Wilderness Blues- Ramblings from the Great Land

 For a number of years now, I can't really say how many because they tend to all run together, my daughter Jennifer has been hosting family and friends at her house on Christmas Eve for shoe box dinners. Jen is an elementary teacher and all elementary teachers worth their weight in salt have all manner of fun projects up their sleeves to make learning interesting to their students. I'm not sure where she learned about the shoe box dinners, but it's one of my favorite traditions during the holidays. She wraps shoe boxes with colorful Christmas paper, including the lids, and fills each one with some chips, a soda, a couple of mandarin oranges, some candy and a small gift for each person who is attending. While the gifts may be small, they aren't inexpensive, especially when she is getting something for a number of different people. This year I had several packs of hoochies in my shoe box. Our friend Mark received a flashlight, complete with a laser pointer. I...

     Years ago Timex watches came out with various commercials showing their watches being abused in assorted situations - people skiing down a slope and falling or a guy using a jack hammer or something along that line to show how tough their watches were. The announcer would come on and say - Timex watches, they take a licking and keep on ticking. Well, Jan and I celebrated our forty third wedding anniversary recently and I'm pleased to say, we're still ticking along. I didn't say tickling, I said ticking, like a watch. I didn't include any pictures of us as we look now, the contrast is so great, that you probably wouldn't believe that it was the same two people. It's amazing what time does to a person. I wish I weighed now what I did in these pictures. I think I had a 29 inch waist then. Heck, my head probably wouldn't fit into a 29 inch stocking cap right now. I can't recall when the last time was that my hair was anything ...