In retrospect....who knew?

‘Way back in the daze after high school I went fishing out on Schultz Creek with two buddies of mine...wudn’t what you’d call a whole lot of fish in Schultz Creek at that time but we didn’t really mind...we had a few sixpacks...one of us who shall remain nameless at the moment was actually old enuff to buy the stuff...anyways, as I recall, he was the one who suggested that we all go join up with the United States Air Force...now the Army would’a been 18 months ‘n the Air Force wuz a lot longer but with a few beers under out belts on a warm July day, his reasoning seemed sound enuff...who knew?

A few years later, I was hanging around South Shore with a bunch of newly released veterans (?)...it wudn’t a grand depression or even a very big recession but it was big enuff that there simply wudn’t any real jobs in the area...unable to find work ‘n as silly as it may seem now, growing somewhat tired of scraping t’gether beer money ‘n driving aimlessly ‘round ‘n about the countryside, someone suggested that we all go off to college...at the time, that seemed like a good enuff reason...who knew?

An old friend of mine asked me t’other day that if I c’d do it all over knowing what I know now, would I? In retrospect, I haven’t got the slightest idea becuz s’far as I know, ain’t nobody ever done that before...I tho’t about it for a moment ‘n finally said, “If I’d known where all the twists ‘n turns of my life were gonna take me, I’m sure I would’a done some things different...I would’a done more of some things ‘n less of others but, all in all, as roller coaster rides go, it’s been a pretty fun ride so far...’n I still ain’t figured out the ending yet but that’s what makes the whole darn thing interesting....

and in retrospect, I guess you c’d say that the nicest thing about the future is that it always starts tomorrow....

‘n if you don’t have a sense of humor, you prob’ly don’t have any sense at all...

Dog Daze.....

The 'Dog Days' of August c'n be really boring when you're young but the young have really short attention spans.....

The days are still long this time of year in Ol Fair Oaks...sunny ‘n warm...

Once’t in a while a solitary cloud may appear but never seems to stay around for long...prob’ly the loneliness factor altho’ I expect that it could be merely an advance scout passing over on the possibility of an early autumn...I’ve seen rain here in August...I think it was back in ‘63 but mem’ries get hazy over time ‘n hazy mem’ries get boring when you dwell on ‘em...

I just heard on the snooze-nooze that Irene is heading for New England ‘n Canada...it was a deadly storm for at least thirteen people...hard to tell now just what the final cost will be but it’s gonna be expensive...It’s been an amazing year what with the earthquakes ‘n tsunami’s ‘n hurricanes...

I know there are people who believe that God is just really pissed off at us but I don’t give that theory a lot of credence...I think maybe some people are so filled with self-importance that anything that happens in the world just has t’be about them in some way...

"You shouldn't ought'a go around thinkin' the world owes you a living. It don't. It wuz here first."

Old dogs ‘n children ‘n watermelon wine...

“ain’t but three things in the world that’s worth a solitary dime but old dogs ‘n children ‘n watermelon wine”

Tom T. Hall

Just finished cutting up a 23 lb watermelon...ain’t nuthin’ a whole lot better on a warm August evening...

Ackshully, it wuz just a little bit more than 23 lbs...I know ‘cuz I paid .38 cents a lb for the durn thing...back in the day.....well, back in those golden daze, my once’t upon a time daze, we didn’t pay for watermelons....we sort’a just liberated them from the people that put all the work into growing them, the people that actually deserved to profit from the hard work that ended with a field full of melons...’n I apologize to those kind folk who, for the most part, just shook their heads ‘n complained about ‘boys being boys’...

‘course, all of ‘em didn’t just complain..

more’n one of them (‘n even at this late date, I ain’t gonna name names) protected their ‘melons with shotguns..

there’s many a boy who ran with his heart in his throat after he heard the boom of a shotgun ‘n heard or felt the pellets fly around him...’n some there are who’re bound to recall having those pellets removed with tweezers ‘n then being doused with mercurochrome (I hadda look that up in order to spell it ‘n I’m willing to bet there ain’t that many people that’ll know what it wuz without looking it up too)...

