“I’ve said this before but it bears repeating: If you don’t believe in magic, you’ll never find it.”
T’morrow morning, an old boy named Jamie Patrick is gonna jump in the Sacramento River just a little bit south of Redding....he’s gonna swim downriver to Sacramento....He sez long swims help him relax...that’s about a hundred ‘n ten miles so he ought’a be really relaxed when he gets down here...he’ll be wearing a wet suit becuz the river is cold ‘n polluted...
Rivers are always polluted, some more ‘n others cuz even when you don’t have people around, you got all them other animals...but people are the main polluters...we’ve always used rivers as natural sewers under the belief that they cleanse themselves...’course, we learned that where rivers flow into lakes, the lakes are polluted ‘n now we’re doing a bangup job of polluting the oceans also...
Anyways, back to river swimming....I grew up on the Ohio River ‘n taught m’self to swim....well, it wuz either that or drown..ever’one I knew swam in the Ohio River...Hobo Cooper swam the Ohio once when it was flooded becuz he spotted a loose sailboat on the other side...when he got to it, he discovered it was a 5’ model sailboat but since he was there, he brought it back...I’ve often wondered what he ever did with it...we wandered the riverbank a lot back in those daze, mostly upstream as far as Fullerton ‘n sumtimes, South Shore, so anywhere from a mile to two miles...we’d grab a log ‘n jump in the river ‘n swim back to Beattyville Landing...back then there wuz lots of stuff floating in the river but during the war, all the diesel fuel ‘n such went to the military so the river boats all went back to wood ‘n coal...we still had the big old sternwheelers in those daze ‘n Beattyville boyz tho’t it wuz great fun to swim in behind them ‘n ride the wake....well, it wuz hard times back then ‘n kids had to amuse themselves...
I can’t imagine a better time to have grown up in ‘n sumtimes feel sorry for children t’day....’course, these are the ‘good ol daze’ for kids t’day....
“Everyone wants better. No one wants change...”
"The idea is to die young as late as possible..." A. Montagu
Suicidal wine glasses....
A couple weeks ago, another one of our wine glasses jumped out of the cabinet to perish on our faux hardwood floor...
It wasn’t the first time...this p’ticklar set of wine glasses has been diminishing themselves since day one...
don’t ask me why...we try to provide a stable environment for them...a dry ‘n airy cabinet with similar glassware ‘n we certainly don’t abuse them with overuse....altho’ I s’poze that could be, might be the problem....maybe we just don’t drink enuff wine to keep ‘em happy....whatever the reason, out of the original set of six, we are now down to one...we keep him (or her) cozied up with the remnants of previous sets in hopes that they may take solace from each others company ‘n thus not feel suicidally lonely but I fear for this one remaining glass...depression is a terrible thing ‘n it must be terribly depressing to be the very last of such a close knit group....I guess I could just smash it on purpose but that seems too cruel....I have much too tender a heart for that type of behavior so we’ll just have to wait ‘n see....
Well, I believe that life is better’n death,if for no other reason that it’s less boring ‘n becuz it has strawberries ‘n ice cream in it...
"Ever'one wants better, no one wants change!"
Apples ‘n oranges....
that’s how simple it is, that’s the crux of the matter....I have an orange tree ‘n my neighbor has an apple tree...we both have plum trees ‘n we both agree that the birds get far more benefit from the plums than either of us but that’s a whole ‘nother story...the problem with apples ‘n oranges is a simple one...conditions that cause my orange tree to flourish ain’t all that good for my neighbors apple tree ‘n visa versa...oranges don’t do all that well in a climate that’s kind to apples...
Out politicians are so focused on their own p’ticklar tree that they simply can’t see that their neighbor has a different tree ‘n all the rest of us are caught in the middle again..As Pogo once famously said, “We have met the enemy ‘n he is us.”....
Making things complicated is simple. Making things simple is complicated.
