eashurst@tx.rr.com has a new email address

Earl Ashurst has a new email address. Old Email Address: eashurst@tx.rr.com New Email Address:earlashurst@att.net Hello, eashurst@tx.rr.com asked us to shoot you a quick note about this new AT&T email address. It's earlashurst@att.net and that's where to send all messages to earlashurst@att.net from now on. Be sure to update your address book now. Thanks, Earl Ashurst Check out AT&T Internet. AT&T includes the most comprehensive set of free safety and security tools such as advanced spam filtering, virus protection and Parental Controls. Also, get the best of online content including free access to millions of videos, music, games and more.

Sweet Potatoes

We were invited to have Thanksgiving with Uncle Bill and Aunt Barbara, and our assignment was sweet pot.s. Liz decided to participate in the T-Day Turkey Trot in downtown Dallas that morning, so the assignment to peel and cook the spuds fell to me. It was not an onerous chore, so I popped out of bed and turned to. In my rush of enthusiasm, I didn't even check with Miss Fannie Farmer, whose book has instructions adjusted to the meanest of understandings. Since my task was given to me as peel the spuds and cook them, I peeled them first. I know - we often do it that way, but the CORRECT way is to scrub them, cook them, and THEN peel them. You let them cool a little after cooking and then the peels will slip right off. I read this little gem of information as my sweet spuds were cooking, so after they came off the stove I checked. Sure enough, there was a distinct layer of peel still on the spuds. We still had time, so when Liz got back from her stroll down turkey trot lane I was trying to find an easy way to get the rest of the peel off. Liz says she doesn't bother getting it all off, and it tastes OK - just not as smooth and sweet as what's inside. I made a pact with myself that next year I will remember to cook first and peel later, but then I had this sinking feeling of having made that resolution before.
What we made was a sweet potato souffle from an internet recipe:
http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,1950,148174-244197,00.html
Liz found it while researching for interesting wedding foods and when we made up a test batch, we all thought it was outstanding! Josh says it tastes like sweet potatoes with ice cream mixed in.
Dinner at the Benac's is always an excercise in bedlam, but we had a good time. There was lots of great food. Afterwards the Cowboys won their game, so that was a nice topping on the T-Day cake. Sadly, Ruthie had to watch A&M go down in defeat later in the evening.
I left Benac's with Joe to help him get his PTAC kit together for his big debut Friday (today) when he and Josh are doing all the PTAC units at a Red Roof Inn in Irving, as a test to determine whether they do a good enough job to qualify to do a boatload of motels in that chain. Joe borrowed a brush, two rechargeable drills, two levels, two canvas tool bags, and five Sharpie pens. And maybe some other stuff. Aren't you impressed that I had all that stuff to loan them? I was.
This morning, Sterling wanted me to put a new roll of tape in the dispenser in the art drawer. Then he wanted to keep the empty roll, and ultimately he taped the colored version on his nose to become a piggie. So then Winter did too, but Ginger just made a pig face.

Fall is finally here

We’ve had a remarkably nice fall to date. Of course, I always like Fall best of all the seasons, but this one was great. We finally had our first freeze (low temp. was 32 degrees) about a week ago and it was slightly chilly for a couple of days, but now it’s back to beautiful, again. This is a photo of the trees on our street. We usually don’t see so much color at one time, because just as the trees are turning color we either get a good, killing freeze, or high winds. We are forecast to have a few more nice days, then over the weekend the high temps. Will dip down to the lower 50’s. We might even get another “freeze” on Sunday. Yes, winter is on her way.

We are having a low-key Thanksgiving, going to Liz’s brother’s house for T-day dinner and watching the Cowboys. Wedding plans are consuming us more than anything else, because we plan to get it mostly settled before December, so we can then stress about Christmas, instead.

Clear Sky Handy Men is hard to measure just now. I’ve been getting lots of good leads. Of course, some don’t turn into actual income, but what’s happened here lately is that people don’t want to start a project until after Thanksgiving. I’m sure Christmas will slow work down a lot as we get closer to it. Still, I have several large jobs to do next week that have been waiting for the turkey to die, and I have a helper lined up. Maybe I can actually make some money for a change.