Anyways, I wuz a grown man ‘n ‘way old enuff to know better the last time I went to ‘liberate’ one of them ‘melons...the seller had moved them to the porch of their home for the nite ‘n I had the audacity (luv’ly word, ain’t it) to walk across the front lawn, bend over to pick up one when I heard the cocking of a shotgun ‘n a womans voice promising to make me a believer in the wages of sin...I raised my hands to the Lord in the skies ‘n begged her not to shoot as I walked backward across her front lawn ‘n across the road to jump into the front seat of the waiting car ‘n yell “SHOTGUN!” at my waiting friends....

“Those were the days, my friend, we tho’t they’d never end.....”

The illusion of reality....

“Humans are the only creatures able to behave irrationally in the name of reason.” A. Montague

I don’t watch ‘reality’ shows...’n I don’t believe there’s anything real about them...I mean, other than the fact that they don’t use actors...maybe they use wanna-be actors, I dunno... I know that a lot of the oldtime game shows (Groucho Marx, etc) used more actors than regular people, I expect becuz actors or wannabe actors are more prevalents in the LA area than regular people...(I’m not sure that southern California ‘n regular people actually coexist anyway but that’s another story)...I don’t have anything against the so-called ‘reality’ shows...

I simply don’t understand why people watch them...I know people who watch them, or at least, claim to watch them...members of my own family do so ‘n they actually discuss them sometimes in my presence altho’ I must confess I simply ‘zen’ them out when they do so...I find at my advanced age that it’s becoming increasingly easy to ‘zen’ out lots of things...the snooze nooze, for example...newspapers are becoming ever more irrelevant in todays world...’n thanks to cable, there are more news outlets than a poor boy c’n shake a stick at...you can take your choice among a myriad of channels all spouting off about essentially the same things...’n while most news shows deliver the news, the commentary that you get is very often funnier than anything the late nite comics can come up with...the partisanship is, I think, unintentionally hilarious at times...the non-liberal Liberals will report on a story while their counterparts on the radical ‘Conservative’ side will report on the same story ‘n if you don’t know any better, you’d never know the difference but...’n it’s a big BUT, there are so many people out there recording ‘n reporting ‘n blogging ‘n tweeting that the ‘real’ story is available to anyone that’s interested enuff to look for it ‘n to quote Gomer Pyle, “Surprise, Surprise!”....the actual story is most often less than either partisan side reports...’n the ones who look most foolish are the bigtime talking heads who are guilty of simply reading what their bosses put in front of them...(yawnnnnnnnnn...)

So I saw this woman on teevee prodding her child to ask Gov. Perry if he believed in science...he was walking away ‘n had the good sense to ignore her but I got to thinking that people who truly have faith in science are the same kind of people who have faith in any other religion...where have all the sceptics gone?

The Sceptic

Robert Service

“My Father Christmas passed away when I was barely seven..

At twentyone, alackaday, I lost my hope in heaven.

Yet not in either lies the curse,

the hell of its because,

I don’t know which loss hurt the most,

my God or Santa Claus.”

"When y'get old, you'll be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the things that you did."

Well, he did it...took him a bit longer than they had planned but he did it 'n I'm suitably impressed...'course, he's a young man, only 40, I think, but swimming a hundred 'n eleven miles is a pretty good stunt....I was impressed with Diana Nyad who tried to swim from Cuba to Key West (she didn't make it but she gave it a darn good try)...frankly, I can't blame anyone who wants to get from Cuba to Key West but that's a whole 'nother story of a p'litical nature...one of these daze, the USA will normalize relations with Cuba (should'a done it a long time ago but nobody asked my opinion)....I think Cuba should have always been a protectorate of the USA 'stead of an adversary but politicians always have a hidden agenda...if the world was left to reg'lar folks, I expect we wouldn't have a lot of wars 'n such altho' it does seem that neighbors do tend to fight a lot the world over...I'm reminded of the old farmer that said he didn't want to own all the land, just the piece that adjoined his property....I suspect the world has been in conflict over that since Adam 'n Eve left Eden 'n took up homesteading...

"There are basically two types of people...those who do stuff 'n those who claim to have done stuff. There's a lot fewer of the first group."

“I’ve said this before but it bears repeating: If you don’t believe in magic, you’ll never find it.”

T’morrow morning, an old boy named Jamie Patrick is gonna jump in the Sacramento River just a little bit south of Redding....he’s gonna swim downriver to Sacramento....He sez long swims help him relax...that’s about a hundred ‘n ten miles so he ought’a be really relaxed when he gets down here...he’ll be wearing a wet suit becuz the river is cold ‘n polluted...

