Another day 'n time.....

I wuz six years old, Christmas 1942.  I can’t tell you what I got for Christmas that year, probably a toy gun, a book, some clothing.  The world was at war ’n things were rationed, hard to come by.  Sugar wuz in short supply ’n expensive so candy was rare.  Well, lots of things were rare back then. But, there wuz a Christmas tree.  Almost every home had one.  But there weren't many strung with lights.  Matter of fact, not many of them had lightsat all.  Heck, not every home wuz electrified in those halycon days.  Hard to believe but people would put candles in their trees ’n light them. Can you imagine, open flames ’n dried evergreen. Had to keep an eagle eye or watch the house go up in smoke…And because it wuz wartime, outside lights were prohibited.  Air raid wardens made sure that blinds ’n curtains were drawn so that no light showed to tell enemy bombers where to drop their explosives.  Not that there wuz much chance of any enemy bombers finding their way to the middle of the country but everyone wuz patriotic ’n nobody wanted to take any chances.

It’s a different world today in so many ways, one of which is that people are encouraged to enter into competitions to see how many lights can go on a home.  I’m told some of the decorated homes can be seen from space.

I don’t think people are any happier today but probably not really any unhappier. Most likely, six of one 'n half dozen of the other. Every age has its own problems, its own fears.  People like to remark that the forties or the fifties or whatever age their childhood happened to be, wuz somehow a more innocent time, slower, less stressful.  It ain’t true, y’know.  People been making their own stress since the dawn of time. We are supposed to be unique, I'm told, as every snowflake is supposed to be a little different, but what we are, what we really are, what makes us human is our similarities.  We’re all pretty much alike, the same fears ’n frustrations, the same dreams.  And it don’t much matter what your pigmentation might be, or your gender, or your religious beliefs or lack of them. To quote the long forgot Mr. Kipling, the Colonel's lady ’n Rosie O’Grady are sisters under the skin…..

Christmas of 1942 wuz seventy years ago, a diffent time ’n place.  Seems like the more things change, the more they saty the same.

Merry Christmas to all…..

Waiting for the snow…

well, ’They’ say it’s gonna snow here…here meaning Ol Fair Oaks…I’m taking one of those I’m from Missouri stands on it howsumever ’n I’ll believe it when I see the white stuff in the air…it could happen….but I don’t think we’ll see it on the ground….

I recall one time when we lived over on Montcurve (‘bout a mile away)…it wuz early evening, around dinnertime, I think, when the word began to spread that it wuz snowing ’n we, along with most of the neighbors, came outside to stand in the street ’n watch the snowflakes as they drifted around…I don’t remember any of them ever actually hitting the ground…I do remember Ron Buehler standing in the street ’n offering me a glass of wine…I believe he wuz drinking Gallo Hearty Burgundy at the time…

Ron had a ’62 TR3….it wuz technically, I think, a TR3B which means that it wuz a TR3 body but a TR4 underneath…Triumph Motors wuz big on doing that…didn’t like to waste money…made for some interesting models however, ‘specially when an owner went looking for replacement parts…..back in those halycon daze, I owned for a couple years, a ’57 TR3…interesting model year as there wuz an early model ’n a late model ’n both of them looked the same on the outside…the early model using up all the parts that had been left over from the ’56 model year….

When reminiscing about my little Triumph, I generally describe it as being the best and the worst little car I ever owned…it wuz certainly the most fun being essentially an oversized skateboard that you cudn’t find parts for this side of the Atlantic Ocean…

The last year I owned it, the canvas top shredded so bad, I just threw it away ’n went topless….

Hak, hak, koff, koff....

Debilitate is a ten dollar word that translates into getting one’s butt kicked…

So, the cold, sneezy, runny nose part ain’t exactly fun but it’s the omnipresent coughing, the dry hacking, the light-headedness that ensues from attempting to expel all the air that occurs with the damn coughing, that is the true definition of debilitate…

The good news is…I don’t have pneumonia…pneumonia c’n be treated with antibiotics ’n suchlike but I don’t have it….I got a virus…my doctor very professionally informed me that I have “some kind of virus.”  

And antibiotics don’t work on viruses…they just have to run their course…so I came home with another bottle of codeine cough syrup ’n instructions not to take with alcohol…

In the olden days, I believe doctors use’ta prescribe brandy ’n whiskey….ah well, times change….when I wuz a boy, even tho’ most people knew that cigarettes were called ‘cancer sticks’ for a reason, advertisers insisted that smoking wuz good for you…I recall oldtimers blowing tobacco smoke into children’s lungs in the belief that it wus helpful…now the anti-tobacco people scream if they spot someone smoking on the street where they live ’n the ‘do-gooders’ want to raise taxes on cigarettes by another two or three dollars a pack….I suspect if you’re a shrewd enough biznessperson, that’ud look like an opportunity to go into the bootleg cigarette trade…

I saw a US Senator arguing with a pundit about the need to double the tax on a gallon of gas…the Senator wuz wearing a bicycle lapel pin ’n I’d say it’s even money than someone in his family has a vested interest in the bicycle business….they say Americans don’t really trust their fellow man all that much these days I say that you c’n almost always trust a politician to not only serve his or her self first but to take more’n his share if he thinks he c’n get away with it….’course, maybe I got a different definition of trust going on here…..

Anyway, according to the information that I got from my doctor this morning, the virus that is causing all my discomfort is just about run its course ’n I maybe got another week of the cough to deal with….that ain’t so bad, I guess…it’s cold outside ’n I c’n prob’ly force m’self to snuggle up ’n wait it out….Time flies whether you have fun or not….good tidings to all…. 

Ode to leftovers......

I think maybe Thanksgiving wuz more difficult back in the olden dayz, you know, before stretchy sweat pants.

Strolling with da boyz on what’ud be a really pleasant day after T’sgiving if it wudn’t for this Gawdawful cough that is clinging that old timey flypaper…

Now, I’m pretty durn sure that sticky flypaper strips is so far in the past that most of y’all ain’t never heard of it much less experienced it so you’ll just have to take my word for it that it wuz some sticky, clingey stuff ‘specially when it wuz covered with dead ’n dying flies….

