It is all becoming a blur to me!

It seems it was only yesterday that I was poking in the soil to see signs of life in Mother Earth.  The next day we were in the middle of a stretch of 100 degree days.  This morning I am wondering if I should have unhooked the hoses last night so they would not freeze.  Oh, and some where during the intervening days I recall mowing and cutting weeds and cleaning the goose house and planting seeds and wondering where they went after they came up because the garden was shoulder high in weeds last time I looked.  Spring and Summer are a complete blur. 
I meant to take a vacation and go back to Kansas, but I must have forgotten, because it did not happen.  I meant to go on several hikes, like the Manitou Incline and up Tower Trail in Beulah to get seeds from the Sage plant, but I think it is too cold up there now.  I know it is pretty chilly when I go out in the mornings and I have that dew on my car windows.  Leaves are starting to fall in the yard and spiders are making their way in through the cracks.  Where did the summer go? 
I recall one of those pattern books with the  cute little sayings that can be embroidered in cross stitch.  I actually made several of them and God only knows where they went. I could use them now.  The first one was "When you are over the hill, you pick up speed."  That is the truth if I ever told it.  Seems like some where in the far recesses of my mind I was a kid and the days crept by as slow as molasses on a cold day.  I do not recall summer or winter affecting me as far as the creature comforts of warm and cold.  I do recall walking home from school behind my older brother and sister who broke a trail through the snow.  And I recall sleeping on the floor at school because we could not get through the snow.  It must have been very cold.  I remember those damned itchy wool blankets we slept under.  I recall jumping in the creek or horse tank or a mud puddle when it was summer, so I must have been hot. 
I remember the hayloft and how hot it was up there in the summer.  Sometimes if the hay was just a little damp the pile would start smoldering and the hay would have to be pitched out on the ground to save the barn.  I also remember how warm it was in the winter.  Course I also remember the mice and the cat. There was invariably a litter of kittens which would grow up to eat the baby mice.  Also spiders.  Damned spiders were every where.  Black Widows were the scariest.  We learned early to recognize the web of the Black Widow.  It was shiny and if I touched it with a stick it would crackle.  Sent chills through my bones.  And I could always see the Widow somewhere with her round marble body, shiny black.  Sometimes I could see her dead husband trapped in her web.  She killed him after they bred and that is why she was called a black widow.  There was one that lived behind the door into the chicken house.  Very scary.
(Why does everything always revert back to Nickerson, Kansas and my childhood?)
The other thing I cross stitched was one that said "Of all the things I have lost, I miss my mind the most."  That was my mantra for many years until I decided that I had not really lost my mind, just sometimes I let it go on vacation without me!  I have been told that I should write my life story and I gave that a lot of thought, but that will not happen and here is why...
When I set down to start to write my mind wanders off.  I started to write about how fall is in the air and I had beautiful pictures in my mind, but then I started thinking about how the city fathers have now decided to remove those stupid bike lanes down on Fifth Street.  This started me thinking of how I learned to ride a bike in Nickerson, Kansas and that made me remember school there in the big two story brick building. 
I usually call this "digressing", but I guess if the truth be known, it is just the old adage "All roads lead home."  And I take great comfort in that.

I didn't understand what I was voting for that time.

I take my voting very seriously.  When I get the little booklet from the League of Women's Voters, I devour every word.  I talk to people and weigh the pros and cons.  If I am not clear what it is about, I am going to find out, you can bet your sweet bippie on that!  When the question of legalizing marijuana came to the ballot, I was very sure that I wanted a yes vote on that.  I would have been more excited had they made the legal age 25, just because by the time someone is 25 they are pretty sure what they want out of life.

