srj641

A couple of months ago, Sharon and I stood on our deck, contemplating replacing the flooring and shoring up the 10 year old under structure. We had lived through the pain of power washing and staining it shortly after buying this home, and the task at hand seemed to be an exercise in futility. Sharon, the picture of practical, suggested tearing it out, pouring a concrete patio and erecting a pergola. After all, all things are possible with enough time and money. To save as much wood as possible, we deconstructed the deck, sent the wood to my sister in Warsaw for use by my brother-in-law for various projects, hired a concrete mason and ordered the all aluminum pergola from China, via Costco and, as they say “got her done”.

The rain this spring forced delays in the concrete work, but our masons managed to pour and finish a very nice slab. We brought in a team of finishers from Nixa to stain the concrete and seal it, as well as build a concrete curb transition from the patio to the yard. This project is near the end, as soon as our electricians bring power through the brick walls of the house to the patio.

About the pergola. It is fashionable to slam China when the opportunity presents itself. Such is not the case with this pergola, which is all aluminum with a nice powder coat. (We decided on a maintenance free approach, no exterior wood.) The pergola arrived in 3 large boxes, weighing around 400# each and we scouted about for someone to help with the construction, as we had heard and read the horror stories. We had no luck, dialed up YouTube and tore into the project ourselves. A day later, the pergola is in place. The kit was immaculate, every piece precisely cut and all the hardware arranged in a neat plastic container. We used chairs and bags of mulch to hold up the super structure until we could join it together and set about the tedious work of assembling the fully adjustable louvers. The damned thing is absolutely ingenious with the precision in manufacture apparent. Thank you China and Costco. We could not be happier.

Today is Sharon’s birthday and we are celebrating under the pergola with coffee, an old dog and the satisfaction of having done it ourselves. In all fairness, Sharon is the spark plug in this project cementing her reputation as a finisher on any project. It is best to get out of her way when she pushes the go button or be run down in the process! I obviously out kicked my coverage when we teamed up years ago. This happens when a South Carolina, low country farm kid teams up with a midwestern farmers daughter.

Happy birthday, Kiddo. What’s next, my dear?

Have a great week!

SR

We are closing in on the 4th of July, an all American holiday codified back in 1941 by Congress. I have always enjoyed this holiday, despite the tragedy that seemed to stalk the occasion when I suited up and hit the roads. This year we enter the holiday period with only 39% of Americans professing pride in America and under 60% of Americans owning a US flag. I have lived in Europe and Southeast Asia over my lifetime, experiences that have seared patriotism into my brain. Flag waving aside, I am writing to celebrate another holiday tradition, a perfectly grilled hotdog on a fresh split bun smothered with your favorite condiment, the hotdog. My love for this nitrate loaded belly bomb goes back to the beginning of my memory and always stimulates a huge salivary response.

We will consume 150 million, give or take, hotdogs on the 4th of July this year. That is enough to make a line from D.C. to LA and back 5 times. Americans will spend a whopping 9.4 billion bucks on food over the 4th, with a considerable amount expended on hotdogs. You need an intervention if you can resist a hotdog, cooked over a fire or on a grill to skin busting perfection, slathered in mustard and a sprinkling of sweet vidalia onion. Beans and real potato salad, not the chemically altered mush from the convenience aisle, round out this delicacy. Interestingly, the 4th is also America’s number 1 beer consuming day, which makes perfect sense.

True hotdog gourmets have their preferences, and we have ours. Here is my rundown of truly delectable hotdogs. My favorite hotdog is the Kirkland brand all beef frank, the same one you can buy at their stores across the counter. An absolute bargain. Next up, I like Nathans and Hebrew National for their consistency and roastability. Expensive, but delectable, is the Boar’s Head uncured franks. They are smoky and juicy. A hotdog standard, Ballpark, makes a great Angus Beef dog that offers flavor and economy. You can count on Oscar Mayer to deliver a great all beef, uncased frank that is also flavorful and juicy, especially over a fire. Finally, and surprisingly, I have found the school commodity, sold in the case, all beef hotdogs to be absolutely delicious when grilled over a hot fire. Who knew?