Anyhow, as we wuz walkin’ down the street, me pretty much in the center of the byway ’n da boyz wuz hither ’n yonning to the best of their abilities ’n like most dogs, they’re pretty good hither ’n yonners…anyway, we passed Harry ’n Walter the Firehouse Roosters who appeared t’be looking for leftovers at the Chicken Wranglers abode…futher down the way, we came upon Doris or according to the Chicken Wrangler, more likely Daryl, who seemed to have a new companion…Doris/Daryl seems a little fickle but Harry ’n Walter prob’ly needed someone to yank their chains a bit anyway…

Doris/Daryl is a Silkie ’n according to the Chicken Wrangler most definitely a Daryl ’n I guess she’d know a lot better than me, my expertise being pretty much limited to the difference between reg’lar ’n extra crispy…

That said, ‘stead of having the family here for T’sgiving, Millyrose ’n I both fighting this cold, ever’one went to Kellye’s…(who posted a pic of Gina ’n the laden table on FB)…’n t’day, returning from our shortened stroll, there wuz Kellye doing her meals on wheels thing ’n bringing our leftovers lunch….we have a lot t’be thankful for but you knew that, didn’t you?

I'm almost pretty sure it ain't loaded....

I can say truthfully ’n honestly that even as a small child in the long, long ago, I’ve never had a ‘bad’ idea…To the contrary, all my ideas have been universally wonderful, maybe even at times, stupendous, but never, ever ‘bad’...

Now, you might think from reading a statement like that, that I might be just a trifle full of….wellll, whatever it is that people are full of when, y’know, they just are…

But, I’m not…y’see, everybody has wonderful ideas, nobody ever has a bad idea…which is not to say that acting on your wonderful idea always brings predictably wonderful results….Nah!  Mostly, good ideas kind’a stumble around in the dirt ’n the dust ’n the mire with a bunch of other great ideas from other people’n when they get all muddied up to where you have trouble recognizing which idea belong to who, why most often, people just kind’a walk away shaking their heads ’n muttering to themselves about what the hell just happened ’n that as a general rule is the end result of most ideas…

Clear as mud, right?

Now, you might think I’m talking about Obamacare or what wuz once upon a time called the Affordable Care Act which is turning out to be not so damn affordable after all ’n you could be right…at least, a little bit…I mean, y’know, ever’one likes a little bit of ‘I told you so’ once in a while even when you look around ’n the mud has pretty much stuck to ever’one…it being one of those ‘the rain falls on the just ’n the unjust alike’ moments…still, I can’t help pointing out that this p’ticklar muddy rain didn’t come from our Creator but from those wonderful folks in the United States government, most specifically those Democrat folks who, following the clear directions of Nancy (what, who, me?) Pelosi, voted the damn thing into law so that we could all find out what was in it…..There, I’ve said it!   

Hope ever’one has a Happy Turkey Day irregardless….

Iffy weather.....

"The rain falls on the just 'n the unjust alike....or so I've been told."

Y’wanna know what’s worse than being sick right before a major holiday???

It’s a rhetorical question, folks…what is worse than me being sick is for She who must be obeyed to come down with the same darn thing…’n it all seems to have fallen upon us courtesy of a little blonde charmer who, wherever she got it from, passed it on to her mother ’n in turn, her father ’n in the course of human events to me ’n Millyrose…So, a big round of applause for Mitzi who scored big-time by taking down at least four adults…

Mitzi loved the chickens ’n the park ’n the big slide ’n the climbing wall ’n wuz bound ’n determined to stay there, so much so that Millyrose gave up ’n called for the cavalry to come to the rescue (I drove to the park, snatched her up ’n drove home)…Well, you didn’t really believe that in this day ’n age, the aging hero w’ud still be riding a white horse…Nah!  An unwashed white Toyota Matrix is my choice of steed these daze…for the little jobs anyway, for bigger jobs, I go to the old standby, The 150…(still wish’t I had a barn to park it it howsumever)….

Anyway, Turkey Day is almost upon us ’n I’m the one nuking the chicken soup for Millyrose (only fair)…

Y’know, seems like it wuz only t’other day that I wuz chuckling over brother John ’n the colds he’s been catching from his g’children…I told him I’d been there ’n done that but my g’children are teenagers now ’n they haven’t given me a cold in a long time….Heck!  I consider m’self lucky when they call to ask for a ride home from school but that’s life….

That’s life wuz an old joke back in the day…went like this: 

 “That’s life!” 

 “What’s life?”  

“A magazine!” 

 “How much does it cost?” 

 “Ten cents!”  

“I ain’t got ten cents.”  

“That’s life.”

A dry November....

Scufflin’ thru the dry leaves in the park, while not quite as much fun as it wuz back in the day in Beatty ’n, I must point out, done at a much slower pace, still manages to create a very soul satisfying sound…at least to these old ears…da boyz didn’t seem to pay that much attention to it, nosing along as they are wont, searching for that elusive dog-thing that humans, no matter how much they love their dogs, never quite understand…

It’s been a long ’n near-perfect Autumn here in Ol Fair Oaks, with warm sunny days ’n cool nites ’n I’m told that ev’ry day that passes without precip is a record but all that is coming to an end…well, we all knew that the rain wuz comin’ sumtime ’n now we’re being told that it’s gonna be here next week…possibly…because weathermen here in norCal hedge their bets all the time….

If you watch the same weathermen year in ’n year out, you’re bound to hear one of them say…”As I predicted…” ~ I’ve heard that many times but I never remember any of them actually predicting the stuff they’re taking credit for…I s’poze they may be right but while I c’n remember what they were saying last week, I ain’t got a clue as to what they said 3 or 4 months ago, let alone last year….

Listening to a weatherman brag about his accuracy is sort’a like listening to any politician brag about his or her accomplishments…Obama ain’t alone in his assertions that he is responsible for everything good ’n someone else is to blame for everything wrong…most pedestrian politicians do the same…’n Obama is proving to one ’n all that he is not brilliant but in all probability would do well as a weatherman, especially if he worked in…say, San Francisco or San Diego where the weather is pretty much the same yearround….

Ah well, according to Will Rogers, Mark Twain ’n Johnny come lately Al Gore, along with Gawd knows how many others, “Everybody talks about the weather but nobody does anything about it.”

Those Autumn leaves...

peek thru my window 'n pretty much cover my yard 'n my neighbors yards 'n the street...etcetera ad infinitum.....

