The rule is, jam tomorrow 'n jam yesterday, but never jam today.....L. Carroll

T’is that season again (summer for those out of the loop) so we got in the little car, me ’n Millyrose ’n da boyz ’n made a run out to Sloughhouse (Sorry, no pics as I forgot to put my little camera in my pocket) where we loaded up on fresh sweet corn ’n  tomatoes (’n some apricots for Millyrose)...

Back in the day those many years ago, when we emigrated to California, we were amazed at how big, beautiful, ’n tasteless were the California fruits ’n veggies…most of the fresh corn in the markets wuz like the field corn in Ky ’n the tomatoes, well…they were pretty ’n there wuz a lot of ‘em…(my Momma always said if you cudn’t say sumthin’ good, then you shudn’t say anything atall ’n we’ll let it go at that)...

Anyhow, over the years, I s’poze, what with all the SCIENTIFIC knowhow, that being the New ’n Improved God, the ubiquitous ‘They’ have  radically improved the taste of the sweet corn with lots of new varieties (the tomatoes, not so much…as good as they are, they don’t come up to Ky standards) but the corn is sweeter than ever...

Anyhow, over the past ten years or so, as I’ve struggled with the ‘fruits of my somewhat misspent youth, I’ve been unable to munch out on that revered summertime favorite, corn on the cob, ’n it’s difficult to explain just how much I’ve missed it…

Howsumever, as I’ve been able to overcome (with lots of help ’n support) the cancer, the chemotherapy ’n the resultant dental problems, I find that, this year, for the first time in many years, I’m able to chow down on sweet, fresh corn on the cob….lots of butter ’n a nod to the Doc’s, a smidgen of salt…so good, it reminds me of summers as a boy…

Corn on the cob, big, thick slices of tomato ’n watermelon for dessert…if I wudn’t so darn lazy, I’d make me some ice cream but it’s so much easier to purchase ’n there are so many varieties from which to choose….sumtimes, I swear, a body c’d stand for hours with the freezer door open just ruminating on the different flavors…

But, I digress….not unusual for me…but Kellye Anne (daughter #1) harvested her peaches ahead of the coming storm ’n, as a result, just brought over a peach pie ’n a peach cobbler ’n fortunately I have ice cream in the freezer….

There are moments when life is, to paraphrase Andy Taylor (Griffith)…GOOOOOOD!

“I remember a lot of things.  I ain’t awf’ly sure that all of them ackshully happened, but I remember them anyway.”  Justin Other Smith

Ol Rounder wuz, as most dogs were in those distant once upon a time daze, of mixed ’n ambiguous ancestry…much like the American boys who partnered them….back then, nobody much cared about your antecedents, what mattered most wuz the willingness to fight back, the ability to climb a tree or swim the river or to crawl, mostly blind, into the unknown ’n unbelieveable darkness of a hillside cave….

It wuz the forties ’n America wuz at war on two fronts, the Japs in the Pacific, a mostly unknown seascape of islands, palm trees ’n coconuts as seen in the movies of the day….’n, of course, the Germans who we had beat up in the first World War ’n now had t’do it ag’in…

The Beattyville boyz fought the war thru the streets (alleyways, actually) of Beattyville, on the riverbank ’n in the green, honey-suckled hills…we used rubberband guns (when we c’d get the rubber bands) ’n imagination which fortunately wuz in great supply at that time as ever’body I knew wuz really short on money….

What it wuz that brought all this remembering on is the pic posted by Joe Hannah of the ice truck ('At's my Dad sprawled insouciantly{lookitup, Sophie} on the front fender)…I recall, ’n I’m thinkin’ it wuz the summer of ’42, that my Dad, Manuel Smith, delivered ice for a few months in South Portsmouth…’n me ’n most all the Beattyville boyz’d grab a few chunks off the back…y’got to remember than in those longago daze, there wuz still a lot of people that still used ice boxes (my Aunt Billie kept hers on her back porch)...

“Ain’t nuthin’ more responsible for the good old days than a bad mem’ry!” 

“The time has come” the walrus said, “to speak of many things.  Of ships ’n seas ’n sealing wax, of cabbages ’n Kings.”  L. Carroll

Back in those Once upon a time daze of my childhood, I recall that Greenup County, Ky, was a shoo-in for Democrats…Greenup County Republicans were extremely rare ’n deeply closeted…I’ve heard it said that if for some inexplicable reason,you happened to need a Republican, you’d have to import them from Lewis County…at that time Greenup Countians were deeply distrustful of Lewis Countians ‘cuz Republicans down there could wander around freely with no restraints whatsoever just like they wuz ordinary people….

