"Last Will and Matrimony"?

I"ve recently been reminded by a close family member (ahem), that I haven't up-dated my "will" since getting out of the Army nearly twenty years ago, and that I really should do this, as many things have changed since then, including some "key" family members. I dread writing a will, not so much because of the thought of giving away all of my worldly possessions, (of which I have few), but more for the fact that the opening statement always makes me feel like I'm lying to myself right off the bat: I, Rany J. Delimont, being of sound mind and body......."Who are YOU trying to fool"? I tell myself. "Your mind has about the same mental capacity as a zuchinni"! "You've made more trips to the nut-house than most people make to their local grocery store"! "And sound body"? "Your back hurts, your feet are bad, you can't see, you can't hear, and you have a generally bad attitude"! "Face it, your physical condition is consistent with those found on aging Hippos"! This is only the FIRST line of the will! It only get's worse from here, what with all this talk of "bequeathing" and such. In the first place, I don't have all that many things to bequeath, and most of the things I do have aren't much good anyway, as I've always had a reputation for taking a sort of "care-free" attitude about the general maintenance of my belongings, just like my body. Outside of a few guns, some war souvenir's, and mason jars chock-full of hundred-dollar bills, about the only thing I could bequeath on anybody would be my old pick-up truck, and I can't for the life of me think of anybody who I feel has wronged me enough that I would do that to. I can't even bequeath any stock on anyone, as I own no cows or pigs. No bonds either, but there is a tube of gorilla glue in the junk drawer which promises to bond almost anything together "permanently". I suppose that someday I will write a new will, provided I can find a lawyer with a really good sense of humor. Until that day comes, I'll be at work, making money for my hobbies, such as fishing at the pond, and "canning" down in the basement, and if my wife is reading this, maybe she'll bequeath some bacon and eggs my way, with some toast, and......

"All about ducks, and strangers"

Ahhh! Sunday morning! No work pressures! No demanding projects with deadlines that have already passed! I even managed to sneak in a couple hours of fishing this morning, even if it was by myself, or at least it started out that way, until a 7 year old boy named Josh came riding up to the dock on his bicycle with his fishing pole hanging across the handlebars. "Are they biting Mister"?, he screamed to me in a noise decibel level that would rival an F-16 fighter jet during take-off. "Not anymore" I said, in the half-hearted way that one does upon realizing that the peaceful serenity of the early morning would now be gone. Josh, who apparently could easily see that I wanted to be alone, chose to fish off of the dock right beside me. "What's your name"?, he asked. "Rany", I replied. "What"? "Rany", I said again, realizing that I've always had to state my name two or three times and even spell it to most new people I meet. "Randy"? Josh insisted. "Rany", I again said. "My folks were very poor when I was a baby, and we didn't have enough money to buy the "d". "What's your name, kid"? "Josh", he replied while poking several kernels of corn onto a hook, "What are you using for bait", he asked. "A doughball" I replied. "A doughball"? "You're never gonna catch a fish on that"! "I don't really want to catch a fish", I said. "Then why'd ya come fishing", he said. I immediately knew that I was going to be ill-equipped to do battle with this type of common-sense thinking, so I made a feeble excuse about just wanting to sit and relax, and enjoy the peaceful morning by watching the ducks swim and thinking about life in general. "How old are you", I asked? "7, and my folks let me come here anytime I want to", he replied. "I'm not surprised", I said. "So what's so special about watching the ducks", he said. "Because, outside of the feathers and the fact that ducks mate for life, they're pretty much like humans", I said. "You mean those two ducks are married"?, Josh asked. "Isn't it obvious", I said. "Look how the female keeps quacking at the male, swimming behind him as he goes along somewhat "defiantly" on the path that he chooses"! "What do you think she's saying ", he asked. "I don't really know, kid, maybe they're arguing over finances or something". "Maybe he was out all night with his friends, and she is demanding answers". "What do ducks ever do that would take all night with friends"? "I don't know kid, maybe discuss "billing" information or something". "Your bobber is under kid, reel him in"! At this point, Josh frantically reels in his fish, which is almost big enough to be used as bait for a fish big enough to make a small sandwich at your local "Long John Silvers", while maintaining the right to not be near as tasty. Josh "landed" his fish, took him off the hook, and then threw him back into the water. When he was poking yet more corn kernels onto his fish hook to try again, I realized that we probably had alot in common, but I still don't know what. "Why did you throw him back"?, I asked. "I never keep"em", he replied, "I just like catching them"! "Then why'd ya come fishing"?, I taunted, in order to get back at him for his "duck" comments. "Because it's relaxing, and I can make as much noise as I want to, and nobody will hear me cause they're still asleep"! "Good plan", I say, while reeling in my line. I have to go home now. I also have to explain to my loving wife, who is probably awake by now, just where I've been for the last 2 hours, in order to keep her from following me around the house, "quacking" at me. I've decided that I like my life just "as it is". I love my wife, kids, grand-kids, and parents. Sometimes, learning experiences have to be shared by "children" of all ages. Thanks, Josh, for our talk this morning, when I really wanted to be alone. God bless you, my un-ruly little friend. I hope I see you again when I have the grand-kids fishing with me. Sometimes the Good Lord's Angels work in very mysterious ways!

