And on the seventh Day, He rested.....

......’course I ain’t He even tho’ there have been times when I’ve been accused of having a ‘He’ complex....

But since I’m awake at 7 in the A.M. just in time to listen to the Ol Fair Oaks Alarum Chorale as they demand the rising of the sun, which given that strange red light in the eastern sky is only moments away....and since, given the evidence of a frosty windscreen on the Matrix, it is obviously a cold ‘n frigid morning, what I think I shall do, rather than fetching the Sac Nooze from the porch, clad as I am in tee-shirt ‘n....well, whatever.....I think I’ll head back for the Land of Nod ‘n see if I c’n recapture that long-ago (ten minutes or so) dream......
Mem’ry fails as I try to recall whoever it was that said, “You can’t go home again!” ‘Course, mem’ry fails a lot these daze but I c’n state emphatically that you never can go back to a dream, no matter how pleasant....on that proverbial other hand howsomever, you can certainly return to the land of snooze if the dogs’ll just leave you alone.....
Here t’is, the Eve of a brand-new year again...
seems to happen on the seventh day of Christmas almost ev’ry year...must be a mathematical thing....I hear the leaf-blower from across the street...starts up more or less at the same time ev’er Friday...I don’t hate leaf-blowers tho’ I can’t say that I really enjoy all the noise....I use an electric leaf-blower m’self...
not nearly so noisy ‘n I don’t have to wear ear-muffs....haven’t really worn earmuffs since I wuz a boy ‘n back then we wore ‘em for the cold....they was all made the same...a metal band that clipped over the top of your head ‘n fuzzy ear coverings....dunno why we didn’t just pull the stocking caps that we all wore down over our ears but no....no, we rolled those up so they set on the top of our heads ‘n used the earmuffs instead....they didn’t call them ‘stocking caps’ back then.....it was after the war ‘n the military terminology decreed that they were ‘watch’ caps....I might have to google that someday to broaden my base of knowledge....
A body don’t get smarter with age, y’know, but the longer you stick around this tired old world, the more knowledge you accumulate....whether you do anything with that knowledge is your own durn bizness but generally speaking, the older you get, it’ud seem like you might want to accomplish a little bit less after seeing the mess created by all the previous generations.....
I’m just sayin’......

The Sixth Day of Christmas......

...dawned bright ‘n clear....frosty windscreen on the Matrix took a few minutes to clear but, as mem’ry serves, t’was a lot better than having to scrape the darn thing....People born ‘n raised in the Sac area may not even know what a windshield scraper is but I recall them well ‘n not all that fondly altho’ they did indeed serve a very real need ‘n worked a lot better than a credit card....
Anyways, the reason for the early morning jaunt was the trip to the bone-setter...The ‘Bird with a broken wing’ according to the X-ray ‘n Doctor Boris is 90% healed ‘n the soft cast is no longer needed....and while I still get t’be the Substitute Chief Cook ‘n Bottle-washer, I c’n see some light at the end of the tunnel....or sumthin’ like.....
After perusing the nooze, it appears that the recent conflagration that took down the S.M.Roberson building in South Shore was arson.....sad but somewhat predictable given the current state of the economy...seems that the South Shore of my youth is disappearing piecemeal like the little village of Beattyville...ah well, t’is said that the only constant in life is change...
So, it’s a beautiful, sunny day here on this sixth day of Christmas....the halfway point... six more days ‘til Olde Christmas ‘n we c’n pack away the tinsel ‘n glitter for another year....we’re close to another year so here’s hoping that the economic outlook will brighten for ev’ryone.....

And the fifth day of Christmas....

.....is beginning really, really early...dunno why I can’t sleep....haven’t been doing the insomnia thing for quite a while but here I am, sleepless in Ol Fair Oaks.....tossin’ ‘n turnin’ from a little after two ‘n now it’s almost four, well it will be in about three minutes....must’a been sumthin’ I ate, no doubt....cheeseburgers ‘n french fries, a classic all-American meal if there ever wuz one....’n I didn’t have any soda altho caffeine has never been a problem for me...
Anyways, the rain has stopped....as the weatherman sed it would....watched channel 10 last nite ‘n they had (I spoze) a holiday weather guy on the air...don’t watch 10 at nite all that often...Millyrose likes channel 3 nooze on 58....lotta numbers there as opposed to lotto numbers which I don’t do anyhow....brother John sez, “If you don’t play, you can’t win!” I almost always reply, “If you don’t play, you don’t lose either!”.....I think they call that a ‘push’ in Blackjack ‘n I ain’t played that f’ever ‘n ever either, too, also....
T’morra. Millyrose goes t’the Doc for an exray ‘n consult about her broken wing....I’m pretty sure she’ll get some good nooze about it, she seems t’be doing really well altho it ‘s wearisome.....she doesn’t rest well tho’ she’s certainly not been a crybaby about it....I’m not so sure I would have been so stoic had I taken a dive from a barstool... Heck! At my size, had I taken such a dive, I might prob’ly have crashed thru the floor into the scary basement ‘n only Lamont Cranston knows what evil lurks therein....
‘n if you don’t remember Lamont Cranston....well, that’s what Google is really all about anyway.....nitey-nite all.....

On the fourth day of Christmas....

Grey skies ‘n rain in the offing but it’s better than the floods of SoCal ‘n far better than the mini Ice Age back east; doom ‘n gloom are forecast for the housing market; the price of a gallon of gas is going higher ‘n higher; the job situation grows ever bleaker ‘n for some reason the theme song from Mash (Suicide is painless)keeps running thru my head....
I was woke up early by a little dog sitting on my chest ‘n pawing at my head....quick to recognize the apparrently urgent need of my small furry friend, I leapt (creakingly slowly) from my bed ‘n hastened to the door where I had the opportunity to stand in the misty morning ‘n marvel at the slow, grey dawning of the day....(poetic, huh?)...I also had the chance to marvel at two little dogs almost totally obscured by the tall grass....I noted somewhat ruefully my abandoned weed-whacker leaning mournfully ‘gainst a tree....
Ah well, once safely ensconced back inside the snuggery, I proceeded to the kitchen to prepare the morning coffee...Alas, I lost the company of my furry friends who immediately repaired to the comfort ‘n warmth of the bedroom where they had the good sense to join the sleeping Millyrose....
The nooze in the SacBee was depressingly pedestrian ‘n mundane....the abscence of a competing newspaper over the last several years has seen the Bee take on the aspect of a shopping center newsletter ‘n mediocrity would seem to be their present goal.....
My pot of coffee, eight cups translates into three large mugs so I c’n lie to m’self about the amount of coffee I ackshully consume, is empty, only crumbs remain from the toast ‘n I’m running out of nonsense on this misty morning.....
Be of Good Cheer, Brethen, for when all else is gone we’ll still have chickens in Ol Fair Oaks....‘n even tho’ Susan may object, free range chickens make for tasty stews.....

On the third day of Christmas....

Da boyz let me sleep in this morning, dunno why but it was appreciated ‘cuz I stayed up late last nite watching one of those old ‘sappy’ holiday movies....it wudn’t sappy enuff to bring Millyrose to tears (my bad) but it did keep us up almost ‘til midnite....Gahd! That use’ta be the shank of the evening ‘n how old does using the phrase ‘shank of the evening’ make me....
So the nooze on FB this third day of Christmas was the conflagration in South Shore that took out S.M.Roberson’s store...
dunno which direction South Shore will go from here but t’will be interesting to see....well, they gotta go up or down, that’s the nature of things....Portsmouth, Ohio was a thriving city at one time in a beautiful location at the confluence of the Scioto ‘n Ohio Rivers but it’s been down-sizing for years ‘n if it keeps on in that direction, it’ll become a village before too long....South Shore ain’t near as old as Portsmouth but it’s been around for most of the Twentieth Century (which means most of my lifetime) and has a remarkably static population in terms of size....
The Corner (as it has been known f’ever) has been the epicenter of South Shore s’long as I can remember ‘n with the demise of Roberson’s will be forever changed....
T’is an opportunity for the citizens of South Shore to ressurect ‘n rebuild, redevelop if you will ‘n turn South Shore into a Twenty-first Century village with a future or let it spiral ever backward to be the wide spot by the river that it was in olden dayz.....life always presents us with a choice but the choice is always our own no matter the outcome....

The Day After.....

T’was a most delightful Christmas....

with the all the fam’ly....this year was supposed t’be a ‘consumable’ Christmas, an ‘eat, drink, ‘n be merry’ Christmas with all the children.. all mature adults now, well in a manner of speaking anyways....I’ve been saying for a long time now that I have enuff sweaters ‘n shirts ‘n stuff ‘n I just want ‘em to show up ‘n have fun....as a consequence, I gene’ly get ‘gag’ gifts which I appreciate no end.... this year, howsomever, I was surprized with a copy of Mark Twain’s autobiography...I wanted it for my personal collection of Twain, meager as it may be.....I consider Twain to be the benchmark for American writers ‘n as arguable as that might be for some people, it’s my opinion ‘n I’m sticking with it...anyways, the Twain autobio is very difficult to come by but son Dave was in Portland, Oregano, recently ‘n found a copy at a bookstore there so he ‘n Cary presented me with a Christmas copy...just tho’t I’d mention it....
we had a ‘mahvellous’ dinner that began early ‘n lasted late, the way such family holiday dinners are s’pozed to....
Then, of course, I cudn’t stay awake ‘n slept the sleep of the tired old man until 5 in the AM....HAPPY DAY AFTER EVERYONE.....

Best ever Christmas....a short story....

