SNOW LEMMINGS

Today was a work day, even though it is a Saturday. I have to work every 4th weekend and this was #4 for me. I got to work at about 7:15 or so and get the game plan figured out for the staff. I figure out how to convince 10 people to do the work of 14.... Sometimes it takes a lot of convincing :)
Well around 10:00 a.m. I heard someone say, "Wow, the snow has really been coming down!" I had no idea it has snowed at all since I was trying to be "convincing" and rounding the floors to keep the troops enthused. I looked out and everything was white. Not good. On the weekends supervisors are responsible for the environment inside AND out. My outside environment was a white frosty mess.
Hmmmm... I've never really had to deal with snow before. Well, I guess I'd better go outside and take a look.
(Outside taking a look)
Yep, it's snow... And cold... But it's not too slick so maybe it will just ....blow away or something.
(Back inside where it's warm)
I decide to keep an eye on it.. just in case it might need to have an eye kept on it.
I make a few more rounds and then started getting pages. It seems that the snow is getting slick and folks are beginning notice and they want me to do something about it!
I have an "outside" person that takes care of that and he usually just does it. But I've got this new boss who thinks he needs to manage everything and so I'm thinking he might have broken our auto system of "If it snows, please come in and remove it."
So I give my "snow man" a call to have him come in and remove this white abomination.
Ung! Ung! Ung! Hmmm... His phone is busy...Why is his phone busy? I wait and dial again.. Ung! Ung! Ung! STILL BUSY!!! I think, "he has taken his phone off the hook so that I can't call him in!" I can't believe it! I never would have thought he would do that. He's just not the type to do something like that. I am really surprised, astonished, bewildered, and I don't know what to do with all of this snow!
I page my inside APD (All Purpose Dude) . He's been there for 26+ years and he can probably show me how to run the sand truck. I'll just do it myself. So he gets to the office and I tell him what is going on and how I can't get a hold of my snow man to have him come in and remove the snow. He says "Hmmm, I just talked to him and he told me if we needed him to just call him and he'd come in and take care of it for us." DOH! He was on the phone with my APD telling him he would come in if I would just call him in, while I was trying to call him to come in. Timing.
I try his number again... Ring Ring Hello?
YES he answered!!!! He will be in, in about 20 minutes. So I go outside to survey. Hmmm, not good... Folks can't get in to the parking lot from the street because it's too slick, and folks leaving the parking lot can't stop Zzzouppp! they are sliding right past the stop sign in to the street.. This street is also a downhill slope so folks can't stop for my folks who cant stop..
I am now thinking about calling in sick except I've been at work for 3 hours and visited every floor in the hospital. Someone would probably figure out I wasn't really sick and they would not believe I didn't make it to work. Sooo while I await my snow man I think about getting a bucket of that snow melt setting up by the front door for the sidewalk area and sprinkle it in the road. I get some of it and head back to the slick area at the stop sign just before the street entrance. Before I get there I see another vehicle ZZZooouppp! right out in to the street. I think of the mindless lemmings who haven't since enough NOT to jump off of the cliff, and how these drivers are not far removed from lemming I.Q. With this thought in mind, "What idiot drivers! Do they not know how to drive on a little snnn..." WHOA! Blat!
I fall.
In the road.
By the stop sign. (I've prematurely started spreading my bucket of ice melt .o )
That these mindless lemming drivers are stupidly sliding by.
MMMM... this really is slick...
I get up.. Blat!
I fall again.
DAAANNNNGGG! (Or some verbiage of the sort.)
I am now sliding down the drive in to the street.. where the lemmings have lept before me.
I think, "I am going to get ran over by a lemming.... "
I get up.
BLAT!
I fall again.
I am Bambi... I can't walk!!!!!
I want my mommy!!
I hit spot of ice melt and stop sliding. Hey, what's this? Traction???
I get up.............. I stand. I fish for my bucket with the remainder of the ice melt in it that is laying in that treacherous drive of "quick snow".
Got it.
I wonder if anyone saw me fall...?
I turn around and it's bumper to bumper traffic behind me.
Ya, someone will have it all on YouTube before I get back inside...
Just another day in paradise.
When I got home Nyle and I played on the snow. We slid down the big road hill.
Maybe 20 mph in 60 feet.
Somehow that was much funner than falling and sliding.
It must be Nyle....
And the absence of lemmings around.

