DUCKS

218 – Thursday, August 06, 2009

In what has now become the Grannie-Isaac-Poppie-Thursday, tradition is being forged in the Larrison colony. On this, the fifth day of every week, while the daughter-in-law launches from the house in order to toil at the local law office, Grannie and Poppie rise at dawn and ready themselves for an inter-county excursion that engages them in the painless even pleasurable role of Isaac-sitting. The usual course has us arriving just about 8 am where we are met with the enthusiastic smiles and upward-reaching arms of the grandson upon whom we shall dote for somewhere in the neighborhood of five or six hours. While Grannie busies about the kitchen preparing his breakfast, Isaac and Poppie head for the play arena and begin to select our menagerie for the day’s safari or the blocks from which we shall erect our skyscraper! Today we methodically plunged through the wire-framed, parachute-material-covered toy baskets and located five, count them, one, two, three, four, five neoprene ducks of graduated sizes beginning with the largest specimen, obviously a drake, and tapering to the smallest in the line, a sort of smiling, red-elf-hat bearing duckling, obviously not a part of the set, but very much a part of the play! Isaac methodically drew them from their cloth surround and painstakingly arranged them in perfect series array from largest to smallest, nearly taking my breath away at such advanced conceptual thinking for an 18-month-old. In the flash of a nano-second I was mentally transported back twenty-five years to when we lived in Memphis, and frequented the lobby of the world famous Peabody Hotel, where, every single day for more than seventy-five years, the red carpet has been rolled out at precisely 11:00 am and again at 5:00 pm for the parade of five mallards from the penthouse elevator to the lobby fountain – a sight to behold if you have never laid eyes upon it!! A huge part of the regular cast of players in this aged landmark of legendary Beale Street legacy, these waterfowl have waded into the fountain waters and fascinated literally dozens of the famous, including alphabetically from Cage, Nicholas through Winfrey, Oprah and between. They have made cameo appearances from the Rubber Ducky Adventures of Bert and Ernie of Sesame Street to the late-night set of the Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. What pleasure raced through this Poppie’s memory in that brief moment of child’s play – perhaps one day I shall be able to take him to the Peabody Memphis Lobby to witness them live – he shall never remember this day – and I shall never forget it!!

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DAD

217 – Wednesday, August 05, 2009

I received an email from my brother, John, earlier which popped up on his calendar today – a reminder that our father passed away on this date in 1991 – has it already been 18 years? Like so much that has transpired in my lifetime, those two-hundred-sixteen months have evaporated in a flash and the blink of an eye. My grandmother once told me it would happen this way and time has proven her prediction to possess the veracity of a Nostradamus. If our dad were alive today, he would revel in the technology and all the advancements that have proliferated in those vaporized years. Enthusiasm would permeate all of his discourse about sound technologies, televisions, cable and satellite, computers and the internet – his engineering mind would dissect and analyze every facet and I imagine his house would be host to all manor of cutting edge stuff – he would have totally bought in!! On the other hand, if our dad were alive today, he would be ill over the state of our nation and its leadership and the direction in which they continue to drag us. He would probably be a regular contributor to newspaper editorials (when he had an opinion and a head of steam, he could peel paint with this remarks) and I would not be shocked to find he had a web site or at least a blog site where he would vehemently espouse his personal philosophies and imaginative commentary on national and international politics. Much like I, he was a man who admired integrity in his fellow man but had little time for charlatans and hypocrites. His engineering mind would also have dismembered current hyperboles spewed forth in dogmatic vomit and his logic would have been simple but deep! – he would have totally NOT bought in!! Dad always had answers – I wish I could hear him unload a few on me right now – I know they would make a lot more sense than the bull-hockey reported on News Channel Eight after seeping and oozing out of D.C. – He would, for sure, pull no punches and his verbiage would be a lot more colorful than those anchors at the desk!! I miss the Dad today!