Old Speed’s Best-ever Christmas

It was comin’ on to Christmas before there finally come a freeze out on Beauty Ridge. It had been rainin’ off and on since the last week of October and turned the ridge road into an impassable strip of gooey red mud. The people who lived along the ridge had gone about their own private business pretty much as usual, preparing their homes and barns for winter, stacking firewood and plugging leaks, storing up what foodstuffs they could.
When the freeze came overnight, the soft clay hardened underfoot and them as had horses or mules hitched ‘em up and made their way to town. Everybody else walked or stayed to home.
Old Speed gave goin’ to town a lotta thought. He got out a jug of his latest makin’s and had a taste or two while he pondered. Then he had a few more tastes and decided that if he was goin’, he’d better go while the goin’ was good. He got a old burlap sack and filled it with his trade liquor, hung the latch outside his door and set off on foot for town.
Now if you go by road it’s seventeen full miles from Old Speed’s cabin to Riverton but way less than half if you cut across the ridges. Which is the path that Old Speed took.
Now you need to understand that Old Speed wasn’t actually all that old since he was just in his early forties but the life of a back-country bachelor, ‘specially a careless, some might say shiftless, kind of fellow like Old Speed can make a body look old beyond his years. If you know what I mean.
When Speed started his little walk to town, he had six Mason jars filled right to the brim in his burlap sack and a old pint bottle p’ert near to full in his pocket. the day was clear and cold and on top of the ridge, there was a sharp wind could bring tears to your eyes. Cutting across the ridges was the short way to town but it was more up and down than it was straight ahead and being a cool day like it was, why Speed took a little nip ever’ now and then just to keep himself warm.
He’d about half-finished the pint when he ran into the Smith boys. They was out lookin’ for a Christmas tree for their Mama and quarreling fit to bust ‘cause they all had in mind their own special tree they was lookin’ for and nary a one of ‘em ready to give in to the other two.
Well, Speed, of course, being neighborly, stopped to say “Howdy” and ask after their folks and ever’thing and the boys, likewise being neighborly and polite young men were only too happy to stop and pass the time of day.
Well, one thing kind’a led to another and Old Speed offered around his pint and one of the boys had a package of store bought cigarettes that he passed around and they all stood around smokin’ and sippin’ and passin’ the time of day the way men do and before you know it, the pint was plumb empty and Speed felt obliged to get into his burlap sack and open a jar of his trade goods and pass that around and it wudn’t no time a’tall before they’d emptied that one too.
Well, Speed allowed as how it was time for him to be gettin’ a move on and the Smith boys agreed with him because they still had to find a tree for their Mama. And while they was wishin’ each other a Merry Christmas, the oldest Smith boy pulled a plug of tobacco out of his pocket and gave it to Speed sayin’ “This here’s a plug of Daddy's new tobacco and I want you to have it for Christmas.”
Well Speed thought was real nice of him so he reached into his bag and brought out a jar of whisky and gave it to the boy saying, “Merry Christmas to you and your family and please share this with your Daddy.”
So Speed set off again for town only now with four Mason jars full of whisky in his burlap sack. He was figurin’ in his head that six jars of whisky would have brought him eighteen dollars and he could’a spent a couple nights in the hotel and had holiday supper besides. Now he only had four jars and that would only bring him twelve dollars. Still, he c’ud still spend one night at the hotel and have holiday supper if he was careful.
On the other hand, it seemed to be gettin’ colder and he had developed an awful thirst for some reason. And if he was to open another jar, he’d still have three jars and at three dollars apiece, he’d still have.........nine dollars and if he was to lay out and skip the hotel, he could still have a nice holiday supper and more besides.
So he opened a jar. And he had a little sip. And another. ‘Cause it was awful cold and he still had a long way to go. He was walkin’ and sippin’ and sippin’ and walkin’ and the more he sipped, the more sideways he got ‘til he probably doubled the miles he had to walk. And it seemed like the more he sipped, the thirstier he go so when he finally stumbled into Riverton some hours later, it was gettin’ pretty dark.
Now the little town was all lit up for Christmas with lights strung all along the little shops and Roberson’s General Store really decked out for the holiday with window decorations just like the b ig stores in the city across the river. There was a Christmas tree with gaily wrapped packages piled beneath and a model train set chugging ‘round and ‘round. In the corner sat a jolly Santa Claus holding a long Christmas list and Mrs. Claus peering over his shoulder.
Now me and Dog Wooten and Red Bill were standin’ on the corner when we saw Old Speed comin’ down the street. He had a burlap sack slung across his shoulder and we could hear the glass clinking as he stumbled and stuttered and generally took up a lot more of the right of way than any walking person would normally lay claim to.
Red nudged Dog, “Bet Old Speed’s got whisky in that sack.”
Red was seventeen and older than me and Dog by about a year and he had lived out on Beauty Ridge for a couple years when he was younger.
“Folks on the ridge got no money this time of year,” he went on. “Old Speed’s run out of customers, had to come to town to peddle his whisky.”
“Well lemme see,” I said, “I’ve got about.......uh, not a penny. How ‘bout you, Dog?”
“Probably got the same” replied Dog. “I guess Red’ll have to get us some of that whisky if we’re gonna have any.”
Now the three of us had spent the biggest part of the evening in Pop’s Poolroom where we had swilled soda pop and shot pool until we’d all run out of money which basically meant that we’d each had a bottle of pop and a couple games of pool before we were dead broke. I’d started the evening with two bits, bought a Pepsi for a nickel, lost two games of pool and sat on a bench waitin’ for Dog and Red to lose their money.
Which of course is how we come to be standin’ on the corner watchin’ the world pass by. It was getting colder and spitting snow and I was about ready to head for home when we saw Speed staggering down the street.
“Hey Speed!” cried Red. “Come to town for Christmas?”
“Who’s that?” Speed asked, swaying to a halt, his burlap sack swinging, the jars clinking.
“Red Bill” grinned Red. “What’s in the bag? Christmas presents?”
“Well ....” said Speed, “It was just some whisky I brung to town to sell for Christmas but I think it’s pretty much gone by now.”
He swung the bag around, opened it and searched inside, coming up with a quart Mason jar about half-full of what looked to me to be water. He unscrewed the cap, took a drink and offered it to Red.
“Ain’t enough left to sell” he said. “You might as well have a Christmas drink on Old Speed.”
Red lifted the jar to his lips, tilted his head back and poured some down his throat. When he lowered it, he blinked his eyes a couple times, coughed and handed the jar to Dog.
“That’s good stuff” he said.
Dog sniffed the jar, took a couple sips and agreed, “Smooth as silk, Speed” he said. “Thank you.”
And he handed the jar to me. Now right here, I have to confess that I’d never tasted whisky before. I’d had some beer but that was all. I looked at the jar, sniffed at it the way Dog had, like I knew what I was doin. It didn’t look like much and didn’t smell like much. I leaned into the corner of the building, out of the wind, and lifted the jar to my mouth and took a deep swallow. I mean a big, deep, swallow. And I got to tell you.....I have no idea what that stuff tasted like going down. But it went down my throat into my gullet where it did a quick u-turn and came boiling back up. Out of my mouth. My nose. I swear I think it might’a come out’a my eyes and my ears too. And it made a stone believer out of this old boy ‘cause to this very day, I don’t drink moonshine liquor.
Anyway, when they got through laughing at me, Red and Speed finished off the last of it.
Speed said, “Boys, I want to have myself a Christmas dinner and I ain’t got no money and no liquor to sell.”
And he reached way down in his pants somewhere and pulled out a big old pistol.
“How much will you give me for this here short gun?”
“Lemme see that” said Red. He grabbed the pistol and broke it open, peered through the barrel, snapped it back together and spun it on his finger like in the cowboy movies. It was an old gun with the bluing ‘most all gone and the hand grips wrapped with tattered black electrical tape and while I ain’t all that bright oftentimes, I don’t think I’d’a fired that pistol.
“We ain’t got no money, Speed” said Red, “but if you was to take it in the La-Z-Boy Shoppe there, Clyde might buy it. Or maybe loan you some money against it.”
Now the thing is, about twenty minutes before Speed showed up, the old Chief had gone into the La-Z-Boy. Old Chief Roy was Town Marshall of Riverton and he stopped at the La-Z-Boy Shoppe every night about this time and had coffee and doughnuts. Old Chief Roy was an old-time lawman who was working in Riverton ‘cause he and Mrs. Chief couldn’t live on his retirement.
He carried a long-barrelled, double-action .44 caliber ##revolver with engraved nickel plating and ivory handles that belonged in a museum. And he had no problem using it.
When Red suggested to Speed that he take his old gun into the La-Z-Boy, I’m almost sure that it never crossed his mind that the old Chief might just take it in his mind to draw his own pistol and shoot Speed dead on the spot.
Which of course, he didn’t. What he did was draw his pistol and go upside Speed’s head and knock him colder than a well-diggers butt and drag his carcass off to jail.
The Riverton jail wasn’t nothin’ but an old cinderblock building with a dinky little office and a bathroom and one cell. It was kind of a lonely place to be, considering the time of year and all. And cold. And cheerless. And the Old Chief’s wife was a soft hearted lady and she just couldn’t stand the thought of Speed lying in a cell in an otherwise empty jail and she darn sure didn’t want her husband sitting down there keeping his one prisoner company on Christmas. So.......she made the Chief bring him home for dinner.
And she went all out! She and the Chief never had any kids of their own and it had been a long time since they had anyone else to share their holidays with. She made a humonguous dinner. Turkey and stuffing, cranberry sauce, potatoes and gravy, corn and peas, fresh baked bread, two or three different pies and a cake. And all served up on her good china that I don’t think had seen the light of day for years.
And she just bloomed. Now everybody knew the old Chief ‘cause he was out and about all the time but his Missus was kind of a stay at home and a lot of people in town had never ever seen her, let alone meet and talk to her. All that changed that Christmas. The three of them were in church together. Speed, almost unrecognizable in one of the Chiefs old suits. The Chief, himself, all dressed up in the suit that he wore when he had to testify in court and the Chief’s wife, like Minnie Pearl, “just as proud to be there.”
After the season was over, I mean, after bringing in the New Year and all, the old Chief and his wife loaded Speed into the Chief’s Ford and delivered him back to his cabin out on Beauty Ridge.
I’d like to say that was just the first of many holidays that the three of them spent together and if this whole entire little story was just fiction, that’s probably what I would say. But the truth is that this was the one and only time it ever happened. It was a long time ago and they’re all three of them dead now but I still remember Old Speed sayin’ “Boys, I gotta tell you that was the best Christmas ever.”

T'was the morning of Christmas Eve...

SEASONS GREETINGS
Justin Other Smith

I went for a walk out in the snow
met a little old fat man
who asked me where to go...
I told him!

Me and him went round and round
he said, “Santa Claus is comin’ to town!”
“How ‘bout that!” I said.
I guess I told him!

Christmas Eve and Saturday night
I went downtown and got in a fight
the little man asked me
“Do you think that’s right?”
Well, you know I told him!

Christmas morning I got out of bed,
took both my hands to hold my head,
went and looked under my Christmas tree
weren’t no presents there for me,
called that little fat man and said “How can that be?”
He told me!

LIFE CYCLES

In dreams come memories,
in memories come poems,
in poems come dreams.......
justin other smith

O dem short daze of winter.....

