“Paw-toe-graphs”, Anyone?
The Porch Kitty Fan Club is still alive and well. The Fabulous Felines’ more-or-less annual Christmas gift arrived just the other day(Since it came on the 5th, I gather that the group belongs to an Orthodox faith and were celebrating the arrival of the Three Kings. They skipped Kwanzaa altogether.) Anyway the package contained a pouch of Crunchy Treats...
Messages From Mother Nature: What is that white stuff?
For the first time in a long while, we had a white Christmas. It was the second major snowstorm of the winter. In fact, December was one of the snowiest on record with just over 29 inches. One of the biggest factors for all the snow once again, was the Lake Erie snow machine. So, how does this machine...
It’s That Time Of The Year
You think I know about nothing but cats? Ha! I can literary with the best of ‘em. Watch this: No sun - No moon No morn - No noon - No dawn - no dusk - no proper time of day. No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease, No comfortable feel in any member - No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,...
Air Mail Part II
Same windsock. Same beautiful weather. Bright little plane coming in from the east with a mailbag, to pick up a mailbag filled with postcards--over five hundred of them--addressed the last time we all gathered here on this sunny county airport in Middlefield, Ohio to commemorate the centennial of the transcontinental postal air mail service in 1920. Air mail service...
Odder Still…
The computer has forced me to type this piece over again after it deleted everything except the date, August 31. I don’t know if I insulted it or what. Maybe it’s been keeping track of the things which I have been saying about it--all true! There was a Dilbert cartoon the other day that might fit : Office worker...
Another Centennial
August 30, 2020--Geauga County Airport, Middlefield, Ohio--Where else can one go to watch airplanes take off and land, while listening to the clip-clop, clip-clop of passing horses and buggies…and spot an Amish family off at a distant picnic table watching it all?The windsock was blowing, the sun was out and so were air enthusiasts of all ages who had...
Curiosity and Caffeine: Flight 93 National Memorial
On the morning of September 11, 2001, Al Qaeda terrorists in an organized attack against the United States hijacked four commercial airliners. Two planes were flown into the World Trade Center’s twin towers in New York City -- one at 8:46 am and the second at 9:03 am. A third plane was purposely flown into the Pentagon in Arlington,...
Viral Verities
This is a compendium (a summary or abstract containing the essential information in a brief form; a concise but comprehensive treatise) of goofiness inspired by what is going on--or not-- all around us. The random items appearing either in the papers or online seem to be getting weirder every day. And speaking of that, here’s an item that I found...
Life Is Like A Box Of Chocolates Lately…
Uhhhgggggggg………..I know it feels like it’s the seven plagues of Egypt every time we turn on the news or look at Facebook. If it’s not politics then it’s the economy, if it’s not the economy then it’s the health department telling us to wear masks or an article telling us there’s a vaccination coming or maybe we shouldn’t get...
National Holiday Alert!
We’ve missed half of the month but the BIG DAY is coming right up, so get ready for a celebratory observance of…National Ice Cream Day ! Would I lie about a thing like that? It seems that, actually, the entire month of July is National Ice Cream Month…and…the third Sunday in July is designated as National Ice Cream Day!...
O, Say Can You See….
Well, it may have been July 4th, but it definitely was a first in a lot of ways…just like what’s going on all over the place lately. How bizarre to have virtually no public displays of fireworks for Independence Day. The locals did try to take up the slack, I notice, as there were booms, bangs and flashes going...
Time Limps On
Well, there was a weekend. The annual garage sale in the village and environs seemed to be going well. Maybe not as many commercial opportunities as usual but plenty of tents and canopies were out sheltering the displays of treasures--not much rain, thank goodness--available to the public. I even bought a small bench at the big Brookover house (the one...
101 Coming Up Next!
Well, so we celebrated my mother’s birthday #100 in fine style, with a drive-by/ drive-through occasion on June 7 (Her birthday really was on May 21, but you know how things have been.). Most of the in-laws and out-laws were in attendance, although a healthy contingent of the family was off planting one thing or another, since it was...
All of The Nuts
So I’m walking around town and noticing…. What a lot of nut trees--black walnut, butternut, hickory, etc.--there are around here. Probably has something to do with the number of squirrels there are around here too. You can see the remains of gnawed-upon squirrel party refreshments all over the place. Plenty of gum tree gumballs too, all over the place. Makes...
Mission Impossible
I continue my crusade to rid at least part of the Headwaters Trail of the noxious, invasive weed, Garlic Mustard...and everywhere else I spot the stuff, which is lots o’ places. Taking a loop around the back of the South St. Park (Bill Phelps Park, with baseball and softball fields) I encountered several stands of the stuff to go...
How Long, O Lord?