Jessica is a fine photographer, but she took one that is kind of amazing. I wish I had a copy of it full-size, but this one will do. It is my granddaughter, Ginger, and her pet (for 2 or 3 days) frog.

Thursday, Joe called and told me he was going to a Facilities Managers Show at the Market Hall in Dallas. So I decided to tag along, thinking that I might learn something, and probably could gather some nice "trash & trinkets", which is always fun. At first I was just tagging along, but I registered as Clear Sky Handy Men, not as Varsity Contractors like Joe, so I got all the sales pitches separately. I was pleasantly surprised that 2 of the exhibitors told me that if I'd like to do installs for them, they could sure use me. That's exciting and I WILL follow up.
At the end of the first row there was a big exhibit by Sunbelt Rentals, which is located in the Lowes stores. They had some big lifts and heavy equipment on display so it took me a few minutes to place them. They also had a big wheel, kind of like a roulette wheel, but homemade. They had Joe spin it and he won $60 in coupons, which I thought was way cool. Then they let me spin and I gave a gentle little spin thinking I might get the same thing. As it slowed down, all the Sunbelt guys started talking and saying , "he might make it" , "it's coming up", "I think he's going to hit it" , and stuff like that. I was surprised, because they hadn't been that interested when Joe spun. Turns out what whey were excited about was that I was sneaking up on a slot labeled SURPRISE, and I did land on it. As a result, I got to choose between two Bosch tools and take it home. I was really dumbfounded! Bosch makes high-end tools - very expensive, but extremely well-made. I chose the circular saw, even though I already have a pretty good one. But this one is way better! So now when I get to the point of hiring help, I can keep my good one in the shop and have one for work.
Joe and I got through the last booth at about the same time as the show ended, so we also got lots of trinkets.

After the Show, Josh and I went out "hunting". We got there too late to do much serious hunting, but we sat out and watched the woods for a while, then lit a fire and enjoyed foil dinners with feral hog hot-links in them. Next morning, we did some serious target practice. Josh is a good, natural shotgunner. I was throwing clay pigeons and he was breaking most of them. Then we shot my carbine, and then a 30-30 I've had for a few years and that I had big plans for. I have previously offered all of my kids a gun if they wanted one. So far Mark and Joe are the only ones to take me up on it, but Josh hadn't had a chance. I told him he could have that 30-30 if he wanted it and he thought that was grand. I told him a bit of the history of the Win 94, and that they are no longer being manufactured. It is fun to see him so pleased.

Fall is a very nice time of year. I noticed a few years ago that we live in the Monarch butterfly fly zone. For the past couple of weeks I've been watching them move constantly south-west on their way to a particular tree in Mexico. I've noticed that if I mention that they are migrating past us, people give me a deadpan look, like they're wondering if they've just run across an unwashed, evil scientist working on a nefarious destructive device. Oh well, I've always been interested in all things nature - way more than "normal" people.

I enjoyed being a scout leader but hikes with scouts were frustrating, because they clashed so horribly with my inclinations when hiking. I want to hear and see birds, but the scouts are always yelling at each other about something trivial and city-ish, which means you never hear anything, and seldom see wildlife. I like to stop and watch a bug or spider or other critter, but scouts are only interested for about 1/2 of a second before moving on, fairly often right over the top of what I'm trying to show them. I find an owl scat and they think it's disgusting to look at poop. I tell them I see a racoon and if they move really slow and quiet they can see him, too, and they all come rushing and pushing and wonder why it is gone.

Fortunately, I am blessed with exceptional grandchildren who will listen when I have something to tell them about, and will mostly obey my request for calm, slow movement. Of course, the rabbit that lives just outside our door is just too much. I'll tell them to move slowly and very quietly and not get too close, and they do it. For about 5 seconds. Then one moves forward a little and one of the others will rush forward a little more, and the others follow suit and in a flash the rabbit is bounding past the neighbor's house with Sterling right on its tail and little Ginger not far behind.

