"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….

Bread 'n circuses...

“What’s the GOP plan?”

I’ve heard that question from Obama, from Reid, from Pelosi, ’n from rank ’n file liberals across the country.  And there’s always a sneer attached to it.  What is worse, I’ve heard Republicans state that they need a plan to counter the Obama fiasco.

Oh yeah!  Like when one gargantuan fiasco ain’t enough, let’s put our heads together ’n come up with a really, really big one, one that c'n really put us down the old two-holer!

Back in the old days, before the Obama not really Affordable Healthcare Act, the USA didn’t have ‘A Plan’…all we had was the best damn healthcare in the world.  Expensive?  You bet!  But people who could afford it came from all over the world because IT JUST WASN’T AVAILABLE elsewhere.

And for those Americans (’n some others) who couldn’t afford it, well, they went to emergency services where it was, in most places, against the law to not help them... 

And since there wuz, like, 30 million of them (Obama admin figures) that was expensive’n paid for by taxpayers.  (At a cost far less than the trillion dollars or so that the Obama administration has spent so far ’n will continue to spend in the future.)

And so far as The GOP plan or any other government plan to take care of those poor, needy Americans who were unable (or unwilling) to take care of themselves, there simply wasn’t one or any need for one because in a free society, people are not only expected to take care of themselves but actually demand the right to do so.  

I realize it’s an arcane concept, considered by liberals everywhere to be hopelessly outdated but that’s the freedom that humans have not only wanted from time immemorial but to this very day consider it worth fighting ’n dying for.

I find it ironic that liberals here in a land that was founded on liberty, celebrate the fighting and dying in other cultures, other lands, as the human struggle for liberty continues around the world, front page news in our press every single day, in Ukraine, Libya, Egypt, the countries of Africa, in nameless countries that come ’n go but the struggle continues…

yet in this country, our country, our USA, that was founded on the principles of liberty ’n personal responsibility, we vote that precious liberty away in exchange for food stamps ’n welfare… Bread ’n circuses, the historians called it when they documented the Fall of the Roman Empire....

Ambling ~ walk or move at a slow, relaxed pace : they ambled along the riverbank

The really interesting thing about the Cheshire Cat t’me wuz not so much the role he played in the story but his exit where he gradually faded away ’til the only thing left wuz his grin ’n then even that disappeared ’n it wuz as tho’ nuthing had ever occupied that space….

Out ’n about on this quiet Sunday morn…Old Fair Oaks town center is a good place to amble if you’ve a mind that gravitates to that sort o' thing ~’specially in the Spring 'n I must admit that I do like these Spring daze…

Oh, I have friends back in the States 'n I’m aware that it’s still winter there 'n that they're facing another blast of arctic cold ’n I am sympathetic to them but over the years I've grown accustomed to the almost winters we have here in norCal 'n while I don’t really mind a few weeks of inclement weather, (sometimes the rain is quite nice ’n Gawd knows we need snow on the mountain…40 or 50 feet of it ‘ud be grand) on the whole of it, honesty compels me to state that sunny days with blue skies 'n moderate temperatures ain't hard to take...

’Course, the years when we get lots of rain 'n snow  only encourages the incorrigible politicians that run the state to encourage developers ('n baksheesh has no part in it at all) to build ever more homes to house ever more people…soCal has, I think, around 23 or so million people but only enough natural water supply for maybe a half of one percent of that many but, as usual, I digress...

Back in the really olden dayz, there wuz ‘The Gold Rush’ which brought people from all around the globe…depending on your viewpoint, fortunately or un…it also brought the developers ’n they pretty much been more or less in control ever since...

The first time I saw California wuz in 1956 when the USAF brought me into the Santa Clara valley for a short stay before shipping me to the Pacific~I thought then that the garden of Eden must have looked sumthing like…

Anywaze, when I returned to California in the ‘60s, I worked for a few weeks in Santa Clara ~ it wuz still beautiful but they were building ’n blacktopping as fast as humanly possible ’n a few short years later, the developers bought the last strawberry farm in that paradise, built a ginormous housing tract ’n moved on….

Which has nuthin’ to do with the Spring weather we’re enjoying here at this moment…

Digressing again, Spring here in California moves north at about 20 miles a day so it’s relatively easy, if you have the time ’n resources ’n, of course, the urge, to move along with it~which is not to say that I have such resources but in the short long ago, my job allowed me to choose pretty much where I wanted to work at any given time ’n I like Springtime so I followed along in the wake as much as I could….

