Marbles a kid's game 08.13.2020

            Before we get started with Marbles, allow me to say, the Tres took me for a walk this morning and upon returning home, his upset stomach seems to have been corrected. Now before that one person who is, “The north end of a south bound horse” asks, I did not get a photo of the Tres’ dropping! I don’t know why I allow that person to read these wonderful postings? 

            Marbles, do you have all your marbles? Heck, do I have all my marbles. I am not writing about mental acuity; I am writing about an old-time kids’ game of marbles. I do not have all the answers about the game, I am hoping someone has a better memory and can enlighten this author. 

            I remember being at May Green School, which is in Missouri. Along the west side of the playground there were trees and in that area the grass had been trampled to a point, of only having dirt and dust. That is where we would play marbles.

            Consider for a moment, kids getting down on their hands and knees in the dirt playing marbles during recess, and then returning to the class room for an exceptional learning experience.

            To play this game one would draw a circle in the dirt. Then the players would drop marbles into the ring, each dropping the same number of marbles. The players would determine whether they were playing for keeps or for fun. Obviously, keeps means you kept the marbles that you were able to knock out of the ring.

            It seems that each boy had a marble that he used to shoot with. I do not know why but these were called his Tall. There were situations where ones Tall became stuck in the ring, and if the opponent could shoot it out of the ring, he would say, “Two or your Tall”, meaning, give me two marbles or I keep your Tall.

            There were steelies, these were metal ball bearings. They were band in most games. There was a large glass marble and we called them lobbies, due to their large size. There were cat eyes, and they got their name from their appearance, they were not a solid color.

            Most boys who played marbles, had a small pouch like container in which he carried his marbles.

            If you have additional input about the game feel free to share them with me.

 

Winners wear masks and wash their hands!

 

Senior marble-ologist and one time covered in dirt or dust, Don the Ford

Returned 08.12.2020

            How do I begin? Yesterday (Tuesday) I decided to get my hair cut even though there Is still the chance of getting the virus from a stranger. I arrived at the stylist’s shop and there was a lady sitting outside. I thought, she was there to make sure I didn’t have the virus before I entered the establishment. I was wrong, she was the hair chopper. I don’t think referring to her as a barber would be correct, and they do not have one of those barber shop poles that looks like a big candy cane that goes around.

            She welcomed me and put me in a chair. I asked if she could give me a haircut that would make me look younger, smarter, and richer! She looked at me and said, “NO”! I said ok a hair cut would be ok. She was a good conversationalist and she did a fair job of removing my hair. Her political views were the same as mine. Yep, I tipped her!

            Leaving the hair chopper, I headed to the booze shop to return the bottle. I was in line at the drive through behind a fellow in a pickup. I heard the lady inside the shop tell the fellow in the pickup, “Don’t come back”! When I pulled up, she said, “Some people are just rude”! I handed her the bottle and tole her that the fellow who worked there told me to return it for a new one. She looked at me as if I was rude, she took the bottle and walked away, and returned with the money. I still do not have a bottle. 

            Possibly it is a sign that I am not supposed to have an adult beverage!

            Topic change; yesterday, I finished reading the entire bible, it only took me eight months. I started with the new testament, and yesterday finished with the old testament. I guess I will start over today. I still can’t pronounce many of the names. I occasionally ask ALEXA how to pronounce a word. I spell the word for her and she is fairly good at many words, not always good at names.

            If someone is home schooling, they should have an Alexa for the kids to ask questions, she can answer most questions. Parents may not have all the answers to the questions, and it might save a parent from looking the answer up on line!

            Tres and I went for a walk again this morning, he did good at not pulling on the lead. Tres had a problem yesterday with his bowel movements, they were loose. As the day went on, they were looser and this morning he seems to be getting less loose. That was the best way I could present that info, to get to this point. We will keep an eye on him and see how he does, we may need to call the vet.

            I need to mow today, yes, yesterday was the normal day to mow, but I got side tracked.

 

Do what you need to do, but stay safe!

Senior dog walker and poop reviewer, Don the Ford

The vet said 08.11.2020

            We are back home from the vet and they got the staples out with no problems. We are to keep him from licking the incision for at least another week. That means I will not have any Tee Shirts as the Tres will be wearing them. He kind of stretches the necks about three times too big for me.

            The Tres took me for a walk this morning and about half way through our usual walk, the urge hit him to defecate, he does not do that while on a lead. We turned and headed for home where he relieved himself. A neighbor gave us some left-over Brisket yesterday, for the Tres. We gave him some, and today his stool was runny. No more brisket that was not cooked by my favorite wife! I know you are glad I used proper terminology and did not say he had to poop!  

            I went to the big city yesterday in an effort to purchase a bottle of Adult Beverage. I drink Tom Moore whiskey for two reasons.

1. It has a good taste when mixed with a diet soda.

           B.  It is not expensive like the better-known adult beverages.

           I went through the drive through and the female person said they still don’t have it, come back Wednesday after 2:00.

