*

ALL HALLOWS EVE

"On Hallowe’en, the thing t’do is pretend that nuthin’ can frighten you ‘n if sumthin’ scares you ‘n you want to run, just let on like it’s Hallowe’en fun.”

Happy Hallow’een to all the ghosts, goblins‘n ghoulies where’er they may be...

I’ve been channel-surfing ‘n the telly is loaded with more ‘horror’ movies than I’ve ever seen but so far I haven’t found the one I’ve been looking for...that’d be Walt Disney’s ‘Legend of Sleepy Hollow’ with der Bingle as narrator...Washington Irvings short tale of Ichabod Crane ‘n the Headless Horseman...Disney coupled it with the adventures of Mr. Toad, an excerpt from The Wind in the Willows...

Of course, there’s no blood ‘n gore which makes it all the more suitable for children ‘n doddering old folk, both of whom are subject to strange ‘n fanciful dreams...’specially if you lace their evening milk with vicodin...

One ‘a these daze, I’m gonna have to watch the Tim Burton version...but without the vicodin...

Back in the Beattyville daze of my youth, there wuz a war goin’ on ‘n only little kidz got t’go trick or treatin’...’n we only went to a few homes where we got home made cookies or maybe fudge...lotza time just an apple but I recall it as fun..the bigger kidz didn’t do trick or treating...mainly they just did tricks...

generally nuthin’ too mean-spirited tho’ I seem to remember hearing about an overturned outhouse that co-incidentally had someone inside when it went over but that wudn’t in Beattyville...mostly, they soaped windows, threw shelled corn at homes ‘n cars (not a lot of cars on the road during WWII)...basically just a chance for teens to ‘hang in the darkened streets ‘n act up...that’s what they use’ta call it, y’know...acting up!

Things all changed in the ‘60’s...we got the kidz dressed in costume ‘n took ‘em ‘round the neighborhood collecting candy...as the years went on, people began driving their children from one neighborhood to another collecting pillowcase loads of candy...teens with cigarettes dangling wud show up at your door with their sacks held open...often they wudn’t say a word, not even ‘Stand ‘n deliver’...lot of bounty paid out over the years...

Not so much t’day...scary times, I guess...more organized events t’day ‘n earlier...more kid-oriented ‘n that’s okay by me...I’m getting too old for the sugar-high anyway...

“When black cats prowl ‘n pumpkins gleam, may luck be with you on Hallowe’en...”

EUPHEMISTICALLY SPEAKING....so to say ~ Sumtimes shouted, sumtimes muttered...

“Hellfire ‘n damnation, Boy!” Manuel W. Smith......

I heard those words a lot when I ‘uz a boy...mostly over simple things that I shudn’t a had a problem with back then...whether it wuz cutting the grass, hoeing the weeds ‘er maybe I just didn’t move fast enuff ~ “Hellfire ‘n damnation, Boy!”

Y’know, I knew at the time that he didn’t mean anything by it ‘n that he’d prob’ly heard the same words from John Sam hisownself back when he wuz a boy... (John Sam being my grandfather, a quiet, taciturn man that seldom raised his voice...he drank his coffee black out of a saucer ‘n so did I when I wuz 6 or 7 years old)

‘Course, back in those halycon daze, Beattyville boyz didn’t say words like that....what we used wuz ‘euphemisms’ and it’s doubtful if any of us would’a known what a body wuz talking about if they had said, ‘euphemism’..."Heckfire" we said...’n "Doggonnit!" ‘n "Dang" ‘n "Son of a gun" ~ words like that...we knew the real words they ackshully stood in for, we just didn’t know that they were called euphemisms...

Men (women, too) c’ud swear, some of ‘em like troopers...My Uncle Fred ‘n his brother, Lewie...didn’t bother with euphemisms but they were the exception rather than the rule...’Way back then, there wudn’t any such thing as ‘Take your child to work day’...that’s pretty much a modern invention...so we didn’t ackshully know how men talked at work but when they were home, around women ‘n children, most men didn’t swear...Heck, back in those daze, most men smoked but they did it outside ‘n almost no one kept licquor in the house...Men went t'the barn or the shed to share a little 'touch' when friends came t'call....

Dad wuz still saying ‘Hellfire’ when he wuz 90 years old ‘n got frustrated over sumthing...we’d sit on his little deck drinking beer ‘n looking at the Kentucky hills acros’t the river ‘n he’d tell stories about the horses he’d had ‘n the first car ‘n how he sent off to Frankfurt to get his first driver’s license...you didn’t need a license to drive back in those daze but he wanted one...cost him a quarter which wuz ackshully a pretty good chunk o’ money to spend on sumthing that you didn’t need...

When I wuz a boy, I found a quarter one day ~ “Heckfire!” I tho’t I wuz rich ‘n it went to my head...that quarter took me to the movies, bought me a soda pop, a large popcorn ‘n a candy bar...durn near enuff t’make a boy sick ~ dunno what all that ‘ud cost t’day but gotta be considerably more’n a quarter...

