Wilderness Blues- Ramblings from the Great Land

 Jan and I were having dinner with my friends, Mark Smith and his fiance' Sarah Quiggly a few weeks ago. They spend a good bit of time figuring out new and exciting dishes to try out and they like to share what they've discovered. Because they experiment with new recipes, our conversations often revolve around food. During the course of our discussion, the subject of Cream of Wheat came up. I'm not sure why, but it did. Well, one thing led to another, and I think I commented on the old fellow on the box. We discovered that his name was Frank L. White. He was a chef who was originally from Barbados. He has a very pleasant appearance and I guess whoever was in charge of marketing at the company thought he would be a good representative. I did a little research and discovered that he lived in Michigan and passed on in I believe, 1938. For a number of years he didn't have a proper grave marker, but a few years back his story was told on one of the major ...

 Have you ever noticed that some guys are just naturally gifted handymen.  I'm not one of those guys. I rely on the integrity of the gifted ones to help me out.You take your car in because it's not running right and they can look at it and know right away what the problem is. "Well Mr. Botts, it's obvious that the bungflogger here has become disengaged with the hornwiller, so the flipstopper isn't going around." That's all very entertaining, but I haven't got a clue what they're talking about.  I can only hope I don't have to take out a second mortgage on the house to pay to fix it. A few weeks ago our Samsung TV crapped the bed. It started off with not wanting to turn on with the remote control. I'd always heard that you do the simplest thing first, so I replaced the batteries with a fresh pair. It didn't help.I was standing in front of the TV pushing the on button like my life depended on it, but to no avail. I felt like I was...

  I was rummaging around in one of my dresser drawers the other day looking for a small screwdriver or some such thing for the crew who was working on the bathroom. I don't usually keep tools in my dresser, but this screwdriver was made for eyeglasses, and I didn't want to lose it in the mess that I call my tool room. Anyway, I came across a card that I got for my birthday last year. When I opened it, there was money inside! Woo Hoo! I'd forgotten all about it, which was fine, because otherwise it would have been spent already. Well, it just so happens that my favorite store, Tideland Tackle, started carrying a line of Ray Troll t-shirts. For those of you who may not know Ray Troll, he's a famous Alaskan artist who made fish art really cool. He does some other things too. I've seen t-shirts with dinosaurs on them and I can't recall what else. My interest is mainly in fish, so I don't pay attention to anything else. He came up with a desig...