Way Back Machine 1988

CHRONICLES OF THE WEISS FAMILY 1988

Jan 2     One petunia still alive in front yard.

Jan 7     9" snow, .42" water equiv.

Jan 10    Potomac freezing, unfreez 1/23, refreezes 1/28, unfreezes 1/31

Jan 20    This is scary. Today an ambulence in D.C. took 40 minutes to answer an emergency call. Excuse‑they couldn't find the address.

Jan 26    Beth plays part of mother rabbit in school play

Feb 2‑6   In Madison, Wisc. again. Late arriving 2 hours, late coming back 3 hours due to missed connections, 3 hour wait at Detroit Airport

Feb 11    After 38 murders (13 with no suspects yet) in Jan. D.C. police will now be issued automatic (9mm) handguns which can fire 32 shots in 6 seconds.       

Feb 22‑26 In Sacramento, Calif. On the way there, I was delayed at      Denver Airport for 2+1/2 hours. Actually was 25min. early          getting back to Dulles Airport however. (It was a $50         taxi ride home from there)

Feb 27    Work on the lake near our house continues. The construction company leaves dozers around. George loves playing on them. The scooping out of mud and the dumping operations are also real thrills.

Mar 7‑11 In Austin, Texas. On the way there, 5+1/2 hours in Houston Airport.

Mar 18    I tell Geo&Beth they can sleep late next morning. Geo-        "Goody, because I'm not a morning person"

Mar 25    Van(m's) breaks down on the way to work. 5 Violations of Murphy's law. 1.Breakdown within 200' of a service station. 2. Nice weather. 3. Empty taxis were cruising the route. 4. Enough people with common destinations to minimize indiv fare. 5. Traff reasonably light

Mar 26    First thunderstorm of year. Beth&Geo scared.

Mar 27    Conversation, Beth‑Daddy will sit next to me at the model          sedar.

               Me‑  Sure, but I will probably want to kiss                        and hug you every ten minutes.

               Beth‑On second thought, why don't you sit by                       yourself 

Apr 16    Snow flurries for the first game of Beth's soccor league.

Apr 21    Found a dead, desicated catfish in our driveway. Was this a very high tide at the lake or what?

May 10    Still hasn't hit 80 F

May 15    Picnic for Beth's Sunday school. Beth's first game of vollyball (I told her previously that Samson had fallen in love with Delilah at a vollyball game (my version of the first book of Judges). 

May 24    First day without balks in 1988 in major leagues. May 26 22 Yankees ground out in one 9 inning game (new major league record)

May 27 Geo graduates from nursery school, during introduc of      students, he said rather loudly to one girl "You have a       very nice name." The principal ad libbed, "We also teach       charm here."

June 2 After 3 days in a row with temperatures over 90 F, my office          had a picnic. The temperature at noon was 62 F

June 5 Frost in hills near Elkins W.Va but afternoon warm enough to          swim. Beth and George get incipient sunburns.

June 7 99 F at Balt. at noon. Two days later, 54 F at noon in Balt.

June 9 Shock. Due to some capital gains and tax law changes, each       of my kids will pay more Fed Inc Taxs in 89 than me and          my wife did in our joint return in 1986. Worse, the         stores where I used to buy a pound of precooked popcorn          for $0.99 sell their biggest quantity bag (7 onces) for        $1.09.

June 11 Morning min temp in Tupelo Mississippi is 47 F. For the         first time in the 16 year history of the designated pinch          hitter rule, a pitcher (Rick Rhoden) was used as the DH       by Billy Martin of Yankees against Balt. Rhoden batted       7th was 0 for 1 but had a SF and RBI. yanks won.

June 11 George peels after 4 pm swim, his first ever peeling.  

Jun 19 Three hour delay in Atlanta Airport on the way to Florida.      Beth & George stayed with their grandparents for 12 days      and were actually very good. Temps in DC climbed over 100         for several days while they were in the 80s in Flo.

Jul 1  41 F at Dulles Airport, coldest July day ever.

Jul 4  For the second day in a row, Mark McGwire (of Oakland A's)      hits a home run in the 16th inning.

Jul 5  106 F at Dickenson ND. Mississippi at lowest level ever          recorded. Beth and George at day camp. 

Jul 7  First 7 handed sheepshead game in Nassif Bldg.

Jul 18 Beth gets first private swimming lesson. She can now do the      crawl almost the way you are supposed to.

Jul 20 Beth has almost forgotten the correct swimming form for the      crawl. She went to the zoo during summer camp. She asked      me, "Do you know  if there is a group of people who are           called Amish or something else?" George says, "Are we      having an Amlish for breakfast?"

