Letter From a Farm Kid

Dear Ma and Pa,

I am well. Hope you are. Tell Brother Walt and Brother Elmer, the Marine Corps beats working for old man Minch by a mile. Tell them to join up quick before all of the places are filled. I was restless at first because you got to stay in bed till nearly 6 a.m. but I am getting so I like to sleep late.

Tell Walt and Elmer all you do before breakfast is smooth your cot, and shine some things. No hogs to slop, feed to pitch, mash to mix, wood to split, fire to lay. Practically nothing.

Men got to shave but it is not so bad, there's warm water. Breakfast is strong on trimmings like fruit juice, cereal, eggs, bacon, etc., but kind of weak on chops, potatoes, ham, steak, fried eggplant, pie and other regular food, but tell Walt and Elmer you can always sit by the two city boys that live on coffee. Their food plus yours holds you until noon when you get fed again. It's no wonder these city boys can't walk much.

We go on "route marches," which the platoon sergeant says are long walks to harden us. If he thinks so, it's not my place to tell him different. A "route march" is about as far as to our mailbox at home. Then the city guys get sore feet and we all ride back in trucks.

The country is nice but awful flat. The sergeant is like a school teacher. He nags a lot. The Captain is like the school board. Majors and colonels just ride around and frown. They don't bother you none.

This next will kill Walt and Elmer with laughing. I keep getting medals for shooting. I don't know why. The bulls-eye is near as big as a chipmunk head and don't move, and it ain't shooting at you like the Higgett boys at home. All you got to do is lie there all comfortable and hit it. You don't even load your own cartridges. They come in boxes.

Then we have what they call hand-to-hand combat training. You get to wrestle with them city boys. I have to be real careful though, they break real easy. It ain't like fighting with that ole bull at home. I'm about the best they got in this except for that Tug Jordan from over in Silver Lake. I only beat him once. He joined up the same time as me, but I' m only 5'6" and 130 pounds and he's 6'8" and near 300 pounds dry.

Be sure to tell Walt and Elmer to hurry and join before other fellers get on to this setup and come stampeding in.

Your loving daughter,

Alice

Mow the Lawn

Yesterday morning, I take the dogs outside. It is like 6:15 am or so. The creepy 14-15 year old kid from across the street is outside. Why?? I have no idea. I walk the dogs from one corner of the block to the other and back. Just like I do every morning. As I'm walking up the driveway, the kid walks across the street towards me. By this time, Boomer is barking his head off at him.

I put the dogs in the house and say Hi. The kid asks if he can mow my lawn. I almost start laughing in in face. I thank him for the offer but tell him that I like to mow my own lawn.

I couldn't stop thinking of this video. Thanks Gambino for the link.

Ain't Got The Common Sense Your Mama Gave You

It was good to read a story in today's newspaper. Yes, I know that I'm one of only a few people who still get the paper delivered to my front step each day.

A mother found some candy on her son's bed and wondered if he had anything to do with the shooting and murder of a 77-year old candy store owner. Turns out he did.

Good for you, mom. You did the right thing. Now if only more people would take that much interest in their children's lives the city/world would be a better place.

You can read more about this story here.

Testing the mobile blog function

The Manifesto

I took this from Laurie's Facebook page. From trivia..... Please note that I (yes, me , Hey Jo) had the question correct but was nice and went with StB's answer. Bad choice....

One of my regular trivia players tonight didn't like one of the questions (he felt the answer was incorrect) and this is the list of things I must do before he will no longer be upset with me.