Ah well, times change...lot of people think that we’re making progress, evolving so to speak...I ain’t so sure of that...somewhere in the world in the next few minutes p’haps, give or take, the seven billionith person is gonna be born...I think Manuel Smith ‘ud prob’ly say, “Hellfire ‘n damnation, Boy! That’s a heck’uva lot of people.”

“The nicest thing about the future is that it always starts tomorrow.”

*

SNOWBALL

I recently did a blog about the death of a chicken that neighbor Doug had named ‘Snowball’ ‘n which I described as a ‘Silkie’...I had an inquiry as to what the devil was a Silkie so here’s a pic...seems they’re originally from southeast Asia ‘n brought to Europe by that famed explorer Marco Polo who we all know from the teenage water game prevalent among the young harridans today....’course, that’s another story entirely ‘n nuthin’ to do with the reality of what happens to pets when their owners tire of them...

It seems that Silkies make good pets as far as chickens as pets go...they’re docile, not aggressive ‘n good brooders....

(as an aside, I tried brooding for awhile when I wuz younger but not being a young Brando, it didn’t really suit my personality)...

When turistas wax enthuiastic about the feral fowl of Ol Fair Oaks, I gene’lly reply that I prefer chicken fried 'n roasted is good also but the older larger birds should ideally be stewed with dumplings...but when I googled the Silkie, I found out that they have dark blue flesh which I find esthetically ....hmm, unappetizing...but that’s just me...

Anyways, while walking in the park t’other day, we came upon three buff-colored Silkies huddled t’gether ‘n rather obviously at a loss as to what they were s’pozed to be doing...Millyrose wuz so taken by them that she inquired of a friend of hers about a chicken coop...

fortunately, the coop wuz no longer available so I don’t have to deal with them but I wudn’t mind at all if someone came along, took pity on the three of them ‘n perpetrated a rescue...

“There is no reward or punishment in Nature; there is only consequence.”

“Inflation is when you pay fifteen dollars for the ten dollar haircut you use’ta get for five dollars when you had hair.”

A big WHOOP-DE-DOO for Apple Hill....it is still an absolutely luv’ly place to spend a lazy October afternoon...but OMG it is pricey...$15 pies, $5 a slice, $2 for a styrofoam cup of generic coffee....you’d think the place wuz Starbucks...not so many people on a Thursday afternoon which made for pleasant driving on those twisty little roads (hate it when I’m basically sight-seeing ‘n got forty-leven cars behind me),,,

Still, apple pie, apple turnovers with ice cream ‘n Millyrose scarfing down a slab of strawberry/rhubarb pie...rhubarb is kind’a like pun’kin far as I’m concerned...

it’s sumthin’ that ever’body else likes ‘n it looks good but it’s on the same list as eggplant ‘n broccoli...d’ya know that list? That’s the one where the food is better when it’s in disguise...ah well, life ain’t all p’nut butter ‘n jelly...

“There is always a lot t’be thankful for if you take the time to look. For example, I’m sitting here thinking how nice it is that wrinkles don’t hurt.”

Passing daze....

“In youth, the days are short ‘n the years are long; in old age, the years are short ‘n the days are long so I guess, if you live long enuff, things even out on their own.”

It’s been a nice long summer...still got lots ‘n lots of green leaves on the trees even tho’ there’s a lot of brown ones on the ground...don’t get the ‘fall color’ so much here in Paradise West but the liquidambers are turning red ‘n that’s always pretty...I didn’t look at the clock when I woke in the wee small hours last nite ‘n decided that we needed an extra blanket so I guess that winter is on the way...winter here in Ol Fair Oaks ain’t really winter in the same sense that folks in other areas of the country have winter...what we get mostly is rain ‘n fog ‘n overcast skies ‘n nitetime temps down in the low 30’s...once in a while maybe down in the high 20’s...it’s been knows to freeze around here tho’...I recall back in...oh, ‘86 or ‘87 thereabouts, the temp dipped into the teens....lotta damage to pipes, plants ‘n such...ah well, life comes at you whether you’re ready or not ‘n you might as well make the best of it cuz whatever you get is what you got...

Gonna head up to Apple Hill this afternoon...should be a pleasant trip...

enjoy the sunshine, eat a little pie, ‘n bring home a couple boxes of apples for more pies ‘n some of Millyrose’s apple butter...gotta say, I do like apple butter...comfort food for me going back to when we’d visit Grandma Smith...she made hers in a big kettle outside...

The ‘olden daze’ may have been lacking in a lot of stuff but they sure do make for good mem’ries....

“I’m thinkin’ that gettin’ old is a high price to pay for maturity but it also seems t’be the only available way to live a long life.”

“When you get old, you don’t need a lot but the little that you need, you need a lot...”

‘OLD MEN ‘N BEARDS’

Hair is a funny thing if you think on it, I mean, you either have it or you don’t or maybe you’re just somewhere inbetween...I’ve had hair most of my life ‘cept for a short time when I wuz naked all over ‘cuz of the chemotherapy (it wuz cold) ~ When I wuz a teenager in the USAF, my Drill Instructor insisted that I shave on a daily basis...when I tried to point out that as I had no facial hair of which to speak, it wuz an exercise in futility, he pointed out that it just wudn’t my choice ‘n I wuz to shave each ‘n every day or face the punishment of ‘his’ choice...it all made perfect sense at the time..