We had a cold day on Tuesday and the monarchs have all hurried past us, or froze.
Josh and I are planning to go camping tommorrow night and I am looking forward to a very pleasant time. The cool weather is good for discouraging mosquitoes, and for pleasant sleeping. The wild hogs are getting a bit desperate for food, so they're likely to come check out the feeders. My camo trailer is full of cobwebs, but is still intact and a pleasant place to spend a cozy night. Life is grand this time of year.

A few miscellaneous photos

Josh hugs his Mommy as he arrives home from his stint in the Navy.

Happy to be home.

Angel modeling a new sweater.

A few miscellaneous photos

This is our newest neighbor. You have to look closely because his camo is very good. He lives right outside our front door, but he is a good neighbor: quiet, unobtrusive, cute as a button, etc. He was born here and while his siblings all left to see the greater World (or feed them, as the case may be), he stayed right here.







One of the Benac girls had this necklace, which we thought might inspire Nancy.
At one end is a loop made by running both threads through one bead. At the other end is a button with one bead after after each button hole. It is reported to be "cute" and "clever". Chics rule!















Nancy said she had never even seen a photo of Brant, so here is a fresh, hot out of the oven photo of him early this morning.

Nancy said she liked the bracelet displays, which made me happy. So, I called her and asked how she was going to display her necklaces. There was a pause before she admitted that she and Richard had planned to make one out of a paper towel tube.

"Oh! The Humanity! This is just terrible, folks. "

After she also admitted that it wasn't going all that well, I offered to give it a try and this is my attempt to be creative and functional. Notice the upright is our good old Bois D'Arc? In fact, it is the same branch as the necklace displays. Of course it's not as pretty with bark and sapwood still attached, but this was a rush job and I just didn't have time for that. The base is common whitewood, aka soft pine. I'm thinking the base needs a couple of coats of black paint. What do you think? There are 19 pegs, but it wouldn't be too hard to add more.

I will ship it unassembled, but the only assembly required is to screw in a long deck screw from the base into the bottom of the branch.

Bois D'Arc

A couple weeks ago Nancy asked me to make her something on which to display bracelets at a craft show (on Oct. 11). By coincidence, I've been thinking about some Osage Orange trees (aka Bodark, or my fav. Bois D'Arc) out at the piggery farm that were killed a couple summers ago when it was so hot and dry. The wood is nearly impervious to the things that destroy dead wood, and in fact there are 100+ year-old bodark fence posts all around and through that farm and they are still sound and strong. But my interest was as a woodworker. It's a crazy-hard wood, but it turns quite well, and Nancy's request was primarily a turning project, so this is what I did.



The round parts are Osage Orange wood, the bases I made from scraps left over from Roko's cradle. They are about 9" long and the logs lift right off the stands so it will be easy to add/remove bracelets.

A nice job turns into two

I was checking out the competition on Craigslist a few days ago and noticed a misplaced ad where somebody wanted help adjusting an “iron” entrance door. So I replied and asked for phone, directions, etc. or to call me. Next morning I had an email from the guy which included his phone #. I was just picking up the phone to call him when the phone rang from him calling me. So, I went to his house and inspected the door. It is a big, double, steel door in an arch, about 8 1/2' tall, leading into a courtyard. The upshot is that the arched door frame had been bent sideways while getting bricked in place, and that made the doors too close together and they had trouble shutting it. I concluded that one hinge needed to be cut off and moved 1/8” or so to tilt the door enough to let the two doors pass each other. It was a little over my head, but I figured I could still do it with a little help from Joe, my friendly welder. So, later we went out there and looked it over again. We loaded the door into Joe’s truck (it's too long for my Jeep) and on the way home we decided it really needed to go to a welding shop. That evening I needed to talk to the customer so I dialed the number he’d given me in his email. Wrong number, but the lady asked me who I was so I told my name and that I was calling for Clear Sky Handy Men. She said, “Handyman! I’ve been looking for a handyman. Can you do stucco?” Well, of course. So next day I took the door to a welding shop and then drove over nearly to Ft. Worth to look at this wrong number lady’s strip mall which had some wind damage to the stucco. I took photos and measured it out from a distance (it was about 15 feet up) and had Joe’s crew estimate it for her. I told Joe he could charge whatever he wants, but I’m going to add 10% for finding the lead.

