A real snooze......

I realize nothing much has been said the last couple of years, but here I go again!

I'd love to know who this old guy dozing on the porch is. The image is scanned from an old family photo, and I recognize the porch as being what I knew as "the house on Hall Street." It's the one my great-grandmother Lucy lived in, and this may be her father Dr. William Nicholson Bruce. That's the Atlanta paper he isn't reading. The music was added at the time, and beneath the rocker in the old photo you can make out "the arms of Morpheus."

Dating the photo might help me figure out who the classy-looking gentleman is.

A Soldier's Prayer

There's this guy who's the best bagpiper I've ever heard. I'm not alone in thinking that. He's widely acclaimed in bagpipe listening circuits, so those of you who cringe at the sight of a kilt and a pipe will just have to take my word for it. He used to play with Seven Nations, and lately with a group called Rathkeltair.
In recent years he married a charming woman who loved his young son, and we all rejoiced when his second son was born. He's Army reserve and was unfazed at being called to active duty a while back. He thought as many did that this was a righteous war and spoke of "taking out the trash." He was used at first to train soldiers--he's a major--and then in the summer was sent off to Baghdad. I've noticed his posts on his website changing in tone as these last three years have passed.
And then today I dropped by his site, antipypr.com, to find this prayer posted:

A Soldier's Prayer for America in 2008

Lord, in 2008, please send us a leader.
Send us someone we can truly place our trust and confidence in.
Send us someone who at some point in their life actually earned a day's pay for an honest day of hard manual labor.
Send us someone who knows what it's like to just scrape by and wonder how they'll make it to the next paycheck.
Send us someone who volunteered to go to war at his country's behest, and didn't use privilege or status to avoid serving in harm's way, or at all.
Send us someone who seeks wise counsel, and is not ignorant, arrogant, or immature.
Send us someone who treats his office as a sacred trust and not just an opportunity to settle old scores or marginalize the opposition.
Send us someone who will not surround himself with greedy, unscrupulous sycophants.
Send us someone who doesn't lie too well, and when we catch him in a lie, has the balls to admit it.
Send us someone who understands that the United States is part of a global community and not the schoolyard bully.
Send us someone with the maturity, the intelligence, and the guts to make his own well-informed decisions.
Send us someone who puts the interests of this nation above the interests of his party.
Send us someone who feels it is beneath his dignity and a betrayal of public trust to pander to any special interest group, no matter how much money they spent to get him elected.
Send us a statesman with the vision to have good long-term ideas and the courage to back them up with legitimate action.
Send us someone who respects the lives of our defenders and does not needlessly squander them in ill-conceived folly.
Send us someone the whole world can look up to, instead of muttering, "My God, they're the most powerful country on earth and this is the best they can do??"
Send us a leader.
It's signed by him:
Major Neil Anderson

Stay safe and come home in good working order, Neil. I miss your music.

Shamelessly stolen...

