Saturday

My Saturday is even wilder than last night.
I have to inspect the sewer connection for a church. The members needed to connect the sewer to the public sewer on Saturday because they mostly work during the week and their Worship Service is on Sunday. I volunteered to do the inspection.
I got up at six as usual and made breakfast from leftover hamburger buns. BTW, hamburger buns make the very best french toast in the whole wide world. I am not kidding!
I wrote a blog or two. Drank coffee. Showered, and got dressed.
Getting out of the shower, I noticed the Pastor had called on my work phone. I returned his call to discover they were having difficulty. I tried to understand what was wrong, but instead offered to drive over and check it out in person. It was no big deal, and we resolved it. I even helped put the pipe together. There was a big grassy area, so I threw the Frisbee for Bandit. Soon the connection was made and I left to come home to more left over sausages. Yum.
I wasted the last half of last night's beer. May I have another one today, or am I in trouble for wasting? One of my friends demanded "Go for it!" I drank the whole thing in less than two hours. It did get above ninety degrees today. I really appreciated the beer.
Around four thirty, the people from the church got the last of the pipe installed. I went over and approved the work. Now I get to hang out in the house for the evening. I think I will carve some more stamps and go to bed early. I plan to go out kayaking tomorrow. I will go early to beat the heat.

Kayak Bandit

Friday

I hope all of you other single people had as much fun as I did last night. This Friday was even better than most. I came home from work fifteen minutes late because a detour prompted the closure of my normal bus stop. When the bus seemed to be late, I read the notice and walked to the correct bus stop. No big deal.
I had a wonderful Friday night meal of left over sausages from the letterboxing party. I even had a half can of beer. Yum.
Next, I washed the dishes.
After this I deserved a reward, so I scooped up a dish of vanilla ice cream and topped it with chocolate covered peanuts. Also pretty yummy.
The chair was quite comfy, so I fell asleep in front of the TV.
I woke about ten and went to bed. Bandit let a whopper of a fart as he lay down beside my bed. (his way of saying sleep well)
After such a wild single person night, I have to rest up a bit.
Kayak Bandit

Letterboxing Sells Itself

I started letterboxing at the urging of my oldest daughter, Stephanie. She got her tendency to jump into something with both feet from me. So when she starts telling me about all the fun she is having searching out letterboxes by following clues, how could I not chose to join her fun.
At first, I could not imagine myself as an artistic carver. I can draw snowmen, rabbits, maps, and a boy. All are pretty basic. I make maps for work. I have developed a style that relates the important information without any artistic flair. The boy is created by starting with the word

boy

and then drawing a curved line from the top of the b to the right side of the y. and then I draw a curved line from the bottom of the y to the left side of the b. The two circle become eyes and the y becomes the ear of my boy picture. I usually give him a crew cut for hair. A few quick facial lines and he does not look too bad. Even though I can draw a boy, does not mean I feel artistic.
Shortly after telling me about letterboxing, Stephanie forwarded to me an announcement of an upcoming letterboxing event. The Fat Lady was planning a letterboxing party for her younger sister, The Pied Piper. What could a dad do but sign up to attend as Kayak Bandit.
I attended this event. From the second I met the first one until now. Everyone involved in letterboxing were and continue to be so very welcoming, warm, open and sharing. Especially helpful to me was Stormcrow. He encouraged me to sign into his logbook and gave me his stamp. He also had a stamp of a dollar bill. He conducted a quiz where the person guessing the right answer would get the image stamped and he would write in the amount that was won. I think I won five bucks. It was a lot of fun.
I had already bought the idea of the hobby from Stephanie's first explanation. Yet, I had to somehow draw an image of a dog (named bandit) paddling a kayak. I assured myself and anyone listening that I could not do it. I was telling my friend Melissa about it, and wondered if she could help. You see, she has shown me some nice artwork of hers. In a couple days she had drawn a picture of what I needed. Great job, Melissa.
As most new carvers do, I chose to carve a negative image of her artwork. I am not real happy with the result. I plan to recarve the same image, but make it positive instead. It will have to do for now.
After attending the party, but before I finished my signature stamp, I went to the Atlas Quest online site to check out nearby letterboxes. Wow, there were lots to choose from. I delayed searching for any boxes until I could do it up right. I wanted my own logbook and stamp. Eventually I was ready. Stormcrow listed a new box named Loveboat. We chatted on line about it. He pointed out that he used snow shoes to get to the spot as there was about two feet of snow. Not to be deterred, I went out the next day and found my first box. I had no snow shoes, but managed to get to it. Some times I would break through the crusty snow, but it was worth it. Bandit and I sat down in the snow and logged our first find. Physically, I was cold and wet, but not emotionally.
Now when I find a letterbox, I absorb all I can about the letterbox. I look carefully at the stamp to see what technique was used to carve it. I look at the way the logbook is bound. I look at all the images stamped into the logbook and read the comments. People come from all across our country to find letterboxes. I even have a hitch hiker letterbox that came from Erie Pennsylvania. I hope the interest in these treasures remains for me. Judging from the others I have met, I bet it intensifies. I cannot imagine, but okay, bring it on. I am ready.
Letterboxing really does sell itself. For more information about letterboxing, check out this link. http://bayareabackroads.com/RecentShows/April562008/tabid/92/Default.aspx It was taped in California. See you on the trail.
Kayak Bandit ----/---- '(*!*)'

Gas Prices

Has everyone had enough of the high price of gas yet? I have. It is getting in the way of seeing my grandkids.
Steph called today saying she had been trying to arrange a surprise trip to visit me with her four kids. When it came right down to deciding she had to side with frugality. It is just under four hundred miles and the cost of fuel alone would have been close to two hundred dollars. When you add in all the other costs of traveling it put it over the top.
I hope we are not forever hostage to these prices. I still have a nice pickup and camper that I am not using at all this year. When I haul the camper and tow my boat, the pickup only gets about seven miles to the gallon. That mean a trip of eight hundred miles would cost around four hundred and fifty dollars in fuel alone.
So the next thought is to sell the truck. The truth is that you cannot even give the truck away. So I am stuck.
I hope we have the political will to find better ways to supply our energy needs for the long term while drilling to supply our needs for the short term. I suspect the urgency is helping to find alternatives. There will be some breakthroughs when someone sees a way to profit from their effort. Let's be grateful to that person.
Steph, I hope we can get together soon.
Kayak Bandit '(*!*)'