I have seen what the synthetic heroine and crack cocaine and meth has done to our kids and I did not want that to continue.  The argument that Marijuana is a gateway drug is a crock.  I have seen first hand kids go straight for the meth and other drugs simply because they are very cheap and very, very easy to purchase.  My hope was that by legalizing marijuana some of that would slow down, but I don't think that is happening.  I have never done an illegal drug in my life and do not intend to start, but I can tell you this, I have dealt with kids smoking pot and they do not behave at all like those who have been doing the illegal drugs.  Ever see a kid that is so zoned out they have no idea where they are or what they are doing?  That is not marijuana!  Marijuana seems to make kids a little spacey, but it does not make them stand on a street corner staring off into outer space and drooling all  over themselves.  Most of the marijuana smokers I run into are happy little people and I would just assume they were having a really good day if it weren't for that little whiff I get that is akin to a skunk passing by outside.

I see in the Chieftain that Hasan is funding a study on marijuana and I will certainly be glad when that is done and we can see the scientific evidence of the benefits of marijuana.  Years ago I had back problems and took more pain pills than I can remember.  I recall going to work more often than not with a fog in my brain and I could hover up near the ceiling and watch myself slaving over a hot grill and smoking french fry baskets.  It is a wonder I survived that! I had back surgery and as with any surgery, more pain pills.  Today I have spasms in my back and when that happens I reach for my bottle of marijuana pain cream that I bought legally in Blende.  I do not take any pain pills and I have been told that I would not be able to pass a drug test as there is pcp or thc or something like that in my system, but I do know I do not feel it and I am clear headed, just no pain.  I refuse to take pain pills so if legal sale of marijuana goes away in Pueblo City and County I am just going to have to go back to being unable to function.

I could go on about what good the tax dollars have done for our economy along with our low unemployment rate, but I think that speaks for itself.  I just wanted to give my opinion as a human being.

The wisdom of one younger and wiser than me.

  This is Hammer, me and my daughter Debbie.  If you look at us, it appears that she is a clone of me.  Spitting image of her mother!  And the interesting part of the whole thing is we think a lot alike and seem to have the same reasoning power.

I was talking to her the other day and I commented that she had the same reasoning powers that I did and she must have inherited them from me.  At that point she told me that many years ago she had come across a paper that someone had written and that the basic rules on that sheet of paper had kept her on a steady course for her life.  She read them to me and they sounded like something might have writtem back in my early life..We do not know who wrote them, but I would love to share with all of you.  She said her copy was covered with fly poop, grease spots and water marks, but she could still read it and agreed to send it to me.  Today it arrived in my mailbox and I copied it for you.  

RULES FOR BEING HUMAN        

Author unknown

1.      1.  You will receive a body.  You may like it or hate it, but it will be yours for the entire period this time around.

2.       2.   You will learn lessons.  You are enrolled in a full-time informal school called life.  Each day in this school you will have the opportunity to learn lessons.  You may like the lessons or think them irrelevant and stupid.

3.        3.  There are no mistakes, only lessons.  Growth is a process of trial and error:  experimentation.  The “failed” experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiment that ultimately works.

4.        4.  lesson is repeated until learned.  A lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you have learned it.  When you have learned it, you can then go on to the next lesson.

5.       5.  Learning lessons does not end.  There is no part of life that does not contain its lessons.  If you are alive, there are lessons to be learned.

6.        6.  “THERE” is no better than “HERE”.  When you’re “THERE” has become a “HERE, you will simply obtain another “THERE” that will again look better than “HERE”.

7.       7.  Others are merely mirrors of you.  You cannot love or hate something about another person unless is reflects something you love or hate about yourself.

8.       8.  What you make of your life is up to you.  You have all the tools and resources you need.  What you do with them is up to you.  The choice is yours.

9.      9.   Your answers lie inside you.  The answers to life’s questions lie inside you.  All you need do is look, listen and trust.

     10.  You will forget all this.

     11.   You can remember it whenever you want or need to.

      So thank you to Debbie Keisel for sending this to me so I can share it with others.  Who knows, we may make the world a better place if we try hard enough!

Keep right except to pass and do not pass in an intersection on a country road.

