I was playing drums for Bobby Hankins band The Blue Boys in the early 60’s when Bobby hired Bookie Moudin to play steel guitar with the band. Our website www.lionfootweardirect.com has the best price on the internet for Birko balance, Birko sport, Birko motion, and children’s orthotics. Bookie moved to Oelwein, Iowa from Montana and he was a dedicated pipe smoker. I was already a cigarette smoker and thought smoking a pipe was a cool idea so Bookie started teaching me what he knew about pipes and how to smoke them. Bookie had some very nice briar pipes in his collection. He had a Barling pipe that was his favorite pipe that came from England and he said it was a “real gasser!” . Bookie had a 4 dot Sasieni briar pipe that, along with the Barling, was an expensive pipe to own. I ordered a moderately priced pipe from a catalog and Bookie started teaching me how to load and smoke it. Bookie liked Hayward tobacco and he smoked it most of the time along with another exotic brand he enjoyed smoking. Bookie showed me how to fill the pipe bowl about half full with tobacco and then use your fingers to tamp the tobacco down in the pipe bowl, but not too tight or the pipe would not draw right. Then add more tobacco to the bowl and again tamp it down with your fingers a little looser than the first load. Add the last tobacco to the bowl and tamp it down even looser than the second load. The pipe was now ready to smoke and he showed me how to move the lit match around the top of the pipe bowl igniting the tobacco. The fragrance from burning tobacco can be quite pleasant unlike the stale smell that comes from cigarette smoke. The tobacco will raise up when lit so then you use a pipe tamper to tamp the tobacco down even in the pipe bowl and relight the tobacco. If you have packed the pipe bowl correctly the tobacco will burn slow and even as you smoke your pipe. The tobacco will burn as a white ash all the way to the bottom of the pipe bowl. You have to tamp the burning tobacco as you smoke to help the pipe draw correctly. A good quaity briar pipe has no metal filter in the stem and if it comes with one in it you should pull it out and throw it away. Run a pipe cleaner through the stem as you are smoking to keep the pipe stem clean. Take small puffs but do not inhale when smoking your pipe so it does not get hot and burn your tounge. When you have finished smoking all the tobacco, you need to clean out the pipe bowl with your pipe tool and leave a pipe cleaner in the stem to collect any moisture left in the stem and bottom of the pipe’s bowl. A pipe needs to rest after smoking it and you need at least several pipes in your collection so you can rotate smoking them. It took some practice but I learned how to load, pack, and enjoy smoking a pipe. I added 5 other pipes to my collection including a meerchaum pipe carved with a claw around the bowl. It is a good idea to have a cloth in your hand when holding and smoking a meerchaum pipe. This will keep the oil and finger prints from ending up on the pipe bowl as the pipe bowl will develop an amber color from smoking it. I quit smoking cigarettes and a pipe over 20 years ago but I still have my pipe collection. It is said “a good pipe is better than a quiet wife.” Lion Footwear offers Free Shipping for Dansko shoes, Dansko women’s Professional, Rockport women’s World Tour, Rockport men’s Margin, Rockport men’s Encounter, Rockport dressport 2, Birkenstock Tokyo, Super Birki clog, Birkenstock chef shoes, Ryka Studio Flex mid, Sandro Moscoloni, and Predator Ultimate Protein.

