Tuesday (Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm.....)

• Well, it's Tuesday morning 'n me 'n da boyz went strolling along Crestline on our daily S&P tour...
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• It’s a beautiful sunny morning, somewhat bucolic,  quiet ’n peaceful here in Olde Fair Oaks, even after perusing the news earlier 'n the news is almost never, ever bucolic....
• I think I’m prob'ly addicted to the morning papers (along with my coffee) but sometimes I wish I could just forget all about what’s happening in this country ’n the world….
• Anyway, there wuz lots of news about the California economy…on the one hand, we have our politicians telling us how well we’re doing, how we’re gonna have a budget surplus this year ’n we’ll be able to ‘spread the wealth’ around just like if we wuz all rich….’cept, we ain’t….because on some of the other pages of this liberal newspaper, wuz the news that Toyota is moving their headquarters from California to Texas…no mystery there, Texas has no state income tax 'n really low corporate taxes...
• I'm not wondering why they moved…no big deal, I guess, it’s only a little over 5,000 jobs here in California (Let ‘em go, we don’t need or want them, said my liberal friend)...’course, in Texas, it’s going to mean tens of thousands of jobs..has to do with more capital investment, I’m told…gotta wonder why Toyota didn’t want to make that investment here….
• Also in the pages of that liberal newspaper wuz an article telling how great California schools are doing 'n if we just give 'em more money out of this new budget, they'll do even better....except, it also contained some of the actual figures ’n it seems that while California spends almost as much money per student as New York (which spends the most money 'n has the lowest graduation rate) ’n Texas that spends far less 'n has a far higher high school graduation rate, especially among (gasp) black ’n latino students…tsk, tsk…'course, liberals do tend to overlook 'factual' facts in favor of those manufactured facts they do so well....
• Anyway, California is, according to that same paper, making great strides…they don’t say forward or backward but, I’m thinking, that without half trying, the Brown administration can take us back to those bucolic days before WWII when California was truly a backwater ’n only a destination for destitute farmworkers….'n lest we forget, the tinsel 'n glitter of Hollywood...
• 'Way back then, back before World War II, the one known as ‘The Big One’ even tho’ in the fullness of time, it has become one or our shorter conflicts, lasting only a little over four years from 1942 thru most of 1945…
• The popularity of WWII is understandable for several reasons:  First, it took us out of the depression.  Democrats are fond of saying it was Roosevelt's New Deal that did that but it wuz the war what done it.
• Then, secondly, we clearly won.  We were bloodied, of course, but we dominated, ’n finally, our collective mem’ries are distorted by the fact that, because of human mortality, most ever’body that conducted that war has since passed on…
• It’s always been far easier to celebrate dead heroes than to actually have to look into the face of the reality of war….
• Ah, the glory days….

Monday morning sniff 'n pee tour.....

One of the problems with the self-educated is the gaps generally due to a lack of interest in some particular subject; the institutionally educated don’t have that excuse.

I wuz fifteen years old, I think, the first time I ever saw a Great Dane in real life….Oh, I’d seen pictures, of course, ’n in the movies, but that ain’t quite the same thing c’uz pictures don’t do ‘em justice.

What it wuz, I had just walked up what later wuz to become known as the old road but at that time wuz the only road, a (barely) two-lane blacktop primarily known then as US 23…I’d rounded Warnock curve, passed Frank Wheeler’s Chevrolet ’n wuz just turning the corner at Bennett’s Tea Room when I came face to face with a Great Dane who stood up on his hind legs and put his front paws on my shoulders ’n licked me in the face…

To have called me dumbfounded would’a been an understatement…it wuz the biggest durn dog I’d ever seen in my life….

Anyhow, back to real life ’n our morning S&P stroll around Village Park wherein we met a Great Dane ’n Willy went slightly nutz (Rusty seemed only somewhat stunned but recovered quickly enough, ‘specially when we took to the street in a roundabout)..the couple walking the Great Dane paid us hardly any attention at all which wuz also the case with the Great Dane…I suppose animals ’n people, too, who spend their lives with the appellation ‘Great’ get used to gawkers…..

I can’t remember who had that Great Dane on that longago day in South Shore but I vividly remember the dog….He (or p’haps, She, I don’t know) wuz tan with some white…this one t’day wuz more of a brindle….anyhow, I’ve seen larger dogs than Great Danes over the course of my life…some wolfhounds that were the size of ponies…the trait that most large dogs seem to share is everyone of them has been friendly…well, at least to people, dunno how they’d actually be to scampy, trampy little dogs like Willy who, at most, would only make two or possibly three mouthfuls for ‘em….

