June 2, 2010 “Some Photos…”
I offer these photos from my day in the Smokies for you guys to enjoy…I hope.
Just Say’n
June 1, 2010 “Church Signs Update”
June 1, 2010 “Church Signs Update”
This photo was taken on a secondary, rural road several miles from the nearest town. The abundance of “God’s” houses never ceases to amaze me! God is truly…everywhere!
Just Say’n
May 31, 2010 “Memorial Day”
Thanks to all the members of our Armed Services for the service they have given over the last 235 years. From Washington’s Army in 1775 to the men and women serving in the military of 2010; their sacrifices have been many and great. All one can say when it’s boiled down is…
Thank You
May 30, 2010 “Trade Off”
Today I visited one of the most beautiful places in the United States…
There was way too much of this…
and this…
And not nearly as much of this…
,this…
, or this…
I wonder if the trade off between economy and ecology is really worth it?
Just Say’n
May 28, 2010 “Strange thing, rain…”
May 28, 2010 “Strange thing, rain…”
Today, in my little corner of the world, rain was the dominant factor for a big part of the day. It began in the early afternoon, as the remnants of a thunderstorm that meandered through a little earlier without too much fanfare, and stayed for a nice comfortable visit; like a good friend that stops by to sit and talk for a while when there’s nothing really pressing to attend to; it rarely happens here at the Cedar Brook, but I enjoy the company of a good friend when I can.
It was hot today, hot and humid. It is, after all, the South, and this time of year, in the Southern United States, it gets hot and humid. Thunderstorms almost always cool the air down when they pass through; it may be short lived, but it does get cooler for a little while, and for that reason we welcome an afternoon thunderstorm around here. When the storm brings with it a lingering rain, all the better. Strange thing, rain; it can ruin almost any summertime activity; picnics, ball games, cookouts, lawn mowing, etc., but it’s such a relaxing thing when it comes gentle and easy. If we allow it, rain can be a wonderful stress reliever. Today, as I sat here in my comfy chair and listened to the thunderstorm rumble and grumble it’s way through, I was relaxed by those big booming sounds somehow; it was a pleasant storm. The rain that was left behind as the storm went on it’s way was the best part to me. It fell as gently across the mountains as the warmth of the morning sun in the hollers and was just as eagerly soaked into the thirsty ground. The rain today was cool and inviting. It made me want to sleep or curl up with a good book, but, guess what I did, I visited my parents house, and then went and shot a few photos in the rain; not too good for my camera, but all was well in the end. I was the only person out taking photos, that’s for sure, so I was alone and unto myself. I got soaking wet, but I knew I would dry, so I let the rain splash over me one raindrop at a time; it was something I needed, like a cleansing and a washing away of the stress and the worries of everyday life, and it was just plain fun! I think everyone should try to enjoy the rain every once in a while. You don’t have to get out in it like I did, but, at least, take a rainy day, curl up in your favorite chair, open the windows a crack, relax, and let the sounds of the whispering rain ease your mind. Strange, wonderful thing, rain.
Just Say’n
May 27, 2010 “The Big Skink”
I’m tired today and I don’t really have anything much to say. However, I do have this photo I shot of a Blue-Tailed Skink…kinda cool, ain’t it?
Just Say’n
May 26, 2010 “My World”
This poem was originally written as a guest post for my friend and fellow blogger, Amanda Mills, Thanks Amanda. You can see the original post @ Buttercup600. I thought I would post it here for any of my readers that might not see it otherwise.
“My World”
My world is a slow world
Mostly it’s a no world
Sometimes it’s a yes world
Never in the know world
My world is my own world
Keep a pleasant tone world
Sometimes it’s a flat world
It’s mine all alone world
It’s a little strange world
A never rearrange world
I’ll keep it just the same world
You can keep the change world
My world is a small world
Screening every call world
No one in the whole world
Will ever know it all world
My world is a Blue world
Rarely a me and you world
Sometimes I see Red world
I’d like a table for two world
It’s just my same old world
It can be a cold world
Never been a rich world
I’d like to see a Gold world
Never shed a tear world
Got nothing to fear world
My own little safe world
I’m okay right here world
But, someone came to my world
From a cloud up in the sky world
Now I see a New world
I think I want to try world…
Because mine is upside down.
