Chuck the Blogger Guy

Please, this is not Civil War.

It’s almost like Collateral Damage.

It would be like being shot at in the back by your own backup soldiers. Wait! Wait! The enemy is out there. Don’t shoot me and my frontline soldiers. Point your guns at the enemy. And the enemy is Covid-19 and its variants.

What I am speaking of are people who refuse to vaccinate or wear masks. People who jeopardize those of us who are fighting for the same cause. All of us trying to defeat the pandemic. But it’s hard to do when “being shot at by our own citizens.” Come on! We are on the same side. Shoot the enemy by wearing masks when appropriate and getting your Covid vaccine. Don’t put the rest of us at risk by resisting proven medicine.

Right now cases of Covid and its variants are increasing. People are dying only because they refuse to be vaccinated. Don’t be another fatal statistic. And please please do not put our children at risk of Covid-19. Wear masks, wash hands, and take your vaccine. For the love of God and your fellow Americans, please do this.

Book Report.

This is a book that must be heard on audio book. The reason is clear. It is read by Tom Hanks who is a gifted reader and actor. The title is “The Dutch House,” by Ann Patchett; fiction 2019.

The father buys for the family a gorgeous opulent home to live in known as the Dutch House. However the wife and mother feel it’s much above the family’s social strata and doesn’t feel comfortable living in the lavish house. And as a result much stress and discontent occurs. Especially for the mother who suffers a breakdown and leaves. Which introduces the step-mother and the subsequent death of the father. Leaving his two adolescent children to the mercy of the step-mother. The step mother says she cannot take care of the two and asks them to quickly move out. None the less the two children seem to take all of this in stride. Just carry on and plan for the next day and life to come. You would think the kids would whine and threaten law suits but they find their way. But it’s the Dutch House that is the cause of the family’s troubles. Again, this is about the best audio book I have ever listened to. Good writing by Patchett and good reading by Hanks. It would probably work okay if read with book in hand. I liked it. Get it. You’ll like it too.

On the fly.

Sheba, my secret spouse in witness protection, had the brilliant idea to leave the front door open during a power outage last night. Certainly with the hopes of cooling down the house while the air conditioner was not working. However, while with an open-door policy, in came a sortie of buzzing flies. Buzzing, dive bombing, and generally a pesky nuisance. While trying to eat my cherry pie I was strafed and picked at by dozens of irritating flies looking for a free lunch. So Sheba got out her collection of fly-swatters and attempted to slam them into full retreat. “Just shoo fly! Don’t bother me.” Bottom-line, they don’t park in one place for very long. So, this morning they were still zooming and zipping. Landing in my hair, on my arm, and all over the place. Now here is my question; do they still make flypaper? And where do I get it? Home Depot? Bed Bath and Beyond? Pest killers R Us? I want to get those little pests and show them who is in charge here. Come on over here and land on this nice sheet of wonderful sticky paper. Ah ha, GOTYA you little buzzing wad of turtle poop. Well, I can dream can’t I? Buzz, zip, zing. I guess if we wait long enough they will morph into bug dust. Just don’t ever again leave the front door open for visiting flies. No sir!

Celebrating Independence.

And the independence I am speaking of is registering as an independent voter back in 2017. For almost forty years I was a Republican. But as I was moving forward my Republican Party comrades took a hard right turn leaving me in the middle of the road. Starting with the Reagan administration. The anti-government and anti-tax administration. Not to mention the administration of the Iran/Contra sideshow quagmire. But it was the George W Bush administration and the needless Iraq war that rocketed me to register as a Democrat in 2002. So for about 15 years I was a Dem. But no more.

Both parties have their warts and pitted complexions. The Republican Party is the party of blowhardedness and gasbaggery. A party without a social or public works platform or having civil rights policies. Most of all these days Republicans as the enablers of the “Big Lie.”

The Democrat party is the party of whiners and Political correctness. Harboring an overactive group of cultural and social victims. Just a bunch of bleeding hearts. Get over it!

However, I am not for creating a third party. No. The two party systems can work okay. Each party needs to get over their partyness. Or maybe it’s partisanishness. Each political party never listens to the other. Resulting in doing almost nothing. Compromise is seldom attempted. Most of all both parties never listen to the voters. Creating a willful ignorance about what the voter really wants and needs. The two parties could put aside their hot buttons and start with real issues and go from there. Maybe try resolving issues with health, education, infrastructure, and jobs. It’s so simple. Happy Independence Day.

I just watched my dad with amazement.

This is what fathers are for.

Many many years ago my brother, my dad, and me were all squatting on the garage floor with an old 1937 Ford engine taken apart. Parts were all over the floor and upon the work bench. Piston rings, pistons, rods, gaskets, engine heads, oil pans, etc. Parts on any available surface. The three of us were covered from hand to forehead with oil smudges. My dad borrowed a heavy chain hoist and we pulled out the engine, took it apart, replaced engine parts, hoisted it up again and dropped it back in to the old car engine compartment. My dad must have been a genius. He knew exactly what to do. How did he know how to fix such a thing? He never finished high school. Never went to mechanic school. But there it was. The car started and off it went. Happy Father’s Day Pops.