A couple days ago I was coming home down South Road and driving my usual 40 MPH in the 35 MPH speed zone.  Actually my speedometer is off by a couple digits, so I was driving about 38MPH.  There is a stop sign on 25th Lane and 27th Lane has a "widow maker" dip.  See out here this is how we control water. The dip is so water on the road has a way to get off the road so my car does not flood out.  I slow down so my car does not bounce.

Let me tell you about the history on this dip.  Our mailbox is on the North side of the road.  It is about 1/2 a city block from the dip.  When we first moved out here and the dip was new we lost our mailbox 2 times because people neglected to slow for the dip, became airborne and wiped out our mailbox.  The dip is clearly marked so over the years people have learned to slow down at that corner.  They also have the added attraction of seeing long black marks where brakes are applied very quickly by drivers who wake up at the last minute.  Back to my experience.

So I am driving home and stopped at 25th Lane.  A red car was behind me.  It also stopped and caught up with me very quickly.  I knew the dip was coming so I tapped the brake to slow.  Red car whipped out around me and romped on the gas.  When it hit that dip, it became airborne and then came down very hard on the road.  I heard the crash when the bottom of the car hit the pavement.  The car continued forward out of control and swerving from side to side.  By the time it got to Scalese's house it was finally under control.

Now my dear little Bret hit a dip in Pueblo West once and raised his radiator 2 inches.  He was only going 7 mph.  (snicker, snicker!)  This car was probably doing 55 when it hit the dip.  Wonder what it did to that radiator!!  I do not know exactly why I shared this with you, but I must have had a reason.  I wish I had a dash camera and I could have shown it to you.  Might make you want to drive a little more carefully out here.  I do know I just watched this video.  

CLICK HERE

I know they have this law here in Colorado, but no one pays attention to it.  Do we still have traffic enforcement?  I pass more on the right then I do on the left.  In all fairness lots of these drivers are on the phone and not really noticing what I am doing, or what they are doing either for that matter.

I could be wrong , but I think if you are going to be herding a 2000 pound vehicle down a public road you really ought to be aware of your surroundings.  I have niece's that like to text going down the road.  Real important stuff isn't it?  I do not do that because I am old and I can remember when the phone was hooked on the wall and if someone called and I did not answer they just figured I was not home.  Imagine that!  Now I call someone and Lord only knows where they are located.  They could even be in my back seat.

I guess what I am trying to tell/ask/beg people to do is this.  When you crawl in your car, leave you other obligations on the seat or in your pocket and pay attention to driving.  In a perfect world all the cars are going the same place at the same speed, but inevitably someone colors outside the lines.  In a perfect world the only fatality would be the driver with the phone in thier hand, but life does not work that way and I have come too far to be a statistic because someone else heard a phone ring, or heard a text come in, or missed that sign about "DIP".

The road to hell is paved with good intentions!

You never really know a person...

Once upon a time I was visiting with  a very wise man.  We were discussing a friend we had in common.  OK, it happened to be an ex husband of mine who had done something exceptionally stupid and I said, "Why I thought I knew him better than that!"  To which he replied, "You never know anyone.  You only know of them.  You only know what they let you see."  Good point!

I recall standing at the grave of my mothers last husband and her saying, "Who was that man?"  He had presented himself as a lonely widower with a son and a daughter and no other relation in the world.  The funeral had been well attended by brothers, sisters, cousins, aunts, uncles and a former parole officer. She never knew him.

So this morning at 4:15 AM when the eyelids opened for the day, I thought of this and I wondered, "Who do I have in this world that I really know? "  I came up with nobody.   So I took this thought to the next level and asked myself, "Who am I?  Does anyone really know me?'  Once more I came up with a negative answer.

I know some of you out there think you know me, but do you?  I may not be who you think I am.  I present a face to the public and a face to my friends that may not reveal the depths of my soul.  I appear to be very well adjusted, compassionate, caring, honest, giving, kind and so many other things, but you know little about the person who lives in this body.  I have lots of friends, but do I?  What is a friend?  When I am lonely, who do I turn to for companionship?  Who do I trust with  my deepest secrets?  When the dark abyss of the deepest recesses of my mind cry out for comfort, who do I reach for?  When I am sinking in despair at the long road ahead, who reaches to lift me up?

