So we missed the feeding cycle….

We planned ahead, up before the break of dawn. Summer is to short for screw-ups. So with fresh "live" bait in hand, we headed to my buddy’s pontoon boat early in the am. We had everything in order.

The checklist… cooler with ice, check.
Tackle box, check, rods, reels, line, check.
Beverage, check, fishing licenses, check…

We were street legal, make that DNR legal, even the boat horn worked and yes I had sun block on as Rosebud’s 57th rule so states, " Don’t leave home without it, Bud!"

The sun was coming over the trees and a little mist was lifting off the lake’s surface. Even the call of the loons was making this day very special. I was stowing the gear ready to cast off when my buddy tried to start the engine…
Crank, crank, crank and there was a hint of the engine firing. For the next 40 minutes I tried everything other than a major overall to get his engine started. Crank… cranks… nothing. My one morning of the week to go fishing and we are beached, boatless.

Well what were we to do? Right, use another boat, a boat which the owner said, "be my guest," who was out of town and we had the keys. So after another hour of jicky jacking around the two of us were out fishing by 10 am.

I am not going to tell you how many fish we didn’t catch, nor that the lunar tables said we were fishing in a low time period. But the word for it is skunked is used or zipped. But we were not… we were fishing a chain of lakes that on weekends is a complete zoo of boat traffic, jet skis but not this am.

There was only a mild wind (no bugs) no boat traffic and the two of us talked about old times… and after all what else is there… Ya, fish but who cares, we’ll nail them next week.

Walt Disney BE Damned…

Who ever heard of a talking mouse or a duck in a blue sports coat. For years Disney’s firms made a killing staring cute animals that all kids needed a carbon copy of before falling off to sleep. Now kids need DVD’s with high definition TV’s or else.

Then Walt made a cartoon about four legged creatures, Bambi and all her relations. Then for some reason the deer population here in the north has grown and grown for who wants to shot Bambi? It used to be hunters in the fall really had their work cut out for then… but no more. They, the deer, are now thick as flies.

New people who moved up here to the woods were at first are over joyed at seeing a baby deer in their yard… until a week later when there was no lawn but a burned of brown area due to over grazing deer. Now we have many areas that are now closed to hunting for there are just as many people living here as there are deer. It seems there isn't an open season on people only in the middle east.

The northwoods is starting to look like Deerfield, Illinois with malls and everything thing the flatlanders left the south to get away from. In general our simple life, progress, has lead us to lose sight on the one thing of meaning and peace(tranquility). No, I don’t mean the lack of war, that would be reasonable. The peace I mean is that of walking in the woods without the rumble of traffic in the distance or at night being able to look up and see the stars without the glow of town parking lights.

There is no holding back "progress" nor the deer that come in the night and mow down Rosebud’s garden. There actually are only two winners out there, the auto body shops from deer hits and the crows that are offered a free lunch on our roadways…

Where am I? I need to volunteer...part 6

There was never time to do the things that counted. It was a mad rush to get to work than return home at night with your tail dragging. Then came the most important part of the day, family time, helping the kids along their way.

But poof… it’s magic and you are helping them with their’s and other friends kid’s tots learn how to skip rocks, hang on to a ski rope and the fine art of make "some-mores."

Having said good by to clocks, appointments and the "I just have to be there on time" mindset, Rosebud and I have time to help others and what a joy it is. For 40 years it was butt busting time and watching the pennies. No this isn’t Golden Pond time now, but as a card carrying member of ARRP who didn’t ask for a card at least we both have the time to enjoy the simple stuff that was under our noses for such a long time.

But the best of all is donating our time at our locale thrift shop which helps those in our area get by letting them have a better life and a wider smile. There are many ways to waste time and chasing a money wagon was one of them, but helping others is a gift unto yourself. So when someone passes the hat to you dig deep and your interal rewards will come.

So much for past and current history and the where am I series. Tomorrow? We are talking the future… like where is string cheese headed.

Where am I? taking a day off... part 5

You do it every day, it’s more automatic than brushing your teeth. No I don’t mean that.. You’re going someplace, you’re out and about. Walking? Are you kidding? It’s the car were talking about. Getting from Point A to Point B (hi Brian). " It’s nice ride, or ten years ago…"Great Wheels!"