The preparation of a dog is a forgiving process. Some folks love ‘em steamed, some split and fried and most grilled. An all beef dog, smothered in chili is a gastronomical treat. A thick dog with kraut and new potatoes is hard to beat on a cold day. Some folks love ‘em smothered in onions, peppers, tomatoes and well, about everything in the refrigerator. There is New York style, Chicago style and riverbank style…a style to suit every taste. For me, the toasted bun and simple mustard/onion approach is the go to. Sharon likes her dipped in cornmeal batter, deep fried, coated in mustard and served on a stick. She chases it with a fresh squeezed lemonade, state fair style. Catsup on a hotdog is a sin, and should be carefully avoided. It is the equivalent of catsup on a steak or beer on corn flakes, just not right. Please, don’t insult the dog!

My challenge is simple enough. Buy and display a flag, enjoy a hotdog with home made potato salad or handful of chips. Celebrate the birth of a great nation, second to none on earth, with a simple pleasure. Oh, and be safe……….

SR

Dad was my agent in 1965. He represented me well in his negotiation with what was to be my first of two employers in my life, Mrs. Mabel Steward, the civilian administrator at the Ft. Leonard Wood Commissary. My first uniform was a crisp, white shirt, dark trousers, clean shoes and a haircut. On a bluebird Saturday morning, I reported to Mrs. Steward and began my two year gig as a Food Packing and Transfer Specialist, a self coined term for bag-boy. It was a wonderful teaching experience that I will never forget. (Girls turned their noses up at the title “bag-boy” and never understood being a transfer specialist, a win-win in the juvenile dating world!)

People are serious about two things above all else, food and money. My salary was in tips only, so my job was to turn handling folks food into a financial reward. This required affability, the ability to handle adversity and reading people. On a good day we raked in 30.00, on a slow day 15.00, on average. Paydays in the military are a big deal, folks are “flush” and we, naturally realized a greater profit the first of the month.

In a 27 year career as a State Trooper, my only other paying gig outside of the military, the customer relations lessons as a bag-boy resulted in my never having received a complaint over the handling of a traffic summons, and I handed out plenty of them. We bagged in paper bags in those days, carted the groceries to the loading curb and loaded them into folks cars. We worked in heat, cold, rain and snow. Care was the order of the day as carts and cars hate one another. A misstep could bring the two together and the results were not pretty.

Adversity existed. Folks eat all sorts of things and I began to understand the complexities in cultural differences. As an example, on a scalding hot day, I dropped a carton of chitterlings, “chittlins” to some folks, on the sidewalk. It broke open and I found myself standing in a pile of pig intestines. This resulted in a gag reflex I own to this day. My customer laughed at my green aura, I fetched another carton, cleaned up the mess and walked away none the worse. The lady tipped me well and became a prized customer.

The big reward? A work ethic and appreciation for those that have one today. This experience was the foundation for the energy I expended as an officer, the state was never slighted during my tenure. Another reward is an appreciation for those that work for tips. I over-tip, always have and always will. It is my way of showing appreciation to those who actually roll up their sleeves and carry their load.

As I look back, I recognize the foundation that dad and Mrs. Steward (still residing in Evening Shade, south of Ft. Wood) built for me. I developed a deep appreciation for the work-reward formula and used it throughout my career in law enforcement. In retrospect, I was simply a bag-boy, but am damned proud of this humble beginning. As an indication of my pride, I became my son’s agent and put him to work at age 15 at the Hi-Vee in Jefferson City as, you guessed it, a bag boy. Some things never change!

Have a good week!

SR

Americans have, for several years, purchased over 1 million guns a month. Given the crime rate in our country, it is no wonder that handguns comprise a huge percentage of total gun sales. The handgun market is driven by micro pistols that are lightweight and easily concealed. This my friends is what has driven the 9mm caliber to the pinnacle of handgun sales. Let me explain..

