From Sea to Shining Sea, it’s summertime in America, and even with new mid-year series and episodes on cable, there’s only so much TV you can watch. Instead of working on your monitor tan, check out the July/August issue of Ride Personal Watercraft Magazine, which we publish for the the American Watercraft Association for some ideas on how to cure your summertime blues.
Ride visits a couple of kick-back spots, that welcome PWC. Lake Norris in East Tennessee is a deep, clean lake formed behind a TVA dam, offering not just house boats, but floating houses for visitors to rent. Just toodle up in your PWC, tie off and step into your kitchen for a snack. Or, roll out of bed and onto your craft for an early morning ride.
For the more adveturous, join a group of somersaulting, high-flying riders who gather annually in Georgia – this year at Lake Allatoona – for three days of trick riding and festivities.
For those living on the ocean, tag along on a sojurn out from Southern California to Catalina Island – just remember that the ocean can change fast!
This issue of Ride also includes a visit with the “Dean of the PWC Nation,” John Donaldson. A longtime rider, industry executive and now member of Kawasaki’s PR agency, John has forgotten more about PWC than most of us will ever learn. And he spends every day fighting the good fight to secure your riding privileges.
Also, each issue of Ride also features great places to take your PWC, new products for the water sports fan and information on PWC racing.

An invisible enemy stalks battlefields and follows a number of warriors home after war’s end. At varying levels, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) afflicts an unknown but substantial number of veterans, as well as active duty troops. This issue of Semper Fi, the Magazine of the Marine Corps League, which we publish for the Marine Corps League, examines how PTSD has long remained shadowy and difficult to diagnose because its sufferers did not want to be perceived as “weak” or unfit for duty. The condition is emerging from the shadows as the Marine Corps and the other services work to change the cultures that have encouraged silence. At the same time, the Veterans Administration confronts a rapidly growing challenge to identify, diagnose and treat growing numbers of troops seeking help for psychological aftereffects of battle.
On a lighter note, Marine Corps chow has improved mightily since the days of WWII C-rations. While far from Mom’s kitchen, mess halls and field food services strive to sling more than hash and SOS for hungry Marines. Some Marine Corps League members also recall how they used USMC initiative and, um, reconnaissance skills to rustle up some unexpected treats.
Also in this issue, Semper Fi salutes the contributions of Women Marines, whose roles have expanded from mainly clerical and administrative to equal partners with their male comrades. We celebrate the life and career of one Woman Marine who is still involved with the Corpsﾑin her 90s!

Almost as easy to use as just hopping in the car and going, personal watercraft are perfect for family recreation and impromptu weekend getaways. Today’s four-stroke engined PWC are far cleaner and quieter than earlier models, and easily carry two or three riders, as well as gear.
The May/June issue of Ride Personal Watercraft Magazine, which we publish for the the American Watercraft Association visits a Hawaiian enthusiast who combines his lifelong love of fishing with his passion for Yamaha watercraft–with startling results. Speaking of things that live in the water, we also meet a dolphin whose tail was injured by disease but, thanks to Bridgestone, now has a prosthetic tail and can swim and leap for joy.
We also travel far from the ocean to Americaﾕs Heartland, to see where Kawasaki builds its Jet Skis, in Lincoln, Neb. While winter snows swirl outside in the prairie wind, employees inside are crafting years of warm-weather fun. As a bonus, we peek inside Kawasakiﾕs new musclecraft, the 250-hp Ultra 250.
PWC have a serious side as well as their fun-loving personality. None other than the United States Marines use them to provide safety during offshore maneuvers. We go aboard Camp Pendleton, Calif. (one goes aboard a Marine base, just as one goes aboard a ship) to see Marines being trained to operate PWC in the surf in case their comrades need a lift.
Each issue of Ride also features great places to take your PWC, new products for the water sports fan and information on PWC racing.

1. December 15 is your 13th Hammock Day. How does that make you feel? Amazed. It truly doesn’t seem like that long, although my newspaper and PR days that preceded Hammock. seem far, far in the past. And its being the 13th anniversary doesnﾕt bother me ﾐ for all you wordies, the fear of 13 is called Triskaidekaphobia.