Rivers are always polluted, some more ‘n others cuz even when you don’t have people around, you got all them other animals...but people are the main polluters...we’ve always used rivers as natural sewers under the belief that they cleanse themselves...’course, we learned that where rivers flow into lakes, the lakes are polluted ‘n now we’re doing a bangup job of polluting the oceans also...

Anyways, back to river swimming....I grew up on the Ohio River ‘n taught m’self to swim....well, it wuz either that or drown..ever’one I knew swam in the Ohio River...Hobo Cooper swam the Ohio once when it was flooded becuz he spotted a loose sailboat on the other side...when he got to it, he discovered it was a 5’ model sailboat but since he was there, he brought it back...I’ve often wondered what he ever did with it...we wandered the riverbank a lot back in those daze, mostly upstream as far as Fullerton ‘n sumtimes, South Shore, so anywhere from a mile to two miles...we’d grab a log ‘n jump in the river ‘n swim back to Beattyville Landing...back then there wuz lots of stuff floating in the river but during the war, all the diesel fuel ‘n such went to the military so the river boats all went back to wood ‘n coal...we still had the big old sternwheelers in those daze ‘n Beattyville boyz tho’t it wuz great fun to swim in behind them ‘n ride the wake....well, it wuz hard times back then ‘n kids had to amuse themselves...

I can’t imagine a better time to have grown up in ‘n sumtimes feel sorry for children t’day....’course, these are the ‘good ol daze’ for kids t’day....

“Everyone wants better. No one wants change...”

If there's anyone curious why I look the way I do, it's 'cuz I've traveled a lot of roads to get here 'n some of 'em weren't paved...

Rode hard 'n put away wet.....Some daze are like that, y'know....I mean, it's been a really good day all in all....Cary's birthday....brunch at Gina's....more food than anybody c'd want....some really good ribs...well, actually so well done that it was more pulled pork than anything 'n that's one of my fav'rits....'n of course, anything that ends up with friends 'n fam'ly makes for a good day....'course, it also makes for a looooooong day 'n da boyz were really glad to see us when we finally got home....

When I wuz a boy hangin' out at 'the corner' nobody wanted t'be first to go home...nah! I use'ta be accused of staying out 'til the last dog was dead....go to bed late, get up early, no one needs to sleep more than 2 or 3 hours a nite...Yeah...RIGHT! I recall saying that there wudn't any sense in going to bed, that you're a long time dead....my my my...times do change...now I like to go to bed early 'n get up late....I don't like any appointments that take place before 9 or preferably 10ish in the A.M.

And sleeping is actually fun...I don't know now why I didn't do more of it when I was young 'n could have devoted a lot more energy to it....ah well, missed opportunities....(sighhhhh) seems like I've reached the age where happy hour is a nap!

"The idea is to die young as late as possible..." A. Montagu

Suicidal wine glasses....

A couple weeks ago, another one of our wine glasses jumped out of the cabinet to perish on our faux hardwood floor...

It wasn’t the first time...this p’ticklar set of wine glasses has been diminishing themselves since day one...

don’t ask me why...we try to provide a stable environment for them...a dry ‘n airy cabinet with similar glassware ‘n we certainly don’t abuse them with overuse....altho’ I s’poze that could be, might be the problem....maybe we just don’t drink enuff wine to keep ‘em happy....whatever the reason, out of the original set of six, we are now down to one...we keep him (or her) cozied up with the remnants of previous sets in hopes that they may take solace from each others company ‘n thus not feel suicidally lonely but I fear for this one remaining glass...depression is a terrible thing ‘n it must be terribly depressing to be the very last of such a close knit group....I guess I could just smash it on purpose but that seems too cruel....I have much too tender a heart for that type of behavior so we’ll just have to wait ‘n see....

Well, I believe that life is better’n death,if for no other reason that it’s less boring ‘n becuz it has strawberries ‘n ice cream in it...

"Ever'one wants better, no one wants change!"

Apples ‘n oranges....

that’s how simple it is, that’s the crux of the matter....I have an orange tree ‘n my neighbor has an apple tree...we both have plum trees ‘n we both agree that the birds get far more benefit from the plums than either of us but that’s a whole ‘nother story...the problem with apples ‘n oranges is a simple one...conditions that cause my orange tree to flourish ain’t all that good for my neighbors apple tree ‘n visa versa...oranges don’t do all that well in a climate that’s kind to apples...