Anyways, from time to time, I grow bored with the daily shave ‘n I just don’t do it...’n that acts like a universal prompter for women ‘n gurlz ‘n the question, “Are you growing a beard?”

The truthful answer is that basically I have ceased stopping the beard from growing but that’s kind of a smart-alecky response (so I’ve been told)...

That’s usually followed up by “How long are you going to keep it?”...’n the truthful answer is I don’t know...one day I’ll feel like shaving ‘n I’ll shave...

In the meantime, have you noticed all the old men with grey beards n’ mustaches...I don’t know what it is about old men ‘n beards but there seems t’be a lot of ‘em ‘n a lot of ‘em with grey ponytails...whatever floats your boat, I guess...one of the interesting aspects of getting older is that the older you get the less importance you attach to what other people think of you...at least, I think that may be why old people dress the way they do...the ubiquitous ‘they’ claim that young dominates...in fashion, in television ‘n movies, in just about everything that comes along but maybe it just ain’t true...why else would you have so many people wearing sweats ‘n cargo pants....it’s old people that are the driving force behind comfortable clothing, clothing with pockets, ‘n sneakers...I don’t know what sneakers young people prefer...don’t care, for that matter but almost all the old(er) people are wearing New Balance sneakers...I s’pect the company’ud probably prefer a couple superstar athletes but in the meantime they’ll have to settle for having all the old people in the USA wearing their brand...

“A lot of young people complain about the old drivers ~ we don’t drive that bad, we’re the only ones that have the time t’do the speed limit.”

“We’re all only young once; that’s all society can stand.”

Stealing apples again....well, not perzackly stealing ‘em as my nabor wuz standin’ there watching....her only complaint wuz that I wuz taking all the low-hanging fruit ‘n she’d have to figger out how to get the higher ones...I pointed out that her garden tools wuz a ‘hull lot handier to her than they wuz to me ‘n that all she had to do wuz pull the branches down a little bit....’n of course, leave the ones at the top of the tree for the birds ‘n squirrels or whatever wild critters wanted ‘em bad enuff.....(I also promised her a piece of the pie I’m hoping Millyrose’ll make with the ones that I carried home but that’s the price you pay for stealing fruit in the daytime)

In the olden daze...those golden daze of yore...we did our liberating by the light of the moon whether it was apples or watermelons or whatever ‘n I ain’t gonna talk about the whatever cuz some people got long mem’ries ‘n age don’t mellow ever’one....I recall one kind’a moonish nite, a bunch of the boyz wuz whooping it up at Ye Olde LazyBoy Shoppe ‘n someone, don’t remember who, tho’t it’ud be a good idea to hop into a little ol car that just happened to belong to a solid gold member in good standing ‘n go out in the country to a place that had more’n a plentitude of apple trees....the plan wuz that we’d go gather enuff apples to make some apple wine...at least, that’s the way I remember it ‘n I’m the one tellin’ the tale...

Now as I recall, along the way, we ran into a hill so steep that the little ol car wudn’t climb it without we all got out ‘n walked while the solid gold member in good standing that owned the vehicle backed it up the hill....

As to the actual ‘gathering’ of the intended fruit for the purpose of making apple wine, let me just say that somehow by hook or by crook we managed to get a sufficiency of apples but we decided to take another way home...a more circuitous route as I now dimly recall...’n along the way, the vehicle that belonged to the solid gold member in good standing decided that it had gone far enuff for one evening ‘n we wuz forced to walk....

It was a longish way down that hill ‘n out’a that hollow to the winding two-lane blacktop that led back to the safety of South Shore ‘n sumtime in the wee hours of the morning, we got tired ‘n sat down in the roadway determined to wait for a kind-hearted person to pick us up ‘n save our weary feet ~ Now, it wuz one of those coolish fall nites with a little spotty fog here ‘n there ‘n the two-lane blacktop had kept it’s warmth from the long day ‘n being the hardy teenagers with the crystal clear consciences that we all posessed in abundance, we pretty

soon stretched ourselves out ‘n went to sleep...’course, we all came awake at the tortured scream of rubber tires on blacktop as our early morning savior hit his brakes in a panic stop when he saw a half-dozen bodies in his headlites...

And as a footnote, the apple wine wuz just plain nasty!

W.C. Fields always claimed that it was a woman who drove him to drink ‘n he always regretted that he never thanked her.

Stealing apples.....

“When the problem is not so much resisting temptation as finding, you c’d be just getting older.”

Out walking with ‘da boyz’....such a pleasant afternoon...saw my Oncologist this morning....Boy! I’ll tellya, I cudn’t handle a job like his...well, even if I had his education ‘n expertise, I still cudn’t do it...’course, I’ve been a little ray of sunshine in his life ‘cuz my cancer (knock on wood) has seemingly gone away...my next check-up in six months’ll be my five year cancer-free one... well, that’s the plan anyways...

