NIP IT IN THE BUD

So just what is it that you need to cut out of your life? We all have them, you know. Things that clutter, things that are bad for us, things useless but maybe a bit addictive. As a service to you, Loyal Reader(s), I'm here to listen today. To let you unload on me. I'm the one in the chair. You're on the couch.

Let's look at your closet. Why? Because that's what I'm waiting for a rainy day to do. Maybe like me, you have old, old, decade old shirts that you still wear. The classicest (I know, that's not a word, but I like it) is my wife who still on occasion wears a skirt our daughter had in junior high school). But I needed not go there with some of the ancient shirts I have. Also, I have shirts, especially pants with various sizes due to my fluctuating weight. I have at least moved some of the smaller sizes I no longer fit in to the left of my wearables. So maybe that's a starting point. But when I lose the extra unwanted pounds, I don't seem to have trouble donating the bigger sizes. Go figure.

And the garage. We once attended a party at a teammate of our daughter's traveling softball team. It was mostly outdoors, with big yard, pool, lawn chairs. But the food was set up in the immaculate garage. I know it wasn't just for the party. This guy had a garage that was nicer, at least cleaner than many hotel rooms I've stayed in. I'm always reminded of that when I go to clean mine. Which reminds me. After years of looking at an outside thermometer hanging on our patio wall, I splurged and bought a new one. One I could read. One that was not fogged over by years of direct Arizona sun bleaching, scorching, steaming. It cost me $9.99. So I ripped the dirty plastic casing off and tried to re-claim the old one for the garage. After having spent some Euros this Summer in south France to buy one with real mercury in it. It is hanging in the garage by the back door, but I still tried unsuccessfully to salvage the old one. And, And, And (just so you know it wasn't a typo, but for emphasis) it still sits in the corner of my garage. I, pack rat, can't seem to be able to discard it. Or the bud is still dangling.

Church bulletins. Or programs or Views or whatever you call the handouts you're given when entering a worship service. I have stacks of them. They go back 20 years. A notetaker, I have notes on 1,000 sermons. Biblical references I jotted down, but never bothered looking up. I reminds me of when we kept our kids homework from grade school. We stored them in a room in the upstairs with other stuff we couldn't part with. Again, for 20 years.

So the scissors on the photo on the right need to come out again and do some clipping. Some snipping. Along with some proclamation that I am going to cut out some stuff in my life.

Now what were you saying?

THREATENED RETIREMENT: PLEASE DO IT


There are definitely bigger stooges that the three pictured in the too small image on the left. Most, but not all, play in the NFL.



They seemingly want to cause life threatening, career ending injuries to opposing players. I'm not talking about a good, pad-popping tackle. I'm talking about assault. Spearing a player by leading with the helmet resulting in a violent collision. One that caused paralysis to a Rutger's football player on Saturday.

So after three brutal hits past Sunday, the NFL took action adding suspensions to the fines. And now some players are squawking about it as if it were their right to make more players look like Muhammad Ali in later years. Ali is living proof of what taking too many hits to the cranium can and will do.

The biggest cry baby, a linebacker from Pittsburgh (surprise) James Harrison threatened to retire from football. He even sat out a practice. That's showing 'em James. I wish he and any other headhunters on any of the teams would follow suit. But, hey, as they say out here, "Cowboy up." Retire or shut up about it and play by the rules.

I know it's football. I appreciate the speed and the hard hits in the game. But I have been in stadiums where on more than one occasion a player has had to be carted off the field. Where he was lying unconscious. It's a terrible thing to witness, much like seeing a car wreck happen.

So, just play the game. Play it hard, but not cheap. "Hit 'em fair and hit 'em square" an old, old cheer used to go. I don't know of any that say "and keep your trap shut," but it seems to apply to Harrison and a bevy of other complainers these days.

JUST MAYBE IT'S ORANGE. WHO COULD KNOW?

Exactly why I love the season so. I used to think it was the weather. Pick any month almost any place, and that's the month of the best weather of the year.

I used to think it was because of excellent golf and baseball playoff times. High School, college, and pro football. Anything great outdoors.

Then I thought it was Halloween. I loved Halloween as a kid, before it started getting so commercialized. And gothic. And dark. And, well, yeah Satanic. Somewhat. It's almost become the anti-Christmas in some circles. So I hate that. But back then, it was a good scare. Drawing black cats and bats. Carving pumpkins. Trick-or-Treating and not having to have the goodies x-rayed.

Then I thought, the harvest. The corn shocks, the gourds, the Indian corn, and of course the big pumpkin orbs, the ones with speckles and moles and fungi. The albino ones. All sizes. The carvings and candles in them. Gosh, it was a fun season. I remember vividly the art classes at the high school were allowed to paint Halloween scenes on downtown store windows. Huge plate glass windows had their displays blocked by all things Halloween.

Bonfires. Leaf raking and jumping. Burning and the smell of crisp dry leaves. Not the burning of soaked leaves and branches of elm that smoldered and choked; even a good breeze couldn't blow away the stench. The elongated shadows that made you look ten feet tall. The blinding angle of the sun in early morn which came later. The blinding angle of the sun as it nadired into the nighttime.

But maybe it was just the color orange. Not my favorite, Regular Reader(s) know that's red, but it's a close second. Orange leaves, orange pumpkins, orange sun, orange flame. AAhh.

WHERE ARE THE BABIES ON BOARD?

