33209: Headwinds -- Differences

Chapter 11.1: Headwinds -- 68701

Chapter 11.2: Headwinds -- Differences

"Cisneros residence, what can we do you for?"

"Uh, hello, Mr. Cisneros. This is Joe Reeves. I'd like to speak with Julia, if I could."

"Julia, somebody who says he is Joe Reeves wants to know if he can talk with you."

I could her Julia's voice in the background, but I couldn't tell what she was saying.

"Yes." Her father's voice was turned away from the phone.

More of her voice in the background.

"No."

Still more of her voice, mixed with her mother's voice.

"Don't ask me." He paused again before his voice returned to the phone. "Okay, you're in luck today. She says she'll talk to you."

"Dad, give me that phone!" This time her voice was distinct and indignant, though somewhat distant.

"Thank you."

I heard sounds of the phone changing hands, with Julia's father's chuckle in the background.

"Hi Joe."

I was still chuckling, myself.

"Don't laugh. You'll just encourage him."

"My dad gets on a roll sometimes, too."

"I know. Your dad's funny. Okay, it's cute when it's your dad."

"Maybe your dad is, too?"

"Well, when he's not being frustrating." There were spurts of laughter in the background. "So what's up?

"Thought I'd call and thank you for dropping by and taking notes today."

"I was just curious about what you were doing with the computers. You really seem to like working with that kind of stuff."

"It's like a math puzzle. No, it is a math puzzle, a bunch of 'em."

"I felt a little like Alice, down that rabbit hole Dr. Brown mentioned."

I nodded to the wall. "Sometimes I feel that way, too."

She laughed.

"So you know Pat," I commented.

"Yeah. And George and Mike, too. We sort of grew up together. Used to go to the same church."

"Used to?"

"Oh, Pat still comes sometimes, but lately she says she's leaning towards agnosticism." She paused. "Mike says he's an atheist." I heard a sigh. "And George is just too busy most Sundays. Busy watching basketball on the tube, is my guess."

"Small world on campus. But you're friends?"

"Not like when we were younger. But, yeah, we're," she paused again, "friends."

"I see. It's cool that you're friends."

"Yeah." Her voice brightened a bit. "It is. Hey, are you going to church Sunday?" 

"Yeah, I usually go."

"Would you like to come to mine?"

"What time?"

"There's a sermon at ten, and after that we'll have Sunday School."

"In the morning, eh? That should work okay. Our ward meets in the afternoon this year, so I could fit it in, no problem."

"Ward?"

"Congregation. As in ward of a city or a hospital."

She chuckled. "Hospital for sinners?"

I chuckled too. "Right. Where and when should I meet you?"

"Can you meet me at my house about fifteen before? We can walk from here."

"Sounds good."

"So Is that computer of yours going to keep you busy all day tomorrow?"

"'Fraid so, pretty much, whatever time is left over from collecting subscriptions for the paper route. I'd invite you over to watch, but it's a pretty deep rabbit hole."

"Have you been making any progress?"

"A bit. I realized I need more tools that I don't have for the group coded recording circuits. Also found out for sure that Giselle's Color Computer does MFM data, so I'm switching to work on MFM."

She laughed. "As if I would know what that meant."

"It means it should be more compatible with Radio Shack's and IBM's formats."

"Well, compatibility with IBM's, uhm, stuff? is a good thing, isn't it?"

"Who knows? Well, maybe I'll have a better idea about that when I'm done with this."

"Uhm," she hesitated. "Can I come by in the evening?"

"If you don't mind watching me running up and down that rabbit hole, sure."

 She laughed. "Now I'm imagining you as the White Rabbit."

I opened my mouth, but only an "Ah!" came out.

"What?"

"Never mind. I don't want to give you a bad impression."

"What?"

"Your parents are listening?"

"Yeah, they are."

"I really wouldn't want to give them a bad impression."

She snickered at that. "Now you've got to tell me."

"Well, I guess the only way out of this hole I just dug myself into is probably going further down. Are you familiar with Jefferson Airplane?"

"Jefferson Airplane?"

"The band."

"I don't guess so. But that name just got my parents' attention."

"There's a song they sang, called 'White Rabbit'."

"Mom just asked me, 'That White Rabbit?'." She covered the mouthpiece, and I heard a muffled, "What White Rabbit?"

"Do I dare sing a few lines? It's a drug culture song."

"Oh. Drugs. Yuck."

"Hold the phone away from your ear a minute. Okay?"

"Huh?"

"Ready?"

"Okay." Her voice sounded distant enough, so I held the mouthpiece away from my mouth and sang the first five lines, through asking Alice.

"Not a good lyric, huh?"

"Is that what that song says? I thought I liked it."

I heard a snort of laughter.

"My mom's laughing. Dad's trying to keep a straight face and look very strict."

Now I heard him laugh.

"Yep. That's what it says. They did sing some things slightly better. Only slightly." I sang a bit of the chorus of 'Somebody to love'."

"That's a song I like. Mom's says you have a good voice. Do you have the record?"

"Tell your mom thanks. I should probably plead the fifth."

She laughed.

"I bought it when I was fourteen and didn't really know any better. Like most of my record collection."

