From the East Wing with,A Garden Lost,The Fog of August,Snake Doctors,Sophia on The O’Reilly Factor

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

Even notice how we seldom ever think ‘bout the real important things in life. Don’t know ‘bout you, but I sure don’t. That changed a lot last week. A friend of mine, not only a friend of mind but also a relative, and being hillbilly, those two, friends and relative, don’t always go together, stopped by my office for a visit.

Seems he came for a couple reasons, one to check on my health and well being,‘cause he heard I’d been ill, and had been diagnosed as a diabetic, and he wanted to instill in my mind the importance of taking care of my self while managing my diabetes.

The second reason for the visit to my office was to apologize for being unable, this summer, to provide me with fresh garden vegetables of corn, beans, tomatoes, potatoes, etc. like he’d been doing for many years. With the apologizes made, it was the next spoken words that forever burned into my memory when my friend, and my cousin said, “ya just can’t garden with one hand. I tried, Lord knows I tried”.

Standing before me, a man in his mid seventies with one functional arm, the left. A man who like most all of us, had spent his entire life living right handed. A stroke victim, several months back, who awoke from a long coma one day without memory of his own name. A person who awoke to a world without the use of his right hand, his whole arm paralyzed. His world changed forever in the blink of an eye.

My cousin, several years older than me, a man that could present a rather intimidating figure on the streets of downtown North Judson in a different time, and in what now seems like a different place. There was never a Dalton Gang in North Judson, but back in the day, there was the Howard Boys. Not bank robbers, those Howard Boys, but there were certain things ya just didn’t do to the Howard Boys, like tug on Superman’s Cape.

As childhood memories filled my mind, I looked into the eyes of 75 years of living and realized how important the real things in life really are. How important health and body are above everything else in life, and how we tend to never give such thoughts a chance to creep into the sunshine of our mind.

A friend of mine who came by to check on my health and wish me well, and with a simple statement changed the way I’ll forever look at life. “Ya can’t garden with one hand. I tried. Lord knows I tried”. And so he had.

One of the important things ya gotta watch for in August is the first heavy fog in the morning. The reason is ‘cause that’s gona be a hard frost on the same day in October. Now this fog and frost deal is like that cricket telling ya the temperature last week, don’t know why it works, it just does most every year. And much like the cricket and temperature, don’t spend too much time trying to figure out why on the fog / frost thing.

Before I start getting emails from Alabama telling me they don’t get hard frost in October, or somebody from Cape Town telling me I'm crazy, I'm talking ‘bout the cold country of Indiana not your part of God’s Country. Last year I received an invitation to visit South Africa. This year the invitation was again extended. I again declined as the bridge’s not yet completed. I’m not sure if that’s gona be a toll bridge or not, to South Africa. But I told ‘em I’d be right over soon as the bridge is finished, that I’d let ‘em know before I started out so they’d be looking for me, and could leave the light on.

Now if ya like August, ya like hot. I love August. But I like air conditioning as much as hot. My office is too cold by some people, but It has to be, ‘cause my two office cats wear full length fur coats. I think I told ya ‘bout the office cats, Miss Kitty and Little Brother. The black & whites of downtown North Judson. I gotta keep ‘em cool. Did ya ever try to live with two mad cats? Sophia’s bad enough and she’s not even mad, some times.

Did ya know that ants won’t cross a thick chalk line. So if ya go to an outside picnic and take a pie along, draw a chalk circle around the pie to keep the ants away. When I was a kid in Downtown Toto, I always carried a piece of chalk in my pocket just in case I ran across an ant walking on something I could draw a quick circle on so I could watch the ant try to get out of jail. I don’t think I ever left an ant inside the circle, when done watching, I’d always open the door with my finger. Oh, I almost forgot, that chalk line don’t keep little hillbilly boys away from pies. One time at a family reunion I know some little hillbilly boys that took a whole pie, chocolate it was, and two spoons and didn’t even give that chalk circle a thought. We, no, they took a quart of milk too.

As the Dog Days of Summer 2010 bark to a close, the 2girldogs are making the most of season. Sleeping in and doing nothing all day long is the norm for the 2girldogs. The Bentley dog is too young and too hyper to fully enjoy the Dog Days of Summer. But he’ll learn, he’s still young, and ya know that stuff ‘bout teaching young dog new tricks.

Sure hope ya saw the Perseid Meteor Shower last week on the 12th. It was a perfect moonless condition to look at meteors, and there were lots to see, I estimated seeing 50-75 per hour. An extra treat that night was seeing Mars, Saturn and Venus in a tight clump when ya looks to the south and just a little to the east. If ya had a good clear view ya maybe even could see Mercury really low on the south horizon, but ya had to have a long clear view to see Mercury.

I couldn’t see Mercury from the East Wing, so I drove 4 miles to the west to see if there was a better vantage point. There was. Ya seldom see four planets that close together in the sky. It was worth the trip. I love to stargaze. Sometimes just use the high power binoculars and just look at stuff, always wondering if somebody’s out there with high power binoculars looking toward me wondering if somebody’s out there with high power binoculars wondering…….. I just do.

Just one of the many simple pleasures of summer is the amount of aromatic herbs available. Fresh herbs are as far away from dried as hot is from cold, it’s truly like day and night, they’re just not the same.

Now the she would always pick Basil as her favorite ‘cause it always goes in the tomato sauce for the spaghetti, and she always picks pasta as her favorite food. I too like Basil, but not like the she. I too like tomatoes, but not so much in tomato sauce. More so as light bread with bologna, tomato and mayonnaise. Now for those folks who’s never eaten a bologna sandwich with tomato and mayonnaise, its your loss, I feel sorry for ya, and for everybody else, that’s what I'm talking ‘bout.

