You might be a redneck if....

If your local deli also sells fish bait. Yep, it's just down the road a bit over three miles from us, and we do eat there on occasion. Don't order the spaghetti.

More Odds n Ends

Once Upon A Time. I've heard that all my life as the lead in for stories, but isn't that an odd thing to say? Once in a distant time maybe, or once way back in time, but once UPON a time? I could understand once upon a horse because one can get upon a horse, but how does one get upon a time? They must have been sitting on a Time magazine.

We'd had about three eighths of an inch of rain in nearly two months. I couldn't mow the grass because it would snap it off it was so dry. Then we had 3¼ inches of rain in less than 24 hours and nearly an inch three days later. Today it showered a few times too and the lawn is having a party.

I figured out how you can halve your cake and eat it too. It's all in the spelling.

The step-granddaughter and her three kids came for a visit, fortunately staying with my daughter next door. As she seemed nearly oblivious to her 2 and 4 year olds wake of destruction through the place, she casually mentioned how this home wasn't childproofed. I said when my kids were little we homeproofed the kids. It would seem Dr. Spock is spreading insanity in yet another generation.

You don't have to be as cross as a bear just because you have a cross to bear.

The Hershey bar is a staple in my life, but I'm protesting their gender inequality. It's pronounced Her-She, that's two feminine pronouns. I think they should be called Him-He bars when they have nuts.

If Australia is called "Down Under" would America be "Up Over"? Or would that be Europe. By the way did you ever notice Europe is the odd man out when it comes to continents? Everything else starts with "A". The two American continents, north and south, Antartica, Asia, Australia, Africa.

The Outback

When you're a kid playing outside all day, it's kind of handy having a toilet right there in the back yard. When it's dark, five degrees above zero and blowing snow at bed time, that little house behind the house doesn't seem near as convenient though. One Halloween our little house suffered a horrible indignity as it was unceremoniously tossed onto it's face and split open at the corner. Dad stood it back up and hammered it back together to serve just long enough to get a new one constructed. There was a man that had a sawmill down on Railroad Street in that strip of land between the street and the railroad. He built outhouses among other things, and he constructed a new three-holer for us. That one never did get turned over because dad sank some deep postholes, set up big timbers to either side of the outhouse, and bolted them to the building. It wouldn't budge. It served us well until dad installed indoor plumbing and we joined the modern world of flushables.

A vaguely associated memory. Dad was in the back yard digging a hole for the septic tank when a vacuum sweeper salesman came to the front door trying to sell mom a sweeper. She told him he'd have to talk to dad around back, so he walked back to stand on the edge of the deepening hole. He started his spiel by saying something to the effect his little machine would do practically everything the housewife could do. Dad said "Can it bake biscuits?" The salesman laughed and said no, it wouldn't do that, and dad told him he wouldn't be interested then. That was pretty much the end of the sales pitch, but the guy stood there and talked with dad for quite a while, both seeming to enjoy the conversation.

Thinking back one wonders about the sanitation of earlier days in our home town. Many people drew water from dug wells right on their property, and about every home in town had an outhouse. Okay, that's enough thinking back.

Retirement ain't for wusses

The house came with an electric furnace and someone had added a package air conditioner. A package unit does not have cooling coils in the furnace, but the entire thing sits outside, has it's own air return and is connected to the duct work. It was getting feeble and needed quite a lot of repair costs. I figure if I put that money into the old unit, it wouldn't be long before I had to replace something else in it, then I'd start having trouble with the furnace too. I opted to toss the whole works and put in a new package heatpump. Now everything is outside except the ductwork and air return.

This left a space in the hallway between the kitchen and laundry rooms where the furnace had previously resided. It's about two foot square and eight foot tall. When they removed the furnace they sealed the duct beneath it and now I'm in the process of creating a cabinet that will just fit in that area and have shelves floor to ceiling. It will be anchored into place then wood trim that matches the rest of the house put around it, and a door that will hide the whole thing. Momma has several appliance that are only used on occasion and this will be the storage area for them. Things like the large pot she uses only when she makes chicken and home made noodles, her 30 cup coffee maker dragged out when we have a lot of people over, the dehydrators, meat grinder and such. Currently a lot of these things are in the shed, so it will leave me shelf room to better organize my tools.

I'm not sure just where I went wrong with this retirement thing. So far my 3½ years of retirement have seen me working harder than when I had a job. Of course it would have been simpler to drywall the space vacated by the furnace, then paint over it - but no - I had to come up with this bright idea. Worse yet, I have a list of tasks of this sort, changes I want to make, things I want to build. I think I'll leave the list hang on the wall and take a road trip when I get this one finished. I'm overdue.

ASDF JKL;

My Sophomore year, in our little farming community I took a year of typing. Most guys didn't bother because that was something a secretary needed to learn, not a farmer. Since I was neither raised on a farm, nor had any intention of going into farming I took the class. We didn't have hundreds of different classes from which to choose, and I was down to a choice between Typing or Agriculture. I knew I would never need to be able to identify a Spotted Pollen China hog, nor judge which was the superior between two seemingly identical cows, but I thought some day I might like to know how to type. Boy was that a good guess.