Well, we’re taking a wee break from the rain ‘n it’s just as well ‘cuz I got to dry out the poor, semi-abandoned motorhome...
No blame on the motorhome,y’understand,
it’s entirely my own durn fault for letting the poor thing stand out there all alone in the weather....but it don’t normally leak...
‘course, we don’t normally get hours ‘n hours of rainfall ‘n wind ‘n I should’a done something about maybe covering up the air conditioners ‘n if I had maybe I wudn’t be toting heavy baskets of bedclothes up the hill to wash ‘n dry.....oh yeah, ‘n running the heater in the coach in hopes of drying out some of the wet....all my own fault ‘n nobody else which, take it from me, don’t make the situation any better.....
On to a lighter note on another short day of winter, since it appears t’be at least temporarily dry, da boyz want to go for a stroll ‘round ‘n about the village...
just to see, I presume, ‘n of course, to smell....they spend a lot of time smelling on our little strolls...basically what that means is that I don’t have to walk fast so when someone tells you that they get their exercise from walking their dog, they’re lying....
Christmas is almost upon us ‘n it seems t’be coming awful fast this year prob’ly ‘cuz Millyrose is somewhat laid up what with the broken wing ‘n all which leaves me to cope with all the Christmas stuff...
well, not so much the Christmas stuff, she don’t really trust me that far, after all we’ve only been married for a little over 51 years so in many ways, it’s still very much a wait ‘n see thing with her...I guess probation lasts a long time with some people.....anyways, what it is, is all the stuff around the house that I just don’t get done to her satisfaction....oh, I get pretty good (well, fair anyway) marks for laundry ‘n meals ‘n such but I seem to fail miserably when it comes to priorities ‘n I think that’s pretty much a man/woman thing that’s locked in the DNA ‘n there ain’t a darn thing that c’n be done about it...at least by humanity ‘n that’s undoubtedly a good thing ‘cuz we do have a tendency to mess up whenever we’re left to our own devices.....
Ah well, Christmas is coming...blah, blah, blah, something about fat geese etcetera.....Happy Holy Days to ev’ryone...

Cookies......

Millyrose is makin’ cookies....sooooooo, she must be feeling better, right? Well, she is but the big reason is that she’s just getting antsy....not antsy like Gina who’s fighting the War of the Ants in Davis but antsy as in she’s just tired of doing nothing.....see, doing nothing is hard work if you’ve not been born to it....I mean, if you don’t have the gift, then you have to work really hard to develop skills....that’s why retirement is so hard for some people...Oh, they think because they’ve been working all their lives that they just got into a habit that they’re finding hard to break but those people who have made a study of habits say that all you have to do to make or break a habit is to do (or not do) the same thing for....oh, like three days....’course, those same people are the same kind of people who’ll tell you that you should just eat half of a banana or three potato chips or no more than five peanuts in a day....y’know the kind of person I’m talking about.....the self-righteous prig who never eats or drinks too much, whose weight never varies, who never never never spills a food product down their shirt front...the spotless ones who live in spotless homes ‘n drive spotless cars ‘n have spotless children, the people who never....well, they just never, that’s all.....but, as usual, I digress....on that proverbial other hand, there are people who are born with ‘The Gift’....some people are great natural athletes, some are born with the gift of music...there are many, many talents that God’s children can be born with....and one of them is the ability to do nothing well...’n as I have stated here ‘n there in times past, I have that gift ‘n Millyrose doesn’t, so we complement each other....it’s been a very satisfactory arrangement for many years now ‘n hopefully the coming year will see it continue.....that’s almost upon us ‘n I’m pretty sure we have enuff cereal in the house that we’ll survive....’specially now that she’s making cookies!

O by gosh by golly.....

seems t’be time for rain down the back of the neck....seems like it’s rainin’ all over the world....well, not really....I have a teevee ‘n I watch the nooze ‘n I know that somewhere the sun is shining ‘n somewhere hearts are light but Fair Oaks is turning into Mudville t’nite....ackshully, it started (began) last nite ‘n has continued thruout the day ‘n (according to all the weather pundits) is gonna continue into sometime next week or next year whichever comes first..... FORTUNATELY we’re not getting inches of rain per day which was forecast ‘n would have led to widespread flooding altho not on my little hilltop tho’ we might have had a small lake develop at the foot of the hill....it hasn’t done that for a few years but one never knows, does one?......we had a small break in the rain early this afternoon long enuff for da boyz to take me for a short walk ‘round ‘n about the village tho’ I made it a point to avoid Plaza Park which looks pleasantly green but is deceiving becuz it is water-logged already ‘n 240 lb men have a tendency to sink....da boyz love it however ‘n seem to delight in dragging their bellies thru the wet grass...
Willie especially finds it great fun altho’ afterwards when we get home ‘n I won’t let him back in the house without toweling him down is less amusing to him....it don’t bother eit her one of them very long however cuz immediately they’re thru the door, they run thru the house checking on Millyrose, their food dishes, the water supply ‘n the trash, tho’ not necessarily in that order, after which they flop down ‘n go immediately to sleep.....which come to think on it ain’t a bad idea on a rainy, gloomy, wet Sati’day afternoon........yawnnnnnn.....

Santa Claus is comin' to town.......

Father Christmas
by Robert Service

My Father Christmas passed away
when I was barely seven.
At twenty-one, alack-a-day,
I lost my hope of heaven.

Yet not in either lies the curse,
the hell of it’s because,
I don’t know which loss hurt the most,
my God, or Santa Claus.

The Truth about Christmas
by Justin Other Smith

“Whatta ya mean, there’s no Santa Claus? Of course there’s a Santa Claus. I’ve talked to him. Sat on his lap. Wrote him a letter at the North Pole. Mailed it up the chimney. My Mom helped me. And Mom’s don’t lie.”
Uh-oh! Trauma time! Why do adults persist in perpetuating the myth of Santa Claus? Every year, millions of good little boys and girls are traumatized when their classmates tell them, “There ain’t no Santa Claus, you dope.”
Every year, some mean-spirited yahoo (euphemism for you know what) has a pressing need to tell children the TRUTH about Christmas. Last year, it was a grade school teacher. And her employers, the parents, weren’t even allowed to fire her.
Of course, when the kids get a little older, these same grinches tell them the same truth about God. They tell them the truth about Evolution, how we all crawled out of the slime together. And that’s the TRUTH!
Now, they all admit that they weren’t there themselves, but Darwin figured it all out and it’s the SCIENTIFIC TRUTH!
I’ve got to be truthful and state right up front that I’ve only read a tiny little bit of Charles Darwin, mainly because he was a really boring writer and I kept losing my place and falling asleep, but I’m sure that all the teachers who preach Darwinism as gospel never had that problem. I’m sure they could quote chapter and verse where God said, “Now listen up, Chuck, and I’ll tell you the real story. None of that Adam and Eve jive. Just the whole truth and nothin’ but...”
We say that people who believe implicitly whatever they are told are naive. Whether you accept the biblical view of Creation or Darwin’s theory of Evolution, or Clement Moore’s ‘Night before Christmas’, it seems to me that they are all arguable concepts. You should believe whatever you want. It’s nobodys business but your own.
But, if you’re at all interested, I believe in Santa Claus. I like to believe in him. It makes me feel good to believe in him. And I think I’d be a fool to give up a belief that makes me feel good about myself, my family, and my fellow man.
Merry Christmas to all.

O...and to all, a good night!

snooze nooze.....

Y’know, I been watching p’litical nooze ‘til I just can’t take it any more....seems like ev’ry politician in Washington just wants t’get on camera to prove that they’re never too old to learn something stupid....
I believe Harry Reid wants t’be a modern day Robin Hood who takes from the rich t’give to the poor but the way he seems to hit the target is he shoots first ‘n calls whatever he hits, the target....
I swear, it’s a worrisome situation for all those folks in Washington...The Democrats are worried about what the Republicans are gonna do next month ‘n the Republicans are worried about what the Democrats are doing right now....thing is, most of it ain’t gonna happen anyway....
I think if I wuz a politician, I’d try ‘n remember what I learned in grade school...my 3rd ‘n 4th grade teacher was Miz Fanny Williams who came out of retirement cuz all the young teachers went off to war or to work in defense plants it being wartime way back then.... anyways, she had a sign on the classroom wall that said in big letters...SILENCE IS GOLDEN....’n she re-enforced that with a ruler....but as usual, I digress....as I wuz sayin’ howsomever, if I wuz a politician, I think I’d just hunker down ‘n keep my mouth shut ‘n hope nobody’d notice me until it was time for the next election.....
‘Course it was also back in Miz Fanny’s classroom that I learned that it wuz a good idea not to mess with somethin’ that wudn’t botherin’ me none.....anyways, my advice for them politicians, ‘n I don’t remember who it wuz that said this, “Better to remain silent ‘n be tho’t a fool than to speak out ‘n remove all doubt!”

Things t'be thankful for.....

I was born in the middle of the last great depression...people didn't have much back in those 'olden days' so they were pretty grateful for what they did have or, at least, that's the way it seems t'me...also, it seems that when people didn't have much, they were somehow more willing to share whatever good fortune came their way...Holiday pleasures were simpler 'n all the sweeter for the sharing....
We are in the midst of another great depression 'n circumstances are eerily similar...politicians play the blame game, pointing fingers 'n denying culpability...'n every day seems to bring another voice claiming that the economy is on the upswing..."Prosperity is just around the corner!" What I've been looking for from Hollywood is remakes of those old depression era feel-good movies but so far, no luck...
I get frustrated with the direction my government seems to be going 'n so ocassionally, I vent...'n for friends 'n relatives that put up with me whether or not they agree, I'm thankful...
The Obama Healthcare nonsense is back in the nooze again 'n for all those people that talk about how much better the Canadian healthcare system is.....well, this's for them....
Diane Carriere is a Facebook friend 'n she recently posted the following:

Do you remember that I told you that I would tell you a little about the US? Today is a good day for me.

If you have been following the saga in US politics you may know that a great number of Americans are very concerned about their liberty, about the economy and the security. America may change forever.

Since, the Obama administration took power, the debt rose to alarming levels which will probably affect the US for many years to come. The White House is dreaming of raising tax to get the rich to pay for the poor. Don't expect that money to go to the poor, it will just go to more government programs which are expanding considerably. This expensive entitlement mania is bad news, it almost ruined Canada and Europe is on the verge of collapsing, they say.

Americans will also be FORCED to buy health insurance unless they can revoke the new law which contains more intrigues than any soap opera can offer. Medical costs are expected to climb substantially and the services to go down. I fear for the medical research.

Mr. Obama and the extreme left of his party are as well trying to orchestrate a class war. They want to get the middle class against employers and rich people who support a huge part of the economy. Obama has also been using the race card to gain popularity with his base and to divide his beautiful nation. It almost worked.

This narcissistic adolescent may not be drinking whiskey, but he is driving a big car very irresponsibly. We could all end up paying for his follies if he does not smarten up. Diane Carriere

Morgan Plus Four.....

This is my alltime favorite automobile.....not that it's the most practical...it definitely ain't....it has a wooden frame 'n the leather strap actually holds the hood (bonnet in Brit) down....hard telling what kind of motor it might have cuz Morgan didn't build motors, they bought them from whomever..actually in '56 they prob'ly used the same motor that you'd find in a Triumph of the same time period....this p'ticklar car was advertised on Bring a Trailer as a 'driver' 'n they were asking 15K for it....reasonable price but it would probly cost at least that much in maintenance if somebody would actually use it for a daily driver.....pity! sumtimes it 'ud just be nice to be a gazillionaire....

O the neighborhood.....

