Values of a "lower" education

Whatever happened to all the "blue-collar" jobs that were so prevalent thirty years ago? Have they all been taken away from us by "illegal" immigrants, and if not, are we the only generation left that still has one? Most, (if not all), of our younger generation go to college in pursuit of a better career than what the old man had, and better paying, too, which is exactly what we wanted for our children in the first place, back when we were preaching college to them. The problem is now, (and we should have seen this coming), our college graduate children have great jobs with a fantastic salary requiring little to no "physical" labor, and still retain only the amount of "common sense" found in a bowl of steamed carrots. Many of today's youth are much more likely to find a cure for skin cancer than to be able to check the oil in their own cars, or even operate an un-sophisticated lawn mower. Does anybody remember what particular year it was when we, as a nation, no longer required our children to do "chores" in order to have a little spending money? Perhaps it was the same year that we decided it was no longer acceptable to "spank" our children for doing wrong. Maybe it was the year that we brilliantly decided to make ALL of our children "winners" at the local "T-ball" game, by not really keeping score, and thereby sending the message to them that life will give you the same rewards, whether you try hard or not. I do seem to remember that "The American Dream" is supposed to be something about a great job, 2.2 kid's, a 3 bedroom house with a white picket fence and a dog named Rufus, but was there anything in this "dream" mandating that our children would someday HAVE to hire illegals to do the work that they were either too lazy or too stupid to do, because they spent so much time and money on a college education in the belief that they would never have to? Also, I would like to know how you can have 2.2 kids! It must have been a college graduate that figured that one out. I am very proud of this great, independent nation, but I wonder how long we can remain independent once the rest of the world figures out that we can no longer shingle our own houses, cook our own food, or do our own gardening. Maybe we really do need to get our "shit" together, before we lose it all. This message was brought to you from out of the fog. I'm Rany J. Delimont, and I approved this ad.

Bucket seats and pretty girls

Did you ever notice how young couples never sit close together in their cars while dating anymore, making it hard to tell if they are a "couple" indeed, or just siblings on their way to a movie together. Of course we all outgrow this phase of life, but still I thought it was a phase that everybody had to go through in order to reach adulthood. It would be hard to blame the car manufacturers for this, as many of us had bucket seats in the seventies, and would simply put a pillow between them for our girlfriends to sit on, assuring her a much less comfortable ride than she would have gotten if she would have just sat in the seat. Maybe it's just that the cars today are so much improved over the cars we had that it no longer takes two people to drive them? Maybe they just don't want to get caught on a seat-belt violation? All of my cars and trucks that I had when going to school really did take two people to drive, which forced me to "date" alot in my younger years. I always tried to be a gentleman though, and had a nice fluffy pillow for my girl to sit on, and generally used my right arm as a sort of seat belt with which to assure her safety, should we become involved in an accident or something. This method also worked well for keeping many of my dates from jumping out of the car at stop signs, and jumping into someone better-looking's car. The seat belt method didn't work as well on my vehicles that had floor shifters, though, where basically all I could have done was save her left leg as my arm lay across it, hand on the shifter, just in case a serious race would happen to erupt, and I would be forced to shift quickly. Sitting between the bucket seats also made it handy for your girlfriend, (or whoever's girlfriend you happened to have that particular night), to easily reach the ice cold beer you had in the cooler on the backseat floorboard. On the passenger side. It's a little blue and white one. Many times my date and I would become so exhausted from the rigors of dragging main and racing, that we would have to "disappear" for awhile, out in the country and "rest" up in the backseat. Sometimes, these "resting" periods would have to be repeated three or four times a night, such was the stress level of dragging main in Lebanon, Kansas. I've noticed now that I'm older I seem to have no stress at all, and almost never require "resting" in the backseat of any vehicle. Oh well, just a little nostalgia working it's way through my system, and wondering what kid's do for excitement in the 2000's. I am feeling a little bored. I think I'll ask my wife if she want's to pack up the little blue and white cooler and go for a drive. Out in the country.

