Blogging Mysteries

Since I started this blog I figured that the only folks reading it were my relatives who write to me and are not reluctant to critique my efforts. To my surprise, I received an e-mail from Scott LaLonde, an old friend who I met during my veteran counselor days. Scott was quite the all-around hell raiser in his younger days, but his wife Robin has apparently rubbed off most of the rough spots and turned him into a solid citizen. I never did understand Scott's hobby, acquired courtesy of the the US Army, of jumping out of perfectly good airplanes. My opinion of flying is, if the motors are working, stay on board. The first time I ever flew was at Scott AFB, Illinois, in 1953. I was mopping the floor at Base Operations and mentioned to a Sergeant that I had been in the Air Force for three whole months and had never been in an airplane. In short order he had me in a parachute and we boarded an ancient B-25 to "go for a ride". I was the only passenger. My safety briefing was to open a hatch in the floor in case of emergency, and pull the D-Ring handle when I got clear of the airplane. We took off and once we got up in the air, I decided that there were not enough people on that plane to get me thru that hole. The new experience got old pretty fast, and I was quite pleased when we came in for a landing. To my surprise we landed, rolled down the runway for a while, and then took off again. They were doing what they called "touch and go's", apparently practicing to land. They did that about 8 times, and I had my fill of flying for quite a while. This probably explains my attitude toward Scott's hobby.

I spent a lot of time bitching about the weather in January - the month that would not end. In fact, I am not noticing a hell of a lot of improvement in February, I will just have fewer days to bitch. My old buddy Pete Drake in Florida tells me that their temperature was only 1 degree higher than ours one day last week. I suppose they had a little cold snap, but I also know they were playing golf the next day. I find it hard to feel sorry for them.

The news from Washington -- "we don't pay taxes until we get caught" is pretty interesting. Our new President must feel like Diogenes, searching for one honest person. Did you ever notice that those high rollers with tax problems also usually have problems with their household slaves? I guess they don't check anyone's resident status when they hire them. The answer is, of course, that if they ask for a living wage you can threaten to have them deported, which abruptly ends any wage negotiation.

The lady I wrote about who had 8 kids at once and intended to breast feed them -- well it turns out that she already had 6 kids at home -- AND SHE IS A SINGLE MOTHER! This has turned into quite a field day for the press, because folks are now wondering who is going to support all these kids. In the end, it will be the kids who suffer.

We don't have much new stuff coming out of our County Legislature. The most recent fiasco was the Legislator from Lisbon publicly accusing the Administrative Assistant of lying to him. Later on, after reviewing the County Attorney's notes, he (the legislator) then publicly apoligized for his moment of indescretion. At least he paid his taxes, as far as I know.

Enough for now, I have to start working on my seed order.