If it's not one thing, it's something else.

Hello friends and neighbors and welcome back. It is Thursday, June 28, 2012. I will not be talking about the political landscape today. I hear that sound. It's a loud, collective sigh of relief. I have been thinking about those folks over in Florida. They really needed some rain. Twenty five inches with more on the way? Not that much, please. I read a blurb that said the orange crops may be in danger from flooding. Not long ago they were in danger from an unexpected hard freeze. Before that it was the danger from the drought. Do we live in a 'make it up as we go' kind of world or what? The old timers used to say, "If it's not one thing, it's something else." How true. As most of you know I read quite a few obituaries each day. I actually mostly scan them but often they do reflect the story of life for us all. I am always struck when I read about a young person passing away. It's not that I feel guilty that I've been around longer but rather from a human perspective it seems like such a tragic loss of talent, vitality, and contribution. I read one from a nearby town where I grew up of a young mother who died at age 40. She leaves behind a husband, a son in college, and a daughter still at home. Nothing in the notice indicated how she died. I wanted to know why. After a few searches I found her Facebook page. On her Wall her last entry was from May 8 of this year where she reported that the surgery had gone well but they would have to wait and see about the results. Further down the page was a poster with that pink ribbon denoting breast cancer. My heart goes out to her family. She was so proud of her children. We never know. Rain. Not enough rain. Too much rain. A bad report. A surgery to fix the problem. A home going to celebrate. This is a fragile world folks and we do need the Lord. Amen.

Yeah , I know. It does look like I could find something more uplifting to write about. Sorry. But here at the old blogger ranch we more or less take them as they come. And, whatever happens to be percolating or stewing around in the few gray cells I have left, well, that's what gets transmitted. I will be the first to admit that some days there just isn't that much 'there' there. Here in our area we are breaking some heat records left and right. Okay. I am out in it some and let me just say this about that. When it is 105 degrees and the feel like is 115, you have to get in line to get your next breath. We have this dome of high pressure sitting on top of us and it is holding in the hot air. (No. I did break my promise about politics. I am actually still talking about hot air as in weather.) It is supposed to ease its way east over the next couple of days and we will be back into the mid 90's. That will be so wonderful. See what I mean? You know something is up when you long for those high humidity days where the temperature stays below 95. In fact, they are already putting out those alerts that we should try and conserve electricity because of the drain on the statewide electrical grid. On the 9 p.m. news we watch folks send their tweets in real time and they scroll them at the bottom of the screen. Some people actually prefer the hot weather or at least that is what they say. One fellow said it was easier to cool off than to warm up. I have a tweet for that guy. "Hey, dude, are you living on another planet or what?"

When we would get out of sorts as a kid my granddad would tell us that we had the same clothes to get glad in. And, as far as it being hot, I know it was because we spent a lot of our time at the swimming hole, but because we had few choices in terms of doing anything about it, I suppose we just dealt with it. It wasn't like we could ask that the air conditioning be turned on. Yes. I did know about air conditioning. Long before we got any. We didn't live that far back in the woods. But we didn't have it, therefore, we used an attic fan to circulate the air and us boys also had a box fan that we had in our bedroom window. All the windows were open all the time in the summer. Occasionally we would ride up to the next little town where a fellow sold ice. Blocks of ice. He also sold watermelons. He kept the watermelons in the ice house. We would get one of those big ones and us kids would salivate as we sat in the back of the Paw Paw's pickup keeping that big melon company on the way home. We had a homemade picnic table out in the yard and once that melon was cut open and we began to enjoy that ice cold sweetness, well, it was part of how we dealt with the heat. We didn't do it very often but when we did, what a treat! We actually grew our own melons but our soil was not the best for this item. However, we would eat them anyway, but they could never be like those ice cold ones we got from the ice house. Now that's a good memory and I'm thankful that I have many of those. In fact, I'm feeling a little cooler just thinking about those good old days. I do hope you are cool wherever you happen to be. May God bless one and all. Amen.           .....More later.