Making Bread

Dazed and Confused

12/03/08
Last night coming home from the meeting Jen and I were trying to entertain Nyle as he was getting tired and cranky. We were singing the ABC’s song to him. He likes to hear it sung in opera style so we obliged him and were doing our best Pavarotti imitation for him. At about the 6th encore I decided to sing it in a Falsetto and Jen tried to do her best Statler Brother bass imitation. While we were doing so I looked in the rearview mirror to check the reaction of our audience. And when I saw Nyle he would look at Jen then roll his head quickly and look at me the he would look back at Jen all the while looking totally dazed and confused. Back and forth, back and forth. Finally with a very confused look on his face he threw back his head and yelled, “What’s going on here?!!!”
A very very funny moment!

Bored-Deer Hunting While in Bed

Jen and Nyle have been in North Carolina all this week visiting Valeria and Angelo. They are going to be back Tuesday. So It's been very quite around here, and just a little boring. This evening I was sitting here watching an uninteresting football game when I had a thought.
I'm going deer hunting.
It's been a dreary, misty, rainy day about 40 deg. The kind of weather that deer like to get up and move around to dry and stay warm. I've got 5 acres here and a good bit of it is wooded and down hill from my house. And there is a huge woods straight on back. This house has 3 floors and from the top floor (crows nest) you can see all the way to the bottom of this big hill out back. I have a bed up there and two big windows at the head of the bed. Hmmm, could I? Should I? YA! I went out to the shop and found my gun and 2 bullets. I don't have the clip so I basically have a single shot with a BIG scope. It looks much like a sniper rifle. I have to admit while I was climbing the stairs to the crows nest I did think about Lee Harvey Oswald.
I got in the bed with my rifle. I open the window then took the screen off and laid it aside. I then pulled out my deer call and blew Grrrr! Grrrr! Nothing. I wait 10 minutes and Grrr! Grrr! Nothing. 10 minutes and again, Grrr! Grrr! .....POP! SNAP! Something is down there somewhere! Ear plugs! Ear plugs! I've got to put my ear plugs in.... Got them in...Wait 1 minute 2...3...Aha I see one slipping from my neighbors place left of my place. So I wait for it...wait..wait...
I see where she is headed and get my rifle ready. A nice clear opening way down at the bottom of the big hill and now on my place about 125 -150 yards from me. I thought "Am I really going to take a deer from my bed?! BOOOOOOM!!!! Yep...I wonder if anyone else heard that. :o)
The deer fell straight down...
I took my ear plugs out and watched to make sure she stayed down. I hear my far neighbor far away whistle and call for his dog. I'm thinking he might believe I may have just shot it for getting after my chickens again. However I've already considered that and decided it's not worth a chicken to have a feud with a neighbor. If his dog were to kill my foul I can be reimbursed by the county as they have set such a thing up to discourage someone shooting another persons dog. Good idea...
Wow, it worked! Now what? I go down there and field dress it out,drag it up this huge hill, skin it out and process it. It took me about 2 hours from the hunting (shooting) to having a processed deer.
Now I'm back in my chair drinking ice tea and watching another football game.
I couldn't have done this if Jen and Nyle were home. The sound of a small cannon going off in the upstairs of the house is one of those things I don't think he or she would like very much. And I'm pretty sure she would not let me hang this deer out on her front porch clothes line.
However, I would rather have them home and I would leave the hunting to the professionals. But since my hired gun, Colton, hasn't produced a deer for us this year... well,, a country boy will survive. And besides, Iwas bored...
They better get home soon...
I think there are turkey back in there too!

COFFEE- THE UNIVERSE DEFFINED

I bought some "Dunkin' Donuts" coffee a few days ago at Sam's Club. I now have a years worth on hand. The bag says it will make 135 cups! It's really good coffee and I recommend that you give it try. I have been drinking a lot of it. I usually drink it black but after I drink a lot of it, I'll put a little milk in it. I just now fixed me a cup with milk. And as I did so I started thinking about the way mom and pop drank their coffee. Pop always had milk and sugar in his while mom always has drank it black. I always thought that was funny as you might think it would be just the other way around, wouldn't you? But I was just thinking maybe black gave pop the belly ache so he used the milk as a buffer. I always figured he liked the sugar because... pop liked sugar.
DEEP THOUGHT: (brain gas)
I like to see coffee with milk added and stirred. It always makes me think of how God might have made the universe. The swirlly, currly uniformed randomness of a little coffee milky way. Maybe He added life and stirred when he put it all together. Not shaken.
Most smart people say there in no end to space. I think that's possible. If space is a warped in to huge circle from some type of gravitational warp, or some other force, then space would appear to be endless. Without a begining or an end. What goes around comes around..
Will you ever look at coffee the same way again.?.