          Tigers beat Seattle by 12‑5 despite being outhit 10‑17.        Redding Calif hits all time high temp of 118 F.

Jul 23 Ling Ling (giant panda at the zoo is pregnant for 5th time)

Jul 25 Orioles beat Rochester for the first time in 12 years or so

          First policeman killed on duty in Manassas Va in 115           years (welcome to big time urban life fellows)

Jul 29 People from Ankara, Turkey over to dinner. George asks us        the next two days when the Chicks are coming again.       (guess there must be a country called Chicken).

Jul 31 At the Smithsonian, the safe with the HOPE diamond          malfunctions.

Aug  1 Malfunction of safe suddenly corrects itself. The curse          again.    

Aug  1 LaCrosse Wisc hits 105 F.

Aug  8 Jose Canseco gets 88th RBI today (8/8/88)

Aug  9 George gets through his Kindergarten eval (yes he can go).      Beth does 25 metres in 33 sec. at pool.  

Aug 11 Cleve Indians make 4 errors with 2 out in 9th leading 4‑1 to          lose to Texas 5‑4.

Aug 13 Wash. D.C. Homicide count now 202 for the year. Beth is          perfect hostess during a card game at my house. She       served & refilled glasses as nicely as anyone could      possibly ask.

Aug 20 Beth and Ann in Phila. for sightseeing. I took George to         Murphy's Pub to celebrate his coming entry into           Kindergarden. We left about 11:30

Aug 26 M Went to 20th year high school reunion.

Aug 28 Took kids miniture golfing. George got hole in one on first      hole. He didn't do too well after that. Beth said the         grip on the putter was strange. Perhaps too much batting          practise.

Aug 31 Took kids to Wildwood ocean beach in NJ. Kids found a live      crab about 2 feet long, water temp about 65 F.

Sept 6 George's first day in K‑garten. Beth into 4th grade. George      takes wrong bus home. Beth complains about Phy Ed         teacher.

Sept 8 El Paso Tex has record max of 98 F and record min of 52 in      same day.

Sep 10 Beth laying on the couch says, "School is really boring".        George laying on the floor gets up a little and says,         "Tough life kid."

Sept17 First time ever. I was able to use a charge card at the          "CASH ONLY" line at the hardware store.

Sep 18 My turn to teach Sunday school, Ann did so last week. 3rd        Grade.

Sept19 Alamozo, Colo. has a min temp of 6 F and a max of 70 F.

Sept27 Beth decides to take violin lessons continuing family      tradition of several generations.

Sep 28 Dialogue   Beth‑ Daddy, can you live without breathing?

                Martin‑ Well, yes for example you can stay                        underwater but it depends on how deep it                      is and how cold it is and you drown                     eventually anyway.

               George‑ If its 7 ft deep and freezing how fast do                      you drown?

               Martin‑ George, are you going to be drowning                       somebody.

               George‑  So what. Just tell me how fast.

Sep 28 Orel Hershiser pitchs 10 shutout innings to pass Johnson's      mark of 55 innings in 1933 (for Wash) and 58 innings in 1968 (also for Dodgers).  In LCS he extended it to 67 innings then got two more post season shut outs and three W.Series hits in one game.

Oct  3 Baseball season ends. Orioles lose 60 of 81 games on the road (new AL record. Minn becomes first AL club to go over 3,000,000 in attendance, Nolan Ryan @ 42 wins NL strikeout crown with 228. Jose Canseco hits 42 HR, with 40 SB (first double 40), also hits .307 with 124 RBI.

Oct  5 First frost on car.

Oct  7    George says his 4 yr old friend Taylor is "awesome at drinking milk"

Oct  8 Martin gets HoJo's to custom make something not on menu.

Oct  9 TV station in Chicago sues White Sox for being a bad team        (really) George swallows a yellowjacket bee while eating      a hot dog.    

Oct 15 Beth decides to use her own money to pay for soccor team         picture when I told her she had the same people in her        spring team picture so I didn't feel it was worth it.

Oct 18 Redding Calif hits 99 F, while Fairbanks Alaska below 0 F.

Oct 20 273rd homicide of the year in D.C.

Oct 24 At Sunday school kids had a sanitized version of the story       of Joseph and Potifer's wife. I told the 3rd graders         what the real story was and their comments were, "Yuk,        that's disgusting, gross". Such moralistic little       tykes‑don't they watch TV.

Oct 26 George asks, "Daddy, how do you get someone else in really      bad trouble if you don't know where they live?"

Oct 26 Travis Williams, former running back of Super Bowl Green Bay          Packers of the 1960s comes to town as a rep of the        homeless and says he has been living in shelters for 10      years in Calif.