1. Public apology that is not sarcastic (I told him I was sorry he had sand in his vagina. He did not find that to be an acceptable apology)
2. Must buy me a beer
3. Admit the question was dumb
4. Admit what you did was wrong
5. Play the X-Rated version of the song "Community Property" by Steel Panther.
6. Make out with a chick (I told him I would only do this after he found a chick who would make out with him)
7. Proclaim that this is NOT a manifesto
8. DUTCH RUDDER (if you don't know what this is, www.urbandictionary.com)
9. Chirp like a monkey
10. Bring me a taco from McBob's
11. Cannot read this out loud to everyone until it's been completed (of course I read it out loud immediately)

And this wasn't even the craziest of things that went on tonight. I love my job. :)

This and That

I have been very lax lately about posting. Just no ambition….that and being busy. It would help if I could access Blogger from work, that is where I think of things and by time I get home, I forget them.

I wanted to post a few pictures from camping a couple of weeks ago. It was kinda breezy out. A gust of wind came up and flipped the canopy over. It wasn’t anchored down. It was funny how, in slow motion, it just went up and over. Thanks goodness no one was hurt.

Lately, there have been a lot of odd stories in the news. You really have to wonder what the hell people are thinking… or not thinking.

A couple of favorites….

A police sergeant who abuses her power to find the phone number of a “hot” guy so she could call him to set up a date. Sounds like she has had other issues with her ethics. Is she just stupid or horny?? You make the call.

Small town of Milton, WI has three 8th graders who overdoes on heroin. It was stolen from one of the kid’s mom. That is not worst of it.

A fourth teenager who happened to be at the park recognized the signs of heroin overdose and called a 20-year-old man known around town as a local heroin user, police said. The man, who was not far away at a laundromat, assessed the situation, then saved the life of the most seriously ill boy by injecting him with Narcan, a drug that counteracts the effects of a heroin overdose."Think about that," said Tim Schigur, the middle school principal. "They know enough to call someone who's a local user to come save their friend's life. It's amazing we live in a world that has that kind of skill set."

I would like to know at what job is this a required skill set for?

I rock at bar dice. Played on Friday after the Brewer game at the bar. It was basically one shake and I was out for that round. Poor StB couldn't win even when the bartender was practically giving it away. Now if I could have that same kind of good luck when shaking dice for “shake of the day”, I would be happy camper.

Speaking of dice, for those of you who are on Facebook, have you played Farkle? Talk about addicting. It is a dice game that was first played this past New Year’s eve. It was hilarious. Farkle became the new word of the day. Farkle this, farkle that…. You get the picture.

Boomer, the barker, is back at home after a week at my dad’s. He was rather naughty this time. I guess that he was just barking all the time. I need to get a new battery for his bark collar. It is nice to get a break from him. Rufus and Riley are happier and I can sleep through the night, not having to take him outside in the middle of the night. I wish I could find him a home where they have time to work with him. He is so possessive/aggressive at times that I just don’t trust him, that he won’t bite someone and that they will have him put to sleep. I will keep him before I take that chance. I go camping at the end of the month so will see if he can stay there for the week after that again.

Was at a party for my neighbor on Saturday. One of the girls there, who I have met once before, recently started using Match.com to meet men. She is a cute girl, in her mid-thirties. She was telling us of one of her recent “dates”. They had been talking online for a couple of weeks. They meet for coffee (or lunch, I forget) and decide to go golfing. After 18 holes of golf they go back to her apartment to clean up and go to dinner. He takes a shower and comes out of the bathroom asking her if she has any lotion. She gets it for him and really does not think any more about it as some men do use lotion on their body. She notices that he goes right into her bedroom and not back into the bathroom. After a couple of minutes she goes to check on him and finds him sitting on the edge of her bed, whacking off. She is horrified. She asks him what he is doing. He asks her if she wants to watch him. She tells him to get dressed and get out. A minute or two later, he leaves. She goes back into her bedroom and discovers that he finished the job in the washcloth that she gave him for the shower. She said she used her cleaning gloves and took it outside to the dumpster and tossed it away. Needless, to say, they never went out again. Why did he not do that when he was in the shower?? I just can’t believed that actually finished… ugghhh… yuck… Men, not a really good way to make a first impression on a date.
Heading out to the Brewer game tomorrow.

Peace out!!