Knowledgeable gun folks will tell you lots of things about this little cartridge invented by an Austrian named George Luger back in 1901. They will tell you about the dramatic progress in bullet and cartridge construction over the past decade. They will tell you the 9mm has been adopted by Russia and China as well as America for military and broad police use. They will tell you about economy in ammunition manufacture when you have uniformity in demand for a single cartridge. They will point out that having 15 rounds at your disposal in a gunfight is superior to the 6,8, or 10 rounds found in larger caliber handguns. They will tell you the aforementioned new hollow point rounds perform well within protocols when tested in ballistic gel or when assessed at autopsy. These considerations are grounded in fact and are all important.

The real reason this caliber is on fire in America is it adapts nicely to a readily concealable little pistol weighing around or less than 20 ounces. Secondly, with these light pistols, a range session is far less punishing than a session with a .40 S&W or .45 ACP. In fact a micro pistol chambered in a 40 something cartridge would have a new shooter headed to the pawn shop after the first few rounds. The purchase of 40 something ammo for personal defense will also leave a gaping hole in the family budget. If the gun is no fun to shoot, and weighs 2 pounds, you won’t practice and will leave it at home or in the car where it will do you little good when confronted by a thug on a city street.

The 9mm is here to stay, will stop a bad guy very efficiently, is fun to shoot and can be very concealable. As a final thought, Joe Biden who has never seen a gun he likes, is surrounded by Secret Service guys who recently changed from the trendy 357 Sig cartridge to 9mm firearms. Nothing but the best for old Joe.

Join the million or so of your countrymen who are buying a firearm this month, if not for sport, then for personal protection. Want a pistol, buy a 9mm……you will not be disappointed.

Have a great week!

SR

Leave it to an old cop to stress the importance of this day of recognition. Yesterday, June 7 was the day we pay homage to a treat that at once drains your salivary glands and clogs your arteries. I know no-one who doesn’t enjoy a doughnut or two and cup of coffee when the urge for sugar overwhelms them. Their attraction is every bit as compelling as cocaine is to Hunter. What about these little triglyceride bombs? Here is the lowdown.

They made their way to Colonial America courtesy of the Dutch. Their actual origin is a mystery, but sometime around 1847 an American named Hanson Gregory invented the machine that would punch holes in the little wads of dough, resulting in a uniform finish in hot oil. It is believed the moniker “doughboy” bestowed on our troops in France during WWI was derived from the cooking of these treats in their helmets. We also know that ladies working for the Salvation Army prowled the front lines supplying the troops with this morale boosting treat. (The USO ladies in Vietnam were often referred to as donut dollies, but I don’t recall ever seeing an actual doughnut while there.)

There are well in excess of 30 varieties of doughnuts recognized worldwide. A few of the more popular are, yeast, cake, glazed, sugar, powdered sugar, churrus, crumb, chocolate covered, creme filled, fruit filled, jelly filled, Boston Creme, crullers, long John’s and bear claws. Tazzy has a strong preference for the “holes”, perfect morsels for his Labrador appetite and an easy toss over the seat. I am sure every reader will have their favorite donut store, but the occasion is as important as the pastry. When I patrolled the Interstate Zone around Kansas City, my go to was Lamars, I think on Troost. A close patrol colleague, Ernie Raub, and I once polished off a dozen of the triglyceride bombs on the way home from a Gaming Commission meeting in Kansas City. The crime scene was a Krispy Kreme in St. Charles where the box was too hot to hold on to. Who could resist?

Forgetting my lack of standing as an officer from Missouri, I displayed terrible judgement while on vacation in Florida, going the wrong way on a street to enter a Krispy Kreme, also the wrong way in the drive through, to keep from missing a “Hot Now” sign that was of particular interest to the grand kids. You have to do what you have to do….and the doughnuts were wonderful!