Just me and the "Guy's"

I grew up in the sixties, which not only means that I am very old and fragile, but also that I grew up during the height of the "cold war", (which was an imaginary war created by the Russians and my grandparents shortly after world war 2, when the United States and Russia decided to "block" each other from being "Friends" on "Facebook", even though they had just spent an entire war together as allies, fighting Adolf Hitler and his little Nazi buddies). The Cold War always seemed to make the village elders very nervous, as if at any given time a Russian "nuke" would come crashing down on them for no other reason than the fact that we Americans had access to a better quality of blue jeans than they did, coupled with the idea that we drank beer and grilled chicken on weekends, whereas the Russians apparently had little better to do than plan a "horrible" death to all Americans, while consuming vast quantities of vodka and red beets. It seemed that people were more patriotic in the days of the cold war than what they are now, and the older the person, the more patriotic they would be. My grandpa Guy Burgess, for example, could wing a Chinese or Japanese wrench clear from his house to the railroad tracks, showing little or no concern for the passengers on board the "Rocket", which was the "high-speed" commuter train that would pass through our small town. Grandpa Burgess was not a veteran of a foreign war by any stretch of the imagination, but you would have to look extremely hard to find a person who supported our troops and country as much as he did. He always believed in American ingenuity, and therefore would ONLY buy American products! Giving Guy Burgess a set of cheap sockets that were "Made in Japan" might get you a somewhat muffled thank you from this great man, but also endanger the lives of the travelers on nearby streets and railroads, as he threw them away. Grandpa Guy is deceased now, but I wish the world were infested with "Guys" that had his beliefs and ideas, the ones that made this country strong in the first place. I'm quite sure that if grandpa Burgess were alive today, and could see how our great country is rapidly declining , he would have the answers to fix it up again, using only American tools, and votes. Sometimes I wonder just what Guy would think of us now, after voting in a Muslim president, while having been and currently are at war with Muslim nations. I wish I had a set of Muslim-made wrenches, then I could go to Washington and throw them at the White House. Maybe next election we Americans can elect a Christian President to lead our Christian based society. Wouldn't that be a hoot?

My Week With Caden

Due to laziness, this story is one that I dug up from three years ago, which was before I had a computer, and only typed stories on my typewriter, with the hopes of someday getting them published. Kristy and I were living in Geneva Nebraska at this time, and the kid's and grand-kid's were all in the Hays, Kansas area, so we didn't get to see them very often. I worked in bridge construction, and we got laid- off for a month every winter, which is what prompted me to bring my little buddy Caden, ( who was three years old at the time), to Nebraska, to spend a fun-filled week with grandpa and grandma, (who was smart enough not to take her vacation during this time period, leaving grandpa to deal with our "wildest" model of grand-child at that particular time by himself). The story starts out the day all the kid's went back home to Kansas, after celebrating a "late" Christmas with us. Grandpa received quite an education from this three year old, Tasmanian Devil. Keep in mind, we weren't used to having small children around. Day 1 (30 Dec 07); What a beautiful day! The kid's, dogs, and surplus grand-kid's have gone home, leaving just me and Kristy and my little fishing buddy, Caden, behind. Caden is bright and giggly! This promises to be a great week! (Day 2); Beautiful day outside! Grandma's back to work at the store, Lindsay's at a friends house, and Caden and I are outside playing in the snow, as opposed to being inside watching a college New Years eve bowl game, where it's warm and comfortable. (Day3); Lindsay headed back to college this morning, leaving just me and Caden together in this house of horrors. There is another college football bowl game on, but Caden demands to go sledding and throw snowballs and giggle. I soldier onward! (Day 4); What a dreary day outside! Looks like Caden and I are stuck inside today. I don't know what we'll do, but I'm sure we'll do it his way. Playdough? Leggos? I feel trapped, and with no clear way to escape, thoughts of suicide often enter my mind! (Day 5); What great prospects this day has! K.U. plays Virginia Tech in the Orange bowl tonight! Maybe Caden will allow me to watch a small portion of it! Maybe he'll go to sleep early, and I can watch it all! Maybe I'm just fooling myself. I've decided that if we do move back to Kansas to be closer to the grand-kids, I will find a seven day a week job, out of town, somewhere. (Day6); Caden woke up crying in a semi-violent manner this morning at 4:30 am. With no apparent injuries or illnesses, I safely assume that the child needs an excorcist, or at the very least a tarot card reading from a concerned psychic. As the evil spirit left him in the mid-morning, I took him to the park, and then we went sledding and had pizza. Although he smiled and giggled alot, I realized that his contentment would only be temporary. If I can survive one last night, I will return him to his lair the first thing in the morning! God help us all! (Day 7); What a happy day this is! After merely a dozen or so "potty" breaks, and lot's of snippy conversation, we have completed the trip back to Hays, and released the little monster back into his own dwelling! The drive home is relaxing, yet lonely, as I miss him already. I hold my wife close to me as we go down the highway, stroking her hair, and quietly contemplate ways to kill her if she should ever become pregnant! As we amber along the highway, back towards Nebraska, Kristy asks me if I still want to move back to Kansas in order to be closer to the grand-kid's. I never answered. I was still thinking about moving, though, and wondering what the weather would be like in say, Vermont? I hear it's beautiful there in the spring and fall, and................