           Disgusted, I went to a different booze shop and went through the drive through. I told him what I wanted, and he went and got it. I noticed, as I sat there waiting, they had a no return policy sticker on the drive through window.

           He handed me the bottle already in a sack and I paid him. I told him to keep the change and he said thanks. I drove home.

           Arriving at home I removed the bottle from the bag and it looked as if it had been dropped or kicked around. A plastic bottle with dents in it. The bottle was still sealed so I did not give it much thought. Later at happy time I made an adult drink as I usually do. It tasted like crap. I tossed the drink out! I called the Booze shop assuming they would tell me to kiss off. The fellow who answered the phone was the person who sold the bottle to me. I told him about the condition of the bottle and the taste, and that I had told him to keep the change. He said he remembered me, and I should return the bottle and he would give me a new bottle.

           Now I have to drive back into the big city today to get a new bottle. I assume he wanted to get rid of an ole bottle in hopes it was ok.

            Yesterday as I sat out side without an adult beverage, I looked up and saw something unusual. There was a hawk, eagle or some other large bird flying over. This bird was very high an usually when a bird is that high they seem to be moving slow. This bird went across the sky super-fast. I have never seen an air plane cross the sky that fast. I assume it was in some type of fast air flow.             Could it have been a UFO disguised as a bird?

 

Look up, be amazed!

 

Senior retired adult beverage exchanger, Don the Ford

Made it through 08.10.2020

            We made it through the weekend with nothing special happening. We did have lunch Sunday from the Cracker Store, I picked it up and we ate at home. It was so hot this weekend that we tried to stay inside as much as possible, that is a lot of fun, NOT!

            The Tres has been wearing my Tee shirts, will they need to be washed before I wear them? We are scheduled to take the Tres to the vet today to get his staples removed. I am not sure how much he will like that; he doesn’t like to go inside the vet’s office.

            Tres took me for a walk this morning and I took a photo of a leaf that we saw laying on the street. We (Tres and I) just thought the leaf sent a message to us as we walked.

                                   

            I did purchase a new chair for my office. Yes, I had purchased a chair sometime back and it was expensive. The problem with the old chair is, “It is summer time in Texas”. That means your back and bottom sweats if you set on it for very long. The new cheap chair allows air to get to my back which is so much cooler and my bottom is cooler too!

            Well I need to get a cup of coffee before we leave to take the Tres to the vet.

 

Stay safe and stay cool!

 

Senior chair evaluator, now with a preference to cheap, Don the Ford

A couple thoughts 08.09.2020

            Sturgis motorcycle rally will be a big reason for a bunch of deaths. Many of the bikers are old people and as we all know; old people are more vulnerable. Heck, if you are looking for a bike just wait, there will be a bunch of motorcycles for sell in a few months!

              Speaking of bikes, a couple of the retired female neighbors have purchased bicycles, one was red, and one was green. We have seen them riding up and down the street. How long before my favorite spouse wants a bike? 

            Do you know what a subliminal message is? My definition is, “a concealed message, aka a hidden message”. It is my belief, there are several TV advertisements with subliminal messages. Some of these subliminal messages are sounds, similar to what you would hear from your cell phone. As you sit in your TV room and hear that sound, even though it is subliminal (very quiet) your attention goes to the TV, in hopes of getting you to be interested in, and or buy their product. One needs to be very observant to pick up on these messages.

 

            If school starts with 30% of the students in attendance for the first six weeks, it won't be too awful bad. With a small percentage of the students in attendance, they will be able to keep them fairly well separated. The cleaning crews will do their jobs very well.

           The problem as I see it will be the next six weeks. Parents understand that they were able to keep the students separated the first six weeks, there was very little virus spread, so a large group of parents decide to send their kids back to real school. Let’s say 60 to 70% of the kids go back to school. Now they are no longer able to keep them separated safe distances apart. The teachers and other school employees are less effective at controlling the kids, the cleaning crews are less affective (don’t do as good a job) and the virus hits with a vengeance.

           A photo of the Tres with his Tee shirt on follows. The vet recommended this to keep him from licking the incision. He is under my desk, again!

                                         

Stay safe, be happy, tomorrow we start over!

Senior explainer of difficult situations, and one-time biker, Don the Ford

Finally, a day of rest 08.08.2020

            In this day of rest, my neighbors are out mowing their yards. Maybe that is their way of resting. Why do they wait until Saturday to mow? The one neighbor has an electric mower, and he is making little or no noise, while the neighbor across the street is using a gas power mower, waking all the neighbors up with her motor noise.

            Now we get to another subject, male and females.

            On the so-called TV news this morning, they were talking about equal pay for equal work. I am in agreement with the comment, “Equal pay for equal work”, but it seldom exists.