After that one year of classes I didn't have an opportunity to touch a typewriter for more than ten years, then a friend gave me an old typewriter he'd picked up somewhere. It was a classic. A 1901 Underwood with a metal frame and no side covers (see picture). You could look at the workings from any angle, and being a manual machine it was great for venting your frustrations on paper. You could stand up, lean forward for leverage, and just beat the hell out of the keys and it went right on typing. Of course you were punching holes through the paper when you typed a period or comma, and some times there was a circle missing out of the paper where the center of the "O" should have been, but it was built durable. It's demise came not from frustrated abuse, but from rust as the result of a leaky roof in the building where it was stored.

Typing served me well when I had my own print shop and did the typesetting, was writing for some magazines, corresponded with several people around the world, and today playing on the computer. My old Underwood had been replaced with an electric typewriter, later replaced by an electronic typewriter, then the computer about ten years ago. I still can't identify a Spotted Pollen China hog, but I can type.

Odds n Ends

Our youngest son was married in our back yard Sunday. It was a nice day, warm but with a good breeze much of the time. My brother the preacher performed the ceremony. It was a few friends but mostly family, and we sat around for hours on the back porch just talking and eating. We had all sorts of food and drinks. Since the actual wedding only took about fifteen minutes, it would be accurate to say we had a family pitch-in get together, and oh by the way, a wedding. I enjoyed it, and everyone else seemed to be enjoying themselves too. The bride walked from the house to the site selected for the wedding with her two sons, one on each side holding her hands. They then stood up with her instead of bridesmaids. My grandson (grooms nephew) stood up with the groom. To me this was so much more pleasant than the grand, formalized weddings. There wasn't the lengthy wait for things to start, but at two thirty everyone stopped their conversations, put down their food and drink, moved from the porch to chairs set up for the occasion, the minister, groom and best man took their places, and out came the bride. The woods that wrap around the lawn was the backdrop, and to me God's own creation beats the most elaborate cathedral ever constructed by the hand of man. May God bless this new union.

A few days ago I learned there's a fellow south of town that works a yolk of oxen. The Amish will hire him to break new ground for plowing, and he takes them around to old fashioned festivals to do demonstrations. Each ox well weigh in close to a ton and according to him are more intelligent than a horse. He said his lead ox knows and responds to about 30 different word commands. I'm going to make a point of giving him a call to see when I can visit with him, or catch a demonstration. That's another little part of Americana I've never witnessed.

In October my brother and I are going to make another trip up to Knob Creek Kentucky for the gun show and machinegun shoot. Twice a year they have quite a large event with a lot of dealers in all things relating to guns and shooting. They have a controlled "jungle" range you can go through and shoot at pop-up targets, and the centerpiece of the show is about once an hour they cut loose with the machineguns. If you own a fully automatic weapon you can shoot it there, but they have all sorts of these weapons you can pay to shoot. Put on good ear protection if you're going to shoot or watch. They even have a modern Gatling gun that fires so fast it's just a roar. They will drag old cars onto the range, 55 gallon drums, etc., and swiftly reduce them to scrap metal since there will be a dozen or more all firing at once.

Islam in the U.K.

This may have been around for a while but it just came to my attention. Makes sense to me.
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=418_1176494781

Idle Thoughts

When I was young if they thought you were a righteous dude they said you were cool. Now they say you're hot. Is this another sign of global warming?

Whatever happened to Soap on a Rope?

I have noticed so many commercials for drugs on television these days and wondered when this became the latest thing. Then I remembered listening to the radio as a young kid and hearing commercials for Doanes Pills, Carter's little liver pills, Anacin and various other liquids, pills, liniments and ointments. I guess they've always advertised drugs over the airways.

I've never been a big beer drinker, but a cold one now and then does hit the spot. This being a dry county, a round trip to the liquor store is 130 miles more or less. Our youngest son and his fiancé were coming down from Indiana so they picked up a couple of 12 packs. My wife, daughter, son, his fiancé and I sat on the back porch that evening knocking back a couple of cold ones. It tasted real refreshing after such a warm day, and we still have 14 in the refrigerator for later. Life's little pleasures.

We've been busy around these parts of late. My son and fiancé are becoming man and wife this Sunday (June 10th) in a ceremony in our back yard, with the woods as the backdrop. My brother the preacher will be officiating, and we're having the cake and punch thing, but we're also setting out a spread for everyone. Most of those attending will just be close friends and family, so we'll eat and spend most of the day visiting. Nice of the kids to give us an excuse to get together. I've got to remember to charge the batteries on the video camera. I'm just going to set it on a tripod, focus on the area, then turn it on and forget it until after the ceremony. I hate watching home movies when they bobble around all over the place.