Dave Clark

In the late 90’s a local factory wanted to remove old sealer from their floors in the factory. Our website www.lionfootweardirect.com has the best price on the internet for Birko balance, Birko sport, Birko motion and childrens orthotics. Back then we sold methalene chloride for stripping old seal on concrete floors. The way you removed most concrete sealers was to pour and spread the methalene chloride on a 8′ x 10′ area of the floor and then sprinkle floor dry on top of it. Then you would mount a steel brush on the bottom of a single disc floor machine and scrub the chemical and floor dry. This would pull the old concrete sealer up into the floor dry so you could sweep it up in a large dust pan and dispose of it. The system works pretty well but you have to have an experienced operator running a single disc floor machine. When you apply the chemical stripper it loosens the sealer up and the floor can becomes very slick to stand on. My plan was to have my 2 man crew demonstrate the system to their maintenance men so they could start stripping their factory floors. The plant manager wanted to buy a bunch of the methalene chloride and turn their factory employees loose with the chemical and floor scrapers to strip the sealer off of their floors. I refused the order because someone could get hurt if they slipped and fell and the chemical will burn your skin if you come in contact with it. Then a new problem came up when the plant was put under chemical audit and they could not have methalene chloride in the building. I found a way around this when I found a company that had a single disc block with sharp blades embedded in the block that would scrape the old concrete seal off the floor without using any chemical. It worked like a charm and soon they were scraping off all the old concrete seal from their factory floors. It took a lot of replacement blades to finish the job and I got an order for many 5gal buckets of moisture-cured urethane finish. Moisture-cured urethane is the toughest, longest wearing concrete sealer and finish available. The floors turned out great and I had a regular customer for urethane finish. We offer Free Shipping at www.lionfootweardirect.com for Dansko shoes, Dansko women’s Professional, Rockport women’s World Tour, Rockport Allander, Rockport men’s Encounter, Rockport men’s Margin, Super Birki clogs, Birkenstock Tokyo, Birkenstock chef shoes, Ryka Studio Flex MD, Sandro Moscoloni, and Ultimate Protein.

Dave Clark

Over the years my wife and I have made several trips to Worlds of Fun amusement park in Kansas City, MO. with our son and twin daughters. We have the best price for Birko balance, Birko sport, Birko motion, and chidren’s orthotic arch supports at www.lionfootweardirect.com. On our first trip to Worlds of Fun in the early 80’s our oldest child Adam who was 8 or 9 at the time kept telling us that he was going to ride on every ride in the park. Adam was real excited about our trip to Worlds of Fun and he couldn’t wait until we got there. It is about a 3 and a half hour trip from Red Oak, Iowa to Kansas City, MO. and he kept asking “Are we there yet?” It was expensive even in those days to get a family into Worlds of Fun but once you were in the park all the rides were included in your entrance fees. We were picked up by a shuttle in the parking lot that took us to the main gate where we paid to get in. We walked around to check out the rides and saw they had wooden cut outs of cute animals that you had to be as tall as in order to get on the ride. The most daring and exciting ride was the Zambizi Zinger roller coaster and Adam was big enough to ride it. But once Adam saw the coaster climbing up high into the trees he froze up and refused to ride it. He ended up riding on some of the tamer rides with our twin daughters who were about 5 or 6 years old. We were unhappy about the high prices they charged for food so if you want to save a lot of money, pack a lunch. The following summer we took our family to Worlds of Fun and Adam rode on every ride in the park and he had a great time. We went to Worlds of Fun on weekends so the park was packed with people and we had to wait in long lines in the heat to get on the rides. I rode the Orient Express roller coaster which had a big drop at the start and turned upside down four times. I thought it was a blast and I talked my wife into riding it. This turned out to be a big mistake since my wife had a problem with dizziness and this ride certainly made her dizzy. We were soon headed back to the hotel so she could lie, down ending our day at Worlds of Fun. On the last trip there we rode an old style roller coster, The Timberwolf. It was fun and exciting to ride but it hurt my back since it jerked us around and was not a very smooth ride. Worlds of Fun adds new and exciting rides every season. My son and his wife visit at least once every summer. We offer Free Shipping for Dansko shoes, Dansko women’s Professional, Rockport men’s Encounter, Rockport Allander, Rockport dressport 2, Rockport women’s World Tour, Ryka Studio Flex, Super Birki clogs, Birkenstock Tokyo, Sandro Moscoloni, and Predator Ultimate Protein at www.lionfootweardirect.com.

