Greeting and felicitous salutations, ‘blog fans.  I don’t know if I have enough to fill an entry.  My idea pump seems to be jammed.  Well, actually, I have several good ideas and suggestions, but I just don’t feel like working on them.  I know you come here for news and to see what’s going on and read what I have to say, so maybe I will just sort of ramble until I get to where I want to go.

Hmmm, Tabitha, my middle daughter, is going to West Coast Conference with one of the women from our church.  This will be her second time out to California, but her first at something like this.  She’s pretty excited.  She is using her own money to finance the trip completely.  She has a part-time job in a Vet’s office as what I describe as an "Animal CNA."  She helps with surgeries, anesthesia, cleaning cages and walking dogs.  She started out as a volunteer and they liked the way she works so much that they put her on the payroll.  The money she doesn’t spend on books or her porcelain doll collection or going out to eat with the young people, she puts in the bank.  She must get her frugality from her mom, but at any rate she had this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity come up and she is going to take it.

Okay, what is with the comics?!?!?  I just read where Doonesbury is going to use the "f" word.  A number of papers are not running the strip, but if you want to see it you can go to the newspaper’s office.  You know, as I said before, move all of the blatantly political comics to the Op-Ed section.  I think the funnies should be funny.  There is so much innuendo in so many of them it is almost to the place that parents ought to pre-read the comics before letting their kids look at them.  Oh, don’t even bother with your self-righteous, "what about the First Amendment and censorship and all that other hand-wringing claptrap?"  Well, I say, what about common decency, courtesy and just plain nice manners?  They can say what they want and so can I.  It is time that all of us, myself included, started showing that we do care.

Let’s see, what else is news?  Elizabeth’s friend from college has been coming to church the last several services and seems to be enjoying himself.  She is working very hard and doing something that has not been done in this family before.

Abigail is off being grounded so the phone lines around the country will start heating up once again.  We have this deal through Qwest that you pay five cents a minute up to a cap of twenty dollars.  This month’s phone bill didn’t even have all the minutes used up!  She calls all of the friends she met at Heritage Conference and any of the relatives that want to talk.  She is the friendly one in this bunch.

It’s sometimes hard to know what’s going on with Ben and Isabel and the baby because they run with a different gang than us and are always so tired out from work that they have a hard time making it to all of the scheduled church services there are.  They do make it to Sunday morning, but I am usually preoccupied with Sunday School and getting it together that I can’t take advantage of that time.  I tried foregoing my Sunday nap, but then I just sit on the couch and fall asleep while everyone is talking, anyway.  Perhaps we just need to pray about his job situation so it will be easier for him to make it to church on other nights as well.

The critters have all been pretty well-behaved, so I guess this is about the end.

Remember, as the good book says, "Never spit in the air or it will land in your face."

When I was growing up and even to this day when I am around certain relatives and people who have known me since I was young, and some elderly folks, I bore the moniker, "Little Herbie."  Man, I hated that.  I hated to be called Herbert, too, because there was NObody even close to my age that had a name like Herbert!  What were my parents thinking to name me Herbert and allow people to call me "Little Herbie?"

Okay, now that the giggling, laughing, chortling, chuckling snorting and outright guffawing have simmered down I will tell you.

My dad used to talk about his brother all the time.  He often tells the story of how, when he was a little boy, growing up on the farm with 11 brothers and sisters, his older brother, Herbie, bought him a train set for Christmas.  In the 1930s, times were tough, you did not have a lot of money, and you did not get many "things."  You had to use your imagination to play games, there was no Nintendo, no TV and you might get to listen to the radio if you finished your chores and didn’t have something more fun to do.  My dad cherished the toy train and valued it so much, that when other kids would come over to visit, he would put it away in his closet so they wouldn’t see it and possibly wreck it.  He cherished his brother even more.  His brother was a hero to him as well.

My dad wanted to sign up for WWII, but his hearing was bad and he was a little young and they wouldn’t take him.  My German grandfather wanted to fight, but the Army told him, as politely as they could, that he probably needed to be home with all those kids.  That’s when my uncle volunteered.  He went down and signed up and the whole family, the whole town, really, was very proud of him.  It appears from what little I know of it that Herbie was a popular fellow in the town of Saukville, WI and he was a hero before he even did anything.  That was how it was in WWII and how small towns were and are.  The town’s American Legion post, Landt-Thiel post #470, is partly named after him.