One of my neighbors has a couple apple trees in her backyard....she never ever touches them...the only time she ever comments on them is in the Spring when they’re in bloom ‘n then her comments are pretty much directed at how sad it is that the blooms don’t last longer...I dunno what kind of apples they are... Macintosh p’haps or sumthin’ similar...

the price is right tho’....a plastic bag stuffed in my pocket, hold both leashes in one hand ‘n pick with the other ‘n free apples....maybe, with a little luck, an apple pie...

Talking of apples, next week we’re gonna make a little trip to Apple Hill...Well, y’know, it’s that time of year...Millyrose set it up with a friend of hers so the four of us’ll spend the day wand’ring ‘round ‘n about the twisty little roads, searching out the nooks ‘n crannies of all the apple growers....I s’pect I should prob’ly keep a stern eye on my blood sugar cuz they make some tasty apple treats ‘n they make ‘em with sugar...(they make some that are sugar-free but what’s the point, what’s the point)...I’m talkin’ apple pie, apple strudel, apple dumplings, apple fritters, apple cider...they got apple dolls ‘n apple peelers...’n seems like ever’ year or so, they got a new apple that I never heard of before...who’da tho’t that there were so many apples that all taste different while still tasting the same....t’is a puzzlement for sure....

You c’n even find some of those old-timey apples that have all but disappeared...you know, the favorites of yesteryear that you didn’t even know existed....I remember a green apple from back home years ago that ev’ryone called ‘Transparent’.....Matt Hansen had some of those trees ‘n my cousin ‘n I use’ta couldn’t wait for ‘em to get ripe ‘n green apples’ll give a boy a bellyache...I don’t know if it works that way for girls or not but it was a different age altogether.....Transparents were really good cooking apples...fried apples ‘n biscuits were darn near as good as real apple pie...

“They say you can’t turn back the clock but you can wind it up again...’n that’s why I’m going to Apple Hill...

Sagacious tho't in the wee hours.....

“The Gospel Truth, more or less.” Justin Other Smith

Back a long, long time ago when my granddaddy wuz a boy, country boys had a game where they’d fling dried cowpies at one another.

That was a pop’lar game in west Texas where it don’t hardly ever rain ‘n they’s an abundance of cowpies.

It rained in west Texas, so I been told, at or around the time of Noah’s flood ‘n there wuz this old Baptist preacher who walked out on the prairie to get down on his knees ‘n thank the Lord for the shower.

When he knelt down, he did so in a freshly wet cowpie which frustrated him no end. Being a Baptist preacher means you ain’t allowed to swear, ‘specially at your maker which is why the Baptists invented euphemisms in the first place. Anyways, he stood up, shook his fist at the Lord ‘n shouted out “Ah Frisbee!”

Will Rogers had some good advice that’ud work for Pres. Obama t’day when he said, “If you’re ridin’ ahead o’ the herd, take a look back now ‘n then t’make sure it’s still there.”

“One of the signs of old age is when you begin to ponder over problems that shouldn’t concern you at all.”

Walking da boyz on a coolish mid-week morning...while the haughty, disdainful catz stare down Willie, the chickens all scatter like the ‘dry leaves before the wild hurricane fly’...

My neighbor with the soft heart for the feral fowl that inhabit our little corner of the world came out to ask me to keep an eye out for the large white flightless rooster that was recently ‘dropped off’ by ~ well, whatever you want to call someone who tires of a pet ‘n callously drops ‘em off to fend for themselves...

Anyways, she was concerned that the bird might not have made it thru the nite...but, it did! Dunno how much longer he’ll last...chickens that can’t fly don’t stand much of a chance on the wild ‘n wooly streets of Ol Fair Oaks...

Ah well, tardy sun t’day...makes for a pleasant Autumnal afternoon....should’a been working in the yard but fortunately a couple other things managed to snag my attention.....sometimes those other things are hard to come by but I’ve always been lucky that way.....

“When someone has a strong intuitive connection, Buddha sez it’s ‘cause of karma.”

MULTIMEDIA

Rainy Wednesday

PHOTOS

Celebrity

Meltdowns: Kim Delaney Speech

SAD

FURIOUS

THRILLED

BORED

Rainy Wednesday

PHOTOS

Celebrity

Meltdowns: Kim Delaney Speech

SAD

FURIOUS

THRILLED

BORED

Strollin’ around the Village with my two buddies on this Indian Summer day...

seems like we got ourselves an influx of new residents...on a temporary basis anyhow....a lot of really pretty exotic chickens are being dropped off here lately...dunno why perzackly...the folks that drop ‘em off would be kinder to their pets if they wuz to just kill ‘n eat them...

guess they find it hard to eat what has been a pet but seems t’me to be cruelly indifferent to their fate when they so casually drop off flightless chickens to fend for themselves...’course, our omnipresent coyotes ‘n raccoons love the fact that these birds not only can’t fly to get away but since they’ve been pets, they are fearless....

They don’t wander far from wherever they’re dropped...they wait patiently for someone, anyone, to come feed them...and if they last a week on their own, it’s only by sheer chance...

People have been dropping off cats ‘n dogs for a long time...they blame it on the economy...can’t afford their pets...’course, most of ‘em still manage to scrape up enuff money for beer ‘n cigarettes...

Freedom comes at a turrible price for most abandoned pets...

