Warning, I don’t know when my computer is going to go down for the last time.  Very soon, methinks.  I turned it on and the display was all weird and my sound is gone.  It is in its last death throes and then I will have to find the means to put it in the shop for a while, so if you come here and I haven’t been around, that could be why.

Hmmm….Abby Normal wants a new poll, Ashley wants traffic…I want to make my blog worth taking the time to visit especially since I do seem to be picking up a little steam.  A new poll will take a little thinking.

Oh, before I forget, I need to ask someone, is it true that after you have made 100 blog entries you are supposed to do one that is “100 Things You Didn’t Know About Me?”  I mean, I have passed that point a while ago.  This entry appears to be number 118.  Then when do you have to do it again, at 200?  Why not 265?  “265 MORE things you didn’t know about me???”  Believe me, fans, friends, fiends, foes, blogophiles and just plain folks; you do NOT want to know 365 things about me.  Well, I guess I could start a little thing on the side that would have a different factoid about me every day.

For instance, let’s see, Okay, let me try this.  Since I’m doing it in Word I can just highlight and delete it if it sounds stupid.  Or just leave it up and give everyone something to laugh at.

100 things you (maybe) didn’t know about Herb:

1)      I like Western stuff.  Oops, you might know that one, unless you are new here or don’t actually know me.  I guess this can be our introduction.

2)      I like my coffee “hot and black as the hinges of hell.”

3)      I will fearlessly tilt your pinball machine when you are over 100,000 and about to beat my record but then I will be very sorrowful and repentant for the next 27 years until I find out you haven’t forgiven me anyway.

4)      I like to play Civilization III.

5)      I like to play chess.

6)      I am a rotten chess player.

7)      I mean a really, really rotten chess player.

8)      I skipped Third grade.

9)      I hate math.

10)  I only read the funnies in the paper.

11)  I only subscribe to the papers for the funnies.

12)  My perfect breakfast is 3 extra large eggs, over medium, 4 pieces of bacon, 4 slices of toast, a large glass of milk, a large glass of orange or cranberry juice, and gallons of coffee.

13)  This is one of the reasons I am fat.

14)  I usually have cold cereal with milk.

15)  Or McDonald’s # 3 breakfast, Bacon, Egg and Cheese Biscuit, hash browns, and coffee.

16)  I love lasagna.

17)  I love Garfield.

18)  And Snoopy.

19)  I love properly prepared German Potato Salad.

20)  I have a rejection e-mail from an online magazine.

21)  I get discouraged easily.

22)  I get encouraged just as easily.

23)  I have a “Yoopers” coffee mug.

24)  I don’t like giving out a bunch of personal information to total strangers.

25)  When I have to give out personal info to strangers it makes me grumpy.

26)  This is about as personal as you will likely get.

27)  I never intend to offend anyone.

28)  I often offend people.

29)  I can even offend myself.

30)  I shouldn’t get so offended so easily.

31)  I get really mad really easily and fly off the handle and say the first thing that comes out of my mouth.

32)  I almost always regret this.

33)  Sometimes I don’t regret it even a little bit.

34)  I love English.

35)  I love Shakespeare.

36)  I have a terrible head for the mechanics of business.

37)  I like intelligent critiques of my writing.

38)  I enjoy helping others with their writing.

39)  Oftentimes others know more about writing than I do.

40)  One of my best buddies is ugly and his feet stink.

41)  I once kicked him out of my house because his feet stunk so badly.

42)  I have read the “Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy” at least 42 times.

43)  I have read all five books in the H2G2 trilogy at least a dozen times.

44)  I have read the complete works of Edgar Allen Poe.

45)  And all of Sir Arthur’s “Sherlock Holmes” stories.

46)  I am working on all of Shakespeare.

47)  I am a Louis L’Amour fan.

48)  And “Hank The Cowdog.”

49)  I don’t understand why a preposition is something a sentence can’t end in.

50)  I can’t believe you made it this far down this list because I am really bored.

51)  I love puns.

52)  I had goose bumps and nightmares when I finished reading “1984.”

53)  I think everyone in the world ought to read it.

54)  And “Fahrenheit 451.”

55)  And “Have Spacesuit Will Travel”

56)  And “Dandelion Wine.”

57)  I don’t like photos of myself.

58)  My computer is five years old.

59)  These entries are getting shorter and shorter because I can’t think of 100 things that might interest anyone.

60)  I have every note, card, or picture that any Sunday School child has ever given me.

61)  Some of these people are adults now.

62)  This is taking a lot longer than I expected it would.

63)  I like to try new things as long as they are explained to me well.

64)  My favorite sandwich is Pastrami and Swiss on Rye.

65)  Or Corned Beef and Swiss on Rye.

66)  I am not superstitious about the number “6” and won’t change my order at a restaurant if the total is $6.66.

67)  I do believe in the Mark of the Beast.

68)  I believe the King James Bible is the Word of God for our time.

69)  I don’t always live by it as I should.

