Afraid of the Dark

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Ever since I was a small boy and traumatized by my sister who would lock me in the bedroom and turn out the lights, I have been a tad spooky when it comes to wandering around outside in less than lighted conditions.

This presented a real hardship for me as I worked on the railroad and found myself walking trains in the dark frequently. Not only was the unknown out there waiting to grab me with dragons and ghosts, but there were a lot of hobos who hopped trains, too.

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Amnesia or Selective Memory?

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We’ve all known friends and relatives who, as they age, can no longer remember things. My grandmother called it Old Age Disease and, of course that was before all the fancy-smanchy names came around like Dementia and Alzheimer’s. No matter what you call it, it takes a terrible toll on the victim and caregiver.

The amnesia I’m talking about, though, is the kind found on soap operas.

In yonder days, my mother and sister would watch Days of Our Lives every day at noon. After a while and after so many years watching it, those people got to be like a member of the family.

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The Abundance of the Heart

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From living many years on this earth, Ol' Dutch has noticed that if you give them the opportunity, people will pretty much tell you what they are going to do or have done.

In order to appreciate this phenomenon, you have to develop what is known as “listening skills.”

This is harder to do than one might think as it involves closing one’s mouth, which as Trixie is quick to point out, seldom occurs around Ol' Dutch. What she fails to realize is that I am trying to improve HER listening skills.

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Making Mistakes

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If you live long enough you finally begin to admit that every once in a while you make a mistake. Even as perfect as Ol' Dutch is, mistakes do occur.

Politicians handle these mistakes by saying they “mis-spoke” and somehow that's okay and not a real whopper.

Personally, I would much rather they say, “Boy, did I ever goof up.” I can forgive that kind of honestly because, let’s face it, we all pull some real boners every so often.

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Buck vs Doe

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Hunting season has rolled around once again and Ol' Dutch is out in the field doing his best to provide meat for the table.

It’s bad enough to have to rise at the ungodly hour of 4 a.m. but to see Trixie lollygagging around like Sleeping Beauty is about more than this old hunter can take.

Chasing these elusive game animals this past week got me to thinking, which is an activity Trixie says is best left to people with experience. Determined and undeterred, though, I went ahead and struck out into unknown territory and began to peruse the differences between a buck and a doe.

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Solitary Confinement

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Every time I pull out my cellphone to use it I stand amazed at the advancements of the past 20 years.

For a while, all that was available were huge old black bag phones. Then flip phones soon came out and we all had our own Star Trek tricorder device and could actually talk to someone when away from that pesky landline.

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All over but the shouting

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In a recent column you readers heard about our trip to Idaho. Like Paul Harvey’s broadcasts, though, there is always more to the story. And, here’s mine.

Seeing that we were already going to be far West-West-West of the Mississippi, the Rockies and everything holy while we were in Pocatello, Trixie started hinting about a side trip out to California to retrieve a “few items” that were left in a storage unit in San Francisco.

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