Where am I today? That’s a very good question. We are down the road headed to someplace that we really don’t need to go cause we were there just yesterday. We waste more time, energy and cash by just not thinking ahead. But worst of all it gets to be a habit, not thinking ahead and jumping in the car just to jump in the car. I admit I am one of the worst offenders. I am in the middle of a project and I forget this and that at the hardware store, (once again), it the forth trip to Ace to change a simple faucet.

Take yesterday, please. I’ve got a boss at the pro shop who every other day changes the work schedule. So I was planning to open the Golf Pro Shop for the day meaning 5:30 shape getting things ready for the first golfers. Shaved and showered I head down the road to work with one eye open.

A mile from the course I glance down and notice I had left the shop keys at home, back I head. I rush in the house waking everyone pick up the keys and now speed back.. . a little late.
I pull in the lot and there I find a fellow employee had the place open for business. He’d changed the work schedule the day before… he’s as disorganized as I am so the key two phases that I am working on are "PLAN AHEAD" and "Trust but Verify".

Where am I? the waist line… part 4
It’s unhealthy, but it tastes good. It’s bad for you but it tastes good.
It’s heart healthy, but it tastes bad.
Do you see a correlation?

It’s there every day usually three times a day, meal time. Our parents never had a weight problem nor their parents. They went to the store and made their daily purchase and brought the stuff home and mom did her magic. If it tasted good who cared. There were no words of caution., diet wasn’t in their dictionary and a physical workout was manual labor job for 10 hours a day.

The milkman dropped off glass bottles of whole milk and picked up the empties. In the markets food was packed in simple dull cans or paper bags and you only had a choice of one and one or two produce items. The printing on the packaging was in pounds or ounces and not in chemical formulas that a college chem. professor couldn’t figure out. You had your choice of the four basic food groups. This was a time which required a little thought both in the limited choice of foods and it’s preparation.

It’s almost a lost art, cooking as well as shopping. Highly processed food, chemical preservatives and microwave ovens have taken a major part of the "ART of Life" away from us. As one who has suffered the consequences of fast foods, I just hope we find a pathway back to the pleasant dining room table with good friend, a bottle of the best and a time to enjoy your company….
To your health.

Where am I today? … part 3 ½

I am sitting on the sofa, I’ve got one hand on the keyboard and an eye or two on the British Open Tournament.

I quite can’t get things straight about the British and labels. For some reason golf was first played and developed in Scotland but the Brits claimed it as their own as they did Scotland. So where golf first originated so did another gift the Scots give the world…. Scotch Whiskey.

So this is today’s subject, Scotch! As a lad my grandmother, Claire, when staying with us would always ask me to fix her a nightcap, a good strong Scotch on the rocks. As the years past the medication didn’t, she even asked me to step it up to a double. Dear Mimi as she was called lived to be 94 and hadn’t lost a thing up stairs when she past on. Her label was Johnny Walker’s Black Label, no a bad choice, mines the cheapest stuff in the store.

Yes, this is family history which I am further boring you with….but as the British Open rolled along today I went to our booze cabinet and hauled down several bottles of the Scottish product by J&B and Cutty Sark. I know they are a blend and not the top - top brands but…

Right there on the labels was another affront to all Scots who blow into the pipes and wear kilts. Each product is only allowed exported from Scotland by appointment by her royal majesty. These appointments were to London wine merchants housed on St. James Street London were made in the 1600 and 1700’s cutting off the boys in Glasgow.

If I were Scotland I’d tell her majesty to switch to port wine and leave the game of golf to Scotch drinkers and it's export. So, here’s to my grandmother who knew the value of a good Scott, she married one twice removed.

Where am I? or what you missed in the 50’s part 3
Yesterday’s post left some readers in a dust cloud of confusion. The election of 1948 was in 1948 and yes it took my parents and the state of Iowa 4 years to receive the news … things were a little slower in the 40’s …. Now for today’s blog…

We’re talking AM. No, I don’t mean the part of the day where you eat Cherrios. AM is a radio band and it was IT. The only sound on the radio were rebroadcast Cub games by Ronald Reagan and the latest hits on 78 rpm disc of Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians. Why they let them over the boarder into the US only the FBI knows.

