Zen and the Art of Lawn Maintenance
Today was the weekly Lawn-Mowing excersize. Mary and 1SG Caldwell have much the same standard for grass. 2-1/2 inches, give or take an 8th of an inch. Mary believes that grass is inhabited by evil spirits like "Nats" in the Siamese animism. The tall grass hides them, and if it gets to be 2-5/8ths high, they will hide in it to play dirty tricks on you. 1SG Caldwell simply feels that it provides cover and concealment for the "commies."
Three Sergeants
Do remember ever being this young? Bart contacted me thru Military.com a while back. This was after 40 years. The last time I saw him was in 1965 when Mary and I were on our way to Fort Jackson SC. The two of these guys were my best friends at Fort Ord. We drifted apart as we bobbed around on the tides of war and needs of the service.
Bart was the best man at our wedding. He's in the center with Don on the right. Don Gave the bride away. I'm on the left. All I had to do was stand there and look like I understood what was happening.
Old Friends
It's like "deja' vu all over again!" (to quote Yogi Berra) The same weekend we moved Eleanor, Jimmie and his wife Millie came to town for a gunshow. Jimmie is President of a Bitterroot Valley Marine association, and had a table selling raffle tickets for Two commemorative M-! Garand rifles and a shotgun. Proceeds are going to families of Marines who are Killed In Action (KIA for anyone obsessed with Military Acronyms). We managed to get together at the show, and afterword for dinner.
Jimmie is the guy who gave me some financial advice years ago while we were on a hunting trip.
"Gary," he said, "If you owe the bank $5000, you have a problem. If you ow the bank $5,000,000, the bank has the problem!" There will be more on Jimmie on a new blog I'm going to start.
Moving Eleanor
I've been stopped now for several days. One of our activities has been to meve Eleanor into assisted living. Eleanor is our neighbor and friend who is 93 going on 94, and decided she wanted to live the good life. The kids (Dean and Sheila) came over to help...We managed to get the job done with little fuss and bother. Eleanor and Mary in the photo.
Why am I here?
Why on earth would anyone want to start a blog? It looks like the ultimate in self absorption. No matter, I was led into this by my daughter, who kindly set up the blog for me. You prabably guessed by now that I was led here kicking and screaming. Yeah! Fat chance!
Basically. I am a soldier, and have been for 41 years. My wife, Mary, was with me for almost 37 of those years, and I believe that she was the ultimate Officer's wife. (The ultimate Wife, Period). We spent 13 + years on active duty, 23 years in the active Army Reserve, and the rest of the time in the Individual Ready Reserve.
All that Army stuff left me enough time to complete a second career in a "Governmental Corporation", and a third in a Medical Device company.
Today was the weekly Lawn-Mowing excersize. Mary and 1SG Caldwell have much the same standard for grass. 2-1/2 inches, give or take an 8th of an inch. Mary believes that grass is inhabited by evil spirits like "Nats" in the Siamese animism. The tall grass hides them, and if it gets to be 2-5/8ths high, they will hide in it to play dirty tricks on you. 1SG Caldwell simply feels that it provides cover and concealment for the "commies."
