Enough Turkey---Now,- On With the Show!...

I think that is enough turkey for anyone. Now it's time for another jam session.

This one is at the Community Hall in Happy Valley. I especially like this one because there is more room to set up and move around. Mi Espousa, La Donna d'el Nebraska (a little Mex lingo here) is a'rarin' to go and so am I! We have a couple of songs to do that we haven't yet worn out.

I remembered a John Anderson song,"Would You Catch a Falling Star," that I used to do at our club, the Sandalwood Club, in Modesto years ago.
I was perusing the You Tube network a few days ago and came acrost it and recomembered doing it years afore. I still remember the words so I'm gonna do it today.

Anyhoo, I'll get back to you at a later date, 'if the good Lord's willin' and the creek don't rise!?

Later...

Turkey Recipe-Finished Product...As Promised...

Yum!! Makes me hungry again just looking at it!

Later...

Turkey Recipe...

Mi Espousa, La Donna d'el Nebraska (a little Mex lingo here) gave me this recipe for Thanksgiving Turkey. She says it is the best and I believe her. The only problem is; she just gave me the recipe with no pic of the finished product. She'll give me that tomorrow and I'll pass it on to you.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING..........Here is a recipe I thought you would like for the holidays

Ingredients:
1 whole turkey
1 large lemon, cut into halves
salt and pepper to taste
butter or olive oil, whichever you prefer

Heat oven to 350 degrees

Rub butter or oil over the skin of the turkey until it is completely coated.
Sprinkle with salt and pepper and any other seasonings you prefer.

Take a knife and gently separate the skin from the breast meat;
Slide lemon halves under the skin with the peel side up, one on
each side. This way the juice from the lemon will release into the breasts.

Cover and bake for 30-45 minutes. Remove cover and continue
to roast until juices run clear, basting every 15-20 minutes.

If you've followed these steps correctly, your turkey should
look like the one in the picture.

Bon Appetit!

Later...

Happy Thanksgiving to Everyone...

Donna Lee and I wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving! Even with our limited finances after retirement, we are much better off than eighty percent of the rest of the world!

Thank God for a wonderful Country, this United States of America! And thank God for the young men and women who fight and die to keep us safe!

Later...

The Hooker...

As previously promised, I have put together two more videos. One is called,"The Sands of Time."

The other is self explanatory and it is named,"The Hooker." Stop over and have a listen at JC and Donna Lee.

They are both home grown, written by Moi. Enjoy and please feel free to comment.

Later...

It Wouldn't a Happened...

Ever since Donna Lee said,"I Do," the last time, things have been happening to her. Wanna hear one? OK, here goes

I bought a truck and signed on with Bekins Van Lines. I was "California Bedbug" and Donna Lee was," Tag Axle,." I ran alone sometimes but sometimes I got horny..'oops'-er..uh..lonely, and sent for Donna Lee to ride with me for a while.

This time I picked her up at the Harrisburg, Pa airport and we headed out to Minneapolis, Minnesota.(Where she'd never been before)

I had picked up a small machine, like a large copier or something of that nature, that weighed about fifty or sixty pounds. It was going to an office in a large building downtown.

When I got to the building which was about ten stories high, I double (or fiple, being in a truck) parked across the street from the building and walked across to the office and told the lady receptionist I had freight for her and axed if I should carry it across the street to the office.
She said not to, there was a loading dock beneath the building and I could pull down there and set it off on the dock. I axed her if it was big enough to accommodate my truck and she assured me big trucks always pulled down there to load and unload. OK, I said.

The door leading down to the dock was right across the street so all I needed to do was back up about twenty feet and cut across the street and pull into it. It did, indeed, appear to be plenty big, wide enough and high enough for my Jimmy Cab over three axle tractor and forty foot trailer. So off we went. Tra-la-la...

I pulled the truck into the driveway which gradually curved to the right as it descended. I could see about fifteen feet ahead of the truck and was moving right along.

"Oh, shit!" I heard someone say. It was Donna Lee. I immediately applied the brakes and axed her what was wrong. She pointed to a sign above the driveway and I reiterated,"Oh shit!"-actually a couple of times with a couple more expletives added for flavor.
Hanging from the ceiling was a sign that read,"No Vehicles Over 38 Feet Allowed."

Well, oh dear, I thought to my self. (among other things) My tractor was fourteen feet long and the trailer was forty feet long. ..'uuum..uuh..les'see..-oh, yeah,-fifty four feet is more than thirty eight feet.'duh'

I stopped and took a look and immediately determined I could not go back. I would have to back around a curve and into a busy street. I had to go on. So I did.

When we reached the loading area, I could see there was a lot of room there. The biggest problem was, the area around the loading dock was also a parking area for employees. Here we were, for best or worst.

I got out of the truck and walked to the dock where a man was standing, watching and grinning.

"Howdy," he said and I 'howdyed' him back. He mentioned I had a problem and I agreed. Now we had to figure out what to do so I could turn around to pull out.