I have a neighbor who is a devout Yellowdog Democrat....He told me yest’iday that he wished they could change the Constitution so Bill Clinton could run for Prez again....sed, he’d win in a heartbeat...
I pointed out that Bill Clinton was a self-confessed liar ‘n cheat but he didn’t remember that; I asked him if he recalled that Clinton staffers were such sore losers that they behaved like rowdy frat boys ‘n trashed the White House after Clinton had to leave but he didn’t remember that either; then he went on to complain that he just found out that he was expected to tip 20% or more at restaurants. I explained that restaurant workers had a much smaller minimum wage than unemployed plumbers who haven’t worked in more than two years ‘n he was astounded to hear that ‘n refused to believe me....’Course, he also believes that the rich should pay a lot more tax than he does ‘n that unemployment should be extended at least until he’s able to finish his ‘technical education’ so that he can get a higher paying job than unemployed plumber...which led to the short conversation about higher tuition costs which is a major irritant to him at the present time....at that point, I tried to get ‘da boyz’ to bite him but intelligent dogs that they are, refused so I just came home ‘n took a nap....

O dem Pols....gotta love 'em....

On the ‘Whatever!’ side, I just read in the SacBee that Assemblyman Gil Cedillo believes that the 18% cut to fringe benefits ‘n salaries for the California Legislature (90% disapproval rating) were Draconian in nature ‘n should be repealed. “can’t put legislators in the volatile position of worrying that if they make a decision, it could put thei families in a difficult situation.” Hello! Ain’t it their ‘job’ to make decisions? I know a lot of people who would jump at the chance to get 95K a year plus some of those ‘fringe’ benefits to sit on their duff in the legislature ‘n whine about how tough it is to make a buck today. ‘Course, he prob’ly believes it isn’t himself that the ‘great unwashed’ disapprove of but his colleagues instead. Narcissism seems to run deep in politicians!

A quiet Sunday.....

Sunday morning ‘n the race is on.....began eleven minutes ago ‘n I wonder how long it’ll be before some of the runners come thru the village....I’m not quite curious enuff to ackshully walk around the corner to check it out...the sun is coming up over the Sierra ‘n after a rainy, rainy nite it looks like they’ll have a dry ‘n beautiful morning for this marathon which I’m not going to watch...
Okay, so channel 3 sez the guy what won the marathon is from Canada ‘n he did it in 2 hours ‘n 11 minutes....pish-tush, I c’d drive it in my little car in 40 or 50 minutes...
I use’ta be able to drive anywhere in Sac county in about 30 minutes but we got a teensy bit more traffic now....I think this guy was running 5 minute miles....that’s a lot faster than people can drive on a normal commute day when it c’n take an hour just to cover 2 or 3 miles of Sunrise Blvd....
So instead of or rather than strolling around the corner to watch the runner, I opted instead to give da boyz a bath since they were becoming positively ripe...Willie recovers pretty fast but Rusty the Poodle-dogger is still a little traumatized...it takes a long time to get him reasonably dry ‘n that’s using at least two towels ‘n a hair dryer ‘n even after all that, it takes him a couple hours of sulking to get dry enuff that I don’t smell wet dog ev’ry time I pass by....’n of course, ev’ry time I pass by he looks up at me with those sad, sad eyes...
I think maybe poodles invented guilt trips...
I’m just sayin’......

Other stuff 'n nonsense.....

Satiday ‘n the calm before the storm...sort of a ‘balmy’ cool on a grey, cloudy day...
Got the 1st Christmas card of the season in this mornings mail...the Post Office keeps talking about cancelling Saturday delivery but my guess is that it’s a lot like other entitlements ‘n a handful of people don’t want to give it up so we’ll have it as long as the money holds out.....
If you go wand’ring thru the various ‘n sundry channels, you’ll find a myriad of sappy Holiday movies...y’need to TIVO them however so’s you c’n fast forward thru the interminable commercials....of course, some of ‘em are so bad you might want to fast forward thru the movie to watch the commercials....that’s like saying “I like my coffee with cream ‘n sugar but the caffeine keeps me awake ‘n I don’t need the fat from the cream so I’ll just eat a spoonful of sugar.”
And just one other little bitty thing re: SacBee who just gets one thing after another so wrong: T’other day in a totally forgettable column, a reader had written in stating that she had both grey ‘n red squirrels in her yard ‘n that one of them was an endangered specie but she didn’t know which one...the ‘expert’ from SacBee told her that ‘one doesn’t find red squirrels west of the Rockies ‘n she was prob’ly confusing ground squirrels ‘n tree squirrels’...well, as an old country boy ‘n onetime avid squirrel hunter (tho’ to my mortification as a youth, never actually a squirrel killer) I do know the difference between a ground squirrel (chipmonk) ‘n a tree squirrel, I, too, have both grey squirrels ‘n red squirrels in my yard (grey in front ‘n red in back...or visa versa) ‘n the ‘expert’ from the SacBee don’t know his...well, y’know what I mean....
I’m just sayin’.....

Baby steps for mankind.....

Well, it’s another small step for mankind with the scientific discovery that life exists where science said it couldn’t possibly....
Well, of course you know that I’m talking about Mono Lake which has long thought to be deader’n a doornail ever since Los Angeles siphoned all the Owens Valley water so that 20 million people could live in the desert year-round surrounded by golf courses ‘n mini-malls.....
You know how L.A. came t’be, don’cha?....The Spanish came, saw a bunch of Indians living in a green ‘n fertile land, made the same mistake that most newcomers to California make ‘n assumed that the Indians lived there year-round 'n the weather stayed perfect all the year.....
I ‘member when I first passed thru California back in ‘56....I spent a month or so in the Santa Clara valley in the fall....warm days, cool nights ‘n tho’t it was as near to perfect as I’d ever seen...I didn’t know that California had a different climate every few miles....
What I’m saying, of course, is that it’s easy to think you’re right when you know what you know but most of the time, if you live long enough, you’ll find out that life ain’t just one hand of poker, it’s a lot of ‘em ‘n every hand is just a little different ‘n what was what in one hand is totally different in another...in other words, what you don’t know is a lot more than what you do know...or think you know...facts change!
Every generation comes to the world all brand new ‘n trusting in themselves...out with the old ‘n in with the new....faith based religion might have been all right back in the old days, before the internet, before science really got a grip on things.... Science is become the ‘new religion’...fact, not fancy....immutable, provable, factual.
Proponents of this neo-religion call themselves secularists ‘n their belief is based in fact as opposed to the unprovable statements of those old-time faith-based religions...
Of course, secularists overlook the ‘fact’ that early scientists were certain that the sun revolved around the earth...I recall reading as a child that science was convinced that in the early twentieth century, everything that could be invented had been invented ‘n there was nothing left to discover....
And today, the internet informs us that life has been discovered where science told us life could not exist....it has also informed us that the universe is six trillion times larger that science thought it was....’n science has just found a few bones that tells us that humans were walking around this old earth four million years ago...why, it’s getting so a body just can’t be sure what to believe anymore.....
I’m just sayin’.....

The Old Grey Mare ain't what she use'ta be....

T’other day I made the statement that ‘nostalgia ain’t what it use’ta be’....that’s just an opinion, of course, nostalgia being primarily a personal option that is open to discussion...
At any rate, back in the hinterland from whence I sprang, a good ol’ boy named Joe, posted a picture of the once upon a time McKell High School gymnasium looking abandoned ‘n bereft prior to the demolition of said high school...
McKell, along with many other small schools was deemed inadequate for the job of educating the youth of the nation ‘n was thereby abandoned in favor of a larger, more modern, more progressive Federated School System...Ackshully, what was accomplished was that we replaced an inadequate system with an incompetent system for after lo, these many years, we’re seeing proof across the length ‘n breadth of this country that throwing money at the school system is a failing proposition; the unions ‘n the administration have siphoned off the cream, so to speak, leaving only blue john to pay the teachers ‘n maintain an increasingly expensive factory that is falling apart due to neglect....
Like big government, big schools are not the answer...the bureaucracy of the government ‘n the bureaucracy of the schools view their own survival as paramount while the student, like the citizenry, must suffer the results....
I’m just sayin’....nostalgia sure ain’t what it use’ta be.....

T'is the season....almost.......

Well, it’s beginning to feel a lot like....well, not perzackly Christmas but more like the end of November...I dunno if November is anybody’s fav’rite month seeing as how it’s usually grey ‘n cold....still, it’s better’n February, what with Thanksgiving ‘n all ‘n of course, it kicks off what has become known as THE HOLIDAY SEASON....
In my way back when time, the holiday season was different than it is t’day ....Thanksgiving, of course, was big but then there was a long lapse of time before the Christmas season began...seems t’me that I always remember Halloween as a harvest festival thing that kind’a kickstarted Thanksgiving ‘n then there was this long, cold, dreary, grey November that dragged on ‘n on until the magical Christmas suddenly appeared in a rush....a Christmas vacation from school, streets ‘n stores were decorated almost overnite ‘n package-laden people thronged....there were Christmas songs ‘n Christmas cheer ‘n ev’ry day the children looked for snow....’course, the snow almost never came....white Christmas’s seemed to exist only in the movies ‘n stories ‘n the minds ‘n mem’ries of old people...it took me 70 years but I finally figured out how that happened....
It’s still a magical time for children ‘n old people ‘n for at least a few moments, maybe for all the unbelieving inbetweeners also...at least, the lucky ones.....
The talking heads are bemoaning the stuck in a rut Congress ‘n the enormity of the deficit ‘n all the dire things of the world but when I was a small boy the USA was caught in the grip of what came t’be known as ‘The Great Depression’...we survived that ‘n some of my fondest mem’ries come from the Christmas’ of that era...the world seems caught up in another great depression but the world will survive ‘n some day this will be somebodys memory ..
I’m just sayin.....

So, it’s a slow, rainy Sati’day with Millyrose piled up on the couch ‘n just starting to feel the ‘other’ effects of her fall...now that she’s getting used to the pain in her shoulder (oh, I didn’t tell ev’ryone, did I? Well, she didn’t want me to say anything about her falling ‘n breaking her shoulder)...anyways, now she’s feeling the pain in her knees ‘n shins ‘n all the other places that took a little less of a beating than her shoulder....
She’s a baaaad patient, is Millyrose..she keeps wanting t’do stuff...I keep telling her that she should just pile up on the sofa ‘n give orders but she finds that frustrating....
‘n of course, I don’t take direction all that well...
We had a great T’sgiving...at Kellye’s house ‘n Kellye did the turkey but that’s another story ‘n then yesti’day we went to Kellyes for leftovers...
But t’day, t’day I scrambled some eggs ‘n threw a handful of biscuits in the oven ‘n drank six cups of coffee ‘n walked the dogs in the rain....the water just beads up on the P-dogger ‘n is easily brushed off but pore little ol Willie just gets wet all over ‘n all the way thru...he’s my little Huckleberry scamp ‘n he’s incorrigible....
Anyways, t’day is a day for old movies ‘n hot chock’lit ‘n maybe a nap or two....
take care...keep your powder dry...’n remember....Nostalgia ain’t what it use’ta be....

Life in the moment.....