Give us this day our daily walk…

Round ’n about ‘The Park’ t’day, sniffing ’n hiking, hither ’n yon…dried leaves still clinging to the sycamores…well, the rest of the urban forest also, for that matter, some of ‘em still green but most of them already turned color…reds ’n yellows predominate but most of them still clinging to the branches…it’s been a really dry Autumn with every day without precip a new record or, so the ubiquitous ‘they’ say…

We humans are, as my grandmother use’ta say, a precious lot…we tend to think of ourselves as being at the top of the food chain, the be-all ’n end-all if you will…we even have the effrontery to think of our creator as the most superior human ever, casting ourselves as having been made in his shape ’n form…sort of cloned in His image…that is, I believe, because our imaginations are so limited in scope that we simply cannot visualize beyond our own little universe….

Anyway, as we rounded the corner onto our little street, there wuz Harry ’n Walter, the twin white roosters who reside each night at the firehouse…they were standing neck to neck intently interested in sumthing in the leaves…so interested, in fact, that they failed to notice Rusty coming up behind them…Rusty didn’t bark or anything, just doggie curosity, but when he got within inches of them, they noticed ’n panicked, screaming curses (I imagine since I'm not fluent in chicken-speak) ’n flying off in opposing directions…Rusty tho’t this wuz great fun ’n Willy wuz a little put out that he’d missed out on the action having had his nose buried in the bushes on the opposite side of the street…Great fun in Ol Fair Oaks on this dry Autumnal day….

On a dreary p’litical side note, The SacBee’s new fav’rite cartoonist(?) Jack Ohman, is not only a devout believer in Al Gore (who lost in 2000) but also a believer in global warming…I’d call him an idiot but one of my children objects to my snide comments on fanatical liberals so I’ll just leave you with a comment from one of my favorite columnists...

“Would you bet your paycheck on a weather forecast for tomorrow?  If not, they why should this country bet billions on global warming predictions that have even less foundation?”  Thomas Sowell

Pondering the imponderable....

"After all is said 'n done, life turns out t'be pretty much a waiting game."

Beattyville, in mem’ry, at least, wuz a magical place for kids…The ‘It takes a village’ thing so popular a few years ago wuz spot-on for the kids of Beattyville back in that long ago day….There wuz a war going on ’n the parents must have been hardpressed to keep body ’n soul t’gether…many a house in those days had one or more stars hanging in a window (signifying sons or daughters in the military) ’n all too often, we’d see a house with a black bow which meant that someone had given all that was t’be given….’n there wuz also a lot of shortages…autos on blocks, their tires hanging on the wall of the garage…gas wuz rationed ’n hard to come by so people walked or rode the bus, often a combination wuz necessary in order to get to town to work or shop…there wudn’t a lot of toys or candy or soda pop, for that matter….

Somehow, at least in mem’ry, it don’t seem like it mattered very much…we had the streets ’n alleys of Beattyville to wander pretty much as we wished…plus we had ‘The River’ ’n we had ‘The Hills’…

The Ohio River wuz brown ’n wide ’n dangerous, of course, but paddlewheelers right out of Mark Twain churned the water...the sandy banks were lined with willows ’n water maples ’n occasional treasures t’be found by intrepid beachcombers ’n the green hills wudn’t just a backdrop…the lower slopes were covered with honeysuckle, rising to steep ridges whose rocky cliffs overlooked the village below ’n the river wide…

There were caves in those hills, dark ’n mysterious, with hidden passages ’n bottomless pits where danger lurked for small boys…but there wuz candles ’n torches ’n fear to conquer….

My brothers grandson, Noah, told his mother that ‘he felt sorry for Grandpa becuz he hadn’t had any toys to play with as a child, no video games, not even television.…’  

During WWII, there wuz even less…toys were hard to come by as manufacturers turned their skills to making stuff for ‘Our boys’ as they were called by those at home…

But, in Beattyville, kids were kids ’n imaginations worked overtime to turn sticks into horses or swords or the fancy of the moment…’n there were stories from the elders…from the grandparents living among us…stories of hidden treasure, river pirates ’n marauding Indians fighting over that ‘dark and bloody ground’ that became Kaintuck, between the Shawnee tribes north of the river ’n the Cherokee ’n Chickashaw tribes south of the Cumberland, The Great Meadow, they called it, so treasured that no tribe wuz able to take up any sort of permanent residence there…

Less than a half-mile downstream from Beattyville is the site of the first (far as we know anyway) ‘white’ settlement in Kentucky…the remains of a French ’n Indian fort…Back in the day, the French were pretty durn aggressive comin’ down from Canada, making their presence known on what was then, the western frontier….until the French ’n Indian War, that is (not quite sure why it wuz called that but there y’are)….anyway, after that war which the French lost ’n had to pull back to Canada (wonder what might’a been if the French from Canada had been able to join up with the French from Louisana)….ah well, pondering the imponderable is just one of the things that old people do well….

Well, y'know, it's Monday.....

Well, maybe not shine so much exactly ’n Gawd knows I didn’t rise too aw’fly early either…at least the 2nd time I rose…the first time wuz at 5:sumthing or other (still blaming the time change thing)….then back to bed cuz it wuz obviously much too early to be out ’n about…

Anyhow, t’day wuz flu shot Monday…we picked up Pat Martens (our 95 yr old orange-haired Irish friend who has been half the world over but somehow missed Ireland)…we’ve been taking her for flu shot for 10 or 12 years or thereabouts…she has macular degeneration ’n we have basically the same conversation ev’ry time…(Dad had macular degeneration ’n it always amazes me how much blind people c’n actually see…My Aunt Eunice was the same ~ we’d drive miles down a country road ’n out of the blue, she’d say “Turn left at the bend in the road ’n she wuz always right)…

I barely remember my Great Grandparents tho’ I c’n recall visiting their home when I wuz small…My great grandmother wuz blind the last 20 years of her life ’n I imagine that she had macular degeneration tho’ they didn’t call it that way back then….ah well….

People love conspiracy theories ’n one of the most favorite at this time of year is about flu shots…lot’sa people tell me that they never get flu shots becuz every time they got  a shot, they caught the flu…

Time change Sunday...