Dave Clark

When I was growing up our family liked to play games. We offer the best price on the internet for Birko balance, Birko sport, Birko motion and children’s orthotics at www.lionfootweardirect.com. My folks liked to play bridge and we played canasta, a card game that used two decks of cards. We even had a card shuffler that made it a lot easier to shuffle two decks of cards. We used to have to teach Grandma how to play canasta when she visted because she was getting forgetful, then she would beat us! We played board games like Polyanna, Parcheesi, and Monopoly. My dad liked to play ping-pong and we had a ping-pong table on the porch in the summer which we moved to the basement in the winter. We were always having ping-pong tournaments and we invited the neighbors to play in them. My father was very competitive and he hated to lose at anything no matter how unimportant the game was. It always seemed he could out swim, out play, or out shoot my brother and me no matter what game we played.
For Christmas my mother found interesting games for us to play to compete with each other and it was always fun when we won no matter how silly the game was. We had a basketball goal set up across the street from our home and we would play endless games of horse. When Dad would go swimming with my brother and me we would have swimming races and Dad almost always won. When we were teenagers Dad bought an old pool table from a pool hall that was closing and he had it moved into the basement. The pool table was a standard 8′ table and had a three piece 1″ slate bed. I could not believe how heavy each piece of the table was. It was quite a job assembling it. The pool table’s cloth was replaced along with most of the rails because they were dead and the pool balls would not bounce off them. We had a beautiful pool table with new balls and it was “Let the games begin!” We played many games of rotation, eight ball, and nine ball with the neighborhood kids joining in for after school tournaments. The pool table was the hit of the neighborhood and we played almost every day. Some kids just walked in the back door and went down and started playing without even asking. They even did this after my brother and I had left home. My folks finally sold the pool table. I have fond memories of the games we played as a family and it filled up a lot of hours of entertainment before we all started being glued to the tv set. Check out www.lionfootweardirect.com for good deals on Dansko shoes, Dansko women’s Professional, Rockport women’s World Tour, Rockport dressport 2, Rockport men’s Margin, Rockport men’s Encounter, Super Birki clogs, Birkenstock Tokyo, Sandro Moscoloni, Ryka studio flex, and Predator Ultimate Protein.

Dave Clark

My wife and I drove 50 miles to the Star Cinema in Council Bluffs, Iowa last Sunday March 7th, 2010 to see the movie Crazy Heart. Our internet store www.lionfootweardirect.com offers the lowest price for Birko balance, Birko sport, Birko motion, and chidren’s orthotic arch supports. The lead actor Jeff Bridges plays an almost has been country singer, Bad Blake, who is traveling the southwest in an old Chevy Suburban truck. He is booked to play in a bowling alley in Santa Fe, NM where he meets a young cute reporter played by Maggie Gyllenhaal. This meeting soon leads to romance. Bad Blake meets her little boy and he becomes attached to both of them. Both Bridges and Gyllenhaal were nominated for Academy Awards with Jeff Bridges winning the best actor award. We used to have a one screen movie theater here in Red Oak, Iowa but it closed over 6 months ago. The woman who owned and ran the theater had to work at the local McDonald’s to make a living and to keep the theater open. The Star Cinema in Council Bluffs has stadium seating with great sound systems and has many screens showing all the latest films. It is designed with a dome that has an Egyptian theme in the dome that has an echo you can hear if you talk loud enough. It’s like all movie theaters of today. They charge you an arm and a leg for any treats you buy but they do offer free refills for popcorn and pop. I grew up in the late 50’s in Oelwein, Iowa and the town had two theaters back then, the Grand Theater and the Ritz. We went to the Ritz on Saturday afternoons to see the latest Roy Rogers, Gene Autry or other western movie stars of the day. I liked watching Abbott and Costello and the Three Stooges movies. I could not understand why my folks thought they were corny since I laughed and enjoyed their slapstick humor. The Ritz was kind of run down compared to the Grand Theater and the better films were played at the Grand. Pop cost a dime a cup. The paper cup would come down out of the machine and then be filled with soda and mix. Sometimes the cup would fall over and the soda and mix would end up going down the drain. In the past the only place you could see movies was at a theater, but now you can rent or buy movies and play them on your dvd at home. We have Mediacom cable that offers On Demand and you can watch The Hurt Locker, the movie that won best picture at this year’s Academy Awards, at home for less than it would cost you to go see it in a theater. Almost everybody likes entertainment and it is still fun to go see a good movie. We offer Free Shipping for Dansko shoes, Dansko women’s Professional, Birkenstock Tokyo, Super Birki, Birkenstock chef shoes, Rockport dressport 2, Rockport men’s Margin, Rockport women’s World Tour, Sandro Moscoloni, Ryka studio flex mid, Rockport Allander, and Predator Ultimate Protein at www.lionfootweardirect.com.