Oct 27 DC ties all time record for homicides (set in 1969) with         287. We had past last year's mark of 265 earlier this         month. To all of you murderers‑hey we couldn't have done         it without super efforts from all of you.

Nov  5 M takes Beth and George to Murphy's tavern‑ kids stay until      10 pm but will claim to have closed the place down.

Nov  8 $320 Million in new bonding authority approved in Fairfax        county

Nov 10 Beth's first report card and physical fitness quantities         come back. They actually time kids in the mile in 4th         grade (she did 9:36).

Nov 11 Five police cars in our neighborhood at one time. Local kids          say it was for a stolen car carrying cocaine.

Nov 20 Pineapple soda (@ only $0.98/2 liters) in grocery store

Nov 20 Probable football matchups Dec 25 Cougars(Houst) vs. Cougars          (Wash S) and Dec 30 Cowboys(Wyoming) vs. Cowboys(Oklahoma          St.). No AFC team scores a touchdown (5 separate teams 3      games.)

Nov 21 George gets a morning charleyhorse tendon strain (his first)          it wasn't better by PM so he went to the hospitol. They       said it was dislocation and would get better on it's own          in 36 hrs. It did.

Nov 25 Beth doesn't want to go to bed. In response to my final          request before spanking she says "but if I don't finish       this paragraph the world will end". I said, "You can save          the universe tomorrow." The next day we pretended that       all kinds of trivial things, like finishing a sandwich,         picking up paper off the floor, brushing teeth were          equivalent to saving the universe. George says, "I saved          the universe twice today". I said "Thank you".

Nov 25 At Oneg Shabbat feature is kosher hot dogs, potato salad &      cole slaw.

Nov 26 Craig Williams is apprehended. He had been arrested Mar 15      and charged with 5 counts of murder. He was released Nov      15 because D.C. had not been able to complete the       paperwork for the indictment. He was caught after holding         hostage a Metrobus in S.E. and charged with 4 more           murders (between Nov. 16 and Nov 25).    

Dec  1 Alta Utah breaks all time record with 134 inches of snow in      Nov.

Dec  2 George lobbies hard to have us write a note to his phys ed      teacher to forbid playing a game called         rabbit‑in‑the‑rabbithole. From his description it sounded          like a cross between rugby and holding hands.

Dec  5 Beth says the reason she likes creative writing is that she      doesn't have to risk mispronouncing words.

Dec  7 Baltimore Orioles, 2nd worst team in baseball sell for      $70,000,000 a big mark up from when they sold for         $12,000,000 in 1981 when they were nearly the best team          in baseball.

Dec 12 Ann has successfull breast reduction surgery. I took kids        out in late evening to see stars and meteor shower.       George, Beth & I each saw a shooting star (not same one).         Had to go about 6 miles south from our house to get away          from light pollution.

Dec 14 M parks at Huntington Metrorail station FOR FREE on a      Wednesday (non holiday) due to construction at station.

Dec 15 Ann's mother arrives by way of a $59 one way Pan Am flgt fr.          Atlanta, the round trip would have cost an extra $200 so      she took Amtrack back.

Dec 16 George says to his grandmother, "if Shakey's were a fast         food restaurant you'd be dead by now." George had been        the one to demand a visit to Shakey's.

Dec 17 Beth sees a North Dakota license plate and a front tire          blowout on a car with Ohio plates within 30 sec. of each      other.

Dec 19 George speaks to his grandmother who tells him she got back      to Atlanta safely. As soon as he hangs up he goes to his         sister and says "I'll bet you $100,000 that grandma's      back in Atlanta."

Dec 20 M shows Beth & George how to make lightening in their mouth      (bite into a Certs wintergreen in front of a mirror in a      pitch black room). 

Dec 25 Beth, George and I do volunteer work at Alexandria Hospitol.          Las Vegas, Nevada and Redding, California have their          first Christmas snowfall EVER.

Dec 26 Beth, George and I try another brand of Wintergreen breath      mints, lightening doesn't occur.

Dec 27 Beth, George and I try Lifesavers Wintergreen. It works.

Dec 29 Beth accuses me of not shuffling well enough after I deal a      2nd gin rummy hand where all three players get three of       a kind on their first three cards.

Dec 31 Year 1988 ends with 373 murders in D.C. (new record and more          than 3 times the murders in 1986) and 555 in the          metropolitan area as Fairfax and Prince George's county      also set new records. Year was coldest since 1972 (‑0.4          F) despite brutally hot July and August. Miami Florida        gets only 0.12" rain in Dec. a new record low.