“I don’t mind going back to daylight savings time.  Considering the present inflation, the hour will be the only thing I’ve managed to save all year.”  Victor Borge

It ain’t what’cha’d ackshully call a ‘blustery’ day here in Ol Fair Oaks, nor even what y’d want’a refer to as a ‘blust’ kind’a day…it’s just a overcast ’n a little breezy ’n noticeably cooler than it wuz yesti’day…I blame it on the time change, of course, but only becuz that’s a convenient hook…”Summer’s almost gone, winter’s comin’ on….” Bob Dylan

Winter here in norCal ain’t like winters back in the states where they actually have four seasons ’n a pretty clear delineation between ‘em…here, winter pretty much consists of a little rain, a little fog, temps in the ’40’s dropping into the ’30’s at night…Sometimes….once in a while, generally for a very short period in the middle of the night, the temp may even drop below freezing for a few moments, even maybe as much as an hour or so….I recall once’t upon a time, back in ’86, I believe, in the last century, the temp actually got down into the teens…killed off a bunch of geraniums ’n wiped out my tangerine tree….didn’t kill it completely, y’understand, just knocked it back to the original rootstock ’n now produces inedible oranges….it’s a pretty tree ’n has some nasty thorns ’n I prune it back ever’ once in a while just for the heck of it….

Me ’n da boyz wuz walkin’ down the street this morning after sleeping in (due to the time change, of course)…ran into a gaggle of our neighbors heading out for a storebought breakfast down to the Bistro…told me they had a strawberry sorbet jelly that wuz to die for ’n that I should just stop sometime ’n ask for a sample….I might have t’do that becuz I tho’t sorbet wuz some kind of ice cream ’n not sure how they make a jelly out of that…

Wondrous things this world supplies to those who choose to look….

Trick or treat...

"Apparently, there is nothing that cannot happen today."  Mark Twain

Trick or Treat Day in the Village t’day….tiny kidz ’n mommies ’n in many cases, grandmommies who seem t’be getting younger every year….sort’a like cops ’n firefighters…always a little surprising to find out that they’re passing out those jobs to children these daze…

Anyway, all the little kids, well, almost all, want to pet Rusty ’n Willy…Rusty likes all the attention but if they don’t have food, Willy takes a quick look ’n then ignores them…

Ackshully, I normally don’t wander thru the park on days when we have a lot of visitors but I forgot about the Trick or Treat thing ’n by the time I realized it, we were already there…Nabor Doug could’a told me cuz he walked Rover early to avoid the crowd….’course, Rover, being a Pit Bull, ’n in spite of him being calm ’n well-trained, tends to get more’n his share of parental disapproval…tsk, tsk….

On the back side of our trek, I noticed a ‘cowboy’ walking toward me…black hat, purple shirt ’n neckerchief, black pants ’n cowboy boots…I wuz thinkin’ that in Colorado, he’d be politically incorrect when he called out a greeting ’n I belatedly recognized our former mailman…now, among other things, he is the President of our local Rotary ’n they had a booth set up to pass out treats ’n stuff…..

Trick or treating is serious stuff t'day...back when I wuz a small boy, it wudn't nearly so organized...I recall going to a few of the neighbors, accompanied by my mother, got a few homemade treats...popcorn balls or fudge...taffy...y'know, I'd forgotten all about taffy...people use'ta have parties, taffy pulls they called 'em...anyway, during WWII, store bought candy wuz kind'a hard to come by....then, when I got a little older, kids would gang together 'n go thru the village but we wudn't really looking for treats ('n wudn't have got any if we'd asked)....what we wuz looking for wuz mischief, pure 'n simple, becuz on Hallowe'en, adults let us get away with stuff....'n I ain't even gonna  tell you what kind of stuff we did back in the middle of the 20th century 'cuz it'ud just sound plain dumb in this day 'n age.....

Heady stuff for the end of October in this 21st century….

And The Great O just stated emphatically, "That's the truth!"

HO-Humm.....

(Sighhhhhh…)  Hump day is here ag’in…Yep!  It’s Wednesday, the sun came up as usual, garbage pickup wuz early, as usual…y’know it just has t’be Wednesday when those green monsters come grinding ’n clanking up the hill ’n back down again…ah well, two more weeks to fill up those green barrels again with all the leaves that are coming down to earth…..

Speaking of coming down to earth, I see that Kathleen (I helped Tiller the baby-killer) Sebilius has been titled the ‘most hated woman in America for her actions ’n attitude in the roll-out of the Obama don’t care about health act anyways….(personally, I think her attitude stinks bigtime ’n I don’t care if she gets done in becuz of it)…On that proverbial other hand howsumever, I ain’t at all sure what it sez about Americans in general that we c’n get more pissed that she messed with our pocketbooks than with the fact that she aided ’n abetted Tiller the baby-killer….

Down the street, nabor Doug wuz getting ready to re-fill his just-emptied green cans…I reminded him that he had two whole weeks to get that job done but he said, “The weather’s dry, gotta make hay while the sun shines ’n idle hands are the Devils workshop.” (I think I gotta stop telling him all those old bromides)..

Harry ’n Walter, the two roosters that live at the firehouse, glanced warily at Rusty ’n Willy ’n stepped daintily aside…if they’d’a been people, I swear they would’a sniffed in disdain…Willy loves to chase chickens but it only works when they actually run from him ’n some of those old roosters are awf’ly big ’n mean ’n they c’d do some serious damage to a little dog…’course, Willy thinks he’s a big dog…

Update on the upstairs cat:  She’s spending a lot more time downstairs now ’n she ain’t threatening Willy quite so much but if he gets in her face, she still arches her back ’n spits at him ’n he don’t quite know what to make of her…I think she scares him a bit ’n frankly, I don’t blame him, I’d be scared too…

The Great O is giving another speech in Boston about how great  the Affordable I don’t Care Act is gonna be….at an unspecified point in the future, life is gonna be great, the only true caveat is that you have to do your part ’n live long enough…’course, I just heard The Great O say how great Romneycare is so maybe the world is coming to an end….

And now he just said how good the Obamacare rollout is going in Kentucky ’n Arkansas….he just doesn’t say that in those states, the people signed up for MedicAid which means that they don’t have to pay for it…t’ain’t free, y’understand…sumbody, sumwhere is gonna have to pay for it...

Those Autumn leaves...(sighhhhh)...

