Point Made

A couple of stories that have no ending keep lingering in my life. Maria and I were sitting in the family room at my son's home in Seattle watching the news when both of these stories originally came to light for me. First, it was the floods in Louisiana. A low-pressure system was sucking moisture out of the Gulf of Mexico and delivery it in copious amounts to the western and central region of Louisiana. A high-pressure ridge to the north and east held the low-pressure system in place like a good offensive tackle on a football team, for a couple of days. Some places received over 30 inches of rain in the 24 to 36-hour time frame. This amount of rain exceeds the amount of rain some areas of Louisiana get for an entire season. Rivers climbed out of their banks, covered the floodplain, as defined by the history of these rivers, and then kept on climbing.  T he term a one hundred year flood  has become part of our language. It is defined as an event that would statistically oc...

After a redeye flight from Portland to Chicago and a foggy ride from O'Hare to Appleton, yours truly can't remember going to bed last night. My Fitbit reported to me that I did get approximately two and a half hours of sleep on the plane. I don't remember that either. At 5:45 am this morning, I woke up in our king sized bed in our home. What I do remember is six days in the company of friend and family, who live in the upper reaches of the left coast. The "ninth daughter" Anne Nagler lives in a wonderful neighborhood of one-hundred-year-old homes with trees and flora to match. With Anne, we took one day to explore the shoreline of the Columbia River Valley. Washougal, WA on the north bank of the Columbia River yielded its' Dalila's to Maria and Anne. I, in the true spirit of my mentor Danny Chauvin, spent my time chatting up the locals at the sales tent finding out about the history of the town. Not unlike Wisconsin, the sett...

After a redeye flight from Portland to Chicago and a foggy ride from O'Hare to Appleton, yours truly can't remember going to bed last night but at 5:45 am I did wake up in our king sized bed at our home. My Fitbit reported to me that I did get approximately two and a half hours of sleep on the plane. I don't remember that either. What I do remember is six days in the company of friend and family, who live on the upper reaches of the left coast. The "ninth daughter" Anne Nagler lives in a wonderful neighborhood of one-hundred-year-old homes with trees and flora to match. We took one day to explore the shoreline of the Columbia River Valley. Washougal, WA on the north bank of the Columbia River yielded its' Dalila's to Maria and Anne. I, in the true spirit of my mentor Danny Chauvin, spent my time chatting up the locals at the sales tent finding out about the history of the town. Not unlike Wisconsin, the settlement originated...

Short ribs have sauce on them, and I'm taking a diuretic. Recently I had one of those problems only we males have. My wife and I were out to dinner with some of our friends. I ordered pork ribs which were dripping with sugary BBQ sauce. I was able to keep almost all of the sauce off my clothing, but my face and hands felt like I had been bathing in the stuff. While the restaurant provided a fairly high-quality paper napkin, it provided only one. Coinciding with this event was my need to be aware how long I could go without using the bathroom. My doctor concerned with my tendency to retain water has prescribed a diuretic which causes me to need to go to the bathroom often. Might I add, that need is also accelerated if I have my occasional non-alcohol beer. When I quit drinking alcohol in 1982, I ended my career as a fairly high functioning alcoholic. In the early stages of my abstinence, I stayed away from bars and maintained vigila...

This last week, the media was filled with rhetoric of hatred, wildly concocted stories of conspiracy, victimization, and class warfare, in other words, The Republican Convention in Cleveland. In a political campaign, you should expect the loyal opposition to show you that if they were in charge life would be better for you and they would ask for your support. It's fair in this atmosphere to run down the competitions record on the issue, and things can get a little out of hand. The boundary can be vague, but it should be short of wishing your opponent a horrible death. Amidst the shouts calling for Hillary's imprisonment one of the participants stated that Hilary Clinton should be shot. To be fair, it was not without reason. The Hillary well-wisher suggested she should be shot for her treasonous part in the Benghazi killings of American diplomats. This is aside from the fact that congressmen from his party squandered millions of dollars in...

This last few days have been some of the worst I have ever lived through. Remember, my generation watched the Vietnam War every night on the national news. We woke up to learn Bobbie Kennedy was killed in LA before we were able to adjust to the world without his brother Jack and our civil rights hero, Martin Luther King. We saw some benefits from these things as these events energized people to insist on change. We witnessed the success of the civil rights movement and the women's liberation movement. These events put the USA on a slow, bumpy path to recognize our blind stupidity in try to repress people of different nationalities, ethnic origins, sexual preferences and religious beliefs. We now look at things going backward. There are powerful people that would love to roll these gains back. And now we experience mass killings, occurring almost daily in our country. We get hung up on the "It's the guns / it's the mental state o...

It is getting to be more like summer here on the shores of Lake Maria. We are in full bloom season. Whatever can take root in our backyard is doing so with relish. The mosquitos are thick enough to dim the midday sun. There is a story in Wisconsin about Mosquitos. It seems two of the flying pests were cruising about looking for prey. They spot an old man on a porch sitting in his rocking chair. They both swoop down and lift the old man chair and all and began flying to a private spot where they might drain his body of his blood. As they flew, other mosquitos showed interest in their bounty.  To the extent, that one of our winged bloodsuckers,said " I'm worried. Let's take him out in the deep woods." The other winged pest replied, "No, we don't want to do that. The deep woods is where the real big mosquitos are." Nevertheless, we find ourselves in a quandary. Do we plant repellant plants and use other ecologically sound insect control p...