"Time's fun when you're having flies." Kermit

"There are 364 days when you might get un-birthday presents but only one for birthday presents, y'know." L. Carroll

My buddy, E.V.’Vic’ McGuire, had a birthday yesterday~77 years old….I called to wish him a happy birthday…

Ackshully, I called him a couple times as he wuz out gallivanting...that's one of the things that us old folk c'n still do 'n we seem to do it pretty well...most of the time, anyways...he wuz cryin' the blues 'cuz his new doctor took him off the hard stuff (Pepsi) 'n  told him to just drink water...

He didn't seem terribly impressed with his new doctor but then, he's had a lot of new doctors 'n he never seems to be impressed with any of them...I seem to have a lot of friends that go from one doctor to another but then I have a couple friends that just buy a new car ever' year or so 'n it seems to work out for them about the same....

Anyway, after we got all the health bizness out of the way, he wuz telling me that he has 3 deer living on his property (he lives on a hill overlooking Greenup)…I mentioned that being high on that hill, he didn't have to worry about flood but he claims that he has so many springs on his hillside that he has to run an array of pumps just trying to keep the property semi-dry...

Anyway, when we were young(er), we wandered all over those Kentucky hills t’hout ever seeing a deer or much of anything else…maybe a rabbit or two, a few squirrels…there wuz ‘possum, of course ’n I heard tales of ‘coon but I never actually ever saw a live one (there were tales ('n tails) so there must have been some somewhere but I never saw any personally)…

I know there wuz some bobcats c’uz I’ve walked the hills at night ’n been followed by one of those curious critters but I never got a good look at one in the wild ’til I came to California…

As a boy, I went fox hunting a time or two with some of my friends but never saw a fox either…until I came to California…they were so numerous out here that the hunters I met didn’t bother with ‘em…said they’d rather put their hounds after bear or coyotes…claimed fox wuz just too easy…

Game has made a big comeback not only in Kentucky but all over the country, or so I hear…I haven’t hunted in years ’n doubt that I c’d hit anything if I tried…it’ud have to be awful big ’n awful close for me to even see it….besides, I give it some thought a long time ago ’n decided that animals prob’ly didn’t really like being live targets for foolish men trying to live up to some antiquated idea of manhood….not that I’m against hunting, per se, I ain’t….not if a body wants to eat what they kill…(just a tho’t, if ever’one had to eat what they killed, we’d prob’ly have fewer murders…just sayin’)…

Anyway, when I talk to old friends, the conversation generally begins with a litany of whatever is currently wrong with us ’n how surprised we all are that we’re still alive ’n kicking, then, seems like inevitably, there’ll be a remark about once upon a time ’n reminiscing about our ‘semi-golden’ youth…we generally gloss over our middle years as tho’ they wudn’t all that important …’course, those middle years were the most important years for all of us but boys ’n old men don’t like to discuss important things…. we’d much rather talk about the weather(if you don’t like it, wait 15 minutes) or politics (if you don’t like it, wait 15 minutes) or other trivialities c’uz when it comes down to the nubbin, it’s just a helluva lot easier to deal with the temporary vicissitudes of life...

"Just remember, when all else is lost, you still got tomorrow."

Spring comes around pretty much ever' year whether you're ready or not.....

 Spring is bustin’ out all over ’n the weeds are as high as…well, certainly not as high as an elephants eye but they’re tall enuff that when my little dogs get in ‘em, all I c’n see is the top of the weeds moving….when I wuz a boy in Beattyville, the milkweed (?) use’ta get 8 to 10 foot high…we’d cut ‘em, strip ‘em ’n throw ‘em as spears at each other…moving thru the tall milkweed wuz like the jungles in the Tarzan movies…Johnny Weissmuller wuz a fav’rit of durn near ever’body back then…we all practiced the Tarzan yell (none of us as good as Carol Burnett but we didn’t know about her back then ’n none of us ever got as good as her anyway)…but the riverbank wuz pretty much like the jungles of the movies ’n our imagination made up whatever might’a been lacking….where the creek run down thru the school hollow, there wuz lot’s of wild grapevines ’n we’d swing on  ‘em the way Tarzan did in the movies….trouble wuz, unlike in the movies, our grapevines wudn’t hold much weight ’n like as not, they’d turn loose ’n drop us in the creek…wudn’t much water in the creek so that wudn’t a problem…nah, it wuz the drop itself which wuz a good 8’ or better ’n dropped us down on the rocky creek bed…..

When the milkweed dried out, you c’ud pull ‘em right out’a the ground ’n the root wuz all twisty ’n sharp pointed ’n they made excellent spears and arrows for our homemade bows cuz Errol Flynn as Robin Hood wuz just as popular as Tarzan ’n we had great fights with the milkweed arrows ’n spears flying ever’where…

When my brother, John, told his grandson about the games we played ’n our homemade bows ’n arrows ’n swords ’n spears, Noah felt sorry for him ‘cuz he’d been so deprived ’n never had any video games to play on the teevee that we didn’t have either….

“C’est la vie” said the old folks, “it just goes to show that you never can tell.” Chuck Berry

  I’m tellin’ you, boys, there ain’t nuthin’ like a river……

My grandpa had a little farm out on Leatherwood crick…well, Leatherwood Creek ackshully, but ‘crick’ is what we called it back in the day…

Leatherwood ‘ud go dry ever’ summer but most creeks back there do the same…

Leatherwood ran into Schultz Creek which pretty much kept at least a little water until real late in the summer…

Schultz ran into Tygart Creek which wuz durn near a river, only missing that status by a mile or so…

Tygart ran down into the Ohio River which is a sizeable body of water.  The Ohio River is the border for Kentucky ’n the State of Ohio but the river itself belongs to Kentucky…

I never quite figured that out but then I only got m’self a high school education…well, some college back in the mountains but I don't hardly count that...

The high school I went to wuz the largest school in the County at that time…

It wudn’t what you’d call a first-rate school nor even a second-rate but it had aspirations ’n I figure the education I got there is ever’ bit as good as what most college students get t’day….well, cept for all the social studies ’n stuff they got t’day…

One of the things we had at our school wuz Miz Harper…she was a tall, lean, knife-edge kind of woman, didn’t brook no nonsense at all…drove a big, black Cadillac sedan all her long life…think maybe it might’a been the same one but I don’t know that for sure…..

Driving wuz a big deal when I wuz a boy…turning 16 wuz a red-letter day cuz it meant I c’ud get a drivers license…took off from school ’n Daddy drove me up to the County seat ’n I took a test ’n got my license….think it cost Daddy two dollars….

When Daddy got his license ‘way back when he wuz a boy, it cost him 25 cents ’n he had to send off to Frankfurt to get it…

Didn’t ackshully need a license back then but he just wanted one, he wuz that crazy for driving…when he went blind late in life, it ticked him off somethin’ fierce that he cudn’t drive anymore…

After Momma died, he went back to Kentucky…

He got with a cousin of mine who let him drive her car while she told him where to go…

He like to busted a gut laughing when he told me about it...

Life ain’t never what it ought’a be, it’s always just what it is ’n you got to deal with what is c’uz you ain’t got no other choice…..if life wuz what it ought’a be, ever’body ‘ud have a warm, dry place to sleep ’n 3 or 4 meals a day on the table…we’d all be fat ’n happy ’n just lay around procreatin’ c’uz that’s what people do best…..

Heck fire!  When I wuz a boy, this county had half as many people as we got today…back then, we all smoked ’n drank ’n we had lots of wars ’n calamitous times but we still managed to procreate so well that we more’n doubled our population…there ain’t a doubt in my mind that that’s what anybody ‘ud call a success story….