They seemed to have been replaced. It's been years since I've seen that dangling or swinging yellow notification on a car rear window. Some placed them on the side windows. Maybe to entertain said baby.

What was I to do when I spotted one? I always felt guilty because I didn't know how to drive any more carefully around a car with one of those designations. I probably slowed down somewhat, but in Arizona that can be a whole lot more dangerous than driving with the flow.

Well, thankfully they have gone the way of Beanie Babies, pet rocks, and Abba. Although this summer, my wife took our granddaughter to see Mama Mia in New York. Ugh. That deserves another. Ugh. So what has replaced the Baby on Boards is stick figures.

Actually, there a little more artistic than that. Bubble figures maybe. They too are placed on the rear window and they indicate your family size and sex of each child along with a pet or two. I'm glad our son doesn't display his wife, 4 children, him, their cat, their dog, their hermit crab or he wouldn't be able to see out the back window.

I'm just plain out of it. I don't even have a bumper sticker. That's not true. I just don't have it on my car. I figure it would be a lot of effort to remove. Plus, the guy I'm supporting, a liar and a thief according to his opponent's tv ads, won't need much help defeating the Pelosi/Obama backer incumbent running again him. So why bother.

Besides, I may just slow down for someone with a family tree on their back window and infuriate a driver who would vote against my guy. It's that kind of election with that kind of anger.

Maybe I'll start a new thing to put on my car. Fake bullet holes. That's already been done. Well, now that makes sense--give someone an idea to fire real bullets to match. Ok, how about a peace symbol, a picture of a puppy or kitten. No, I'm sure that would anger some. All I can come up with is a bumper sticker that is blank. I rejected a Sarah Lee one that says "Nobody Doesn't Like Sarah Lee," simply because English teachers and grammarians wouldn't approve of the double negative.

A REFLECTION ON A CANVAS SPLASH

Stunning. What a photo! I am a leaf turning lover. Until they fall. Then I'm ready to leave myself. Before the clean up.

Yet there are great memories of jumping or watching my kids and grandkids play and jump into the leaves. Of the end of a blistered hand day of raking. Of burning leaves at dusk and watching the green phosphorescence take finally and combust while giving out a Fourth of July snake-like stream of curling smoke.

Of the clean green yard once again exposed after its blanket of many colors has been removed. So what if a little rotting of leaves had begun? They're removed and the dampness remains.

Scooting just a little closer to the fire as night time nears bringing coolness against a sweaty brow. In just a few minutes it will be suppertime. But now's a good time. The feeling of satisfaction. The feeling of accomplishment. The feeling of having finished a good hard day of work. Nothing like that feeling that those who pay others to do yard work can relate to.

You've already raked and re-raked cold coals and ash. You've already doused the flames. Only a trickle now of smoke ascending. You can't see it because of the night, but you've done this for ages. You know.

Soup's on. Along with a sandwich, maybe a salad. Oh, did I see a caramel apple on the counter?

The rakes and now empty bucket head for the garage for their well earned rest.

I GUESS A LOT OF THINGS TODAY

make me think of him. You see, he died last week. I still hurt.

I think the worst part is knowing that I won't see him again.

And I hadn't for 10 years. No phone call. No e-mail. Only contact through another friend.

Except for our Christmas card exchange every year and a hand written note covering no more than the blank inside part of the card.

But we knew the other cared. Deeply.

High school and college buds, we were each other's best man, two weeks apart, so many years ago. Like so many in our lives, we grew apart. He lived overseas, then moved to Florida. Separated by four hours flight plus another 1 1/2 hour drive to his house. Knock off the hour drive to mine from Florida to Arizona. But we never made those trips. We weren't even at each other's house since he came to mine in the late '70's, though as newlyweds we had lived just two houses apart.

Our relationship wasn't really all that different in our years in school either. Many times, most in fact, we did stuff with other friends. Yet, strangely, had you asked us or fellow friends who our best friend was, each would have named the other. Had you asked other friends who our best friend was, they would also have told you that we were each other's best friends. Strange, but there was that distant closeness. That lasted through the years.

Another friend of ours recently wrote, "what will matter is not how many people you know, but how many will feel a lasting loss when you're gone." Russ Hays, my man, I loved you and I'm gonna miss you. And I'm sure that feeling will last through the years.

MA BELL

A few of my readers and our daughter know I don't much like the phone. I've heard of visual people. Well, I'm inaudible. It's not that I can't hear. But I don't like to.

In an Adult Bible Fellowship (that's new age for Sunday School) class last Sunday, a friend who sits next to me went into great detail about a conference she and her husband had attended. I think it was the same one our pastor had asked me to attend. But I don't know, because apparently I wasn't listening.

My astonished wife couldn't believe I had not heard one word that our friend had shared. And I was sitting right next to her.

My phone use is minimal. In fact, I couldn't guarantee you that my cell phone is in my car. I think it is. But it's kismet if it's charged. None of my friends use my cell number. They always call my wife who's a whole lot more likely to have hers fired up and turned on. Me? I basically need an in-service on how to do anything other than turn it on, charge it, and make a call. I'm not even sure how to finish a call on her phone.

I referred to our daughter knowing my phone habits. As much as I enjoy her calling, I usually break off the conversation, because I just don't like talking on the phone. Never did.

Except when I had an interest in a girl/woman/female/lady/babe--enough. Then I didn't mind.

But maybe if they made cell phones like the one pictured, I could get interested again.