Out politicians are so focused on their own p’ticklar tree that they simply can’t see that their neighbor has a different tree ‘n all the rest of us are caught in the middle again..As Pogo once famously said, “We have met the enemy ‘n he is us.”....

The sinking of the Titanic...'n the band played on.

Making things complicated is simple. Making things simple is complicated.

Hoo boy....goin’ down the tubes...

leastways, that’s what neighbor Doug sez...”We been riding these 10 foot swells for awhile now ‘n the raft is a little beat...now, it looks like we’re gonna get some 20 foot swells ‘n there ain’t no way that we c’n ride waves that size.”.....

That’s the trubble with watching the nooze...Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal ‘n Ireland are broke ‘n going down ‘n our esteemed President (Yeah bro, I know, he ain’t your Prez but he’s ever’one else’s) wants us to bail out Greece...I ‘spect he’ll think it won’t be fair to just bail out one country so we should prob’ly tax our millionaires a little bit more ‘n bail out the rest of those impecunious countries also...

It don’t seem t’matter to the politicians that the USA is just as damn impecunious as the rest of those wunnerful western European countries...

Anyways, I’m thinking that if you’re in a free fall, it seems to speed up right before you go SPLAT!

Once’t upon a time, I had a friend who was a pioneer in flight back in the age of biplanes...one of those ‘daring young men’....he told me a story of a friend of his, a woman wing-walker, renown for her derring-do ‘n her disregard for personal danger....one day while performing at an air show, she did her stunts ‘n then leaped into space where she did a prolonged free fall to the amazement of the crowd gathered below...only problem was, when she finally pulled the ripcord on her parachute, the chute failed to open ‘n she smashed into the ground. Manning, my friend, was the first one at her side where she gasped out, “The damn chute didn’t open.”....’

It’d be a damn shame if in the history of the decline ‘n fall of the USA, it all came down to the phrase, “The damn chute didn’t open!”

Return of the yellow-billed Sacramento valley magpies....

A few years ago we use’ta get thousands of magpies here in Ol Fair Oaks....they’d come ‘n visit, roosting mainly across the street from us, stay for a few weeks ‘n then move on as was their wont ev’ry year...(as was their wont is a phrase that you just don’t hear often, at least these daze)....

Anyways, what happened was the West Nile Virus came along ‘n devastated the magpie population...it was pretty hard on Crows ‘n ‘Jays as well but it took out about 90% of the magpie population....we didn’t see any magpies for about two years ‘n then we had one come by one summer day, sort of an advance scout maybe...he wuz a young bird ‘n we were sitting on the porch ‘n he just flew in, looked around for a few moments...didn’t say much but they’re much more talkative in groups....anyways the following year, we’d catch a glimpse now ‘n then, here ‘n there, but never a flock as there use’ta be...until t’day...

Today, for whatever reason, we have a flock of magpies...not sure how many but enuff of ‘em that they were talking,,,I kept an eye on them ‘n during the evening walk with da boyz, I stopped to talk with my neighbor, Doug, when they came to roost...must’a been 40 or 50 of ‘em...Doug sed he’d never seen so many at one time...I’m not sure he believed me when I told him that thousands use’ta roost in his back yard every year but if the West Nile don’t come back ‘n get them, he’ll find out....

I like magpies but they are annoying birds... they make a lot of noise, they run off the ‘jays ‘n they get drunk on the mulberries ‘n crap purple all over the landscape...but then on that proverbial other hand, they are strikingly attractive birds, black ‘n white with yellow beaks ‘n they’re only found in the Sacramento valley (or so I’ve been told)...at any rate, I’m glad to see ‘em back....

Euphemistically speaking...which is what our esteemed politicians do best...the arguments between the conservative right ‘n the liberal left continue unabated...I think the general opinion of most Americans is that they’re almost as bad as several thousand chattering magpies...anyway there is nothing conservative about the uber right ‘n there’s certainly nothing liberal about the far left...you gotta wonder why leftist Americans persist in referring to themselves as ‘Liberals’ when in fact, they are anything but liberal in their ideology. A more correct term would be Marxist or Socialist or Commuinist. I’m sure they wouldn’t be ashamed to call themselves any one of those particular terms so there must be another reason for branding themselves as Liberal...all in all, I’d rather listen to the magpies....

My question for Congress is, if you don't have time t'do it right, when will you have the time t'do it over?