Nyle's Funny Sayings

Jen told me about this the next day.
A few weeks ago we were all in bed, and I thought we were all sleeping. I had taken my night night shower and was fast asleep. It was pretty late at night. But I guess Nyle was laying over there in his little bed awake and thinking. He does that allot. Directly he crawled over Jen and over on to me. I was laying on my stomach in a deep sleep.
Nyle crawled up on my back and noticed I'd taken a shower and smelled "pretty".
Jen said he smelled my back, sat straight up, grinned and said "Daddy smells like flowers!"
He then went and stuck his nose right down on my back for another whiff of "the flowers". As I am bear hairy on my back he immediately sat straight up again scratching his nose from the hairy tickle he'd just gotten and said;
"Flowers with caterpillars!"
Priceless...

The Family

Henry Hodges (Pop)

My dad was Henry Hodges. He was a farm boy born in Indiana, He was born somewhere in or around Morgantown, Indiana. I'm not sure about that. I know that he was raised on a farm just west of Paragon Indiana. The last time I went by there,his old home place was still there, and in living condition.
He told me stories of going to the river bottoms where his dad had a farm and of picking corn by hand. He spoke of throwing the ears of pulled corn in to a horse drawn wagon where they would be taken to a corn crib and stock piled for the farm animals. I remember he said there was a tall side board on one side of the wagon. It was made that way so that when you threw the corn in to the wagon the board would act as a stop. This would keep the corn from sailing right on over the old wagon and being wasted on the ground. It's no wonder Hoosiers like their basketball. They've been using backboards for a long time.
He told of how some man would bring them ice to put in their ice box to keep the food from spoiling. This man had a set of big ice tongs that he would grab a big block of ice with and sling it over his shoulder. He also had a piece of leather draped over one shoulder and that is where he would carry a big block of ice. Pop was born before refrigerators, but not before radios. He never did talk much about listening to the radio, as I have other old timers do. Pop never was much on the entertainment world. He did seem to enjoy reading stories of actual events in history. He was especially taken by the early settlers and Indians. He read a book about the mistreatment of the Indian and I could tell it deeply disturbed him. I remember him saying how man should never treat another man as the white man did the Indians. Which was unusual about pop as he didn't normally dabble in such politically charged things. He liked to mind his own buisness.
He would tell me of stories of how he and a few friends of his about his age would travel about the river bottoms of the White River below Whitaker Indiana. One friend in particualr he spent a lot of time with was a boy named Junior Warthing. He and Junior did a lot of squirel hunting and fishing along the banks of the great White River. It all sounded very much like Tom and Huck running around the country and river bottoms. I remember he would tell a story about of how they once built a little raft and would fish the White River. How one night he and Junior were fishing and one of them accidently knocked a latern off in to the water. He said you could see it burning for a little while as it sank beneath the cloudy murk. Of course they were out on the river in the dark, and I'm sure a little scared. :) But having fun... It was time of innocence and fun. I wished I could have been there as those are the things I would enjoy doing.
I've got to remember to take Nyle fishing and camping... If he will like that kind of thing.
I'll write more about pop as time goes on and as memory serves me.
This much I do recall and know.
He was a good man.

The Begining

Why a Blog....
I've decided to start a blog as a way to keep a journal of my life and my families life. Perhaps one day my son Nyle,or his child, will want to read about their recent family past and tap in to this forum to rediscover some forgotten part of family history.
I remember some of the things my father talked about when he was a little boy, but there is so much I have forgotten. And now it's too late for me and pop as he has been gone now for many years. I hope to have my memories refreshed in the day when those who have went to rest will once again be reunited with their families and loved ones. Perhaps though at that time the past will be buried and forgotten, and the future will live forever.
Untill then, blogging seems to be the best way to preserve history. As you get older that seems to become more important. I wish pop would have blogged his story. Then I would have more of history. And memories...