70)  I am a rock, I am an island (just checking to see if you’re still here.).

71)  I despise e-mails that spread Urban Legends.

72)  Or think I am stupid enough to believe them.

73)  I just hate stupid people, I think they ought to have to wear a sign that says, “I’M STUPID” so you won’t bother with them.

74)  Sometimes I need a sign.

75)  I have friends who should have permanent tattoos that say it.

76)  Knock on wood that I am not superstitious.

77)  I am also not superstitious about the number “7” and was at a camp meeting on July 7, 1977 when God was gonna come.  He didn’t.  He will when he wants to.

78)  I should have graduated in 78 instead of 77.

79)  I think retro fashions are hilarious.

80)  I’m glad I saved all my ties.

81)  I love Altoids.

82)  I think Charles Dickens is the author who comes closest to imitating real life.

83)  I think Charlie Daniel’s Soapbox  is a must-read http://www.charliedaniels.com/soapbox/soapbox.asp as is his “Open Letter to the Media from March 4, 2003: http://www.charliedaniels.com/soapbox/03/244.html

84)  I hate TV.

85)  I hate Hollyweird.

86)  I hate Madison Avenue.

87)  I love old-time radio shows, especially the comedies but can’t decide between Fibber Magee and Molly or Abbot and Costello.

88)  Tom T. Hall tells some good stories.

89)  I believe capital punishment is appropriate for some crimes.

90)  I don’t believe abortion is ever appropriate.

91)  I don’t care if you think this is a dichotomy in my nature.

92)  I think pink would be an ugly color for a gun.

93)  I like “Big Band” music.

94)  I love my new car (Thanks Margaret).

95)  I LOVE Coca-Cola.

96)  And Coca-Cola paraphernalia.

97)  And milk straight from the cow.

98)  And Wisconsin Cheese and Butter.

99)  My favorite Bible books are Ecclesiates, Job and Acts.

100)                      I am happy to be done with this list.

As the Good Book says, If you get too hung up on yourself you’re asking for trouble.

Haven't found any pictures yet, but we had such a bad hailstorm yesterday, the first day of summer and the end of Springtime in the Rockies, they had to call the snowplows out.  This is not a joke like Abby Normal did on her kids, ( http://funnygirl2.blogdrive.com/archive/335.html ) either.  I hope there are pics on the internet later to show the plows out and about.  They had to do behind the Citadel Mall and also up Carefree Circle N, where Tab's driving classes are.  Our drainage system in the south part of town, especially south Academy is very poor and we were rerouted because of flooding and she was a little late for class.  The joys of higher elevation.  Last week I-70 had what are called "snow-chain rules" in effect.

That was really the second part of the day's adventures; however, the first was going to get Tab's permit from the DMV, oh joy.  She has paid for this driving class herself because she wants to do it and I cannot teach them to drive.  I tried with Ben and I tried with Elizabeth and couldn't do it,  Tabitha took me down to 7-11 the other night and I about croaked.  I was all grabbing the wheel and stomping the floor and shouting, "Stop.  Stop.  Use your brake!  That's a truck!" etc.  It was 4 of the longest blocks in my life.

So, she works, and has her own money and realizes that the only way she will get her license is by taking a class which we can't afford but she can.  Colorado has made the requirements for teen drivers a lot more stringent over the last few years and she has to take a driving course, hold her permit for at least a year and log a minimum of 50 hours of driving time, 10 of which must be at night.

Part of the class is taking the written exam, which she passed with only one wrong.  So, off we go now to the DMV.  There used to be a lot of little local offices all over and you didn't have to drive across town to do business with them, but many offices were closed because the state didn't have money to run them.  Here in Colorado the state cannot just raise more taxes but rather any increase of any tax must be voted on by the people affected.  Kind of nice, really, but sometimes not quite flexible enough.  Point is, they had to close shop and consolidate offices, making for extremely long lines.

The local paper and the Denver papers ran reports recently where a DMV representative stated that the average wait at any office is 28 minutes.  Hahaha!  I thought they could only run stuff like that on April 1st or in the Weekly World News.  The reporters interviewed several people who reported having to take a day off work to get things done there and 4 and 4 1/2 hour waits.  That's more like it.  I decided to test it for myself.

We walked through the doors of the DMV office on Austin Bluffs with what we thought was all the proper paperwork in hand at 12:55.  You stand in a line that is wrapped against itself by those ribbony dinguses so more people can stand in the line inside of the place instead of the way it used to be where the line just went out the door and down the sidewalk.  This line, which is the line to get your number, took us 10 minutes to get through.  The woman asks you what you need and explains the process and gives you a number.  On the little number ticket she writes the time, so they have already shaved that 10 minutes off their average!  It is now 1:05.  We are 757 and they are now serving 732.

We wait and people-watch.  Abigail and I have a lot of with this.  We are amazed at how people are willing to leave their house and what they are going to have their pictures taken in.  Every once in a while they call a number, and sometimes they rattle off a whole string of numbers making everybody breathe a sigh of relief.  Someone got impatient and left or went outside for a smoke or something.

