Well, folks, if you have any roofing that needs to be done, I’ve got the shingles. Yep, I came down with the irritating, and sometimes painful, disease a couple of weeks ago. I think it’s getting better, but at times my right shoulder feels like it’s on fire. Oh, the joy of old age.
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We had real yo-yo weather last week. On Wednesday, it was below zero with a skift of snow and ice and a cold wind. By Saturday and Sunday, temperatures topped 70 degrees and it wuz plum balmy. Today, Monday, temps are hovering around freezing with a stiff breeze and a forecast of snow and ice during mid-week.
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Ol’ Nevah and I took a little weekend trip to Stillwater, Okla., to meet our granddaughter — who lives in Oklahoma City — and attend a men’s basketball game pitting both of my alma mater’s against one another — Bea Wilder U I and Bea Wilder U II.
BWUI, won the game handily, and we enjoyed a big Mexican meal before the game and big rich ice cream sundaes after the game.
It’s amazing how much Stillwater, Okla., has changed since ol’ Nev and I moved there right after we were married 54 years ago. The economy is definitely booming around that university community.
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I read on the internet about a Colorado man who killed a juvenile cougar with his bare hands when the big cat attacked him while the guy wuz jogging. The story didn’t say how the guy throttled the cougar, but I’ll bet he somehow got his hands on the cat’s throat and hung on and squeezed for dear life.
Whatever he did, it worked. The cougar ended up dead and the jogger ended up in the hospital with non-life threatening wounds.
Wow, that’s scary to me. A danged live coyote up close makes the hair on my neck stand up.
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Another cautionary news item about interactions between man and beast. This happened close to Pigeon Forge, Tenn., where our youngest daughter and family live. Cades Cove is a local tourist attraction and recently national park authorities discovered a black bear eating the remains of a man. Upon examination of the man’s body, it showed he died of a drug overdose before the bear found him.
This sad and sickening story has two morals to it. One, ain’t no good ever comes from taking recreational drugs of any sort. Two, never go into the woods of a national forest alone.
I couldn’t help but wonder if the black bear got a “high” from his impromptu meal?
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Every other day it seems the ground thaws and turns into a quagmire of sticky mud.
Well, I heard about a rancher, ol’ Myris Snipedown, who had a mud hole in the gate to his pasture where he had go through to feed his cow herd every day. Each day, the mud hole would get deeper and wider and harder for the rancher to get his pickup through without getting stuck.
Eventually, Myris pushed his luck too far and he got hopelessly bogged down right in the middle of the gate. He had to walk a mile in the mud to get his tractor and log chain. Plus, since he couldn’t shut the gate, the cows got out into the road.
It took him the best part of the rest of the morning for him to get the truck unstuck, the cows rounded up back into the pasture and fed, and get both the tractor and pickup home.
That evening at supper Myris looked his wife, gave a long weary sigh and said, “I found out today it’s a lot easier to get older than it is to get wiser.”
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A grain farmer, ol’ Reed M. Chartz, was bound and determined to beat the grain marketing odds. He spent all winter reading books, studying the ins and outs of grain marketing, fathoming when to sell and when to hold.
Reed finally felt comfortable with his marketing plan and decided to implement it. After a couple of months, he dejectedly determined that, even after all his preparatory work, the best he could do is break even.
The next day he met one of his buddies and lamented his marketing shortcomings. He summed it all up in one sentence: “When I finally got to the point that I wuz holding all the cards. I discovered the markets had switched to chess.”
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I watched the President’s State of the Union address last night and I have a couple of comments. First, there were so many dour, sour, disgruntled, scowling, puckerish faces in the crowd — I’m talking about the congresspersons, the military brass, the Supreme Court justices, members of the Cabinet — that I thought I must be looking at the participants at the national green persimmon eating competition.
The only people I saw who looked like they were enjoying the event were the WWII soldiers, the Holocaust survivors, and the little girl who is raising money to fight cancer while fighting the disease herself.
The congressional ladies in white — rather than looking wise and virtuous — looked more like a dysfunctional college cheer squad, not knowing when to stand up and cheer or sit and look bored.
My words of wisdom for the week. Grow up people! For a change, do something together for the benefit of the good ol’ USA. Have a good ‘un.