I got a good buddy back there in Greenup County that wudn’t even consider living anywhere else ’n he’s still what you’d call an Oldtime Democrat or what folks back in the day referred to as a ‘Yellow Dog Democrat’….(meanin’ they’d pull that rooster for the Democrat no matter if the party had run a yellow dog on the ticket)…

I know another good ol boy back there that ever’body really liked (still do) but even his fam’ly wudn’t vote for him when he ran as a Republican…

Now, as you might imagine, ever’ now ’n then I find m’self in a prolonged conversation with some of the stubbornest ’n most cussed people I know (progressive liberal Democrats, ever' one) ’n when they run out of rational arguments, tend to wind things up by stating emphatically that they’re ‘Liberal’ as if that wuz the be-all ’n end-all to durn near ever'thing….now, I find that almost as frustrating as the statement, “Well, let’s just agree to disagree.”…as if that wuz some kind of solution…

Mostly, I just ascribe that kind of behavior to blind fanaticism ’n Gawd knows that conservatives have their own dyed in the wool fanatics that can’t be bothered to listen to reason just the same as those Yellow Dog Democrats…’n while it’s true that you can’t have much of a sandwich without two pieces of bread, you can’t have one at all without the filling in the center….

“You cannot win!

 You cannot break even!

 You cannot get out of the game!” Anon...

The End of the Rainbow.....

Rule of Thumb #5

"If there is a way to delay an important decision, the good bureaucracy, public or private, will find it."

When our beloved Democratic controlled Legislature gets an urge to visit California jobs, they pretty much have to leave California to do so. 

That’s why Lt. Governor Gavin Newsom traveled with a small entourage of other Golden State politicians to Texas, the biggest beneficiary of California’s economic policies. 

So many jobs have fled California to Texas, John Fund writes for the Wall Street Journal, that the governing class needed lessons from Texas "Republican" Governor Rick Perry on how not to repel business: “We came to learn why they would pick up their roots and move,” says Assemblyman Dan Logue, who organized the trip. “Why does Chief Executive magazine rate California the worst state for job and business growth and Texas the best state?”

Ain’t too hard to figure...Texas has added 165,000 jobs during the last three years while California has lost 1.2 million. California’s jobless rate is 12% compared to 7% in Texas.

The former Mayor of San Francisco has many philosophical disagreements with Mr. Perry, but he admitted he was “sick and tired” of hearing about the governor’s success luring businesses to Texas.

In fact, those jobs are moving out so fast that politicians can’t keep up with them. While California’s delegation was visiting Texas, another major business announced its intention to move. Fujitsu Frontech, a major high-tech company, will move its manufacturing facilities from Foothill Ranch, California, to New York. The announcement of the move didn’t indicate how many jobs this entails, but it’s probably not minimal, and California can hardly stand to lose any at the moment.

Newsom wants to position himself as a “pro-jobs Democrat,” but that’s been an oxymoron in California for decades. If Newsom wants to reverse that trend, he’ll have to start eliminating the Legislative inspired red tape that forces business owners to take two years or more years to build and launch locations, as Carls Jr/Hardees executive Andy Pudzer told the group. 

The state needs to rid itself of its liberal penchant for overregulation, so ably demonstrated by the California Air Resource Board’s use of a questionable study authored by an academic fraud that not only threatens to put independent trucking companies out of business, but also honest scientists that blow the whistle on the unseemly relationship between state-based Academia and regulatory boards such as CARB.

And that doesn’t even start to address California’s ridiculously high taxes, and the overly progressive nature of its income tax system that guarantees revenue crashes during economic downturns.

Until Californians come to grip with the fact that they have overregulated the state into non-competitiveness, taxed it to the point of overwhelming investor risk, with a Democrat controlled Legislature that continues to spend far beyond its means, jobs will continue to disappear from the Golden State. California is reaping the liberal harvest, so(w) to speak, that has been sown over the decades. With the collapse of the California economy, we have found the truth at the end of the rainbow.  To paraphrase Pogo, “We have found the enemy ’n he is us.”

One for the birthday gurl.....

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to MillyRose!

Topped off her b’day dinner with a margarita ’n a chocolate shake…I’ll testify that it’s hard to beat that combo with a crooked stick ’n I’m too old ’n too durn tired to even try…

Met her in those lazy, hazy daze of Autumn back in nineteen hundred and fifty-eight in the mountains of eastern Kentucky…squired her to a dance on January 3rd of ’59 and married her in May…in the basement of the Rowan County courthouse with Beecher Taylor as Best Man…haven’t got the foggiest notion of whatever happened to Beecher…last I heard of him was in ’61 as I recall….

Mem’ries come’n go travelling downstream in that roiling river of life and while I may get hazy now ’n then on some of what has transpired, some mem’ries just get better ’n better with age ’n since they’re my mem’ries, I’ll recall them any way I want (point of fact here; no one really has a choice is how their mem’ries get to be)...

I gotta admit that I never imagined getting old…talking now ’n then with old  friends, turns out none of us ever expected to get here at this point in time…I don’t think youth is capable of really seeing that far ahead anyway ’n that’s prob’ly a good thing...

“Like ever’one who makes the mistake of getting older, I begin each day with coffee ’n obituaries.”  William Cosby