"Take stock! In Rany"?

If you're planning on retiring from work at some point in your life, then you probably have money "set-aside" with which to take you through your "Golden" years comfortably. If not, than you're like me, and plan on selling any still functional major organs, as well as your aluminum can collection, in order to have the money to survive on. Almost everyone that I know has some kind of an investment "portfolio", which tells them approximately how much they are "worth" in terms of real money, unlike me, as I tend to keep mine in mason jars in the basement, leaving me little doubt as to how much I've got. Investments in the "stock" market are considered to be the best way to either win or lose the money that you could have used in later life, had you not already lost it in the stock market. Now that we're clear on just how confusing this all can be, I'm free to "coach" you into some investment strategies that have helped me immensely over the past few years by learning the proper meanings of terms used on wall street, such as "fixed income", or "adjustable rate", or even "fixed adjustable long-term income high percentage rates, with growing annuity". Relax my friends, as this only means that your "stock-broker" is most likely betting your money on the same horse that you would bet on yourself, if you were a known gambler, it's when they start talking about "high-risk" stocks, where you can dump an awful lot of money into a particular stock for a short period of time and probably make huge "dividends" (if you don't go broke), that makes me nervous, as this is the same tactic that my vehicle insurers used on me many years ago, forcing me to pay huge amounts of my monthly income just to be able to drive an automobile to a place I didn't really want to go anyway, which was work. Over the years I have finally managed to perfect my "own" investment technique, which is basically to invest most of my dollars that were in the "miscellaneous" section of my personal "pie chart" into "usable materials", such as beer. I like to call this technique "liquidation", and even though it saves little money for the future, it does give you a care-free attitude in the present, and, after all, isn't that where we all live? Another method I use to ensure that I either will or will not have money to live on in the future is betting small amounts of cash on sporting events, such as football, basketball, boxing, and the race for congressional and senate seats, which are usually held in the fall, while it's cool. I call this the "chance" method, and it basically works by choosing the team, fighter, or candidate that you would really like to see win, and then betting against him, cause face it, things haven't really gone your way for a good twenty years now, and there's no apparent signs that this will change soon! All in all, I guess the best advice I can give anybody on finances would be to tell you that "You earned it, so do with it what you will"! And if you're still confused, I can set up an anonymous site where you can mail your "extra" dollars to, that way you can be assured of their safety! After all, didn't your parents teach you to save your money for a rany day? Whoops! I mean a rainy day, of course! Now here's the address to the anonymous web-site......................

"The Wizard of Awwws"

It's starting to look as though Kristy and I will survive our overnight stay by our two grand-daughters, Katrina and Kailey, but not without battling extreme fatigue from all the exercise we got, whether we wanted it or not, and if there's anyone out there that has never pulled 2 kid's around in a wagon behind a bicycle for any distance at all, I can assure you that there isn't a gear low enough on a 21 speed bike to take the "work" out of it, and it will be a long time before I do that again. It amazes me to see how the simplest of things can be so entertaining to small children, bringing smiles and hysterical laughter and hugs from them as a reward for doing silly things, such as acting like a bog monster and repeatedly saying such things as "I'm gonna get you"! We had to sit through yet another episode of "Scooby-Doo" last night, which left the girls mesmerized by the intelligence of the whole gang. It was a pretty good show, and I truly believe that the villain would have gotten away with it too, if not for those meddling kids! After this came the breathtaking excitement of "The Wizard of Oz", which of course, is an entirely true story, and most likely filmed right here in Ellis. The girls were totally absorbed in this movie, and thought that the "good" witch, Glinda, was very pretty and helpful. I had very differing opinions on Glinda, as I had seen this show a time or two before. Where the hell was Glinda when Dorothy and the scarecrow were getting the stuffings knocked out of them by the flying monkey-gargoyle creatures, and why didn't she tell Dorothy sooner that, with the ruby slippers, she had the power to go home all along, instead of waiting clear till the end of the movie? What a bitch! I guess that's what's so special about being with young, innocent, non-judge-mental children, as they only see the good in people, at least unless they truly portray wickedness, like the bad witch and the flying monkey's. The girls ate breakfast outside this morning, calling it a breakfast picnic, giving me a few minutes to fritter away on this computer while keeping grandma busy, but I better get back to being grandpa now, even though it's much quieter just watching them from out of the window. They're so cute, dragging the wagon over to my bike and trying to hook the chain............ Crap!