I showed him the freight that was for here and his eyes looked a question at me as to why I hadn't just carried it across the street instead of pulling my truck down here. I silently (almost) explained to him,-the lady upstairs said to pull down here.
'Oh, Yeah,' he all but said.

He got on the phone to try to find some people who could come down and move their cars to give me more room. A few came down but I could see there wasn't much chance I'd ever get the room I needed to safely turn around.

I started pulling ahead and backing around, picking up a few feet at a time, until I was locked into my last possible position. The tractor was sort of pointed toward the out ramp but my trailer was butted up against his dock.

This was it. I axed him if Donna Lee and I could fill out work applications since we would never get out from under this building. He chuckled a negative and I grinned as weakly as I could.

All this time, Donna Lee was biting her tongue, her cheek and her lip, trying to keep quiet, feeling the last thing I needed was advice from her. I finally axed her, mainly to be polite and include her in, what we should do? She chuckled and said,"Let's just get in and pull out."

Well, I shook my head and looked at the dock man and at my trailer (it was a Kentucky, solid as a granite rock) and he wondered what would happen if we did, indeed, pull ahead. I pointed out to him that the corner of my trailer was jammed against the right corner of his dock. He wondered what would happen if I pulled out anyway; would it hurt the trailer? I told him it would not hurt the trailer but it would take the concrete corner off his loading dock. He axed how much it would take and I looked it over and opined it would take about a ten inch chunk all the way to the floor, leaving a semi-rounded corner instead of a square corner. He grinned and said,"Go for it!"

I axed him if he was serious and he said he was so I did just that.

When I eased forward, I felt the pressure on the trailer so I codded it a bit and heard a loud 'POP' and everything got easy. I looked in my mirror and saw the nice, smooth rounded corner of the dock and the man waving goodbye so I nodded in the mirror and never again looked back.

Now, if Donna Lee hadn't married me, she would never have been almost imprisoned under a ten story building in downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota and would never have been instrumental in redesigning a loading dock twenty feet underground.

It just wouldn't a happened!

Later...

A New Page Has Begun..

...in my life today. It is the first day of the seventy second year of the life of Mi Espousa, La Donna d'el Nebraska, (a little Mex lingo here) aka, Donna Lee, my wife.(Ain't she cute,-alpha and omega)
Mi Espousa was borned on Friday the thirteenth of November in the year of our Lord, nineteen hundred and thirty six, the year of the Rat.
(wait,-you say that's bad luck) Yeah, but she eventually got very lucky because she met and married moi! Now ain't that a trip!

OK, OK,- I'll wait and ax her if you think I should.

The last year has been an interesting year. We have just lived some days and have cogitated other days, mainly of our mortality.

The phone just rang and it was my sis-in-law, Janice, calling from San Francisco to wish her sister a happy birthday! Now wasn't that nice? Yes it was and let me be the first to say so!

We're going to Redding today and get my big brother whose birthday is the 15th (he'll be 82) and I'm taking mi espousa y el mi hermano to Home Town Buffet for their birthday lunches! Yum!! (We ain't having Burritos)

The last thirty seven years, six months and twenty three days (less three hours)have been a real trip. You wouldn't believe the things Donna and I have been into since we married. I have always been a person to say,'let's go for it,' and Donna was a very logical, reserved person before she met me. Boy, has that changed for her!

I just thought of a really good project for me and my blog! I'm going to tell about things that have happened to Donna since she married me that I'm sure wouldn't have happened to her otherwise! Start watching for them! This is gonna be fun!

In all cerealness, though, Donna Has been a wonderful, patient person as Mrs Me and I love her more than I can rationally say. Now I am going to shave and wash my hands and face and clean behind my ears and clean my fingernails and make sure my hanky is clean and...'whoops', I reverted back to the third grade momentarily (except for the shaving part) for un momento, muchas gracias. Boy, is that spooky! I was looking around for Miss Crews, my third grade teacher! 'whew'

Well, as I started to say, I need to get dressed and scrape my face and brush my snags so I can take my Honey to her Birthday Lunch. See you later!

Later...

Today's Another Day...

I just left a new friend over at Daytona Franks'Newsroom place at My Fox-Orlando. We had conversations about political things, mainly the presidential campaigns. He was very pleasant to talk with and I sort of hated to leave that blog but I've had it with talking about people who are so stupid they will vote for a really bad man as president. That will, as it were, be their problem and one they will not enjoy!

Barack Obama is a really bad, racist person and it'll start to show in a few months. You people who are still working for a living will notice it first, when the first tax increase begins at the end of Bush's term.

To me, being on social security, it might not matter much. I hope not and I sincerely hope I never have a reason to say,"I told you so." HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
I hope I have made myself clear.

Anyhow, there will be no more political posts on this blog!

Mi Espousa, La Donna d'el Nebraska (a little mex lingo here) and I will once again, tomorrow, play music for and entertain old folks (some older than us )at the Senior Citizens Nutrition Center in Anderson, aka, Frontier Hall.

And I have to make another video for JC and Donna Lee, You Tube.

Anyhow, I'll see you all again tomorrow. Until then, Adieu,au revoir, hasta la vista, adios, auf Wedersehn, so long, good bye and ta ta.