Why did we leave there?

What we had left behind after moving from Los Alamos New Mexico to Oklahoma. Was the absolute driest, cleanest, freshest air on the planet. Almost intoxicating. Something like drinking pure sweet well water. Ah-h-h. So refreshing.

Plus I had not perspired much in the three and a half years we lived in Los Alamos and saved hundreds of dollars worth of deodorant. Northern New Mexico humidity is the lowest in the United States. Clean dry fresh air.

So now the trade off having moved to Oklahoma is the exposure to the most humid air in America. Requiring many dry hankies in your pockets if not a beach towel. This summer here in Soonerland has been especially hot and sweaty. It’s almost as bad as when we visited Tampa Bay a few summers ago with temperatures in the nineties and humidity the same or more. Absolutely the wrong time of the year to visit Florida. So, never mind a big towel after exposure to Okie sweat. It would be easier to dry off in the shower. Maybe I’ll just hold a running garden hose over my head instead. Whew!

Prehistoric Television.

It was our first TV from the early 1950s. A Sears Silvertone 12-inch black and white Television. It was, what they called, a ‘table top’ model. The picture tube was fitted in a two-foot square by two foot deep mahogany box sitting atop a wooden box frame with skinny mahogany wood legs. This television had a round 12-inch picture tube in front with a straight frame at the top and bottom. Looking like a movie screen but rounded ends. When this showed up in our living room in 1952 it was the first television I had ever seen. Wow! Early on my favorite thing to watch was the Indian feathered test pattern.

Now, this TV had one mechanical channel selector and operated by hand. Click-click-click. No remote. Plus it had one on-off/volume switch, one contrast knob, one horizontal hold knob, one vertical hold knob, and one tone knob. Again, all controlled and operated by hands on.

When the TV was misbehaving it would either roll up or down like a slow frame by frame film. Or it would lean diagonally to the right or left. Just a collection of compressed diagonal lines. Driving the viewer into total aggravation.

But for an eight-year old boy it was a chance to play TV engineer. A little twist here or a twist there. And waa-laa, a scrambled mess. If that weren’t enough there were recessed slotted controls on the back of the TV to stick a screw driver into and twist one way or another. One could learn a lot by experimenting. Just don’t let your dad catch you fiddling with this big wooden mahogany device. But when no amount of twisting and turning seemed to help, take off the removable back panel and pull out the crystalline glass vacuumed tubes and take them to the nearby drug store for testing on the tube tester. This alone was fun to watch as my dad would plug in each glass tube. It would tell you if the tube was good or bad. If all the tubes were still good we would take them home and attempt to fit them back into the right slots, unplug the TV power cord, and leave it for a week. Perhaps by some magical means or Karma or maybe banging on the cabinet before plugging it back in to the wall receptacle it just might work. The end result of all this troublesome TV fiddling resulted in something like viewing a black-and-white photo through a sheet of wax paper. Sort of fuzzy. Almost good as listening to ‘Old time’ radio. Just turn the darn TV on good and loud and go feed the chickens. End of the broadcast day. Signing off.

Peter Pan doesn’t live here.

Sheba, my anonymous and selfieless spouse and I have just returned from a week’s trip to the Land of Enchantment. And I’m not talking about we flew away with Peter Pan. The Land of Enchantment as some of you well know is the slogan New Mexico uses as their chamber of commerce logo.

Therefore a solid week off my so-called Curmudgeon blog. Such as it is. None the less we saw our kids and grandkids with plenty of hugs and tickles. Not so much for our adult kids. A couple of self absorbed thirty-something professional swell-heads.

Never the less, it was a week of piano recitals, souvenir eating, Sheba’s birthday party, visiting with our older grandchild’s new horse. A brownish buckskin named teddy. Numerous shopping trips with just Sheba and our younger daughter hitting many re-sale shops. A serious past time my wife is addicted to. And what did I get from this Enchantmentland trip?? Lots of hugs from my grandkids. A tall thirteen-year old with permanent ear-buds under forever color changing hair who looks twenty and a eight year old who is smarter than any two-headed genius. Just ask her about the microbes in a Panda Bear’s stomach. But anyway, I’ll take it as it is. However, glad to be back home.

Pickleball relish

Just to mention it triggers embarrassment and a need to exit the room.

So this is what can easily cause my flush face and a need to run. Sheba, my phantom no-name spouse plays Pickleball. Yes, you correctly heard what I said. Pickleball. Don’t ask how the name came about. Just trust me it’s called Pickleball. Sheba, an ex-tennis player is now totally enamored with Pickleball. A ping pong like game played on half a tennis court and half a lower net with large wooden paddle, four players, and a Wiffle ball. It is also a very noisy game. Lots of PING and PANG back and forth. Drives me nuts. Where pickle comes from is not really understood. All I can say there is no real pickle involved. Just my embarrassment.

Furthermore there is an entire Pickleball association. Google this. It’s real. Something stupid seems to come around almost every generation. This is it. Get use to it. I’m almost certain the Pickleballers will attempt to get this into the Olympics. Oh, please!