No one is Listening


How many times were you told to cleanup your room, finish your dinner or do a simple chore and it didn’t register. Especially when you had ACME. That brain of yours tuned things out at the ears. Nothing penetrated your block of granite. Then came the late teens and twenties and everything registered except in class. It’s called selective hearing, What? I didn’t hear you!

We had a group here in town. A brunch of us would meet very early am at the local café and have a morning cup. We exchanged the local gossip and then off to work by 7:30am Sharp. The exchange of stuff - of who did what, when and where would spread through out the community within the day. Our group were called the “alligators”. As everyone knows an alligator is an over weight bully that has a huge mouth and very small ear and no memory what’s so ever. All it can think about is what’s for dinner.

For years it was yak-kitty yak each morning but no one was listening. Finally, all our members lost their reason for showing up at such an reasonable hour. You could call it memory lost and be right on. The final nail was someone purchased the café and built a McDonald’s. I mean you just can’t call McD’s your home away from home. So much for our listening post now it's a saloon down the road.

Plant Earth. 7/21
It was a super TV series, even better on wide screen hi-def. It was a beautiful time shot of us now… Us being all the things that crawl along on this planet. In short, life is amazing and so are humans. The question is why can’t we all row the boat in the same direct.

The other day I got down my old geology books from college. One of them was a subject called Geomorphology. To some 99% of all people the subject may seem boring. But it held me spell bound for a semester or two. It’s the study of structure. Another words what’s under us and how it got that way. Where is this going?

In a nut shell non of us have control of our lives. The boat of state just bounces off the rocks. You didn't choose your parent’s, you can’t stop that lightening bolt from frying your hair. But you can choose not to live on a fault line, or a mountain slope that’s an old volcano ready to do it again or build a million dollar home in a flood plane.

Mother Nature at one time had 45 super huge volcanoes all going off at one time each five times the size of Mt St. Helen’s. They weren’t just one big bang, they were active for years. The sulfur they put in the air was thousands times the amount that our cars put out. Yet, we need to put things in perspective.

We have two things that are effectingus, energy and pollution and it concerns ALL of us. If we could put a man on the moon with only an advanced slide rule why not the same effort (with cash funding) using super computers to answer our problems… To easy! The only problem we face are the jar heads on capital hill. The investment made by past congresses in the space program has been returned to us many fold. I even have an electric tooth brush. Why can’t we use this same approach NOW. I know NASA sucks and the question is whose going to pay for this???
We have been at $4.40 per gallon and that's for milk.

Projects…
They were considered keep busy things when in retirement. Before retirement they were called chores. But to everyone they are called pain in the butts. The list of must do’s seems never ending. It’s a simple fact that during the summer a thing called grass grows. In the fall leafs fall off trees, and in winter the snow block the drive way.

Other things of note is that the sun fades house paint, dock stains and that lake ice can cause great damage to your dock. What’s the answer to simplifying your life? The answer is either move into the ‘Home’ where they feed you oat meal in the morning or get rid of that Honey Do List.

Let’s approach the problem logically it’s getting a hold of a better use of your time. First is the lawn and it’s care… get rid of it. That’s right, back to nature like Thoreau suggested. No lawn no lawn mower, No lawn no fall raking, go with the natural look. The wild life will love it. As for winter driveway maintenance?

Visit your southern cousins December through May. As your painting and staining around the house- go with fake siding. It’s a one time cost and so is a plastic floating dock. See where this is headed? If we eliminate projects we’ll have more time for the things that really matter, golf and fishing. Oh, yeah Rosebud wants more time for "our" fitness program. I’ll watch.

My dad had it right. He hired a colored man, opps… lets make that right, a black African descendant who at the time lived in America helping my dad’s business. He was a really Mr. Fix It. Old Ralph could fix anything even my brother’s bike when he rode it off a cliff. They never fixed my brother. I sure miss Ralph’s golden touch. I’ve got two junkers in the back yard that Rosebud said “they are out of here!”

Barriers in Life…

Chuck Yeager and his crew at Bell Aircraft worked on the problem of breaking the sound barrier for a long time (they were paid by the hour). No simple task at the time but it’s now common place (not breaking the sound barrier but getting paid by the hour) A few years back Peggie Flemming hadn’t thought of doing a triple camel. No one could get around that fast without landing on their fanny on the ice. Now, every 13 year old is doing them.

