From The East Wing, Talking Hoosier, The Lion Walks Tonight, Aching Bones, Post Election, Fudd & Bunny

Greetings to all, and welcome new friends to the East Wing.

The older one becomes, the more precious is it to hug your mother. I hugged my mama this Mothers Day. Another gift from God.

Did ya ever notice how, here in Indiana, we tend to do and say things that other parts of the country may think somewhat odd? Well we just do. And they sometimes do think we’re kinda strange and unusual. But ya gotta remember, strange and unusual is in the eye of the beholder, and I’ve beheld some strange and unusual stuff outside Indiana. We do things like when we end our sentences with prepositions, as in 'Where's it at?' or 'Where's he going to?' We say things like catty corner, and we know what it means. Hoosier Talk, gotta love it. The 1wife’s florist is caddy corner from my office in downtown North Judson.

We also do things that tend to be uniquely Hoosier too. We drink pop, not soda, we drink pop. We allow kids and dogs to ride in the passenger seats of cars and the bed of pickup trucks. We all know people who’ve hit a deer at least once.

The retail community of Indiana learned a long time ago that anything sells in Indiana if ya call it “Amish”. Oh, it don’t have to be real Amish, it just has to be called Amish. A good example of such labeling success in retailing is none other than that highly renowned, widely acclaimed, “Amish Moo Shu Pork”.

Now closer to home, right here in Starke County, we’ve got some rather unique attributes of which we can be most proud, such as when we say down south it means Kentucky, nothing else south of Kentucky. We carry jumper cables in our cars all the time. If we want someone to hear us, we holler at 'em. We know that baling wire was the predecessor to duct tape. We know that strangers are the only ones who ever comes to our front door, while everybody else uses the back door, like we do.

Few thing in life feel better than the warm winds of early springtime. Too soon we’ll have grown accustom to the warm wind and no longer view it as a true gift from God. It surly is. One of the neat things I see from my vantage point here in the East Wing is the amazing changes of the season. And every time ya know, ya just know, that a full change of season is under way, I always think this is the one I love the most, and I do.

Speaking of amazing sites, I watched Sophia The Republican Cat stalk a bird for over 15 minutes the other day.. Two Robins were on the ground in the south yard near the west Maple Tree. Sophia saw the birds while she was a good 40ft or so away. It was such a neat thing to see. Now you’ve seen films of lions stalking their prey, well Sophia must have seen the same movie, ‘cause she had the moves.

In a flash, Sophia is crawling along the ground on her belly. Between the cat and the birds, there is a large emerging green plant in one of the front gardens. Sophia is successful in reaching the hideout undetected by the birds. She’s now within 10ft of the unsuspecting birds. The wind is blowing rather strong and Sophia has the birds up wind. 10ft so close, yet so far. The birds continue to peck on the ground and walk along. They walk toward Sophia’s lair. The Cat’s ready, the trap’s set. Fate rules the playing field. Destiny comes into play.

As one of the birds continued to walk directly toward Sophia, a slight flicker of her tail told me she’s ‘bout to go. With a Robin within 1 ¼ cat lengths, Sophia launched. Sophia didn't jump at the bird, she jumped toward a space in the sky above the bird. Sophia jumped forward and skyward, Sophia jumped above the bird. By the time Sophia reached her selected altitude, the bird also arrived on time. In a fraction of a heartbeat, cat and bird were joined in mid air. Cat and bird came to earth as a single unit with cat in charge.

It was the shortest of short action movies, a fraction of a second, if ya blinked, ya missed it, and it was all over. When Sophia touched down from her suborbital flight, she was in full control of the bird. She walked toward the East Wing with bird in mouth, I’ll swear that cat swagger in her step, she came maybe 30-40ft toward the East Wing and then done the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen in nature. She laid down still holding the bird, with her paws stretched forward on the ground, opened her mouth, and in an instant the bird flew away. Had I not seen that whole thing played out I would not have believed it. It brought to mind a whole new meaning to the old gospel song “Some Glad Morning When This Life Is Over, I’ll Fly Away”
I considered it a special privilege to have witnessed such an act of nature. Before my eyes, unfolded thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of years of evolution played out in a swan song repeated from the time of creation of birds and the creation of cats. The stalking instinct of cats. The blindness to danger of birds. The only thing I couldn’t figure out was the turning loose part. I thought a lot ‘bout the cat turning the bird loose, couldn’t figure it out at all so finally I just had to ask.

I asked, Sophia said “that bird’s republican, what a ya gona do, ya cant’ eat a republican bird”. I sometimes wonder if that bird was really a republican, or not, ‘cause Sophia doesn’t need to hunt for food, she eats well in the East Wing. The girl cat hunts for sport, even in Sophia, there’s a part of the jungle cat, the hunter part.

From big cat to little cat, the lion walks tonight. She stalks because she’s born with such ability. Much the same way Gray Lady James, as a German Short Hair Pointer, has the ability to point out birds in the bush. Now Pup Baby on the other hand has limited ability to point birds in the bush. But she does have pointing ability, just that she doesn’t know what to point. Pup Baby points butterflies when they land. Pup Baby’s pointing skills are limited for sure, but I love Pup Baby, ‘cause she’s a real good “just be your dog”, dog.

Wonder if I took Sophia fishing, she’d turn the fish loose after I took her picture holding ‘em up. Maybe we’ll go fishing someday, me and Sophia and the 2girldogs. Maybe she’d get the freed Robin to help dig the worms, after all, that Robin does owe Sophia big time. Ya’d think any bird would be more than happy to dig a few worms in return for being able to fly freely from the shadows of the valley of death. I’m proud of the that Republican Cat, not killing that bird. I don’t like to see anything die.