How popular are these belly bombs? Krispy Kreme rakes in around 450 million a quarter in total revenues. Of course there are many other venues, all doing, I am sure, very well. Think about it? Do you have a particular favorite purveyor of these timeless delectables? I hope so…and urge you to catch up on celebrating this important day if you missed a treat yesterday.

We are entering that magic time of the year when you can enjoy life on every level that does not require snow. Get out, grab a cup and your favorite doughnut and smile. I think there just might be a Krispy Kreme in heaven……….where every day is Doughnut Day!

Get out and go….

SR

When I took off my gun-belt in early 2000, I became just another retired cop with some administrative skill and a fair measure of street smarts. I have always felt that everyone should have a marketable skill, and the realization that my skill set was limited was troubling to me. I settled on carpentry as my next adventure and hired out at a ridiculous wage to a local contractor with the understanding he was to teach me to build a house from the footings to the finish. It must have worked, as I converted those lessons into a large home on Truman Lake, both as the general contractor as well as hammer man when I could. It was a nice home that we sold at a tidy profit, overbuilt by today’s standards. I determined a couple of things along the way. I left the electrical, plumbing, roofing, and concrete work to the professionals. My framing crew was a sight, held together by their boss, a short man who was referred to as the Field Marshall, a result of his quick temper and German heritage. Remember my lessons? Concrete work was as demanding as any aspect in construction, capable of breaking the strongest man down quickly. Fast forward to our latest experience.

I am old(er). We are tired of exterior wood maintenance and decided to replace an aging wooden deck with a concrete patio. The demolition was taxing. Sorry, it was a real bitch, as we endeavored to save the wood for re-purposing rather than a burn pile. We accepted a couple of bids on the concrete and settled on TJ Rose, a local concrete contractor. His demeanor in the bid process influenced our decision. He and his Hispanic crew were tremendous to work with, with an emphasis on work. TJ is a contractor with his cell phone in his pocket and a tool in his hand. He and his guys hit the ground running and kept moving until the day was done. He is what I describe as a “working contractor” as opposed to a guy who sits in his air- conditioned truck observing from a distance. We got our money’s worth and could not be more pleased with the finished project. I am going to let the pictures do the talking.

In summary, this task was accomplished with efficiency, expertise and the preservation of my yard and fence.Working people are my favorite folks in this world, and these folks work. Around Springfield? Need concrete? Give TJ Rose a call. Next up, an all-aluminum pergola, on order.

Have a great week!

SR

Memorial Day is upon us. It is that wonderful American holiday when the living honor the dead who have set aside a part of their lives to preserve our existence in the greatest country ever conceived on the face of the earth. We are free to perceive Heaven as we think it should be. Before they adopted Christianity, the Vikings believed Heaven was compartmentalized, with a special hall dedicated to their warriors who were known to be fierce and incredibly brave. When you put on an American military uniform, your bravery is on exhibit and at least once in your life, you threw the dice with your blood on the line. The parallels between Valhalla and our Heaven are many. Let’s have a look.

Valhalla is where the Norse God, Odin, housed dead Viking warriors. The roof of Valhalla was said to be made of Viking shields supported by rafters made of spears. Every seat was made of a breast plate, scarred in mortal combat. The gates were guarded by wolves and eagles soared above keeping watch. These warriors drank the finest mead and ate only the meat of fierce boars and stags. The feast was a daily occurrence, enjoyed after a day of fighting, and all wounds were healed before retiring for the evening.

Valhalla was located in Asgard, the equivalent of our heaven, and was known to all Nordic people. Admittance to this special place was at the choosing of Odin, and only warriors were permitted. Not a warrior, you could still enjoy the rewards of Asgard, but not in this hall. The preservation of the Norse culture required warriors who were willing to shed blood in mortal combat for their fellow Norsemen, and died doing so.

In my mind, there is the equivalent of Valhalla in our heaven. On this earth, as we know it, fighting and dying is always going to happen and precious few have actually agreed to carry on in the fight to preserve what we enjoy. In Norse lore, it was an honor to close with the enemy and vanquish or be vanquished to protect their way of life. While we owe a tremendous debt to our veterans who have died in the defense of our country, they also owe our countrymen for the opportunity to enter our Valhalla. It must be a glorious place.