BEFORE: This is a photo of a hinge on the removed door before welding (It's the big one at the bottom. Notice what a great job they did of welding it perfectly so it’s nice and smooth. --- Too smooth! It's impossible to weld that good.

IN PROGRESS: This is a photo after the hinge was cut off and re-welded. It turns out that those nice smooth edges were just epoxy, and the welder told me that actually there were only a few spot welds holding it on. As you can see he put a nice long weld on each side.

AFTER: When I got it home (I have a trailer now, big enough for this kind of job) I used plumber’s epoxy to do my best imitation.This is the welded, epoxy-ed, and painted hinge back in its door frame at the customer’s house. I turned the photo sideways so it would be oriented the same as the earlier photos. It’s not quite as pretty as the factory ones, but with its much larger welded surface it’s the strongest hinge on the two doors. And I think it looks pretty good.

This is a photo of the stucco job resulting from the wrong number call. The biggest space is supposed to be an off-white stucco about like the ground-level wall below it, and it needs to be recessed a bit. It’s about 150 sq. feet, plus those two smaller, patches that should be the darker color. I haven’t seen Joe’s estimate, yet, nor heard from the lady. I hope the job is still on. I’d hate to loose out on a good contact from a wrong number!

A normal day at our house

Well, actually it has been anything BUT normal around here. It's been fun, but not normal.

Here is a photo of Angela at work in our front room. Cell phone, laptop, and brilliant intellect all hard at work - multitasking happily.


LATER:

After all the kids were finally settled into bed and more or less quiet, we went upstairs and found this little art decor piece in the bathroom.
All the paper cups and glasses are brimming full of water, but that's not all. Here is a view of the sink.

Angela calls these "experiences from the Underworld". She asked Levi about it this morning and he said wanted to make it so that if anybody wanted a drink, it would be ready for them.
If they wanted to wash, brush teeth, or anything like that they were out of luck, but drinks were ready to go.

Today I was scheduled to take Roscoe out to the pig hunting farm to work on his shooting merit badge for scouting and to endeavor to find a trophy boar. Instead, I went south of Plano to buy a used LCD monitor (no answer at the house, no answer on the phone, but a repeat call brought an answer and they admitted they'd sold it to somebody else.) Then I drove out to Joe's farm to pick up Logan who was supposed to be helping, but was sick instead. When I returned, the Allred kids were here, so I ran some errands. When I returned, Allison was here to pick up her kids and took Roscoe and Haley with her to play at their house. So, no shooting/ camping/hunting tonight. Levi is also sick on his 2nd go-round. I was sick a couple days ago, and angela is also battling it - whatever kind of crud it is.
Liz got home a short time ago, after a long day at the office and a trip to the hair dresser. And now I'm headed upstairs to watch a few hours of mindless TV, hopefully at least some of it with little cuddle-bugs snuggling close.

Life is good.

My new solar cooling system

Summer slammed down on us several weeks ago.  So did a tornado.  On a hunch, we called our insurance company and asked them to send someone over to check our roof for damage.  We have a lot of neighbors who are missing shingles from the high winds, but we didn’t.  Still, the roof has been there for 8 or 9 years (they are “20 year”, 3-tab shingles) which can be a lot around here.  To our delight, the adjuster came and spent about an hour climbing around our roof, then reported that we need a new roof, new rain gutters, and new wind turbines.  Often they specify a single storm to blame for the claim, but this went down as cumulative hail damage.