"Catching the BIG ones"

Well, I finally conjured up a fishing party that could make it to our little lake before sun-up, (when the fish are biting). The only problem was that the fish apparently didn't know they were supposed to be biting. My son-in-law, Tony, and my grandson, Trenton came over from Hays very early this morning in what I can only deem a successful attempt to out-fish grandpa. Trenton, who didn't appear to be very pleased about the time of day it was, still managed to catch two fish, although I secretly believe his dad was helping, as Trenton is only three years old, and spent much of his time trying to "call" in a moose by uttering "moose-like" noises into the hollow iron pipe on the boat ramp gate, (which I'm sure is the same tactic that Daniel Boone would have used, had their been moose in Pennsylvania or North Carolina). I'm not entirely sure that he didn't actually succeed, either. I thought I maybe caught a glimpse of one, but then again, I was involved in heavy drinking last night. Tony, who obviously over-estimated our little lake, brought a fishing pole that his grandad had left to him, and which was obviously designed for catching huge, man-eating sharks in deep-sea fishing movies. He did catch a small bull-head on it though, even though the fish wasn't quite big enough to take the slack out of the line. I caught one small bass on a lure, probably because it felt sorry for me. I did have Diana's old pole in action too, but it was constantly pestered by the type of fish that would take the worm off the hook, and then casually pull the bobber under water so as to let you know that it's time to put another worm on the hook. That's one of the great things about fishing though! It's not really how many you catch, or even how big they are. It is, in my eyes, mainly just a chance to get together and watch the kid's play, and maybe see if they'll cuss like grandpa when they lose a fish. Fishing also gives you a great opportunity to tell the other people in your party what rotten luck they bring to your favorite fishing spot, mostly because you always catch the big ones here, but somehow, today, they don't seem to be biting. Weird, huh? And just last weekend you caught a perch in this exact same spot that required a front-end loader to lift it into your truck, plus, the camera on your cell-phone was malfunctioning, and the front-end loader operator was suddenly abducted by hostile alien beings from another planet, otherwise, you'd have proof! It's really no wonder why fishing and drinking beer go together so well!

Life in the "fast" lane?

Sometimes I wonder where the simple life ever went to, or if it every really existed at all, being only a figment of my imagination. It seems like everybody's always in a hell of a hurry nowadays, no matter what they're doing. Even on our roads and highways, if the speed limit is 70 mph, most people will go 75, and even then you stand a pretty good chance of getting passed by someone who is probably running late for something extremely important, such as a new "rollback" price at Walmart on a flat screen television. I really don't want to go that fast anymore, even though I did just a few years ago. I would also like to go back to doing just one thing at a time, and put an end to this foolishness we call "multi-tasking", such as sending text messages and talking on a cell phone while driving. I realize that "money is time" and "time is money", but why is there never enough time to do something right the first time, but evidently plenty of time to come back and do it again later? People are even in a hurry to relax anymore, as if the last camping spot at the lake will be settled by a tribe of angry cannibals if you don't get there fast! I really don't "fit-in" with today's speedy, multi-tasking, multi-lingual, hybrid car driving, sushi eating society, and I have no immediate plans for changing myself into a more "modern" type of man anytime soon. I still like the "old ways" better, at least in most aspects of life, when multi-tasking , (which wasn't even a term), consisted of such simple things as fishing and drinking beer, or drinking and driving, and if you could drink and drive AND listen to the radio, you were considered to be "multi-talented". (At least by many of the other kid's in your 5th grade class)! I say "go ahead on" to the fast-paced society we live in! "It's a broken yellow line, and you can pass anytime"! I'll be here in the "slow" lane, smiling, and leaving a ridiculously huge carbon footprint in my old truck.