May God richly bless the veterans who died in the service of America. They are enjoying their heavenly reward having been admitted to the equivalent Valhalla in our Heaven. We would not exist without them.

Enjoy the Holiday and never forget.

Madison Avenue’s advertising geniuses are adept at promoting foods that are attractive to the eye, and laden with sugar, the stuff that inhabits the inner aisles of our grocery stores and the outer aisles of our vast C-Store empires. In a conversation recently, Sharon and I talked about the mistakes we have made in nutrition and our late entry into the world of food that our parents and grandparents accepted as a way of life. The deadliest place in America is not the streets of Chicago or New York, rather it is the inner aisles of your local grocery, America’s real Death Valley, where sugar and processed foods reign supreme.

We spend billions searching for the magic bullet to cure or block cancer and metabolic disease, and billions promoting the sugary garbage found in Death Valley where we cruise through pushing huge carts to haul our assortment of glittery packaged foods that give rise to the research into curing our disease processes rather than preventing them. You don’t need advanced degrees to understand what folks with these degrees are talking about when they warn us to clean up our dietary habits. I just read an article in The Epoch Times, perhaps the cleanest source of factual information currently available to us, about the latest discoveries by cancer researchers that have finally uncovered the mechanism that definitively links cancer to our diet. All the science you need is found in these words, “MGO, a glucose metabolite, can temporarily destroy the BRCA2 protein, reducing its levels in cells and inhibiting its tumor-preventing ability”. Let me help you with this thought, sugar kills you in more ways than you can count.

I was privileged to reside in Okinawa for three years. Okinawans seem to live forever. Indeed it is a blue zone, where folks routinely live to see 100 years. Their diet sees little sugar, in spite of America’s western influences promoting the garbage we refer to as food. They eat vegetables and seafood, mostly, with a little meat thrown in once in a while. The renowned Mediterranean diet is not Little Debbie cakes and Fruity Pebbles.

Remember your grandmother’s table? The garden, either direct to the table, or out of a Mason jar, was ever present. She would not have fed Ramen Noodles or Coca Puffs to the chickens out back. Cancer was less prevalent in those days, mostly enabled by genetic predisposition or the chemicals we bathed in enhancing agricultural production, not so much sugar.

Sharon and I have cleaned up our food choices in the past decade or two, but honestly, it is like showing up at a house fire with a fire extinguisher. The damage is done. Talk to your children and grandchildren. If it is wrapped or boxed and the ingredient list is more than 3 items long, help them to understand the danger. Teach them to stay out of Death Valley. Metabolic disease and cancer is, as they say, a hell of a price to pay for surrendering to Madison Avenue and a food industry intent on killing us in the name of profit.

Have a great week!

SR

Words have meanings and meanings change, depending on the part of the country you are standing in, tradition and custom. These subtle aberrations in the spoken word are referred to as colloquialisms, language outside of rigid, literary or formal language. They often find themselves in written language as well. Linguists can determine the region that folks are from by listening carefully to the nuances of their spoken word or by studying their written words, assuming the writer isn’t hung up on formal discourse. Here is where I am going with this.

A gentleman works out at the gym most mornings that I am there. The guy has thin legs but is a hulk from the waist up and constantly engages in an exercise designed to strengthen his legs. He picks up an incredibly heavy free weight, the kind that slides onto a bar, and cradles it while walking the track. His gait is steady and determined and he walks for quite awhile. We exchange pleasantries as I walk past him after my exercise regimen, and I usually offer a bit of humor as I pass him. His regimen takes me back to the age of 10 when I was challenged by my grandfather to pick up a watermelon from our South Carolina watermelon patch and “tote” it to the house where we would break it open and eat the sweet center or “heart” of the melon before I was to “tote” the remainder to the pig pen to the delight of the hogs. In the Deep South, in those days, you toted stuff….not carried. “Carry” was reserved for another kind of movement.