     So we hired a roofer with a great reputation and chose our new shingles to install.  The roofer estimated a couple thousand less than the insurance adjuster, so we chose “30-year” shingles and had him do some little extras to get his price up to the adjuster’s.  But here’s the thing:  our house is very expensive to cool each summer (no big surprise in Texas), so we decided to take advantage of this opportunity to put in some solar cooling.  We chose the whitest shingles we could find.  They just happen to be top of the line, too, but it was the color that drove the decision.  The old ones were nearly black.  You can see our neighbor’s roof in the attached photo.  It is a brown tone and lighter overall than our old roof.  Not anymore!

    We’ve had the new roof for over a week now and I can confirm that they have made a huge difference.  Shortly after we got it installed, our upstairs a/c unit quit and we just lived without it for 2 days.  It wasn’t that bad up there, which was very surprising.  When I go out into my shop on a hot afternoon, it is now about 20 degrees cooler that it used to be under those conditions.  We’ve started turning off one of our a/c units at night, because the house has so much less heat load that we don’t need it.  I usually turn it back on at about noon.  This passive solar cooling system is marvelous, and it didn’t cost us a penny.  What a deal.

    So, thanks to all of you who pay your insurance premiums.  They’ve been put to good use.

<<...>>

2nd big Storm of 2008

A few weeks ago we had a lot of tree damage from a small tornado that touched down about ½ mile south of us. That one broke trees and ripped shingles off roofs all around us. Today we had another event. It was cloudy and getting quite dark, but no actual storm seemed imminent. We had a crew putting up rain gutters – all of them on aluminum ladders except for one up on the roof. All of a sudden high wind hit the house, sending lengths of gutter into the back yard. The guy on the roof headed down the sheltered side and found an overhang to cower under. Sadly for him, the storm was rotating and after the first couple of minutes it was blowing right onto him. The other guys didn’t know where he was and were calling for him when I went out and told them to take shelter. They had no English and my Spanish is limited, so I didn’t know about the guy on the roof, but they headed for their van. When I spoke to them from the front porch, I saw two trees across the street that had major branches split off and land on the lawn. In the attached photo you can see the tree branches on the ground. If you look through the branches of our mimosa tree towards the left of the photo, you can see the yellow gash where the bigger tree split. The other tree actually had a lot more damage. If you open the photo and zoom in, you can see that it just missed the neighbor's Jeep.

<<...>>

The rain lasted about a half hour and when it was tapering down the roofer we'd hired arrived to make sure the gutters were going on correctly. When he pulled up to the back of the house he saw the guy under the ledge hanging on like he was really in trouble, with wide, wild eyes showing white all around. He was OK as soon as they got a ladder up to him, but he was soaking so the crew took him to WalMart to get him something dry to wear.

This storm damage was very local – what they call a “micro-burst” – so those two trees are the only ones damaged in our neighborhood. We had a new roof that was only completed last Thursday, but it was fine. We’ve had HOT weather lately and they sealed tight within a day or so. The houses (3 or 4) to the south of us on the same side of the street got enough wind to scatter their garbage cans, but that appears to be all. I don’t like these near misses, but I’d much rather have them than a full-on tornado in the class 2-4 range.

Techno Disaster

It seems like every other year or so our computer slowly slips away into the land of old computer junk.  This may be related to the fact that I buy used PCs to start with, but still…  

The worst thing about that is that it is a pain to try to get all our old data off the nearly dead PC and load it on to the nice shiny, new one.  So, last year I bought an external 160 GB hard drive and put everything we cared about onto it.  I figured we were then safe from computer death and could just move the external drive to any new computer we chose to use. 

WRONG!