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CASH FOR CLUNKERS

216 – Tuesday, August 04, 2009

Who do you think you are kidding, Mr. Obama? How can you be so naïve Mr./Ms. Representative? What do you think you are doing, Senator? ‘Cash for Clunkers’ is dubbed a win-win gala for the economy (auto industry) and the environment. The main basis for this billion dollar bail is an ’84 or newer vehicle that gets a combined mpg of 18 or less and is traded for a new car that gets either 4 mpg ($3500) or 10 mpg ($4500) to qualify for the parenthetical rebates respectively. Sound good? How is this a stimulus for the American economy since 4 of the top 5 new cars that are being purchased are foreign? How can this be a boon to our economic conditions when the majority of the crushed cars are being shipped to China as scrap and not recycled here? Too many questions? You bet there are!! Now we are up for round two, another two billion, since “everything is going much better than expected”! – for whom? I assure you not me!!! The regular Joe like you and I just keep hearing that ‘cha-ching-cha-ching’ as our national deficit skyrockets all the while mortgaging our future and delaying any opportunity we might have for righting of the listing ship of our financial solidarity! I have a better idea! Since the average used car has depreciated to just above fifty percent of its original value in about three years yet still has better than a hundred-thousand miles left in it, and further boasts five to ten mpg better averages than the cars that qualify for the current ‘CFC’ program as a ‘Clunker’, and lastly had an original price tag in the vicinity of $30,000, why not save $14,000 instead of $4,500 and find yourself a three-year-old ‘pre-owned’! There, now you are saving me some tax burden and getting better mileage (saving yourself some cash) and returning some valuable time back to the legislature so they can spend their minimal energies trying to make something positive happen to turn this country around and get headed in the right direction for a change – no wait – that was what they said they were doing when they came up with this idea, wasn’t it? I guess they are tired of being in the Insurance and Banking business and want to see how badly they can screw up the auto industry!! Should I be grateful that they are toiling so diligently on my behalf? What is next – perhaps the poultry farmers who are hit just as hard as the carmakers – it could be dubbed “Cash for Cluckers”!

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SOLAR

215 – Monday, August 03, 2009

We have been enjoying our swimming pool this year even more than in the recent past, probably because our schedule allows us more time during my ‘job search’ phase. Our pool is situated to the west side of our home and to its west side is the now famous ‘Enchanted Garden’ that you have heard about in both Cynthia and my writings. In the midst of the garden are two rather old and sizeable oak trees between which we have positioned two Adirondack chairs. Given the guarding of the pool by the house in the morning and the shading of it in the later afternoon by the oaks, our pool only gets direct sun from about 11:30 am until 2:30 pm. The only heating of the bathing water occurs in those brief hours which prevents the natural warming of the swimming hole to much above 84 degrees, still a might cool to enjoy except in the direct rays of the beating sun – that was until we installed solar panels on the southwest side of our roof about nine years ago. When we put in the four 4’ x 16’ black vinyl panels, the hot sun on them extended the warming time to the majority of the day and allows the water to reach a more desirable 90 degrees – you would not believe the difference that those six degrees make in the form of comfort while in the cement pond! Last winter, we experienced an unusual five or six days of hard freeze in a row when we normally only see one at a time spread over two or three times all winter – this past winter was one of our colder ones since migrating to Florida! Those freezes had damaged the pressure relief valve on the panels causing a leak in the aquatic circulation until we were able to get it fixed this past week. Yesterday’s swim was the most enjoyable we have had this season as the water literally hugged us as we entered – still refreshingly cool but now gone are the goose-bumps and shivers at the shock of entering the oasis of rejuvenation. Add a tall glass of iced tea and some great music over the intercom and you have the Floridian’s answer to a summer bummer. Who wants to come and visit me now?