2. Since we are on the subject, do you like horror movies? I havenﾕt seen any of the Friday 13th movies or others in that genre, except for part of the battle between Freddy and Jason, which was on TV last summer. I really liked the old horror standards, like The Wolfman and Dracula, which scared me silly as a child. Young Frankenstein is practically sacred to me. Oddly, I find some Disney cartoon classics more upsetting than gory stuff like ﾒAlien.ﾓ I have a strong negative reaction to the theme of children losing one or more parent and/or being separated from parents. I could barely sit through “Finding Nemo.”

3. Scariest moment of your life? In college, while on a trip to Yosemite, a friend who had been working there convinced me to jump off a 20-or-so-foot cliff into a mountain stream. He went first and was fine. I jumped, looked down, and could see clear to the bottom. It looked like there was 6 inches of water, and that I had failed to jump far enough to clear an outcropping of rock. Turned out the stream was at least 15 feet deep, but so clear that it was like glass, and I did jump far enough. I will never do that kind of thing again unless I must to survive.

4. What has been the biggest change for you since last Hammockday? Workwise, it’s been adding “Semper Fi, the Magazine of the Marine Corps League” to our production cycle on top of “Ride PWC Magazine.” I didn’t think it could be done. During the last two weeks of the cycle, I still don’t believe it. Getting to go to the Marine events such as the Evening Parade in DC and the Expo trade shows has been an amazing experience for me, a non-veteran. Personally, itﾕs the weight I’ve gained during this same period.

5. What are some things people don’t know about you? I used to belong to a union, and walked a picket line. For a time in college and afterward, I worked in college libraries and thought about becoming a librarian. I hate Brussels Sprouts, but have eaten a wide variety of odd foods, including eel, bear and haggis. I’ve seen a UFO, and once lived in a dorm that had a poltergeist. When I was a child, my grandfather who worked on a railroad in Virginia let me “drive” a diesel train—i.e., hold the throttle. I had a twin brother named Bob. I have never played Nintendo, XBox, PSP, or any other TV video game.

6. If you didnﾕt work at Hammock Publishing, what would you be doing? Freelance writing, probably. Maybe back to a newspaper, or get a degree in library science and do that. Or run a bar. I have a name stolen from an old New Yorker cartoon: “The Strength to Go On Bar and Grill.”

7. What jobs would you really hate having? I would loathe having to work in a big bureaucracy in any industry. I’ve worked in a college bureaucracy, and that was bad. If you think academia is somehow purer than other fields, it ain’t. Working at a big newspaper was also something of a bureaucracy, although I was at the low end of the pipleline. I would also not do well at all in sales.

8. What is your dream vacation destination? I am not much of a beach personﾑitﾕs never as good as Jimmy Buffett makes it sound. The West Coast is a place I never get tired of visiting, although I got tired of living there years ago. Like J-Rob, I’d like to see the Greek Islands again, especially Mykonos. My wife and I hope to go to Russia again next year. I am starting to brush up on my Russian already.

9. What is the one thing you wonﾕt leave home without? My wallet. I can do without most anything else, but even when just walking in the neighborhood, I carry it.

10. If you could do something over at Hammock, what would it be? There are a number of hindsight errors I would avoid, but if I hadn’t messed up in the first place, I wouldnﾕt know how to handle them, I guess. The one omission I’d correct is that I never took off a few weeks to learn how to drive a big rig when we published a trucking magazine.