TLH 5/26/2010
Just Say’n
May 25, 2010 “Changing Perspectives”
I thought, that, perhaps, by looking at my job from a different perspective I might see it in a better light. It just looked backwards and distorted, and I was confused, so I went back inside and stuck my nose to a grindstone…sigh 
Just Say’n
May 23, 2010 “Trouble with Bumbles”
May 23, 2010 “Trouble with Bumbles”
The Cedar Brook (She’s a 1988 14X70 SingleWide with a Dream Kitchen and Glamour Bath I tell ya what) nestled quaintly on lot 11 in the “Hamlet” has been in need of some plumbing repair for some time. Today was the day I had decided to execute the needed repairs. The problem with this particular undertaking is the location of the problem and the logistics required to perform the task; the work must be carried out in a confined space of limited vertical headroom. That limit being approximately 17 inches from ground to what is essentially a virtual ceiling, made by the underside framework of the Cedar Brook. I first had to negotiate my rather large frame into this dank, dark, muddy space by lying on my back and shoulder-crawling my way back to the area I suspected held the offending pipes. When my goal was reached I knew then that I had correctly predicted the location of the leak. I quickly ascertained the materials I would need to accomplish the corrective action required and proceeded to extricate myself from the tight quarters using a combination shoulder/butt crawl. As I was making my egress from the dirty, dim darkness, I noticed a Bumblebee crawling along the ground near where my feet had been while I was lying on my back; I grabbed the bee with my gloved hand and killed it…I don’t like Bumbles and their ilk. I thought nothing else of the bee as I made my way into the Cedar Brook to procure the needed supplies from my substantial stores of trailer plumbing parts. When I had found what I needed I headed back outside with complete confidence that I would be done with my repair in a very few minutes. As I knelt down to begin my ingress into the work zone I noticed another Bumblebee flying low to the ground and then alighting and crawling towards an old roll of fiberglass insulation about three feet away. Upon noticing this new bee, I took a look around to scout for more and sure enough there were several more of them buzzing around as if they were waiting their turn at something. As it turned out, the bees were looking for the place where they normally went through the underpinning in order to crawl back to their nest which, as it turns out, is situated in the roll of insulation. The fact that a colony of large black and yellow bumblebees was located about 6 feet from where I would be working gave me pause. During this pause I determined it would be unwise to carry out the repairs in such limited space with a pack of wild Bumblebees in such close proximity. I decided to exterminate this rogue band of Bumbles in order to facilitate the repairs in relative safety. I waited until just after sundown to make my attack; all the really successful attacks in the movies come after sundown. My plan called for a two pronged attack; the initial sortie would be a strategic chemical attack to knock out their main defenses and, hopefully, confuse the chain of command giving me both the strategic and tactical advantage; the second prong would come in the form of physical perimeter breach followed by close combat search and destroy. D-Hour for phase one was 0130Z. From an estimated 2.6 meters I deployed a deadly aerosol mixture of tetramethrin and peremethrin directly into the enemy compound until all stores were exhausted…the effect was immediate and debilitating to the Bumbles. Not one unit made a successful escape during this initial attack. With the success of this first wave, I made an in the field tactical command decision to proceed with a modified second prong attack; I decided to continue the chemical attack, thus ensuring no need for close quarters combat with the weakened, but still formidable enemy. I deployed a mass barrage of dihydrogen monoxide to the enemy’s stronghold in sufficient quantities to kill nearly every last one of the combatants…there were no visible or verifiable survivors. Hostilities ceased at 0200Z. As I called off the attack I felt like I needed to pin up a banner that read “Mission Accomplished”, but did not, for I feared that kind of hubris might come back to sting me in the ass!
I’ll go back in tomorrow to complete my repairs and, hopefully, the old Cedar Brook will back in top order and Bumble-free.
Just Say’n
May 22, 2010 “Graduation Day”
May 22, 2010 “Graduation Day”
You came to me right out of the blue
When your mother told me we were gonna have you
I was stopped right there in my track
I remember the day when I felt you move
My heart nearly jumped right out of it’s groove
From that moment I’ve never looked back
It was a graduation day
I was there and watched you arrive
My heart had never felt so much alive
When you stole it from me
I heard you say Hello to this world
That tiny voice from my baby girl
The sweetest sounds that could ever be
A graduation day
I watched you grow and I heard you talk
Then one day I saw you walk
Right into my soul, it was a simple thing
Since you took that first step or two
I couldn’t take my eyes off you
You’ve had my heart on a string
Another graduation day
I tried to keep you safe from harm
When you fell that day and broke your arm
I heard it crack
I scooped you up and off we flew
But you had courage enough for two
As you were mended back
Graduation day
Then off to school my little girl
Was there anything you didn’t give a whirl
Nothing you wouldn’t try
Kindergarten right on through eight
You always had too much on your plate
You never failed to fly
One more graduation day
Troubles and triumphs and boys and tears
Now here you are after four long years
About to reach for the skies
In cap and gown you cross the stage
Your life’s book has turned a page
As I wipe the tears from my eyes
Graduation Day
My tiny girl has turned eighteen
The prettiest woman my eyes have seen
And somehow I know she’ll fly
That tiny voice to me will sing
And my heart will stay there on her string
Til the day I die
My graduation day.