At 1:38, "757!"  We jump up and wave our ticket and holler, "We've got it we're coming" and scramble over people, stepping on children's feet and tripping little old ladies with canes, lest she should shout the next number.  Okay.  We all know teenagers would die of embarrassment if that were the case, so really we just stood up and I made eye contact with the clerk.

Most of the paperwork we had was okay, and things would have gone pretty smoothly, but the paper from the driving school instructor verifying she had passed the test had gone bad.  We were on our way to do this back when the tranny went out on the van and we were stuck on Academy at rush hour.

"These are only good for 30 days."

Drooping, aggravated, frustrated faces.

"You have 2 options.  You can either go back to the instructor and have him validate the form over again, or you can pay the $10 fee and retake the test."

She needs the permit so she can schedule some time with someone who will not grab the wheel and scream stop all the time but will actually be able to teach her something, so we will pay.

She had only gotten 1 wrong on the first test she took, but now she is flustered and this is a different test and she is only allowed to get 5 wrong and she misses 7.  (Did anybody ever used to watch Hee-Haw?  You know the song that Archie Campbell and whatever guest there was would sing, "Gloom, Despair and Agony on me...") The clerk offers to let her correct her answers, but this is not good.  The clerk, having several different versions of this test, offers to let her take a completely new test.  So, she retakes the retake and this time only gets 1 wrong!  Hooray for Tab (and dad who won't have to hear how he should have taken her before the thing expired, etc.)!  It is not 2:05.

There is no waiting for the picture line, so by 2:10 we are saying goodbye to the number lady and heading for the door.

Later that evening, we will go to the driving school through hail and flooded streets and watch in amazement as the snowplows drive along on the first day of summer.

Remember the Good Book says, "As snow in summer, and as rain in harvest, so honour is not seemly for a fool." And "Hast thou entered into the treasures of the snow? or hast thou seen the treasures of the hail..."

Well, Father's Day was nice.  Everyone wishes you well and you are king for a day.  The Wayward one called me and told me she still loves me, so that was nice.  You know, you love your kids but it is ever an amazement to me how DIFFERENT they all really are!  They can be raised in the same household with the same parents and all just be so widely different.

The ladies at church were having a bake sale and Grandma Pike asked one of the ladies to bake something special for me and she paid extra to have a special present to give to me for Father's Day.  A German Chocolate Cake!  Yum-yum!  Margaret had taken me out to lunch Friday and breakfast Saturday and made a special pork roast/stew type of thing for Sunday.

Herb, why are you writing about Father's Day so late?  Well, because I already had my entries thought up and written for the other stuff.  Sometimes I go through a dry time other times I have a lot of ideas.  Well, I always have lots of ideas, but just not always ones to write about.

Did you ever go on the rides at the fair when you were a kid?  Maybe you still do.  The outrageously overpriced amusement parks always have long lines.  Did you ever find one that you and your friend(s) liked that went up and down and round and round faster and faster and when you got off you were all dizzy and wobbly-legged and pukey and you all said, "Let's do that again?!?"  Life is like that sometimes.

Remember, the Good Book says, "Life is like an amusement park ride, full of ups and downs and going round in circles and swearing you'll never ride that ride again but getting right back on it."

I read a good article in the new "Writer's Digest" the other day.  It is the July 2005 issue with the girl on the cover who is holding her laptop as though she just won the $3000 prize in their contest.  Anyway, on page 50 there is an article by a person named Cassandra Hemenway Brush, called "Stolen Goods".  This is a good article.  I subscribe to two writing magazines for different reasons, but one of the things I enjoy about the articles here are that they are concise without being abrupt.

This article is about how to prevent your stuff from being plagiarized.  She gives you six lessons on things you can do to protect yourself from places that use content that they don't have any rights to.  Lesson one, the author gives us the most likely sounding advice of all, she says, Go Google yourself.

She did!  She told me to Google myself...oh...er...this just in... www.Google.com is a search engine.  Okay I knew that, but it still sounds funny.  So.  What is it like to Google yourself?

I Googled my name and came up with well over 14 pages of results!  Wow!  I am one popular guy, right.  Well, I found this blog on page 4 of the results.  I didn't even find my poetry that's on www.poetry.com at all.  I have some opinions about those people too.  E-mail me before you give away your work to them.

Anyway, I was really disappointed.  I thought I would have more fun googling myself.  *sighs heavily*

********

After I finished lazing about the ARC store Saturday I went to another of my favorite kinds of spots, a used book store.  This one was the "Book Rack" on South Academy, which is in the same center (what is the difference between a plaza and a mall and a shopping center, etc?) as the ARC and the lady and her cat are very pleasant.  I think cats belong in bookstores and libraries.  Anyway, I love these places, and never do the exchange thing.  I almost never get rid of a book.  If it is so bad that I don't want my children or friends and neighbors to see what sort of trash I have been reading I will usually donate them...