In 1977, actor Roger Moore as the redoubtable James Bond made a kind of film history by riding a “wetbike” – an early type of personal watercraft – which at the time was a novel and not well known craft. As Bond films often have done, the movies helped fan the tiny spark of this little known craft into a fad and then into the racing and recreational industry that surrounds today’s PWC.
Hammock Publishing makes its own contribution to PWCing by publishing Ride PWC Magazine for the American Watercraft Association (www.awahq.org). The current issue of Ride (Nov-Dec 2006) showcases the new 2007 models and shows how far they have some since Bond’s bouncy little ‘bike. Today’s models can carry up to three people, have stock engines packing as much as 250 hp., and even carry satellite radio and GPS units so M will always know where you are. You can choose sitdown models, which are by far the best-selling models, or standup versions that have long been popular with racers and freestyle riders who execute amazing leaps and bounds.
In addition to the new model review, this issue reports on the results of the 25th annual World Finals at Lake Havasu, Ariz., and on other racing venues. We also meet a couple from West Tennessee who fell in love aboard a jetski – after each had retired! – amd ride along with AWA members from Lake Superior to Wet – sorry, West – Virginia to Old Mexico.
Also, AWA Executive Director Chris Manthos outlines the challenges facing watercraft enthusiasts who want only to be treated equally with other power boaters, and not discriminated against because they ride small, nimble craft.
As always, the AWA stresses safe and responsible riding in every issue of Ride. Had it been around in 1977, AWA would have strenuously objected to Bond’s riding a PWC without a personal flotation device. Good heavens, 007, that kind of thing is dangerous! (Of course, knowing Bond, his PFD would have come equipped with martini makings and a blonde.)

Recently, I attended the 8th annual reunion of folks who worked at the Nashville (Tenn.) Banner, a storied (no pun meant) afternoon daily that folded in 1998. I left the Banner in 1987 after five years as a reporter and editorﾑI changed careers by going into public relations. As it happened, Rex Hammock hired me at that other company. Aug. 31, was the 19th anniversary of my first day working with Rex (I’m going on 13 years here, so do the math). We worked together for about four years before he started Hammock Publishing, and here are some recollections of that era:
The office was a remodeled car wash on 8th Avenue South. Itﾕs still there. When they opened it, they threw a party with invitations printed on hand-size highly compressed sponges, and everyone who came got a red plastic bucket and a towel. I still have my bucket.
Guys wore suits or coats and ties, except for the designers. Women wore dresses or suits and whatever kinds of shoes they wear with that kind of an outfit.
Our computers were the tiny Apple Classicsﾑif you visit Hammock Publishing today, you will find a couple still going, displaying the vintage black and white aquarium screensaver. In 1987, there was no email, no Internet as we know it today, and no CompuServe, Prodigy or AOL available to us. When I left that company in late 1993, two years after Hammock Publishing started, the company had a CompuServe account, and you had to get permission to use it.
I had left the Nashville Banner newspaper, where we worked on computer terminals that were tied into a mainframe. During the couple of weeks I took off before starting in PR, Rex let me have one of the Apples to play with. It came in a bag that was about the size of a cooler ﾐ you had to carry a keyboard, too, of course. That was all the training I ever had, or needed.
We did have a primitive internal network eventually that let us move files around. There was a rudimentary interoffice email or messaging system, that didnﾕt always work.
Rex, however, was already looking into the Internet. So his interest goes way back, and when he started Hammock Publishing, everyone had access and was encouraged to use it. What we take for granted today in finding images and writers and so on, was heady stuff in those days.
Cell phones were huge and hugely expensive. Our VP drove off one day with the office cell phone ﾐ yes, that is right, the office cell phone ﾐ on top of his car. It was never heard from again.
Of course, no PDAs or Treos or anything like that. Lots of Franklin Covey DayRunners. Those of you who know him, just pause for a moment and imagine, if you can, an unwired Rexﾉ
Our PR clients were mostly also clients of our advertising agency parent company. We did a lot of press release and event stuff, along with custom publishing. Eventually it was about half and half. Advertising, public relations and custom publishing do not all play by the same rules and expectations, which created some tension.
I started out as an account executive. After a while, the editorial director left, and I gratefully accepted the offer to fill that post. I still had to wear coat and tie. I still have some of the ties and two pair of Johnston-Murphy wingtips I bought around 1990 for the job.
Rex and I had met before, when he was the press guy for a former Nashville Congressman. After he started his PR career, I ran into him doing consumer intercepts on the street taste tests for New Coke. When we worked together at the PR firm, we had some unusual uh, opportunities. He and I once visited the Savannah River Nuclear Plant in S.C. (ﾒPrince of Tidesﾓ territory) for a DuPont spinoff company that made a herbicide-laced industrial fabric it claimed could keep roots from invading radioactive waste burial sites for many years. A good thing, unless you want your geraniums to be as tall and mean as Godzilla.
The same fabric was also marketed to the cemetery industry as a protective covering for burial vaults and coffins, thus earning it our internal nickname, ﾒCasket Gasket.ﾓ I sent a story about it to a cemetery mangement trade magazine, and, when I followed up a couple weeks later to see if they would use it, was told the editor had ﾒpassed.ﾓ So, too, did the idea of capturing that market.