The huge advance for mankind was the development of the FM radio band, no more Royal Canadians. Now we could listen to Bob Cosby and the Bobcats…. Let’s fast forward a few years to Bill Haley and the Comets and the world has never been the same. Then some guy put rear speakers in cars, tape decks with 8 track carts … then along came the Doors, the Who, the Hollies and the Beatles - quick get a can of Raid. Then several years ago hear came the I-pods with ear plugs which blow the mind of only the listener, not the entire community.

Oh the joys of modern life. Tomorrow I’ll do the cooking and we’re talking Micro-waves.

Where am I? part 2
So Truman upsets Dewey, Missouri is happy even Kansas but the rest of the mid-west is P.O.ed. I don’t care what party you favor if a guy can’t tie his shoelaces maybe he should be president. To recover from this trauma my folks planned a trip. So we, the family take this three-day drive east over 2 lanes highways that the local cows designed. By east that’s Iowa to New York City. The hayseeds are headed to the cultural center of the universe, circa 1952. It happened that my mom talked pop into a little R & R in her hometown, Manhattan, culture for the kids and this was pre Sesame Street.

First stop was in north Philly to see an aunt, uncle and cousins…. Over the next four days dad spoon-feed us four semesters of college level American history and "by the way boys, this here’s the Liberty Bell and that valley is called Forge". It was up close and personal without a Philly Beef Steak sandwich. Then it was through the corkscrew, (Holland Tunnel) and the Oki’s are in the Big Apple.

After a short tour at Macys’s getting all dolled up we hit the street’s and walked by CBS’s (the radio company) building on Madison Ave. And what to our surprise they had this talking radio in their window. It stops us cold. Us being the four brothers and parents. Out of this big wood box not only came sound but a moving picture of a guy selling Lipton tea bags. The guy was Art Godfried and his show Talent Scouts. Today Fox has the same thing going, In the 30’s it was a guy named Major Bowes and his Talent Hour. Yes there is nothing new under the sun, just new wrapping paper. This was our first exposure to commerical TV, Modern man’s gift to the world.

Months later back in our hometown our neighbor fired up the state’s first TV station and Pop goes out and purchases a talking box with a picture tube inside…. its’s Time for Beanie, the Range Rider and Captain Gallant and our minds have never been quite the same… the next day we rocked on with Dick Clark!
WHO NEEDS RADIO?

Where am I? part 1
Not so lone ago in the terms of the life span of a California Redwood one of my daughters asked me to write up my thoughts about my life (what a boring subject to put anyone through). I think she was more interested in what life was like pre-Paul McCarty and Ringo Star era. So for months when I found I had nothing better to do I sat in front of the computer screen with a dull look on my face and tried to put down the History of the World According to Garp. After all one good flop deserves another.

Well, I started with "day one" but could not remember anything thing. It’s hard. Try it yourself. What’s the first thing you remember in your life? Go stand in a dark closet and put everything out of your mind and think back to WHEN…. Some of us can’t remember what we had for dinner last night. But here’s the deal, the more I thought about myself the more I thought of others. It’s not about us, it’s about people and event that have shaped our life.

So for all of you younger than I, that’s 95% of the world I will guide you over the next series of blogs into to the world of Pre TV, pixels, can you picture that?

A step ahead looking over your shoulder...

Last week I covered two subjects for you, the weather the hot and the cold of it…and a solution to the middle east by renaming it the middle-west problem. There are great minds in the government who get paid billions and you think they’d come up with these simple solutions. And where do I come up with the leading tips and advise…reading the right stuff?

I have this friend who sometimes puts a damper on my creative thinking. I think in college he was a speech major. Every time I try to put in two cent up steps the great debater. If "it’s red than it should be blue. You know it looks like rain… no it’s clear all day." Then I have to ask him where he gets his facts… the answer 90% of the time is the Chicago Tribune, the other 10% is the Lakeland Times, our home town rag.

Now I don’t know about you but the world isn’t made up of Chicago and it’s suburbs, or for that matter Washington DC. It’s only a small part of the world and the Lakeland Times is a place to find out who was caught speeding in town.

There is a lot of water under my bridge and from my view point it doesn’t take a whole lot of brain power to see what is wrong with THEM, its us. We are looking in a mirror without a reflection. Let’s get a little Windex out and clean the windows of our view of the world. Dropping bombs on others doesn’t work, nor does "buying" friendship. Isn’t time to use our brains for a change?