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SPORTS SUNDAY

214 – Sunday, August 02, 2009

I do not consider myself to be a total sports chauvinist, relegating my spouse to the status of ‘widow’, however, Sunday is a day I often enjoy surfing through some of the channels hosting sporting events and today was Sunday – not for the entire day, only a couple of hours! I was interested in the Tampa Bay Rays, playing Kansas City and in contention once again as we enter the last couple of months of the season – the team has been doing well, of course, I would rather they be 67 and 38 in first place rather than 6 games out, but still a doable to make the playoffs! We lost 4 to 1 – bummer, Batman! I was also interested in The Buick Open – yesterday, Tiger Woods came from way back in the pack – started, I believe, 95^th and came all the way up to be in the lead going into today’s round which he eventually won at 20 under par (How about that Rick – is that approaching your best round or what?) I wanted to root for my Joe Gibbs NASCAR guy, Kyle Busch in the #18 M&M Interstate Batteries NOS Toyota Camry, slated to start in 20^th position today – I was hoping he could put the pedal to the metal and pick up enough points to move up two or three spots into contention as the race for the chase tightens up in the Sprint Cup series. The race on the unique two-and-a-half-mile tri-oval of Pocono Raceway was postponed until noon tomorrow as a result of rain and seepage from the track – what a bummer for the myriad of avid fans that arranged their work schedules, paid big bucks for tickets to the event, traveled to Long Pond Road in metropolitan Blakesville, Pennsylvania, and sat in the rain waiting only to be told they would have to come back tomorrow – racing has become so sophisticated that it no longer has ‘wet’ tires to put on the cars so they can run in the dampness once the rain has stopped. In the old days, the drivers would have had to adjust their skills to fit the course and provide enthusiastic fans with a contest of matched players each having to overcome the elements the best they could. I thought we were possibly going back to the ‘good old days’ when they ran a couple of races on ‘wet tires’ and sported ‘wiper blades’ on the cars last year, but it is obviously not an accepted practice yet. Oh, well, I think I will go for a swim with my darling wife – all that rain has me thinking of water sports!

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BIDDY BIDDY BUM

213 – Saturday, August 1, 2009

In the words of Tveye from Fiddler On The Roof, “If I were a rich man, Ya ha deedle deedle, bubba bubba deedle deedle dum. All day long I'd biddy biddy bum. If I were a wealthy man. I wouldn't have to work hard. Ya ha deedle deedle, bubba bubba deedle deedle dum. If I were a biddy biddy rich, Yidle-diddle-didle-didle man.” Obviously, Tevye was living in a land of make-believe at the moment he sang this ditty!! In the midst of searching for a new career, there are occasional breaks where a husband and wife sit poolside and discuss strategy, battle pans, enemy insurgence, what we might do if we were to hit six correct numbers in the next lotto drawing, and, not the lowest on the list of discussion topics, a ‘few’ projects that I could ‘wrap up’ since I ‘have a little more time on my hands these days’ – the infamous ‘honey do list’ that Tevye never thought about during his fantasy. After completing a mental calculation of the man-hours of labor involved and factored in the computations on the materials needed to undertake such a ‘teensy’ gargantuan mission, I have determined that I do, in fact, need to hit the lottery jackpot and, when I do, it will still be somewhere around 2021 before I could cross off everything on my ‘current’ list of projects – that is, if no other inspirations strike my resident visionary, which is highly unlikely. I am resolute, however. I have determined that I am, in point of fact, a rich man and blessed beyond measure to have such a wonderful life-mate who is not uninspired and comfortable to exist in the status quo – the partner God has gifted to me is one who joins hand-in-hand to lunge for a better life and has a desire to always propel our household forward. It is fully worth those conversations that end up adding to my list. I, in no way, object to the list that has erroneously been given the moniker of ‘honey do’ for I, myself, have been guilty of adding to said list from time to time. The only element of the formula I have left to figure out now is the ‘wealthy man’ part and discover a way I can afford to sit on my “biddy biddy bum” with a glass of sweet tea while watching someone else put in all those man-hours!!

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