A new guided missile technology used by the Germans made a deadly hit on the boat and killed over a thousand troops (1015) and the government feared there would be panic if the news got out that the Germans had this rocket-powered technology.  This was almost as many American troops dead as Pearl Harbor, but while the USS Arizona and the USS Indianapolis were becoming household words, the poorly manned, British-owned, Indian operated HMT Rohna, was being swept under the carpet.  The maritime disaster of the HMT Rohna was not covered by the news at the time and actually appears to have been suppressed by the government.

There were many heroic deeds done that day and my dad still chokes up after all these years every time we talk about his brother, but there is one thing he points out with every telling.  My uncle wanted to do the right thing.  He knew joining the military and serving his country was the right thing for him to do, but he also had a secret.  He told my dad that he would go and do what he had to do, of course, but he really did not want to kill anyone and had prayed he wouldn’t have to.  His prayer was answered.

The link I am putting in this story, which I hope will work, is to a web page about my dad’s hero, http://marsss0.tripod.com/rohna.html  The link to the creator’s e-mail is broken, but I am thinking it was done by one of the many cousins I have not stayed in touch with.

Here is the link to the page about the disaster itself http://www.rohna.org/

I hope the links comes through as such and you don’t have to "Cut & Paste" to see it, but even so, I think it’s worth it.

So, anyway, I have learned that I have a name to be proud of and when my Grandmother and aunts and uncles would call me "Little Herbie" it was an honor I didn’t understand.  And no, don’t you even try it, because I might find some way to "honor" you.

Remember, as the Good Book says, "If you pay an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth the world will be full of toothless blind people."

Greetings Blog Fans,

Sorry I haven’t done anything new for a couple of days.  I guess I am in something of a slump.  Yesterday I slept in until 5:00 and Sunday I stayed in bed until 6:00!  Sunday I had kind of an excuse, though.  Saturday night we (my family plus Ashley) stayed up past one working on a fruit basket mobile for Sunday School.  This may not sound like a lot of work to do but when you have to make enough for 30 kids it takes a while.  They liked them, though.  We had little paper bowls that we punched holes in and then pasted the fruits onto old manila envelopes and tied strings to them and knotted them together.  The kids had to color them and tie the strings to the baskets.  It should have been done sooner but you know people’s schedules often reflect the fact that they are human.  It was a lot of fun.

It was our monthly "Homespun" class where our pastor’s wife takes all of the married couples and has classes on a variety of subjects.  The unfortunate thing for our class is that we are directly above them so when we sing, "Father Abraham" or "I am the Lord’s cowhand, yeehaw!" or "I’m in the Lord’s Army" we tend to be a little disruptive.  Anyway, on these days I am back in my old role as head teacher and I wind up working with someone from the "College and Careers Class" and whoever else they can draft.  Not just any old body can be a Sunday School teacher, either.  Of course I am responsible for everything that happens or doesn’t happen.

We sang "He’s a peach of a Savior" and a few other songs then Ashley read them a short story from Bill Bennett’s "Book of Virtues" about a boy whose "please" didn’t get enough exercise in his mouth.  Great story.  I had this empty basket and a bag full of fruit I had labeled with the names of the 9 fruits, Love, Joy, Peace, Longsuffering, Gentleness, Goodness, Faith, Meekness, and Temperance.  Well, kids like visual things.  They learn better the more of their senses that you involve.  So seeing, smelling, tasting, the fruit made the lesson more tactile and 3-dimensional.

I made Longsuffering a lemon and told about how my Grandma had taught me to make lemonade.  Many of them had similar experiences, which they shared. Six and seven year olds have a lot to share.  Actually that part of the lesson was for me.

Okay.  I can still pop my cheek and am a little kid myself.  That’s why they like me and talk to me and why I get in trouble sometimes.  Kids have to see what’s going on so they all scramble to the front of the room, which makes a bunch of noise downstairs.  While this was going on one of the little girls fell down.  A child who is occasionally dramatic and needed comforting from one of the teachers while I went on with the lesson.  Well, the little girl falling distracted me and my rhythm was off, so when i reached into the bag and pulled out the Apple of Goodness it slipped out of my hand, flew across the roomful of kids, which started them screaming and clonked a boy in the front row right on the head.  Well, we were all laughing together out loud when the door was opened and an usher walked in and said we were making too much noise.  Here was an opportunity to show firsthand what "Meekness" is.