The Prize

I am always telling about my family. This story is probably my favorite.
Bear was a picky eater. He loved home cooked food, but hated peas. As for me, the more veggies in a beef stew the better. Not Bear. He would work at the bowl of stew as though his tongue was a scalpel. His head was huge. It amazed me that he could even know the existence of a pea in the stew.
I think you could have counted out ten peas and stirred them into the stew and he would still segregate them. And then when you counted them there would be ten peas in varying degree of smashed. He would not have injured the peas, but were probably injured by the person stirring the stew.
Like I said, Bear was a picky eater. He would not be interested in the dry food in his bowl. He would come into the house and glance at the bowl, but walk on by until he had to eat or starve.
But there was a way to get Bear to eat these dry morsels. It was a game for our two daughters, Steph and Jenny. One of the girls would take Bear into a closet with the door slightly ajar. The other girl would start a domino trail from this closet door. The domino trail would be made up of his rejected food spaced about a foot apart.
Some times the trail would lead in a serpent path through the whole house. When the trail was complete, it always ended at a different closet with the door slightly ajar. The person that constructed the trail would call out that it was time to find her. Bear would almost jump out of his skin in anticipation of the hunt. He would eat each and every nugget as if he had not eaten in a month. Some times the trail would be very near to other nuggets that were farther along on the trail, but he would not cheat and skip any of the trail.
As the hunt progressed, Bear would occasionally look to his huntmaster for assurance. He would hear "goooooood dog" with excitement. Some times you could hear uncontrolled giggling coming from the eventual closet. Still, Bear would continue his Hansel and Grettel hunt.
If I was busy, it rarely was so much so, but what I would be on hand to watch the happy reunion at the end of the hunt. Both girls would be giggling so hard and Bear increased his intensity in a crescendo as Bear nudged open the closet door. There were hugs for everyone and a very happy howl from Bear. What a happy memory.
Kayak Bandit '(*!*)'

Roller Skating

Do you remember back to when you were a kid. One of my memories is skating. We did not have a roller rink in our home town of Verndale, Minnesota. When we went skating we had to drive to Wadena.
I started skating when I was about ten. At ten years old I would pull myself along the railing. I hated coming to the end of the straight-a-way because I had not learned to turn. All the good skaters would make this graceful turn at both ends of the rink, but I would have to rely on the wall to keep myself from falling down. So, when I came to the curved portion, I would follow the wall to the square corner. I would stop and realign myself along the end of the rink. There were often other skater stopped here to visit. They were out of the way of the main flow, but usually in my way. I was a skinny little runt, so I could squeeze through if I was patient.
Okay, so now I got to the second straight-a-way. Here I had to time getting into the flow without getting smashed into by some big jock that was skating backward or something. Those big jock types were always skating backward in front of the cutest girls. Man did I want to know how to skate backward.
Eventually I got a little better. I could go full tilt all the way around the floor. The only thing I had to be careful of, was making sure both skates were in contact with the floor all the way around the curve portion. If I did not have enough steam going into the curve, and had to lift a skate, it was only the outside one. You know, the one foot push and coast stroke.
Some times the mean announcer would call for everyone off the floor. Once we were all off, he would announce a reverse skate. Crap. What was a guy to do. It was so unnatural to turn clockwise after learning to turn counter-clockwise. I had to try though. Those guys that were able to skate backwards and flirt at the same time had no trouble at all. If there was jealousy before, it had just gone another notch higher.
I never did like having to skate reverse, but I did get a lot better at the turns on the end. Eventually I was able to maintain a good speed and keep putting one skate in front of the other. I was so proud of myself when I learned this. The down side to a good night of skating for a boy was when they announced couples only. I paid good money to be able to skate. But no, only those that had a partner could skate. I just had to sit down, how boring.
Then one evening, someone planted an idea in my head. Why not ask a girl to skate? Who me? Are you crazy? Tell me more. Why, it is not that hard. Every girl here wants to partner skate more than you do. You see, you go up and ask them if they would like to skate and at the same time be heading to the floor. That way they will answer yes. It takes the tension away if you make it seem natural.
But wait just a minute. How do I skate with a girl? Do I have to hold her hand? What if our skates bang into one another? So, you do not want to skate with a girl? Why yes, but how? So my friend explained that you take ahold of her left hand with your own left hand. And then you start skating nice and slow. The girl will match your skating pace and you put your right hand behind her back and take ahold of the inside of her right elbow.
It was amazing how the couple skates changed from dread to something to look forward to. It was not that you were discouraged from skating as couples during an all skate. It was that, well, during an all skate, us guys were seeing how fast we could make the turn at the ends. It was a big thing to make our skates growl from the force of the fast turn.
Those were some really fun times.
I wrote this earlier with plans to publish it on the 27th, but discovered letterboxer, Lady B, is a roller skating instructor from Beaverton, Oregon. Lady B is coming to a letterboxing party at my house tonight, so I moved the publish date up in her honor.
Kayak Bandit ‘(*!*)’

Walking to Work

When you walk a familiar path, where do you look? Do you look for the spot to land your next footstep? Do you look at something far ahead? Or do you stare at nothing special as you think deep thoughts?
When I walk to the bus stop en route to work, there are lots of interesting things to look for. I see the work a neighbor has done to build a retaining wall. I see the new addition that another neighbor is building. I see that a neighbor has brought some fence material home. Now I need to watch to see how quickly he moves forward with the project.
Some times I notice the cracks in the sidewalk and remember back to when we chanted the line "don't step on a crack, cause it will break your mama's back." Boy, would we walk gingerly to avoid stepping on a crack for this cause. But if the cracks got too close together, someone would change the chant to "don't step on a crack, cause it will break your teacher's back." When that was the chant, we were eager to step on a crack if our teacher was perceived to be mean.
Some times you must stop all progress to marvel at the way a tree leaf emerges. Recently, I noticed that a laceleaf maple tree leaf grows to full length before it starts to unfurl. Then each day you notice that the leaf grows broader and broader somewhat like a fan stretching out. You know, the fans like the elegant people used at the theater before air conditioning.
But some times you notice things that gnaw at you. There is this duplex where the people come outside only to smoke and talk on the phone. The yard has a birch tree that was broken at Christmas when someone must have tried to climb up the scrawny thing to put Christmas lights on it. Well, the partially strung lights are still in the tree and after six months no one has removed the lights or the broken tree. The yard has not been moved, no weeds have been pulled, the sidewalk is almost overgrown like the jungle and bear cans where they landed.
I was told by a friend that I need to let things go. I take too many things too seriously.
But then there are the times that you no more have started toward the bus that you are already there. Those days I have been thinking ahead to when I will be riding bicycle with my grandkids at the beach. Or sharing popcorn over the campfire. Or tutoring the next generation how to carefully heat up graham crackers and chocolate on a flat rock by the same fire that you are toasting the marshmallow.
And then there are the times I compose, in my head, good stories to tell my grandkids at bedtime. I always try to think up stories that can have characters with the same names as the grandkids that need their rest for another day of bicycles, dogs, popcorn and s'mores.
Kayak Bandit '(*!*)'

Driving With Grandpa

My Grandpa Hess was a warm, wonderful man. I remember fondly the times we shared. As most old people do, he had some interesting truisms. My favorite is on my letterboxing website. "You will not get stuck if you just keep moving." Another one was his admonition to someone shoveling grain into the granary. "Don't worry at all about the toe of the shovel, concentrate on filling the heal and the toe will take care of itself."
Visiting at grandpa's home was special. He had a windmill. A lot of things happened at the windmill. The obvious, was the water would get pumped up into a trough that led to the cattle tank. When the wind blew steady for quite a while the tank would become full. Grandpa had a knack for knowing how close to full the tank was. When it was nearly full, grandpa might ask me to go to the windmill and release the lever which in turn stopped the windmill from turning. Even though the wind would blow whether or not the pump was turning, grandpa did not want to wear out the bearings on the windmill.
Another happening at the windmill was washing grandpa's 1950 Chevrolet. Grandpa was very pleased with his car and kept it clean. It was exceptionally clean compared to our car. Why, dad would drive our car across a rough field to get a closer look at a herd of deer. Or deliver a greasy part to Ole's repair shop. If grandpa needed to haul something, he would put it in the trunk wrapped in a gunny sack.
Often, I would help wash his car. We would suds it up real good and then throw buckets of water onto the car to rinse the suds off. When the car had adequately dried, Grandpa would let me sit in his lap and drive the car. He would choose a short route for me to drive, ending in parking it inside the garage.
Even though I was accustomed to driving tractors, a car was a big deal. And doing anything with grandpa was special.
Kayak Bandit '(*!*)'