“I turn over a new leaf ev’ry day but it don’t seem t’make a lot of difference.”  Justin Other Smith

So, what we got going on this lazy, dazy Sunday ‘long towards the end of October is/are leaves…leaves ’n more leaves…leaves falling, leaves on the ground, leaves t’be raked ’n leaves already raked ’n piled waiting for the old man to come back ’n pick ‘em up ’n put ‘em in the ‘green’ barrel….ah yessss, it’s California ’n out here, we recycle durn near ever’thing imaginable ’n some things that nobody ever imagined before…well, like governors….I understand Governor Moonbeam Brown (sounds like sumthin’ out’a the mind of Al Capp, remember him…’course, y’don’t, you’re too darn young) anyhow, I never read the story, only the headline, but it seems that the Moonbeam gave a speech back somewhere in the land t’other side of the Sierra ’n the sheeple back there loved it ’n him….’course, I read that in one of those liberal sheets so I took it with a grain or two of salt (can’t have more’n a grain or two cuz I’m supposed to be on a low-sodium diet)…

Anyhow, back to the real world:  Millyrose is due back this evening from The Great Disneyland Trek which, I’m told, wuz a great success as the girls didn’t figure it out until the very last minnit….not that I really believe that, y’know, they’re pretty smart gurlz ’n wuz prob’ly faking it for the sake of their Grandmother, Mother ’n Aunt….

Well, I have availed m’self of the opportunity (Gawd! The stuff that passes for opportunity when you get old) to blow leaves, rake leaves, pick up leaves, etcetera ad infinitum, an nauseum…also managed to squeeze in about four dog-walks a day but I ain’t had time to run the durn vaccuum cleaner even once…’n only washed dishes once (Thank Gawd for paper plates)…

Anyhow, Gawd’s in His heaven ’n all’s right with the world…well, right as can be with the Democrat in the White House but if living all these years has taught me anything at all, it’s that “this too, shall change.”

Leaf-blowing for fun 'n relaxation....

“Judge not, lest thou be judged.”  Not sure what book of the Bible that phrase is from, not sure why it matters.  But the phrase matters.  It matters a lot ’n that’s all I’m gonna say about it….

You ever hear anyone say, ‘easy as pie’….well, making a pie ain’t easy at all, it’s darn hard but, eating a pie, that’s a whole ‘nother ballgame…Millyrose made me an apple pie before she took off for Disneyland Thursday…it lasted clear up to this afternoon….making a pie requires talent whilst eating one only requires a bit of hunger…or as my Aunt Mary use’ta say after a meal, “I’m not hungry now but I’ll have just a little piece of that pie just for the taste.”

Late afternoon, Sati’day…just back from walkin’ da boyz…down to the end of the street is a couple white roosters that sumbody dropped off…sometimes it takes awhile for those concrete streeters to figure out that roosters ain’t never gonna lay eggs for ‘em….anyhow, they’re tame ’n not really scared of da boyz ’n have taken up residence outside the firehouse…one of the firemen feeds ‘em ’n has named one of them, Walter…I can’t tell which is which so I just call the two of them, Harry ’n Walter…

The names come from an old movie that I can’t recall except for the title, “Harry and Walter go to New York”…I guess I really should google it….

Harry and Walter Go to New York is a 1976 American period comedy film written by John Byrum and Robert Kaufman, directed by Mark Rydell, and starring James Caan, Elliott Gould, Michael Caine, Diane Keaton, Charles Durning and Lesley Ann Warren…

Good cast but I still can't remember the movie...'n Google gave me more information than any of us prob’ly ever wanted…anyhow, leaf blowers going up ’n down the street…I wuz doing pretty well until Millyrose called me from Disneyland ’n while I wuz on the phone, I saw the leaves drifting down faster’n I could gather ‘em up…’n I still got to pick the durn things up ’n put ‘em in the can…ah well, Indian summer is still one of the nicest times of the year ’n raking leaves ain’t near as hard as chopping out the roots of the damned Chinese stink tree….at my age, I don’t work too hard but I try to make up for it by not working too long either…also…whatever….

I’m waiting for the time change….Fall forward comin’ up…it don’t confuse me any more than it does da boyz….I’m curious what it’s gonna mean for the upstairs cat…she likes to be fed at 6 in the morning ’n 6 in the evening’n I expect she could get churlish about it if I didn’t get up ’n feed her…cats are a lot more demanding than dogs…’course, she’s just a temporary upstairs cat but I’m kind’a getting used to her….she’s black as can be with not a speck of white anywhere and she keeps the darn squirrels away…did’ja know squirrels love to sneak into houses…worse’n damn raccoons….anyway, she ain’t ours, we’re just cat-sitting temporarily…

A dollar down 'n a dollar a week.....

A close study of economics’ll tell you that the absolutely best time to buy anything wuz last year.

Recently had a major lifestyle change here at the Manse…switched from Starbucks French Roast to Starbucks Cafe Verona  (Italian roast)…little different taste, Italian roast doesn’t have that ‘burnt’ quality of French roast but it’s still dark ’n smoky ’n the really notable  difference is that it’s $1`3 bucks ‘stead of $20….

Which means if King O cuts my SS payments, I c’n call up Ami Bera ’n say I’m doing my part, Bub….whyn’t you do yours?

Not that I think he’ll listen, of course, I’m not that much of a dunder-head…

Nabor Doug called Ami t’other day asking about the unAffordable I don’t Care Act popularly known as Obamacare…after a couple calls, Ami’s office (now you just know it wuz someone in the office ’n not the office it’s ownself) returned his call ’n told him not to worry, that the VA would continue to take care of him because it wuz exempt from that law…

The Prez ’n all his cabinet is exempt…so’re most of his big donors ’n the unions, generally speaking, anyone with a little bit of clout with his highness c’n ask for ’n get an exemption….with the exception, naturally, being republicans ’n reg’lar people…’course, that don’t mean that republicans are actually ‘reg’lar people’ in disguise, they ain’t, they’re still the nasty old republicans whose only raison d’etre is the destruction of Obama at any cost….

Ah well, I digress….still, cutting the cost of my morning coffee by a third ain’t t’be sneezed at ‘specially since the overall cost of my grocery shopping has doubled in the last year, thank you very much all those liberal a-holes who seem t’believe that making me poorer will somehow make them richer….

That’s modern economics for ya ’n I’d explain it but I flunked that course…wudn’t my fault, howsomever, since the class wuz scheduled at 6:45 in the A.M. ’n there is absolutely nought t’be learned when your body is in the classroom ’n your brain is still in bed….

It's the GREAT PUMPKIN.....

Rock ’n a hard place….