May 21, 2010 “Little Birdie…”
May 21, 2010 “Little Birdie…”
It is rare that one gets the opportunity to make a real difference in the world; to change the outcome or fate of something or someone. We can live our entire life waiting on the chance to step in and, for a moment, be a hero. We may have to act alone in our heroism, or as a member of larger group working in concert. Tonight at work I was afforded the opportunity to head up a team effort for just such an endeavor…
I work at a factory type job in a large open space building. At the front and rear of the building are large doors that roll up to open, much like many home garage doors, except on a larger scale. When these doors are open to the outside world they offer a very large entry into the facility and birds often find there way inside the building. I guess they think they are flying into a large cave or something, never dreaming that the cave mouth will close and leave them trapped inside, but it happens quite often. Usually the birds find their way out quickly the next time one of the doors opens. However, occasionally an unlucky little bird cannot find it’s way out for a few days and this bodes very ill indeed for the tiny feathered prisoner. Tonight, while I was at my job, I noticed just such a stowaway as it flew down from the high ceiling beams of the building to land on a large pallet of materials just a few yards from where I stood. It landed there and did not move for several moments, and as I watched, the little Catbird was pecking and prodding at the plastic wrapping on the top of the pallet as if it were trying to eat it. I was busily working when my co-worker, Becky, walked by within three feet of the bird and it didn’t try to fly away, that’s when I knew the bird was very weak and, maybe, a little disoriented. We decided that the bird might need some food and water, so as I worked and watched the weak little bird, Becky found some bread crumbs from someone’s lunch and filled a makeshift water container with some water. She was able to get pretty close to the pitiful little fellow before he started to act scared, so she placed the food and water within easy reach of the bird and moved away. The bird ignored this offering and just continued to pick at the plastic wrap. I decided to try my hand at catching the bird. I tried to use a broom to gently subdue it, but this was a bad approach, for when I tried to capture the creature it moved away and looked as if it would fly, and then, a few minutes later, I tried again. This time I tried to “net” it with a large lightweight plastic drop cloth, but this time it mustered the strength to fly back to the beams high above. We thought all was lost until, in a few minutes, the bird came back. Only this time he landed on the floor and feebly hopped around…one tiny, weak hop at a time. Becky tried to give it the water again, but to no avail. Then I had an idea…the bird was heading between two more of the pallets like the ones he landed on before, but these were much smaller, only about 18 inches high. I told Becky to be ready with the drop cloth and when the bird went between the pallets we would each take a corner and float the light plastic net over the space between the pallets and net the bird. As the unsuspecting bird did as I thought he would we sprung our trap…with Becky on one side and me on the other the bird could only fly upward and into our plastic net… we had him! I quickly gathered the net up around the little bird to keep him from injuring himself in his attempt to escape. He was so weak that he hardly fluttered at all. I immediately picked up the helpless bird and whisked him to the nearest exit and outside. I took him to a picnic table at the back of the building and gently unwrapped the plastic from around him and released him. He flew like an arrow toward the trees and freedom, but before he did, he turned and winked at me and said, “Thanks to you and your friend for being my Heroes” !