“Oh, my aching bones. . It must be about to rain.” Ever heard anybody say that? Bet ya did some time or another. May’ve even said it yourself. Now the idea that aches and pains can predict weather is older than dirt. This is one of the oldest of old weather lore, and the one most recognized by everyone, even those who don’t care ‘bout the stripe on the woolly worm caterpillar. Or even those people who don’t care ‘bout the red sky in the morning, or night. Even those folks know ‘bout the aching bones predicting the weather.

And ya know what, they’re right. While some of the old wives tales of weather lore are not always the most reliable, the aches and pains associated with weather predictions are true. This part of the old weather wisdom is supported by medical research. Back in the 1960’s is was established that patients sought medical attention for pain related issues with the approach of weather changing conditions. Patients with arthritis were the ones who were most affected. Increased pain from nerve disorders, recently healed fractures, migraines, toothaches, corns, and even scars, when the weather was about to change were studied in a controlled manner and the results were consistent.

It has never been fully established why this occurs, but it does. Just like many things in life, Ya just take it as fact and go on down the road. The most likely cause is a change in atmospheric pressure which happens just before a storm begins. It is a known fact that atmospheric pressure changes can dilate blood vessels in the body which can stimulate the nerves in sensitive parts of the body, like sore joints, creaky knees and stuff like that.

From what I got in the email, I propose the State of Indiana start the “Name The Indian Sate Casserole Contest” real soon, ‘cause I hear from a whole lot of folks who’ve got names ready to submit. Also got an email from a lady in Cannelton IN saying she thinks maybe she’s heard of this casserole before. I assured her she could not have possibly heard of this casserole as the Indiana State Casserole was just passed into law a few day ago.

In case ya don’t know where Cannelton is, it’s a little town in Perry County, Indiana, along the Ohio River. Cannelton is east of Tell City just a few miles. Little place, Cannelton IN, maybe 1,200 people live there, 1,500 tops. But being little in Indiana doesn’t mean not being important to Indiana, ‘cause the Cannelton Cotton Mill, also known as Indiana Cotton Mill, is a National Historic Landmark of the United States and it’s located in Cannelton, Indiana. Kinda little, kinda important.

In Indiana we got our primary election out of the way this past week. Those who won are happy and those who lost make every effort to give the impression they will support the winner whole hardly, and we all know that they really want to say how much they wish they had won, ‘cause they hate the winners guts, but they don’t say that. That’s probably why I never ran for public office, ‘cause if I did and lost, I’d say how much I hated the winners guts.

With the primary election out of the way, we’ve cleared the path for the real B.S. to start being shoveled out in mass quantities. ‘Course the one saving grace is that the majority of campaigning takes place after Labor Day. Getting there is a chore. All research shows that we, the voters, don’t really pay any real attention until the last two months of the campaigns, I can’t help but wonder why these people start two years early. It seems that at every level of politics the office holder starts campaigning the day after taking office for the first time. I’m a big believer in terms limits at every level.

Much of the campaign effort from now until November will be thrust toward the national races, even here in Starke County, with both sides wanting to prove the other side wrong. Not only wrong, but un-American, bigoted, racist, liars, hate mongers, crooks, cheats, fear fanning, scalawags and womanizers . And that’s just the nice words from the list. The bad stuff ya don’t say in mixed reading.

Now the fact that each side will call the other side all those names tends to work well for the electorate, you and me, we tend to recognize that all the bad stuff said by both sides is so much crap. And as such we decide who we will vote for, not by what bad things are being said by the opposition, rather what we hear the candidates themselves say.

Sarah Palin is an example of what I’m talking ‘bout. Now I’m not a Sarah Palin fan, but I’m truly amazed by the amount of my email that’s so supportive of her position. And just as sure as when Sophia The Republican Cat goes on a rampage, she’ll get several hundred emails comparing her with Sarah Palin. One such email even had lots of detail attachments from MS Publisher, posters, cards, bumper sticker, letterhead pages, stuff like that for a Sarah & Sophia For President Campaign. I don’t know ‘bout you, but I’m not gona vote for no Calico Cat. (Damn Republican Cat)

Oh, by the way, that ‘scalawag’ word all the candidates are gona be calling each other, know where that came from? No, well, probably those who use the word don’t either. Now scalawag’s old school for sure. “scalawag” was used during the reconstruction period following the Civil War. Scalawag was the term used to describe a white person in the south who co-operated with the Federal Government in its efforts to stabilize the nation. Even though the term was meant to be demeaning, had it not been for those people willing to co-operate in the rebuilding process we would be a different nation today.

Another meaning for scalawag is a rascal, like in rascal rabbit, I'm sure that’s the Politian’s choice meaning. Scalawags all. Rascal Rabbits. Maybe Elmer and Bugs could do a better job. They probably would be in favor of terms limits. After all, Elmer’s familiar with limits on hunting rascal rabbits. But I’m not sure if they are both in the same party.

Based solely on Elmer’s hunting outfit, he just looks republican, and Bugs, the way he holds that carrot, ya can tell, Bugs is stone cold Obama democrat. Rascal Rabbit.

As this Mother’s Day, 2010 as the sunshine leaves the gardens of the East Wing , we have enjoyed your company another day. Nothing is more beneficial and rewarding than friendship, yours.

Stay Safe in Iraq and Afghanistan, especially to you two, DELTA II, DELTA III

From the East Wing, Talking Hoosier, The Lion Walks Tonight, Aching Bones, Post Election, Fudd & Bunny

I wish you well,
BobbyRay