The Message Forum is an ongoing dialogue among classmates. The goal is to encourage friendly interaction, including interaction among classmates who really didn't know each other. Experience on the site has revealed that certain topics tend to cause friction and hard feelings, especially politics and religion. 

Although politics and religion are not completely off-limits, classmates are asked to be positive in their posts and not to be too repetitive or allow a dialog to degenerate into an argument. 

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David Cordell

I've always admired Aggies' esprit de corps and loyalty.

About farmers -- my father's parents were teachers, but also farmers. My father graduated from Biggsville (Illinois) High School, in a class of 17 students. (Not much like our class!) He earned a PhD and became a professor (like Janalu's dad). Coincidentally, my wife had a professor at UT who was a high school classmate of my father. Two PhDs in a class of 17 kids of farmers.

My farmer cousins are well-traveled and well-read, and they make sophisticated use of the commodities futures markets to hedge pricing of their crops. Their children developed a very strong work ethic. I often thought about sending my children to work on my cousins' farms for a few weeks in the summer to gain a full appreciation of farming and hard work.

Wayne Gary

Texas A&M is a "Land Grant College" as well as other schools like Okl state, La State, Miss state.  12 of the 14 schools in the SEC are Land Grant.  Every state has one.

They were all a result of Congressman Morrell who penned the Morell act of 1862. There were to be one college in each state to educate students in the Agructural and Mwechanical arts.  At that time all of the colleges were teaching liberal arts,  No colleges were teaching Agructural or Mechanical courses,  Us Aggies learned a long time ago to laugh at outselves.  When I was at A&M there were over 5 volumes of " 101 Aggie Jokes" published by Aggie Mothers. I still have several.

Hollis Carolyn Heyn

Karin Ridenour (Anderson)

My dad and mom were in the Navy and met in Supply School in Bayonne, NJ. Mom had to get out when she got pregnant with me. We lived on Midway Island when I was in second grade and there were still miles of sunken tangled cables off shore to stop submarines from landing on the island. We went to see the movie tonight in Dolby so I am still reverberating with the explosions of bombs and torpedoes. I really appreciate those who gave their all to bring the war to a close. May we be done with wars now so Peace can prevail. I also acknowledge my husband's service to our country in the Vietnam War though at the time I was protesting it. 

Wayne Gary

Hollis

When was your dad awarded "Outstanding Former Student"

Hollis Carolyn Heyn

Wayne Gary

Lance,

Not bad for the "Weird". You asked about Aggie Spirit, All you have to do is watch an AGGIE game and you will see the entire student body "12TH Man" standing the entire time the teams are on the field.

Steve Keene

Wayne,

Never did understand those Aggie traditions.  Wait for the team to score and then kiss your date.  At Tech and UT the object was to score before the team did and kissing was optional.

David Cordell

I don't watch Jimmy Fallon, but I really enjoyed that bit. Thanks for the lyrics, Lance

Lowell Tuttle

50 years ago today/night I drove up from UT to go to The Rolling Stones with Chuck Berry and Jimmy Reed at Moody Colesium on SMU campus. 

I had a friendship with Michael Moore, who played drums with David Weir in The Wedge.  The only times I saw them was at the Burning Bush.  That was the last time I saw Mike...I think...though I may have visited the Bush and seen him play later.  He was famous for the drum solo in Inna Gadda Da Vida.

I had injured my shoulder in an intramural event (softball?) way out off Guadalupe and 51st (the intramural fields,) earlier in the day.  I went to the UT clinic and they gave me pain pills, which made me sleepy, but...miss The Stones? no way.

I had to drive in my 65 Plymouth Valiant to Dallas and back to Austin the same night.  I stopped and bought a matchbox full of NO DOZ to make it. 

It was a very good show.  I believe it was the first time I had heard Midnight Rambler...

Wayne Gary

Steve,

Kissing after a score is a lot better than just holding hands in the stands.

Steve Keene

Wayne

You are right.  I remember those days in 1969.  Women were like hen's teeth at the A & M games. What year did they allow women to attend?