“Those were the days, my friend, we tho’t they’d never end…..” Mary Hopkins

"I love a rainy night..."

"I never drink water; that is the stuff that rusts pipes."

W.C.Fields

I know we need the rain but I think I’d would’a liked it better in November ’n December…maybe, maybe not but, I know we need it…the doomsters among us wuz sayin’ just a few days ago that it wuz too little, too late…

Gov. Jerry turned off the tap ’n God turned it back on ’n it’s been raining for several days now ’n snowing up on the mountain which is where we really, truly need the moisture to accrue (sorry for the $10 word but it fits)…

Snow on the mountain is the only place where the omniscient politicians can’t waste the water, well, at least until it melts ’n comes downstream to the lakes ’n reservoirs where they c’n get their greedy mitts on it…

Anyhow, da boyz nag at me to go outside ’n when I take ‘em, they stand on the porch ’n stare at the rain before glaring reproachfully at me ’n going back to the door…plus, my shoulder has been hurting all day…(whining, whining, etc)

Well, the rain quit…at least temporarily, or so the ubiquitous ‘they’ say…’n da boyz ’n I went for a stroll, out ’n about…the Village wuz durn near deserted when we started but as we wandered, people began to appear, here ’n there, some of ‘em (at least one of ‘em) toting a furled umbrella….it wudn’t quite dry, Willie got his belly wet (he got short legs)..but Jan the barber wuz working ’n had some treats for the two of them…they are a little bit spoiled….

Anyway, it’s waffle nite at the Smith Manse this Sunday eve (Millyrose don’t want’a cook ’n I have what’s been fairly described as a ‘limited’ repertoire)…

I’m told Folsom Lake rose 8 feet ‘cuz of the last couple dayz but it’s spozed to dry out tomorrow with (hopefully) more rain on the horizon…

Oh yeah!  All this rain ’n a little sunshine ’n the Oxalis that covers the south forty will go crazy….Sacramento, CA

Waiting for God....(to make it rain, c'mon)

STATE OF THE UNION

I’m not really going to comment on the State of the Union address last nite other than to say that Obama (thanks to rehearsals ’n the teleprompter) gave another good performance…maybe when he’s out of office he can team up with Arnie ’n do beer commercials for Budweiser which pretty much dominates the near-beer market in the USA…

Anyway, it’s Wednesday ’n I’m just waiting for the rain…it’s been 40some days or thereabouts, since we’ve had any rain….’n now, well now, they say we’re gonna get some, at least a little bit ’n it’s overcast ’n feels like it’s maybe gonna rain…churches around the area are telling their parishners to pray for rain…It could rain, wouldn’t hurt…snow on the mountain (Sierra) would help more…lots of snow, the kind of snow they’re getting in Georgia ’n along the eastern seaboard…what we need is some Buffalo snow, feet rather than inches, the kind of snowpack we had last year which our omniscient Democrat legislature pissed away…or allowed to be pissed away which amounts to the same thing….

Here in California (’n I can’t believe that we’ve been here just about 54 years now) we have dry years ’n wet years…during the dry years, we’re always reminded about how we live in an arid climate ’n we’re really dependent on rain ’n snow ’n if we don’t get it, we’re all gonna die or maybe have to move to Oregon or some such Godforsaken place ’n we should all give up our lawns (did that one years ago) but then we’ll have a wet year ’n everyone rejoices ’n all the lakes ’n reservoirs get full ’n we here in norCal sell water to the folks down south who cheerfully waste it on golf courses ’n swimming pools ’n washing their cars ’n the sidewalks ’n streets ’n make fun of us up here because we have trees…go figure…anyway, when we have lots ’n lots of water, our overseers get in a panic that the next year will be wet also ’n the dams ’n the lakes ’n the reservoirs will all have too much water so they, in their infinite wisdom (a bi-partisan thing) release tons ’n tons of water so that there’ll be space for all the new water that’s coming down the pike (in this case, mountainside)….then GUESS WHAT?  It don’t rain.  Drought is upon us ’n panic sets in ’n the political answer is to raise water rates, of course, because the only answer is to FORCE the people to conserve….

I believe that this may be a bureaucratic thing ’n partisan politics really has nothing to say about it because it doesn’t seem to matter whether we have Democrats or Republicns in office as we seem to go trundling along regardless…I guess it’s the bureaucracy that actually runs California ’n the real political struggle is for the shining stars to figure out how to get ’n stay in front of the parade…

"Truth is stranger than fiction, but that's because fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth ain't." Mark Twain