Having a wonderful time. The weather is great. Wish you were here.
Last week's New York Times Sunday Crossword puzzle has caused me indigestion and to spew vulgarities. One of the clues is: "Bass lover." Which bass? The fish? The guitar? The lower musical clef? Who the hell knows? As a friend pointed out long ago... I may be dumb, but at least I'm stupid.
After I imposed on her some inventive forms of torture, Dog has stopped running through the invisible fence. This has brought peace of mind to the squirrels who now jeer and catcall from just outside the wire. Weird: she went for a few years without ever going through, then suddenly started globetrotting. Gone are the days when neighborhood dogs can roam around unimpeded by property lines. When I was a kid, we had a dog named Josephine. We would let her out, and if she went galavanting around the town, no big whoop. All the neighbors knew Josephine and she knew them, and if she pooped in someone's yard, it was chocked up to "some poop in someone's yard." Maybe Dog is hanging closer to home because the strata of snow have slowly melted, unveiling whole new sets of shit smells with each passing day. Dog may be dumb, but at least she's stupid. Bottom line: she is mainly interested in chasing squirrels and smelling stuff. Come to think of it, sort of reminds me of my college days.
It looks like the answer to "Bass lover" is "oldman" That makes no sense, unless you think, "Okay, an old man might love to fish for bass." Give me a break.
When I was four years old, we lived in Atlanta and took a week-long vacation to Jekyll Island, Georgia. The main thing I remember about that trip was that my sister, Terry, mass-produced peanut butter and mayonnaise sandwiches by applying the peanut butter and mayonnaise to separate pieces of bread before mooshing them together. I had a fit about this. My mother always applied the mayonnaise directly on top of the peanut butter on one slice of bread before putting a blank piece on top. That's how it was done, and that's how I liked it. In my book, Terry had done the unthinkable, and I let the whole island know about it. Anyway, we took Josephine with us on that trip and when we returned, our house was electric with jumping fleas. There were thousands of them bouncing off the walls. So... when I think back to our Jekyll Island trip, I think of mismatched peanut butter and mayonnaise sandwiches and those rowdy fleas who welcomed us home.
Our little flea-infested house in Atlanta was surrounded by forest, and I spent days out in those woods, adventuring away in that red clay world. As a second grader, I went through a cigarette smoking phase and sometimes my friends and I would get naked and light up five Kools at a time. One day, I was secretly following my brother through the woods when I came face to face with an enormous snake lazily slithering down a log. I ran like hell for home, screaming "Snake!" all the way there. My father pulled out the "S" edition from our World Book Encyclopedia and the whole family congregated around those snake pictures to identify the species I had seen. I saw immediately that it was a yellow rat snake, but when my father read that it was non-poisonous, I passed on it. When they showed me a picture of a copperhead and told me that the copperhead was VERY poisonous, then yes, by God, I swore that was the very snake I had seen. I felt my family loved me all the more because I had come eye to eye with the vicious copperhead, and had barely escaped a gruesome and very, very sad death. Even though everyone long ago forgot about it, I was reminded of my little lie whenever snakes came to mind. I'm sorry Mom, Dad, Terry, Mark, Julie, and Josephine. It wasn't really a copperhead after all. It was a yellow rat snake.
Comments are welcome at tombohn2@yahoo.com
Last week's New York Times Sunday Crossword puzzle has caused me indigestion and to spew vulgarities. One of the clues is: "Bass lover." Which bass? The fish? The guitar? The lower musical clef? Who the hell knows? As a friend pointed out long ago... I may be dumb, but at least I'm stupid.
After I imposed on her some inventive forms of torture, Dog has stopped running through the invisible fence. This has brought peace of mind to the squirrels who now jeer and catcall from just outside the wire. Weird: she went for a few years without ever going through, then suddenly started globetrotting. Gone are the days when neighborhood dogs can roam around unimpeded by property lines. When I was a kid, we had a dog named Josephine. We would let her out, and if she went galavanting around the town, no big whoop. All the neighbors knew Josephine and she knew them, and if she pooped in someone's yard, it was chocked up to "some poop in someone's yard." Maybe Dog is hanging closer to home because the strata of snow have slowly melted, unveiling whole new sets of shit smells with each passing day. Dog may be dumb, but at least she's stupid. Bottom line: she is mainly interested in chasing squirrels and smelling stuff. Come to think of it, sort of reminds me of my college days.
It looks like the answer to "Bass lover" is "oldman" That makes no sense, unless you think, "Okay, an old man might love to fish for bass." Give me a break.
When I was four years old, we lived in Atlanta and took a week-long vacation to Jekyll Island, Georgia. The main thing I remember about that trip was that my sister, Terry, mass-produced peanut butter and mayonnaise sandwiches by applying the peanut butter and mayonnaise to separate pieces of bread before mooshing them together. I had a fit about this. My mother always applied the mayonnaise directly on top of the peanut butter on one slice of bread before putting a blank piece on top. That's how it was done, and that's how I liked it. In my book, Terry had done the unthinkable, and I let the whole island know about it. Anyway, we took Josephine with us on that trip and when we returned, our house was electric with jumping fleas. There were thousands of them bouncing off the walls. So... when I think back to our Jekyll Island trip, I think of mismatched peanut butter and mayonnaise sandwiches and those rowdy fleas who welcomed us home.
Our little flea-infested house in Atlanta was surrounded by forest, and I spent days out in those woods, adventuring away in that red clay world. As a second grader, I went through a cigarette smoking phase and sometimes my friends and I would get naked and light up five Kools at a time. One day, I was secretly following my brother through the woods when I came face to face with an enormous snake lazily slithering down a log. I ran like hell for home, screaming "Snake!" all the way there. My father pulled out the "S" edition from our World Book Encyclopedia and the whole family congregated around those snake pictures to identify the species I had seen. I saw immediately that it was a yellow rat snake, but when my father read that it was non-poisonous, I passed on it. When they showed me a picture of a copperhead and told me that the copperhead was VERY poisonous, then yes, by God, I swore that was the very snake I had seen. I felt my family loved me all the more because I had come eye to eye with the vicious copperhead, and had barely escaped a gruesome and very, very sad death. Even though everyone long ago forgot about it, I was reminded of my little lie whenever snakes came to mind. I'm sorry Mom, Dad, Terry, Mark, Julie, and Josephine. It wasn't really a copperhead after all. It was a yellow rat snake.
Comments are welcome at tombohn2@yahoo.com