Early, early, early Monday morning....the chickens get up early...the dogs get up early....’n I’m up early....”burnin’ daylite” as Big John sed in several movies....the chickens are out scratching breakfast in the neighborhood flowers, the dogs have gone back to bed (proving yet again the seeming superiority of life in the moment) ‘n I’m sitting at the ‘puter waiting for the coffee to finish dripping.....when I was a younger man, I waited for it to percolate ‘n when I was much, much younger, I waited for it to boil....’n yeah, I drank coffee when I was a boy....I liked it black ‘n in a saucer the way my Grandpa took it....by the time I got into my teens, I drank it with cream the way my Mother did ‘n since she never took sugar in her coffee, I never developed a taste for sweet coffee either....in the late sixties, restaurants all up ‘n down California began replacing half ‘n half with non-dairy coffee creamer ‘n since they all without exception added a queer ‘n unusual taste to the coffee, I went back to drinking my coffee black like my Grandpa only without the saucer...back in those halycon days of yore, Denny’s had what was arguably the best cup of coffee t’be had in the central valley...they served Kona coffee, from Hawaii, considered at the time t’be one of the premier coffees on the market...it was ten cents a cup ‘n free refills....God wuz in His heaven, the hippies were discovering the wisdom of Dog (life in the moment) ‘n all wuz right with the world.....the world should prob’ly have got suspicious when the Oakland A’s went retro, the VW Beetle went psychedelic ‘n gun barrels sprouted flowers but rationale went up in smoke ‘n the philistines paved paradise.....

Veterans Day....

old war movies on the telly, John Wayne winning WWII again...gotta luv ‘The Duke’....
It’s another beautiful day here in Ol Fair Oaks...November sunshine is a little anemic but that makes for a nice change after the long summer sun...sweater weather, or at least long sleeve shirt weather...a light breeze ruffling the drifting leaves ‘n lots ‘n lots of different ‘n evidently beguiling scents for da boyz turns our walk into a long series of shuffling steps whilst they twine ‘n entwine ‘n I have t’keep changing hands on the leashs....lots of chickens but if they don’t run, da boyz don’t chase ‘em...no school t’day but Plaza Park was empty save for two little boys who were playing a game of their own invention as far as I could tell....’n, y’know, there ain’t nuthin’ wrong with that...fact is, it’s kind’a refreshing in a way....

Turns out, it’s really a nice day...an Autumnal day, just cool enuff to be glad of long sleeves...our little daily pilgramage seems t’be covering more ground lately what with circling the California House ‘n then wand’ring off to meander ‘round Plaza Park...evidently some sort of brand new scent wonderland for the Ol P-Dogger ‘n Willie as I seem t’be spending most of my time just holding onto the brand new retractible leashes ‘n only moving a few paces at a time...takes awhile t’get around the park like that, lemme tellya...also, I gotta remember to stuff some of those plastic baggies in my pocket....
’course, there wasn’t a lotta people in the park at that time of day...one lonely little boy checking out the construction of whatever you call the climbing monstrosity that normally is covered with children...Oh, ‘n one sleeping drunk....at least, I think he was sleeping...or passed out....or maybe dead...I dunno....not a usual sight at all in Plaza Park but the recession seems t’be worsening (prosperity is just around the corner, notwithstanding)....more ‘n more people out’a work ‘n more ‘n more homeless...prices going up ‘n income going down yet much of California seems t’be in denial about it...
Millyrose ‘n I stopped at Country Waffle yesti’day...waffles were just as good ‘n the coffee just as bad but a brand-new menu with higher prices....too high for me ‘n I guess we won’t be stopping there anymore...well heck, I ain’t s’pozed to eat that kind’a stuff anyways.....
It’s all over the news that the State of California is borrowing 40 millions dollars a day to pay their unemployment...you can’t do that for very long...I have a neighbor who has been drawing over $400 bucks a week ‘n ain’t looking for work...well, why should he when the only jobs available don’t pay that much...on that proverbial other hand, I have neighbors that are working several jobs just tryin’ t’get by cuz they ain’t eligible for gov’t assistance.....t’is a puzzlement....

And after the rain, the fog....

Willie's inner clock doesn't reset as easily as the house clocks so he got me up at 5:00 in the AM...he gets pretty insistent 'n hard to ignore....he only weighs about 18 lbs or so but when those lbs are walking on a body, it does get your attention...'n if that don't work, he gets right up in your face...he is nothing if not persistent...anyways, I got up 'n took the two of 'em outside...now, it rained pertnear (sound it out, it's Kentuckyism for pretty near) all day yesterday 'n during the night the fog crept in on little cat's feet (Sandburg) so I got to walk out into an obscuring grey mist that muffled the traffic sounds from Sunrise 'n also the early risers among the chicken-folk.....so, even if my calendar hadn't told me, I'd know it was November...summer is officially gone now...the SacBee, our once upon a time newspaper that, like many bad habits, is hard to break...sez that it's going to be a La Nina winter which means that the great Northwest is gonna be wetter than usual 'n the Southwest is gonna be drier...go figure....the Sacramento area is on the cusp 'n could go either way....I dunno, sounds pretty p'litical t'me.....

November........

Once't upon a time, a very long time ago, I wrote a poem about November 'n if I c'd remember it, I'd bore you with it...fortunately for you, I can't recall it other than I rhymed cold 'n clear with brown 'n sere ' n that alone should tell you all you need to know about it.....
So the time changed ‘n the rain came ‘n I woke up this morning ‘n it’s November at last....not that I was in any great hurry for it to be November when the rain ‘n the cold ‘n the fog dominate northern California, I wudn’t ‘n I still ain’t ...still the inevitability of the seasons is a constant in an ever-changing world ‘n humanity seems to need something constant in life ‘n we certainly have that in the ebb ‘n flow of the seasons...it’s reflected in the ebb ‘n flow of politicians also but that’s another story for another day...

The Wonderful World of Make Believe....

There’s an awful lot of people taking an awful lot of pride in the fact that they ackshully went out ‘n voted...Well, voting is a good thing but going to church don’t make you a Christian anymore than standing in a garage makes you a car....
Fact is, I live in California ‘n my take on the recent election here is that If I was to agree with the majority of Californians, we’d all of us be wrong ‘n I just purely hate t’be wrong....
Notice, I never said that I couldn’t on occasion be wrong, I just said that I hate t’be wrong...I’ve always said that you can’t trust a body that don’t make a mistake now ‘n then....good judgment, they say, comes from experience ‘n a lot of that comes from bad judgment....
Anyways, California has become known world-wide as ‘the land of fruits ‘n nuts’ ‘n just t’set the record straight, Sacramento in it’s heyday was nicknamed ‘Sacotomato’ becuz it was a really good area for growing tomatoes....’n for processing said tomatoes...there was a lot of tomato jobs here in Sacramento ‘n we know a lot about ‘em...common knowledge in this area that a tomato is actually a fruit ‘n not a vegetable...Now, knowing that p’ticklar fact is one thing, having the wisdom to not put it in a fruit salad...well, the jury seems t’be still out on that....
Sacramentos other main claim t’fame is for being in between...y’might say a midway point...going up or down or sideways, we seem t’be the belly-button of California....between the oceans ‘n the mountains...between San Francisco ‘n Lake Tahoe, which is the only two places in northern California that most of the world knows anything about..
Everybody in the world knows about the La La land of southern California mainly cuz of all the movies shot down there.....the only other places that Hollywood seems t’know about is SF ‘n Lake Tahoe....all the rest of California that appears in movies just looks like the rest of the world...well, at least to Hollywood anyway....’n Hollywood is a magical land that seems to exist more in the mind than in reality...I c’d be wrong, of course, but it’s one explanation.....
I’m just sayin’......

Consequencical.....

Well, the old P-Dogger ain’t been up to snuff lately, just mopin’ around, walking slow ‘n paying almost no attention to the chickens....lost his appetite ‘n developed a fondness for grass....not the grass that got shot down in yesterday’s election but real grass, y’know....the green stuff....I spect he’s got hisself an upset tummy....well, it happens in old dogs ‘n old people...nothing sounds good ‘n you end up having toast ‘n coffee ‘stead of bacon ‘n eggs....that’s prob’ly why so many Doctors reccommend a multiple vitamin for old farts....I haven’t taken vitamin pills for many years ‘n never did take very many of ‘em...I don’t like taking pills...they all have side effects...the rule of unintended consequence applies to pills....’course, I guess ev’rything has unintended consequence if you stop ‘n think about it...especially if you stop ‘n think about it, in which case you prob’ly wouldn’t do it....’n not doing it also has unintended consequence....
I guess y’can blame pretty much ev’rything on Karma (or unintended consequence) ‘n then you don’t have to take responsibility for much of anything....well, anything y’don’t want to take credit for...here in sunny California, we the voters evidently want to be able to lay all the blame for ev’rything that goes wrong on our corrupt Legislature....that’s prob’ly why we keep electing the same old corrupt politicians....
Y’know, it’s hard to quit thinkin’ in things p’litical after having so many ads, commercials, robo-calls....if y’ain’t a p’litical maven, you just gotta be sick t’death of just about ever’thing p’litical....
It’s such a nice day, a warm day, somewhere around 80o or thereabouts, not all that unusual for November here in Ol Fair Oaks but still welcome just the same....me’n Willie ‘n the P-Dogger just went for a little stroll...the P-Dogger is feeling a little better, perking up somewhat, still not chasing chickens but we got Willie for that....’n we went a little early t’day so the chickens were still out....we’ll have t’go later as well, I imagine, but that won’t be ‘til around 6:00 or so....this coming weekend is the TIME CHANGE when ever’one has to turn their clocks back an hour....well, I spoze you don’t absolutely HAVE to turn your clocks back if you don’t want to but almost ever’one will ‘n if you don’t, you’ll oversleep ‘n be late for work...that’s an excuse that almost always works at least once at this time of year but only once....I’m just sayin’.....

I'd be singin' in the rain.....

if I could sing....

There’s just something about a rainy morning that makes you want’a yawnnnn...‘n stay in bed ‘n say t’heck with going to school....or work...or, well...whatever....
It’s not quite the same waking up to a rainy morning, feeling all lazy ‘n snug ‘n slightly guilty for not getting up when you’re one of those old retired people ‘n you c’n pretty much sleep in whenever you feel like it....
The joke that almost ever’ newly retired person makes at least a few times is that every day is a weekend now....that ‘n the bad thing about being retired is that now you don’t get the holidays off....
Still, it’s hard to beat a lazy, rainy morning when the most pressing reason to go outside is becuz little dogs want t’go outside no matter the weather....well, old dogs not so much but, the young one still views the world as a place of great ‘n wondrful adventure with chickens ‘n squirrels....’course, if you’re a retired person with young grandchildren, they’re much the same as young dogs ‘cept they don’t run quite as fast....walking in the rain on a Saturday morning with a child gives you the chance to re-see the world as a great ‘n wonderful adventure with puddles of rainwater to jump in...
I’m not sure anything in the world is quite as satisfying as jumping up ‘n down in a puddle of rainwater....
Y’know, sometimes you just gotta wait until evening to find out how nice the day has been....