“Y’know, I always believed that there just hadda be a day or two in a body’s life when you’d be the precise age for something important.”

Up early again....not sure why...p’haps it’s only to see which rooster wakes the sun..

Gawd knows there’s a lot of ‘em vying for the prestige of it this morning...from one end of the street to the other, sound like...I guess all Gawds critters got to keep busy doing something...

Method to the madness, huh? That’s prob’ly why I write this blog...I gave up a long time ago on ever striking the Motherlode in writing...prob’ly didn’t want it badly enuff....sort’a like my fly-fishing daze....I enjoyed crawling around the riverbanks ‘n the fly rod ‘n gear gave me an excuse....when I wuz a boy back in those long ago daze in Beattyville, I think most of the boys carried line ‘n hooks ‘n sinkers in their pockets ‘n the banks of the Ohio River were lined with Willow trees which makes a pretty good substitute for the more traditional bamboo that fly rod purists love...Heck! I don’t think that I’d ever heard of fly fishing when I was a boy...well, maybe when I got into my teens but by then I wuzn’t much interested in anything but girls ‘n cars.....I went to ballgames ‘n movies ‘n suchlike but truth be told, I went because that’s where the girls were...’course, the girls were more’n likely there because that’s where the boys were....sort’a like ‘one hand washes the other’ like my Granny use’ta say...or the old song, ‘Love ‘n marriage, horse ‘n carriage, can’t have one without the other’....a big hit for Sinatra as I recall...

Anyways, the roosters have a pretty good competition going this morning ‘n I see the sun yawning over the mountains....I think it’s time for another cup of coffee...

“I don’t do alcohol anymore ~ I get the same effect from standing up fast.”

“They say time heals all wounds but I’ve found it’s hard on the liver.”

Habitz are funny things....I mean, why would someone who doesn’t have to get up at a p’ticklar time bother to set an alarm clock?

I dunno why so-called ‘good’ habits are so easy to break ‘n ‘bad’ habits so hard to give up....t’is a puzzlement, as the Bard use’ta say....or so we’re told that he said, we don’t really know that at all....as a matter of fact, there’s still a lot of disagreement as to whether or not the Bard was really ‘The Bard’...some folk say that Shakespeare was just a beard for Christopher Marlowe....’n I gotta say, if one person actually wrote all the stuff that is attributed to Mr. Shakespeare, he was one prolific writer...we only got a little bit of Shakespeare when I was in high school back in that long ago time...

Miz Opal Bassler was responsible for the little bit of Shakespeare that actually penetrated my brain (such as it is)...

Actually, she was the best English teacher I ever had, including the college teachers...I never realized just how much Shakespeare I’d been exposed to until one fine afternoon when I had a forced timeout due to mechanical failure...I was drinking a beer ‘n listening to a nearby radio which just happened t’be broadcasting Henry V...I was astonished how much of it I’d heard before ‘n how many phrases from Shakespeare were used in daily life by so many people who hadn’t a clue that they were quoting the great Willie Shakespeare...’n you still hear the same thing t’day from the same clueless people....’n the same argument about whether or not Shakespeare actually wrote all that stuff is still around...

The ‘ubiquitous they’ say that history repeats itself ‘n they also say that he who doesn’t learn from his mistakes is doomed to repeat them...could be that history is just habit-forming ‘n that we, as mere flyspeckes, must shuffle off this mortal coil without ever catching a clue....

“When you’re young, MacBeth is a character part. When you’re older, it’s a straight part.” Laurence Olivier

“Old age ain’t so bad when you consider the alternative.”

Quiet Satidaze are often the lead-in to quiet Sundaze ‘n that’s pretty much the case here in Ol Fair Oaks...at least on Crestline Avenue...well, relatively quiet anyways...we still have a multitude of feral fowl which means that we have a lot of roosters in competition to wake up the sun to get another day started.....’n Sunrise Boulevard....one fine Spring day several years ago, Millyrose ‘n I spent the nite in a teeny-tiny cabin built on the banks of the Snake River....The river was running high with snow melt ‘n made a constant roar....I remarked that it sounded a lot like Sunrise Blvd only without the sirens or the sound of protesting rubber before the resulting crash of automotive metal meeting other automotive metal....ah, civilization.....

And speaking of civilization, it’ud seem the barbarians are at the gates....I guess in long-ago, once upon a time Roma, it’ud been called ‘Occupy Roma’...t’day, it’s Occupy Wall Street or in the case of Sackamenna, Occupy Cesar Chavez Park...

It’s the ‘Gimmee’ crowd, those modern Robin Hoodies who preach ‘steal from the rich ‘n give to the poor’...’course, like every bandito from time immemorial, they kind’a neglect to mention that the poor they’re talking about are themselves...

When Willie Sutton (famous bank robber of once upon a time) was asked why he robbed banks, he replied, “That’s where the money is.”...John Dillinger robbed banks for the same reason ‘n Jesse James robbed banks ‘n trains for the same reason...Obama ‘n his posse may well have grabbed a tiger by the tail when they glommed on to (‘n semi-legitimized) this latest round of dirty-shirt democracy by mob rule....