            The TV reported, “Even though there is a law stating equal pay for equal work, females often get paid less than males, and races other than white sometimes get paid less than whites.

            Personally, I have hired hundreds of people during my years at work. I never cared whether a person was male or female and I did not care what race they were. I did want to know if they could do the work we had.

            Let me get back to the main topic of this article, Equal pay for equal work. As I had stated earlier, I am in favor of equal pay for equal work, but it seldom happens. Let’s consider a job where people are expected to do the same work for 8 hours.

            For this exercise we will consider a business that sells and installs car tires. Let’s say there are ten people who install the tires. During the 8-hour day, one employee removes, changes and installs tires on 20 vehicles. Each of the other employees remove, change, and install tires on 15 or less vehicles each.

            All ten employees are paid hourly, and all get, “Equal pay”, but, “They did not do equal work”! I know what you are thinking and you are right (for the first time). They could pay these employees based on their output, one employee does more work she gets more pay, the other employee does less work, he gets less. 

            In a work environment where there are few employees one could pay based on output. One problem with output pay is, if the work load slacked off these employees would get less pay. Then the employer might lose good employees, or they would need a base pay for all employees and additional pay for the amount of work performed.

            If the work place had a thousand employees and they all received a base pay plus pay for their output, the problem would be unrest from some employees and then you get a union.

            In a couple of the highest paying jobs here in the united states, they do not hire female employees, and no one cares! That can’t be fair, but no one cares!

            Allow me to change the subject. In my bible at the beginning of each book in the old testament they describe what is going on in the book and the approximant dates of the writing. In the book of Amos, it stated that the name Amos means, “A burden”.

            Why do I bring this up, one might ask, if they were at all interested in my writings? Well allow me to share my thought on this name, “Amos”. I had a brother named Amos and when I read the meaning of the name I wondered, did my parents have any idea of the meaning, when they named him, as they were both religious and read the bible daily.

            Amos was their first son, and I am sure he was not a burden! Now I was their last son, I snuck in 7 years after my brother Jack. I am fairly sure I was an accident, and at times I was definitely a burden!         7 years after my brother Jack and I was the 7^th child.

            My brother Jacks name was actually, “Jackie”. My mother told me when he was born, they had not selected a name for him, so they put names in a hat. My sister Wilda, put the name “Jackie” in the hat, and that is the name they drew out. They did not change it to Jack, instead they left it as Jackie.

 

            I know that at least one of you is wondering, what the high paying jobs are, that do not employee females, and you, along with everyone else, don’t care. Football and base ball pay crazy amounts of money and they don’t hire females. 

 

May you earn what you are worth!

                        ^{Not what you think you are worth, but what you are worth!}

 

Senior worthless 7^th son, and bible reader, Don the Ford

8:15 am Friday 08.07.2020

            What the heck has happened at 8:15 am on Friday? Nothing! I have done almost nothing this morning. Senior retired people have little or nothing to do, and we do it decently!

            Lets see if I can remember the one thing that I did this morning.

• Tres and I went out front and retrieve the morning newspaper.
• I had a cup of coffee, and some oat meal, what a breakfast.
• Tres took me for a 30-minute walk, I got hot and sweaty.
• I gathered needed tools from the ole garage and shed, then headed to the main black berry patch.
• I dug three holes in an open area. I learned that I have not watered enough. The dirt on top (one inch) was damp, below that it was totally dry.
• I planted three black berries; one is thorn less. 
• I started watering the black berries, the hose is running in one place for 30 minutes, then I move it a couple feet and continue for another 30 minutes.
• I then washed the dog house cleaning all the snails out of it. The dog house is for sale in our drive way. It has only been used by Alex the grandson. He would get in it and the Tres would get in with him. Tres would not use it any other time.
• I then procured a cup of real coffee and after enjoying it, I started writing this boring but informative, article about me!

            Yesterday I drove into town for a bottle. I used the drive through, they were out of the bottle I like! With tears in my eyes, I drove home empty handed.

 

            I smell something that stinks, oh it is me. I think I need to take a quick shower.

 

May your day be less boring than mine!

 

Senior workaholic, and once upon a time nice guy, Don the Ford

The Don 08.05.2020

              Which “Don” am I writing about today? There is a president whose name is Donald, or Don as a shorter version, and there is me, Donald, or Don as a shorter version. Since they talk about the president Don on TV every day, and all day, I am writing about the other Don, ME!

              A neighbor lady, and good friend, gave me a new mask with the photo of the other Don on it, to wear with my Make America Great Again hat.

              There is a lovely photo that follows, you may enjoy me!

                                         

              You are welcome!

 

              I have a photo of the Fords ole pot hound relaxing last evening. If one looks at his belly, one might see a brown line, which is the scar he received from his surgery.

                                                       

You should be nice to all Dons, most people aren’t!

              ^{Think about that comment, you might get it eventually.}

Senior non-presidential Don, but I would make a good one, Don the Ford