We all settled down, went on to make the craft at the end, which the kids thought made much cooler hats than mobiles, and had "Fruit Cocktail" for a snack.

When I get done with Sunday School I go home and crash.  It is exhausting and I do not see how schoolteachers do it.  While I am not a fan of the public school system, I do think the teachers are often vilified for things they have no control over.  Obviously with any job or any group of people, you will always have lemons and clunkers, but I believe that most schoolteachers are sincere, honest people who do an incredible amount of work for very little pay, especially if you add up not only the hours worked in the classroom, but the preparation time and everything else.  Usually it is a school board or a principal or the Teacher’s Union that is behind the problem.  Those things and parents who are uninvolved and unconcerned and uninterested, until little Herkimer comes home with a bad report card which must be the teacher’s fault even though nobody ever made Herky do his homework or talked with him about what he was learning or anything else.

So anyway, teach your kids their Memory Verse for Sunday School and talk to them about their homework and remember, as the good book says, "If you’re having a bad hair day, put a wig on it and smile anyways."

I never had an opportunity to see "Fiddler on the Roof" before, but I got to last night!  What a great play.  Memorable songs and music, good story, great acting it was a real treat to go.  We had to wait until yesterday’s paycheck to buy the tickets and we got the last four.  Our tickets were scattered around the venue but we got them just in time.  Elizabeth had seen it before and stayed home with grandma.  Margaret offered to let her go, but she has to try to figure something out for her research paper so Margaret, Tabitha and Abigail went with me.  Tabitha paid for her own ticket the way she is paying for her trip to the West Coast Conference and her porcelain doll obsession, er, collection, with money she made at her own job!  Margaret and Tabitha had both seen it before, but Abby and I had not.  Afterward they said they had never seen the full-length 2 hour and 55 minute Off-Broadway performance of it.  We didn’t get home until after 11:30 last night but it was worth it.

What was my favorite part?  That’s a toughie.  The whole thing was.  I thought the way Tevye kept saying, "As the Good Book says..." then at one point when he’s talking to God he says, "I don’t have to tell you what the good book says!"  Or where Perchik, "the Radical" tells Tevye, "Money is the world’s curse!" and he says, "May the Lord smite me with it.  And may I never recover!"  The scene with the Butcher’s Wife was lost on me because there was a problem with the sound, but I kind of got the general idea anyway and Tabitha told me how it was when she had seen it.

My favorite song would have to be...well, wow, there’s another toughie.  I guess, "If I Were a Rich Man" probably would be the most fitting but they were all good.  "Sunrise, Sunset" was beautiful and true.  The Bottle Dance was great, too.

Abigail made an interesting comment.  She compared the way the traditions were broken down one by one, little by little, with the way some churches have slowly allowed one little thing after another to change and churches that all used to believe the same things started letting up on the things they preached.  Fifty years ago they all basically preached against the same evils and stood up against them, now there are many that don’t preach anything is wrong, and that didn’t change overnight.

The Fiddler was probably the strangest and most interesting part of the whole play.  I’m glad I got to see the whole thing.  I thought the Fiddler, the symbol of Tradition, was one of the more important and interesting players, even though it was a seemingly minor role.

I cannot remember everything, only having seen it once.  I can remember that it was both humorous and moving at the same time.  Probably the most touching part was toward the end, when Tevye, with his back turned, in a barely audible voice tells Fyedka and his daughter, "God go with you."  That was very memorable.  I guess now I have a reading assignment because I will want to remember everything and I am also interested in the stories that inspired it.  I suppose now I will have to pay my library fines.

Anyway, it was an exciting evening and a really wonderful time, but, Oy, getting up in the morning!  I slept in until 4:30 this morning!  Tabitha doesn’t have to work today and Margaret is sick, so it’s just me right now.

Thanks for reading and remember, As the Good Book says, when a poor man eats a chicken, one of them is sick.

Greetings ‘blog fans!

Blog.  Now there’s a word for you.  I had a hard time finding out the proper spelling of it.  Oh, yes way, really!  I did so try to look up the spelling of it.  Spelling errors just drive me up the wall.  I cannot stand the thought that I have misspelled or misused a word and there are some people who don’t even care!  I shudder at the very thought of using affect for effect or except for accept.  Others can do it, but I just cringe to even think about such a possibility.

