"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."
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