but then, I'm of Clan MacRogue, so that's to be expected!
40 Things That Only Happen In Movies *
1. It is always possible to find a parking spot directly outside or opposite the building you are visiting.
2. When paying for a taxi, don't look at your wallet as you take out a note. Just grab one out at random and hand it over. It will always be the exact fare.
3. Television news bulletins usually contain a story that affects you personally at the precise moment it's aired.
4. Creepy music (or satanic chanting) coming from a graveyard should always be closely investigated.
5. Any lock can be picked with a credit card or paperclip in seconds. UNLESS it's the door to a burning building with a child inside.
6. If you decide to start dancing in the street, everyone you bump into will know all the steps.
7. All bombs are fitted with electronic timing devices with large red digital displays so you know exactly when they are going to explode.
8. Should you wish to pass yourself off as a German officer, it will not be necessary to learn to speak German. Simply speaking English with a German accent will do. Similarly, when they are alone, all German soldiers prefer to speak English to each other.
9. Once applied, lipstick will never rub off. Even while scuba diving.
10. The Eiffel Tower can be seen from any window of any building in Paris.
11. Any police officer about to retire from the force will more often than not die on their last day (especially if their family have planned a party). (Caveat: Detectives can only solve a case after they have been suspended from duty).
12. Getaway cars never start first go. But all cop cars do. (They will also slide to a dramatic stop in the midst of a crime scene).
13. If staying in a haunted house, women should investigate any strange noises wearing their most revealing underwear.
14. On a police stake-out, the action will only ever take place when food is being consumed and scalding hot coffees are perched precariously on the dashboard . . .
15. All grocery shopping involves the purchase of French loaves which will be placed in open brown paper bags (Caveat: when said bags break, only fruit will spill out).
16. Cars never need fuel (unless they're involved in a pursuit).
17. If you are heavily outnumbered in a fight involving martial arts, your opponents will wait patiently to attack you one by one by dancing around you in a threatening manner until you have defeated their predecessor.
18. If a microphone is turned on it will immediately feedback.
19. Guns are like disposable razors. If you run out of bullets, just throw the gun away. you will always find another one.
20. All single women have a cat.
21. Cars will explode instantly when struck by a single bullet.
22. No matter how savagely a spaceship is attacked, its internal gravity system is never damaged.
23. If being chased through a city you can usually take cover in a passing St Patrick's Day parade - at any time of the year.
24. The ventilation system of any building is the perfect hiding place. Nobody will ever think of looking for you in there and you can travel to any other part of the building undetected.
25. You will survive any battle in any war UNLESS you show someone a picture of your sweetheart back home.
26. Prostitutes always look like Julia Roberts or Jamie Lee Curtis. They have expensive clothes and nice apartments but no pimps. They are friendly with the shopkeepers in their neighbourhood who don't mind at all what the girl does for a living.
27. A single match is usually sufficient to light up a room the size of a football stadium.
28. It is not necessary to say "Hello" or "Goodbye" when beginning a telephone conversation. A disconnected call can always be restored by frantically beating the cradle and saying "Hello? Hello?" repeatedly.
29. One man shooting at 20 men has a better chance of killing them all than 20 men firing at once (it's called Stallone's Law).
30. When you turn out the light to go to bed, everything in you room will still be visible, just slightly bluish.
31. Plain or even ugly girls can become movie star pretty simply by removing their glasses and rearranging their hair.
32. Rather than wasting bullets, megalomaniacs prefer to kill their enemies with complicated devices incorporating fuses, pulleys, deadly gases, lasers and man-eating sharks.
33. All beds have special L-shaped sheets that reach to armpit level on a woman but only up to the waist of the man lying beside her.
34. Anyone can land a 747 as long as there is someone in the control tower to talk you down.
35. During all police investigations it will be necessary to visit a strip club at least once.
36. You can always find a chainsaw when you need one.
37. Most musical instruments (especially wind instruments and accordions) can be played without moving your fingers.
38. In Middle America, all gas station attendants have red handkerchiefs hanging out of their back pockets.
39. All teen house parties have one of every stereotypical subculture present (even people who aren't liked and would never get invited to parties).
40. Trucks use their horns at random (no, hang on, that happens in real life too!).
*(from Nostalgiacentral.com)

Tattletale!

The Statesboro Inn is a bed and breakfast co-owned and operated by a friend of mine, Tony. (On the left, above.)Recently, on the occasion of a rally for a candidate for the House, George Bush came to Statesboro. Before his visit, the Secret Service contacted the Inn to say they had read about the Inn online, and that George and entourage would be coming for lunch that day. Ahead of the visit the Secret Service (hereinafter referred to as the S.S.) arrived to inspect the premises and install more phone lines. The day of the visit the S.S. came and inspected the kitchen and watched the food being prepared. Shortly before the president's arrival, the kitchen was sealed off, and the smoke detectors in the Inn disabled by the S.S. The president was ushered into a private dining room, to the dismay of one local reporter who idolizes him and had hoped to have some face time with him. His choice of lunch at this Inn with the reputation of serving wonderful gourmet food? A cheeseburger. And why did the S.S. disable the smoke detectors? Because our president is a chain smoker! Now I understand why he is such a friend to Big Tobacco.