Her voice turned away from the phone. "He says he bought it when he didn't know any better." Now it returned. "You'll have to let me see your record collection."

"Got some Bach in there, too. 'Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring'."

"Bach's 'Joy'? That's good music."

"Performed on a synthesizer."

"Oh." She sounded a bit disappointed. "Well, can I listen to it tomorrow? Maybe it won't be as bad as it sounds." Her voice turned distant again. "'Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring' ... on synthesizer, Mom."

I heard another spurt of laughter.

"Sure. But I've got a good straight orchestral arrangement of it, too."

"And I can listen to that, too."

"Well, I don't want to take too much of your time --"

"I don't mind."

"-- and I'd kind of like to see if I can make some more progress on this MFM data separator tonight after I go out to see how many of the rest of March's subscriptions I can collect tonight."

"You collect at the end of every month."

"Yeah. Collected about half between Wednesday and yesterday, still need about a quarter of the customers to pay for March's newspapers."

"Oh, okay, you can go back to your customers and your computer. If it's okay if I come visit tomorrow evening."

I chuckled quietly. "Sure. I'll call you when I get back from paying for the newspapers. I look forward to seeing what you think of my record collection."

"I'll bet it's interesting."

Neither of us said anything for a moment.

"Well, anyway, see you tomorrow."

"Yeah. Tomorrow. Have a good night."

After I got back from collecting and worked a bit more on the data separator, I called Denny to report my progress. I asked if he knew whether Motorola had any more of the Micro Chroma 68 boards that they could sell to students, and he said he didn't know, but he'd check. I also reported on my progress with the disk drives, and mentioned the scheduled meeting with Ms. Bight. He wished me luck getting the internship.

*****

Julia had been sitting patiently for about a half an hour while I worked on a program in BASIC to generate test data and write it to a floppy on Giselle's computer with her floppy drive, then write copies of it with my drives and compare the results. I had a Mormon Tabernacle Choir album playing in the background from my room that had Bach's 'Joy' as one of the tracks.

Giselle was waiting for me to give her her computer back, and they had been chatting while they waited.

I started yet another test run. It would take several minutes to complete, so I sat back and listened to the disk drives whirr and click.

"So you dance."

I looked at Giselle, questioning with my eyes why she had brought it up. She ignored me.

"You and Giselle were talking about dance? Yes, I dance."

"Is it fun?"

"Yeah. Great exercise, too."

"Giselle says she dances to strengthen her back."

"Modern dance," Giselle clarified.

"I've heard about it in my childhood education classes, but I'm not really sure what it is."

I stood and did some warm-up exercises -- plié and relevé, with port de bras. Giselle stood and mirrored the knee bends, the rising onto toes and returning, and the arm movement.

"Ballet?"

I went down to grand plié and shifted left, lifting my right leg high, like a sumo wrestler beginning shiko, and left it lifted for a few seconds before lowering it gently instead of stomping. Giselle copied me with laugh.

Julia drew back in surprise and amusement. "Expressive dance."

"-- is a part of modern. Modern's similar to ballet, sometimes," I explained. "But it's less formal and borrows from everything. It's more of a deliberate study in how the body moves, or, as somebody famous once said, a study in different ways 'to get from here to there'."

She looked at me doubtfully. "So you do it for exercise?"

"Training, coordination, self expression, not having to compete with anyone else, getting rid of stress, lots of reasons."

"Does everyone in your family dance?"

"Yeah, we all do, at least a little. Louise majored in dance education, didn't she, 'Zelle?"

"Yes, she did." Giselle nodded emphatically.

"Many Baptists think dancing leads to sin, but my preacher said expressive dance for childhood education, if it doesn't include too much hip movement, should be okay."

"Good for him. What do your parents think?"

"I've never seen them dance, but they sometimes watch ballet on TV. I guess your dad dances, too?"

"He does. Mom waltzes with Dad sometimes, but she isn't really a fan of dance."

"Professor Reeves dances!" She seemed to think this was a revelation.

"Yep," Giselle was quick to affirm. "He does foxtrot and swing and two-step and lots of older style dance steps."

"And he shadow-boxes to music, too," I added.

"Does he dance with other women besides your mom?"

"Sure. We have dances in the church's gym, and a lot of the men don't dance much, so Dad and some of the others who dance will dance with as many of the women as want to dance."

"Your mom doesn't mind?"

Giselle was glad to explain. "Mom says she's happy to just listen to the music and watch other people have fun."

Julia closed her eyes and breathed deeply, sighing, blinking several times.

The disk drive noises quieted.

I checked the screen. "Tests look good so far. I should let Giselle have her computer back. Could I put that Switched-on Bach on for you?"

"Sure."

I opened my drive and took the floppy out and put it in its sleeve, and we went to my room.

Julia stopped in the doorway of my room and shook her head. "Those aren't bunk beds. What do you call them?"

"Loft beds. They were Denny's idea, but it leaves lots of room for da--" I realized too late what I was revealing.

"Dancing." She had picked it up.

"Yeah. Dancing. And listening to music."