The shiny, new external hard drive crashed and burned.  It turns out that when a hard disk crashes there are several levels of how hard it is to recover data.  The worst possible is where the crash destroys the directory that tells the computer where to find files.  In that case, they need to take it into a clean room (expen$ive), disassemble it, and install it into a special drive ((expen$ive) to read it sector by sector trying to recover undamaged data.  Guess which kind ours is?  I got two quotes:  $1,100 and $1,300.   Among other things, all our photo files are on it, including last year’s photos which I hadn’t got a Round Tuitt for writing DVDs for everyone.  I have most (hopefully all) of last year’s on the old hard drive, so I can recover those.  But at some point, I made the transition to this new, “bullet-proof” hard drive and all those are gone, gone, gone.  Photos of Roko we took in Calif. – gone.  Photos of various grandchildren who have visited us this year – gone.  Photos of the great pig hunt where Keith and I took a couple of our friends to a pig-shooting ranch – gone.  Photos of this year’s Dallas Blooms where we took many photos of different kind of flowers, close-ups and landscapes – gone.  I still hope to find a way to recover.  It’s a dim hope, but the flame still flickers.

So, that’s what’s new from sad ole Grandpa.

The NeverEnding Project.

It was about a year ago that Liz and I first started thinking seriously about building a kids’ play room in a convenient corner of the attic. When Joe and family decided to move here and stay with us until they could locate a place of their own, the project went into high gear. I thought it would be an easy project, but it turned out to be a major, huge, daunting, complicated, tedious, expensive, meticulous, and lengthy project. I came home from work day after day and worked in there until 1 or 2 in the morning. My body was slowly breaking down from it and by the time Joe’s family got here I could barely use my hands. The big, heavy, framing nailer was the worst. It really put a lot of pressure on my wrists. Here’s how it went.

· Phase 1: Rerouting wires and a/c ducts passing through the space. Many wires were too short to be lifted out of the way, so they had to have special handling: cut & splice, special passageway built into the room, etc.

· Phase 2: Framing and putting down a floor. I thought it would be a matter of laying plywood across the joists, but it turned out that the joists were all at different levels and had to be built up or cut down. Also, Phases 1 & 2 merged when I nailed a piece of plywood down and the nail penetrated the insulation of 3 out of the 4 wires in a duplex 120 volt cable. Fortunately I have a friend who is a licensed electrician and he was able to help me find and fix that little booboo. The ceiling didn’t leave enough room for a full-size door. We had to get the narrowest door available (24 inches) and I cut off the bottom. This made the door handle lower than normal, which made it better for kids to use. Even with that, there isn’t enough clearance and I solved that by making a jerry-rigged recess into the ceiling where the door needs to swing.

· Phase 3: Insulation. I hate putting up insulation because it is so itchy and irritating, so you have to bundle up and wear a respirator, which makes it unbearably hot and hard to move around. The good news here is that I noticed HD had some neat foil-covered bubble wrap. It doesn’t itch at all, and it made a huge difference in how hot it got in the attic. It’s a reflective barrier, rather than much in the way of insulation, so I still had to put up bats of fiberglass, but it was a pleasant start. Last summer was relatively cool through July, which helped a lot. It meant I could get the insulation in before it got unbearably hot.

· Phase 4: Sheetrock. We were running out of time, so Liz had one of her guys from work send out a sheetrock person, and sometimes 2. I had no idea that sheetrock guys were so specialized, but I expected this guy to help me hang sheetrock, then tape and bed and finish it all off. He kept telling me he wasn’t a sheetrock guy, he was a finish mudding guy. Where he did hang sheetrock he did a lousy job – worse than me by far. He didn’t like taping and mudding. When it came time to finish the surface he was great, but the costs were skyrocketing and he just wasn’t that much help. He was here for 2 weeks and we still weren’t done, so we finally told him to go away. That left us with the job about half done, but the front half of the space was sufficiently far along that Joe’s children could use the room.

· Phase 5: Paint and finish. We primed and painted the front half blue, and I got the electrical outlets ready for use, even though they were mostly messed up from the sheetrock guy. Joe helped us lay glued-down carpet squares when he was here. We put the toys in there and the kids loved it.

It was a delight to have Joe’s family living with us, even though we were a bit crowded even with the new room.

