The Golden years

 

Today I was in a shoe store that sells only shoes, nothing else. A young girl with green hair walked over to me and asked, "What brings you in today? I looked at her and said, "I'm interested in buying a refrigerator." She didn't quite know how to respond, had that deer in the headlights look.

 

 I was thinking about old age and decided that old age is when you still have something on the ball, but you are just too tired to bounce it.

 

 When people see a cat's litter box they always say, "Oh, have you got a cat?" I just say, "No, it's for company!"

 

 

Employment application blanks always ask who is to be called in case of an emergency. I think you should write, "An ambulance."

 

 

The easiest way to find something lost around the house is to buy a replacement.

 

 

 The sole purpose of a child's middle name is so he knows when he's really in trouble.

 

 Did you ever notice that when you put the 2 words "The" and "IRS" together it spells "Theirs?"

 

 Aging: Eventually you will reach a point when you stop lying about your age and start bragging about it.

 

 Some people try to turn back their "odometers." Not me. I want people to know why I look this way. I've traveled a long way and a lot of the roads were not paved.

 

 

 

Ah! Being young is exciting but being old is comfortable.

 

 Lord, keep your arm around my shoulder and your hand over my mouth!

 

 May you always have:

 

Love to share,

 

Cash to spare,

 

Tires with air,

 

And friends who care.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

     

     

 

 

 

 

Cats and dogs

Cats and dogs

Well, dear fellow bloggers, it seems as though my prediction that icy cold Minnesota weather and my vertigo would limit my nature photography and blogging. Thus Troutbirder has ventured into more personal domains and even the occasional rant. Today I present cats and dogs. A somewhat controversial subject.

As the picture shows dogs are well disciplined by their masters. Cats on the other hand are either brave or foolish in the face of a potential enemy. Also wildly independent.

I begin by noting Mrs. T and I had a beloved house cat for 18 years named Simba. Previous to that two other cats named Tiger and a black cat named after a black revolutionary.  Unfortunately, both were run over by a neighbor on the road behind our house chasing endangered birds. We also had four hunting dogs and two German shepherds, Baron and now Lily.

As this picture indicates German Shepard dogs and other breeds can be organized into teams. As individual they would have a much more difficult time and often can't survive without humans. But working as a team they can be dangerous predators killing large animals like deer. 

It seems a librarian and I disagreed about the merits of dogs and cats. She would relentlessly prove the superiority of cats over dogs in hundreds of ways. A typical example was that dogs had Masters. Cats had staff. My response to that was the fact that dogs were domesticated somewhat earlier than cats. Thus cats were closer in their behavior to the wild. Cats for example are great and skillful predators. Killing mice in a useful manner and endangered birds to the detriment of that species.
 Our experience with giant Baron and Simba was relatively peaceful. They often slept in the same room and basically tolerated each other. When Simba was sitting on the sofa or a chair she would whack him with her paws. He tended than to go someplace else to lay down. And the other hand when Simba jumped down to the floor Baron began his herding/chasing act so Simba would jump up to higher ground so she could take a defensive position. They never got To a cat/dog fight. :-)




Dogs are much less predatory except when in packs. So as the cat advocate continued to educate me on the superior merits of felines, I finally retaliated. It seems likely I pointed out that in case I was walking in the woods and died of a heart attack, my loyal dog would lick me trying to save me. After that proved fruitless he would likely remain at my side for a long period of time guarding my body. On the other hand, in the same circumstance involving you and your cat I would give your beloved cat a maximum of an hour before it would start eating you. In that manner, unfortunately, I rested my case.

D day June 6, 1944 the climactic battle war II nice Stephen Ambrose with a brief message from Troutbirder to the ladies and a few men as well

Stephen Ambrose is one of those American authors who turned history books and those boring high school history texts into readable and exciting history/stories that the general public came to like and read as bestsellers.. They even told where there accurate information came from without all of those footnotes that slowed the excitement down. Many were turned into movies again because the words made the deeds and the people come alive Ambrose's specialty was including the broad views of the events and the consequences but the focus was on individuals whether they be famous heroes like Thomas Jefferson and Meriwether Lewis in Undaunted Courage or the little & unknown people who had their own stories to tell.  This was made possible because he read their letters and diaries and often when possible spoke to them individually.   D-Day book has the facts and figures of largest events/and projects ever created by several nations at war but the stories ordinary ranks told the  to the author that makes it real and brings it alive. 

If men are from Mars and women are from Venus & you Venusians have gotten this far, I'm sure you're already saying this is not a book I would ever consider seriously reading, some of you have even told me when I reviewed dog books like Marley  that you won't read them because the dogs always die in the end that's often true. My personal analogy to all of that is for a long time I wouldn't read books about the Holocaust for obvious reasons, but I did teach about it in my history classes and later when I found out there were more than at few deniers who said it never happened, I began to read many books about  it. So we must  never  forget so it never would happen again. but it has in several cases like that of my grandson Leo' Leo who was born in the country of Rwanda where a Holocaust did happen and the Western nations said it would never happen again were wrong mostly because it happened in Africa  and who cared/? &our lame duck President called a bunch of shithole  countries 

Okay I was invited to join Spring Valley ladies book club probably because of what I read which is I will try anything and I do so. I suppose I'm known for more than one reason as their diversity guy .

Give -Day a chance, you might not totally like it because war is hell as a famous Civil War general said but above and beyond that right now you need to read it right and I'll tell you why here and now we are in a democracy the worst form of government Churchill once said except for all the rest. these governments rests on the notion of the rule of law above any leader. They always have a

form of the Constitutional law            whereby the people vote and choose their leaders

     This book is based on the oral histories of 1,400 men who were involved in D-Day. The majority of the book deals with one 24 hour period. Midnight, June 5/6 until midnight June 6/7. I learned about D-Day growing up. Mostly this was facts and figures. I have seen several movies about D-Day. Some were good. With the exception of a few names such as Roosevelt, Churchill, Eisenhower, and Montgomery I didn't know the people involved in one of the most historic events of the 20th century. In this book you get to meet and know some of the men who were there. Citizen soldiers as Ambrose refers to them. They were the children of the Great Depression. For many of these men it was their first time in combat. I call them men but many were teenagers. In this book you meet a 15 year old (he lied about his age in order to enlist) and a 16 year old. No matter their age they were men. This is not an easy read. It is full of military terms and acronyms. I often had to flip to a map in order to try an orient myself to the events taking place. I am glad I was reading the hardback version so that I could do this easily. There were many times in the book when the horrors of war were vividly brought home. Many of the soldiers, sailors, and airmen who were involved suffered grievous wounds and continued to fight. Even those who did not suffer a physical injury saw things that stayed with them and can only be described as a living hell. They did not come as invaders. They were there to liberate. There have been many movies about D-Day and they can be entertaining but to really learn about this day in history and appreciate the men who made this happen I would recommend reading this book. And as I found the book at Goodwill and began reading it was perfectly timed simultaneously  with our countries recent decline. When I watched the evening news and realized that for four years the man who lived in the White House revered dictators who challenge freedom in the world called our soldiers losers and suckers and after our recent exercise of democracy challenge the very principle of people voting and the norms around peaceful exchange power .yes D-Day can perhaps remind us as far back as the colonists who risked  all to be free with their own nation0r  0r or other crises be they war or depressions 0r recent election where a  majority voted out the  liar  and con artist who subverts  the constitution at every opportunity  he tried to take the election out of the hands of the   voters by  falsely claiming fraud.  And so ever alert be it on the beaches   of Normandy we defend constitution so help us god

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