Long, Long Ride

My daughters love to help tell this story. It seems my perspective selectively dismisses some of my guilt in the good parent category. Their version always paints me as a slightly bad parent.
We had this very reliable older 1962 Chevrolet pickup. It had a shell canopy. I built a shelf at the front of the pickup bed as well as seats along each side of the bed. I upholstered them so they would be comfortable for sleeping or sitting. When we went camping, I would pull our trailer house with the pickup, and Kathy would pull the boat.
On this particular trip, we were camped at Pelton Dam, or Lake Simtustus. Lake Simtustus is created by Pelton Dam. The entire lake is very pristine. There are no homes along the edges of the lake. The fishing is fabulous at times and the rest of the time it is pretty good.
Shortly after this trip some of the campsites slipped into the lake. And for many years afterward, they canceled all camping at the lake. I see that they now have 71 camp sites. So, they must have resolved the problem.
Well, one nice day we decided to go for a drive. Kathy and I rode up front. Steph and Jenny always wanted to ride on the bed in the back. So after a little debate about the safety of that, it was decided we would only drive on secondary roads. No fast highways for us. Oh, and Bear would also ride in the back with the two girls.
So we set off, enjoying the view of the central Oregon desert overlooking the deep chasm of the Crooked River. Here is where the recounting of the story is tricky. It seems the girls were trying to get our attention. I suspect that we saw them waving their arms and interpreted there gesturing as appreciation for the fine ride. They contend that they were desperate to get our attention because Bear was having a fart attack. According to our indignant young girls, the farts were borderline lethal. And they agree that the frequency between farts was intolerable.
Well, if this was not bad enough for my little darlings, Kathy read the map and suggested a route that was long. We rode for much of an afternoon. My memory is all positive. It was a magnificent day. We crossed a bridge that I did not previously know about. Fun for everyone? Not quite.
If the situation with Bear's farts was not bad enough, the longer the trip went, the rougher the road got. So, these two girls, that were eager to start the trip were even more eager for it to end. I can only imagine how rough the road must have felt to those two very full bladders.
I have to ask. Girls, was the pain worth the memory? I sure hope so.
Kayak Bandit '(*!*)'

I Can Pee Better Than You!

Since, as long as there have been towns and cities, there has been competition between city slickers and country bumpkins. I happen to fall in the latter category. And, truth be known, I am a bumpkin.
There have been numerous times that I did not measure up to city standards. How was I supposed to know that you have to cross a street near the intersection, for instance. By the way, why do they call that infraction "J Waking?" Could it be the way us farmers perceive a jay? After all, city dwellers, jays do strut around in a random fashion. And which farmer gave the city folks permission to use our verbiage? Did you notice I used the word verbiage? Pretty impressive word for a bumpkin, wouldn't you say? I hope I spelled it correctly.
Well, my cousins lived in town. They would come to the farm for visits. They were exposed to things in their town of Silver Bay, that we were not. I remember how interesting their lives were. But, they liked coming to the farm for equal and opposite reasons.
My memory of cousin Chuck always intrigued me. You see, I remember challenging him to compete with me to see who could pee and make the stream of pee hit the fence wire. I do not know how I learned not to pee on a fence. I do not think I ever did. Also note that the fence we were attempting to pee upon was an electric fence.
The way I remember it, is that my aim was not as good as Chuck's aim. He won the competition. His reward for winning was a jolt of electricity through a sensitive part of the body. Congratulate him if ever your paths cross.
Admittedly, the question crossed my mind whether this could lead to serious reproductive harm. In time the question was answered with the birth of his wonderful girls. Speaking of these girls, I traveled back to Minnesota about fifteen years ago to visit Chuck and his family. We had a wonderful visit.
Chuck stayed true to his Christian upbringing. He raised his daughters to be Christian too. Because I was aware of his faith, I was taken aback when he said to me as we were preparing to leave, "Take care you old turd." His daughters were shocked to hear their dad say "turd", which was obvious to me from there harmonious "Dad???"
Chuck replied to his daughters by adding "Well he is a turd. Do you realize that your uncle Steve tricked me into peeing onto an electric fence?" I was so embarrassed that he would discuss this in front of his family. I was always too embarrassed to discuss this with him, even when no one else was around.
I collected myself enough to ask (since he had breached the subject) if his memory was the same as mine. I said that I remembered tricking him twice. My very honorable cousin, Chuck, admitted that it was twice.
Chuck, I am glad that you were not injured by my prank. I hope you can forgive me.
Kayak Bandit '(*!*)'

Truckin

Oregon gets a lot of credit for the copious amount of rain that falls there every year. While the coastal area west of the Coast Mountain Range, live up to this belief, not all of Oregon is deluged. Truth be known, the eastern half of the state is a high desert.
My brother, Andy, lived in Clatskanie when we were young men. Let me assure you that Clatskanie is not high desert. No way, It is about as rainy as any place. The constant rain helps grow some mighty trees. Much of the timber for our nation comes from this part of the country. Everyone knows about Douglass Fir.
Another tree that is highly sought after is the Western Cedar. Cedar grows in the very bottom of canyons in the wettest places. Like I said, it is very wet around Clatskanie. You can well imagine that the surrounding canyon bottoms are even more wet. Yep, there are places that you must walk carefully across the tree roots and down trees to navigate these swamplands.
When the forests were first logged many years ago, the cedar trees were not wanted like they are today. Mostly they cut the very large Douglass Fir and left the cedar standing. If the cedar was cut down or knocked down accidentally, it was left where it landed.
Some years ago people started using cedar for fencing, decks and increased the use of cedar for roofing. This increased demand for the cedar trees and the fact that cedar grows slowly, caused a shortage of cedar. Well, the very quality that cedar is known for (slow to rot) also kept the left behind logs in pretty good shape. Mind you, these logs are in that very swampy area at the very bottom of some very big canyons. Oh, and did I say already that the canyons themselves are very wet. I did? Eh, sorry for repeating myself.
Well, Andy was building a home for his family. He needed roofing material. He needed beams for the living room. He needed paneling for the home. In other words, he needed the cedar from these canyon swamps.
Whenever we came across a good log that had been left behind, we would make a mental note where it was. Then when we had the time, we would figure out how to retrieve the brute. Sometimes we could get a four wheel drive pickup into the area. This took a lot of skill to navigate between trees, rocks, old stumps, fences and other obstacles. We would help each other by standing nearby and indicating how close the driver was to something. Inside the heart of whoever the spotter was, is up for discussion. Even though we were truthful about the closeness of a tree, or whatever, we were always hoping the other would get his pickup trapped. Oh, the bragging rights that come with Steve towing Andy! I suppose there were the times that Andy towed Steve, but I can think of none.
Along with brother competing with brother, was Chevy vs Ford. Some times, when not using the pickups for useful tasks, one of us would find a spot that we thought our particular pickup could conquer, but our brother's Ford or Chevy could not. We would argue long and hard about such a spot. Usually we would challenge the other to go first. But, the person that came up with the cockamamie idea would have to relent and go first or even worse, admit that the challenge was not doable.
Andy's Ford was taller than my Chevy. Andy would usually win the competition where it required going in and out of a steep ditch. My pickup's bumper would impede me. I would usually win when it was a steep side hill. My pickup's lower center of gravity would be the winning difference. We made the hard work of retrieving those cedar logs into a lot of fun. Thanks for the memories, Andy.
Kayak Bandit '(*!*)'