Those Autumn leaves......

Here t’is late Friday nite....well, late for a septugenarian anyway ‘n for da boyz...
Rusty’s no biggie... he just stretches out ‘n goes to sleep wherever but Willie....after awhile Willie gets impatient with us ‘n goes off t’bed on his own...independent little cuss sometimes...
We had stuffed bell peppers for dinner...’n I’m still eating them...well, still tasting them is what I really mean....we don’t have them often ‘cuz I kind’a curl my lip at their suggestion but Millyrose likes stuff like that ‘n since my appetite has sort’a gone away for awhile ‘n Millyrose gets frustrated in her attempts to find a meal that interests me, I find it’s in my best interests if I just shrug ‘n say okay to whatever she suggests....altho’ she’ll prob’ly disagree with that....on the other hand, I could point out that we’ve had several different types of soup lately ‘n I ain’t a soup person most of the time....I mean, I’m okay with soup beans ‘n cornbread....I’d like ‘em better if I could eat a chunk of raw onion with ‘em but raw onion doesn’t agree with me anymore...
I like fried potatoes with my soup beans ‘n cornbread....not that sweet yellow mush that passes for cornbread at places like Marie Callendars but white cornbread with a crust made in an iron skillet ‘n served with lots of butter.....beans ‘n taters ‘n cornbread, all washed down with a big glass of milk...if I was a real, old-fashioned Kentucky hillbilly, I’d have said a glass of cold buttermilk but I never could do that buttermilk thing....Mom ‘n Dad could, and did...but they were authentic and I came of age in the ‘fifties...
Anyways the weather is cooling now, the rain is coming...it’s Autumn, the leaves are changing ‘n it’s time for soup beans ‘n cornbread... Kentucky cornbread made with white cornmeal ‘n buttermilk ‘n baked in a cast-iron skillet.....

A somewhat congenial spot....

O what a beautiful morning....albeit a bit chilly....’n my heater is on...when the heat comes on ‘n we’re still in October it ain’t a good sign....bodes ill for the gas bill which thank Gawd for green apples ‘n little favors, only has t’be paid during the winter months ...well, generally November thru February ‘n maybe a few days in March...
As I get older I find more ‘n more that I’m a fair-weather kind’a guy...I think that Fair Oaks should be like Camelot where the law stated that the ‘weather must be perfect all the year’...’course, it’s prob’ly unreasonable to expect that in a place like Fair Oaks which is only a reasonably congenial spot where we somewhat arbitrarily change the time which is upcoming sooner rather than later when we routinely conform to the bi-annual insanity where we Spring forward ‘n Fall back which means that we have to turn our clocks back an hour which is confusing to people ‘n little dogs....the chickens, of course, have no respect for the peccadillos of mere people..they have their own time clocks....
A lot of people who ‘simply rave about’ the fearless, feral fowl of Fair Oaks seem to have learned their chicken lore from cartoons ‘n believe that roosters only crow to wake up the sun brake for chickens when they come driving thru the village... You see a lot of people stopping to allow the chickens to cross the road....well, California has a law giving pedestrians the right of way ‘n I s’poze a lot of people think it applies to chickens as well...some of the motorists get a little impatient at the meandering chickens ‘n will toot their horns at them...they never really lay on the horn, y’understand, that’d be rude...they do the polite little tap-tap which the chickens ignore.....if they really laid on their horn, the chickens ‘ud ignore that as well....I’ll tell you what the chickens don’t ignore however....if you don’t stop for them, if you don’t even slow down for ‘em.....they won’t ignore you...they ‘ll get out of the way....’n if they make a mistake ‘n don’t move, after they come into contact with the car bumper ‘n the impact sends ‘em rolling along the pavement, they’ll cuss you out something awful....since I don’t really speak chicken, I never know exactly what it is they’re saying, but as an old southern boy, I know when I’m being cussed out......

A quiet, rainy Sunday morn....

It’s a rainy, quiet Sunday morning ‘n by all rights, I should be sleeping...which is what I was doing ‘n I was doing a pretty good job of it too until Willie started walking all over me....Willie starts by nudging....just a little bit at first...but he’s impatient (young, y’know) ‘n if I don’t respond to a nudge, why he just starts walking on me ‘n when he gets up close t’my face, he begins pushing with his front paws....it’s a little surprising how much weight he can generate considering that he only weighs about 17 or so pounds....anyway I’ve learned from experience that he’s not one to give up....when I finally managed to sit up, I found Rusty sitting beside the bed staring at me...I guess he’s learned that if he wants t’go out, he should just tell Willie ‘n let him do the work of getting me to my feet.....
So there’s a steady drip, drip, drip from the porch roof but the short path to the side yard leads me into a maelstrom..well, maybe not a maelstrom but away from the house, the wind is blowing...feels so good when you first get out of bed to walk outside ‘n have the wind blow cold raindrops down your neck....ain’t quite like taking a cold shower, more like a faint mem’ry of a cold shower but just as effective when it comes to waking a body up....ah well, a little coffee, a piece of toast ...’n the Sacramento Bee which recently sent me a notice that they were going to start charging extra for their Holiday Editions...”Hellfire!” As my old Dad use’ta say, I don’t think it’s worth the regular price they’re charging now but that’s pretty much the ‘liberal’ point of view on how business works anyway....provide less, charge more ‘n blame the public for not understanding the message......
I’m just sayin’.....

Weather notes.....

Just out walkin’ in the rain....me’n Rusty ‘n Willie...we didn’t even get t’the halfway point in our little stroll when the raindrops got fatter ‘n wetter...Rusty didn’t mind turning tail ‘n coming home but Willie saw no need for it at all..’course, Willie is young ‘n the raindrops don’t bother him much....
me ‘n Rusty being older ‘n California raindrops being on the chilly side decided us in a hurry howsomever ‘n in a hurryup caucus ‘n me with the deciding vote, we headed home where for the first time in months, the furnace kicked on....I guess our long summer is finally over...it was a pretty good one as summers go...better than most, as a matter of fact....Summer here in nothern California tend t’be on the warmish side, hovering in the 90’s a good bit of the time ‘n with a number of days going over the century mark....this year was an exceptional year in that regard...we only had a few days in the triple digits ‘n managed to maintain our welcome ‘n highly valued ‘Delta Breeze’....a lot of norCal don’t get the Delta breeze ‘n that’s a fact....south of Stockton don’t get it ‘n nighttime temps down there tend t’stay in the uncomfortable zone ‘n ‘way up in norCal, they don’t get it at all...ever....why one nite, a long, long time ago, I was in Red Bluff, sitting in a saloon at 1:30 in the A.M. trying to cool off with a low-alcoholic beverage ‘n passing the time with some of the local residents... the outside temperature was 113 degrees ‘n the locals were comparing it to remembered heat waves of days gone by...As I stated, this was in days gone by ‘n most taverns ‘n such weren’t air-conditioned back then....what they had was big ceiling fans that eddied ‘round ‘n ‘round to give the illusion that somewhere there might be, must be a cooling breeze....
Anyways, it appears today that our long ‘n somewhat languid summer is over ‘n we’re faced with another Sacramento winter...
Last winter, we had lots of rain ‘n lots of snow on the Sierra....(by the way, sierra is plural meaning mountain ranges, as in more than one mountain...I only state the obvious herein becuz so many teevee announcers keep referring to the sierras)
Lots of snow in the mountains is good becuz ever’body down here in the valley uses lots of water in the long hot summers.
plus, we got to send a whole big bunch of our water down to the folks in La La Land to keep ‘em from coming up here....not that I’m prejudiced or anything against those southern Californio’s...like Juan Williams, I don’t hold with bigotry ‘n racism ‘n I believe everyone should stand equal before the law....it’s just that the thought of southern Californians coming here en masse, so to speak, makes me nervous.....
I’m just sayin......

Sometimes, someone really is after you.....

”Paranoia strikes deep,
Into your life it will creep,
It starts when you’re always afraid,
You step out of line,
the man come and take you away.”
S. Stills


Millyrose is ticked off...No, more than ticked off....Pissed!...not quite furious but seriously pissed.....NPR wuz her fav’rite radio station, she turned it on the minnit she started the car....well, at least as long as I wasn’t with her...but in the kitchen, I didn’t have any say about it at all...the radio in the kitchen is set to NPR ‘n when I, on occasion, change the station, I get a really dirty look ‘n had to change it back immediately, if not sooner....
And now, she is seriously pissed because they fired Juan Williams for saying that he wuz a little paranoid about Muslims on a plane....well, hellfire as my old dad use’ta say, most Americans, at least those who fly, are a little paranoid about Muslims on a plane...same as we get paranoid when someone leaves a backpack in a public place...WHICH if you saw the nooze yestiday with the famed Galleria Mall burning....a backpack was the culprit....
See, the werido who ackshully started the fire had a backpack that someone tho’t contained a bomb....so, when the Fire Dept got to the Mall location where there was only a small, easily containable fire, they were restrained(?) for fear of the possible bomb....ain’t teevee, folks....no impossibly handsome actor rushing to save the day...
nosirreebob....so the conflagation conflaged ‘n we had a real fire with lots of Firemen, SWAT teams, snooze-nooze heliochoppers ‘n millions of dollars in damage with millions of dollars in lost income to come from all the lost jobs....Is it any wonder that Americans are just a little bit paranoid what with Muslim Terrorists, homegrown Muslim Terrorists, good old boy American Terrorists, ELF Terrorists ‘n the ever-present plain old whacked out Wonderland druggies...We got a right to be paranoid....

Leftovers.....

I asked Millyrose what she had in mind for dinner t’nite....it was just a casual kind of question cuz if she didn’t have anything special planned, I wuz gonna suggest pizza....She whirled to face me ‘n barked out, “We’re having chili. It’s on the stove.”
I tho’t she was daring me to object to what wuz ackshully leftovers cuz she knows I don’t much care for leftovers...
Taken aback, I c’d only stare for a moment, then mainly cuz I’m too durn old t’fight ‘n too lazy t’run, I busted out laughing...’n the more I laughed...well, heck...the more I laughed...until I was crying ‘n my stomach ached ‘n Millyrose was laughing also but she didn’t know why we were laughing ‘n the more she asked me, why the harder I laughed....which come to think on it, ain’t that durn funny anyway.....
So, we had leftover chili for dinner...’n some crackers...I put butter on my crackers when I have chili...it’s a habit I picked up many years ago from a buddy I had back then by the name of Larry Harkins...well, his name was Paul Laurence Harkins ‘n he wuz from Bakersfield, California...before I met him, I’d never had butter on crackers, had never even tho’t of it....Heck! I didn’t even butter my bread back then....well, except for toast...I buttered my toast but that wuz about all...didn’t eat a lot of butter back then...
We were in Okinawa ‘n the cooks at the chow hall where we ate always toasted the bread becuz the bread wuz always stale...
I never buttered my bread but I always buttered my toast so I began to butter my toast that I had for ev’ry meal....One day we had chili ‘n Larry Harkins buttered his crackers...I tho’t that was funny ‘n said sumthing about it...he said he’d always buttered his crackers ‘n didn’t know anyone who didn’t ‘n tho’t it was a little werid that I didn’t butter mine....well, t’make a long story even longer, I began to butter my crackers.....that was ‘way back in ‘57 ‘n I’m still doing it...He wuz the guy that introduced me to tortillas also....I had never tasted a tortilla, didn’t even know what they were but his Mother made really good tortillas...

