Category Archives: Family & Friends

Granted, everybody comes here to catch up on all things political. It’s OK, I’m with that. But after spending hours and hours immersed in the corruption and depravity that we are mired in, it’s therapeutic to take a step back and just chill. These posts don’t elicit any response but hopefully somebody might get a smile.

Tonight’s feast at the bunkhouse features some sweet corn donated by somebody I work with. He has a farmer friend who has a bounty of it. We had corn for supper every night during the summer and what we didn’t sell Granny would freeze so we had produce all winter. We planted two different strains, one a 65 day hybrid and the other a 90 day brand. The trick was to plant 10-12 rows at a time, wait a week then plant another 10 rows. This yielded a fresh crop all season instead of having it all ripen at once. My grandfather was not an educated man, didn’t have a degree in horticulture or know anything about organic vegetables. He just worked damn hard and could grow anything. To him, mealtime was a celebration  of  God’s grace and our ability to bring such goodness from the earth.

We didn’t have a lot of material  possessions, our meals didn’t have any fancy sauces or names you couldn’t pronounce. But nobody enjoyed fresher food prepared with more love. We had each other and in the end that was all we needed.

ON WITH THE SILLINESS

STOP AND PONDER HOW MUCH OF YOUR LIFE YOU’VE JUST TOTALLY WASTED BEFORE MOVING ON

DW’s son asked her last week if we would mind cat-sitting while he was out of town visiting his half-sister. Of course, she agreed. I was not informed in advance, since my opinion stopped being relevant about 10 seconds after I said ‘I do.’ The cat was with us for four days, which was not enough time for her to leave the scent of eau de litterbox #5 wafting through the house. She did, however, suffer a separation anxiety attack the first night and serenaded us with an aria in D-flat minor.

When I first left the farm and struck out on my own years ago, I made the decision not to have pets. This was for a variety of reasons. I drove a route truck and was gone for long hours, sometimes overnight. I also did my share (more) of womanizing and quaffed more than a few flagons of ale back in the day. I just didn’t want to be responsible for another life when I had little control over my own. My second wife, Tyler’s grandma, found a little black kitten when she left work one day and put it in her pocket and brought it home. She named him Smoky. He had a habit of laying in the front room then for no apparent reason, tearing as fast as he could round and round the house. That’s why I nicknamed him Dumbass.

To be sure, we had a lot of critters on the farm. Even in a severe hallucinogenic state, I couldn’t picture granny putting a leash on one of the dogs and walking around with it and picking up the poop. All our house animals went outside to do their business. It would have been a pretty funny sight, though. I got along with all the livestock with a few notable exceptions.

One of my first chores was to feed the chickens and gather eggs. There was one old hen that I tried to avoid when she was in her nesting box. When I reached under her to get the egg she’d puff out the feathers on her neck, back up and start flapping her wings and dare me to reach for it. “Allahu Cluck cluck!” She was a chicken terrorist. She was a poultrygeist. If memory serves, she wound up co-starring with Granny’s dumplings one Sunday for dinner.

We also had a big gray goose who used to chase my younger cousins for no reason. He’d fly up and try to peck them in the face. Hell, I was afraid of him. He was the antichrist with feathers. He actually did do some good, in that blue roaster surrounded by root vegetables. Granny loved dark meat; goose,duck and rabbit.

I could never understand why the breed bull was so antisocial. All he had to do all day was eat, crap, and make cow baby mamas. Maybe it had something to do with the fact when my cousin brought his BB gun over we’d sit behind the slats in the fence and take pot shots at his genitals. Do you know how big a bulls’ balls are? I know it sounds cruel, but we rarely hit them, and life on a farm can be really stressful when you have to work all the time.

THIS LOOKS A LOT LIKE SS’S CAT

After spending four days scouring the interwebs to bring you the most appalling,funniest and most bizarre nonsense I can find I’m usually pretty worn down. The Thursday morning breakfast with family is often the high point of the week,when I can enjoy a brief time with people I’ve loved my entire life. Today my cousin gave me the guest book from my brother’s funeral in 1953. I recognized a lot of the names as they were family and friends of Grandma’s that I knew my whole life. I think she still has the newspaper clippings from the day he accidentally hanged himself. The book means nothing to anyone but me and I don’t know what will become of it when I’m gone. It’s still precious to me as a reminder of what might have been. Russell would be 70 this year.

C’MON,WE’VE ALL DONE IT

ANOTHER BRUCE GETS IN ON THE ACT

We met my uncles and two of my cousins for our regular Thursday morning breakfast get-together. It’s one thing I can look forward to every week that brings me great joy. As we were leaving this morning, my cousin said she had granny’s old jewelry box with her, and did I want it back? I said ‘sure’ and so she got it out of her car and gave it to me. I remember it sitting on granny’s bedroom dresser for years. There was some jewelry left in it. Nothing of real value, but there was a rhinestone pin in the shape of a diamond she used to wear when she got dressed up to go out with Grampa. It brought back a flood of memories that had been dormant for many decades. She wore it to our church’s Christmas services and even wore it the day we buried the love of her life in 1972. After I fix a couple drawer pulls I plan to give it to my daughter to hand down to my granddaughter. I’m on the fence whether to keep the pin or give it to her, hoping she might cherish it as much as I do. It has absolutely no value money-wise, but it is priceless to me.

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Another week almost finished. Still waiting for the weather to warm up for more than a day. And stop raining every weekend. There’s a big flea market at our county fairgrounds this weekend. DW mentioned it in passing, which means: I WANT TO GO. Since I had to sell all my toys I don’t collect anything and don’t have the disposable income I once had. But there’s an avon rep who sets up there where my beloved child bride stocks up on her year’s supply of Imari,her favorite fragrance. She also picks up some of D#1’s favorite perfume. I’d really rather not go, but over the years I’ve developed a healthy fear of her. Just sayin’.