High jumping 7’? Doing a triple Lindy’s off the high board? Catch a 6 pound small mouth? Passing freshman composition when you can’t spell your own name? There are some things in life which seem impossible or so said Sir Edmond Hillary.
It’s amazing how different people see and approach a hurdle in life. To us in the majority a hurdle is a large wall blocking some type of advancement… but to a very few it’s a simple barrier holding them back from an adventure, a simple act of doing something that’s cool even daily living.

i.e. You have rather a large pain. It maybe your leg or is it the knee? Make that both or it could be a sever head ache or a pain in the butt. Whatever the case you suck it up and win the US Open Golf Championship. Maybe you are born with a major life threatening handicap but it’s not acceptable to you or your family so you suck it up and battle on. You are a soldier for your country in a wrong spot in the wrong time but thankfully modern medicine has saved your life…

There are amazing stories in this world when people put aside their fear of failure and simply press on. I have a dear friend who is pressing on with a critical health battle. You could crawl in a hole but that doesn’t do it. For even in dealing with a health problem there is something to be learned. For all that we are confronted with is all a part of the life’s ride. … yeah there are a few big bumps, just hang on and enjoy the ride. Beep beep.

Pictured is Rosebud hanging onto the controls of an F16, dear me!

Retire???
I quite.
Really?
Yes, that’s it, period.
You sure?
Yes, I am out the door. It was a great ride.
I know you have been out of gas for some time.
That’s true.
What are you going to do?
Sit on my ass.

There are some things that get can’t be put off. There are others signs that are as simple as the gray hair that starts showing up on people heads (accept mine). It all tells us that time is passing. Our favorite 4 is up against it now. It’s really a big deal that the media have made of it, should Brett stay retired? Or has he pulled the plug to early. Others believed he lost it a few years back… But ALL of us are faced with some form of it every day, incompetence.

You are born. You develop (some of us grow facial hair) and develop skills that remain with us for only a dozen years then gravity take over. Facial hairs turn gray and the stuff on top falls out along with a few teeth. Yes, father time is one mean S.O.B. It robs us of our own abilities as well as those we cheer for.

Some time in the near past an old frat came up a name for this lose your physical being. He called it maturity. Retire? Hog wash!

The thing is that if you enjoy what you are doing and people even pay you to do it and it keeps your battery charged why pull the plug? Al Davis had it right.
“Just win Baby.” And when the band stops playing, the boat has sunk and no body purchases tickets and they starts watching opera then it's time to hang it up.
This also applies to a small roofing business in Joliet Illinois. “Oh, sole low me oh.”

July 5th

It’s a void, a dud fire cracker. The party is over and there is a a mess to clean up , empties to recycle and a trip to the dump. It’s that taste in your mouth after one to many beers and five tooth brushing that can’t get rid of it.
It’s stale air that even a change of socks can’t get remove.

You lite off too many sparklers.

The 5th is just like December 26th or January 1st, New Years day.
It feels like there is a space between your ears the size of the Grand Canyon.
So three times a year you stumble and swear that you’ll be a better person and not over celebrate.

But then the next holiday appears and you lift your glass high to toast your family and friends and have another piece of cake… so what of resolve?

Oh, it can wait to the next 4th of July.

Lite it up … the 4th in our small town. 7/4

Ours’ is a small resort town. For 8 weeks a year our town is run a muck, loaded with “out of town folks” wanting to get back to some form of nature. As a small kid I’d watch in amazement our town’s would lite off a little display of fireworks on the 4th which other towns would blow off as well. The town did it over a beautiful lake and the evening reflections made it all the more impressive. Also, years back a group of kids would put on a water ski show just prior to sunset followed by the fireworks display.

This event has become an annual tradition and it has drawn larger and larger crowds annually. Now there are kiddy parades, marching bands and floats messing up the down town. It’s a great time especially for the saloon keepers. Then at night there is the ski show followed by late evening fireworks and all of it has gotten very up scale. The whole town and thousands of tourists get wrapped up in it.

Why is the 4th different? Why is petty politics set aside for one day a year? Why do most all peoples share is a sence of peace and security on the 4th? It’s a thing called freedom and it has cost and it has cost us dearly and it still is… so to those Americasn helping others gain their freedom the least we can do is light off a sparkler and remember those in uniform holding the line.

Concert on the beach…

A pair of common Loons, they are to the right of our lake front point, another pair is to the left fishing for morning breakfast. The lake is clam and quite. Nesting on shore are two pairs of Canadians with their dozen young hatch., that’s a mess of geese not to mention the mess they left behind. It’s 5:30 am, my quite time of day.

Rosebud has out our humming bird feeder loaded and it’s loaded four to six fast flyers dueling it out for position. Off to the side I have our song bird feeder out and they too are dueling it out each wanting to be King of the Feeder.

So this morning with coffee cup in hand and the sun just breaking over the tree tops I let out our Katie dog for her morning break. Her ears perk up and she and chases after two deer that are watering at our beach point…

pan-damn-momium breaks out! The deer head out to the end of the point causing the song birds and humming birds to take flight then into the lake the deer head… The Canadians start squawking protecting their young causing the Loon to break forth in tune thus causing a nesting Eagle to join the choris… all the while the deer start swimming across the lake.

Ah, nature what a racket. Then from our upstairs bedroom I heard, “What in the world is going down there?” I replied…”Oh, nothing”. This morning is almost worth our 7 months of winter.

Why do we live in the northwoods? Simple…. quack quack quack