What was it Rodney King said?.....

Here’s the deal....Celebrating diversity is okay....marching to the beat of a different drummer...Hey! Not a problem...but when you’re marching toward an objective, it’s best if ever’body marching together listens to the same drummer, marches to the same beat ‘n pretty much stays in step with each other....that is, of course, if you have a unified objective....if you don’t, then you can walk any way you please, listen to whatever music plays inside your own head ‘n mill around in a circle until ever’body gets dizzy ‘n falls down.....
During World War II, Americans marched in lockstep (not entirely, of course, for we are after all Americans ‘n everything good ‘n bad that implies)...we all heard the same drummer ‘n diversity was not only not celebrated, it was put away for the duration....’n the country prospered as it had never prospered before...we went into the war a fledgling power on the world stage, we came out of the war a screaming eagle, dominating the world landscape...
‘n all eyes turned toward the USA...we were the idol of the world, the envy of everyone, a Rock Star among countries....
Everyone wanted to be American ‘n have what Americans had, ‘n they flocked here in their tens of thousands, their millions, to live the American dream....
But when they got here, they found it was hard to give up their own identity....their own rhythms, their own music, their culture, that indefinable thing that made them unique, their nationalism...
That inner core that made them Italian or Greek or British or whateverish...so the USA, already a nation of immigrants, a celebrated melting pot of diverseity, welded together by war into the mighty mongrel that was the baddest dog on the block found themselves searching for a new identity.
And the immigrants that had proudly identified themselves as Americans became Irish-Americans ‘n Italo-Americans ‘n so on ‘n so forth ‘n we began to celebrate our diversity, our differences, ‘n forgetting that it was a common goal that had forged us, a nation of immigrants from every corner of the world, into Americans.
We’re all Americans, of course, no matter our differences. We’re white ‘n black ‘n every color inbetween. We’re Christian ‘n Jewish, Muslim ‘n Hindi. We’re theists ‘n atheists ‘n deists. Hell, we’re even scientists, which is becoming more ‘n more a western religion. But, still, at least for the time being, we’re all Americans......
T.S. Eliot said,“I grow old, I shall wear my trousers rolled..”
‘n me, well in my dotage, I ponder many things, ships ‘n seas ‘n sealing wax...’n what the morrow may bring ‘n who let the dogs out ‘n who wrote the book of love.....
I’m just sayin’.....

Gettin' old...the series, I guess.....

Well, the rock pile is getting smaller ‘n smaller....4 or 5 barrows a day is taking a toll....’n taking a toll on me as well (not really, I just like to whine now ‘n then)...
I haven’t been in the pool for what seems like f’rever but only since they did the number on my eye...’nother week ought’a do it tho’....prob’ly be a change in the weather then, maybe a little rain ‘n overcast skies to take the joy out of doing laps....not that it’s a p’ticklar joyus thing t’do anyway...just beats the stationary bicycle ‘n treadmill...well, at least for me cuz I just plain don’t like exercise....don’t seem to mind swimming all that much tho’ to be truthful, it can get boring as hell...I just stick my head underwater ‘n pretend I’m somewhere else, glance at my watch now ‘n then ‘n when enuff time has elapsed, I come back from wherever my mind has taken me ‘n get out of the pool...then, if the fates are kind ‘n there’s a bit of sun, I go stretch out long enuff to dry off ‘n get a bit of vitamin D ‘n that’s the extent (pretty much) of my daily exercise program...
I can’t really classify my walking the dogs a couple times a day as exercise cuz we go at their pace ‘n that means slow so they can smell ever’thing that may be new on their route....
Willie makes up for it as best as he can by running from side to side, chasing chickens ‘n leaves altho Gawd alone knows what he’d do if he ever caught one of those birds....he did get a tailfeather once ‘n bored the whole household to death by talking about it incessantly until something else occupied his tiny mind ‘n he forgot about it....
Y’know, people think dogs are dumb ‘n maybe don’t rationalize the way folks do, but as far as mem'ry goes, I’ve noticed that they seem to have a better knack for it than most of my old friends.....
It was Mark Twain who said that when he was young, he had an excellent memory, so good in fact, that he could remember things than never happened. After he got old, his memory worsened to the point that he was unable to remember anything except the stuff that never happened....Talking to my peers (septugenarians ever’one) I’ve come to the conclusion fictitious mem’ry improves drastically with age while factual mem’ries fall by the wayside....

All part of God's plan, I'm told.....

Strolling ‘round the village in the waning days of summer ‘n it ain’t quite mid-October yet....Me 'n Rusty 'n Willie go two to three times a day, strolling 'round 'n about the Village, seeing what we can see, chasing leaves 'n chickens 'n peafowl....it's a treat to watch the neighborhood Peahen...she pals around with a lot of chickens, all different sizes 'n colors 'n she's the biggest of the lot..
she's got a clarion call that sounds like an airhorn 'n despite her size, she flies better, higher 'n more often than any of the chicken who only take flight, it seems, as a last resort to evade Willie.....
We got lots of fat chickens ‘n squirrels despite the nightly visitations of the denizens of the riverbank, the critters who wander the dark streets ‘n yards of the Village...
They leave signs, y’know....mostly little piles of scat here ‘n there, chicken feathers ‘n the occasional cleaned bone....I’m very cautious when I take my dogs out at nite now...well, Willie always has to go on a leash ‘cuz he ain’t got a lick o’sense but Rusty listens, stays in the boundaries of the yard, is pretty trustworthy as dogs go, but in the middle of the night, when he gets me up to let him go outside, I’m never sure if it’s ‘cause he’s old ‘n has to pee or if he’s heard a critter nosing around ‘n feels it’s his duty t’go investigate...
Rusty ‘n Willie are not the largest little dogs but I don’t think a coyote would go after them if I was on the scene but I wouldn’t want either one of ‘em to get bitten...’n I don’t worry too much about raccoons ‘n possums but we’ve been thru the skunk thing once already ‘n don’t want to do it again...

Here is an excerpt from chapter VII, “A Mad Tea-party,” from Alice in Wonderland:

“Then you should say what you mean,” the March Hare went on.

“I do,” Alice hastily replied; “at least—at least I mean what I say—that’s the same thing, you know.”

“Not the same thing a bit!” said the Hatter. “Why, you might just as well say that ‘I see what I eat’ is the same thing as ‘I eat what I see’!”

“You might just as well say,” added the March Hare, “that ‘I like what I get’ is the same thing as ‘I get what I like’!”

“You might just as well say,” added the Dormouse, which seemed to be talking in his sleep, “that ‘I breathe when I sleep’ is the same thing as ‘I sleep when I breathe’!”

I saw Joy Bexar on ‘The View’ saying that Christine O’Donnel is stupid for not believing in evolution. Well, Ms. Bexar should borrow a dictionary from....well, almost anyone, ‘n look up the word ‘theory’....
Creation, by our own existence (not to mention everything else) is fundamental proof that it is not a theory, but a fact...(how that creation came about is arguable but existence is not)...’n evolution, no matter how credible, is a theory...‘n not fact...I’m just sayin’...

The Insomniac: Tales from the darkside....

Four in the A.M......
T’ain’t bad enuff, we got roosters crowing at all hours of the day ‘n nite....’n last nite some critter came a-roaming ‘n upset all the dogs...we also got us a Peahen...
Peafowl are birds native to India ‘n Sri Lanka. They do not migrate which means, I s’poze, that we’re stuck with her until she dies, gets killed ‘n eaten by one of our nighttime critters or until one of my neighbors gets so tired of her airhorn voice calling in the night that she gets murdered...her voice is so irritating that some might call it justifiable homicide...
She hangs out with the chickens all day ‘n roosts with ‘em at night..she flies considerably better than the chickens ‘n takes flight at the slightest provocation...
One of my greatest fears is that some one will find her a mate ‘n she’ll begin breeding like the durn chickens....still, I haven’t seen any Peahen eggs (dunno if I could bring m’self to eat one or not...don’t like the wild chicken eggs, too strong for me now that I’m a septugenarian)....
We have a great diversity in our feral fowl here in Ol Fair Oaks....people drop off exotic chickens all the time ‘n chickens, of course, being chickens ‘n not birds of a feather breed somewhat indiscriminately, the result being some really colorful progeny.....
A lot of the tourists that come thru our little village here spend a lot of time oohing ‘n ahhing over our colorful fowl ‘n they share the mistaken belief that the birds are somehow ‘protected by law’.....
A number of people (a lot of dotty old g’parents) bring little children to admire ‘n feed these feral fowl...they take fotos ‘n encourage little children to ‘pet’ the pretty bird...we’ve been very fortunate so far, only a few people have been attacked by the ‘pretty birds’ and none of ‘em seriously hurt....I still recall the disbelief on one mans face however, as he sputtered, “that damn bird attacked me!”
And the fireman who got so upset that he called Animal Control only t’be told that the birds are wild ‘n nothing they can do...ah well, the trials ‘n tribulations of living in Eden.....what’re ya gonna do?

In continuium.....

And it seems the Poodle-Dogger 'n Willie weren't the only dogs that were wakeful last nite...almost all my neighbors, well at least those who are owned by dogs of various 'n sundry hues, were awakened at or about the same time by their faithful companions who evidently all wanted a look at the moon...or whatever it was that was prowling the neighborhood in the wee, small hours...
possibly a coyote, or raccoon, or Gawd alone knows what was wandering around in the night...ah well, I'm just sayin'.....

An insomniac's call to glory....

S’PRIZE ...S’PRIZE....Here t’is 3 o’clock in the A.M. ‘n I find m’self awake ‘n staring at the face of the ‘puter....I was asleep ‘n if it wudn’t what ya might call a ‘sound’ sleep, it was still a pleasant enuff sleep ‘n I was dreaming....what it was that I was dreaming, I don’t recall but it seems as tho’ it might’a been pleasant....
Rusty, the Poodle-Dogger, wasn’t asleep... he was wakeful....not only was he wakeful, he wanted me t’be wakeful....of course, I wanted t’be helpful as I’m most generally anxious t’please one of my faithful companions so I arose from my bed ‘n took the darned aforementioned faithful companion outside for a look at the moon...
‘n then, back to bed where I almost immediately began to doze off...at which time, the Poodle-Dogger began to fret ‘n complain ‘n when I failed to respond quickly enuff to satisfy that durn P-Dogger ego of his, he woke up Millyrose who then, in turn, got up to show him the moon...but it simply weren’t enuff...nosirreebob...he wanted me to get up again but I was determined to go back to sleep so I refused to budge...so, he woke up Willie ‘n evidently asked him to wake me which Willie did by attempting to walk the length of me...so I got out’a bed again ‘n took both of ‘em outside to look at the moon again (it was still in the same place, at least from my perspective) ‘n then back to bed....at least for Millyrose, Rusty P-Dogger ‘n Willie....
Me....well, that’s why I’m sitting here in front of this ‘puter spewing this nonsensical prose for all those insomniac ponderers whoever they might be that are able to sleep thru the night without pity for those of us that are fool enuff t’be owned by old dogs....