Although we no longer do traditional public relations, a lot of what we do in publishing today goes back to that time, in terms of how we think about stories and design and reader relationships. I can’t begin to count the number of times over 19 years I’ve heard Rex quote Osmo Wiio’s commentaries on communication, on how to approach communication. Ultimately, the quality and integrity of our work has to be strong enough to stand on its own, and we have to serve the readers interests.
The Rex we know today is very much the Rex of 19 years ago, with the wisdom (and scars) of building several businesses on a foundation of creativity, inspiration, fun and treating everyone with respect and decency.
He even kept his office at 50 degrees back then.

Hammock’s Editorial Director Bill Hudgins and Managing Partner John Lavey recently spent several days embedded with the US Marine Corps at its sprawling base in Quantico, VA. John and Bill attended the 26th Annual Modern Day Marine Expo sponsored by Hammock Publishing client, the Marine Corps League, for whom we produce the bimonthly Semper Fi, The Magazine of the Marine Corps Leagueｪ.
The three-day expo is one of three the League sponsors annually to bring together established and emerging suppliers of military goods, ranging from socks to aircraft, with Marines and military procurement personnel, to see whatﾕs new, what works and what could work. The Expos are also attended by invited military guests from other countries,and by everyday Marines and, often, their families.
With more than 300 exhibitors ranging from giants such as Lockheed-Martin, Boeing, General Dynamics and Raytheon down to tiny businesses such as Gunzilla (which makes a gun cleaning kit), itﾕs impossible to give a detailed account of the kinds of things we saw.
But there were some themesﾑﾒdefeatingﾓ roadside bombs from destroying vehicles and killing coalition soldiers was a big one. Devices to detect traces of explosives and gunpowder on suspected insurgents and terrorists were another. Electronics such as sophisticated battlefield optics systems, hardened servers, training software and simulators were another.
At the other end of the spectrum were things like T-shirts designed to help warfighters stay comfortably dry and warm or cool depending on the weather. Some were made with yarns that contained silver fiberﾑand could soon be imprinted with integrated circuitry so troops would literally wear their radios and other electronic gear.
Again and again, vendors told us that they had been working with the Corps to develop a needed item, often going back to the drawing board multiple times to get it right. And they heard plenty from the troops who inspected their wares, and who have an immediate and intensely personal reason to want them to work right first time, every time.
But beyond the geewhiz technology and the deadly serious purpose of the products on display, we witnessed first-hand the incredible bond that being a Marine forges among those who have worn the uniform. Two Marines who meet as strangers instantly acknowledge each other as brotherﾑor, increasingly, as sister. The bond transcends age, race, religion, political affiliation. This is a large part of the reason that the Marine Corps League existsﾑto help reunite members of this unique family, and put their talents and their loyalty to continued service to their nation and each other.

The Feb 25, 2006, edition of the Wall Street Journal, had an article called “Who’s Going to Want Grandma’s Hoard of Antique Gnomes?” Well, apparently none of grandma’s grandchildren will, according to the article. So we asked Hammockfolk what was taking up room in their attic and if they had any plans for it?

Lena: When I was younger, I used to collect trolls. I have about 100. Any takers?

Bill: Since we already have pretty much all our folks’ stuff, it’s up to us to sell them on eBay. Collections – broadly defined as things we have a fair number of – include crosscut saws, plow horse harnesses, various kinds of glassware, canning jars, aprons, and rubber ducks. My goal is to have it all labeled before I die.