Back to the bookstore.  If you come to Colorado Springs, there are a plethora of new and used bookstores to choose from.  I guess I should say, "From which to choose" so I don't use a preposition to end the sentence with.  This one is pleasant, but not the biggest.  I discovered a little gem that you have heard of.  It's called, "Everything I Really Need to Know I Learned In Kindergarten" by Robert Fulghum.  Now I have seen this done as a poster with multitudinous rip-offs and satires including all I need to know I learned from my...Dog, Cat, Pig, Cow, Cheese, Bratwurst, 00 Dodge Intrepid which goes too fast, ummm, okay, so maybe I haven't seen ALL of those.  But this is a wonderful little book.  Much better (in my opinion) than the Chicken Soup books, but maybe written for a different purpose, too.

If you see it, pick it up and give it a read.  It's one of those things that you can just open up to a page and start reading and get a little something.  It is sometimes a little syrupy and not good (or possible?) to read all the way through in one sitting, but a definite must-read.  The stories are short and read like a blog (There's a silly idea some joker will come up with.  A blog that you can carry with you everywhere you go, like, take some sheets of paper, bind them up somehow, maybe you could twist a wire through the sheets to hold them together and put cardboard or plastic covers on the ends to protect them.  Then you could make a stylus like the one you use with your Palm, only fill it with ink.  You could then, here's the silly part, write directly on the paper and not even use a computer at all.  Just print directly to the paper!  Am I a genius or what?)  And are (That was kind of a long parenthetical break, wasn't it?  I wonder what the longest in literature has ever been.  Soliloquies <spelled that myself> should count, but if not, I wonder if there is a World's Record for it.  It would have to take less time to break than crawling 33 miles and be easier on the knees.  My English teacher abhorred the use of parentheses and said that if it wasn't important enough to the piece to make its own paragraph or sentence, it probably should not be included.)  Quick and sometimes humorous, sometimes (She said your readers will forget what you were saying and have to go back and sort through all that junk) poignant.

I opened it up just now and read a story about an idea for a crayon bomb to bring world peace.  I like this little book.

Remember, the Good Book says, "Flush."  Well, okay, it says to go outside the camp to a designated spot with your shovel and do your business and bury it, but I say you can shrink it down to one word of advice, "Flush."

Happy Father's Day to everyone!  I hope every dad gets exactly what he wants today and not exactly what he deserves.  You dads know what I mean.

Similar to Carter's favored sport of Dumpster Diving is my favored sport, Thrift Store shopping.  I was at the ARC store on the south end of town near the Church.  Not long ago we went to the Goodwill in Old Colorado City and found a CD of the original Broadway cast of Fiddler on the Roof!  At Borders this was 14.99, at the Goodwill it was 2.99.  I love Fiddler on the Roof!  Right now I am typing in tune to the rhythm of "Tradition!  Tradition!"  "Without our traditions our lives would be as shaky as a fiddler on the roof."  5 Daughters!  Poor Reb Tevye.  "It's no shame to be poor, but it's no great honor, either."  If you ever get a chance to see it, even an abridged version like they do at certain dinner theaters, you should.

I would love to see the Veggietales do, maybe, Veggie on the Roof.  Bob and Larry and Junior Asparagus' mom and dad, singing "Traditions."  Maybe Junior singing, "Miracle of Miracles."  "The Rumor", is already kind of in that one Veggie song where the rumor weeds tell a story.

I digress.  Let's get this digression out of here before somebody steps in it.  Anyway, I get lost in the records, recalling how careful you had to be with the vinyl disc.  And album art!  And, of course, albums that had been greatly coveted at one time.  I found several Smothers Brothers albums one time and of course I recorded them to tape.  There is something about listening to a phonograph record and looking at the album cover, reading the liner notes, even the ads for other records from that company.

I like having time to dawdle and diddle-potz.  I saw a pair of Tony Lama boots for 12.99, but they were size 11 1/2 and I were a 10.  Probably my favorite section is the books.  This is where you have to really take time and look at every title.  Books are the most amazing study of all.  When you are at a thrift store you have to remember that the people who are shelving the books do not necessarily know or care if they are in the correct category, so sometimes you have to really look at every book.  At the ARC they have people who are just working to put in time for community service (Yes, Soosan, some people actually get in trouble for driving too fast.  Wonder if any Mounties caught her while she was in Canada?)  And don't always have the best attitude toward their work.

So, you have to scan the titles and pull books off the shelf and hold them in your hand and read the title and page through it.  Some books from the fifties and sixties seem silly now but sometimes you can find some jewels.  Today I found a book by the Cowboy Poet, Baxter Black, called "Horseshoes, Cowsocks and Duckfeet" for 1.50, and Bowdrie's law by Louis L'Amour for .35!  I saw something else that caused me to wonder.