Dave Clark

In the 70’s an article was written in the National Geographic about canoeing on the Buffalo River in northwest Arkansas. We offer the best price on the internet for Birko balance, Birko sport, Birko motion and childrens orthotics at www.lionfootweardirect.com. They featured a picture in their magazine of a water fall that is only accessed by canoeing on the Buffalo River. My friend Mike had read the article in the National Geographic and we planned a river trip adventure early in April on the Buffalo River. Mike was gong to college at Iowa State in Ames, Iowa and he and three other guys from Iowa State met four of us from Red Oak, Iowa at Mocking Bird Hill, a cafe that operated a canoe rental and shuttle in Pruitt, Arkansas. It is about a ten hour drive from Red Oak to northwest Arkansas. We were excited about the canoe trip down the Buffalo River. We camped at a local campgrounds and the outfiitter picked us up to haul us, canoes, and our gear up the river to Boxley. We unloaded the canoes, paddles, gear and set off down the river. I will never forget the feeling of speed and power of the river taking us downstream. I had never been in a canoe before and here I was on a white water river in the middle of nowhere with no idea what I was supposed to do. My partner Dave was an experience canoeist and he gave me instructions on how to paddle as the front man in a canoe. The first rapids we hit were fun, fast and exciting as the canoe passed through the rapids. As the day went along most of us ended up in the river and it was a good thing that we tied our gear to the canoe or we would have lost everything we brought along with us. The Buffalo River winds through some of the most scenic high cliffs and rocky bluffs I had ever seen. We canoed down the river to the place they called the swing because there was a rope hanging from a tree you could swing out on and land in the river. That evening we could hear some commotion down river and we walked down to see what was going on. We saw some guys trying to push a Jeep across the river and they were having a lot of trouble doing it. We jumped in to help and I asked one of the guys if the Jeep was in gear and he said no. I reached into the Jeep and grabbed the shifter and, sure enough, it was in gear. The Jeep was starting to float down the river but once I took it out of gear it was much easier to push it across the river. They were so happy they said they would be back with a case of beer for us but they never came back. The next day we finished canoing down the Buffalo to our take out point at Pruitt, Arkansas. I liked canoing the rapids but got tired of paddling through the pools to the next rapids. The weather was much nicer than it was when we left Iowa and we enjoyed the warmer temps and had fun on our canoe trip down the Buffalo River. We offer Free Shipping at www.lionfootweardirect.com for Dansko shoes, Dansko women’s Professional, Rockport dressport 2, Birkenstock Tokyo, Super Birki clogs, Sandro Moscoloni, Ryka studio flex, and Ultimate Protein.

Dave Clark

It has been about a month since we retired our male cat Frankie and it has been nice not having to worry about him when he was outside. We have the best price on the internet at lion footwear for Birko balance, Birko sport, Birko motion and children’s orthotic arch supports. Life for an outdoor tomcat is fraught with danger and it is amazing that Frankie has lasted this long. Frankie was very sick when we took him to the vet and it was then we found out, after they did a blood test, that he was FIV positive. Frankie’s lungs were filling up with fluid and he was close to having pneumonia. It took three rounds of antibiotics to get rid of his sneezing and coughing. It used to be a death sentence for a cat when they were diagnosed FIV positive. I have done some research on the internet about FIV positive cats and found out a cats with FIV can live a long and happy life if you take good care of them. Being FIV positive means Frankie has a weakened immune system so it is very important to take him to the vet if he developes any health problems. We were feeding him Meow Mix dry food and 9 Lives canned food when Frankie started having a real problem with stomach gas and he almost ran us out of the house. We switched his food to Iams dry food and cut out the 9 Lives canned food and he is doing much better now. We keep him confined to our kitchen when we are not at home and we have the window shades open so he can look out the window. When Frankie started feeling better he started wanting to play so I got a shoe string for him to chase and he really likes that. Frankie weighs 14 lbs and it is all muscle. He has huge claws and you have to careful when playing with him. Frankie likes to hang out in the living room when we are home and now resists going back into the kitchen when we go to work or to bed. Frankie lays on his back in a defensive position or hides under the table so I have to get after him and herd him back into the kitchen. Frankie is not a lap cat but loves to have his head scratched and likes to lay on my foot when I am watching tv. Some days he is restless and I know he would like to go outside but he is a house cat now. We hope he will adjust to this new reality and will be happy in his new life as a house cat. We are looking forward to enjoying Frankie’s company for many years to come as he is only 4-5 years old. We offer Free Shipping at www.lionfootweardirect.com for Dansko shoes, Dansko Professional, Birkenstock Tokyo, Super Birki clogs, Rockport dressport 2, Rockport women’s World Tour Classic, Rockport men’s Encounter, Rockport men’s Margin, Ryka Studio Flex mid, Sandro Moscoloni, and Ultimate Protein.