Just Say’n
May 20, 2010 “Storm”
May 20, 2010 “Storm”
I have a “smart phone”. Most everyone these days knows what a smart phone is, don’t they? It’s a phone that’s actually a handheld computer. I can do nearly anything with my phone that I can do with my laptop computer. I have internet access almost everywhere I go with my smart phone. This is my first smart phone. Up until this phone, I had regular cell phones, lots of them over the years. I had always heard so many good things about BlackBerry phones, so when I decided to get my smart phone, I went with Verizon as my provider and BlackBerry as my phone. The BlackBerry Storm was the phone I chose…or it chose me. Either way, I have one now and it’s a love/hate relationship I have with this phone. The Storm will do so many things, like I said, almost anything I can do on my laptop I can do on this little phone. It has a great screen that, for a phone, is pretty big, and the phone is, in my opinion, very well made; it’s actually, mostly made of metal, not plastic, as many phones are. The problem I have with the BlackBerry Storm is, though it does all these wonderful things; surf the web, visit any website, like youtube, ebay, facebook; I can pay bills and download music, take photos with flash, and make videos, heck, I can even do this blog entirely from the Storm, it can only do one thing at a time…I can’t really multi-task with the phone. For instance, I can’t be on the web and on the phone at the same time…yada, yada, yada. I can live with these little inconveniences, however, one thing I DESPISE about this phone is that, for some reason, BlackBerry decided to severely limit the RAM in the phone, so the dang thing freezes up every time you try to do something on it for more than half an hour, it’s like it just gets clogged up with kruf and chokes! It will freeze, solid. It becomes a brick. It also reboots at random times; just reboots when it decides to without any warning, just shuts down! Then there is about 4 minutes of waiting until the phone gets booted back up…an eternity if you’re on an important call or trying to take a photo of a fleeting moment. Today as I was taking the photo that you see above, there were lots of bees of various kinds on this bush, and I saw some good opportunities for some better shots and as I was about to take the photos…REBOOT! I almost threw the brick against a nearby wall…really!
My first smart phone isn’t really so smart after all…anyone needing a paperweight?
Just Say’n
May 19, 2010 “Pepsi”
May 19, 2010 “Pepsi”
I’m a Pepsi man. Always have been a Pepsi man. My brother is an actual Pepsi man; he’s worked for the company for over twenty years!
When I was a kid, Pepsi is what we had at home…let me rephrase that, Pepsi is what Mom and Dad had at home, mostly Dad. Once in a while, Mom would pop the cap off an extra 16oz. bottle of the sweet bubbly treat and divide it among my brother, my sister and me. It would be poured over ice cubes and the foam would rush to the rim of the glass, but just before it would ooze over the top our eager lips would be there to slurp it up…we didn’t want to waste a single drop. Some times Mom would buy Coca-Cola or RC Cola, or, more likely, a “store brand” soft drink like Big-K. I could go into a rant about cereal in a bag instead of the name brand stuff, or, Wyler’s, flavored soft drink mix instead of Kool-Aid, flavored soft drink mix etc., but I will refrain. Pepsi was the choice at our house in the end. Sometimes, like tonight at work, when I’m feeling a little adventurous or frisky, I’ll take a walk on the wild side and have… a Coke! But, more than nine times out of ten I’ll choose Pepsi. I like it from a bottle better than from a can. I like it ICE COLD. I even like it over ice…the ice mellows out the carbonation just enough to keep you eyes from watering when you take a big swig. My very, mostus fovo-rite way to have a Pepsi is in a large, clear, glass glass over cracked ice with a big wedge of fresh lemon. Now, that’s a treat!
The sad thing is…I don’t have a Pepsi to enjoy after writing this blog post…Dang! I do, however, have some Kool-Aid mix…maybe Black Cherry tonight!
Just Say’n
May 18, 2010 “Things I Miss”
Sometimes I miss things. Things I used to do, or things I used to have. Fun things, meaningful things, even insignificant things. The following photos are all of things I remember and miss…
1) Barbecuing a pig out in the yard at my sister’s house….Huge fun and delicious!
2) The big flowering bush that was in front of the Cedar Brook.
3) Vacation time with my daughter…I miss this most of all.
4) My most recent motorcycle….loved that bike!
5) Birthday parties and cool gifts!
6) My daughter and my Niece…bored on vacation so they played Pirates…So funny!
These are all part of my precious memories…
Just Say’n
May 17, 2010 “Some days…”
May 17, 2010 “Some days…”
Some days I just don’t have anything to say. Today is one of those days…nothing to say. I’ll just sit and listen for a while. I will tell you that today is the 500th anniversary of the death of Sandro Botticelli, an Italian painter…a pretty famous one too. He died on this day in the year 1510. I wonder if Botticelli ever dreamed that we would be admiring and enjoying his paintings 500 years after his death? We are! Here are two of his Masterworks. The first one is “Primavera”, the second one is called “The Birth Of Venus”. Enjoy…
Just Say’n
May 16, 2010 “My Nose Remembers”
May 16, 2010 “My Nose Remembers”
Smell, scent, odor, and aroma can all mean exactly the same thing. They almost always mean essentially the same thing. However, they can also have very different meanings.