There on the Science Fiction shelf was Vladimir Nabokov's "Lolita."  Here is a book that has pushed a lot of buttons in its time.  For those in my foreign audience that may not be familiar with this work, it is about a middle-aged man who falls in love/lust with his young (12, maybe?)  Step-daughter, has an affair with her and the whole thing ends with a murder.  I may not have all the details exactly right because I have never actually read it myself but I have read enough about it.  It is one of THOSE books that libraries are constantly called into question about.  I suppose it must have some literary value as it does wind up in the library.  You can do an online search of your library's card catalog and see if you have it.  Pikes Peak Library District does.  They even offer an annotated version.  I don't think I want to go there in a family blog!

When I was young there was a section in library that you could only go to if you were eighteen.  I would suppose it would go somewhere like that, but perhaps I am naively mistaken.  The library is very much like Alice's Restaurant, you can get anything you want.  Did you know that the complete writings of the Marquis De Sade are available?  Oh, stop it.  I haven't read it, either or American Psycho, for that matter, which I did read excerpts of in the newspaper and was pretty shocked.

I had a point in all that, but I don't think it had anything to do with library policies.  But seriously, while a PUBLIC library (emphasize public versus school or private) ought to be a repository of all learning and literature, I do wonder now if our library system does have any safeguards in place to protect the underage from accessing some of these materials.

Oh, sorry, more digression.  Anyway, there she was, on the Sci-Fi shelf at the ARC.  I don't want to read it and even if I did, if I were to bring such a thing home, I might as well pack up the old kit bag and march right on back out the door because Margaret would never tolerate such rot.  It did set me to thinking about the freedom we often take for granted, the Freedom of the Press.  Not too many countries where such a book on such a concept could be allowed to be published.

I also wondered about who might have donated it and why?  Do you ever do that?  Wonder about why someone would donate, oh, anything really, but especially books?  Okay, "The Writer's Markets" 1972 edition, yep.  An 1898 printing of Jules Verne's "A Tour of the World in Eighty Days" with a valentine stuck in it (I picked this up one time for .75).  And Lolita?

"Honey, I'm home from the bookstore.  You should see the great book I picked up!"

"Mm-hmm.  That's nice dear.  What was it?"

"Oh, just some little murder mystery thing."

"Mm-hmm.  What is it dear?"

Sounds of rage drift down the block...crashing dishes, thuds, bangs, whacks...the police arrive as the man is being tossed off his porch, still clutching the bag from the bookstore, his wife, sweety-face, screaming at him that he better take it back to the store and get a bird book or he might as well not come back.

In the hospital where the man is getting his jaw wired back together the little man asks the nurse to dispose of the book for him.  The nurses all take turns reading it on break (Okay, so now you know this is fiction.  Whoever heard of a nurse getting a break.  Gotta work on my characterizations, some, but, alas, I am too far into my little story to turn back, now) and they wind up telling one of the doctors about it, who remembers that he has a bag of things his wife had given him to donate to the thrift store and offers to take it along with him.

Well, except for the nurses getting a break and having time to read, it could have happened that way...

Remember the Good Book says, (You guys may not remember when I started saying this, but it was after I saw Fiddler on the Roof and copied Reb Tevye's saying...sometimes serious, sometimes not so) "I will set no wicked thing before mine eyes"

(Okay, so I didn't get this posted until Tuesday, yesterday WAS Monday the 13th, after all.)

Greetings, fans, friends, fiends and foes.  I haven't got much to say, but as you know, that has never stopped me from saying it before.  (Soosan, There was an article in the new Writer's Digest about writer's block possibly being laziness, go figure)  I guess some random stuff.  I have a couple of ranting tirades I could go on, but actually I am in a pretty good mood today.

Well, blogophiles, I wound up at the main blogdrive screen, www.blogdrive.com because my password had expired or something and glanced at the "blogdrive favorites" list.  One that caught my eye was called, "Abby Normal."  It sounded interesting and it was.  A veritable plethora of subjects all looked at with a good-natured mild humor.  Exceptionally well-written and articulate, http://funnygirl2.blogdrive.com/ is definitely a must-read.  Not a lot of slow-loading graphics to bog you down, either.

Some blogs and websites are so full of graphics and fancy little gizmos and gewgaws that by the time the page loads I can't figure out what you meant to say.  Sometimes a simple smiley is better than a rocket full of fireworks.  Like writers who feel they must emphasize every line with an exclamation point or several!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I mean, really!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anyway, the variety and readability is equal to that of Sam's blog http://samsam.blogdrive.com/ which I read every day.  In fact, Sam's I went back and read all of his entries from the very beginning and I am going to try that with this new one.  As time permits, of course.

I am loving the new car.  A double-ought Dodge Intrepid.  It is wonderful and such a joy to drive.  Soosan, http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=sbalak will be interested to know that it is way too easy to go way too fast in this car.  I barely touch the accelerator and find myself going along at 65, feeling like it's 20.  It has some "oomph" to it.  I haven't had opportunity to "see what this baby can do", but she ain't no slouch, that's for sure.