"Do you have girls in here to dance?" She sat down on an old bench seat Denny had saved when we had to junk the Fairlane van, and patted the space beside her.

I sat down too. "No. Well, I don't usually have girls in here at all. But I dance by myself a lot, especially when I'm feeling frustrated -- Wild dancing. Jumping and twirling."

"Do I want to see that?"

"Probably not. Not tonight, anyway. No real gymnastics, so it's not really all that interesting anyway."

She leaned forward to get a better view inside the tea box. "That's a lot of records."

"Not quite a hundred. I guess I spent way too much money on them, even though I got most of them at less than half-price through a record club." I leaned forward too, and scanned the spines of the albums, found the Switched-on Bach album, pulled it out, replaced the Tabernacle Choir disc on the turntable with it, and settled the needle on the disc.

Julia listened in silence for a bit. "It's different, but not ... bad." She stopped.

I followed her gaze to the photocube on the shelf between the desk and the bottom of the loft bed.

"Satomi."

"She's cute. Is she your girlfriend?"

"Brother Fukumasa would have issues with that. Satomi and Teruo will be marrying sometime this year."

"Who is ... who are they?"

"Missionaries I worked with in Japan."

"Do you have a picture of Terr ... Teroo ..."

"Teruo." I had to think. "I don't think so. Nice 'r', by the way. Most people tend to trill it too much, like a Spanish 'r'."

"Thanks, I guess."

"Satomi is one very special person. Genki. Uh, vivacious. Heh. Ancient English? That photo doesn't do her justice. Lots of positive energy. I think all the elders, uhm, male missionaries, had crushes on her."

"Special ..." I heard the disappointment in her voice.

"Crushes are not love, although I guess I do want her to be happy."

"Crushes." Her voice was tiny. "Love." She remained looking at the cube, or maybe past it, through the window to the darkness outside.

"My sister Louise explained the basics to me when I was, how old? Fourteen? Twelve? When you like the way someone looks, and even when being near someone makes you feel good, that's a crush. I have a crush on you, by the way."

"Really?" She turned and looked at me with amusement mixed with doubt.

"Huge crush. Since the day we met."

"Oh." She smiled.

"Anyway, crushes are separate from love, and people can have lots of them."

"Hmm."

"Love is when you want someone to be happy, and you can love lots of people, too."

"Well, if that's how you define it ..."

"When you want to be the one who makes someone happy, that can be love, too, but it can also become lust, as well. Louise didn't tell me that, it's something I've figured out for myself."

"Too much philosophy."

"I like figuring things like this out. It makes life easier when everyone around tries to be, what is that? Dogmatic."

She laughed. "So do you think you love me?"

"I want you to be happy. I'm not sure yet whether I want to dare to want to be the one to make you happy the rest of your life, but it's kind of early to be trying to figure that out."

She smiled. "Words." She laughed quietly. "Well, I guess I have a crush on your dad. Is that okay?"

"Sure. I have a crush on him, too. He's pretty cool."

"Really?" She looked at me in surprise and more than a little apprehension.

"Before I was a missionary, he embarrassed me. While I was out, I began to understand him. We teach English in Japan, you know? As a service activity."

"Really?"

"Yeah. I found myself using some of the techniques he uses in his Spanish classes, and wishing I'd taken the time to learn more from him. I figured out he's pretty cool."

"Oh!" The apprehension disappeared, replaced by relief and, well, happiness.

She become pensive. "I've thought I had a crush on you several times, but you keep turning out to be different from what I expect. You know, you're a little scary sometimes."

I laughed. "I've been told that."

"I'm not sure I can keep up."

"No problem. I won't ask anything of you that you're not ready for."

She thought for a moment. "That sounds like a promise easily made, and sometimes hard to keep."

"Well, I'll try not to, anyway."

"You're already not keeping it, but if you're trying, maybe that's good enough."

We both paused for thought, to digest what we had just exchanged.

"So, we're busy showing you what I do for fun. What about you? What do you do for fun?"

"Scripture games, crossword puzzles, ..."

"No card games, I guess?"

"Uno is okay."

"Pit?"

"Pit's fun."

"Good. Board games?"

"Depends. Some board games are too much like gambling."

"Is it pretty much a personal choice?"

"To some degree, although you can get in trouble with some of the stricter members if you aren't careful."

"Chess? Checkers?"

"I play both. Are you good at chess?"

"No, no patience for it, really. Hmm. I have both chess and checkers programs for the Micro Chroma 68. Interested?"

"Sure."

I loaded the chess program, and let her play against the computer. She beat it quickly and I laughed. Then we played two player and she gave me some pointers.

"So, can you use the disk drives on this yet?"

"No, I still have to write a bunch of code and wire up more circuitry. Putting data on the disk is only half the problem. You have to be able to find it again once it's there."

"Hmm. I wonder if I really want to know what that means."

We dragged Giselle and my parents into a couple of rounds of Pit before Julia said goodnight and went home about ten so I wouldn't be too sleepy getting up at five to run my newspapers in the morning.

Chapter 11.3: Headwinds -- Church

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[Backed up at https://joel-rees-economics.blogspot.com/2020/03/bk-33209-headwinds-differences.html.]