Black N White (Photos)

Here I go daydreaming again, looking back into the past when my Sundays were spent with my Mom, Dad, and grandparents. After church we would all pile into my grandfathers old Nash and go for an afternoon drive to enjoy the beauty of the San Juan mountains in Colorado. There were no such things as digital cameras but Frank (grandpa) always had his trusty old Kodak along. I can still imagine smelling his King Edward cigars as he drove along with only the side wing window open. My Mother was always the one to yell out, "there goes a deer under those trees" and when the car stopped we all would climb out to see how many we could count. The elk posted in the above photo was a time when the poor animal got bogged down in the snow with his heavy antlers.
Thanks to some caring cowboys the poor thing was pulled out and given a bale of hay before sending him on his way.

Although Frank was the only grandfather I ever knew he was really a step grandfather but I followed him around and thought he was the greatest thing since RED RYDER. Frank was a carpenter by trade but also an avid outdoors man, he taught so many things about the wilderness and the values of honest labor. I watched and worked beside him as he built my grandmother a house from old lumber and nails from building he had torn down. Each nail was old, but with a brick, hammer and sore fingers I straightened them all. When I would try to slow down he would say to me that I would never amount to a hill of beans. Funny how such things will stick in the brain, I think that's what drove me to try my best at what ever life handed me.

MY DAd

My dad really did go to school although I think he too was forced to leave at an early age and go to work. The stories he would tell was like sitting down in front of the radio and hearing a mystery unfold and constantly waiting for the big climax. The stories he would tell to my brothers and I kept us mesmerized, how he ran from home and began to ride the rails with hobos, the time he got into a boxing ring to spar with prize fighters to earn money to eat on or the time he drove a getaway car for gangsters. I can't say for sure if these tales were true of just his way of entertaining us. Without much education Dad always found a way to earn a living and raise a family. One of the longest tenures of employment was as a projectionist in movie theaters,having his own business as a painter of houses and signs and finally a printing business he ran from home.
There are times like now when I wish I had his talents with printing and the equipment. My faithful Epson printer is on its last leg. After spending a load of cash on ink cartridges I get a message saying that internal parts are beyond service and its now time to buy a new printer.

What's The Season

Its getting harder each day to tell what season of the year it is. While cruising through the big box store the other day I noticed all these scary things glaring at me and begging for me to touch or buy. then a few isles further I heard Christmas carols and saw blinking lights indicating Christmas was near.
Still another display was begging for me to go camping or big game hunting, oh my how confusing for an old man who can't remember if he took his Geritol in the morning. Its no wonder my sneakers are beginning to show a tinge of yellow and the zipper is needing wd40.
Reminiscing back to my youth and the way the witching season of Halloween was celebrated was much different than the way it is today. We didn't have all the manufactured scary stuff and had to think of our own mischief. A ghost of long ago only required an old bed sheet and a bottle of ketchup and a trick when candy was not supplied might just be to have your clothes line cut or out house tipped over.There were a few times when I came home smelling like the last rose of spring from missing a step while pushing over an out house.
I have to admit that I really enjoy seeing today's generation put their utmost effort into scaring the daylight out of everyone with their imagination. I was recently honored when my grandson invited me join his haunting club and his sharing photos of his horror objects,like the new zombie baby.

Fires, Floods, Bigotry

Smoke still fills the sky, hundred year old water mains are flooding homes and businesses and the air waves are filled bigotry. What a way to celebrate the land of the free and home of the jobless.

There was a time when a child in school would be honored to hear the President of the United States encouraging them to work hard to achieve their dreams. Many years ago when I was a youngster in school such a speech may have saved me from being a drop out with a brand of troublemaker to follow me. The one thing I did learn not only from my teachers but my parents was to respect and most of all the President of the United States regardless of the color of his skin. Although I chose to leave school instead of being chastised for my mistakes I learned from my military experience to respect my leaders,elected officials,elders,and most of all that all blood runs the same color. Only in a country as great as this can one serve his country, go back and get educated and live on a social security program that was fought against just as hard as today's health care.

I don't assume to have answers to the worldly problems,but I can agree that things are really in a mess and it didn't get this way in six or nine months of an election. Mistakes have been made in both political parties for decades and neither can repair the damage as long as neither will trust the other but the latest rash of attacks are really making me one sad American citizen.
Lets face the fact that if the President had a different color of skin the name calling and decent would be much less.

These are only my views and I wouldn't try to force them on any one, I can listen, read, analyze, and hopefully chose a respectful attitude to those who see things differently.