First Best Friend

There was another dog in my life before Bandit. Bear came to live with us over a period of time. He started showing up one fall. Most days, I would pet him and then send him away, saying "Go home." He would disappear.
When he was not hanging around at our house, you could often see him across the main road at the park. He would gallop over to someone and stand a short distance from them and look at them. I sensed a bit of disappointment in him, when he would get close enough to someone to get a good look, or sniff, as the case may be. It was as though he saw the person from a distance, and so he would run to them to see if they could possibly be his lost master. When he would get up to them, he would get the answer that he dreaded. No it is not my lost master.
Over time, Bear would not leave when I told him to go home. He would get up from where he was and move onto the neighbors driveway and lie down there. He had this way of crossing his front feet and resting his chin on his legs. He was so likable when he was laying there. I could not resist a pat on the head as I walked by.
Sometimes when I was working on a project and needed to think about something. I would go over to Bear and pet him while I thought. It usually had good results. It is amazing how much better a man can think when he is stroking his best friend.
Well, fall turned to winter. Bear still hung around. I don't remember feeding him, but I am not sure. Then it was Christmas Eve. There was a wet snow falling and Bear was laying there watching me as I walked past him. His very black coat was such a contrast with the white snow. I passed him, but could not continue. I turned around and looked closely at him. His face was dusted with the snow and a couple very large flakes were resting on his eye lashes.
I brought him to the back door and set a bowl of food for him and found a rug for him to lie on. I explained that he could stay inside since it was snowing and because it was Christmas.
Bear was very well behaved. When I called the Humane Society after Christmas to report I had a stray dog, the lady on the phone agreed to take down the lost pet information. But, she remarked that it seemed the dog was where he wanted to be, so why would I be calling? It just seemed, to me, that one should try to find an owner if they could.
Bear never lost his habit of running toward people and checking them out. I felt sad that someone possibly dropped him off at the park. It showed me how much loyalty a dog can have for an owner. Truly "Mans Best Friend!"
Kayak Bandit '(*!*)'

USA EVIL? NOT!

So, the USA is evil because we want people to knock at our front door (border) before they come in? Imagine a home anywhere in the world. Now try to imagine, someone from outside that home thinking, just for a minute, they could waltz into that home and start calling the shots. Pretty preposterous, isn't it.

It seems my analogy about one's home is a good analogy to apply to the United States. Every day many foreigners avoid our front door and cross our border in secrecy. Once they are here, they hold us hostage to pay for the cost to educate them and their children. They expect us to pay for them to go to our emergency rooms.

Who is to blame, you ask? I say it is the extremes in our political system. Neither the Republican nor the Democrat is free from my disapproval. The regular everyday working class person is not to blame. Nearly every person I know believes like I do that this problem is perpetuated by political self interest. Every discussion, I have participated in, includes the caveat that the poor Mexican folks that cross our border are not bad people. I agree whole heartedly.

Word of mouth spreads the message from farmers, meat packers, orchardists, fast food places and other employers that they will hire illegal workers. The benefit to the employer is paying under the table and not having to pay the benefits to the worker. Word of mouth also spreads the word amongst the workers to use the emergency room for medical care and claim they are unemployed.
Building a fence may be necessary, but not to keep out the person seeking a job. What will deter a job seeker from sneaking into our country is the consistent application of our existing laws that prohibit employing someone that is here illegally. The fence may be necessary to prevent terrorism, but if that is true, why are we only building a southern fence? We know that evil doers have tried to get in through our northern border.
Those that approved the southern fence are messing with our money. They think we will accept that they are proactive against illegal immigration. What they should do is require, and I do mean require, the fair application of existing laws against hiring illegal persons.
If when this is implemented, then we can invite as many hard working foreigners into our country as we contemplatively decide. We can invite the type of worker that best fits the employment need. Kind of like a job interview - - - conducted in American English.
Kayak Bandit '(*!*)'

Wanted: Alive

I know this young man from my past that felt he was unwanted as a child. Let's call him Joe.
It seems that Joe was born to a woman that was quite old. This lady thought that she was too old to concieve, and was not taking precautions in that regard. Despite her age, she gave wonderful care to Joe. She would often refer to Joe as her surprise baby.
Joe was younger than some of his neices and nephews. These kids found that they could invoke emotion from Joe by saying that Joe was not a planned pregnacy, therefore he must have been unwanted. Just kids being kids, right?
Joe would invariably run to his mother and snuggle to her bosom and query whether he was a wanted child. His mom would wisely say that she was surprised to have him, but truthfully, she did not deliberately become pregnant. Joe would ask if she was trying to avoid pregnacy when she became pregnant with him. Well, she would sheepishly admit that she was avoiding pregnacy, but had she only know how wonderful Joe was to be, she would have planned for him.
This situation often replayed itself with variations. Joe would feel his mother's love and return to play some more. I am sure Joe revisited this issue when he sat and pondered life's important issues.
As Joe became a man, he met a lovely lady who was to eventually become his wife. She was much younger than Joe. After they were in a relationship for some time, she became pregnant. Much discussion ensued. All on both sides of the families weighed in with their thoughts. Despite her youth, everyone agreed they should marry. It has proven to be the right choice.
The night of the birth of their son, Joe could not be more proud of this little, beautiful, blessed, gift from God. He paraded his gift for all to see. Boy, was Joe proud. He did stop and get very serious as he presented the baby to its paternal grandmother. He paused long enough to tell her that he now understood how an unplanned pregnacy could give a gift that you did not know you wanted so desperately.
God has his ways to enlighten us. Thank God!
Kayak Bandit '(*!*)'

The Waltons

I often talk about my childhood. I was raised in a Christian home on a farm in Minnesota. There were nine of us kids born to two loving parents. Believe it or not, they stayed together through life's struggles.
Many people are intrigued by the large family and farm life. I often am asked if our family was like the "Waltons". I want to scream when asked this. I am insulted that anyone would suspect we were that shallow. The farm life depicted by that show rarely shows the depth and complexity of real farm life. It feels like the precursor of the political correctness that is destroying our social fiber today.
It is not that we were impolite to each other. We were not. We did not pour honey on top of our politeness.
This might be a quote from the Waltons, "Why, Mrs Hess, I would so very much love to have the honor of just one little taste of your wonderful fried chicken."
We would have said, "Please pass the chicken." Notice that we did say please.
Dad always asked God's blessing on the meal. Mom would be scurrying around getting the food on the table, but we would wait until she sat before any of us started eating.
During the meal, we would often compliment the food. We were encouraged to say nothing bad about the food, even when we did not like it. If we did not like something enough that we did not want to eat it, we were expected to quietly move it to the side of the plate. In that case, someone would often ask if we were going to eat it. Another would likely ask for it, most often my dad.
I am most proud of how we were able to resolve differences. We rarely let something fester. If we were upset with someone, we were encouraged to talk it out right away. It was the philosophy of not going to bed angry. I remember some potato fights with my sister Barb, right sis?
All in all, I would not ever, never, no way trade my life. I am so very happy to have the two loving parents that God afforded to me.
Kayak Bandit '(*!*)'

Thanks, Dad, for my freedom

Today is Father's Day. I just want to brag about my dad. He served in WWII.