After Joe moved into his new house, we settled into a routine without worrying any more about the new room, but that back half still needed work. Angela’s planned visit next month spurred us back into action. Joe brought one of his mudding guys over and he helped with the sheetrocking. That worked great! We knocked the sheetrock off in 2 days. I ordered a new window for the dormer, because the old one was too small, single-pane, and broken. The back room actually went much smoother and it is almost done now. I bought oversize switchplate covers, and that solved some of the worse issues with the lousy sheetrock help from the first half. I still have some molding to install and the faux fence Liz is so excited about. It is cute. The only thing we haven’t been able to complete is the wall murals. That will have to remain for the future. Forgive me the tools and work paraphernalia in the photos, but we are still working.

1. <<

...>> This was taken from the closet into the back room that has never been inhabited. You can see the window dormer and the blackboard (magnetic, too).

2. <<

...>> This is from the back room into the front room, and you can see the fence. We only have this small section up, but it will go fast. The little door goes into Mom’s attic.

3. <<

...>> This view shows the door with the clearance groove into the ceiling. It’s an insulation issue, but it couldn’t be helped and still have enough door for an adult to walk in.

We are excited to have bunches of grandkids in here next month, and getting a chance to see the whole space fully utilized.

To Earl 1999

A few years ago, my best friend-in-law, Keith, wrote a poem for my birthday.  I think it would be fair to share it so all the World will know how highly esteemed I am.

==================================================

TO EARL                      1999

In Southern Utah's sunny heat

Where first he played, a gangling lad,

In Filmore born, the county seat,

That made the folks in Delta mad.

The Ashurst name he proudly bore

He gave it new dimension,

When they passed him through the public schools

They broke with all convention.

His legs were long, his body trim

His feet were just humongous.

His smile was broad, his hips were slim,

A joy to have amongus.

Yes Earl the boy was quite a sight,

In youth he was a treasure,

He'd get his way through force of will,

Being with him was a pleasure.

But time moved on and mowed him down,

It stooped his back and shoulder.

Years fell on him like globs of gunk,

And made him dull and sober.

He lost the cutting edge of wit,

All toil was tough and tax'in,

As age o'er took him bit by bit

His frame grew stale and waxen.

The food he ate in flush of youth

Was plenty hot and fluffy.

But late in life, sans gum or tooth

His fare is bland and mushy.

While yet a boy of dashing ways

His friends were all delightsome

But now his cronies show their age

They're dull like him and frightsome.

His hair is thin and barely blond

But greyness would be tragic

So weekly now he goes to town

To buy some Grecian Magic.

His hearing once was sharp and keen

His eyes were like a hawk's,

He's a fraction now of what he'd been,

Do you bear how loud he talks?

His measured footsteps slowly fall

As if climbing up a ladder.

As at night he shuffles down the hall

To drain his ancient bladder.

So Earl, old man, rest in the sun

We think your kind of nifty,

Just take it slow, don't try to run,

For after all,  you're fifty.

Keith Taylor

==================================================

Visiting Roko

We had a very lovely trip to visit Mark and his family. Roko is way fun to hold and cuddle.
I thought some photos would be a good thing to post.

Angela got there a day before we did. Here she looks pretty happy to be holding Roko, but she got less cuddle time after we arrived: <<...>>

Here we are at the airport, just arriving and seeing Roko in person for the first time: <<...>>

This is Mark unpacking the cradle from its matching carrying case: <<...>>

Roko in his new cradle, lovingly made just for him by his Grandpa. He's got some room to grow, but it will only serve for a few months. I'm just sorry that it didn't get to him sooner: <<...>>

And I thought I ought to include a closeup of Roko so you can enjoy him a little bit. He has a cute dimple in his upper lip, don’t you think?. <<...>>

Now, on a different note: In my previous post I mentioned once or twice that I was describing the only time I ever saw my father drunk. It pleases me that he was a better father then his was. And I hope I have been a better father than he.

