in my absence. The company was billeted in a Catholic girls' school with the nuns on the third floor and us on the bottom two. We pulled guard duty in the city and I remember being on post near a church on Christmas Eve with snow on the ground and a service in the church. Very impressive!

Stanley Davis Phillips, Ambassador to Estonia

I've just watched a film about Estonia, entitled "The Singing Revolution", concerning Estonia's long history of troubles with the Nazis and the Communists. The country had no military strength and countered its problems with singing, perhaps 25,000 in a choir during singing festivals. I've been largely in the dark about the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, and only today began to be educated about them. After receiving the film from my cousin Kay Phillips I looked up other information about Estonia and found the following news article.

TALLINN, Jan 13, BNS - Commander of the Estonian defense forces Lt. Gen. Ants Laaneots decorated the outgoing US ambassador, Stanley Davis Phillips, with the Defense Forces Special Service Cross.
"In the name of the Estonian defense forces I wish to express sincere gratitude to you for your support; I also wish to thank you for cooperation between the US Armed Forces and the Estonian defense forces, Lt. Gen. Ants Laaneots Tuesday said when handing over the decoration and wishing Phillips success in his next post.
"We in the United States are very grateful to Estonia for its contribution and dedication in Iraq and Afghanistan," the outgoing ambassador said. "The time I served here has been very important for me and such a decoration given to me makes the time very special for me," Phillips said.
USA Ambassador to Estonia Stanley Davis Phillips has given a lot of support and assistance to the development of the Estonian defense forces and military cooperation with the US Armed Forces.
So thanks to his activity US support to Estonian security has significantly increased. Phillips has taken special care of Estonian soldiers wounded on missions and has ensured their treatment in the United States.
Ambassador Phillips was sworn into office in Washington DC by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on April 16. 2007. Phillips handed over his credentials to Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves on May 31 that year.
The Defense Forces Special Service Cross was established in order to recognize special and outstanding achievements in state defense by civilians and members of the defense forces.

William T. Johnson and the Apostrophe

The Writing Center, Ottawa, Canada says: "You should use an apostrophe to form the possessive case of a noun or to show that you have left out letters in a contraction. Note that you should not generally use contractions in formal, academic writing."

I've spent too much time recently thinking about the apostrophe. Our local newspaper editor had a thing against misuse of the apostrophe. However, I like the apostrophe when properly used. For example, it is essential to use the apostrophe in converting our Southern vernacular to print. The phrase "yallllvebeen", without an apostrophe, reads with the apostrophe "y'all'll've been", meaning "You (all) will have been." The apostrophe is needed in contractions involving personal pronouns. For example "ive","hed","well" need an apostrophe to be pronounced with long vowels "I've", "he'd", and "we'll". One problem with the apostrophe is in using it with possessive pronouns, as "it's", "our's", "her's". The editor's "Apostrophe Patrol" mostly concerned using the apostrophe to make proper names plural. as the "Jones's" instead of the "Joneses" and  the "Brown's" instead of the "Browns 

William T. Johnson at Hardin-Simmons College

Last August 14, 2008, I was a patient in University Hospital, Augusta, GA, awaiting installation of a pacemaker the next morning. Sometime that night I was transported or I dreamed I was at Hardin-Simmons College, Abilene, TX. I found myself in a small, square building used as a visitor's center, doors on two sides, table with magazines in the middle. Since it was closing time they offered me a cot in that building to spend the night. I accepted and was soon asleep. I was awakened by a woman who was to give me a bath, for some reason. After the bath I went back to sleep and was soon awakened about 5:00 a.m. by two X-ray technicians who wanted to perform an X-ray on me. They were real, the woman was a dream. My comment to the X-ray people was, "I'm back from Texas." I've never been to Hardin-Simmons. I've never been to Texas. This dream is as real to me now as the other stuff I've posted about in the last six weeks. Do we have dream interpreters now as they had in Joseph's and Daniel's days? This morning I've Google-ized Hardin-Simmons College and found it to be elevated to university status, 2400+ students, 200+-acre campus, and 100+ million dollar endowment. It was founded in 1891 by local people and became affiliated with the General Baptist Convention of Texas in 1941.

William T. Johnson vs Steam Locomotive

When I was three or four, I was at my grandparents' home on Railroad Street in Elberton, GA, in the front yard, preparing to watch the train go by. As the train approached, it looked much fiercer to me than normal, so I had no choice but to run in the house and hook the screen door to be safe.

William T. Johnson and the Cavalry

Around 1930, when I was about six years old, at my grandparents' home in Elberton, GA, I was in the garden area behind the house, I was drinking a chocolate soda, and I was watching what traffic there was on College Avenue. Then I saw what I was back there to see, or not, what I have always considered to be a troop of US Army Cavalry, a well-ordered group of uniformed men on horseback. Later that day, I was riding back to Washington with my parents and my aunt Mamie Hardy on a detour through Oglethorpe County. On the right of the road as we approached the covered bridge over Broad River I saw this same troop of cavalry camped informally.