When he was a teenager, he worked in a pharmacy. Some horrible chemicals accidentally got splashed in his eyes. They were saved by someone sticking his head under a faucet and letting the water totally wash out his eyes.

My aunt (his sister) told me later that he and all of his wild friends wanted to fly planes in WWII. Because of crystals in his eyes from the chemicals, he was rejected as a pilot. She told me all of his buddies died in the war, flying planes.

My dad was kind of like Sgt. Bilko. He was in charge of a platoon of men. He would score beer for them, all kinds of fun stuff.

His platoon did clean-up; they would go to sites of battles after the battles were over. Though there was no guns firing at them there, those sites must have been horrible to see. He was on Hawaii, Guam, among other sites.

He came back from the war, met & married my mom and they had me and my older sister. He was 38 when I was born! (I'm 47 now).

He died in 1994, from a heart attack on a fishing trip. I don't think he could have chosen a better way to go! His little memorial pamphlet, on my direction, didn't have a poem or Bible passage but simply said "Gone fishin'". I think he would have liked that. I know my aunt loved it.

I miss him still, especially around the holidays.

Because of a fluke accident when he was a teenager, I was born! Yay!

Thank you to my dad and hundreds of thousands like him, now and in the past. No matter how we feel about an individual war and why we are at war and whether we should be, we should ALWAYS thank our vets and their families for all the sacrifices.

And, hey, you single vets, come back alive. There are kids like me that want to be born!

KuKu

Splish Splash

Have you ever noticed how a child emulates their parent. Say, a boy and his dad are sitting on a log. Look close. If dad has his leg crossed, I bet junior does too. If pops has his chin cradled in his palm, you guessed it.
Since I could observe others in our family emulating a parent I suspect I do too. I certainly hope so. I have great parents. Somehow I missed the fact that life was a struggle. I did not realize that money was tight. My sister tells that we did not have good shoes and good clothes. Huh. How did I miss that.
But I digress, when I was very young, I suspect about five, I was very interested in doing the same things that dad did. One chore was to "slop the hogs". Dad would keep the skim milk and sell the cream and whole milk to the creamery. He would mix grain and skim milk together in a barrel. He would let it age until it got lumpy and very ripe. I guess this was better food for the hogs.
I know the pigs would fight hard for this slop. It was so fun to watch them line up waiting for dad to pour the slop into the trough. I wished I could do it. There was no way for me to dip the big buckets into the very tall (to a five year old) barrell. But, boy, did I want to.
Well, one day a thought came to me. I could turn his big bucket upside down next to the barrel and use the lard pail that was intended for picking blueberries to dip into the slop. It was tricky to stretch up and over the edge of the barrel and dip into the slop, but it was worth it to deliver the slop to the eager pigs. I must have kept at it for quite a while because the depth to the top of the slop eventually got far enough below my reach that I fell into the slop.
This could have ended in my death, but somehow I got myself out. According to mom, I ran from my crime site to the raspberry patch and there took off all my clothes and walked to the house. When mom queried me about my missing clothes, I acted surprised. Well, mom could backtrack the trail of sour curds to the clothes and then continue to the slop barrel. She asked how I managed to get out of the barrel and reportedly I answered that I splashed like a whale.
All I know is that if I choose to grow up, I want to grow up to be just like my dad. Dad you are my hero. Happy Father's Day
Kayak Bandit '(*!*)'

Ahh The Memories

When I was newly married and lived in Portland, money was tight. We were remodeling the kitchen on the pay as you go plan. We had two little girls that deserved a full time mom. They got the best one anyone could ask for.
With only one income, we needed to make the money stretch. I was pretty good at buying vehicles that needed repair and fixing them up. Some of these I kept to drive myself, but, mostly resold them for extra money.
I did the same thing with boats. My first boat was a square ended, wooden canoe. I bought it for fifteen dollars. I spent very little on caulking and sandpaper before I painted it a forest green. The paint was given to me and I sold it for forty dollars.
Another money stretching measure was not spending money on entertainment. I am not saying that we were not entertained, exactly. All I am saying is that we did not call what we did for entertainment, "entertainment". Are you confused yet? I'll try to explain.
My accomplice in this was always my brother-in-law, Dick. We were regulars at the Killingsworth Auction. We rarely spent much money. Like I said, we did not have much money. I think at that time, Dick was driving his Volkswagen Van, pulling a trailer, picking up discarded glass and taking it to recycling centers.
So, we would get there and sit high in the bleachers. We usually smuggled something in to snack on and drink. You know, bread and water! Okay, it wasn't quite that bad. Yes, it was actually soda crackers and diluted Kool-Aid. Sorry.
The expensive stuff sold first. You know, like dining room tables made from real fake oak. Or, Bedroom sets. You had to have a math degree to figure out how to bid on stuff like this. You see, the auctioneer would always count up the number of pieces in the set. Say there were six side chairs, two captain chairs and one table. The auctioneer would say "we're sellin' this by the piece and nine times the money". Every so often, someone would get confused with this and not want the set when they understood the total cost. The auctioneer would have to offer it up for auction again. We would look around at other knowledgeable attendees and shake our head in mock disbelief. Now, that is entertainment.
Well the best was yet to come. When the crowd started to thin out, the prices the auctioneer would get for expensive items started to drop. No problem for him. He would always have a big bunch of boxes of junk stored out of sight in the back room. The helpers would start dragging these boxes out front and lining them up on the front of the stage. That would be our signal to move to the front row. Dick and I would put away our contraband and perch as close to these boxes as we could.
Now the auctioneer would say he had to move this stuff and for everyone to be quick with their bids. Dick and I would nudge each other to let the other know about something we saw in a particular box. As they would hurry through these boxes, they would sometimes fail to show all the contents from the bottom of a box. If it was something valuable, we would likely know and the ones in the back would not know. This was the time to pounce.
Say, we believed the drill in the bottom of the box was worth five bucks and the contents that they held up for viewing was worth another three, one of us would open the box bidding at fifty cents. We always felt that set the tone for what others would bid. We believed that they expected us to know the value since we could see it very well. In that case the box would likely sell for a couple bucks. Other times, when we did not want something, we would start the bidding closer to the real value. On these, we would stop bidding after it was opened, so as not to get stuck with something we had paid full price for.
Some times we could come up with a box of stuff valued at ten times the price we paid. Rarely did we end up with a box worth less than we paid.
When ever my dear friend, Dick, the Red Lion Man, and I reminisce, we often talk fondly of those Killingsworth Auction evenings. Ahh the memories. Right, Dick?

Kayak Bandit '(*!*)'

Rubber Band Gun Standoff

I have an older brother. I was in awe of him. He drove a Ford Fairlane, two door that had the police car interceptor, eight cylinder engine. It could throw gravel for a country mile. Like I said I was in awe.