So, any triskaidekaphobics out there?  It is Monday the 13th as I am sure that Garfield will quickly point out today.  Oh, and yes I did spell Triskaidekaphobia by myself, thank you very much Ashley http://ashleylintner.blogdrive.com/ . 

Some other blogs I read are (this is not a complete list, of course):

http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=CrzyTexasChiq

http://nicoler.blogdrive.com/

http://jincruise.blogdrive.com/

http://clintsday2day.blogspot.com/

http://skullbone.blogdrive.com/

http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=kelbel53185

And don't forget to read the assorted writings of my various friends on http://herbsfriends.blogdrive.com/ All you have to do is ask and I will invite you to write on it.

 Well, I will not get this posted if I don't post it so I am going to post it.

Remember the Good Book says, "In the Beginning God..."

The van is officially going to cost more to fix than what it is worth.  With the tranny, master brake cylinder, door that won't shut and coolant leak it will cost over $4000 to fix.  It was given to us for a thousand and the blue book value is not that high.

Now what?  Well, now we are going to buy one from the guy we have been renting from.  If you need a rental car when you are in town for the Heritage Conference (or not, Soosan) I would have to recommend "AA Auto Rental."  Not only are they honest and fairly priced, they also will work with cash and debit cards.

Anyway, the car we are getting is a 2000 Dodge Intrepid.  It is a nice, full-sized car that fits grandma's walker, the hot-rod Hugo, in the trunk and can seat the five of us comfortably, especially if we are going a short distance, like to church.  We might could take a longer trip in it, though.

This is the newest car I will ever have owned.

*****

Something I have been reflecting on is a story in the paper about a U.S. Army sergeant in Iraq who saw a grenade tossed in the middle of his men and without stopping to even think about it, he threw himself right on top of it and saved his men.  He gave his life for his men.  The U.S. military is made up of thousands upon thousands of men and women just like this.  How could someone not be proud?

We decided to celebrate our 25th anniversary despite of all the stupid car trouble and everything else.  Yes, Carter, it's been 25 years since you stood by Margaret's side as her maid of honor.  Well, maid is too nice a word to describe you in those days, but this is a family blog.  Yes, we needed 2 witnesses and Mike had (by accident or design, I'm not sure) strategically placed himself next to me and was my best man.  Carter stood next to Margaret.  No "maiden fair" to be sure, but for the last 25 years we have told people how Carter was the maid of honor there in Judge Thomas Grover's little office in Shawano, WI.

It was 25 years since we had planned on having a church wedding on June 7th and then were told we couldn't because we were bad examples, so Margaret came up to Shawano and we got married by a judge on the 5th.  Of course, we were told that we wouldn't last 2 weeks, let alone 2 years, so I guess you can see what stubbornness can do.

We had originally planned to celebrate this anniversary in a big way, including a bed & breakfast in Leadville, but with a minimum of $3500 worth of repairs coming up on the van along with the decision of whether the repairs would cost more than the van was actually worth and does it need to be replaced, we had to streamline our ideas.  We upgraded our rental to a '04 Suzuki Aerio, which fits us okay.  Since we have Grandma, poor Abby has to sit in the middle in the back and while there is a seatbelt there, it is not the most comfortable spot.  No doubt about it, though, we do have more room than in the Swift.

Margaret had 4 days of vacation, the 3rd thru the 6th, our actual anniversary being on the 5th.  We decided to do some sightseeing in Colorado Springs and Manitou Springs.  I slept in until around 5:00, Margaret slept in until 6:30.  Then we started out with a good breakfast at the "Western Omelette" restaurant.  A locally owned place, it is well worth the price, which was not exorbitant.

Manitou is a very interesting place and there are many different types of people there.  Many different types of spirits, as well.  A lot of "New Age" and "Metaphysical" shops there.  Along with that though, there are many nice shops and many nice people.  You can take a walking tour of the Springs (Manitou has 9 springs, Colorado Springs has 0 but when our founder named the town he planned it to be a resort town and thought it had a nice ring to it.) and drink form them.  They taste a lot like different flavors of seltzer water, really.  It's fun and very tasty.  A group of daycare kids were at one talking about how they drank soda at a fountain.

So, Friday, day, we spent in Manitou shopping.  Margaret found a nice denim skirt at a place called "The Cotton Club."  Having taken interest in my Irish heritage of late, we stopped in a shop called "Everything Irish."  The shop was run by a couple of little old gals who were, um, how to be genteel about this, um, not the brightest stars in the constellation.  Perhaps the little people were playing a joke on them, I don't know.  They did not have a lot of useful information and the only coffee mug they had with the correct coat of arms on it had the name misspelled.  I will probably give them the benefit of the doubt and go back again and see if they can be of any assistance.