When your phone rings and I am on the other end and I ask, "Whatcha' doing?"  Is this really what I mean or am I saying "I am so lonely I can not think straight.  I am sinking in depression.  Save me!"   The sad part of life is that no matter how transparent people seem to be, they are not.

I have learned that depression is depression.  It comes.  It stays.  It lifts and it leaves, but it comes back.  How is depression lived with every day?  I do not know, but I do know it is fairly common in this day and age.  I read one article that said, "Depression is like a big black dog that is always there and when he lays on you, you can not get him off and you can not move."  I guess that sort of explained it for me.

I guess the point I am trying to make here is that we should always make the effort to be kind to each other because we never know what is going on in another person's life and mind.  Watching a baby at play may make someone happy, but it may make someone sad.  A cheery, "Good morning!" may make one person feel special, and make the next one think you are nuts.  So what is the answer?  I do not have it, for all my years of experience.

My advice?  Keep plugging away.  All that glitters is not gold.  Everything that goes up, must come down.  Let a smile be your umbrella.  And most importantly,

You cannot sprinkle showers of happiness on other people without getting a few drops on yourself!

The good old days are alive and well in Florence, Colorado.

When we went fishing the other day in Florence at the Founders Park, we happened to stumble upon this little artifact.  For those of you who have grown up with tiled floors and enameled fixtures in your bathroom, you are in for a rude awakening.  This is what is known as an outhouse.  The out house is a little house behind the big house where you lived.  We have come a long ways since these days and I did not even dream there were still such things around.  Here is living proof.

This is the floor of said outhouse.  Now be aware that beneath this floor is a very messy pit where human waste is/was collected.  I do not know if this is a working outhouse and I did not step inside and peer down the hole so I can not even venture a guess.  No, I am curious, but not that curious!

The wood looks old and weathered enough to make me think this is the authentic outhouse, but since there was no sign of a homestead any where near here, I think it was placed here more as a piece of history.

And there you nave the bench upon which one perched to do one's business.  I myself would be scared to assume that position since I am deathly afraid of spiders and I am pretty sure this would be a perfect place for one to lurk.  Probably a very large family of the arachnids could be located under that bench.

So, kiddies, what do you think?  I do know that visiting this little building the other day sort of knocked my longing for the good old days right in the keester.  I long for the tranquility that came with the life we lived back then such as no ringing phone, no blaring television,  no interstate outside my door, but I have become quite accustomed to running water, both hot and cold, and the gentle swish of water when I flip the chrome handle of my pretty white commode.   I can stand for hours under the hot shower and never miss that aluminum tub on Saturday nights.

Yep, I have become a slave to modern conveniences.  And so it goes.

I thought I was the adult here!! My mistake.

Yesterday I drove myself to Florence to go fishing with Bret, Amanda and the baby.  As you can see Bret and I were busy with the fine art of casting and Amanda was documenting our outing.  Now you all know what happened here!  This innocent little baby of 6 tender months, is the worlds youngest photobomber!!  And he looks so harmless!  I can see what he is thinking.  "Oh, they are busy catching my dinner and mommy wants a picture!  Pick me, mommy!  Pick me."

Course about as soon as he jacked up the picture of mother and son in a bonding adventure, he went to sleep!

The scenery was fantastic.  Here is a picture of the fish Bret caught.  Now that is one big fish!

Here is mine that I did not catch!

The restrooms we used and the one we did not!

Amanda is in charge of packing and unpacking the car loaded with things to make the little Jiraiya's life most comfortable.  Bret and my job was to eat chicken apparently.

Kind of a water fall here.  We were at the Florence Water Park.

  I got home about 3:00 and the miles per gallon on the dash reported in at 49.7.  Can't get much better than that!

Life is Good!