Jerry May

I haven't seen songs on here at all lately. (although the discussions have been interesting)

Does anybody remember Savoy Brown? Here's a blues song (not sure about that album cover!) that I thought was good!

Steve Keene

Tis The Season.  We train em' young in Carl's Corner.

Sandra Spieker (Ringo)

Speaking of songs.....here's a oldie but a goodie! 

Flowers on the Wall

Wayne Gary

Steve,

Inrestricted started in 1966.  In 69 there were about 1500 women. They opened the first womens dorm in 1970 or 1971. Before 1966 women were allowed if they had a parent working a A&M or that was the only school with their major ,Vet School was one of them.  Also in 1966 congress removed the probition and also dropped the requirement for ROTC the first 2 years.  The ROTC and no women was part of the Morrell Act.

Lowell Tuttle

Sandra, that song was used in Pulp Fiction.  A rather disturbing film....I think I watched it about 30 times.

David Cordell

Sandra,

I've never heard of Eric Weatherly, but I suspect he is too young to remember Captain Kangaroo!!! That was good, but I have to go with the Statler Brothers' version from when we were youts.

Sandra Spieker (Ringo)

I agree the Statler Brother's original is the best.  I just heard this one on the radio coming back from the grocery store this afternoon. 

Steve Keene

Sandra,

Democrat evidence reminded me of this song.

Hollis,

My Fossil watch has an electric battery.  Does that mean electric batteries are Fossil fuel?

Janalu Jeanes (Parchman)

Steve, 

Ask Kurt about Fossil watches.  He worked for the company, and I'm sure he can get you a supply of watch batteries that will fit easily into the toe of your Christmas stocking, without any lingering gasoline fumes that might explode over your Christmas morning fire aglow, preventing a house aglow on your joyful morning of family fun.

As for fossil fuels, I suspect they will be around for many a year yet, so your employment seems secure for now.

Maybe you can convince one of your sons to investigate steam engines, and entice him to perfect the models I've seen on TV.  I think steam engines are a good possiblility for our transportation vehicles, and are not a problem for our atmosphere.  Plus, we have ample water supply throughout our world, although we need to also perfect ways of removing salt from sea water.

Wayne Gary

Janalu

Steam Engines are neet but you have to have a way to heat the water in the boiler. They are referred to a external combustion engines.  Over the years they have been powered by wood, coal, oil, natural gas, and nuclear reactors (ships).

Janalu Jeanes (Parchman)

Wayne,

Could they be powered by solar panels on the cars----cars that have a way of storing the solar power to be retrieved on cloudy or rainy days?

Just wondering.......I mean, houses can store solar energy somehow, can't they?----So that the solar energy gained can be stored and used at a later date, when the sun isn't shining.....

Not sure how it all works, but if solar energy can be used for housing needs, why can't it be used on cars as well?

Somewhere I read that 'EXCESS solar energy' gleened for a house & needing to be stored for the future, actually goes back to the energy company of a person's area, and the excess is stored there.  Don't understand how that works, unless maybe a person simply gets credit points for the energy excess, and those credit points go to the person's ever decreasing energy bill, or perhaps the credit points go toward the bill of paying off the installments of the solar panels?  As you can see, I don't really understand how the whole thing works........I understand from one guy I know of, who had solar panels installed on his roof, that his utility bill is now much lower, but he still has monthly payments to make for the panels.

Steve Keene

Janalu,

They do use solar panels on oil and gas meter stations to charge the internet connection to transmit information back to the main office of the gathering company.  These are forwarded to the individual oil company which logs in on their computer using their individual passwords and user account.  Here is an example of one that powers the telemetry and automatic valve opening and closing on the lease.

Steve Keene

Wayne,

Here is a steam engine called Big Boy 4014 that transports railroad cars filled with crude oil and chemicals.  The only problem is when a train derails it makes an environmental mess and has a good chance of injuring someone with the fire or inhalation of fumes.  That is the reason underground pipelines like the Keystone are the preferred method of crude transportation.