(Redated and reposted)
This duplex should have gone in the Zenith set. At that time I showed the Trans-Oceanic in a generic house. Now I’ve made the proper duplex, so will more or less repeat the text with proper pictures. The duplex also has a coffee connection and a printing connection, so it does fit into the current set.
Front view of duplex in the current cafe scene:
Back view. Note that the front entrances were too close for comfort but each unit had its own private back porch. This was a common arrangement for duplexes.
Floor plan, showing only the left unit. This plan is less than optimal. Better duplexes placed closets and halls and bathrooms in the center so living rooms and bedrooms were acoustically isolated.
And here’s the Zenith and coffee connections.
The Zenith memory pulled me back into those first few months of 1970 after release from prison. I was appreciating freedom, enjoying the ability to walk out the front door, cook my own food, or sit on the porch, but I was starting out on the wrong track AGAIN.
What was the wrong track? COLLEGE, and especially college courses in physics and math. College drove me crazy, drove me into hopeless depression which led inevitably to jail.
What was the right track? Printing and typesetting, which would have led to editing. Or any career using language skills, not math skills.
I can forgive the wrong choice immediately after high school, because there was NO information or guidance available in the correct direction. Culture and parents and friends and mentors were all pushing toward a degree in physics. The wrong choice after prison was not forgivable. At that point I knew what had happened, and should have tried a different path.
Those first few months of Zenith-flavored freedom were spent in a duplex in Stillwater, attempting to resume a physics degree from OSU.
The duplex was furnished, with a peculiar Wagon Wheel couch that probably came from a motel lobby. The Trans-Oceanic helped me to reconnect with the pre-jail world, pulling in familiar shortwave stations and foreign viewpoints.
I hated college AGAIN, couldn’t grasp the theories or the PURPOSES of physics. I dropped out and returned home in disgrace and depression AGAIN. After a month of moping around, my father got pissed and ordered me to go out and get a job, any old job.
THIS WAS THE FIRST GOOD ADVICE I EVER RECEIVED. (Belated thanks.)
I got a job as delivery boy at Cromwells in Enid, and soon learned typesetting and offset printing. None of these subjects had been covered in college, but I had a real talent for spelling and grammar and fonts.
= = = = =
And here’s the coffee connection, from 2019.
Yesterday I berated my stupid failure to master the useful skills available in Mansfield’s curriculum. Nevertheless, jail taught me a GIANT PILE OF FACTS about how the world works. I’ve discussed the biggest fact often.
There were some smaller learnings as well.
I had started smoking a pipe in college because it was “cool” and “intellectual”. In jail I learned that tobacco is an important preserver of sanity. It may shorten your life by a few years, but it helps to prevent early suicide. Contrasted to alcohol, which shortens your life by a few decades and CAUSES both early suicide and early homicide.
I hadn’t enjoyed coffee before jail. My mother’s coffee, like her cooking, was horrible. I couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to drink such atrocious stuff!
The Wood County Jail changed my view of coffee. The sheriff’s wife made the coffee and some of the food for the jail, providing a little extra income for Sheriff Rife’s family. Fortunately the “good government” monsters were not active in Ohio at that time.
Mrs Rife’s coffee was HEAVENLY. Deep, rich, oily, comforting. A day in jail was always awful, but starting the day with Mrs Rife’s coffee made it a little less awful.
And of course the coffee habit is purely healthy, as even the “medical” racket has finally been forced to admit. Coffee isn’t exactly nutritious, but it’s all benefit and no risk.
So thanks, Mrs Rife! You improved my life. I’m sure you’ve been gone for many years, but maybe some younger Rifes will read this appreciation.
MEN NEED TO MAKE THINGS. IF MEN CAN’T MAKE THINGS, THEY WILL BREAK THINGS.
Polistra's Mill 