We’re all going to wax Biblical if this quarantine thing doesn’t end soon. Which book? Well, we have several suitable possibilities, mostly Old Testament, such as Numbers: Six feet “social distancing”, Num 16: 20, “And the Lord said to Moses and to Aaron, ‘Separate yourselves from among this congregation, that I may consume them in a moment.’ Does that...
A File In The Cake?
I’m sure that somebody is going to “rat me out” and tell the Portage Park District that I’ve been pulling up plants along the Headwaters Trail. Indeed, I have been doing exactly that but the evidence will show that what I’ve been pulling up is a vast number of invasive weeds known as Garlic Mustard. Actually, it’s kinda cute,...
April Showers
O.K., if “April showers bring May flowers”, what, in the name of all saints are we going to get based upon our most recent weather extravaganzas? Gonna be some flowers! Speaking of which (Great segue, eh?), I’ve got all sorts of things coming up around here. As usual, I don’t know what most of them are until they’re in full...
Are We There Yet?
And just where are we going again? By the time that we get there, I’m going to be so out of shape that someone will have to haul me over the line in a wheelbarrow. When the Y closed, it so disrupted my self-designed fitness routine that all of my muscles have declared a national holiday and I’ve had...
Henry V
So...I’m sure that everybody gets the reference, right? Oh yeah, we all go around quoting Shakespeare to all and sundry who will listen. Anyway, what came to me as I sat down to take quill in hand to write about what’s going on, was this famous line from the Bard, encouraging his soldiers to take heart, make the great...
Fist Bump Anyone?
Holy Schmoley! Isn’t this something? The empty shelves at the grocery--even Wal-Mart--the panic buying of all sorts of things( some necessities, like toilet paper, some not), the cancellation of a myriad of events and programs all over the country...Whooeeee! The cancellations and reschedulings of everything from Broadway to baseball seasons and basketball madness is just stunning, across the board. When the...
All That Glitters
Thought for today : “All that glitters is not gold.” And, just for good measure, “Don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched.” Thoughts to be thunk when you get a phone call purporting to give you large sums of money that you did not know you had even signed up for. Just sayin’. How do I know this? Thereby hangs...
Feline APB (All Points Bulletin)
Well, IBM (Irresponsible Bad Momma) has just had her call letters, so to speak, changed to RFPM (Retired Front Porch Matron). Having had “the Operation” just this last week, she seems to be perfectly happy to not be putting up with the various traveling salesmen who have been showing up forever around here with a line of goods that...
God Rest Ye
Well, rest is just what I’m looking for about now, lemme tell ya. I think that we’d be planning to petition somebody for an extra day in the week or an extra hour or two in the day, if we’re ever to get all of the stuff done that needs to be done. How about it? Who’s going to...
A Boardinghouse Reach?
The new boarder has apparently settled in...as if there were any question about that. She seems to have figured out the daily routine and grasps the fact that at certain times of the day, she can caterwaul as loudly as she likes, it still won’t get her whatever it is she wants. On the other hand, she’s terminally cute...
Three Old Guys Walked into a Coffee Shop…
Mantua - While it may sound like the lead-in to a bad joke, it was the start of a fun and enjoyable evening held at Restoration 44 Coffee shop in Mantua. The event was held in conjunction with the Mantua Historical Society, and got its start last year at a local Christmas party when Dottie Summerlin listened in on...
Weirdnesses Revisited
Years ago--I’m dating myself here--somebody...Art Linkletter maybe...put out a book titled ?Kids Say the Darndest Things?. And that’s what it was all about, taken from his television show where he talked to children of various ages on an array of topics intended to get many levels of entertaining and/or embarrassing responses. Well, I haven’t been on television for a...
3 Ways You Can Benefit By Giving Your Smartphone A Rest
America is saturated in smartphones. A Pew Research Center survey reported 81% of Americans own the versatile — and some say, addictive — mobile device. With the smartphone’s capabilities for internet access, social media interaction, running all kinds of apps, and texting, its screen has become the nation’s preoccupation — while face-to-face human conversation seems more of a second option. “Everywhere...
Giving Back Gives Back to You
For my family, summer means daytrips to the Lake Erie’s many shores and beaches as often as we can manage it. And while you can’t beat a day at the beach enjoying the sun, the surf, and the sand, one thing we don’t enjoy much is the trash we often find there. A Rochester Institute of Technology study notes that...
Rant # ‘leventy-two
Parking lots are my nemesis, as far as attempting “live and let live”, so to speak. I get really cranked out by people leaving their shopping carts abandoned willy-nilly all over the place instead of putting them in the cart corrals or back in the store. It’s also irritating to go to pull into a parking spot only to...