Now there are some of my friends and correspondents who do not feel this way at all.  They take the position that if a word is used a certain way long enough, even though it is used improperly or inaccurately, then the Whole English language should be changed and a new meaning adopted because obviously that’s how people want to use it.  They point out how words from 400 - 500 years ago are either no longer used or their meanings are completely changed.  There are many examples in Shakespearean writings of this.  They also are quick to point out that in the time of the Founding Fathers all spelling was done phonetically.  They say the language is a fluid, evolving, living thing and changes and should change all the time.

I say, "Phooey!"  The only people in Elizabethan times who could read and write were the rich, the landed gentry, and the nobility.  Since these were the "educated" classes, it was their responsibility to maintain the language and its meaning.  As far as the Founding Fathers go, well, I would suppose that if you are a little pipsqueak of a group of colonies fighting to be free from tyranny and no one has passed down any hard and fast rules of spelling or usage to you, you might be allowed the occasional misspelling now and then because you were busy fighting for Life, Liberty and The Pursuit Of Happiness.

Okay, so I don’t always take people to task for it as I should, in fact, I generally try not to say anything to most people.  The exceptions (not acksepshuns) are those people that make a point to let you know how educated they are.  I especially cannot stand to be reading along in a book and discover a misspelling.  I don’t mean a non-published manuscript, but a published book that was run once through "spell-checker" and sent to press!  Newspapers and magazines do this too and it aggravates me to no end.  There are supposed to be editors and proofreaders who catch this sort of thing!

So, anyway, I wanted to learn, once and for all, the correct way to spell ‘blog and I never really did find out.  That it is a shortened form of the word "weblog" I know, but is it a word on its own, yet?  Do we still need to keep the apostrophe to be correct?  That goes against my beliefs about the language, but if we are going to make it a word of its own, let’s gets rid of the apostrophe.

Apparently, this is not much of an issue, however.  First of all, it’s not in the American Heritage Dictionary, third edition, which I use a lot.  So, I went online, thinking that would be the place to look up such a word.   The first place I went, www.infoplease.com did not have it, and asked, "Did you mean ‘bog?’"  So, I tried looking up the word "weblog" there, but they just asked me, "Did you mean ‘web log?’"  They then gave me references to definitions of "web" and "Log Cabin."  Yahoo http://education.yahoo.com/reference/ did better.  They showed the word as "blog," no apostrophe, with the definition, "weblog."  So, I looked up "weblog" and was told: 

web·log

NOUN:

A website that displays in chronological order the postings by one or more individuals and usually has links to comments on specific postings.

So.  One definition as a noun.  I went to www.OED.com but that is a pay site although www.askoxford.com is not.  No results.  By the way, if anyone plans to spend $1500 or more on me for Christmas and doesn’t plan to buy me a new computer, say a new notebook PC, they could buy me the 20 volume Oxford English Dictionary on sale for $849.99.  *sighs, wipes drool from chin, off of keyboard*

Since I am going to be blogging (to blog, a verb, meaning to make entries in a weblog), I think I shall have to make up my own rules for now.

My van, a dirt and maroon 1993 Dodge Grand Caravan, was sitting at the gas pumps Saturday waiting for me to pay my bill.  It’s a nice van and gets about 20 - 24 MPG when it’s running right, which is good because we put on 100 - 200 miles in a day.  (We are also blessed in that we have found an honest mechanic.)  Even now, when i have to put in a quart of tranny fluid at each fill-up it still does me good and gets that mileage.  Under the dirt are my "W ‘04", "Bush/Cheney ‘04" and "Veterans For Bush" bumper stickers.  There is also one large anti-abortion one that says, "She’s a Child...Not a Choice." 

I had paid for my gas Saturday and was getting ready to pick up Margaret from a client’s house (they are clients, by the way, not patients, pardon my previous vernacular) and here is this woman eyeballing the back of my van and giving me a real hard stare as i walk up to it.  As i get closer she has a rather stern appearance and is wearing dark glasses (i hate talking to people wearing dark glasses, there oughta be a law) and she says, "Excuse me!  This bumper sticker on the back of your car.  Do you mean that for just teenage girls or do you mean that for anyone or what do you mean?"

If you know much about me at all, you know the last thing i enjoy is a full-blown, face-to-face confrontation with someone in public.  I really have never been much of a fighter.  Yes, I understand that putting bumper stickers on your car could be considered a direct invitation to a fight, but it could also be possible that you could open a dialogue with someone.  I like to have discussions and friendly arguments, but i suppose i had not had the foresight to realize that a confrontation with a total stranger was possible as well.  Not that i am going to take my bumper stickers off now that i realize it’s possible.  So anyway, there it was, an apparent full-blown confrontation in the 7-11 parking lot about to happen.