Dave Clark

I played drums for Bobby Hankins band, The Blue Boys, back in the early 60’s. We offer the best price on the internet for Birko balance, Birko motion, Birko sport, and Blue heeled arch supports at www.lionfootweardirect.com. Bobby Hankins used only string instruments in his band, as the other bands at that time that played the ballroom circuit used horns to play county music. Bobby Hankins played bass and sang in the Andy Doll band before he started his own band. Most of the county music recorded in Nashville uses steel guitar, lead guitar, bass, and fiddle. So when country western stars came to northeast Iowa to perform they would hire us to play. We were hired to play a show for George Jones at Electra Park Ballroom in Waterloo, Iowa. We had a brief practice before the show. George Jones seemed irritable and short tempered and said we all new his big hits. That was about it for the practice. George Jones used the house p.a. system so I could not hear him singing very well and inadvertantly played through some of the breaks in his songs. I was rewarded with several dirty looks from Jones. We got through it but I was glad when it was over. We played the dance at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa around the 4th of July and Johnny Cash played the show. During the intermission a woman came out of the dressing room and she was furious! . She had gone backstage to get Cash’s autograph and he threw a firecracker at her and burned a hole in her dress. We played the dance and show with Jimmy Dean at the Surf Ballroom. Dean told jokes and stories and hardly sang at all. Our band played the dance and show with Wanda Jackson who had the hit “Let’s have a party” at Mauders Ballroom in Decorah, Iowa and she played two shows. The first show went well but between shows she got very drunk and it was all she could do to keep upright, which she did it by holding onto the microphone and stand. We worked the dance and show at Danceland in Cedar Rapids, Iowa with Bobby Helm who had the hits ” Jingle Bell Rock” and “Frauline”. Helms was a friendly, easy going guy with a great voice and was a wonderful entertainer. We played with other country stars like Little Jimmy Dickins and Tex Ritter at Melody Mill in Dubuque, Iowa. A lot of these entertainers talked only about was their hit songs and were very conceited and unfriendly. Being on the road all the time probably didn’t help their dispositions. I played for Bobby Hankins my senior year in high school and a year after. Then I left to become a salesman. Over the years my wife and I have gone to country western shows in Omaha, NE. which always bring back memories of when I played for country western stars. We offer Free Shipping for Dansko shoes, Dansko women’s Professional, Rockport World Tour Classic, Rockport men’s Margin, Rockport men’s Encounter, Birkenstock Tokyo, Super Birki Clogs, Birkenstock chef shoes, Ryka studio, Sandro Moscoloni, and Ultimate Protein at www.lionfootweardirect.com