On our Saturday morning drives into town, McIntyres Feed store specifically, if I was to go along, I was “carried” to town not driven. You carried folks in the old truck, which was a half ton powder blue Ford, with a bench designed for a driver and two passengers. If a person needed a ride, the offer was to carry him, not drive him. In Missouri, generally speaking, tote and carry mean entirely different things.

I told my friend at the gym this story and when we see each other these days, we agree he is toting the weight in deference to my southern heritage. We agree on another aspect of my experience as a boy. We would each much prefer to tote a weight as opposed to a watermelon. You can hold on to the weight in a variety of ways but a big watermelon is a pain to tote very far. Japan has recently perfected growing square watermelons, seriously, which would make toting much simpler!

There are hundreds of regional colloquialisms out there, but they are being screened out of our discourse by the incredible mobility of today’s population. Missouri is where north meets south, and the variances are less apparent, but there is a remarkable difference in language patterns from, say Michigan to South Carolina. I was fairly adept at correctly guessing the home region of folks I encountered on the road after just a short conversation, but could nail it if they offered tote and carry in the southern tradition.

Have a great day!

SR

The difference in males and females didn’t interest me much until about 1960, when I hit the age of 10. We were living in Okinawa and I developed a fascination with a classmate named Joanne Kaneshiro. Joanne was cute as hell, dressed well for a kid that age and possessed a confident way about her that captivated me. She was also smart enough to keep boys out of her realm, preferring the company of other girls who shared her aptitudes. Sex wasn’t on my radar scope, just the allure of cute, cuddly and totally aloof. I had no idea this fascination would follow me my entire life, providing some wonderful memories and, being fair, same damned tough times as well.

Enter the ‘60’s and my fascination took a dramatic turn. It was then I understood why the Master made boys and girls different and equipped us with mean little glands producing testosterone and estrogen with a few other hormones thrown in. It has been a whirlwind since. In High School I was truly thankful, in Biblical terms, for the differences between a man and a women. I was fascinated by baseball, fast cars and pretty girls , and not necessarily in that order. The laws of nature be damned, I knew full well that fastball, belt high, down the middle, to a good hitter, was gonna lose you a baseball over the fence. I knew there was always a faster car out there when you slipped out onto I-44 and paired them off in an illegal “speed contest upon a public highway”, and that pretty girls could play hell with your judgement and previously established course in life. I outgrew baseball, quit street racing when I entered the Army and am still confounded by the mystery of the female mind and allure. That is as it has always been.

The point is this. In the golden age of sexual politics, we knew who the players were. With rare exception, I could readily identify the closest human being as a male or female. Sexual aberrations existed, but tended to stay within the lanes. Males were males and females were females. Today, you are going to get your ass in a crack (so to speak) by prejudging gender by appearance. As an example, I try to compliment people that I interact with, which sets a nice tone for the interaction. We drove through one of the myriad of coffee purveyors last week, and the comely young roadside barista had really gorgeous nails and other wise seemed to comport to the standards of an attractive young lady. I complimented her on her nails, and in return in a distinctly male baritone voice, HE thanked me. I was stunned…….she was, at some point, a he and I assumed otherwise. Sharon smiled, sensing my disbelief, and as we drove off reminded me to never assume when it comes to sexuality. I like the old days better, when I, beyond a reasonable doubt, knew what or who in the hell I was dealing with.

It is complicated out there and I am getting old. It is not fair to challenge a 70+ old man with sexual ambiguity. I still admire a confident, attractive lady at any age, but don’t need the added responsibility of establishing gender in an effort to rely on the appropriate pronoun when addressing them. To the ladies before this confusing era, who were proud of their gender, God bless you. To the gender shifting folks that have become popular today, my apologies. I was relying on old, reliable science when I made the assumptions that are sure to offend you. Now I have this to worry about!

Have a great week!

SR