We ate at a place that says it is an European restaurant, but the special was a BLT.  Go figure.  Margaret's blood sugar had started to drop and we needed to do something.  The highlight was going to the "Flying W" Ranch in the evening.  Some of you have been there, but many of you may not be familiar with it.  They have a western town set up with little museums and, of course, shops all around and you walk around and look at the stuff until it is time to eat.  They prepare an authentic cowboy, chuck wagon style dinner, (except it's tasty and edible) and this year they have added steak.  The original menu was bbq beef brisket, beans, baked potato, applesauce, and spice cake, served on a tin plate.  A few years back they added chicken to the menu, which allows for one of Scotty Vaughn's famous lines, which he sets up by saying how he never really wanted them to change the menu as he doesn't think it would be authentic.  Cowboys on the range would not have had it and, well, you have to agree that there's something just not western about roping a chicken.  This year they added steak.  You pay extra, of course, but I thought it was worth it.

Then the second oldest cowboy band in America (only "The Sons of the Pioneers" have been around longer) comes out and does a stage show of Western music (as opposed to Country & Western music) and comedy that is just great.  Both Scotty Vaughn and Vern Thompson are friends of mine (Vern is an honest businessman and leader of the band) and when Scotty came onstage with the preliminaries he made a big deal about us.  Then when they started their first song, while they were doing it, Vern says, into the mike, "25 years!  That's great!" and makes a couple of other comments.  Of course all night long we had everyone congratulating us.  We were sort of pseudo-celebrities.  This is a definite "must-see" attraction here.  I have every one of their albums and Scotty's book.  You can get little snippets of some of their stuff or order from them at http://flyingw.com/

That's the first night.

Saturday, the 4th, before we decide we are running a little low on money we decided to stay at a place in Manitou Springs called the "Alpine Motel" which has a king-sized bed and in-room hot tub.  It is a mom-and-pop operation and they are going to tear the place down after the season is over and re-build it as a "Comfort Inn."  This rather shocked me, but she said the "mom-and-pops" can't compete with the big chains that offer things like high-speed internet.  They are going to strike while the iron is hot and while they are still doing okay.  They have a great location and she seems pretty savvy, business-wise.

In the parking lot on the way to the ice machine I met a metaphysical cowboy.  He drives a truck, but broke his rotator cuff and was in physical therapy for two months.  Before I could ask him why he hadn't holistically healed himself he anticipated my question (probably having heard it before) and good-naturedly explained that he didn't know why he couldn't help himself.  His business card says he is a "gifted cowboy" and can do, among other things, Holistic Healing for humans and animals, clairvoyant, philosopher and scholar of ideas.  None of this silly throwing ropes and branding calves.  He looked and acted the part of a cowboy, though, and actually was nice to talk to.  He said what a lot of people say about Manitou, though and that is that there are a lot of bad vibes there.  It is some sort of spiritual center but that's a topic for a different day as we didn't care about any of that stuff, hey.

We went to the "Iron Springs Chateau" that evening which offers all-you-can-eat bbq beef and chicken (guess beef brisket and chicken are pretty cheap) and afterwards a melodrama where you "Boo" and "Hiss" the villain, Snivley Backlash, cheer the hero, Dudley Dobetter, "Oooo" and "aaaahhh" the lovely heroine and "hubba-hubba" the vamp.  It was really great.  Afterwards they have a vaudeville style sing-along and then what they call a vaudeville-style olio.

The main show would be rated "G" or possibly "PG" up to this point.  The olio is, in my opinion a "PG-13" although if you gave the melodrama a "PG" (I gave it a "G") then you might give the olio an "R".  I thought it was funny.  There is one part where the vamp comes out in this evening gown singing a song called "My Heart Belongs to Daddy" and she picks out various men in the audience and sits on their laps and sings to them, playing with their hair.  It may be too sexy for some.  I was sitting by an inside wall and did not have to worry about Margaret murdering me after the show.  It was a great time and while I wouldn't recommend the olio portion for everyone, I would definitely say you should see the melodrama.

Sunday morning I slept in until 7:30!  We went and had breakfast at "Uncle Sam's Pancake and Steak House."  This was great.  All American food in a biker-friendly environment.  Well, there was a sticker on the door that said "Biker-Friendly" so you know the food and the service had to be halfway decent.  It was good.

This morning I got up and took Tabitha to work while Margaret slept in until 8:20!  You'd think it was still vacation or something.  But today we go looking for a car.  Oh joy.

Remember the Good Book says, Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth.

I was listening to the song, "The Battle of New Orleans" by Johnny Horton the other day.  Actually, I like the version with Eddy Albert singing better, but Mr. Horton was a history teacher and wrote several songs (Does anyone have his album?) like this including "The Sinking of the Bismarck" and others.  Then I heard "The Ballad of the Green Beret" later on.  This was Memorial Day, of course.  I can hear snatches of the tunes in my head, "Fighting soldiers, from the sky..." "We fired our guns and the British kept a-comin' but there wasn't nigh as many as there was a while ago..."

These are songs about Americans and the American Spirit.  Americans are a peculiar bunch, to say the least and fighters and explorers and leaders.  (Who has time to talk about Texans individually?  Besides, Texans are Americans.)  I guess I was thinking about the kind of people that came here in the first place.  If you think there is intolerance now, try being burned at the stake for what you believe.  "Very well, if you heretics want to have your own little beliefs and teach new things, then go on over to the New World.  Get out, don't come back or we'll burn more of you at the stake."  I hope it is obvious that I am trying to capture the spirit of the thing, not the accurate historical record.

