Scrapple, Bird Funerals, and The Red Rider BB Gun

Greeting to all and welcome first time visitors to the East Wing.

Remember last week I told ya about my little brown eyed girl, (the hummingbird), well she’s still here. Every day I see this hummingbird come to the feeder, before I go to work and every day when I get home from the office. She must eat all day and never gain weight. Wow ! Is that a deal or what? Such a pleasure and a joy to watch this little brown eyed girl.

The hummingbird feeder hangs from a shepherd’s hook and the little girl will sit on the top of the shepherd’s hook. The only time ever I’ve seen a hummingbird without its wings going two forty.

Now this little brown eyed friend of mine had only one problem, seems there is a much larger bird that always tries to dive bomb the little hummingbird. Someone should tell that bird I’ve a Red Rider BB Gun, and not afraid to use it.

As the week went by the hummingbird gained confidence in her security at the feeder. After a few days she not only sat on the shepherd’s hook, she also sat and ate from the suspended feeder. The only time I’ve ever seen a hummingbird sit and eat.

Oh, by the way, about that big bird harassing my little brown eyed girl, well I preached that bird’s funeral last Thursday. The mean bird met Mr. Red Rider. It was Red Rider 1, mean bird 0. The funeral was well attended, 2dogs, 1cat, 4garage cats, 1 hummingbird and the preacher.

It don’t take a big crowd to have a nice funeral for one of God’s creatures, even a mean bird, who I think was going to go to hell anyway for harassing the little brown eyed girl.

It was just one of those things, I didn’t really want to do harm to that big bird, but if she wanted to go to hell anyway for picking on the little brown eyed girl, well, I just wanted to accommodate her, and help her along in any way I could, and so I did.

Sophia tried her best to get me to shoot the garage cats while I had the Red Rider out, but to no avail. She even proposed I shoot Pup Baby just for the fun of it. Damn Republican Cat. She’d probably shoot me if I would give her the BB Gun.

I don’t remember if I told ya the names of the garage cats, “Mama Cass and the Castaways” just four more little creatures that God sent to BobbyRay along the way.

The girl dogs have pretty much settled into a routine with the new garage cats. The routine is rather simple. DON’T MESS WITH MAMA CASS! Now mother cats, in general, and Mama Cass in particular will defend their babies with their life when necessary. The Gray Lady found out the hard way when she walked too close to Mama Cass. The Lady took five direct strikes to the end of her nose before she could get out of range of the cat, and believe me she tried to get out of the range of the cat. When a cat attacks in earnest, most every creature on earth wants to get out of the range of the cat. The Lady then looked at me as if to say “What the hell did I do to deserve this?”. From that point on there has been little contact between bird dogs and garage cats. I expect this relationship to improve as time goes on.
The good thing about garage cats and dogs, garage cats are only defensive creatures, that is to say, they will not plot and plan an attack on a dog. Whereas a dog may plot and plan an attack on a cat unless they have suffered severe strikes to the nose at the paws of a Mama Cass, in which case the dog will conclude “I’m better off ignoring her”. And so it is with the Gray Lady, Mama Cass and the Castaways.

Pup Baby on the other hand has made such good friends with Mama Cass and the Castaways that she carries the kittens around in her mouth out in the yard and neither kitten or Mama Cass are alarmed. Like all good girls, when Pup Baby is done playing with the toys she puts the kittens back where she found em. Good girl, that Pup Baby. You will be pleased to know that in just one week I’m able to detect a considerable improvement in the overall appearance of Mama Cass. She still doesn’t too look good, but a lot better than when she came to the garage. She will be fine, just had a few tuff life experiences along the way, and don’t we all.

Did I tell ya I’m feeding my garage cats bologna , makes um fat and sassy, don’t believe me, just look at every hillbilly cat ya know, they all eat bologna whenever they can, as do I, and we’re all fat and sassy.

Did ya ever hear about Scrapple? Best I can figure it’s a Pennsylvania thing, at least that’s where I encountered it.

Now Scrapple is pork trimmings cooked with cornmeal and seasonings, formed into a loaf, and cooled. Then it’s sliced and fried before serving. I, along with my younger son, John encountered Scrapple one Breakfast Morning along the Interstate in Mid Pennsylvania.