I wasn't the only one that was in awe of Larry. Half the girls in our town and the neighboring towns would have given their last pair of bobby sox for just a smile from Larry. He was our high school Snow King, for goodness sake. He was the football team's fullback.

One day Larry came home with his girlfriend. This was the first time he had brought Wanda to our home. I am not sure how long they had been dating, but it was a really big deal for a guy to formally introduce his girlfriend to his parents. Larry must have tipped off my folks, because dad had combed his hair. No man would comb his hair needlessly. Why, he could always put a hat on if he needed to go outside. Ya know what I mean?

For several days leading up to this big event, I had been working on a new and improved rubber band gun. My grandpa gave me his last inner tube made from red rubber. All of us knew they made the best bands for a gun. I carefully cut the bands a uniform width. I used up the whole inner tube making my bands.

Now that I had plenty of bands I decided to make my rubber band gun shoot multiple shots. I worked hard making the notches just so. I stretched the bands in place and was standing there admiring my own work. Boy was I proud of my invention. The very first repeating rubber band gun in the world.

Well my pride of this invention collided with Larry's pride of his girlfriends beauty. You see, I wanted Larry to watch me demonstrate my gun and he was determined to introduce Wanda to my folks. When Larry would not give me the courtesy to watch, I warned him that I would shoot him if he did not watch. I aimed the gun at him and, to his peril, he tried to brush by me. I shot him in the stomach. From his reaction, I could tell it hurt. He started for me, but I stood my ground, gun aimed. After all, I had many more shots left. He recognized I meant business when I said "there's plenty more where that came from".

He was no dummy. He took Wanda inside. As he headed in, I took off. I suspected he would clean my clock if I hung around. Boy it is amazing what a young man will do when he is in love. They completely lose sight of what is important. A brother should always take time for a younger brother. Even when the younger brother is a brat. Larry, I am sorry I was a brat. And no, mom did not make me say that to you. I mean it.

Kayak Bandit '(*!*)'

Librarian

As a high school junior, our whole school met on the first day of school for an assembly. Not that assemblies were unusual, but this one was very special. Boy, they brought out the top guns, that is, the Superintendent and the Principal. Normally, the first day is boring. You go from one class to the other and in each class everyone has to stand up and say their name and what they did over the summer vacation. Boring, after all, we knew everyone else.
You see, in a school that graduates about thirty per year, how could you not know everyone else. Well, this year we started out with this big assembly in the gym. Of course they welcomed us back, but what they felt compelled to tell us was concerning our librarian.
The Super stands up there and tells us to really pay attention to what the Prince is about to tell us. He explained that it would likely mean the difference if someone lived or died. Whoa. That is huge. You bet I will pay attention in order to save a life. Again he gives us this big confidence builder of telling us that he knows most of us personally and that we will do the right thing in this life or death matter.
So after all the hype, the Prince get up and starts telling us that we have a new librarian. It seems she is small. The Prince says she will be the shortest and lightest person in the high school. I immediately imagined those runty little frosh. The Prince surely joked.
I soon learned that this new librarian has a heart issue that is so severe that she was not expected to live to see age ten or something. Oh, and there were other landmark ages mentioned as well that she surpassed. The bottom line was that all of us students needed to treat her with respect and not to stress her. If we did not adhere to this request, she could drop dead!
My memory is not perfect in this area, but over time we came to believe her heart was much stronger than the two big ones let us believe. We were very well behaved at first, but as our suspicion increase that we were sold a bill of good, we grew courage to treat her like anyone else. She seemed to like being treated as a normal teacher even though she was about eighty pounds, and less than five feet tall(short).
The most fascinating thing about her was her Morse Minor car. It was so small that four of us guys could pick it up and turn it around. Most days we would do something with her car, like moving it somewhere. We learned that her car was the same length as the distance between a power pole and the pump building. You guessed it. We did not mind waiting till she emerged after school to find her car trapped. I suppose we had a rather amused look on our faces as we offered to help her. Boy, she was such a great sport.
We kept coming up with better and better ways to mess with her car. One day, the four of us recruited two more guys and carried the Minor all the way around to the front of Verndale High School and carried it up the front steps and lowered it down crosswise in front of the double doors.
We quickly left the area as nonchalantly as possible. As we arrived at our first class after lunch period, we were directed to the gym for an assembly. Everyone was visiting and carrying on with our little groups or cliques. Then the Prince got up front and said the assembly would begin as soon as some pranksters dealt with a certain issue. No more was said, Promise. But, everyone in the whole school turned and looked directly at us. There were chuckles and whistles from all over the assembled students.
Okay, we got up and returned the Minor to it's original parking spot. When we were filing back into the assembly, the Prince returned to the podium and announced assembly over. Whoa. what does that mean?
That was the one and only mention of this matter. No one was sore. No one got disciplined. I wish for more of this common sense management in life today.

Kayak Bandit '(*!*)'

Dust If You Must

The following came to me from a friend that is waiting for test results that the doctor suspects is skin cancer. We talked about many things that are too personal to share with this audience. Read this and see if we need to adjust our prioritys.

Dust if you must

Remember...a layer of dust protects the Wood beneath it.'A house becomes a home when you can write 'I love you' on the furniture '
I used to spend at least 8 hours every weekend making sure things were just perfect - 'in case someone came over'
Finally I realized one day that no-one came over; they were all out living life and having fun!
NOW, when people visit, I don't have to explain the 'condition' of my home .
They are more interested in hearing about the things I've been doing while I was away living life and having fun.
If you haven't figured this out yet, please heed this advice.
Life is short. Enjoy it!

Dust If You Must

Dust if you must . . but wouldn't it be better to paint a picture or write a letter, bake cookies or a cake and lick the spoon or plant a seed, ponder the difference between want and need!
Dust if you must, but there's not much time . . . with beer to drink, rivers to swim and mountains to climb, music to hear and books to read, friends to cherish and life to lead.
Dust if you must, but the world's out there with the sun in your eyes, the wind in your hair, a flutter of snow, a shower of rain. This day will not come around, again.
Dust if you must, but bear in mind, old age will come and it's not kind. . . And when you go - and go you must - you, yourself will make more dust!

Dust If You Must!

I would gladly give credit to the person that wrote this, if I only knew who it was.