I can smell the scent of certain things and memories just flood in; sharp, vivid memories. They are always pleasant memories too. The truth is, I don’t think I have very many bad memories; not terrible ones anyway.
I can get a whiff of the smell of cooking cabbage (not something that I would call an “aroma”, it’s just a smell to me) and I am transported back to my childhood on a summer day in my grandmother’s hot, steamy kitchen. The pots on the stove are cooking and the smells are a mixture of aromas and odors. The steam from the pots of cabbage and, maybe, potatoes, the aroma of fried chicken wafting from a large, black, iron skillet rising to mix with the faint smell of cigarette smoke and old dust makes a wonderful memory in my mind. I never liked the smell of cooking cabbage, and I have never smoked cigarettes or liked old dust, but they are all part of the memory of Mamaw,s house.
The odor of pine cleaner, like Pine-Sol, and floor wax can elicit memories that immediately take me back to my elementary school days at Carter’s Valley Elementary School. In the mornings when we first got off the bus and entered the building, the smells would still linger from the night’s cleaning and waxing as we would take a run and sudden stop to slide across the freshly waxed, dark brown tile floor, right past the Pine-Sol ladened bathroom and into Mrs. McKinney’s second grade class room, where the smell of chalk dust, sharpened pencils, and text books hung in the piney air…our day had begun.
Tonight, while I was at work, the odor of metal cleaner and machine oil floated down from the machine shop and I was reminded of my uncle James Harris and his garage. I would go there with my dad quite a lot when I was a child. They were always working on cars and building this or that. My dad and his brother, James, were both good mechanics and many a car was repaired down in that garage. It was a most curious place for a young boy to poke around in and it was permeated with the odors, smells, and aromas that made a boy of 8 or 9 years imagine all sorts of projects. First was the smell of old, burnt, oil mixed with gasoline and kerosene emanating from the great black grease pit in the middle of concrete floor. The cars would be parked over the five foot deep pit so the underside could be easily worked on and the fittings and bearings greased. It was black as tar down in there with all the spilled oil and the grease stains. But, it smelled like somewhere men belonged…working with tools and the strength of their hands and arms. I went down in there a few times to look up into the underside of 3,000 pounds or more of car sitting two feet above my head…it was a little scary and the smells were much more intense under there, and even more so when the engine was running and I could feel the heat and smell the exhaust. The pit was not the only source of smells in that old garage, not by a long shot. It was filled with all kinds of tools and equipment. There was more than one welder with the smells that went with them…my uncle was a metal worker by trade; he could fabricate anything out of iron or steel. The smell of burnt, rusty iron and acetylene was always in the heavy air of the garage. There were all sorts of wood working tools too, like table saws, sanders, hand saws etc. and along with all that were piles of sawdust and the aroma of pine, walnut, linseed and varnish which was in sharp contrast to the smells of the pit. In the winter you could add to all that the wonderful aromas of a wood-stove fire and percolating coffee….Man, those were heady days for a young boy.
I could go on and on about the smells of fried potatoes and onions popping and crackling from an iron skillet, or of the memories of soup beans and cornbread (from that same iron skillet) and coffee that my aunt would make up in the house while the men were working on a car or building cabinets down in the garage.
I won’t go into the many memories of campgrounds early in the morning with some of the favorite aromas of my life; the smell of the smoke from of a newly stoked campfire while the morning fog is still hanging heavily in the wet leaves of the trees, or the sounds of the campers all around as they stir to life on a crisp morning…their cup of hot coffee in one hand and in the other a stick for poking the fire to a blaze, while the savory fragrance of bacon and sausage, biscuits and gravy and eggs engulfs the whole campground to awaken a young boy to some of the best smells and most wonderful memories of his life. My nose remembers all these things and so many more….MMMMMM, I think I smell my supper on the stove….Ahhhhh Memories!