I guess Scrapple in Pennsylvania is kinda like alligator on the menu in Florida. Now if you’re in Florida and alligator’s on the menu then ya gotta try it at least once in your life. And so it was with Scrapple, but make no mistake about it, unlike Alligator, Scrapple does not taste like chicken, nor does it taste like Spam. It’s an acquired taste to say the least. If I had to describe Scrapple, I’d call it somewhere between Grits and Guts.

It’s a Pennsylvania thing. As I recall some of those Pennsylvania People are Dutch. Maybe they had their fingers in the dike too long. I could see how things like that would make one want to eat Scrapple. That finger in the dike is truly a bad job and not for the faint of heart. Dike finger plugging is like so many jobs we do in our society, nobody knows or cares or gives a damn about the job until it’s not done right, then all hell breaks loose.

We can assume that when the next devastating hurricane strikes our Atlantic or Gulf Cost, all the political types will be pointing fingers and accusing each other of not learning from the Katrina Disaster, and we didn’t. In fact it’s much like the finger in the dike, we don’t care until after it happens then we really, really care, but not enough to change the way we plug dikes, or prepare cities for hurricanes. One thing for sure, the next disaster our nation suffers will not be George Bush’s fault. On the other hand it’s clear and very noticeably so far that President Obama is not going to take blame for anything no matter what, so he just may invoke the memory of Katrina and propose this current disaster is Gods way of continuing to punish George Bush.

But maybe not, President Obama don’t want to talk too much about God for fear too many people will go back to that Rev.Wright thing in Chicago. I still don’t think ya can sit in a Radical Baptist Church for 20 years and not have a clue that the preacher is damning this USA most every week with a continuing message of hate and damnation to the country.

The way I see it, only two options, Obama lied about his knowledge of the position of the preacher and his teachings, or he slept thru every sermon for twenty years. Even I don’t sleep that much in church. I think he lied, and the American Voters bought the lie. It turned out we the people would rather have a liar for President than John McCain. The more I think about that, yah, that’s about right. We’ll see what the next one will be.

One time at South Fork my Grandpa Bob picked from the tree a ripe peach the size of a softball, peeled it with his pocketknife gave me half and said “BobbyRay when ya eat fresh fruit always try to think about the person that planted the tree. That way it’ll remind ya how dependent ya are on the rest of the world for most everything ya do in life.”

I’ve thought about the peach story from Grandpa Bob often, it’s so, so true. Most everything we touch throughout our lives are a result of the efforts of other people we don’t even know. From out most basic human needs to all the magic toys we may have available to play with, someone else developed, produced and delivered it in such a way that it came into our life.

I don’t know if I told ya about my Grandpa Bob, he was a Baptist Preacher, came from a family of seven brothers they all were Baptist Preachers. Grandpa Bob had seven sons, they were all Baptist Preachers.

He was just number four of seven preachers, but he was a father to me, Rev. Wick Howard. All my uncles were Baptist Preachers. When I was a little kid, I thought everybody’s uncle was a Baptist Preacher.

Trying to figure out why the Grandpa Bob Peach Story is so true and accurate about life, tends to make one conclude that’s just another reason to believe in God. I know there are some of you reading the Gospel according to BobbyRay that don’t believe in God. But look at it this way, it’s free, will never cost you any more in the future than it does right now, the light is always left on for ya in the dark every night, you’ll always have a friend for life, it never wears out or goes out of style, you will never walk alone And this list could run forever.

Belief in God is kinda neat, it comes with an iron clad guarantee. Now if ya die while not believing, well there ya go! No guarantee. And to think all that time it was free for the asking.

Biggest no brainer in the history of earth, take the free guarantee!

If it makes ya feel better about it, look at it this way, if it turns out ya didn’t need the guarantee later, oh well it didn’t cost anything.

Once again we come to the peaceful evening of this beautiful Last Sunday of Spring, 2009. When we meet again, summer will have happened, Spring 2009 will have slipped into the history books forever, mostly to be forgotten, never again to see the light of memory, as this gentle glow of springtime dissolves into the sparkling sunshine of summer. I love Summer, the whole world’s a playground, and I’ll go out and play.

Stay safe in Baghdad and Afghanistan

From the East Wing, saying goodbye to the Springtime 2009
I wish you well,
BobbyRay