The new wood pile…

It’s back better than ever. Finally after three weeks of cutting slitting and hauling firewood I can safely say we have enough, more than enough. Maybe three to four years worth., enough to get me to the point in life where they admit me into the home.

There is one problem our new chain saw doesn’t have a shut off switch nor dose my younger brother. Seems he has this thing for half dead trees and our new Husky chain saw. In our back 20 acres there isn’t a half dead tree standing … mother nature couldn’t find a better tree harvester. Our family of wood pecker will have to find a new territory grubbing for a living.

There is another 5 years burn of wood that he’s leveled out back and speaking of back mine is really in pain from hauling the stuff. It’s either I hide the new chain aw, he gets hired by an out of state firm, or I find him a new "problem to solve", like what are we to do with all the brusch that's he manufactured.

I shouldn’t complain for his labors for it's delighted our chip monks that have now laid claim to our new hi-rise condo wood pile and our springer dog who stands guard for them.

Fasten your seat belt….

Close cover before striking, you must change your oil every 3,000 or whenever - which ever comes first. "Do this, do that." The orders from headquarters seems to be endless. Crash helmets for bike riding, life vests in the boats, fire extinguishers by the fireplace and a bucket of water by the outside fire pit. There are cross walks in town for us J-walkers.

Someone is always directing you to this and that. Take the garbage out Bud!

It’s as if I and the human race can’t think for themselves. I am up to my eyeballs with instructions not only on the home front but everywhere I roam.
" I am sorry but you have more than 10 items, you’ll have to put something back or use another check out lane." They even have talking gas pumps. As if I can’t tell the difference from hi test to low grade gasoline.

I am firmly convinced that modern man with all his advances has hit the "dumbie stag". Our search for leisure and the simple life has taken away many of the little tasks where a little brain power was required… I mean Velcro shoe laces? Come on!

In the distance…

Your mind is a wonderful tool. It stores things from the past both past and present... here' one, our small lake is 3 miles from the main north –south highway for the state of Wisconsin.

As a kid you could every once in awhile hear the rumble of a passing auto. The faint sound would rumble through the trees and just be audible to the ear. To the west of us are wooded ridges and not much else. As a lad in the summers I could hear wolfs baying at the moon through our open windows. But over the years one sound drove away the other. It seems Detroit can produce more autos than Mother Nature can produce wolfs. AS the years past so did their calls but not the rumble of semis and autos all headed in a hurry to no where.

About every twenty years our state government seems to get something right. Yes, they have a history of shooting themselves in the foot especially the Department of Natural Resources. A dozen years back the DNR reintroduced wolfs to northern Wisconsin and laws about not shooting our four legged friends.

Yes, there still is the rumble of cars in the distance but on some quite nights I can even hear the call of our new friends way in the distance (only interrupted once in awhile by the sounds of a medical helicopter)

Book Marks…

They are never handy when you need them. At night or during mid afternoon naps they are never in reach.

So what do you use instead? Kleenex, an old sock or dental floss? You are at a part in the story where you have over read by two paragraphs and you start knodd-ing off. You’ve make a feeble attempt to mark your spot only to wake later and find your have no idea where in the story you left off.

You then thumb through the book hoping in vein to find something that’s familiar... but it never works. Then the wheels start turning… What if some one came along a moved your bookmark?

Don’t laugh that this, I happen to know a person who does this to me, enjoys doing it just to get me confused. I am not naming names but it's the same person who reoranizes my office so that I can't find a thing. Then I have to ask for help in finding an important item. There is one way out of this problem...
start reading fluff and also stripping my little world of all necessary items, have tooth brush will travel.

The nature blog I promised,
Global Cooling….

It’s the next big thing. I could retire for life on this one. I’ll write a book over the after effects of global warming and make hundreds of dollars, big money. They could even make a B grade movie from it and hire an x- v. president, Spiro Agnew as a consultant. The plot of the story is that mother earth really gets P.O.ed at man for drilling holes in it’s thick skin. It's the same as your doctor giving you a complete physical, bend over!

My book (then a movie) opens up with chapter one in which a series of volcanic eruptions hits mother Earth. We’d have around 30 to 40 big ones all happening that once. They’d be twice the size of Mt. St.Helens. This is very possible for it has occurred in Earth’s geological past dozens of times.

