If you are bored, you are in good company. A Minister of Parliament once asked Winston Churchill, "Must you fall asleep when I am speaking?" To which Churchill replied, "No, it's purely voluntary."

Good morning. Today is Wednesday, June 19, 2019, and I am anticipating the return of The Wife sometime this evening. Last Saturday afternoon we were sitting together in our family room, minding our own business, watching some Live PD reruns when a sudden thunderstorm hit. It wasn't a huge thunderstorm but without warning, we heard a sound we've become way too accustomed to hearing, a loud explosion-like noise taking out a transformer on our street. I immediately used my cell phone to pull up the interactive screen displaying a map of outages being reported at that time. There it was. Just us. No one else in our area. The same 73 customers who lose power. The same street. Not the one on either side of us. Just our street. This does cause a body to wonder. Do we get all the leftover transformers? Is our technology from a bygone era? It became very still inside the house. I and Mr. Bentley went out on the front porch. The weather system was gone. It went from a brief downpour to hotter than a pepper sprout. No air to breathe outside so we came back in. The Wife has a D-Cell battery operated fan. I snagged that and it blew some air around. I typically have made fun of that fan in the past. It holds about 8 batteries. You have to take out a loan to replenish it. But, last Saturday, I was being very thankful for her battery operated fan. It allowed me to breathe during the 2-hour outage. I was trying to figure out which song best applies, 'Nobody seen the trouble I've seen' or 'Why me Lord?' The loud crack when it took out the power made us wonder if we had damaged our TV or the AC system. We were concerned, but, thankfully, they came back up and we carried on. That's what you do. Carry on.

The other evening two of our granddaughters were sitting with us. I put it on America's Got Talent program because I knew reruns of Matlock or Perry Mason would not be anything they would be interested in. This lady came out and said she was going to sing. She was in her late 40s. She was going to reflect two legendary singers, a father and daughter duo. She went backstage to change and when she returned she had an outfit that was half man and half woman. She then began to sing. She had a huge range because she could imitate both the man singing and his famous daughter. Our twins who will soon be 21 enjoyed her singing. I then asked them if they had any idea who it was she was imitating. Not a clue. They said she was good at it, but, they had no idea whose voices she was representing. It was none other than Nat King Cole and his daughter, Natalie. Knowing the great singing of both of these wonderful crooners made it even more special to the wife and me, but, talent is talent, and the granddaughters enjoyed it too, but without any reference connection. Both of these great singers have died, but, their music is still with us, and, it also continues through folks like this lady who did a great job of imitating the both of them.

Those kinds of things give old folks approval to say things like "Kids today." Or maybe, "Honest to Pete"; "My word."; "Land sakes."; "My stars."; "Bless your heart."; "Whippersnappers."; "More than Carter has liver pills."; "Heavens to Betsy."; "Back in my day."; "Yellow-bellied sapsucker."; "The cat's meow.": and, I could go on and on. Yep. When I use those anachronisms with anyone under 40 around, well, they look like they have just finished a course on how to perfect the blank stare. I am very certain they could use some slang that would have us older folks scratching our heads for days. I actually have found myself looking up stuff because of the vocabulary or lack thereof being used today.  It goes beyond the fact they don't even know what cursive writing is, it is an entirely different language. Oh well, they do know when you are trying to help them. It's not always received that well, but, I'm sure they tell each other that at least he had good intentions. Y'all have a good day out there and don't be dragging around like you've lost your best friend, that is unless you have. If so, you can drag around all you want to. May God bless us all including kids who have never heard of Nat King or Natalie. Amen. ....More later.