Dave Clark

I am going to write an article about something I wish I had never started- smoking cigarettes! Our website www.lionfootwear direct.com has the best price for Birko balance, Birko sport, Birko motion, and Blue heeled arch supports. My mother smoked cigarettes and my dad smoked cigars. I developed asthma at about age 5 and on trips to visit grandparents both my parents would be puffing away in the car on the five hour trip to Illinois. I would be sitting in the back seat coughing and wheezing away. I was 9 or 10 when I had my first experience with smoking cigarettes. My friend Marvin and I had stolen several packs of cigarettes and went into a cornfield and smoked one after another. I was coughing and gagging but Marvin and I kept at it until we had smoked all the cigarettes. I ended up with a terrible headache and was sick to my stomach. At age 14 I tried smoking again and kept it up until I developed a habit. My good friend Dick and I started smoking Chesterfield straights and I would smoke my mother’s cigarettes when I didn’t have the money to buy my own. Mother smoked Hit Parade cigarettes because they were cheap and later on she switched to Bel Air cigarettes because Bel Air had a coupon on the pack. Mother had a large box full of coupons but it took a whole lot of them to get something that was of any value. Bel Air cigarettes had menthol in them and I was not too fond of them but I smoked them anyway. Cigarettes in the late 50’s were cheap and cost only 30 cents a pack and you could buy Wings cigarettes for as little as 16 cents a pack. At that time cigarettes were an accepted product and doctors said they might be bad for you but they did not have the proof that they have now about how bad cigarettes are for your health. They even allowed smoking on airplanes and movie stars smoked in most of the movies you saw. Everywhere you went they had cigarette machines and you were allowed to smoke in most places. Over the years I smoked most brands including Lucky Strikes, Camels, Pall Malls, Marlboros, Winstons, and I am sure I am leaving some brand out. I would smoke 2 to 3 packs of cigarettes a day depending on what I was doing and how late I stayed up at night. I smoked More cigarettes for a couple of years before I finally quit at age 45. Mores were long thin brown cigarettes that were slow burning and would go out if left in an ashtray. I tried to quit several times and the first time I tried to quit I got very depressed because I was not committed to quitting. When I made up my mind to quit smoking I did it. I quit cold turkey and have not smoked for 21 years. It was one of the best things I ever did for myself. I believe if they did away with factory made cigarettes and only offered bulk tobacco that you have to roll your own to smoke it would stop a lot of kids from starting. Cigarette smoking causes health problems and is one of the leading causes of lung cancer. My mother smoked up into her early 70’s before she finally quit and I am sure she would have lived longer if she had stopped smoking earlier. We offer Free Shipping for Dansko shoes, Dansko women’s Professional, Rockport Allander Dressport 2, Rockport men’s Margin, Rockport men’s Encounter, Birkenstock Tokyo, Birkenstock chef shoes, Super Birki clogs, Ryka studio, Sandro Moscoloni, and Ultimate Protein at www.lionfootweardirect.com.

Dave Clark

We used to stay up and watch the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson and Ed McMann. We have the best price on the internet for Birko balance, Birko sport, Birko motion, and Blue Heeled arch supports at www.lionfootweardirect.com. When Johnny Carson left we did not watch his replacement Jay Leno very often and we went to bed after the evening news that was over at 10:30pm central time. Sometimes I would stay up and watch Dave Letterman and some of his shows were absolutely hilarious! I would laugh so hard I almost cried! Then NBC had Jay Leno on at 9:00pm and we started watching his monologue that lasted 10-15 minutes and we went to bed after it was over. We enjoyed Leno’s show and found him to be very funny and entertaining. We were disappointed when they moved him back to 10:35pm and he was off the air for two weeks before returning to his old time slot. We have cable tv and we started taping Dave Letterman’s show and watching it at 8 or 9pm. I was surprised that I did not find Letterman to be very funny. He comes onstage making faces at the camera and saying one-liners that hardly make me crack a smile. In my opinion, his band leader Paul Shaffer is not a very good straight man and most of the time just says uninteresting things. We are now recording Jay Leno and I think it will be only a little while until Jay is back on top again. Jay had Jamie Fox on the other night and I thought he tried to upstage Jay. Jamie Fox is a wonderful actor, but I did not find his comments very interesting. I am not a big Sara Palin fan and I was surprised that she can be funny and has interesting things to say. We are glad Jay is back, and being able to record his show makes it possible for us to watch him. We still record Dave Letterman and watch his monologue before we hit the pillow. Jay Leno is still the king of late night in our book. We offer Free Shipping for Dansko shoes, Dansko women’s Professional, Rockport World Tour Classic, Rockport men’s Allander, Rockport men’s Margin, Rockport men’s Encounter, Bikenstock Tokyo, Super Birki clog, Birkenstock chef shoes, Ryka studio, Sandro Moscoloni, and Ultimate Protein.

Dave Clark