"Fishing with Paige 4"

So last night our grand-daughter Paige and her dad came over to visit for a couple hours, when Paige, (who is always coming up with brilliant last-minute plans for something or other), just "out of the blue", thought it might be a good idea if she just spent the night with grandma and grandpa, in case some type of emergency should come up that us "older" people may not be able to adequately handle on our own, such as finding "Tom and Jerry" cartoons on Sunday morning television, or getting up early to escort grandpa to the fishing hole, and then staying to help him fish just to make sure he doesn't pierce himself with a fishhook, or get into any other kind of trouble. Paige is always thinking ahead, so she brought her pajamas with her, as well as her appetite for grandma's cookies. I'm not totally convinced that she was as excited about going fishing when I woke her up at six this morning though, as she was when she talked about it last night, but then most of the women I know can be a little "finnicky" that way. We did make it to the fishing hole, but not exactly at daybreak, which by my way of thinking, is when the fish are biting the best. I didn't wake grandma up to go this time, not because we didn't want her to go, but more because the last time I woke her up to go fishing before daylight on a Sunday morning she gave me a scary look, followed by a lecture so potent that I'm still seeing a therapist on a weekly basis for shock treatment. Luckily, the fishing hole is only about a hundred yards from our house, otherwise we would have never gotten there before noon, as Paige was so excited to be fishing with grandpa rather than sleeping in with grandma that she lagged far behind me on the way there, and forced me to continue yelling back encouraging statements to her to keep her moving, such as "It's really great out at this time of morning, isn't it Paige"?, and "maybe this time you can put your own worm on your own hook"! This type of encouragement didn't seem to work very well though, and it made me think that my little Paige 4 is already starting to grow-up, as many women , (even Kristy), absolutely refuse to impale a worm onto a sharp object before they've had their morning coffee. We did eventually have fun though, the fish were still biting, and we even got our line broke twice, watching our bobbers swimming away in the mouths of whatever monster fish they would have to be to be able to break the line in my daughter Diana's twenty five year old "Strawberry Shortcake" fishing pole, which still contained the original line. Even though we didn't meet my timeline for getting to the pond, we still managed to keep Paige's for getting back home by eight o'clock, because that's when "Tom and Jerry" starts. Plus we needed to wake up grandma to see if she was okay, and if she had any immediate future plans involving bacon and eggs or pancakes. We also needed to know where she hides the "Bubble-stuff" and "Playdough".

"Buffet-style etiquette"

I took Kristy out for dinner last night, and because we neither one knew what we were in the mood for, we chose "Golden Corral", which always has a serious buffet with seemingly hundreds of main dishes to choose from, as well as salads and desserts. We seem to eat out alot nowadays, as apparently the new stove and refrigerator that my wife bought this spring are much too nice to be used for actually cooking food on, or storing left-overs in. (That statement alone will be enough to ensure that our dishes stay clean for another week, if my wife reads this blog). Kristy and I have been together for the better part of seventeen years now, despite our many differences. For example; I'm widely considered to be an "over-the-top", and slightly deranged conservative, while Kristy tends to have more "liberal" views, and enjoys spending money. Kristy would drive nothing less than a Cadillac, while I would willingly travel to and from work in a "Radio-Flyer" wagon pulled by steroid-induced hamsters just to save a buck. I even noticed our prevailing differences last night at the buffet, wherein Kristy, like most Americans, went to the salad bar first, then to the main entrees, and finally to the dessert bar. I believe this is the proper etiquette for this type of thing, as all of the other dining establishments tend to bring you the salad before the main entree, and lastly the dessert. Myself, on the other hand, went straight for the main entrees, (twice), then to the salad bar, just to wash down the baby-back ribs with something deemed to be good for me by the Food and Drug Administration. My only real defense for my eating habits is that I'm a "meat and potatoes" type of guy, and if I'm found dead at some dining facility some time in the future, it won't be because I choked to death on a serving of chick-peas, garbanza beans, or imitation crab salad. I can also "thumb my nose" at most any dessert bar too, unless they play a dirty trick like having a pan of apple or peach cobbler on it, which is considered an unfair advantage for restaraunt proprietors in many states, especially in the "deep south". Despite the many differences my wife and I have, we've been going strong now for a long time, and I don't see that changing anytime soon, unless she reads the first part of this blog, of course. Or the last, cause I like "Hooters" for their hot things too! Whoops! Typo! I mean hot wings, baby.