Not only do our garden herbs this time of the year liven up our meals, they also bring some other side benefits that are often over looked by many people. Such as drinking tomato juice with fresh basil to ease a headache.

I think Oregano is second only to Basil for the she, it too goes into the tomato sauce. It’s also used for scorpion bites, so far we’ve not had to use that part of the Oregano Plant, just the spaghetti sauce part.

One of my favorites in the herb family is Dill. I like Dill. Know what Dill and Fennel have in common? Well don’t feel bad not too many people do now days. But some time back everybody knew what those two had in common. As a matter of fact, back then not knowing what Dill and Fennel had in common caused nothing but heartaches. Nothing but heartaches.

One of the key pieces of damming evidence in the Salem Witch Trials was the lack of Dill and Fennel in every garden of every woman on trial. In fact this was the major supporting pieces of evidence in addition to the reliable eye witness testimony. None of the accused had either Dill or Fennel growing in their garden. Back then everybody knew that Dill and Fennel kept witches away, and it always worked.

No wonder they didn’t plant Dill or Fennel, those witches. Those convicted witches. They’d been better off to plant just a little bit at the very edge of the garden. I don’t think a little bit would keep witches away, just slow ‘em down a little bit. Maybe they were afraid even a little bit would make ‘em fall off their brooms.

There was a time during the Roman Empire that Anise was used to pay taxes. Sophia, setting on the back of my chair, reading as I talk with my fingers, just whispered into my ear “by the time we get rid of Obama, Harry Reid and Pelosi, we’ll all be paying taxes again with Anise”. Damn Republican Cat.

Another favorite of the She is Garlic. That’s her Italian thing. I think it ya went to a true Italian Store, you’d find Garlic Ice Cream. I guess the Greeks are big on garlic too. Seems I read some where ‘bout Aristotle making reference to garlic being used to ward off the fear of water. That maybe could be the reason I never learned to swim, never ate garlic.

Do ya have a favorite summer creature, the things ya can see in the sunshine? I do and it’s the dragonfly. Now if ya look at this little feller real close you’ll be amazed. Talk ‘bout a complex machine. I’ve watched dragonflies most all my life. They don’t sting, don’t hurt ya in any way. But watch ‘em for a while and you’ll too become a dragonfly fan.

Lou told me ‘bout dragonflies at Southfork. Told me ‘bout ‘em being able to fly in six directions. The only creature to be able to fly in six directions. Up, down, left, right, forward, backward. Now that little brown eyed friend of my, my hummingbird can’t even do that. It’s that left, right part that gets the hummingbird, they seem to be able to move left, right but if ya look close, they change altitude to move left or right, very slight altitude change but not true left, right without altitude change like the dragonfly.

I watched a dragonfly for ‘bout 10 minutes or so last week, tried to get him to land on my arm, no deal. I don’t think he liked me, ‘cause I couldn’t get within two foot of him. But he was pretty cool to watch.

Lou called the dragonflies “Snake Doctors” ‘cause the mountain people thought they followed snakes around and if the snake got hurt the dragonfly would take care of ‘em. Glad I’m not a Snake Doctor, I’d be a bad one. I’d let ‘em die, I don’t like spiders and snakes.

After the President took a position on building the mosque at ground zero contrary to the view of 70% of the American People, Sophia tells me that she once again supports the President on this issue. And just as soon as hell freezes over she will, as national spokescat for the CCCA, (Conservative Calico Cats of America) recommend that the membership support the President on this matter, and turn a blind eye to the will of the people.

One of the enjoyable things about living with Sophia is watching her ability to reach a compromise among different peoples with opposing points of view. Sophia is offering another alternative condition in which she could support the President. She told me “when I can put a litter box in every mosque in Mecca, I’ll go on the FoxNews Channel to try to convince Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly to support our President”. The cat smile lit up the room, as the green eyes sparkled. Pretty cat, Sophia.

Like I said before, Sophia is so good at bringing people with different points of view into the harmony of full love and fellowship, I sometimes think she should have been a Baptist Preacher. She still may, when she gets out of politics and answers a higher calling, something even above the CCCA. I think Sophia would make a good Television Preacher. I’m not sure we could handle the gospel according to Sophia.

An interesting observation on the need for the President’s people to clarify his remarks on the mosque thing. The very next day a press release said Oh no, the President didn’t mean THAT MOSQUE, he just meant any mosque and he’s sticking up for freedom of religion as required by the constitution, not supporting THAT MOSQUE.

Given that position, I wonder why earlier this year the President canceled the National Day of Prayer Service at the White House, and last Friday had a dinner to celebrate the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, where he laid his mosque support speech on ‘em.

I wonder why the President didn’t have a State Dinner to celebrate the start of Lent on Ash Wednesday? Or why he didn’t go to Nashville to celebrate the start of the annual Southern Baptist Convention. Why would the current President Of the United States write in a book some years back “I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction”. I wonder what an ugly direction is, are we now looking in an ugly direction? It’s just stuff like that, that makes ya wonder, sure makes me wonder.

If ya think hummingbirds are small, did ya ever see their babies? There are now two baby hummingbirds at the feeder all day long, one or the other, and most of the time both. Little things, not much taller than a paper clip, but they sure fly good.

For you “Smokey and The Bandit” fans, when I see a baby hummingbird with his father, they remind me of Big Ennis and Little Ennis Burdett.

Stay safe in Afghanistan.

From the East Wing with,A Garden Lost,The Fog of August,Snake Doctors,Sophia on The O’Reilly Factor

I wish you well,
BobbyRay