In the movie I’d cast Charlton Heston dressed in tiger skins running from a nursing home. These eruptions would press globe warming to the limit for about two weeks then we ‘d freeze our tails off heading back into the freezer.
I kid you not… this cycle has been going on for the past 40,000 years. But this time we are helping mother-nature along the way. Charlton Heston would then trade his tiger skin in for a wooly mammoth cape and led us to the promised-land on the moon.

The only real thing I got out of college was from my geology classes and the ability to drink a lot of beer. Geology drove home a sense of time and that we are here only for a wink in the history of this place. This is related to beer in the fact that if you've had too many beers then time drags. So much for heavy things, I am going on a rock hunt along the shore.
You never know went you can turn up a gem.

A simple person’s view of the world…

There are some things that just can’t be changed or altered. And when that occurs only creative thinking can change the laws of physics. Just every once in a while someone with a little the brass has to step up and ask the driver to stop the bus. It’s headed for a cliff and the passengers are all asleep. Well, it’s not me at the wheel, but…

First there was Korea, then Vietnam, now Iraq. George W. hasn’t a clue, congress and both parties haven’t a clue and once again the media is pointing fingers in all directions. Since Muhammad climbed the mountain things have not been the same. It’s "my god is better than your god!" Thousands of people have paid dearly due to other people’s lack of judgement and loss of respect for one another’s viewpoints.

There are three things that have plagued man since he crawled from the cave… religion, politics and cash. Right now the Middle East as well as the major players are chasing their trails trying to gain leverage on all three of these. It’s nothing new, it’s been going on savage level for 16oo years. Who’s the top dog this year, this century? There is no policy or leader that’s going to change hatred or bigotry. It comes from within and to end it starts with each of us.

Here’s my simple solution to one of our problems, bite the bullet. We give each Iraq citizen $10,000 in IOU’s, pack our bags and leave. What we would be leaving behind is a dogfight. Iran, Israel and most of Europe would jump on the next plane headed into Baghdad to pick the bones clean. Civilization started in the Fertile Crescent. Let’s hope it doesn’t end there, but to some families it already has.

One last question… and why do we, the US, always have to carry the game whistle?
So much for boring political blogs, tomorrow boring natural blogs.

Who were…..Mr. Smith and Mr. Wesson.

Who is…. Mrs. Paul?

Who is…Mrs. Fields? And what’s so Famous about Amos.

Then there is Famous Dave’s for Rib’s, but if you don’t like ribs and aren’t from the upper midwest, who cares?

and what did Frick and Frack do that’s so memorable?

When I say Ford, who comes to mind? A car or an actor or a president?

All this leads to "if a tree fall in the forest and no one this there…etc."
The world is full un-useful questions and people that make it big for 5 minutes. But then what? It takes staying power. It’s like going on line to a blog site and getting hit between the ears with a feather hammer. Can’t hurt but what have you gained.

For six months I have been over turning new earth grubbing for worms, trying to find that one gem in the rough. I’ve learned that coming up with baked fresh daily is a task in itself. So for today, I sat down and asked myself "What would the Fryguy do?" just use an old platitude, dust it off and give it a different wax job.

So here we are with today’s blog and all of you will come away from it with…. "What in the world has he been into too?" Quite simple, the cooking sherry. See, another un-usefull question, asked and answered. Got go, a fishing date and the worms are fresh.

I was told that you’ re taking the 4th off,
so I am, and the 5th because of a 5th…

An Overview…… 7/3

You have spent quite a lot of time getting there. The hike up the mountain was amazing. There was a trumble a bruised knee and elbow. You learned to keep your head down and not to trip over fallen objects and yet you walked right into a eye level tree branch, so much for planning ahead.

Only a few more steps to the summit and the supposed hard part will be over.
You’ve been here before and the view just amazes all those who put the effort into it. Lake of the Clouds in the UP of Michigan is a wonder.
It’s a panorama, the valley below holds a long lake and eagles fly high above the lake at your eye level. Slowly turning to the north your eye follows the way you traveled up the slope, over a woodland and to the south shore of Lake Superior. Its a wonder in itself. Way out on the horizon is a commercial ship plowing it’s way to who knows where.

Every where you turn up here is His handy work with Isle Royal in the far distant horizon. The climb up took a long time but it was worth it. The stay at the top only moment, now comes the short descent to the parking lot….
What do you know…I’ve just described life’s journey itself, just another day in the northwoods.