"Homemade ice cream and work ethic"

When I was a much younger version of the idiot I am today, my family would often make homemade ice-cream on holidays in the summer, and sometimes just because it was Sunday. My dad always worked very hard, (and still does in retirement), but I always thought that he had some of the most illogical views on relaxing that I had ever heard of. For instance, ice-cream had to be made with cream from Bernard Kuhlman's dairy farm, because the store-bought cream just wasn't the same. Ice-cream also had to be churned in a hand-cranked machine full of the proper ice-cream ingredients, plus plenty of rock salt and ice on the outside. I generally got stuck turning the crank more than my fair share, but then I also ate more than my fair share of the ice-cream. I did alot of complaining when I was young, and turning the crank on the ice-cream maker was a sure-fire way to get me started. "They sell this stuff at Bob's Market and Ladow's, dad, and it's already made and only costs 75 cents a gallon" I'd often say. My complaining never did any good with dad, as he always maintained some silly notion of how making your own ice-cream built character and strong work ethics, and would help you to enjoy it more. I thought he was probably just a cheap-skate. Even when the ice-cream was done, no matter how delicious it was, it was never quite good enough for dad. He would always say" it used to be better when I was young, but it was also alot harder work to make it", leaving me with the impression that he had to personally drive a team of mules, pulling a river barge up the Suez Canal while fending off un-identified species of wild animals and evil terrorists just to bring home the perfect ingredients for the ice-cream, which had to be made by piercing a killer whale in the heart at exactly 2:33 am on the eve of the equinox while rubbing two boulders together with an iceberg in Alaska. As it turns out, dad was right again. We have an electric ice-cream maker, (largely due to the fact that our grandkid's are much too intelligent to turn cranks and stab whales in the heart, much less have any desire to drive a team of mules up the Suez Canal), but it really ain't the same. I personally think that much of the cream sold in stores would not be fit for an alley-cat, and the rock-salt isn't the same as it was when I was younger, and GOD knows ice isn't what it used to be, back in the day. I also believe that if you're going to just make ice-cream with an electric ice-cream maker, you may as well just buy it at the store, where it's already made, for $7.50 a gallon.

"Dressing for success, (casually)"

The summer season is basically in full swing now, with today being Independence Day. The older I get though, the harder it is for me to be able to tell when it's a holiday or not. I only say this because the way we dress for weekends and summer holidays seems to have spilled over into everyday life at work, making it nearly impossible to tell if somebody is engaged in actual, fruitful employment, or is on a full-time, carefree vacation. I've never had a job that it was ok to wear shorts and Nike sneakers to, let alone flip-flops. My work has largely been in construction, wearing blue jeans, a "real" shirt, and boots, which, according to OSHA, should be steel-toed, in case somebody would accidentally drop a huge boulder from Colorado on your foot, as this helps the doctors immensely with the amputation process. OSHA is also responsible for selling the "hard-hat" idea to insurance companies, based on the theory that it's better to live a long life as a drooling, senseless, vegetable than it is to die out-right from a hit to the head by a foreign object. Nevertheless, the "flip-flop" era is among us now, and not just in politics. Everywhere I go, any day of the week, I see people in shorts and flip-flops. At first I thought that there must be a hell of a lot of people either on vacation or welfare, but then I realized that most of these people were actually full-time working men and women, whose employers have taken the "casual Friday" thing possibly a little too seriously. I doubt that many of these employees have to deal with welder sparks or torch burns though. Perhaps I'm just envious of people who can "beat the heat" by wearing weekend clothes to work, while I'm sweating it out in enough cloth and leather to fully clothe an entire chapter of a "Hells Angels" motorcycle gang. I really don't want to take my wife out for lunch in a place that the waitress, (no matter how cute), is barefoot, and I really think the tellers at my bank should wear steel-toed boots, not flip-flops, in case a heavy statement should fall from their desk, or one of my checks start bouncing around. Have a great 4th of July! I'll be here in my usual Sunday mode, shorts, flip-flops, and swilling beer.