Gettin' old ain't etc,etc..another verse...

Gotta say (‘n certainly not becuz I want to)..went to the DMV t’day....not totally unprepared, of course, just.....well, guess y’hadda be me...
Now as you may know...or maybe not...I’ve had some eye issues...nuthin’ out’a the ordinary for a septuagenarian (talk about your fifty dollar words)...I had a cataract removed ‘n the biggest problem I’ve had with it is that now the right lens in my glasses is out of kilter...I can’t quite see well enough to read w/out the glasses but with my present specs, the right eye is blurry....’n the left eye, I have an astigmatism which means that without the corrective lens, everything is blurry...’n I won’t get my eyes checked again until the end of this month.....but, I was s’pozed to get my license renewed on or before my birthday last month but I had to have eye surgery so I put it off...making a long ‘n dull story short(er) I durn near failed my eye exam at the DMV, just barely squeaking by...but I did get by....THEN I went to stand in line for a new picture (didn’t look too awful bad from the middle of my face upward but the lower portion looked like a jowly Michael Douglas on a really bad day...’n then I went ‘n missed 3 really easy questions out of 18...at home, I took a 50 question quiz ‘n only missed 4 ‘n thought I corrected them but missed one of the same ones t’day...(SHAME SHAME)...in the long run, I managed to squeak by but it was a humiliating experience....
The Buddha said, “All things will be made clear in the fullness of time.”...but, I don’t think he ever had to stand in a DMV line...
I’m just sayin’.......

Promethus unbound....

As you may or maybe not know, Promethus was the dude in Ancient Mythology (is there any other kind?) who had to push a rock uphill ever’ damned day forever....Now what they don’t talk about is the unsung guy who worked the nightshift ‘n had to move that damned rock back down the mountain so’s Promethus could start pushing it back up the next morning...
What I’m getting at here is that there is a pile of gravel here on top of Crestline (why d’ya think they named in Crestline anyway) that I’m barrowing down the hill ev’ry day...
‘Course, I’m not trying to take it all at once, just 3 or 4 barrowsful a day ‘n there ain’t no one replenishing the pile...it’s growing ever smaller day by day....when I was younger, I would have taken it all away in one swell foop (or fell swoop) which might have resulted in one long day but I’d’ve had it done ‘n forgot about by now...but that was once upon a time ‘n now I take a much more philosophical approach, ie; gives me sum’thing to look forward to which may or may not be a sad commentary on my life or maybe just a commentary on my sad life or “Whatever suits you just tickles me plumb to death” Marion ‘Howdy’ Lewis....

A positive tho't couldn't hurt...could it?

Here t’is Sunday eve ‘n I find m’self wand’ring ‘round ‘n about Tumbledown Manse, bored with television, bored even with computer Solitaire....I’ve washed the dishes, a complicated thing these days consisting of placing all the necessary items inside the dishwasher, adding a block of soap ‘n turning the darn thing on ‘n getting out of it’s way so it can do the job it’s s’pozed t’do....ditto for the washing machine...I c’d run the darned old vacuum cleaner 'n wake the dogs, I guess, but that seems like a totally wussie way to end the day....da boyz are pretty much ignoring me, Willie sprawled in the middle of the floor like a little black ‘n white throw rug ‘n Rusty lying beside Millyrose’s chair, lifting his head occasionally to give me a quizzical look...”I ain’t sleepy ‘n there ain’t no place I’m goin’ to”.....random tho’t’s in a random mind....the only thing that’s unusual about it is that normally this happens to me in the wee, small hours when I c'n blame all the wacky thoughts on insomnia....just makes a body think....’n wonder....or ponder....
Thinking is one of those things that’re almost always positive....but sometimes a body c’n over-think ‘n find hisself full of doubt about his position...on the other hand, if George Custer had given his problem just a little more thought, he might have chosen discretion as the better part of valor...’course, hindsight is a wonderful thing but you gotta stay alive to appreciate it.....

Insomnia tho'ts....

I’m old enough now to know that I can’t speak for women so when I generalize about something, it’s pretty much from a guys point of view....’n I was just thinking that there are three kinds of men...the ones that learn by reading....the few who learn by watching someone else ‘n the rest of the herd that just have to pee on the electric fence ‘n find out for themselves.....
Now I wonder about lots of things in the middle of the night ‘n I was just wondering about this thing called ‘science’....I know a couple people who think of themselves as ‘scientists’ and I don’t have any quarrel with their believing that. I call myself a writer ‘n there’s a whole lot of people who’d disagree with that..
Of course, I know some people who think of themselves as Christians and I, likewise, don’t have any quarrel with that. I once was acquainted with a man who thought of himself as a ‘Black Muslim’ and yet again, I didn’t have any problem with that.
Now, my friend, the Black Muslim (who shall remain nameless) did not like ‘White People’....indeed, he professed to me that he hated White People...I pointed out that I was a ‘White Person’ and I didn’t hate him, that I barely knew him and since he didn’t know me, it was somewhat irrational of him to hate me.
He thought about it for a moment or two, no more, and allowed as how I might have a point and that he didn’t really hate me, he just hated ‘White People’ in general.
So I told him a story about attending a ‘Yankee Go Home’ rally in Naha, Okinawa...about how a friend of mine and myself shouted “Yankee, go home!” as loud as everyone else at the rally. And then I told him about the party I attended after the rally.
It was a pretty high-tone party with politicians and business people and my friend and I were only there because of my association with the military newspaper which wasn’t really good enough to warrant an invitation but I kind of, just sort of exaggerated my position. Just a little bit...
My buddy was a half-breed Oklahoma born son of a ‘sooner’ family and me, just a ‘good ol boy’ from the hills of eastern Kentucky and we were having a good time. Well, y’know, free drinks ‘n snacks.....
But the ongoing conversations were all of an anti-American sentiment and after a bit, even with the free food and drink, we two country boys began to get a little peeved ‘n began to take the remarks personal...
Now, truth be told ‘n I always strive to be truthful (more or less)...my buddy just wanted to leave... “cut a chogie”
as we use’ta say in our pidgin Japanese...
Hark wasn’t gonna say anything, he was just gonna leave.....but I’m sort of a big mouth ‘n don’t always know when to keep my mouth shut ‘n besides I’d had just a sip or two or thereabouts, so I got on my high horse ‘n told my host that I was insulted ‘n that I’d have no more of his free booze....
Japan, like the American south of my youth, puts a high priority on politeness....’n like the American southener who doesn’t always mean it when he says, “Y’all hurry back now!”... my Japanese host viewed my huffiness as a loss of face to him personally ‘n he began to apologize profusely for having offended us, telling us that he had not meant that they didn’t like us personally, it was the American government that they didn’t like.....well, Hark ‘n I got over our huffiness ‘n stuck around to lap up some more of that free sake....’course, we never ever got invited again but then we never really expected to.....
Anyway, the Black Muslim and I became friends. We had both grown up on the Ohio River...he in Cleveland ‘n me in South Shore ‘n as Ohio River boys, we had a lot of likes ‘n dislikes in common....I don’t think I ever changed his mind about White People in general but I changed his mind about me....
I’m just sayin’.....

Round toit's....

Boy Howdy....guess I just ain’t used to the bachelor life anymore...’course, I’ve been married so long that actual bachelor life is one of those primordial memories, y’know, so long ago that it takes a DNA specialist to dig it out...
Anyways, me ‘n da boyz are gettin’ by tho’ Rusty still jumps at ev’ry noise ‘n runs to the door looking for Millyrose....ever’ so often I have to let him out so’s he c’n run ‘round the car t’make sure she ain’t there...
I been pushing a few barrels of ‘free’ gravel down the street ‘n dumping it in out in the south forty...well, an old overgrown pathway on the east side of Tumbledown Manse...’n it sets my shoulder to aching, ‘specially at nite, so when I couldn’t sleep last nite, I took a couple advil ‘n a sleeping pill (left over from the chemo) ‘n finally drifted off ‘bout 3:30 or so in the AM...’n didn’t get up until tennish (anyone) this morning, whereupon I made some sourdough biscuits, fresh coffee, fed da boyz, took the sad SacBee ‘n a jar of blackberry jelly out on the veranda of Tumbledown Manse ‘n enjoyed a leisurely breakfast...life is hard! Well, somewhere the sun is shining ‘n somewhere children shout ‘n even tho’ there may be no joy in Mudville...
etcetera, etcetera...t’is a pleasant day here in Ol Fair Oaks.....

Ah God, it's just one birthday after another....

Along the line of ‘gettin’ old ain’t for wusses’ I was just thinkin’ the the older I get, the fewer things seem worth waiting in line for.....I was waiting in line this afternoon to pick up some prescriptions for Millyrose ‘cause she ain’t here...she’s down in SoCal with sister Francisca enjoying the rain ‘n cool weather of Big Bear....a cottage on the lake, she said....That’s alright with me, I try never to go to SoCal...I prefer my doses of southern California in old movies..
Now that I think on it, seems like a lot of my favorite places only exist in old movies....
Like San Francisco....one of the most beautiful cities in the world, at least up thru the ‘fifties....in the ‘sixties, the golden age of hippiedom, the City by the bay became a mecca for every lost soul that couldn’t find any other place to belong.....it was still a magical place, Baghdad by the Bay, with the San Francisco Chronicle that had possibly the greatest selection of columnists ever assembled on one newspaper.....Herb Caen was the ‘town crier’ ‘n whatsisname on the radio, on KSFO....Don Sherwood, was addictive which was true of a lot of things in SF in those halcyon daze....’n of course, the San Francisco Giants plus the exciting, irreverent Oakland A’s with Charlie Findlay...what a combo.....
But I digress.....Millyrose is in Big Bear ‘n I’ve been having difficulty explaining that to the Poodle-Dogger....he keeps running to the door with ev’ry noise...I let him out, he runs around the car ‘n comes back looking puzzled....Willie, on the other hand, seems almost blase about the whole thing...when it gets on toward this time of evening, Willie gets blase about most things...he looks like a little black ‘n white rug in the middle of the floor.....I keep telling him that I’m going to have him freeze-dried so’s I c’n just move him from spot to spot but he ignores me...The voices in my head may not be real but sometimes you just gotta ponder them...I’m just sayin’......