Megan: Lately it seems that I am collecting Macintosh computers and stray cats (the latter is not so much by choice).

Julia: I collect old glass items. When I was in high school, my best friend’s mother sparked my interest in Depression Glass and I purchased quite a few pieces. They are all pale green, in the Princess pattern, made by the Hocking Glass Company from 1931 to 1935. I also inherited two Carnival Glass vases and two Cobalt Blue glass vases that were my grandmother’s and great grandmother’s. One of the Cobalt Blue vases is my oldest piece. When my grandmother was a young girl, she remembered her mother having it. My grandmother was born in 1888.

None of it is very valuable, but I really love it all. It looks beautiful in my lighted bookcases and the inherited pieces are priceless to me. My daughter is sentimental and may well keep a few pieces, but I imagine some of it may end up on Ebay someday.

Shannon: I collect manger scenes, smaller ones mostly which I display only at Christmas. My favorites are a wool one from Brazil, a hand-carved wooden one from Zimbabwe, and one where different dog breeds represent those present at the manger (black lab is Joseph, yellow lab is Mary, German Shepherd is an angel, etc).

A weird coincidence is that my mother-in-law collects them too. We both started our collections long before we met. Since she has three boys who could care less about Christmas decorations, guess I’ll be inheriting her manger scenes.

Patrick R: I collect fountain pens. That’s it, just pens. Lorraine collects stamps. Our family members don’t collect anything as far was we know.

My grandmother did have a small collection of beanie babies before she died. One year she was convinced that someone had broken into her home and had taken them, sometime around Thanksgiving. She even had the police come by and filled out a report. She was living in Indianapolis, and we were in Tennessee so my folks were kind of worried but were also a bit incredulous. She was well know for her absent mindedness. We visited her for Christmas as we had done every year since relocating to Gallatin. Dad handed her a package that none of us recognized which she opened with excitement. She didn’t recognize it either. Lo and behold, when she removed the paper and opened the box, 4 little beanie babies were looking up at her. That burglar had broken back into her apartment and put the beanies in a gift box under her tree!

John: Not a collector. Used to collect baseball cards.

Allison: About 10 years ago, I started collecting antique French Limoges plates, the really old, truly authentic ones. Didn’t get very far as most are expensive. I have 4, so that probably doesn’t qualify as a “collection”. My great grandfather was friends with Artus Van Briggle, an artist who did a lot of pottery and ceramics. He had many of his original works, which then went to my grandfather, and are now with my father. I am looking forward to receiving these pieces, as they are really nice and most would carry a pretty hefty price tag.

My mother collects chicken and rooster themed items. I’m not looking forward to receiving any of that. I see a yard sale in the distant future.

Summer: My current favorite thing to collect is etiquette books. I have about 14 books in my collection right now, the oldest of which was published in 1884. It’s great to read back and see how much things have changed. And as you might guess, they books on proper etiquette have gotten thinner through the years.
Cole and I also collect coins. This is something my grandafther got me interested in when I was young. He’d have me keeping my eyes open for, say, a 1955 nickel minted in Denver, and as soon as one of us would find it, he’d give me another assignment.

Natalie: When my in-laws die, the amount of collectibles they have is too overwhelming to explain. I’m not sure they even know what they have hoarded at their home over the past 30 years. Then the glass shop has junk from when Jason’s great-great-grandfather owned it. It ranges from sports collectibles to fishing lures, dolls, antiques, duck decoys, photos, tools. You name it they have it. They are the world’s best hoarders. As a result, I’ve forbidden Jason to collect anything.

Emily: Anytime someone brings me flowers, I dry them and put them in vases. So I guess you could say that I collect dead flowers. I also collect postcards, strawberry-themed stuff for my kitchen and beach-themed stuff for my bathroom. My mom collects angel figurines, and my grandmother collects hummingbird stuff.

Laura: I collect the Metropolitan Museum’s sterling silver snowflake ornaments. I have 14 of them, going back to 1992. I recently discovered the series started the year I was born, so I’ve set up an eBay search to help me find older ones. Of course, the older ones are even more expensive!