Anyhow, we made it home safely ’n da boyz are taking a little snooze…A little too early for me to do the same but I’m thinkin’ we could all learn a lot from observing the priorities of our dogs…..

Easter Sunday 'n most of the week after.....

HOPE YOU HAD A JOYOUS EASTER!

“Tardiness is not a virtue!”  So saieth Ms Fanny Williams, South Portsmouth Grade School, circa 1946 (maybe)….

So, maybe I’m just a leetle bit tardy talking about Easter Sunday but I am prone to my own time table ’n that’s just the way it is….Easter Sunday was a fine day right from the start….we got up ’n went to church at 7:30 in the AM…a beautiful, sunshiny day from the get-go…afterwards, we went home ’n prepared for Sunday company (I tried m’best to stay out’a the way)….’n I’m gonna skip over the preparations, suffice it to say that ever’thing got done in time…

All told, we only had a dozen people here at the Smith Manse in Olde Fair Oaks…it wuz a  quiet crowd, more or less, ’n most of us spent the early part of the afternoon on our newly refurbished veranda…I guess I c’n call it a veranda now as it kind’a wraps around one side anyhow….’n there’s a table ’n chairs, two rocking chairs ’n a lawn glider that I brought home from Mom’n Dads place in O’vale…

The menu wuz sufficient, what with lamb ’n ham ’n tons of veggie dishes (lots of leftovers for them as likes ‘em which is most ever’body ‘cept me)….enuff beer, wine, coffee ’n dessert ’n lots ’n lots of  pleasant conversation…as I stated before, it wuz a fine day all the way from git to go…would that ever’one had such a day….

Took a little trip to Santa Rosa to visit fam’ly…..Hwy 50 is a mess, what with the construction ’n such so I did an end run ’n went to old way down  past American River College to Auburn Blvd where I got on #80 ’n headed west…my first indication that things were going smoothly wuz when I got to Davis, I discovered that I had cut 10 minutes from the time it’s been taking me to go Hwy 50…hmmmm, who’da thunk it?

Had a pleasant drive all the way to Santa Rosa where bro-in-law Franko picked up the tab for lunch, nice visit with fam’ly ’n a smooth, uneventful ride back home in  time to walk da boyz…

And then, I guess God’s way of keeping things in perspective, we woke up to rain on the roof ’n snow on the mountain, over a foot, I’m told ’n a temporary closure of the Interstate….

The ubiquitous ‘they’ say that growing old ain’t for wusses but here lately, I’ve been having a pretty good time without even half trying….

On meeting a wet horse...

"My mother had a great deal of trouble with me, but I think she enjoyed it." Mark Twain

A couple times in my life, I have found things (I s’pect that most ever’body finds things now ’n then)...  

One afternoon, I found a baby, but only for about twenty minutes’n then found the mother which was fortuitous to say the least…And once I found an amiable elderly gentleman ’n had a nice conversation with him until his daughter found us ’n took him home…

Then, there wuz a couple times that I found a horse…

Usually, when (’n if) you find a horse, you generally find a rider nearby but not always….

One rainy evening, well ackshully nearing mid’nite, my friend, Gerald ’n I, wuz walking down the road (southbound US23, t’be precise) when we came upon a horse going the same direction…since it seemed somewhat impractical for all three of us to walk ’n since it seemed unlikely that Gerald ’n I t’gether could even lift the horse, much less carry him, why we just asked the horse to carry us…the horse didn’t say no ’n didn’t seem to mind when we clambered (nice word, ain’t it~never tho’t I’d have much use for that word but there you are) aboard ’n down the road we went, the three of us…

I think I said before that it wuz a kind of rainy evening ’n you may not know this, but horses, like dogs, tend t’be a wee bit odiferous when they’re wet…’n more than willing to share their wet hair with anyone dumb enuff to brush against them which maneuver then allows the recipient to share that odiferous quality of wet horse….

At any rate, the three of us travelled along quite amiably until Gerald ’n I reached our destination where we disembarked or unclambered (got down) (from the horses back, y’see) thanked the horse for his company ’n watched him (or possibly her, maybe an it) disappear in the mist leaving only a coating of horse hair, the odor of wet horse ’n a memory…..

Again, quoting from Mr. Clemens~"Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of eighty 'n gradually approach eighteen."