But Willie ‘n Rusty don’t care ‘n strolling around sleepy little Ol Fair Oaks makes it seem like the trials ‘n tribulations of much of the world is far, far away....

Someone dropped off another really pretty chicken down t’the California House t’other day....must’a been raised with dogs cuz she didn’t turn a feather when Willie charged her...puzzled him no end when she didn’t run...if they don’t play the game ‘n run from him, he loses interest in a hurry....if someone doesn’t pick her up ‘n take her home, she won’t last too long...tame chickens that don’t know how to run away from danger make a good meal for Wile E. Coyote or maybe even Sunday dinner for one of the Raccoon families that inhabit our little corner of the world.....

“A bus station is where a bus stops. A train station is where a train stops. On my desk, I have a work station.”

“You are only young once, but you can stay immature indefinitely. ~Ogden Nash

Y’know, a body gets some awful strange tho’ts right before waking up, ‘specially on a lazy Sati’day mornin’.....

Mark Twain said that ‘there are three kinds of liars. Liars, damn liars, and statisticians.’...’course, old Mark stole that from Benjamin Disraeli ‘n I don’t know who Disraeli stole it from but he was a politician so you know he stole it just the same....

Anyways, the latest statistic said that durn near 10% of the population of these good old United States are substance abusers...’n not only substance abusers but the very worst kind of substance abusers because they are the chronic unemployed ‘n the rest of us have to take care of them...by that, I mean that by virtue of our current laws, we have to provide them with food ‘n shelter ‘n medical care along with their substance of choice....

Now, totalitarian states like China don’t have a problem with chronically unemployed substance abusers ‘cause they killed them all off ‘n they’re more’n happy to oblige anybody who’d think it was a good idea t’day, but I don’t think that’ll ever happen here...on that proverbial other hand, I seem to recall a James Bond movie called, “Never say never.”..Of course, being a ‘cranky old fart’ as I was recently tagged by a much younger somewhat Marxist-oriented friend, I learned that never say never thingy long before I ever heard of James Bond but I was just making a point of reference...

Another thing I was wond’ring about on this slow Satiday is why all the younger set who seem to be constantly promoting Marxist ideology all deny being Marxists....t’is a wonderment!

I don’t have any problem calling m’self a conservative...of course, I figger the opposite of conservative is wastrel which is much a much more apt term than those who call themselves Progressive Liberals which don’t really mean much because they ain’t really progressive ‘n durn sure ain’t liberal...

Old men like givin’ good advice when they get too old to set a bad example.

Round tuit's.....

"Be careful reading the fine print, there's no way you're going to like it."

It’s always been in the back of my mind that some day I’d get a round tuit....so far, it ain’t happened but, as you may know, the ubiquitous ‘they’ say that hope springs eternal...

I been watching all them rich Republicans 'n their staged debates...They all agree they want to get rid of Obama 'n they all agree that no matter who gets the nod, one of the very first things they're gonna do is to reform the tax system of this country....

anyways, they keep talking about a fair tax....

'Course, that's what the Democrats want also...well, that's what a bunch of 'em are saying anyways...

Seems like Obama ain't very popular with much of anybody 'cept Hollywood celebrities .....

Anyways, on that ‘fair’ tax thing....if I pay the gov’t ten cents out of ev’ry dollar I make, they’re gonna get a little bit...if a millionaire pays ten cents out of ev’ry dollar, they’re gonna get a lot more ‘n if a billionaire pays ten cents out of ev’ry dollar, the gov’t is gonna get just a whole helluva lot more...’n if corporations pay ten cents out of ev’ry dollar ‘n ain’t allowed to hide their assets in foreign lands, omg...I don’t think God ‘ud be able to figure out how much money the gov’t ‘ud make...

‘Course, one of the biggest problems facing the proponents of a ‘fair’ tax is that this country now has a majority of voters that believe that they shouldn’t have to pay any tax at all because ‘rich’ people should pay for ev’ryone else to ride simply because they have more money!

Maybe every working person should quit his or her job ‘n go demonstrate against banks ‘n bankers ‘n corporate wealth because it’s obvious to everyone that God really loves only the poor else why did He make so many of us....

Oh, and camels can’t get thru the eye of a needle ‘n all those rich people are going to Hell no matter what they think.....

"The trouble with bucket seats is that ev'ryone ain't got the same size bucket."

A boring p'litical post....

“A fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject.” Winston Churchill

The Democrats have created a mob in the ‘Occupy Wall Street’ protests and mobs are notoriously fractious. Mobs have historically been known to bite the hand that feeds.

The mob in Egypt, the media-supported ‘Arab Spring’ toppled a longstanding government. Whether that government needed to be displaced or not is moot.

The mob in Libya has also managed to topple a government but at a terribly high cost and not without involving other countries in what essentially should have been an internal matter.

The world has not overtly intervened in a similar situation in Syria.

The USSR quashed an uprising in Hungary in 1956 while the world looked on.

The Chinese did the same thing in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

In 1932, the ‘Bonus Army’, 43,000 strong, gathered in Washington, D.C. to protest the governments refusal to pay the bonus that had been promised. President Hoover ordered the army to remove them. General McArthur led the infantry and cavalry that drove them from their encampment and burned their shelters and belongings.