I’m not sure if you would call this “collecting” since there’s no defined parameters for a set, but I have about 80 cookbooks and am always on the lookout for more. I actually use individual books throughout the collection fairly frequently.

That’s pretty much it. When you say “collection,” I hear, “something that needs dusting.”

Jamie: I collect fireman Christmas ornaments.
Not a surprise for those who know me.

Barbara: I tried collecting stuff (bird figurines, bird Christmas ornaments or pennies) in the past, but I lost interest. I still have my vinyl LPs. I also have a few pieces of golden oak furniture from the turn of the last century. Over the past few years, Ive become a minimalist. When you get older, stuff just doesnt seem to matter, especially when you have to clean out a dead parents house. My mom never threw anything away, and she had about a six months supply of toilet paper, cereal, canned goods, etc., always on hand. Shes been dead 2 1/2 years, and we just used the last light bulb from her stash.

Looks like we are finally getting our first panic-in-the-grocery-stores storm this evening. The weather wonks are comparing conditions to a storm almost exactly three years ago, which started with rain after morning rushhour, then quickly became a disaster when the temps plummeted in a couple of hours and left everything coated thickly with ice. Then it started snowing. When people finally got home, they had to stay for several days, and find ways to amuse themselves.

So we decided to see how Hammockfolk like to spend a snowy weekend, and here’s what they said:

Megan Goodchild: When I was growing up (in Chicago – where we rarely stayed home because of “snow days”), us kids would make snow tunnels at recess and then race through them. But now that I’m a grown up (and a big baby about driving in bad weather,) I like to stay home and let my cats outside to play in the snow. If the snowflakes are big enough they try to eat them before they hit their fur.

Emily McMackin: I’m a little bit of a wimp when it comes to cold weather, so I prefer to curl up in my electric blanket, drink hot chocolate and watch my favorite chick flick!

Barbara Mathieson: Leave work when that first snowflake makes an appearance. Make a pot of hot tea and read. Walk in the snow with Neyland. Build a snowman and make snow angels. When I was a child, my mother would make snow ice cream for us. I think she added milk, sugar and vanilla to lots of snow. How it stayed frozen I don’t know, but it was very good. I still remember the taste.

Barbara Greenfield: Sledding! I will definitely send you pics tomorrow if I can go! The weather is also a perfect excuse to stay in for a movie marathon.

Laura Creekmore: Far and away my favorite thing to do on a snowy day is go sledding. I grew up in a little town in Tennessee where everything shut down for an inch of snow, and some of my favorite childhood memories are when my dad came home from work early and we all sledded down the hill on our street, down the driveway and into the woods in our yard until it was so dark we finally had to go in. Of course you didn’t feel the cold.

My second-favorite thing to do (believe it or not) is go to the grocery store. I always loved to be at my dad’s store the day before a big snow was predicted. Busy days are the most fun times to work at a grocery store…how fast can you get folks out the door? Everyone is excited about the snow (at least in the South, where it comes so rarely) and so it’s fun to be around a lot of folks who are all focused on “surviving” through their day or two of being snowed in.

Bill Hudgins: I’ve always loved going out side to listen to it snow, especially at night. The soft hiss of flakes is a sound like no other. We have a big pasture back of our house with a creek running past it into Old Hickory Lake, so it’s fun to tramp down to watch the ducks and geese ignore the weather entirely. Making comfort food – pancakes, waffles, soup, chili – and watching TV or movies complete the day. We used to build snowmen, but now I’d rather read old Calvin and Hobbes strips about snowmen – they had the right idea.

Susie Garland: My daughter, Emma, and I have a tradition of going on night walks after a good snow.

I don’t share the devotion some of my colleagues have to the TV series ‘Lost’ (for some reason, I have a problem with TV series that develop complex and interweaving subplotlines that require constant attention, which may explain why ‘The A Team’ and ‘The Three Stooges’ were my all-time favorite shows).

But it is almost impossible here to ignore ‘Lost’ completely, and even I know a bit about it, having never watched an episode. Like Hurley – how come he still looks like he just finished a month of pie eating contests?

Well, now I know: