Futility Lesson: Outsmart A Six-Year Old

 

I had been hauling lumber and grain in a semi-truck

on runs from The Dakotas to the West Coast for

several years when my son, recently turned six,

began asking me to take him along on a trip.  He

and I both thought this was a terrific idea but my

wife, Robyn, thought otherwise.  She had visions of

a flaming truck wreck and the charred body of her

firstborn.  I argued that I would be extra cautious

and watchful with our son aboard and finally she

relented.  

 

We left our home in Missoula, bound forBillings, 

with a load of plywood that I had loaded in Seattle.  

The weather was "Springtime in the Rockies" gorgeous

and we laughed and sang along with the radio and enjoyed

the splendid Montana scenery.  Matt was thrilled to be

along and he bounced from the passenger seat to the

"Doghouse"console between the seats and back into the

sleeper.  He made roaring engine noises, put his hand

atop mine as I shifted gears, talked on the CB radio,

and just generally did kid stuff.

 

We unloaded the doors in Billings and we were

dispatched to pick up a load of grain in the small

town of Sand Springs, Montana and haul it to the

docks in Portland, Oregon.  It was growing dark as we

made our way east along US Highway 87 from 

Lewistown.  And it began to rain.  The area had been

experiencing quite a bit of rain lately as I could tell by

the large amount of standing water along the shoulders

of the highway and in the surrounding fields.  As the

rain increased in intensity my visibility dropped and I

slackened my speed but I failed to see a crumbled

section of pavement along the right shoulder.  That

pothole hooked my right front steering tire and threw

our rig into the soft mud along the side of the road.  

I wrestled the truck to a stop but not before we were

well and truly stuck in the mud.

 

I tried several times to go forward or backwards to no

avail and realized that Robyn's reservations had been

partially justified.  But we were not in flames so there

was still hope that this would not be Matt's one, and

only, trip with Dad.  I figured that a few calls on the

CB ought to yield a wrecker to hook us out and we

could be on our way in short order.  Fortunately, the

rig was completely off of the highway so was not a

hazard to the non-existing, middle of the night in rural

Central Montana traffic.  I began calling for help on

the emergency channel.  My calls for assistance netted

me the local Constable who appeared almost immediately

as if he'd been witnessing our plight from a nearby hill.

And appear he did! In a grand fashion he skidded to a

halt with flashing lights and siren blaring I suppose in

order to alert any nearby nearsighted cattle not to

stumble into the mired semi-truck.  

 

Despite this no-nonsense arrival he proved to be quite

friendly and helpful.  He invited us to sit in the back

seat of his cruiser out of the rain while he radioed for

a wrecker.  And so we sat, Matt and I, behind the wire

felon's screen and listened politely as the Constable

regaled us for several hours about the local crime scene,

the horrendous amount of rainfall impacting the spring

planting, the latest gossip from the local Grange, his

Mom's lumbago (it's worse when it rains, natch'ly) and

his extensive firearms collection.

 

As proof of this collection, he produced eight or nine

different handguns for our inspection.  He would reach

down under his seat and bring one up, give it a cursory

glance (I hoped to ensure that the safety was on) and,

to my complete amazement, he would then pass it back

through a small opening in the wire cage for us to

examine.  I managed to grab each offering as it appeared

in the wire-bound altar before Matt could do so and I

held it up for the boy to look at and to admire.  Matt,

being a completely normal six year old boy, naturally

wanted to hold each one, of course, but I managed to

forestall his enthusiasm until our "host" handed him

one that eluded my interception.  

 

But Matt was cool, he held it up to the rain streaked

window and pointed it outside of the cruiser at some

imaginary brigands and fired off a few verbal rounds.  

He blew imaginary smoke from the barrel and handed

it back, butt foremost, to the Constable.  I stared at him,

dumbfounded, and breathed what I hoped was a not

too audible sigh of relief.  All I could think of was this

excited little boy telling his Mom when we got home

about our "truck wreck" and "the Sherriff that let me

play with his gun!"  I realized that I clearly had some

remedial experiencing to arrange for Matt before we

got back to Missoula, and to Mom, so that this little

adventure wouldn't be foremost in his mind.

 

Shortly after our Constable had exhausted the mobile

exhibit of his firearms museum the wrecker arrived

and hooked us back onto solid pavement.  With many

thanks and farewells, and with our load lightened by

about two hundred bucks, we were back on our way.  

 

Early the next morning the rain had stopped and we

were at the grain elevator before it opened.  Matt

helped me set up the sideboards and get the tarp

ready.  I encouraged him to take off his shoes and

socks and play in the mud puddles thinking to myself

that when I was a kid it seemed that adults were always

telling kids NOT to play in the mud.  Later, after we

had loaded the wheat and as I was spreading the tarp,

I boosted him up into the trailer to wade in the grain

and to feel how cold it was after being stored in the

concrete silo.  Well he waded in and "swam" in the

grain and "splashed" handfuls at me and I at him and

we laughed and had a great time.

 

We stopped in Lewistown at the truck stop to shower

away the mud and the clinging grain kernels, washed

the rig and swamped out the cab, ate breakfast,

grabbed some badly needed sleep, and headed west

for home and for Mom.

 

I was not naive enough to believe that a little un-

restrained mud-play and "swimming" in a pool of

wheat was going to replace our "wreck"  and handling

a "real gun" in the mind of a six year old boy, but we

still had a few hundred miles to go and I was thinking

of everything I could to overshadow these adventures.  

 

I knew that Matt loved fishing and camping and the

outdoors in general and all animals, especially wildlife.

So as we neared Missoula, dropping down the Clark

Fork River valley with the sun setting beautifully in our

faces I recalled a place just a few miles up ahead where

I had stopped a few times on previous trips to watch a

community of beavers building a dam on a small creek

just before it joined the river.  This would be perfect I

thought.  I wanted to share this with him.  It was right

up his alley, and, not the least importantly, it was only

about fifteen minutes before we saw Mom.  Perfection.

It would be the most recent, exciting event of the trip

and ought to be foremost in the boy's mind.

 

So we parked the rig and walked along the creek's bank

and watched as a few trout rose to hit at flies, each one

making Matt gasp with delight and increased my own

joy in his enjoyment.  We watched the beaver's industry

for almost an hour in the gathering darkness.  We were

in awe as they glided through their pond with big loads

of tree branches and we chuckled as they patted at great

daubs of mud with their broad tails.  Matt was in his

element and I truly believed that I had successfully

dodged the bullet of the truck "wreck" and the

Constable's arsenal.  I loaded the sleepy little guy into

the sleeper and negotiated the remaining few miles to

park the rig on the street in front of our house.

 

The explosive hiss and squeak of setting the brakes 

woke up Matt and he stuck his head out into the cab

from the sleeper rubbing the sleep from one eye with a

fist.  We were both greeted by the smiling face of Mom

tapping on the passenger side window.  I thumbed the

switch to lower the window that separated them for

the mother and child reunion.  I swear that the window

had not gotten all the way down before Matt had shouted:

"Mom, It was great!  We wrecked the truck!  

And me and Dad got arrested!

And I got to shoot the Sherriff's gun!  

Can I go again?"

"Arkstock" Ozark Mountain Woodstock ?

Recently I have been re-connecting via e-mail with a host of old friends from High School, many of whom I have not been in contact with for more than forty years.  In the course of these conversations I began to hear references to "The Arkstock Reunion".

I'd like to share part of my e-mail to one of these old friends as an example of how, though the mind may lead us down paths that are precisely correct or woefully incorrect, the result can be a pleasant walk down a nice path.  

After all, it isn't the destination that is important so much as it is the journey.

Arkstock.

Funny how the mind works.  When G. began referring to  "The Arkstock Reunion" I was not familiar with the term.  I did recall that B. had owned a piece of land up in New York State quite near where the Woodstock festival happened.  But the "Ark..." part was puzzling.  Could it be "Arkansas"?

In my mind I linked  "Arkansas" and "Woodstock".  Linear thinking being my forte, I concluded that the only logical reason to conjoin Arkansas and Woodstock had to have something to do with music.  But music from Arkansas?  What the heck did that have to do with any of us?  Rock and Roll, sure. "Rockstock" or maybe "Woodroll".  But "Arkstock"?  I know we ingested a lot of chemicals together in those days, but I am pretty sure we never listened to any music that might have had origins in The Ozark Mountains.  

Then I reflected on the passage of forty years and all of the changes that were possible in that span of years.  Maybe all of my "Age of Aquarius" friends from High School had migrated into Country, or Bluegrass.  Not a thing wrong with that.  My own musical tastes have evolved over those same forty years until I am now able to tolerate just about anything music has to offer.  Anything, that is, but Rap, Hip Hop, New Wave, Barry Manilow, or Kenny G.

So in the course of musing on "Arkstock" I  had visions of a huge, milling crowd in the rain and mud.  I heard bursts of screeching feedback that seared the ears coming from huge, towering banks of speakers.

I imagined crackling announcements blaring over the PA:

 "Shazam!  There's three hundred thousand of you Mammer Jammers out there !" 

 "People, we have reports of bad Copenhagen out there.  Hear?"  

 "All Y'all KEEP AWAY from the brown Copenhagen!"

OK.  Sounded reasonable to me.

 

Until I got an e-mail from B. that mentioned the small town of Arkville, NY and, I thought, 

"I just might have to rethink this Arkstock thing."

Man Reaches Schmaltz Limit Watching "Carousel"

I have been discovering old friends, from forty years ago, on this "cloudnet", or 

web 2.0, or whatever it is called and I'd like to share with you a funny story from his youth.   If I know him as I remember him, I'm sure he won't mind. 

 

The following is an excerpt taken from my email to an old friend:

"I can't watch any Hollywood movie, musical or dramatic, without thinking of the hilarious story that you once told about your Dad, Abie(?) who had taken a group of you kids to a theater to watch the musical Carousel.  

"After a seemingly interminable parade of singing and dancing by a cast who seemed to break into song for the slightest hint of a reason, the plot reaches a climactic moment: a major character has died, the hero or heroine (can't recall; don't matter) kneels over the corpse just dripping with tragedy, pathos, grief-stricken, hardly a dry eye in the house. 

"The minor chord orchestral music softly fades in... the theater audience is rapt with attention, breathless, one could have heard the proverbial pin were it to be dropped.  Suddelly the near silence in the audience is shattered by a loud voice, your Dad, who shouts at the screen in a thick, North Joisey accent:     

"G'head!   Sing !"

"Clearly a man who had reached the limit of his tolerance for schmaltz."

The Letter of the Law / The Spirit of the Law

Liberty.  One of the few Naval terms that actually makes sense.  Liberty.  Free time ashore. Free time to wander contemplatively through a park, to visit an art museum, to attend a lecture, to enjoy some of the local cuisine, or to interact with our native hosts in the hope of furthering the good will and understanding between our differing cultures on a microcosmic level.  Possibly, one might even visit an establishment where a small cordial might be consumed in luxurious peace and quiet, far removed from the raucous and hectic pace of life aboard a warship.  

Granted, we may have spent just a wee bit more time ashore than was officially allowed, but this was Australia, Man!  When would any of us ever be likely to return here?  As we sat in a Sydney pub in a section of the city known as King's Cross, enjoying some libations and expositing on a host of topics, one of our happy group pointed to his watch and said, "I think the ship was scheduled to leave about an hour ago. Whose turn is it to buy the next round?"  

Fortunately, during the ensuing debate over who was to spring for the next round, a boorish, party-crashing oaf, one that I will call: "self-preservation", barged rudely into our collective thinking and demanded that a different topic altogether be put up for discussion.  After much deliberation a concensus was eventually reached that, if the ship had indeed gotten underway an hour ago, as scheduled, the fifteen of us present at the table, in this pub, were, by anyone's objective assessment, definitely not aboard.

What to do about this rapidly deteriorating situation was put on the table, along with a fresh round of reasoning agents, and suggestions as to a practical course of action were solicited from the floor.  Luckily we had a quorum since there was only one of us, Marty LaChappelle, or "Latch", as he was known, who was actually on the floor at this point, snoring peacefully, oblivious to his impending incarceration, and it was pointed out that this should pose no problem since he was small enough that we could carry him if it became necessary.

"We could set the bar on fire and claim we were caught in it." was immediately rejected as unworkable, from a timing standpoint, since a fire large enough to provide that measure of cover would take too long to develop.

"Let's pool all of our money, get plane tickets to the next port she's scheduled to stop in, and sneak aboard with the first Liberty section when they go back aboard."  Now this had merit, at first blush, but much debate and discussion eventually boiled down, once again, to an issue of timing.  By the time our ship made the next port we would have been listed as "missing ship's movement", the most charitable charge we could think of.   "UA" (Unauthorized Absence), was also considered as likely to be of interest to our Officers who were by now literally "steaming" further away by the minute.

 "AWOL", one of our sea-lawyers offered, "Doesn't apply until you've been gone 30 days." so that undesirable specter was happily toasted and laid to rest. 

Quite a few more of these cogently reasoned suggestions were made, discussed, toasted, and rejected.  Finally Joe Lewandowski, whose chosen nickname was "Chicago Lew",  put forward the course of action that immediately drew hearty and unanimous support.  Chicago Lew's plan was soon voted upon, toasted of course, and read into life as: The Plan. 

The Plan: We head for the pier, hire a fishing boat to take us out to the ship, hail a shipmate to lower us a rope, and climb aboard. Simple but elegant.  Many prior ports of call had familiarized us all with the glacial, plodding pace at which our ancient carrier commenced steaming (her keel was laid a few weeks after Pearl Harbor in 1942, then she was de-commissioned after WWII ended but had been brought out of mothballs for The Korean Conflict, de-commissioned when that ended but had been awakened yet again for Viet Nam which was when this event transpired)  Yes, we all knew how long our beloved  USS Shangri-La took to clear a breakwater.  We had plenty of time to catch up with her.  

So we gathered up our hats, souvenir purchases, and all of the other effluvia that a sailor on shore leave tends to collect, had one final toast to our success, hoisted an inert and still snoring Latch onto our shoulders, and set about putting our plan into action.  Spirits were high as this really seemed like a walk in the park.

A taxi ride to the pier, a few minutes bargaining with the Skipper of one of the many small fishing smacks tied alongside, a conjoining of funds made up of various and sundry currencies from previous ports visited, a wristwatch or two, and a deal was struck.  We all boarded the "rescue" vessel, threw Latch onto a pile of tangled netting that was redolent of our Skipper's livelihood, and within minutes were in hot (about three knots) pursuit of our much beloved, but rapidly receding, Shangri-La.  We were singing and laughing, secure in the knowledge that we were on our own "Road to Shambala."

We caught up with our ship as she sedately steamed towards the mouth of Sydney Harbor where she was only just beginning to encounter the motion of the Pacific swells.  We directed the Skipper of our chartered vessel to tuck up under the fantail where we successfully engaged an idling, rail-leaning shipmate, who did, as Chicago Lew had predicted, drop us a line.  One of the more sober of our happy little band was able to negotiate a bowline around the chest of the sleeping, and now slightly fishy smelling, Latch and he was hauled up by several members of a disconcertingly large, and growing, crowd of curious observers gathering on the fantail.  

Miraculously, not a single one of us hanged ourselves on the rope, or was drowned, or was crushed to death between the small wooden boat and that immense wall of unforgiving gray steel as, one by one, we bid the Skipper of our intrepid little rescue craft a hearty farewell, pledging to him our heartfelt and lifelong gratitude, and reached for the rope.  I'm sure each of us was congratulating himself for such a narrow escape.  I know that is what I was thinking as I threw a leg over the rail to climb aboard.

Where I encountered the Chief Master at Arms waiting to greet us.  The Master at Arms on a Naval vessel is roughly equivalent to a Chief of Police or a County Sherriff ashore.  He looked us over for a moment, sniffed the air with an inquisitive look that seemed to say, "which the hell one of you smells like dead fish?" and then launched into a passionately moving speech intended, I'm sure, to welcome us aboard, as it was laced with so much colorful and descriptive language.  A speech that went on to congratulate us on the ingenuity and skill which we had exhibited in performing such an unorthodox method of returning from Liberty.  And to invite us, one and all, to line up and follow him to his office where we would all be written up to face charges that, in his words, "Are coming to my mind in droves."

The line began to form and Chicago Lew nudged me saying, "Give me a hand with Latch."  I thought this extraordinarily charitable from Lew who self-characterized himself as "the meanest s.o.b. who ever came out of The Southside." and a guy who never, ever, volunteered for anything.  But I didn't dwell on it for long as the cause of his sudden altruism was made evident almost immediately.  We lifted the odiferous Latch upright and, draping one of his arms around each of our shoulders we supported our slumbering comrade and fell into the end of the line. Chicago Lew's genius shone brighter in my mind as the line began it's dolorous journey because by volunteering to carry Latch, and due in no small part to Latch's current aroma, we found ourselves at the end of the line.  

There are times in life when it is good to be at the front of a line.  There are also times when it is good to blend iconspicuously into the middle of a line.  But there are times when it is just plain golden to be at the end of a line and this was most definitely one of those times.  Picture, if you will, an officious, authoritative, spit-shined, puffed up pouter-pigeon of an MAA, smugly smiling to himself, leading a line of shuffling, recalcitrant miscreants along the narrow, dimly-lit passageways of a warship, everyone in the line knowing that they are on their way to certain administrative doom.  You can certainly see why it would be good to be at the end of such a line.

This sad procession started at the fantail and the MAA's office was located near the Quarterdeck. The Quarterdeck!  If you are not familiar with shipboard minutiae, that meant we had to travel roughly half the length of the ship.  Lew saw this right away and with his South Chicago street smarts knew that there was no way on God's green earth, or his deep blue seas, that this line would make that trip intact.  At every hatchway we managed to fall back a step or two from those ahead of us since we had to negotiate an unconscious Latch through the hatch.  I was wondering when we were going to make our move when it suddenly dawned on me that we had to pass directly by the Battery Locker.  The Battery Locker was a spacious compartment where batteries used in all sorts of shipboard functions were brought to be charged.  Oh, Glorious Deliverance!  Chicago Lew just happened to be the POC (Petty Officer in Charge) of, you guessed it, The Everloving, Off Limits to Unauthorized Personnel Other Than E-Div Personnell Actively Engaged in Battery Charging BATTERY FREAKING LOCKER !  And Chicago Lew was never without his key.

Sure enough, as we came abreast of that Locker, that Shangri-La within a Shangri-La, we were way behind our poor, benighted buddies as they made their gloomy way forward.  We hung Latch onto a projecting valve stem by the neck of his shirt and Lew dealt with the padlock and chain while I began to undo the dogs that secured the watertight hatch.  When it was open we looked up and down the passageway to be certain that none of the admiring crowd from the fantail had followed our line, unlikely as that seemed since no Sailor worth his salt would voluntarily follow such a line as this.  Then we bundled the malodorous, but unflappable Latch through the doorway and I deposited him on the workbench where he immediately resumed snoring a rich counterpoint to the comforting sounds of Lew dogging down the hatch, happily from the inside of "his" Battery Locker.

I don't know how much further attrition that line suffered as it went along, no one ever said how many of the culprits actually made it to the MAA's office and the episode was soon forgotten as we encountered new, even more enjoyable ports of call.  But Latch, who remembers it the least of any of us, once told me as we were having a beer in a Melbourne pub, and after I had told him the tale.  

"That's why Lew is a 2nd class P.O. but we're still Fireman Apprentices.  Initiative!"

         ****************************************************************

     

I have said all of that to ask this:  Did we "miss ship's movement?"

I mean, sure, the ship was moving, but we sort of caught it while it was on the upswing.  Kind of like a skier who catches one of those T-Bar ski lifts.  Or a hobo who jumps onto a moving boxcar.

I'm sure there are those who would argue that there is a moment in time when a ship is at rest and another moment in time when it is in movement and that the point at which the one becomes the other is the "moment of movement".   But I will not allow any of that legal wrangling to muddy up this issue in my mind.   

As far as Lew, Latch, and I are concerned,  sure that ship was moving, but no way did we miss it.  

I rest my case.

-Stan

  

If You Thaw Pipes - - Watch Them

If you thaw out frozen pipes you really should watch over them.  

My wife, Robyn, our Cat "Dumbass" and I are all newcomers to this RV lifestyle thing but we are NOT unacquainted with frozen pipes so we should have known better.  After a beautiful lazy Fall that we dedicated a large amount of time and money to preparing for wintering in our RV in Montana we thought we had all of our bases covered: large supply of propane, insulation and heat tape on water supply lines and sewer line, window blankets, skirting, and such.  I'm sure, if you are reading this you know the tune.  Temperatures plummeted like the Dow Jones Average of late and we had a freeze-up anyway.  An ice plug formed where the pipes cross from port to starboard and we had water in the bathroom but not in the kitchen.  

We isolated the point where we were certain that the plug had formed, applied a small space heater to it,and opened all of the faucets a bit so that the water could flow when the ice plug thawed.  

And then, (dramatic pause) we went out to dinner.  Big mistake, that last thing there.

We had a lovely evening dining out, played a little Keno, and were met upon our return with cheerfully gurgling pipes, several inches of water on the floor, and two large blocks of ice where our gray and black water tanks used to reside.

After about three weeks of chilly trips to the campground rest rooms, hauling water for dishwashing, and so on, the weather moderated long enough to thaw us out completely and life goes on.

Tip from a newbie: Park close to the restrooms in winter and WATCH THOSE PIPES !

I previously posted this on Your RV Lifestyle

This is a Site that I highly reccommend.  Give them a visit.

RV Living and State Sponsored Fraud

OK, so the license tags for my little s-10 pickup truck expired in November and it is now February.  But it has only been driven just a little bit in that time.  Hardly at all, in fact.  Just the four blocks or so to Robyn's job and back, the grocery store, casino, Robyn's parents house, etc.  But, anyway, I thought it would be a good idea to pay for the next 12 month's vehicle registration after the kid at the campground office brought it to my attention when I paid the rent by telling me that the local police cruise the campground and notify the office about expired vehicle tags.   Really!  

  So I dutifully presented myself at the State of Montana, County Motor Vehicle Registration Bureau fully prepared to lie, wheedle, grovel, or whatever was needed.  But I was pleasantly surprised to find a quite accommodating, grandmotherly, apparatchik behind the counter and she was not interested at all in the 3 month lag in my registration.  She didn't even want to see my proof of insurance coverage for the vehicle, and THAT really surprised me.  "Proof of insurance is no longer required", she explained, "Insurance companies made us stop requiring it because people would buy insurance, register a vehicle, and then cancel the insurance."

This is an interesting development on several levels.  I pointed out to her that I thought the government generally regulated the insurance companies, not vice versa, and that now the likelihood of my vehicle being slammed into by an uninsured motorist has been greatly increased.  This was not the first time she'd heard this as all it elicited was a bored shrug of her shoulders.  But she was friendly and efficient and filled in my pertinent stuff on her computer.

We reached an impasse, however, when she asked for my current address.  I recited my Post Office Box number and she typed it in and said, "We also need a physical address".  When I told her that we lived in an RV at the local KOA her nimble fingers froze above her keyboard and her head snapped up to stare at me as if I had just demanded all of the money from her cash drawer.  After a few seconds pause during which we stared at each other, equally dumbfounded, her at my effrontery, and me at her reaction.

She finally, haltingly stammered, "Umm, I think we have a new rule about that.  I'll be right back.  You stay here."  I guess this last comment of hers was in case I had planned on jumping over the chest-high counter and throttling her.  She walked over to the desk of another woman who I took to be either her supervisor or a plainclothes security agent with a secret means of summoning a S.W.A.T. team to deal with my seditious behaviour.

They huddled together engaging in a hushed conversation with each other until they reached some sort of conclusion and the one who had been waiting on me tentatively came back to her work station.  She handed me back all of the paperwork I had given her and said, "I'm sorry, sir.  Without a physical address you cannot register a vehicle."

A multitude of possible responses to this dictum waged a brief struggle in my mind to reach through my bewilderment, all noisily elbowing to be first out of my mouth.  I don't think that the winner of this melee, "But it is physical" was the most elegant, but it was the winner, all the same.  All it earned me was a blank stare from my very civil servant and another noncommittal, almost Gallic, shrug.  

I could tell that argument on the merits of this precept, while eminently satisfying on a rhetorical level, would most likely end up with my being forcibly ejected from the debate at best and jail time at worst.  But I had to go on record, at least with Comrade Clerk, and I asked her, in my most respectful, aw shucks kind of voice, "You mean to say that I could be living in an apartment which I could vacate tomorrow that would be fine?"

"Yes." was her cogent response and she went on to say, "Do you know anyone in town?"  

"Well, sure I do!" I exclaimed cheerfully, letting my face register a satisfactory beam, "There's my wife.  But she lives with me at my non-physical address."  I erased the cheerful beam and put on my best hangdog expression and turned to leave.  I stopped and turned back and said, "What about her Dad and Mom?  They live here on a very physical basis."

"Possibly." she said thoughtfully.  "Have they lived here long?"

"Oh, not that long I guess.  About sixty years or so at the same address."

Well you would have thought that Comrade Clerk had just won the Power Ball Lottery. Here was a way out of this bureaucratic cul-de-sac into which we had gone.   She indicated that I give her back my paperwork and sat back at her keyboard and we were on our way to engaging in a collusion of defrauding the Department of Motor Vehicles.  I thanked her, paid the ransom, and left with a little gummy sticker to put over the last four or five on my license plate.

I love this country.

Crocked Cooking

Admittedly I am no chef, but I am cooking savvy enough to realize that there is a special place in Heaven reserved for the person who invented the crock pot, slow-cooker, husband's helper or whatever you choose to call it.  Since I do not have a job but my wife works full time, the cooking and other "motorhousehold" chores are mine. If I had to cook a couple of steaks, chicken breasts, pork chops, or biscuits by conventional methods we would need to buy smoke alarms by the gross.  

I am becoming quite proficient at this crock pot type cooking, however.  Prior to this my supreme culinary effort was what I dubbed "Three Bean Pie".  My three teenage (at the time) children for whom I created this masterpiece were uncharacteristically creative in the names that they chose for this epicurean endeavor but the TERMS OF SERVICE preclude my posting those colorful, descriptive labels in this Blog.

Last night, however, I surpassed even myself and this Three Bean delight.  I prepared a sumptuous offering which I am tentatively calling "Chicken Breast Stuffed With Stuff".  I would gladly share the recipe here but I know this dish is destined to become a beloved Old Family Recipe and I don't want to deprive any of my children or grandchildren of the exclusivity of their heritage since I am presently engaged in spending their inheritance.  

I know that they are eagerly anticipating the next Family Reunion where I plan to inflict some of my cooking on them and solicit their reviews of same.

(Burp)   

Excuse me.