My first fishing pole - a sad story

Growing up in Utah, fishing season was a big deal (although not as big a deal as hunting seasons). We always went somewhere big for the opening day, if Dad could get ahead far enough in his business to take a couple of days off. We usually went to Fish Lake, or Beaver Lake, or someplace like that where you had to have a boat to play. BUT we always used Dad's fishing gear. If I wanted to go up Chalk Creek on my bicycle, I had to ask Dad to take one of his (not easy to do), or settle for a pole with fishing line tied on the end. Actually, I caught a lot of fish like that, and I lost a lot of them, too. I got to the point where I wanted my own, real fishing tackle. I was about 10 or 12 then. I decided that I wanted a Garcia, open-face reel - I think I even had a brand and model of pole I wanted. But that outfit was expensive - about $20.00, and I didn't know how I was ever going to amass that much cash. My Grandpa Stevens then made a marvelous suggestion: he suggested that I should go to Stevens Dept. store and have them put my selection under the counter, and I could make payments whenever I had a little money until I had it paid for. I was amazed that they would do that. Perhaps he greased the skids on that one. It didn't occur to me then, but it is no coincidence that Grandpa Stevens suggested Stevens Store. It was owned by his uncle.

Anyway, I went down to the store, selected what I wanted and took it to the checkout counter. Sure enough, they set it under the counter, found a shoe box and put a piece of paper in it with the cash register slip amount and the couple of dollars I had at that time. I did notice that it was the only merchandise under the counter and I wondered why more people didn't use this marvelous way to buy stuff.

So I worked at little jobs that summer, making payments whenever I could. I got a chunk of money when Grandpa told me they were harvesting onions out near the North end of town. I got there when they were almost done, but they let me do one row. They had already run a plow down the rows, which brought the onions to the surface, so we picked the onions up, sometimes we had to pull or break off a clod of dirt, and put them into burlap bags. I got paid and took the money to the store on the way home. I think it was $1.25. It went that way all summer. Then Grandpa asked me how much I still needed and I told him it was whatever it was - 3 or 4 dollars. Then he told me how one of the kids in his ward played the organ in Testimony meeting. He'd stand up, give a brief testimony, then say he'd like to play the organ, and go over and play a piece. Grandpa said he'd like me to do that in my ward, and he'd give me $5.00 if I would. So, OK! I did it during the next meeting and got my fishing pole and reel and even some hooks and other gear.

I'd been very focused on it, so everyone was very aware and my Dad took me fishing up Corn Creek (near Kanosh) to break in my new pole. I thought that was way cool. So we went up there and parked at a camping area. Dad got me started and it was going to be great. Except that several men that Dad knew arrived about then. Dad got to talking to them, and drinking with them. I felt like they stole my Dad from me, so I was kind of long-faced. Dad noticed that after a while and told me to fish on down the creek into Kanosh and he'd pick me up along the road. So I did that. I knew that it's much better to fish upstream, but I did what he said. I fished all the way down the canyon and waited for a while, then started walking back. When I got there it was nearly sundown, but when Dad noticed me, he said exactly the same thing, again. It was like he hadn't even noticed that I was gone. So I did it again. I fished all the way down and walked back up. By this time it was fully dark and Dad was really drunk, which I had never seen before. He was doing things and saying things that were unlike he ever did when he was sober. This time when he saw me, he left off drinking. I helped him over to the car and in the process, I left my new pole leaning against a tree. I was kind of scared by the whole thing, especially when Dad asked me if I could drive. Of course I couldn't! He kind of drew himself up straight and I could see that he was trying to focus and do the best he could. It was 14 miles back to our house and we got there safely, somehow. It wasn't until the next day that I missed my fishing pole, and it was too late by then. This was a hard experience for both Dad and I. Dad was ashamed and I have to say that I never saw him drunk again, although he still drinks some. Beyond the selfish concern about my pole, I was upset to see my Dad without full control of himself. I was embarrassed for him. The result was that I determined that I would never, ever drink alcohol. And I never have. The next year I started milking the cow and I made enough money to easily buy new gear. In the end, I think it was a positive thing for me to get a view of what licquor does to a man.