"Ma’am," i said intelligently, "I think abortion is wrong, period, no matter who or what."  I speak intelligently like that to strangers.  When I write i can, if i want to, take the time to think about what i am going to say, but sometimes the words don’t come too fast if i am face-to-face with someone, especially an unknown, potential antagonist.

"Good."  She said.  "I think it’s horrible."  She then proceeded to tell me that two of her three children are special needs and she was told by the doctors to abort them.  They hammered away at her and tried to get her to, in her own words, "kill my baby."  She had had an amniocentesis done and the geneticist got exasperated and asked her why she had had it done if she wasn’t planning to have an abortion.  She told him it was so she could get the proper medical treatment.  We have known other people who have had a similar experience, which I related to her. The child I was talking about did turn out to be a "Special Needs" child, but any child that can say, "Daddy, I love you," should not have been murdered.  Her girls are teenagers now and she feels the same way.  She said she can’t imagine how empty her life would be.

We talked further about how, in this state, Colorado, anyway, a teenage girl can go to the hospital and the doctor can give her the "Morning After" pill without even asking her parents and we spoke about the upcoming elections and the ban on Partial Birth abortions and just stuff in general and went our ways.  I was so flabbergasted that I completely forgot to invite her to church or give her a church card.

Okay, so a ‘blog is supposed to be where you can vent your spleen and rant and rave and carry on, right?  So let me tell you something that makes me mad every Sunday!  Something so frustrating and aggravating words nearly fail me.  WHY, oh why, do newspapers think it is okay to hide the comics section?  Back in the good old days (that, by the way, is the phrase, not, "Back in the day.") when i was a boy the funnies were on the outside of the paper.  You could see what was going on in Peanuts or Dick Tracy (depending on what paper it was) right on top.

One of our papers divides the comics into 2 sections, then completely wraps one of the sections in an ad.  If you don’t know that they do this, you discover that you have thrown away half of the comics section!  The other part has one of those fold-out, tear-off ads that tears the paper in half instead and the punch line to "Dilbert" has to be fished out of the trash.  Today the first section came wrapped in a full-page ad, then had another ad under that, plus the tear-away ad!

And whatever happened to "The Funny Papers," anyway?  When did adult humor become appropriate for the comics?  There are times that even the strips that you would think are for children come out with the most risqué and sometimes downright nasty jokes!  And who wants to know the political ideology of a cartoonist?  Put the op-ed funnies on the op-ed page!  I don’t care if they are left, right, middle or what, get them off the comics page.  Particularly the ones that are blatantly and openly political like "Doonesbury," "Boondocks," "Mallard Fillmore," et al.  Maybe newspapers could start a separate op-ed comics page, but get all of the politics out of there.  This would make room for funny strips like "Tumbleweeds" and "One big happy" and of course allow us to track Mary Worth and Little Orphan Annie much more closely also.

What papers should do, which will never happen because there is money involved, is not only go back to the days of putting the comics on top, but make the comics normal sized.  Make them (and the weekly ones too) the size that they are when the comics come off the drawing board.  This would mean a much larger comics section, but they could also generate more revenue from their ads.  They could triple charge the rate for advertising in the funnies and make the funnies section as big as the front page for all i care.  I can hear and read about death and sorrow and murder and taxes any old time, but i can only see the Sunday funnies once a week.

I have a hard question for all of you, my gentle readers.  But, what is your all-time favorite Comic Strip?  Why?  Leave me some comments and i’ll try to reply to as many as i can.  Is it possible that there is someone who DOESN’T read the funnies every chance they get?  Could there possibly be someone out there who doesn’t even care???  If that’s you I would like to know if you are mainly a "Math" person or "English" person and are you right-handed or left-handed?  Thank you all.

I have a collection of jokes that i have saved, mostly from e-mails, but other sources as well, including Colorado Comments, GCFL, Humor Highway and others.  I was thinking of starting a separate blog (blogdrive.com lets you have more than one 'blog per account) for jokey sorts of things.  Many of the files I have contain several jokes and stories, so if I do 1 per day, I should have enough to last a while.

I will try to list the source i got things from, but some jokes have been around since God ribbed Adam and made Eve and either have multiple or unknown sources.  If you actually know the real original author and/or have some way to show i have not credited you i will either credit you or take it down.  But anyway, these will just be some of my personal favorites and i plan to start with some of the older ones first.

http://herbshumor.blogdrive.com/

No, Mary G., the "Artie Joke" ain't da same in a e-mail.