Well, that’s kind’a where the Grand Old Party is at the moment…that is, if you b’leeve the mainstream media who all seem to agree that Obama has them mean old republicans by the short hair ’n is shakin’ them to their boottops…for the more rational news seekers among us, Fox News, contrary to the liberal mindset, is taking the more nuanced view of allowing pundits from both sides of the aisle to express their differing viewpoints…(the most amusing aspect of this is that liberals will never know this because they never, never, never take their heads out of that nameless dark place to watch that lying Fox News….Ho Hum!)

The fact of the matter, as any schoolboy knows (or did know back in the day when they were allowed t’be boys) having someone by the short hair is a lot like having a tiger by the tail…(it ain't the easiest thing in the world to turn loose of)

On a personal level, I’m beginning to suspect that maybe Obama wants the USA to default…maybe he really is in the pocket of one George Soros who seems to have developed a strategy of pushing countries into backruptcy in order to feather his own nest…

Well, it’s his strategy, of course, 'n it worked in a couple smaller countries, but I don’t think even with all his fabled wealth that George is capable of pushing the USA into bankruptcy all on his lonesome, so it probably ain’t a coincidence that he makes his home in China…

I’m just speculating, of course…trying to come up with a reason why Obama would want to take the USA into default…I don’t believe Obama is smart enuff to come up with a scheme of this scope on his own dime….

I'm pretty sure he cheated his way thru school 'n he surely seems t'be a master of the 'Fake it 'til you make  it' Holly-woody perception is reality thingy...

Well, falling off a log is easy…any darn fool c’n do it’n he don’t even hardly have to try…’n it don’t take any practice at all, it just comes natural…the real trick to falling off a log is being able to stand on it in the first place, ‘specially if you’re a barefoot boy in the Ohio River trying to emulate the log rollers you saw in the Pathe News short at the movie…

I’m just sayin’ that falling off logs is basically a spectator sport...

Those Autumn leaves.....

"I can't go back to yesterday because I was a different person then."  Lewis Carroll

If you think of Harry Reid ’n Nancy Pelosi as ‘minions’….well, it puts a whole new face to things, don’t it?  Barack Obama ’n his minions…Barry ’n the gang are responsible for the gov’t shutdown…Barry ’n his minions are responsible for kids going hungry, old people suffering from neglect, hospitals going understaffed ’n national parks closing for no p’ticklar reason….Barry ’n the minions tried to close the ocean ’n open-air memorials (I know, that don’t make any sense at all, do it?)

Back in the ’70’s when Californians passed Proposition 13, California politicians and bureaucrats responded by cutting lean rather than fat ’n that’s exactly what the Feds are doing now…cutting off their nose to spite…well, our faces actually ‘cuz we’re the dopes that put ‘em all in office, ‘cuz you know Barry ’n the minions can’t do it without help…

Barry ’n the minions really do need to go but there’s 535 other A-holes in Washington that need to have their chains yanked as well…they need to be reminded that they work for us (which ain’t been the case for too damn long)…..

Y’know what it is, is that I’ve been blowing leaves around ’n breathing in all that dust ’n I don’t care how many leaves I pick up ’n deposit in the green cans, t’morra there’s gonna be more…When I wuz a boy, back in those uncivilized daze of yore, we raked the leaves (under threat of corporal punishment) into one large pile ’n put a match to it…all over Beattyville, you could smell burning leaves ’n if you took a walk around the village, most of the yards that you’d pass would have a small boy leaning on a rake, looking into a pile of smoldering leaves….Ahhhh, the good old daze……

“I have tried to know absolutely nothing about a great many things ’n I have succeeded fairly well.”  Rob’t Benchley

King of the hill is definitely not a team sport but you can’t play it alone…

Noah told his mother that Grandpa John must’a had a terrible childhood ‘cuz he didn’t have any video games or even a television~’n that’s true, we didn’t have any of those things….Grandpa John explained that in lieu of ‘those things’ that he had to use his imagination, for example, a stick.  Grandpa John told him that a stick c’d be many things ~ a gun, a sword, even a horse…I’m told that Noah just shook his head ’n felt sorry for the old man….

While it’s true that we didn’t have ‘stuff’ to play with, we lived in a village where everyone knew everyone else ’n we could wander from dawn to dusk without fear ~ we had the Ohio River ’n the riverbank wuz sandy ’n overgrown with willows ’n water maples ’n you never knew what the river would serve up….’n the other direction brought us to the hills, tall, steep, ’n covered in honeysuckle….

And every time you c’d get three or more t’gether, one of the fav’rite games wuz ‘King of the Hill’….there wuz a spot overlooking the curve in the two-lane blacktop that separated the village from the hills that wuz steep ’n hard to climb but had a sandy outcrop close to the top….it wuz two or maybe three wide at its widest ’n maybe four feet long ’n we c’d fight for hours to maintain the position of King of the Hill…well, I told you we didn’t have toys ’n suchlike…it wuz an age of make-do….’n not only for the kids, for adults also…it definitely wuz not a ‘disposable’ age…A money source for kids wuz gathering what t’day is known as ‘Recyclables’….we just gathered bottles for the two-cent deposit that had been paid (didn’t have aluminum cans in that stone-age period)…Ah well, seems like the more things change, the more they stay the same….

“Life obliges me t’do something, so I natter on.”  Justin Other Smith

October should always begin with a trip to APPLE HILL!

A bad hair day don’t even begin to compare to a bad foot day ’n Wednesday wuz a baaaaaaad foot day….I hobbled up the street ’n down with da boyz ‘cuz they don’t give a big hoot in….well, you know, don’t you?  Anywayz, I wuz rolling along like a drunken sailor, limping on both feet, feeling picked upon by life in general which ever’body does now ’n then but it don’t help to complain ‘cuz nobody ever listens so it ain’t a helluva lotta use to cry…besides, it come to me that I wuz still walking ’n on the green side of the sod at that so things ain’t never so bad that they can’t get worse…

Anyhow, I wuz up ’n down thru the night as old men are won’t to do  (old dogs also)

popping a few pain pills, washing ‘em down with crackers ’n milk ’n when I still cudn’t sleep, playing computer solitaire…

So it wuz, that I kind’a slept in this morning ’n when I finally got out of bed ’n stumbled into the kitchen, found that Millyrose had made my coffee for me ’n had a couple biscuits in the oven ’n the paper wuz on the table…(I wuz immediately suspicious but I didn’t let on)….what it wuz that I had forgot wuz the planned roadtrip to APPLE HILL with our friends, Annigan ’n Willy ’n that I wuz the designated driver…we, all my fault, ran a little later than the plan called for but only an hour which in the grand scheme of things don’t amount to much at all….