In recent months, mobs in Greece, Spain, England and Portugal have gathered for what was supposed to be peaceful protests but the resulting anarchy brought death and destruction and no positive change for anyone involved.

It is my hope that the ‘Occupy Wall Street’ protests will fizzle with the onset of winter weather but mobs by their very nature are unpredictable. “They who sow the wind shall reap the whirlwind.”

“There are basically two types of people. Those who accomplish things and those who claim to have accomplished things. The first group is less crowded.” Mark Twain

“A time for every season.....”

There is a reason for ever’thing!

...At least, I hope there is...I think maybe that might be one of those unspoken universal prayers that comes to everybodys mind at some time or other in their life regardless of race, color, or creed...

So it’s Autumn ‘n the leaves are drifting down...all part of Ma Natures grand plan of life, death, ‘n regeneration...for untold generations, people just nachelly accepted Autumn as the season inbetween summer ‘n winter ‘n never gave it much more tho’t....Back in eastern Kentucky where I grew up, come fall, people raked up all the leaves that fell in their yards ‘n burned ‘em....the smell of burning leaves was a constant reminder that it was, after all, FALL!

When I first came to Sacramento, people did the same here... every backyard had a ‘burn’ barrel...they not only burned their leaves, they burned their trash as well...lotta toxic smoke went into the Sackamenna air in them there daze....not allowed anymore....can’t burn leaves, can’t burn trash...rice farmers can’t burn their fields anymore....well, they didn’t do that in the fall anyway but stopping it was a good thing, at least for people with allergies...

Here t’is Columbus day ‘n nobody’ud be burning t’day anyway cuz it’s raining...

I’m pretty sure that we’re gonna get several weeks of beautiful sunshiny Indian summer type weather here pretty soon but maybe not...I dunno if winter brings the rain or rain brings the winter but seems like the Sackamenna region c’n maybe only handle one type of weather at at time ‘n right now we got rain...

You shouldn’t complain about the rain, just think of those poor, dry people in Texas ‘n keep on treading water.

Sati’day morn.....

“Start ev’ry day off with a smile ‘n get it over with.”

The sun is back after 3 daze of early winter-like weather...’n I wuz sleepin’ almost soundly when Willie decided that he wanted to go outside ‘ n when he wants to go outside...well, I’m sure you get the picture....he jumped on my chest, stuck his face in my face ‘n stared at me...it was a non-verbal assault ‘n it always works...if he’d screamed at me, I prob’ly wud’ve screamed back (or not) ...

At any rate, we got out of bed went outside to greet the morning....I took a somewhat monolithic stance on the pathway while Willie ‘n Rusty nosed among the fallen leaves searching for the absolutely perfect place...you’d think that having the entire world (more or less) to use as a bathroom ‘ud be enuff but dogs, inexplicably, must have that one spot, that one perfect spot, ‘n they sniff ‘n circle until they find it....

Anyways, by the time we got back inside there wuz no reason for me t’go back to bed so I made coffee...found the one remaining do-nut from yesterday, divided it evenly....I could’a eated the whole thing with no p’ticklar effort but I’ve been married a long time ‘n see no reason for ill feelings on an otherwise quiet Sati’day morning....

“Remember, a dead fish c’n float downstream but it takes a live one to swim upstream.”

“The best cure for insomnia is to get a lot of sleep.” W. C. Fields

In the wee hours....

I’m tellin’ you, when a body can’t sleep, the computer is simply put an outstanding invention....the number of Solitaire games alone ‘ud be worth the price of admission...plus you can wander all around the world reading newspapers that don’t make any more sense than your own local paper ‘cept the names are more difficult to pronounce...you got The New York Times, The London Times, The Irish Times...The Times of India....all in addition to The Portsmouth Times (which I read mainly for the obits)...England is a rather tiny island nation with, I think, durn near as many newspapers as the USA...France has newspapers but it’s a law somewhere that you gotta be French to read them....Italian newspapers are like Italian movies, incomprehensible but full of joie de vivre which is French but that’s the Italians for you...I was reading The Australian for awhile but lately I’ve been perusing the Buenos Aires Herald....I don’t know how many papers around the globe are called ‘The Herald’....I think New Zealand has a Herald...I’ll have to give it a try...I tried reading the Brazilian news but gave it up early on....I don’t know why I still subscribe to a daily paper....habit, I suppose...I don’t like the Sacramento Bee...I never have but after they ran the Sacramento Union out of business, it didn’t leave much choice...I could have boycotted them, I guess, but it wouldn’t have done any good...I boycott Nike...have done so for years on account of the child labor thing...don’t even know if they still do that but I expect they do..
I think now I mostly boycott them out of habit...I don’t think they’ve ever taken any notice but that’s alright...I use’ta boycott Hershey after they moved all their operations to Mexico...I don’t buy Hershey anymore but not because of a boycott...it’s just because I don’t eat a lot of candy anymore...well, except for See’s...a man can’t give up everything.....

