First off I want to wish all my friends in the U.S. a happy and safe holiday weekend. I hope whatever plans you have include good times with family and friends.
As most of you loyal readers know, today is my birthday. However, I’ll be celebrating rather low-key as a nasty summer cold was one of my early birthday presents. That particular gift-giver is unknown. The cold arrived in the wee hours of Wednesday evening, and it really knocked me on my butt for a couple of days. Today, I’m still not at full strength, but there’s a long legacy of great parties to live up to, so I’ll do the best that I can. I’ll be celebrating with a few of my kids, and they always step up to share the day with enthusiasm.
We all have such fond memories of cookouts at Grandma’s Ranch, followed by fireworks at the end of the driveway. No fighting traffic to get to city fireworks. No fighting people for the best ringside seat. And the best part, was easy access to air-conditioning. 🙂
Not everyone will be joining me today, just two of my kids and one kid-in-law, but that’s better than no company.
My other early present was much more fun. My daughter, Anj, and her kids sent me an Aura Frame digital picture display device. The frame came already loaded with pictures from her family, and other members of the family can add pictures to my frame as well. I’ll leave it to the tech-savvy kids and grandkids to figure out exactly how that works, but it was great that setting up my frame was so easy for me. No tech-savvy needed. 🙂
That gift arrived on Thursday, and Aura had forgotten to include the gift card. So it was almost as much a mystery as who gave me the cold. Since said cold was raging Thursday morning, I was only able to send a group text to all my kids asking who had sent it, then I collapsed on the couch. Later that day is when Anj responded to clear up that mystery.
It wasn’t until late Friday that I felt good enough to do more than look at the frame in the box, and I was delighted to see images of so many of the kids and grandkids, and even my two great-grands. I can’t wait until the whole family can share pictures. That will be so much fun.
Since I’m still not up to snuff, I’ll end today with a post from Slim Randles. This is an older column of his, but still appropriate for the day. Enjoy…
Windy Wilson was on the prowl, this beautiful Independence Day morning, searching the neighborhood for something to do for others. He decided to let his weekly day helping others come on the Fourth this week, because he was feeling very American.
Let’s see … he thought … I can circumlocute over to Mrs. Hennessey’s and see if her flower garden needs weeding. She’s got very close veins and the sugar diabeets, and getting around ain’t easy.
He headed in that direction when he came across two friends of his arguing over politics. They were standing there in the shade of an elm tree and trying seriously to tear down each other’s theory on how the world, the United States, the state government, and the local school board should be operated. Windy stopped and listened to them. Each would look at Windy as each point was made only to see the usually garrulous Alphonse Wilson smile benignly and nod in response.
Pretty soon, the two combatants figured out that Windy was nodding to statements on totally opposite sides of the argument. They stopped and looked at him.
“How do you stand on this, Windy?” one asked.
“I stand as an American citizen,” he said, “on this recompensation of our Independence Day, knowing that our foundling fathers would want it this way. Yes, since this is a special day for all Americans, I am recumbent in the factotum that it is your very basic right to be wrong.”
“Which one? Which one of us is wrong, Windy?”
He grinned. “Well … you both are.”
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All of the posts here are from his syndicated column, Home Country that is read in hundreds of newspapers across the country. I am always happy to have him share his wit and wisdom here.
Slim is a veteran newspaperman, hunting guide, cowboy and dog musher. He was a feature writer and columnist for The Anchorage Daily News for 10 years and guided hunters in the Alaska Range and the Talkeetna Mountains. A resident of New Mexico now for more than 30 years, he’s the prize-winning author of a dozen books, and is host of two podcasts and a television program.