The OLD MAN OF THE SEA - started 2001 completed April 2016

MY 1000th CAREER PROPERTY SURVEY

  Well, today was the day. The day that I had hoped would be my retirement day. Today I completed the preliminary fieldwork on my "One Thousandth Career Property Survey". That's 1000 different properties that I have had the privilege to walk upon. One thousand different properties from grassy subdivisions, to rural dwellings, to large industrial sites, to in-town surveys (including the dreaded City of Lancaster). From woodlands, to landfills. Mansions to shacks. From cultivated lands to cemeteries. Construction stakeouts for homes in the woods or in the fields. Small Subdivisions and multi-lot Subdivisions. Land Development Surveys, Boundary Surveys, Topographic Surveys, Creek surveys, wetland surveys. Nursing Homes to Mobile Homes. Railroads to airport runways. On Honda three wheelers and four wheelers. In vans, in my Jeep CJ-7, in nice Chevy Suburbans, in Jeep Wagoneers. Treasure hunting for aerial monuments. Bushwhacking through brush. Up hills and down hills. Sitting in a canoe with Nels and taking soundings of the Conestoga River for a bridge project. River valleys and mountaintops. All seasons and all weather. Rain and snow, hot and cold. Discovering birds and receiving carving inspiration. Traveling mostly in good old Lancaster, Lebanon and Berks Counties, but some long runs to State College, Altoona, Philly and etc. And always dressed as the Surveyor wearing my Boonie hat and glacier sunglasses.

  What a career it's been. An angry neighbor approaching Nels and me with an Uzi machine gun and dogs. "O.K. Dude, we'll leave the premises immediately" (later we would be having coffee with the Dude in his homey kitchen). Sitting with the Amish in their kitchens. Coffee and conferences in other kitchens too.

 There have been many highs and lows during these past forty years of Surveying. Fun and easy days and long and miserable days.

 And today I started my 1000th. A large six acre open field in the middle of Terre Hill. Only thing being that it was surrounded on all six sides with multiple adjoining properties. I spent seven hours looking for corners. Seven hours spent searching for hardware with the metal detector. Finding a hit and digging to expose the pin, then bending down to tie pink ribbon around it. I did that twenty-eight times. My lower back would be stiff that evening, but overall my health is holding up. I can still do the physical work and it is good exercise.
 
  One thousand individual properties that I have had the privilege to have been able to walk upon, to explore, to enjoy, to love and to hate. And all the while in awe of nature and the atmosphere. It's been a great career. Whew!
 

 

 

HOW I BECAME “THE FREAK”

by

Blair W. Fisher

Way back in the Fall of 1971 and I was starting my senior year of High School.  My Algebra Buddy, Lenny Hornberger, rode a snowmobile and I rode a motorcycle.  I said to Lenny that he was a “Snowmobile Freak” and he said that I was a “Motorcycle Freak”.  And so, we began to call each other “Freak”, but no one else called us by that name.

Then one morning I had finished my shower and shook my head to fling off the water.  I happened to glance in the mirror and my hair was all wild and curly looking and that’s when I made the decision that would change my life.  I would never again use a comb and this was the way I would head to school that day.  Well, everyone loved the new doo and I was especially happy when several chicks personally told me to keep it that way.  That was it!  The Afro for me was born.  Then later on that day, along came Bruce Hostetter and he commented that “Now you truly are ‘The Freak’“.  And thanks to "Juicer", that name has been my moniker ever since.

 

                                                                                    BEFORE

                                     

 

AFTER





 

JOURNAL ENTRY MAY 3, 2012 - MY DAD AND TED

Happy 37th anniversary in Heaven, Dad.  Wow, it's already been 37 years ago today since my Dad died.  Thirty-seven years!  Unreal.  Yesterday, I had just told my Survey partner, Rodney, that I've always felt cheated that I didn't have the chance to get to know my Dad when we both were older, when I wasn't so much The Rebel.  A time when together we could just sit around as friends and talk about our lives.  Carl J. Fisher was able to teach his son many things in those short twenty-one years together.  But for today, I will remember my Dad with the telling of a story about how my Dad's path crossed with a young Ted Nugent.

Dad had just returned home from another of a trucker's many road trips and one of the first things he asked me was, "Did you ever hear of the band called The Amboy Dukes?"  No, I hadn't heard of them.  He then said that if I ever brought one of their records home that he would "throw it out the window!"  Dad didn't tell me the entire story and to this day I wonder what had happened, but he had told me enough.  He had seen them at a restaurant.  Now here's what I think happened.  There was my Dad.  He was feeling hungry and it was late in the afternoon, nearly dark.  Another trucker, lonely on the road and missing his family back home.  Just wanting to find the closest thing to a home-cooked meal before he settled down in the back of his truck's cab to go to sleep alone again.  No one to cuddle with and feel their warmth.  Dad finds a comfortable booth and is just served his meal when in through the door they come.  The Amboy Dukes on the road. On a concert road tour across America with their leader, Ted Nugent, in rare form.  In they come hootin' and hollerin' and raising Rock Band - life on the road - Hell.  Their party is just starting.  They probably had groupies in tow and were just being overall inconsiderate to everyone else in the establishment.  Being young assholes really.  And Ted Nugent would have been the ring-leader.  And I think that this was the way it went down.  And that Dad quietly ate his meal and put up with the disruption and formed his opinion and moved on.

Or could this story have gone in another direction?  That my Dad had had enough.  That he went over and told the band to keep it down.  And mouthy Ted got in my Dad's face and my Dad had to kick his ass.  That would be the better story.  Or could it have happened like this?  That Ted started picking on and annoying my Dad.  When I told my buddy Chiz about that scenario, he said "No", that my Dad was a powerful looking man with his bald head and stocky build and massive forearms and that he would have kicked Ted's ass.  I agreed with him.

And so, that's a great way to remember my Dad today.  What a great story.  That Dad saw these young hell raising asshole punks bothering everyone in the restaurant's private space.  Maybe it's more than that.  Maybe it elevated to much more, but I'll never know for sure.   But do you know what?  My Dad was right.  Because Ted Nugent is nothing more that a loud mouthed N.R.A. radical pain in the ass.  Living in the wild and loving the kill.  What a dick head.  I believe I learned that incite from my Dad.  The ability to see people for the first time and to easily be able to tell if they are genuine decent and cool people or if they are just another loud mouthed blow hard asshole.  And this story is how I'm going to remember my Dad for the rest of the day.  What a great story!

OLD MAN OF THE SEA - I'M GETTING THERE

WYOMING 1977 & 1997

THE DAKAR RALLY - JANUARY 2012