Two "peas" in entirely different "pods"

My wife, Kristy, and myself have been together for a "long" time now, at least to hear her say it. I guess that neither of us knows the actual date of our first date, but we do both remember the "date" itself. We were both recently divorced at the time, and she lived in town, where she was struggling to raise three kid's on her own, and as for myself, I lived in the country, where I also had three kids, who were struggling to raise me. Kristy worked at "Dales" supermarket, and always managed to be in the beer aisle of the store when I came in after work for refreshments, which I found to be quite strange anyway, as she was the head of the "deli". She later admitted that this was not really that much of a coincidence, and that if she would have been in the "cottage cheese" aisle, we would have likely never met! The first time I actually had a meaningful conversation with her, (in the beer aisle, of course), was when it was my youngest son, Nathan's birthday, and like a normal single dad would do, I remembered it right after I got off of work, on the day of it. After conveying my message of incompetence to Kristy, she not only agreed to "whipping up" a birthday cake seriously fast, but also offered to bring her three kids and herself out to the farm to help celebrate it, which turned out to be the beginning of, once again, according to my wife, a very long relationship. We taught each other, as well as each others kids, many valuable life skills that are still in use today! Kristy taught me and my kids how to prepare meals from "store-bought" meat, and that the tub of flour in the freezer was actually considered to be "food-stuff" by many other Americans, and could be used to make bread, gravy, and even noodles! I, on the other hand, taught Kristy and her kids how to shoot a coyote out of the window of my truck, while driving at very high speeds through "posted" property and drinking beer. Kristy taught my children to be "polite", whereas I taught hers to speed around the farm somewhat uncontrollably on a go-kart! Kristy basically taught about such trivial things as manners, honesty, and cleanliness, while I taught the more "important" skills, such as fishing, hunting, driving, drinking, drinking and driving, and drinking and driving while hunting and trolling for fish because you're driving too close to the water anyway, as well as how to build a "Man's" campfire. In the end, this turned out to be somewhat of a stable atmosphere from which to raise the children, all of whom are doing well! The only problem is that now we have 13 grand-children, and I'm almost too old to spring into action with my aged ideas anymore, but my wife's values tend to remain the same, and she will most likely enforce her beliefs on them long before they're old enough to shoot coyotes from the relative safety of a speeding pickup truck and spit tobacco. I only hope that she doesn't teach a bunch of "good manners" and such to the male grand-children, or teach them such foolish things as being patient while waiting for cookies in the oven. I want football players and fighters! Even though we're in the same "pod", my wife is the "sweet-pea"!

Camping? Seriously?

I've been thinking about going camping recently, and even taking along some of the grand-kids, which should right-away prove that the deterioration process of my active brain cells is near completion. I used to go camping alot, especially when our kid's were young, when most every weekend, we would un-wind from the stresses of the work week and reward ourselves by going to Caldwell's pond and sleeping on rocks in an area with no restroom facilities and lot's of snakes, rather than stay home by the air-conditioner and television. If memory serves me right, (and it does), the first thing you have to do after ( you set your bank lines), is to start the tedious process of gathering dead and fallen wood from around the area, in order to make a camp-fire. If there appeared to be no dead wood which had already fallen, there was always plenty of dead trees, which could be fairly easily knocked down with your pickup after just a few hits. In a real pinch, you could actually pull the tree over with your truck and a log chain, but this method required sending one of your off-spring climbing up a tree with a chain in order to find a suitable place to hook it, which I thought could possibly be dangerous, forcing me to endorse the simpler "tree-bashing" method with the back bumper. In order to have a "real" campfire, it was necessary to have enough "reserve" trees laying close to your campsite that if they were stacked directly on top of each other, their height would be so great that the "Washington Monument" would pale in comparison. The actual lighting of your fire was really the only easy part, and could normally be done with just less than 5 gallons of high-octane gasoline, starting a fire that would probably be considered a "4 alarm" fire in many areas throughout the east coast, and could easily be seen for several miles. We never considered these fires to be "overkill" though, as everyone knows how much heat it can take to kill the bacteria prevaliant in a package of hot dogs and marshmallows, not to mention the dirty stick that we cooked them on. Besides the fire, snakes, and sleeping on rocks, Caldwell's pond was also "blessed" with more than it's fair share of insects, leeches, and snapping turtles, all of which would readily bite you, with or without your consent. There was always a small row boat available at Caldwell's pond, and apparently anybody could use it that wanted to, because we always did. We never knew just who actually owned the boat, but just assumed, (probably safely), that they had been taken by either some kind of wild animal or venomous snake, and if they were still alive, they would surely give us their blessings to use their boat, and there was really no way of getting information about it from other fishermen, as they always seemed to be leaving when they saw us pull in, many of them acting as though they were risking being late for an important appointment, if they didn't leave right away. Even the privacy policy was great at Caldwells pond, which was evident when you first came into the gate and saw the small sign on a fence post stating that it was a private pond, and that you should not enter. Every once in awhile, some "old" guy would drive into the pasture containing the pond and stare at my family for awhile, shake his head in apparent dis-belief, then drive away again without speaking to any of us. We never knew who this strange person was, but looking back, I'm going to guess that he may have been the actual land owner, and possibly Caldwell was his last name, but who really cared, as this was a close-knit community? Now that I'm older, I'd really just as soon stay home with the air-conditioner, television, kitchen, bedroom, and indoor toilet, but I also don't want my grandchildren to miss out on the chance to cheat death by going camping with grandpa, and believe it or not, Kristy and I, (along with the children who have suffered the least mental anguish), still refer to these camping trips as "the good old days"!