Just Say’n
May 15, 2010 “Sweet Iced Tea”
May 15, 2010 “Sweet Iced Tea”
I made tea today…Sweet Iced Tea. Maybe someone else would like to make some too. Here’s how I do it…
Fill a small (1Qt.) saucepan with about 3 cups or so of water and put in 6 regular size tea bags, like the ones in the photo; I use Luzianne, but I guess Lipton, or Tetley, or any other brand would be just fine; those of you in other countries will have to figure out a good brand to use. Very slowly bring the water and tea bags to a nice bubbling simmer; I like to let it simmer slowly for about 10 minutes and then turn off the burner and let the pan rest there. In the mean time I add 2/3 cup+/-1tbl spoon of sugar (some folks use more sugar, but I don’t like mine so syrupy sweet) into a 1/2 gallon pitcher. Pour the hot tea into the pitcher, using something (I use a slotted spoon) to keep the tea bags in the pan as you do. Stir the hot tea and the sugar together. Now, run cool water over the tea bags until the pan is full and strain this into the pitcher…repeat this step until the pitcher is just shy of full.
Get a big, clear glass, add lots of ice, fill it with this delicious Southern staple and…Enjoy!
Just Say’n
May 14, 2010 “A conversation I might have heard…”
May 14, 2010 “A conversation I might have heard…”
This is a conversation I might have heard tonight if I had been the fourth person in the mini-van in front of me in the drive-thru line at McDonald’s…
D = Driver, P = Passenger, B = Backseat Guy/Gal (dark tinted rear glass. I can tell they’re all close to middle aged)
As the van sits in line behind two other vehicles waiting to order, there is, curiously, not a word spoken about the Giant Backlit Menu with Pictures and Everything that is undoubtedly in clear view of all three of the van’s occupants…
D: Dang, this line is moving slow…
P: Wonder what the hell is the hold up?
B: I’m hungry!
D: Me too, I could eat a horse!
B: Reckon it’ll rain?
P: Nope…it’ll blow over. God…my foot went to sleep…crap!
B: That sucks don’t it?
D: Mine does that sometime too.
P: It’s my whole damn leg!
D: I need to get some gas.
( as the van moves ahead one spot, it’s now only one car back from the order screen…the Giant Backlit Menu with Pictures and Everything is about 10 feet away from D’s left arm that’s casually hanging out the window and gesturing with it’s hand as he talks to his passengers…)
D: What the hell is the effing problem with these people…?
B: Hey, turn it up! Free Bird….yeeeah! I love me some Skynard!
P: I can’t believe my leg is completely asleep…oh man…this is gonna hurt….oh *%^(&#^& !
D: Stop whining ya big wuss! god, shut up so we can hear…this is a classic (his hand taps the beat on the door of the van as it moves ahead to the order screen…)
WELCOME TO McDONALD’S!
WOULD YOU LIKE TO TRY OUR FRAPPE TODAY?
PLEASE ORDER WHEN YOUR READY…
P: Turn it down so we can order….
D: Aaah ok…(the hand is retracted into the van and placed on the steering wheel)
B: What did he say? What the hell is a Frappay?
P: Shit, I don’t know…I thought he said Fried Tea! I thought, what the *^%^ is Fried Tea?
D: It’s some kind of damn fancy coffee milkshake or something..
P: My leg is waking up….HOLY SHIT!!!!! man I hate this part…crap!
HI, CAN I TAKE YOUR ORDER?
D: Hey what do you guys want?….CAN YOU GIVE US A SECOND? (the arm, with it’s gesturing hand, swings loosely across the window sill of the door and hangs there by the side of the van)
B: What do they have? Let me see…..
P: Wooooo…thank god! I got this damn leg woke up…shit! Let me see, uhhh….
D: (as he looks over at the Giant Backlit Menu with Pictures and Everything that has been glaring and glowing there, less than 10 feet away, for the last 3 or 4 minutes!!!!) Uhhhhhh….let me see….
And people wonder why stress and rage are so prevalent in our society…
BECAUSE OF IDIOTIC MORONS IN THE DRIVE-THRU LANES…THAT’S WHY!!!
Just Say’n
May 13, 2010 ‘Ear candy…”
May 13, 2010 “Ear candy…”
My blog for today is truncated due to having to work over tonight and, subsequently, making a run to the border to get “muh Taco on!”.
I do, however, have a slight irritation…cotton swabs or, maybe better known as, the Q-Tip. I think there are very few things in this life more satisfying than, at the end of a long day’s work, to gently insert one of these little cotton pleasure probes into your ear canal and….twist, Ahhhhhhhhhh. And then, the other ear…insert…twist…and, Ahhhhhh CRAP!, the cotton untwists and comes off the probe in a curly little string…Dang! They need to make these things non-directional!
