Wilderness Blues- Ramblings from the Great Land

There is a lot of coverage on the news about the price of gas lately. While our president would like to blame it on the Russians, the fact is, as soon as he took office he shut down the pipeline, and the price of gas went through the roof. I wonder what Air force One runs on. Anyone heard of an electric plane? Let me know how that works.   Actually its not the price of gas that this post is about, it's that other gas that causes bloating and intestinal discomfort that I'm referring to. When it comes to gas, I've got it in abundance. Unfortunately, no one wants it.  I made a pot of bean and ham soup yesterday. I put all the ingredients in the crock pot before church, and by dinner time, it was ready. Frankly, it's delicious. As mentioned, the problem with the beans is that they do affect me in a most unpleasant manner. I blow up like a hot air balloon and for the rest of the night the pressure relief valve is working overtime. I wonder if I were to put a camera in my ro...

   When I was fifteen, I got a job working down the street at Mac's Trading Post. It was the only sporting goods store in town. The work wasn't hard, but the pay was pathetic. The minimum wage at the time was $1.60 an hour, and yet somehow Mac and his wife got away with paying me only half that. My friend, Don, got a job a year later at Super Duper, a local supermarket located at the Southland Shopping Mall. He was pulling in the required minimum wage bagging groceries. After awhile I came to my senses and decided to join him. We got to spend time together at the front counter, bagging groceries and helping ladies out to their cars. Afterwards we would compare tips and make comments about the customers we'd helped. In time we both went to work at the store next door, Twin Fair. It was similar to Wal-Mart, only not as large. It had all the normal departments that you would expect, including hardware, paint, sporting goods and toys. Don worked in the paint department and I e...

 School was out for the Thanksgiving weekend, and I had four days with no obligations. I was visiting my best friend, Don, the day after Thanksgiving. Gadabout Gaddis, the Flying Fisherman, was on TV. He was down in Florida catching Largemouth Bass on a fly rod. We were sitting in Don's living room in Ohio filled with desire; not for girls, we both knew that wasn't going to happen. We were overcome with an overpowering longing to go fishing. It was Gadabout's fault. He was having so much fun that it was contagious. It didn't seem to matter to our juvenile brains that the temperature was hovering in the thirties outside, fishing seemed like a smashing idea at the moment. I ran home and put on a sweater and a winter coat, grabbed some gloves and a long stocking cap called a toboggan. It was red and black striped, about three feet long and had a fuzzy ball at the end. I scarfed up my fishing rod and tackle box and walked back to Don's house. He met me with a winter co...

 If I may be so bold, I would like to comment here on something I have to believe we're all familiar with. I suppose that if you have a computer, you probably have indoor plumbing as well, and if you have indoor plumbing, you use toilet paper. It's known by several names - toilet paper, TP, tissue paper and several others that are a little more crass that I won't mention here. When I worked at the L. Kane Store, Ol' Swede, the manager of the ferry terminal, used to come in from time to time and mention that he needed "bung-fodder". It wasn't until he made his way to the paper aisle that I realized what he wanted. When I moved to the "end-time" farm, we used outhouses, and since we were supposed to be "denying the flesh man", someone felt like we should forgo toilet paper. At least that's the impression I got. Perhaps there just wasn't enough money to buy it. In any event, we used newspapers and magazines that were cut into lit...