Annigan ’n Willy were sitting on their stoop waiting patiently (I made up the patiently part) ’n we quickloaded them into the little Matrix ’n up the hill we went….wuz a lovely sunshiny day, light traffic, off in the distance the clouds topping the sierra looked like snow ’n as pretty much usual, when we arrived at APPLE HILL, since I only get up there once a year anymore, we drove up ’n down the highway searching for the signs that would direct us to the various ’n sundry apple farms that we intended to visit (y’know, every year I wonder why I don’t go equipped with a map but that, I guess would be another story)….

Anyway, we found the stops we wanted to find…had some apple pie, well, the others had rhubard ’n apple pie ’n I had an apple turnover ’n coffee, well, two cups of coffee actually ‘cuz I spilled the first one all over me when I turned over the pickanick table ’n dumped Millyrose on the lawn…(turns out that wuz pretty much the highlight of the day)…

We got home some six hours later to find that one of the dogs had eaten a book (Sophie’s, I think, not one of mine)…the cat had hidden herself upstairs (I didn’t tell you about the cat…I’m sorry, I’ll do that another time)…and,,,well, that’s pretty much our Thursday…

I know I haven’t been blogging as much as usual but it’s been a stressful September what with one thing ’n another(sighhhhh)...

On birthdays 'n Autumn 'n stuff like that....

“Two things are infinite~space and the stupidity of humans ’n I’m not sure about space.” Einstein

September Song….

“It’s a long, long time from May to December and the days grow short when you reach September….” lyrics by Maxwell Anderson

September is a little different from when I wuz a boy…

In those ‘wayback days, school began after Labor Day, after the freedom of what had seemed in Spring to be a long and glorious summer, the all too soon end wuz nigh…’n we were stuck in a dreary classroom as the lingering days of summer ticked off one by one, gazing forlornly out the windows at the warm sunshine of a Kentucky afternoon, the dusk coming earlier every day, the last gasp of summer coming to a close right before my birthday...

September is a month chock full of birthdays..me, my mother, one of my brothers, my oldest daughter…’n a neighbor lady down the street born on the same day as me ‘way back in ’37…Come to think on it, Sonny Stockham was born on the same day as me also…Sonny fell asleep in a chair in the waiting room of a hospital in Portsmouth, Ohio ’n crossed over as they’re wont to say back home in the States…

My buddy, ‘Pig’ Phillips was born on the 1st of September in 1937 also which makes him oldurn me by three weeks…

Pig is, as they say, the spittin’ image of his grandfather ’n Mort Bradley lived t’be 103 or 104, I think…Anyway, Pig is liable to live longer’n that just out of plain old spitefulness which I’ve been told he inherited from his grandfather…

I’m thinkin’ I might have to stick around just to keep an eye on him ‘cuz he has a powerful tendency to get into trouble when he’s on his own for any length of time…

Ah well, birthdays come ’n go for all of us, at least for the period of time that we’re here…In the beginning, birthdays are big celebrations with all the family ’n friends gathered ‘round…there’s parties ’n cake ’n ice cream, happy times….then, as we age, birthdays happen whether we want ‘em to or not 'n a lot of time, we'd just as soon skip them...Jack Benny (a once upon a time famous comedian) famously never got past the age of 39...anyway, when we get old, if we get old, they become occasions for celebration again…not quite sure how I feel about that howsumever so I’ll just take a wait ’n see attitude toward the whole thing...

Not quite sure why I’m dwelling so much on age…it ain’t a p’tickularly interesting subject…after all, anyone can get old, all you have t’do is live long enuff...

Imagine, a whole entire day devoted to work....

...makes a body tired just thinkin' about it!

Well, it’s Labor Day ag’in ~ comes around every year just like clockwork ~ kind’a nice to have some stability in what seems t’be an ever-changing world…   I don’t know if the world has really changed or if it’s just me getting older ’n find m’self saying things that remind me of my grandparents…

John Sam ’n Nora Smith were my grandparents, well, along with Hannah Bradshaw Howard, my maternal grandmother who lived in northern Michigan, but I barely remember my great grandparents ~ my great grandma was blind, had been for twenty years or so by the time I came around…macular degeneration, I think, altho’ it certainly wudn’t diagnosed as such back then…My father ’n my Aunt Eunice both ended up with the same malady ’n I have a cousin that endures it now ~ I’d say I have something to look forward to but Gawd!  I hope not….

Anyhow, I was a boy during World War II and the country as a whole was fiercely patriotic…Franklin Delano Roosevelt, or FDR, as he was popularly known, was President and the country, even those who vilified him, stood four-square behind him…(four-square, an adjective but also an adverb meaning firmly or resolutely)…

FDR’s picture hung in every classroom in every schoolhouse the length ’n breadth of this land ’n every child in each and every classroom placed their hand upon their heart ’n recited the Pledge of Allegiance every morning whether they understood all the words or not…but, we were patriots, ever’ last one of us ’n we didn’t take any guff about it either…

There were a few Civil War veterans still alive when I was a boy ~ not many, ’n those were dying off as fast as they could but there were a few of ‘em left ’n they pretty near always started their stories about how the world sure had changed since they were young…

I’m thinking that I read somewhere that the only certain constant was the inevitability of change which conflicts with that old saw, the more things change, the more they stay the same….

Ahhhh me, life is full of contradictions, ain’t it?

The Democrat Bellweather......