They can put a man on the moon…
It’s my left ear that never gets the real, true Ahhhhhh, it always gets the curly, dangly, freaky, string.
Just Say’n
May 12, 2010 “The Blues”
May 12, 2010 ” The Blues”
The two photos are the same shot, but I removed the blues from the one on the right.
Life has its blues splashed all through it, here and there. We sometimes wish that the blues would go away and never come back…but look at the photo on the right and compare it to the one on the left.
Which bridge would you rather be crossing?
Just Say’n
May 11, 2010 “Soul Windows…Sometimes”
“Soul Windows…Sometimes”
These are the windows to my soul…
Sometimes, when I find myself alone
And the glazing is mostly gone…
Broken and shattered over the years.
Torn and tattered through rain and through tears.
The panes are empty places between the edges of a frame
The pains are still there…
In the spaces where faces were framed,
But now they’re just a name.
They blow through the hole in the soul of my life
Like a bristling Zephyr wind whistling in the blackness,
Cutting through me like the cold glint on the edge of a knife.
Weathered and worn by too many seasons and reasons for doubt.
The sash has become just a gash in my soul;
Everything else comes in while Life’s blood rushes out.
Just Say’n
May 10, 2010 “Mendota, On A May Afternoon”
This is a little slide show I put together from some photos I took over the weekend around Mendota (bend in the river), Va. . The music is Adrian Legg, one of my favorite guitar players; the song is “Midwest Sunday”. I hope you enjoy my foray into a different medium.
Just Say’n
May 9, 2010 “Mother’s Day”
May 9, 2010 ” Mother’s Day”
My Mother turned 18 less than a month before I was born; I’ve been with her for her entire adult life. She was just 24 years old when she sent me out to the bus for my first day of school, with my little brother watching at the kitchen window and my baby sister in her arms. My mom has been a mom almost since she was a kid herself. She has never failed. She has been working in her chosen profession for over 47 years and has never failed to do that job for one minute, an impressive record by any standard. I’ve watched my Mother develop, build, and maintain her three greatest projects for nearly five decades without a single misstep that I can recall. She has loved her children through all our failures and fortunes, our losses and lunacy. She has been deeply hurt at times, I’m sure, but she never faltered. My Mother’s love has been steadfast though tested and tried many, many times. I overflow with pride when I get the opportunity to tell others that I am the son of Ina Harris.
Todd, Amy, and I have been blessed with a wonderful Mother and an incomparable example of human compassion. Our mom is the most selfless person I know. She has given a very large part of her mature adult life to the care of other people. She has freely given her time and much effort to helping family and friends through sickness and death. Over the years she and my dad have logged thousands of miles and countless hours driving to and from hospitals and homes to ease the burdens of the sick and bring comfort to them. I’ve watched my Mother be mother to children that were not hers as if they were her own. I’ve seen her nurse old and infirm friends right up until the day they died. I watched her ceaselessly care for both her parents in their old age until they were both gone…she never gave a thought to herself. If my siblings and I can be even half as compassionate and selfless as our Mother we will be fine human beings by any measure.
Throughout my life I have been blessed with lots of laughter. Laughter and humor is a big part of who I am. I think I have a great sense of humor and pride myself a little on being able to bring laughter to others. I love to hear laughter. The laughter I have heard most in my life, hands down, is my Mother’s. I have heard her laugh more than any other person in my life. There is hardly a time when you visit my mom that she doesn’t find something to laugh about…she’s just a happy, joyful person in general. She’s a natural born cut-up. She was constantly pulling little tricks and jokes on my brother, sister, and me when we were kids, so we each learned to have a good sense of humor, and that has served all three of us well.
My Mother loves life. She loves to travel and to meet new people. She and my dad are campers or RVers, if you will. They have spent time in 49 of the fifty states, Canada, New Foundland, and Mexico. Hawaii is the last state on their list. I’m sure they’ll get there and when they do, my Mother will make new friends there, just like she has all over the entire North American continent. My Mother loves to live! And, she has done just that from the western coast of Alaska to the eastern edge of New Foundland, and from the Arctic Circle to the tip of the Baja Peninsula, and she has loved every mile of it, and, I’m sure, laughed all along the way.
On this Mother’s Day what could be better? For I have the distinct privilege of being the firstborn son of a wonderful woman who has taught me and many others how to…
Love, Laugh, and Live!
Thanks Mom…I Love You!
Your proud son, Tracy
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