W. C. Fields said, “If I could live my life over, I’d like it to be over a saloon.”

“A fanatic is one who can’t change his mind ‘n won’t change the subject.” W. Churchill

I ain’t in any hurry....I think that prob’ly comes with gettin’ older...’n older don’t make a body any smarter but if it don’t bring a little more wisdom to the party then it’s all been a bit of a waste...

When I wuz young, seems like I wuz always in a hurry to go someplace...I can’t remember now what wuz so important that I had to hurry up ‘n get there...use’ta say in the military that it wuz all ‘hurry up ‘n wait’...seems like that has become the Obama Administration mantra....gotta hurry up ‘n pass this bill or that bill or whatever bill...once it’s passed, you can sit down ‘n take your time to read it ‘n find out what you’ve done to yourselves...gotta hurry up, hurry up...well, the old joke wuz ‘there ain’t nuthin’ certain ‘cept death ‘n taxes ‘n the cost of dyin’ has been pretty much the same for centuries on end’...

I read in the Snooze-Nooze that there are scads of millionaires asking Obama to raise their taxes...Now speaking just for myself, I don’t think there’s any rules or regulations or prohibitions that states emphatically that millionaires can’t pay more taxes than the gov’t sez they owe... ‘if they’re a mind to’...The gov’t has lots of laws ‘n such that sez a body ain’t allowed to pay less than the gov’t sez they owe but nowhere does it say that they can’t pay more....

And for all those indefatigable folk out there in never-never land who’re protesting that big banks ‘n Wall St are cheating them out of their inalienable rights to life, liberty ‘n the pursuit of happiness, I’d just like to remind them that it’s their BIG GOVERNMENT that passes the laws ‘n regulations that allow what they regard as ‘legalized theft’ ‘n all they’d have t’do is join one of the Tea Parties ‘n call for a smaller, more responsive gov’t. ‘Course, then they wudn’t get to camp on the sidewalks ‘n get their pictures in the papers ‘n on the telly....Fame is so addictive.....

“The world is gettin’ t’be such a dangerous place, a man is lucky to get out of it alive.” W.C. Fields

Autumnal ponderings....

Getting old seems t’be the only available way to live a long life.

Winter’s coming early this year....Well, that’s what the ubiquitous ‘they’ say anyway....in a normal year (whatever that is) winter comes strolling into northern California in the first part of November having already flexed them winter muscles in a couple different places...

sometimes it comes in quiet ‘n sneaky ‘n sometimes it does one of those Pearl Harbor sneak attacks...this year seems t’be one ‘a those tentative feel its way into the neighborhood kind of fall....just a little early...the gutters haven’t been cleaned out yet, the patio umbrella is still up protecting that beat-up old lawn furniture from the sun that ain’t there at the moment...I still have a lawnmower sitting idle in the side yard almost covered by the sycamore leaves that have been piling up for a couple weeks now...

I know, I could’a cleaned all that up on a daily basis but I didn’t....I never do really since one of the things that I hate t’do is yard work...maybe that’s kind’a strong...I don’t know that I actually ‘hate’ work...it never did really bother me much ‘n I tried hard not to bother it much...it ain’t so much that I’m lazy, it’s just that I tend t’be on the trifling side....

Back when I was a boy, back in that once upon a time daze of halcyon youth, people didn’t, for the most part, have large lawns ‘cause they had to cut the grass their own selves ‘n nobody had power mowers...

well, most families had mowers powered by teenage sons ‘n they’re notoriously famous for malfunctioning in the middle of the job ‘n I wudn’t any different...I hated mowing the durn grass...My dad liked lawns however but that was mainly ‘cause he’d look at it ‘n say t’me that “the grass needs cutting” and I wuz the one that wuz s’pozed to jump out there with a big smile on my face ‘n push that darn mower ‘round ‘n ‘round...I’ll tellya true, I still hate cutting that darn grass ‘n when I c’n avoid it, I do so.....

Anyways, winter is coming on ‘n I need to pull the lawnmower into the basement ‘n store away the patio umbrella ‘n I ought’a throw away the durn lawn furniture...I need to keep the rakes handy ‘n I don’t want to get too awful far from my handy dandy electric leaf blower (it’s kind’a comforting to have it close to hand)....

Ah, it’s gonna rain.....ain’t really seen any rain here since last April or maybe it was sometime in May...I forget which...

“The laziest man I ever met put popcorn in his pancakes so they’d turn over by themselves.” W. C. Fields

“Don’t worry about your heart, it’ll last you as long as you live.”

Okay! So I’m sitting at the stoplight waiting for the left turn signal to the village..on my way home from a trip to Trader Joe’s for milk ‘n such in my 6 year old Toyota Cheapster’.....can’t say I wuz thinking about much of anything it being a soft ‘n quiet Sunday afternoon when I wuz ‘wakened from my reverie by the sound of a tuned dual exhaust revving ‘n the sudden ‘n startling high pitched squeal of rubber on the roadway ‘n the sight of a buffed ‘n toned metallic blue Ferrari screaming as it roared into life, making the left turn onto Sunrise, fishtailing as the driver shifted gears...ah golden youth...no matter how old or young the driver might have been for that matter, driving like the 16 year olds of my youth....

Ah well, home again, home again, jiggety-jog.....

“Horse sense is the thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on people.” W. C. Fields