My Democrat Bellweather (who shall remain relatively anonymous) tells me that Obama is really sticking it to the Republicans by forcing them to vote on whether or not the USA should intervene in Syria ~ I told him that I tho’t Obama was more like the schoolboy sissy who boasted to his friends that he’d punch out the school bully if only his mommy’ud let him…The Bellweather didn’t think that was funny ’n insisted that the latest poll showed that the majority of Americans supported military intervention ~ I told him that I didn’t think so ’n that the last poll I’d seen saiid only about 25% of Americans supported that view but he insisted that ABC or maybe it was CBS said definitely that 75% of Americans supported Obama…

When I pointed out that ‘way back when the devil incarnate, George Bush, was President ’n Commander-in-Chief of these United States, the majority of Amerians ’n indeed Congress itself (including Democrats) had supported the intervention in Iraq, he then insisted that this is totally different today because the Syrians had used chemical weapons on their own people…

When I pointed out that Saddam Hussein (’n his co-hort, Chemical Ali) had used chemical weapons on his own people, the Bellweather then insisted that was different and that the devil incarnate Bush had lied about MWD’s and that made all the difference in the world…

Then he bet me a cup of coffee that if the do-nothing Republicans dared to vote against him, Obama would just take command and do it all himself as he had declared on national teevee  that he didn’t need Congress anyway, thank you very much…

Well, I had to admit that I’d heard the big O say that myownself during his teleprompted speech but that I still tho’t that he was just looking for Congress to give him an excuse to back out of the threats that he’d made previously…

Which just goes to show that when you walk the dogs down Crestline in the gloaming, you just never know what lurks in the minds of men...

Sun-Daze....

’S a quiet, durn near sombre day here on the street where I live…

Crestline Avenue in Olde Fair Oakes is basically two short blocks ‘cept one of them ain’t got no homes at all ’n is pretty much just an alleyway…’n I ought’a know alleyways having spent a number of my formative years in Beattyville, Ky where all the streets were alleyways, cinder ’n gravel they were, tucked betwixt the C&O railroad tracks ’n the mighty Ohio River…

We lived in two houses in Beattyville tho’ not at the same time of course which might’a made for an interesting story if we had BUT we didn’t…

We lived on the southernmost street in our little corner of the world, next to the railroad track ’n across from Big John Stephenson…in our 2nd house…

There wuz a driveway (alley) separating us from the first house we lived in which wuz a brick home, pretty much uninsulated ’n hard to heat in the wintertime…mostly, I remember it being cold….well, that ’n the big plum tree in the front yard…

The Craycrafts moved in there after us…Barbara Craycraft wuz a little bit older’n me ’n a cheerleader…I remember she ’n other girls ‘ud practice their cheers in the yard…purple ’n gold, their outfits were, short skirts ’n sweaters…I don’t recall all of the cheerleades from my daze at SP school but I suspect I’ll never forget Barbara ’n Yvonne ’n Betty Jo…

Anyway, on our side of the street, there wuz our house ’n the Craycraft ’s ’n the Keith’s…across the alley from the Keiths wuz Delbert ’n Iva Fultz ’n next door to them wuz where my Aunt Billie ’n Uncle Fred lived, ’n for the life of me, I can’t remember who lived across the alley from them ‘cept the house wuz kind’a hidden behind a tall hedge…

That wuz just one side of one street in that little village where ever’body knew ever’body else…now, I live on a short street where I’m on a wave ’n smile acquaintance with most of my neighbors (save one that I make it a practice to ignore, but that’s another story) even tho’ I don’t know all their names…

“It don’t matter at all where you lived before, California’s a brand new game.”  The Gatlin Bros

SCOFFLAWS IN VILLAGE PARK

At the risk of being called a curmudgeon, (Curmudgeon~noun~a bad-tempered or surly person)…Me ’n the ould Dogger ’n Willy wuz walking thru the park this A.M. as is our wont when we happened to meet some bearded ’n scraggly young men, each with a large dog (fortunately fairly amiable retriever types) off-leash…after asking, politely I tho’t, for them to control their animals ’n being ignored, I raised my voice a tad ’n told them to control their dogs…after being ignored again, I took my camera out, photographed them ’n demanded that they control their dogs or my next act would be to call Animal Control…at which point they called their dogs to them allowing me ’n da boyz to pass…I pretended to ignore their sniggering remarks about it always being the small dogs that were aggressive ’n didn’t bother to ask them why it always seems to take a very special kind of stupid to believe that the law didn’t apply to them…..

Of course, in t’days climate when Obama ’n his posse demonstrate the same kind of attitude toward our country’s laws, ie, State Dept, DOJ, IRS, et al…y’just gotta figger that it’s the trickle down effect in action…

“Lazybones, sleepin’ in the sun, how you ‘spect t’get your days work done…”

Snuck up on me ag’in…t’morra morning is trash pickup ’n it’s green waste already which meant that I hadda get some go on…I have two green cans plus two from my next door neighbor AND two from the empty house acros’t the street…

I started filling the cans last week, tho’t I’d take my time, fill a can ever’ other day or so ’n wudn’t get caught bustin’ my buns at the last minnit…ah well, procrastination is the name of the game ’n I had t’get out t’day ’n fill two cans ’n I worked up a sweat doin’ it….

At my age, it don’t take a lot of toil for me to work up a sweat, ‘specially on these warm August daze…think it has sumthin t’do with age…as a body grows older, the definition of toil seems to take on new meaning…for example, I live on top of a small hill….back in eastern Kentucky where I grew up, it wudn’t even be considered a hill at all but times change…my buddy Vic lives on the side of a Kentucky hill…his driveway has a couple two or three switchbacks ’n he ain’t even at the top…

Anyhow, I got six full cans of green stuff lined up at the curb (‘cept we don’t really have curbs on our little street~nor sidewalks or street lights) ready for the big green machine to come by ’n pick ‘em up…the county sends out two huge trucks on pickup day…one for green ’n one for reg’lar old garbage…Sacramento county, you gotta pay for garbage pickup whether you use the service or not…empty houses get billed ’n if the mortgage holder don’t pay the garbage bill, the county hangs a lien on ‘em…when we bought our first home in California, there was a private company that picked up the garbage…they had a big truck manned with a driver ’n two helpers…they’d come into your backyard, empty your garbage cans ’n never leave a mess…’n they did it for sumthin’ like $2.50 a month…costs a bit more theze daze…thanks, of course, to our progressive Democratic government…

We didn’t have garbage pickup back in Beattyville when I wuz a boy…I can’t seem to recall just what we did with our garbage…I recall, in the fall, we raked up all the leaves ’n burned ‘em…ever’body did…wudn’t really a throwaway society back then but I know there must have been sum things that constituted garbage but it just wudn’t important enuff to stand out in a boys life back in the day….

Ah well, Beattyville is durn near gone now…like eventide in Brigadoon, slowly disappearing into the mists of time...it’ud make a nice location for a riverside park ’n I expect the old Methodist Church could be headed for landmark status but maybe not…time’ll tell, I guess…

“The funny thing about time is it moves in one direction while memory moves in another.”