Kayak Bandit '(*!*)'

Hired Hand

At age six, I was so impressed with this man that worked with my dad in the sawmill. Why, he could do everything with his total of six fingers as anyone else could with their ten fingers.
When he needed to adjust a machine, he did just fine. Tying his boots up, no problem. scratching his . . . oops, forget that one. Driving a car, just as good as anyone. But the thing that he did with those six fingers, thumb and index on one hand and all but pinky on the other, is awe inspiring to this very day. Why, he could roll a cigarette as smooth as store bought.
I would often walk down to the mill site when the mill was idle. Teddy would be sitting in his "shack". Everything that was not a house or barn seemed to be called shack. There was the saw shack, tool shack and Teddy's Shack. He was always glad to see someone. He would offer me a pull of tobacco. Needless to say, I could never have gotten that smelly stuff past my nose. I believe he would have withdrew the offer if I acted like I wanted some. He had a lot of respect for my family and our tobacco free upbringing.
Like I said, Teddy would be sitting there when I came in after he called out to come in. We did the ritual of me refusing the plug and we would talk about a lot of stuff. Where he had worked before coming to work for my dad, for one. Eventually, I had to ask him to show me how to roll a cigarette. Man did he make it look easy.
After he rolled several, he would shove the makin's my way. I would make a trough out of the paper with my right hand. Opps, I forgot to open the tobacco pouch before I got started. Start over. Pouch open. Paper in right hand again. Now, using only the left hand I needed to get the tobacco loosened up and moved near the open end of the pouch. Carefully, I would jiggle the tobacco over the trough in the paper.
It seemed that the tobacco wanted to come out in one big plop. When this happened, the paper would collapse and all the makin's would end up in my lap. Or, if I really concentrated on getting it out without a clump, I would have forgotten to keep the trough the right shape. Either it would be too narrow and I would miss with the tobacco, or I would be too wide and it would collapse under the tobacco.
Eventually, Teddy would say it looked okay. Can you spell patronizing? So, the next step is to distribute the tobacco and roll it into a cylinder. Mind you, Teddy wanted it very compact. I guess if the tobacco is not tight enough the whole thing burns up too easily. The idea is to roll the paper back and forth a few times to get it compact. Again, Teddy would say when it was good enough. Now for the good part. Moisten the seam of the paper. Teddy did not want his cigarette slobbered over. Nor did he want it to fall apart because it was too dry. When I finnished it, Teddy would give me a nice compliment. He would say how much better this cigarette was than my last try.
I would suggest he smoke the darn thing, but he would always have a reason why not to. He would say he would save it until he was ready for a smoke a little later. To this very day, I suspect that he unrolled the sorry thing and rolled one for himself with a fresh paper. I can't say that I blame him.
Kayak Bandit '(*!*)'

Falcon

I owned one of the most gutless cars ever. I did say, "one of", didn't I. I know the case can be made that other cars had even less power than my 1960 Ford Falcon. That was the first year of the Falcon. The only engine option was the in-line six cylinder, 144 cubic inch version. The automatic transmission made things even worse. It had only two speeds slow and medium slow.

It did have some positives though. For instance, you could not spin the tires. I don't think you could spin the tires under any circumstance. I could go up any icy hill in Portland. As I said, it would not spin a tire.

Because the transmission only had two speeds, the engine was turning pretty fast at highway speeds. Consequently, it only got 19 miles to the gallon. It got that mileage whether you were driving wide open or puttin along looking for quail.

Speaking of highway speeds, my Falcon would go about 70 tops. Well unless you count coming downhill off of Mt Hood with the wind behind me. I think I managed to get to 85 for a half mile or so.

I should not say all these bad things about my first car. I managed to install a four track in it. Oh, and I also intalled a Franz Oil Filter too. This oil filter used a roll of toilet paper. The idea was to simply open the cannister, remove the old roll and replace the soggy, messy filter with a new one every thousand miles. Admittedly it worked well.

I had a bumper sticker that read "PAULSON FOR PRESIDENT - - - We Cannot Stand Pat". Do ya get it? Pat Paulson, the comedian, for president. hah hah.

Oh, and I installed after market back up lights. Imagine whenever you put that lousy transmission into reverse, the backup lights would come on. Not very many cars had such technology, but my Falcon did!

Well all things come to an end. My falcon blew the top out of one of those midget pistons as I passed the Portland Zoo, headed to work. It had to get towed home. Ahh, the memories.

Kayak Bandit '(*!*)'

First Dance

Have you ever been on a hay ride? No, not a fake one in the back of a U Haul trailer or something. I mean the real thing. You have to start with a wagon that hauls hay.

Okay, now you load some straw onto the wagon. It needs to be enough straw to cussion the bad bumps in a country road. Oh, and notice that it is straw instead of hay. Straw is the stalks from crops of grain. It is left over after the grain is harvested. It is so very soft compared to hay. Yeah, I know it is called a hay ride. Deal with it.

The next requisite is horses. No one appreciates the sound of a tractor on a cold moon-lit night. The sound of horses hoofs going clip clop is just fine. Other sounds you hear on a good hay ride are the creaking of the wagon, The visiting of the chaparons up front. They know not to be too intrusive, so they sit up front with the driver and chat. If they stop chattering, they could very well be looking back. You must behave for these infrequent lulls in conversation. And then there are the giggles of the girls. All girls have to giggle. God made them to giggle.

If you are smart, you will make a nice little nest in the very middle of the wagon. That way as the ride goes on and people are struggling to stay on the slippery straw, you can offer to let the cute girls move closer so there is enough room for everyone. I don't intend going on any more hay rides at age sixty, so I don't mind giving up my secret.

If you play your cards right, you may even get invited to listen to records afterward. Toni invited me and her older sister invited my friend Dennis to stay after this one hayride. Dennis and I were the same age, Toni was one year younger and Toni's sister was a year older. Everyone knew that guys were supposed to be older, so what was Dennis thinking?

In our house we had Tennesee Ernie Ford and Hank Williams, but these sisters had every record you could imagine. We listened to a lot of records. Eventually, you guessed it, they played a slow song. Toni said we had to dance to this. I was petrified. I think the song played out and I still had not gotten up the courage to dance. That was no problem for Toni. She started it again and insisted I dance. I did. To this day, I can remember vividly the feeling of holding Toni as we danced.

I moved from Minnesota to Oregon and lost touch with my first dance partner, but not the memory.

Kayak Bandit '(*!*)'

Saggin Ain't So Bad

Weightlessness in space. We hear a lot about all the experiments in space. They take some peas up and see how they sprout. They take a monkey and chronicle his trip. You get what I am talking about.

Well, my big question is how would an old person look in space. You see, gravity is pretty mean to us old people. When a person gets old everything starts to sag. My mom and dad have their muscles under the bones in their arms. Why when my dad was young, he wrestled big logs up onto trucks without any help from a tractor. Where were his muscles then? Of Course, they were on top of his bones where they belong.

We may never know the answer to this important question because the people in charge of all the space programs want young people. They don't want one of us old codgers having a health issue and needing an ambulance. They haven't even built a space ambulance yet. I bet they don't plan to either. I think that is discrimination.

Okay, here is what I really think. I think we old people probably look better with gravity than without gravity. Imagine you had just been sitting on a chair, but a little off centered. I bet one buttock would be smooched in and the other buttock would be just fine. Or, back to the arm muscle deal. One arm might have the muscle atop the arm and the other below the arm. Wouldn't that be strange looking.

I have to be careful on this next thought because this is a family post. You know the parts of a lady that gets a lot of attention from us men? Whoa Nellie, what if they were not correctly adjusted. Man would that look crazy. Again, only us oldies have to worry about that. It just isn't fair.

I have taken this topic as far as I dare. I have other questions about weightlessness. I just can't talk about them in public.