Later...

You Can Never Go Back...

Whilst once again perusing my Journal, I came across this short piece I wrote in my blog in 2005. It struck a chord and I decided to re-post it.

*Some thoughts on March 5, 2005

You can never go back.

I drove down to Modesto last week to visit some relatives. After a nice visit, I began to think about the place where I grew up. It is on the east side of Modesto, in the Airport District, on South Conejo Avenue, a street that goes down to the Legion Park which runs along the Tuolumne River for quite a ways.

I grew up in a one room shack until I was nine or ten years old. Then my Mom and Step-Dad built a bigger house. The bigger house was nicer and roomier and my memories are about both houses.

When we lived on Conejo, my Mother planted a small tree. It was some kind of Cedar, I think, and was about two feet tall when she planted it. It eventually grew to around 60 or 70 feet tall and was huge.
Now the house is gone and an apartment building is in its place.

Across the street that is just before my house, Bonnie Brae, is a rock house where the Schmidts lived. Mrs. Schmidts' Mother lived in a house in the back. Her last name was the same as mine.

Down Bonnie Brae lived the twins, a girl and a boy, Sissy and Sonny, the first kids I met when I came to the Airport District.

Next door to us was the Carpenters' house. The old man built a really nice house and put a chain link fence around it to keep the boys away from his two daughters. It worked for a while.

The houses that were there when I moved there in 1943 are still there for the most part. They're old and decrepit but still livable. It's hard to believe that so little changed in 61 years.

Hillside Drive turned right off Conejo and the lanes were separated by a row of palm trees. Now the lower street is gone. The county bought it and cleared all the houses out. As I drove down the street I almost felt an animosity toward the county for tearing down all those shacks, the homes of my friends, most of them long since gone.

Driving along the streets of the neighborhood, I again felt the same feelings I did in 1945. Each house was a familiar place to me and I found myself looking for someone I knew. Maybe I will stop at a house and knock on the door and ask if Junior Greens' family still lives there. Junior was the first soldier from the Airport District to be killed in the Korean War. Everybody cried about it and everyone went to his funeral. But I didn't stop.

Everybody cried when President Roosevelt died in 1945. We were sitting outside under an apricot tree when the news came over the radio.I was only nine years old but even my bottom lip quivered a bit.

I drove slowly by a house on Connie Way where a guy I grew up with lived. I stopped for a second to look at the place and a Mexican man came out the door and watched me. I smiled and nodded and drove away.

I'd like to say it was nice to go back to the old neighborhood but that wouldn't be accurate. I have to say, it was nice to visit the old place. I saw my old street and I saw all the familiar houses but most of them were only familiar on the outside. I know most of the people inside are new to the neighborhood; probably only been there for 20 or 30 years.

I took many of the old feelings away with me when I left South Conejo Ave. As strange as it might sound for some people, people who didn't grow up in Little Okie, the Airport District, you can visit there and you can see and hear and feel, even smell familiar things; you can visit but you can never really go back.*

Later...

Oh, Danny Boy...

I have this song as a favorite of mine on You Tube. I think Roy Orbison does it so beautifully, I want to share it with you.
At the lower right corner, click on the second from the right icon to make it full screen.

Later...

RED SKELTON'S RECIPE FOR THE PERFECT MARRIAGE ...

I got an e-mail from my friend, Sandy, and I think it is cute enough to share with all of you!

Now, all you 'boo-birds', I know someone will run this through Snopes but I don't use Snopes anymore after seeing how biased they are against conservatives so, have fun! (Another story)

RED SKELTON'S RECIPE FOR THE PERFECT MARRIAGE
1. Twice a week we go to a nice restaurant, have a little beverage, good food and companionship She goes on Tuesdays; I go on Fridays.
2. We also sleep in separate beds. Hers is in California, and mine is in Texas.
3. I take my wife everywhere....but she keeps finding her way back.
4. I asked my wife where she wanted to go for our anniversary. "Somewhere I haven't been in a long time!" she said.
So I suggested the kitchen.
5. We always hold hands. If I let go, she shops.
6. She has an electric blender, electric toaster and electric bread maker. She said. "There are too many gadgets, and no place to sit down!" So I bought her an electric chair.
7. My wife told me the car wasn't running well because there was water in the carburetor. I asked where the car was. She told me, "In the lake."
8. She got a mudpack and looked great for two days. Then the mud fell off.
9. She ran after the garbage truck, yelling, "Am I too late for the garbage?" The driver said, "No, jump in!"
10. Remember: Marriage is the number one cause of divorce.
11. I married Miss Right. I just didn't know her first name was Always.
12. I haven't spoken to my wife in 18 months. I don't like to interrupt her.
13. The last fight was my fault though .My wife asked, "What's on the TV?" I said, "Dust!"

WALKING AND BEER:

A recent study found the average American walks about 900 miles per year. Another study found Americans drink, on average, 22 gallons of beer a year. That means, on average, Americans get about 41 miles to the gallon.
Kind of makes you proud to be an American.

Later...