Okay, this is where i am going to do it.  I’m feeling lazy and uninspired this evening so I am going to let the grammar and spell checker in Microsoft Word XP run the show.  For instance, where I use the pronoun "I" it tells me that I should not use the first person.  Hmmm, that’s going to be interesting...Oh, it doesn’t like contractions, either.  I think what I will do is type the whole thing up first, then go back and check the whole document and use the machine’s preferences everywhere.  But, what to write about?  Well, i could cop out and just type the first 175 words and then scan it and copy it below.  I think i will.  That way you can see the differences between my pitiful grasp of the English language and the superiority of the machine.  Oh, man!  Oh, man!  i just had to get a couple of those in there because i thought it was such a hoot last time i used it.  I know, it’s not particularly spontaneous, but, well, i guess i must feel a little lazy tonight.  I do my best work in the morning.  OOOHHH!  OOOOHHHH!!  Mr. Kotter!  OOOH!  How about this, also:

Eye Halve A Spelling Chequer

Eye halve a spelling chequer
It came with my pea sea
It plainly marques four my revue
Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.

Eye strike a key and type a word
And weight four it two say
Weather eye am wrong oar write
It shows me strait a weigh.

As soon as a mist ache is maid
It nose bee fore two long
And eye can put the error rite
Its rare lea ever wrong.

Eye have run this poem threw it
I am shore your pleased two no
Its letter perfect awl the weigh
My chequer tolled me sew.

Sauce Unknown

Okay, i know, I’m having too much fun.  Well, here we go, then.  Time to run it through the checker, and do you know what?  I STILL will have managed, by the time i end this sentence, to have broken 350!

The corrected text:

Okay, this is where Herb is going to do it.  Feeling lazy and uninspired this evening, this writer is going to let the grammar and spell checker in Microsoft Word XP run the show.  For instance, where the author uses the pronoun "I" it tells him that he should not use the first person.  Hmmm, that is going to be interesting...Oh, it does not like contractions, either.  This one think what I will do is type the whole thing up first, and then goes back and check the whole document and use the machine’s preferences everywhere.  However, about what should Herb write?  Well, Herb could cop out and just type the first 175 words and then scan it and copy it below.  He thinks he will.  That way you can see the differences between this writer's pitiful grasp of the English language and the superiority of the machine.  Oh, operate!  Oh, staff!  This writer just had to get a couple of those in there because he thought it was such a hoot last time he used it.  He knows, it is not particularly spontaneous, but well, he guess he must feel a little lazy tonight.  He does his best work in the morning.  OOOHHH! (It says this is a fragment and to revise but this author feels that an interjection is something he is unable to edit appropriately.)  OOOOHHHH! (It says this is a fragment and to revise but this author feels that an interjection is something he is unable to edit appropriately)  Mr. Katter!  How about this, also:

Eye Halve a Spelling Chaucer

Eye halve a spelling scheduler
It came with this writer's pea sea
It plainly marques four my revue
Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.

Eye strike a key and type a word
And weight four it two say
Weather eye is wrong oar write
It shows this author strait a weigh.

As soon as a mist aches, is house cleaner?
It nose bee fore two long
In addition, eye can put the error rite
It is rare lea ever wrong.

Eye has run this poem threw it
I am shore your pleased two no
Its letter-perfect awl the weigh
This author's torque tolled him sew.

Sauce Unknown

Okay, Herb knows, Herb is having too much fun.  Well, here we go, then.  Time to run it through the checker, and do you know what?  Herb STILL will have managed; by the time, Herb ends this sentence, to have broken 350!

Okay, so my friend and former co-worker, Alice, sends me an e-mail that says she has always heard it was supposed to be a minimum of a thousand words a day.  Well, I think that may be true, but the "Nifty Three-Fifty" was intended to just get you sort of jump-started and on your way.  I have been noticing that many of my entries are between seven hundred and a thousand anyway, so I will just sort of blather on as I have been doing and hope for the best.

In a book called "Don't Dig for Water Under the Outhouse and other Cowboy Commandments" by "Texas Bix Bender" which is part of a series of books of Western Wisdom and common sense which includes such classics as, "Don't Squat With Yer Spurs On," page 39 says, "Do not tolerate weak coffee."