Kayak Bandit '(*!*)'

New Contributor

I have been blogging for about two months. It is amazing to me that some out there are actually reading what this old country boy has to say. Thank you for your interest.
I know some of you are reading it and laughing at the idiot writer. My intent was for you to read the wit and laugh at the subject, not laugh at me. But, if laughing at me makes you laugh, so be it. Well, I have good news for you. At least I believe it will be received with appreciation. I invited KuKu to contribute to this site. She has graciously accepted. The last we conversed though, she seemed intimidated by the vast audience involved. She thinks there are millions of readers, hanging on my every word. I do not know where she got such an idea. I don't remember skewing my readership from two people to many million people. I guess you call that a vivid imagination!
For those members of Atlas Quest, you likely know her from her witty, lively zestful and poignant posts on the Atlas Quest boards. If you are unaware of KuKu, sit back and watch for her postings. I know you will be touched.
Be sure to look for the posts on Father's Day. I know it is a vague tease, but you will not be disappointed.
Give a warm welcome to my friend, KuKu. Be sure to comment when she posts. Oh, I like comments too. At first, you needed to log in, in order to post a comment. Now you do not need to. So try it again, both of you.
See Yah,
Kayak Bandit '(*!*)'

Ice Fishing

We usually went fishing near home. There was always the river about a mile south or our home. If dad went fishing, we would load a few things into the back of the pickup and drive to the river. If I went alone, I would walk through the neighbors back pasture and come out at the fish house. This was a great place to fish. Nearby, were lots of sumac bushes. They grew in swampy ground that became frozen, and easy to walk on in the winter. What I liked about these sumac bushes was how good they were for the stove in the fish house. You could break some dead limbs off and drag them near the edge of the river in long pieces. They broke off easily because they were frozen and very brittle. Then you could either stomp on them to make them the length that fit into the stove, or you could swing them against each other. Either way made a lot of firewood in a short time.
Air often builds up under the ice. I presume it effervesses from the riverbed. This air will travel just under the ice by the current. It is pretty rude when you are sitting there bored silly and suddenly the air belches out of your fishing hole. It makes you jump. One particular time this happened to me and it seems a muskrat was swimming with the air. You know, for breathing purposes. Well as the air belched, he followed the air into my fish house. It scared the crap out of both of us. He disapeared back into the water before I could react. He obviously thought the fish house was too small for both of us. I can't argue.
Kayak Bandit '(*!*)'

Eskimo Roll

When I ask someone if they would like to go kayaking, they usually recoil slightly and get a serious look on their face. Their question back to me explains.
"So, how hard is it to learn the eskimo roll?", they ask. Or, "How much time do you spend upside down?"
The answer is moderate and none.
You see, the idea that you must be able to tip over and right yourself in order to kayak is false. Many of us kayak for many years without ever tipping over. Oh, there may be the occaisonal slip as you try to launch. But for the most part you can kayak without getting wet.
When choosing a kayak, you should get a stable one. Now that I think about it, you should also choose a friend that is stable. Since I am not that person, would you like me to refer you to someone that is?
But seriously, for the beginner, there are many non tippy models to choose from. I recommend asking at your local stores about demo days. Here in Spokane, Mountain Gear, takes about a dozen canoes and kayaks to a nearby lake. They staff the demo with very knowledgeable persons that can explain the benefits of each of the models.
Like many sports, you will likely graduate to another kayak after you have some water behind you. I get carried away more than most. I now have six kayaks.

If you wish to learn how to roll your kayak like an eskimo, check out your local kayak clubs. They usually have some members that are certified instructors. But, do not hesitate to try. You will be glad you did.

Kayak Bandit '(*!*)'

Jammin'

I had a friend, Bob, that would bring a sandwich to work every day. Bob did not talk a lot. He ate his sandwiches with gusto. It was the first thing he would take from his old tin lunch bucket. Usually it would take only a half dozen bites and it was gone.
One day we were talking about the lunch that each of us had. I had chicken salad and others said what they had for lunch. Bob said he had a jam sandwich. I was almost certain that it had looked like a slice of bologna. (Why do we say "bow low knee" when it is spelled "bow log nah"?) I didn't think much of it until a few days later we were talking about favorite food. You see, I had noticed what Bob spilled down his front. Sure as the world, it was tuna. When his turn came, he said he had jam sandwich. Since I knew better, I said "I am sure you had tunafish in that sandwich". Bob replied "when you jam tunafish between two slices of bread, doesn't that make it a jam sandwich?
Who can argue with that logic?
Kayak Bandit '(*!*)'

Timberline

My cousin Dorla came to visit one winter when I still lived with my parents in Portland Oregon. She and I went to Mount Hood to try skiing. We had both skied in Minnesota on Moyer's Hill. Our skill was tested more than a little when we got to Timberline Lodge.
You see, at Moyer's Hill, you walk up this long hill. That is, long by Minnesota standards. It was maybe two hundred yards horizontally and, let me see, about fifty feet in height. If my math is right, that makes it a whopping eight percent. Makes my head spin thinking about it.When you get to the top of this long hill, you strap your skis onto your boots and choose a route between the brush patches. Carefully, push yourself downward until the hill takes over. Swoosh. Wow, that was fun.
Well, Dorla and I learned at Timberline the hill has control long before you think about your skis. Why, if you point your feet downslope without your skies, you go farther and faster than we ever did in Minnesota. By the end of our day, I had mastered the slope by the rope tow. I was stoked.
The next fall I heard about Timberline hiring help for the winter skiing season. Count me in. I got hired for the weekends. They gave us a dorm and half price on food, wages and $3.85 per weekend for bus fare. Since I had a reliable Ford Falcon, I was very popular. No one wanted to ride the bus, so they offered me their $3.85 to share a ride. Boy did I get rich in a hurry. I could haul all five of us and never slow down below thirty miles per hour.
Our Lodging was in Government Camp and we would ride the shuttle up from Government Camp to Timberline Lodge each morning to work for the day. At the end of our shift, we would ski down the Glade Trail to our dorm. Those were the days, my friend. We thought they'd never end. But they did.
Kayak Bandit '(*!*)'

A TV!

I lived in Minnesota as a child. You know the place. It is where the mosquito is the state bird. Oh, and the "ten-thousand lakes" place.
I liked it there. I could go hiking anywhere I wanted. For instance Grandpa and Grandma Hess lived about a mile northwest of our home and Grandpa and Grandma Kraft lived about a mile through the woods to the north. Often I would call the cockerspaniel dog, grab a twenty-two rifle and head out for the day. Other times I would climb onto Champ, my quarterhorse thorobred mix horse. If someone needed to know where I was, they could just ring the party line phone and someone would have seen me and tell my mom. It is not that parents did not care, It was that the community was this great big family. Everyone looked out for one another. If someone today paid attention to others like we did then, they would be labeled busy body or nosey.
On sunday, we would all go to church. The church had been built by a bunch of the pioneers and named Hope Chapel. In the winter someone would go there a little early and build a fire in the floor furnace. We heard many a good sermon there at Hope Chapel.
I still have not figured out this one serman though. You see, the preacher was goin' on and on about how horrible tvs were. Why, they were surely going to completely polute everything moral in life. I can't recite all that he said, but I think "goin to Hell" was said somewhere in that sermon. Goin' to Hell was said in a lot of them, so it could be that I am mixed up about that. I am not mixed up that it was bad to watch tv.
We did not have a tv, so I was safe. As I said, I had plenty to do without a tv. Then one day all the men were a talkin about the fact that the very preacher that preached the sin of tv had bought one himself. Now, I wonder what that means. I suppose it could be that tv programs improved enough to make it safe. I doubt it. I may be confused forever.
Then one day, normal as can be, I walked into the house after school and wow, a tv! I can still see those couples in my mind today. They were dancin to music on American Bandstand. Sinful!

KB