Hoo boy....goin’ down the tubes...
leastways, that’s what neighbor Doug sez...”We been riding these 10 foot swells for awhile now ‘n the raft is a little beat...now, it looks like we’re gonna get some 20 foot swells ‘n there ain’t no way that we c’n ride waves that size.”.....
That’s the trubble with watching the nooze...Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal ‘n Ireland are broke ‘n going down ‘n our esteemed President (Yeah bro, I know, he ain’t your Prez but he’s ever’one else’s) wants us to bail out Greece...I ‘spect he’ll think it won’t be fair to just bail out one country so we should prob’ly tax our millionaires a little bit more ‘n bail out the rest of those impecunious countries also...
It don’t seem t’matter to the politicians that the USA is just as damn impecunious as the rest of those wunnerful western European countries...
Anyways, I’m thinking that if you’re in a free fall, it seems to speed up right before you go SPLAT!
Once’t upon a time, I had a friend who was a pioneer in flight back in the age of biplanes...one of those ‘daring young men’....he told me a story of a friend of his, a woman wing-walker, renown for her derring-do ‘n her disregard for personal danger....one day while performing at an air show, she did her stunts ‘n then leaped into space where she did a prolonged free fall to the amazement of the crowd gathered below...only problem was, when she finally pulled the ripcord on her parachute, the chute failed to open ‘n she smashed into the ground. Manning, my friend, was the first one at her side where she gasped out, “The damn chute didn’t open.”....’
It’d be a damn shame if in the history of the decline ‘n fall of the USA, it all came down to the phrase, “The damn chute didn’t open!”
Return of the yellow-billed Sacramento valley magpies....
A few years ago we use’ta get thousands of magpies here in Ol Fair Oaks....they’d come ‘n visit, roosting mainly across the street from us, stay for a few weeks ‘n then move on as was their wont ev’ry year...(as was their wont is a phrase that you just don’t hear often, at least these daze)....
Anyways, what happened was the West Nile Virus came along ‘n devastated the magpie population...it was pretty hard on Crows ‘n ‘Jays as well but it took out about 90% of the magpie population....we didn’t see any magpies for about two years ‘n then we had one come by one summer day, sort of an advance scout maybe...he wuz a young bird ‘n we were sitting on the porch ‘n he just flew in, looked around for a few moments...didn’t say much but they’re much more talkative in groups....anyways the following year, we’d catch a glimpse now ‘n then, here ‘n there, but never a flock as there use’ta be...until t’day...
Today, for whatever reason, we have a flock of magpies...not sure how many but enuff of ‘em that they were talking,,,I kept an eye on them ‘n during the evening walk with da boyz, I stopped to talk with my neighbor, Doug, when they came to roost...must’a been 40 or 50 of ‘em...Doug sed he’d never seen so many at one time...I’m not sure he believed me when I told him that thousands use’ta roost in his back yard every year but if the West Nile don’t come back ‘n get them, he’ll find out....
I like magpies but they are annoying birds... they make a lot of noise, they run off the ‘jays ‘n they get drunk on the mulberries ‘n crap purple all over the landscape...but then on that proverbial other hand, they are strikingly attractive birds, black ‘n white with yellow beaks ‘n they’re only found in the Sacramento valley (or so I’ve been told)...at any rate, I’m glad to see ‘em back....
Euphemistically speaking...which is what our esteemed politicians do best...the arguments between the conservative right ‘n the liberal left continue unabated...I think the general opinion of most Americans is that they’re almost as bad as several thousand chattering magpies...anyway there is nothing conservative about the uber right ‘n there’s certainly nothing liberal about the far left...you gotta wonder why leftist Americans persist in referring to themselves as ‘Liberals’ when in fact, they are anything but liberal in their ideology. A more correct term would be Marxist or Socialist or Commuinist. I’m sure they wouldn’t be ashamed to call themselves any one of those particular terms so there must be another reason for branding themselves as Liberal...all in all, I’d rather listen to the magpies....
My question for Congress is, if you don't have time t'do it right, when will you have the time t'do it over?
