Mitchell Way
“Hello. My name is Marty. And your name is. . .”
I leaned forward and squinted to see the name on her identification badge.
“Angus. Nice to meet you, Angus.”
“It’s Agnus, you insulting twit!” she barked as she spun around and walked away.
The effectiveness of a good presentation is solely dependent upon the speaker’s ability to hold their audience’s attention. (A guy named Marty.)
I had an opportunity in my 20s to work with youth groups, kids aged kindergarten through 5th grade. This was done in a church setting at vacation Bible schools, junior church, and AWANA kids clubs.
Cheryl and I have visited four of the Hawaiian islands: Oahu, Kauai, The Big Island, and Maui.
I would rate them as #1 Kauai, #2 The Big Island, #3 Maui, and #4 Oahu. This is based on things that interest me.
What does it take to turn a dream into reality?
First, you must believe in yourself and, with a little luck, have others believe in you too.
To tell you the truth, it wasn’t until my late 20s that I learned the word hierarchy and the medical term pes cavus weren’t the same thing. I should never trust the images in my mind.
Thirty years ago, there was a different mentality about weddings. It seemed that “most” couples preferred to be married in a church. Nowadays, I really can’t remember the last time we had a wedding in our church.
Cow tipping is nothing about slipping a cow a $5.00 bill after a nice fresh glass of milk.
The term Cow Tipping is an urban legend thought to have been started sometime in the 1970s. It involved going out at night and searching the farmlands to find a cow that was sleeping standing up. (This was usually done by inebriated high school, or college age boys.) The legend has it that two or more boys snuck up to a slumbering cow and pushed it from the side causing the cow to topple over onto the ground.
“Good evening, sir. My name is Officer Luke. My partner, Officer Lease, is in the next room talking with your wife.”
“Talking about what?”
“The hospital,” Officer Luke continued, “is required to call us when they suspect domestic violence.”
“What are you brooding about today?”
I am standing in the kitchen staring out the back window at the lawn. Cheryl has snuck up behind me with a steaming cup of coffee.
“I want five months, just five months. Is that too much to ask?” I grumbled. “I mean, it’s October 14th. I should have mowed the lawn for the last time but look at it. It’s still growing! It’s got to be that flippin’ El Niño.”
“Are you wishing for cold and rain?” she asked.
“No, but I am wishing for less work and I’m on a time schedule. You see, I know that in late March or April the spring grass is going to start madly growing and that will begin my seven months of yardwork, so the sooner it stops growing now, the more time off I’ll have until it starts growing again. I also told Chris at the mower shop that I would bring the mower in as soon as I stopped mowing so he could winterize it, but each week I look at the lawn and it needs a mowing again.”
“Yes, but look at the hanging baskets. They still have blooms on them. Don’t they look pretty?”
“It’s mid-October! We don’t need hanging baskets. We need frost on the pumpkins. We need birds in the feeders. We need squirrels skittering around the porch eating from the plate of corn I set out for them. And another thing – look at the leaves on the birch tree. They are still hanging there.”
“They are so pretty. Don’t you love their golden color?”
“It’s all about mother nature’s delay of game. You see, once a year I clean out the gutters. I can’t clean them out until the leaves have fallen off the trees. What would be the point? I could clean them out today and next week we will get a strong south wind which will blow the leaves off the trees and fill the gutters back up again. I’m only doing it once. I’ve got half a mind to go out there and slap the trunk of the tree with a stick to shake those darn leaves off.”
“I can see someone with half a mind doing that, dear. Think of the positive attributes of a mild fall – we don’t have to run the furnace yet. You know how you always go into a coma when you see the heating bill each month. When El Nino really gets started, it’s the same thing each year – you stand here in the kitchen staring out the window at the rain or the snow and you are in a fowl mood because it is cold and wet outside, and you wish the weather would just warm up again.”
“Four seasons. That’s all I ask. Four on time seasons. I’m on a schedule.”
“Well since you have nothing to do but to stare out the window, why don’t you help me to move some furniture?”
“You know if I had time, I would definitely do that dear. I think the first thing on my agenda today is to go out into the front yard and beat that birch tree with a stick.”
“My creatively impatient husband. I’ll make you some cocoa.”
Faith Family Life Getting Older Growing Up Misadventures Music Patriotism Pets or Pests? Serving Others Snips Tributes
It was 5:45 on a Friday night as we smoked up the North State Street hill in our 1953 Buick. My best friend, Chuck, and I were sitting in the back seat. Mom was driving. We were on our way to the Bellingham Armory for the annual Alderwood Elementary School skate night.
Four men stood facing the wall shoulder to shoulder. They looked very unsure of themselves. Two others had decided to sit this dance out. It was called the Line Dance on the High Seas.
Outhouse synonyms: privy, commode, bog, loo, water closet, jake, garderobe, latrine, comfort station, pressure relief shed, waning crescent hotel, catalog disposal, and the snake pit. Across the world everyone has their own unique name for the building over the hole in the ground.
It was another day of summer. Neither my best friend Chuck nor I had the responsibility of having a job yet because these were the lazy days of middle school. The best a boy our age could do for money was mow lawns, and next to thinking about girls, the thought of mowing made our skins crawl. Our goal was to hold off on having jobs for as many years as possible.
Welcome to the Knot Head Years. This is your Captain speaking. For those of you aged 13 through 19, please check your brain in at the door. You may retrieve it at carousel 8 upon reaching the age of 26.
It has happened again — another run-in with my nemesis the seagulls at work. At this point in their lives they are almost 3/4s the size of an adult with dark gray feathers. They can flutter their wings but they can’t fly and they still rely on mom and dad for food. They nest on the upper monitor roof in my building. Between the monitor and the main roof there is a five-foot open area running the full length of my ¼ mile building. This is how the juvenile gull entered into my lower work area. His name is Jonathan.