These are some desperate folks.  Okay.  Let's get on a rat-infested, disease-ridden rickety sailing ship and go, then.  We know what we believe in is true.  September 16, 1620 they left and arrived November 21 to a New England winter.

Desperate folks, that love being able to worship as they will and basically free (as free as the social mores of the time allowed) to do what they pleased.  They loved Freedom.

What sort of desperate man would stand up in the face of the strongest empire in the world and say things like, "Caesar had his Brutus, Charles the First his Cromwell and George the Third-may profit by their example." And "The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; but to the vigilant, the active, the brave...There is no retreat, but in submission and slavery!  Our chains are forged!  It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter.  Gentlemen may cry peace-but there is no peace...What is it that gentlemen wish?  What would they have?  Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?  Forbid it, Almighty God!  I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!"

What a radical madman!  Too bad the founding fathers didn't know about Ritalin or Prozac.  What bunch of lunatics would come up with:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government..."

As a sidenote, when a local newspaper showed the sentence, "it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government..." to people at a mall and asked them if they would sign it, they freaked out.  Most people thought this was a radical plot!  Well, I guess it was, huh?

I cannot tell all about what kind of people are here.  My German Great-Grandfather, serving in the German Army but disagreeing with the Kaiser's politics.  Saving every bit of money he had, when it came time to go on leave, he booked passage on a sailing ship and came here.  What if he'd been caught?  Why would he take such a risk?  We are a nation of risk takers.  My Irish Great-Great-Great (I think) leaving a starving land.

I have made kind of a hatchet job this morning of what I meant to be a tribute to the American Spirit.  But let us suffice it to say that we are a fiercely independent, fearless lot that believes in democracy and freedom from oppression for all people.  We believe in standing up for what is right even though everything may be against us.

Brave men down through our history, even to today, have given all.  They have bought for us all and for people that need our help, the God-given rights to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

The Good Book says, "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."

Unless you are a fan of the Doctor Demento Show you have probably never heard a song that says, "Rental cars are really great/driving over speed bumps at a hundred and eight.../you can crash it/you can smash it/'cause it's only a rental car."  We had to rent a car since all we ever do is drive, and try to do it without a credit card or worse yet, with cold, hard cash!  There is a place in town here that will do it, called AA Auto Rental.  Very nice people to do business with and they took the debit card with no problem.  The problem came in because I had asked for the cheapest car they had.

This would be a 2001 Suzuki Swift.  Well, let me tell you one thing I have discovered.  The Suzuki Swift might be very good on gas and have nice, comfortable seats, but there is one thing it lacks.  It is not a family car.  Try fitting 3 adults and 2 teenagers in one.  The only thing worse than getting everybody in is getting them out.  It looks like the circus where all the clowns get out of the little car.

So, we set out for church.  Grandma's new walker, the one I call the "Hugo Hotrod" will not fit by any stretch, so she has to use the old one that has the worn-out tennis balls on the bottom so it makes a lovely screeching sound on the tile.  She has to sit up front.  We get to church and it is going to be an awards ceremony for our Christian school.  That's nice.  Until someone comes out with a dozen roses and there are flowers, roses, all over the church.

"Why, that must have smelled beautiful!" you say.  Oh sure, that may be true enough, except for one small detail.  Margaret is deathly allergic to them.  She has always been allergic to roses, but the last several years her asthma has gotten worse and she goes into a killer asthma attack.  'Tis the season for allergy related asthma and she has had two attacks already this week, one involved calling an ambulance.  Thus, here I am at home, waiting to see what happens next, although the way it stands now, the inhaler is working just fine.

Some people use perfumes and sprays and don't really think that there is a possibility that someone may not appreciate the gallon-and-a-half of perfume they wear because they are too lazy to bathe...oops.  Did I say that?  What I meant was that, er, while you may have a nice smelling perfume, aftershave, cologne remember, a lot of times little is much.  Just because you can't smell it a mile away doesn't mean that the rest of us can't.  Remember, perfumes and colognes are actually meant to be a little more intimate, to draw another person closer, and do not need to be smelled from a half mile away.  Actually, besides triggering people's allergies you can, in fact, make people want to stay a little more than a half a mile away.

Every guy in the country, possibly the world, is suddenly going, in guy-like delayed reaction style, "Whoa!  Wait a minute!  What do you mean your wife is allergic to roses?  What do you do when there's a special occasion, like an anniversary or birthday or forgotten anniversary or forgotten birthday?"  Well, fellers, I save a bundle of money, just like in the car insurance commercial.

Gals, if you think I sound unromantic you will just have to talk to Margaret and see if she thinks I am.

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It appears that the inhaler has worked.

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Remember, the Good Book says, "To every silver lining there's a cloud."