Getting back into "shape"?

For all of you "fitness nuts" out there, (and you know who you are, the ones that are constantly running, especially during the early morning hours, giving me the impression that you had just recently committed the type of crime that you would have to do several years of "hard time" for if you should slow down), I just want you to realize that I haven't always been this way, which is out of shape. I actually used to be one of you, so I understand why you do it, I just choose to no longer participate in any strenuous activity other than my job and carrying 30 packs of beer out of the liquor store, or the occasional hoisting of a small grandchild into the air for a hug. My personal fitness program started when I was in the seventh grade, when, besides work, (yes, we had to work back then), I became extremely interested in "lifting weights", and my first set of barbells consisted of one of dad's crow-bars protruding through a cinder block at both ends. My first year of lifting weights yielded few results for me, mainly because I only did "2 arm curls", which I believed, at the time, to be the only weight-lifting exercise needed to look like Charles Atlas, who was some muscular guy that appeared on the back pages of our comic books, and grew tired of bullies kicking sand in his face at the beach, and so later took action by moving further inland. At the end of that first year of strenuous exercise, I'd found that, by looking in the mirror, I'd obtained the look of a couple of strands of spaghetti, with possibly 2 tiny meatballs in the upper center of my arms. Combine this with the speed and agility of a new-born jersey calf, and I realized that I had alot of work to do, so I immediately started expanding my work-out program to include muscles that hadn't even been given a formal scientific name yet. Over the next few years, I had obtained thousands of pounds of free weights, designed and built my own weight machines, some of which would make top scholars scratch their heads in dis-belief today. I also played football and basketball, which were the only 2 real sports that my school had to offer, other than track. I never participated in track, mainly because they just assumed, because I was tall, that I would be good at the "hurdles", which I was not the slight bit interested in, on account of my "hangy-down" thing would have been the first part of my anatomy to come into contact with the hurdle, should I mis-judge my jump. Even after graduation, I continued this insanity, waking up at two-fifteen every morning to lift weights and run, and then go to work, where I always volunteered for the hardest laboring jobs. About that time, Sylvester Stallone came out with a whole slew of boxing movies, wherein he also worked-out early in the mornings, mostly by running up stairs in Philadelphia, but also by punching dead animal carcasses in a packing plant, probably as a way to tenderize the meat. Rocky also drank raw eggs in the morning, so I started doing that, as well as boxing in the Golden Gloves tournaments in Hastings, Nebraska. Boxing was basically a "stress-relieving" sport, but the stress would come back almost immediately when you realized that your opponent may be trying to hit you back. From there I went on to join the United States Army Infantry, whereupon entry into basic training into Fort Benning Georgia, I suddenly realized that I had made a terrible mistake that could not be corrected for at least 4 years. After my 4 years were up, and still being somewhat dilussional, I continued my practice of lifting weights and running, right up to the time when Saddam Hussein decided to invade Kuwait, on the premise that Kuwait may have a better quality bathroom tissue than Iraq did, and also something about oil, I believe. Still being quite naive, I proved my insanity to the few people who weren't already convinced of it by going back into the service, this time as a scout for the 24th Infantry Division out of Fort Stewart, Georgia. I did really good there, and even started the biggest battle of the war, which should come as no surprise to the people who know me the best, as people always seem to be either fighting or laughing wherever I go. For some reason, it took 4 Generals to carry my bronze star out into the middle of the Euphrates River valley to pin it on my chest shortly after the battle of the Rumali oil fields in Iraq. This Historic event, at least in my life, marked the end of my career in physical fitness, as well as the beginning of my career in the field of heavy drinking and fishing with grand-children, which I believe you can seldom do one without the other. I can also promise all you "macho" type guys out there who may be looking for ways to somehow prove to yourselves just how tough you are, you should stick with running, as real war can tend to weigh heavy on the mind, and the results are often fatal. So go ahead and run, all you fitness nuts! In spirit, I'm right there with you, though in reality, I'm the "old guy" sitting on the porch with an ice-pak tucked into his back brace, secretly thinking that you haven't done shit yet.