Almost a Clean Sweep!

Michael Moore e-mailed me (along with everyone else on his mailing list) and asked me to take a picture of myself with a broom outside my polling place and send it to him. So I stuck a broom and the camera on the backseat when my son and I headed out to vote yesterday. Our polling place happens to be the Primitive Baptist Church. Once our votes were cast, we snapped each other's photo, garnering a few stares, but no comments.
Then I went home to wait out the results. By the time I gave up and went to sleep, it was apparent that Georgia had re-elected that Democrat-turned- Republican, Sonny Perdue, who was endorsed by Zell Miller, who still calls himself a Democrat, and that the Democrats had gained control of the House. My congressional district here was too close to call, and the Senate was still very much a toss-up.
That's still true as I write. I looked this morning, and Tom and I were on page six of the Clean Sweep voters on Michael Moore's website.
And now we'll wait out the rest of this term and then see if there will be all the changes Nancy Pelosi has promised! Here's hoping!

Holiday Cow

When my son Ben was working at Big Lots in Griffin, he came home one night with a huge grin, and a present for me. Seems a box of candles had come into the store, and he couldn't resist. What strange mind birthed the idea of a black and white cow, wearing what appears to be an orange cornucopia hat with a Pilgrim's buckle, with a jack o'lantern saddle sprouting a wick just where the rider (riding a cow?) would sit? Around her neck instead of a bell hangs a piece of candy corn, and her bright green eyes peer intently through googles looped around her ears. Her ears, her udder and her nose, which is reminiscent of a pig snout, are a bright pink. I sent Ben back for the rest of the cows, and I think he brought home ten. I gave away all but two, which I treasure. Who wouldn't?

The Rug Story

I have dogs. I own dogs, and I have fostered dogs. On September 14, I ordered a rug and a rug pad from a catalog. On the 19th I received an e-mail saving the two items had been shipped, giving me a FedEx tracking number. That was a Monday. Tuesday Tom and I rolled up the old dog-stained rug, exposing the bare brick floor, and carted it off to the recycling center. On Wednesday at 9:09 AM, a FedEx Express truck brought me a box containing the rug pad. I had a hair appointment, so my son was home when at 1:49 PM, a second FedEx Express truck dropped off a large box containing two white wicker chairs. No invoice was attached. And then I began a series of phone calls. I was assured by the catalog company that according to their records, FedEx would be delivering the rug later that day; or if not, the next. And they would mail me a shipping label to return the chairs. A call the next day brought much the same reponse. He was sure the chairs had been sent in addition to the rug, not instead of. But he would put a tracer on the delivery. I should give them until the middle of the next week. Meanwhile the return label came, and I called FedEx for a pick-up. I was asked if the label said "Express" or "Ground." I replied, "Ground," and answered questions about the size and weight of the package. (Big. Contains two wicker armchairs. About 50 pounds.) The next day, only a couple of hours after the time I'd been given, the very same woman who'd delivered the chairs, in an Express truck, arrived and said she couldn't take them. It was a ground shipment, and I should call and re-schedule. It was two days before the ground truck came. Still no rug. I called again, to be told that they would put a tracer on it, and did I think any of my neighbors might have accepted the shipment? But in the meantime, for my trouble, she'd give me a 10 per cent discount on the rug. On October 3rd, two e-mails came, one saying that the chairs had arrived, and they were crediting my credit card for them. The other e-mail said the rug would be shipped on October 16th, but that I would not be charged until it was shipped. My credit card statement also arrived, and I HAD been charged, on September 14th, when I placed the order, for both the rug and the pad. I called again. I was told that my credit card had been credited for the amount of the chairs, which they had received. I said I had never been charged for them. She assured me that all would be well, she would straighten all that out, and that the rug would be shipped the 16th, and then asked if she could put me on hold while she checked on something. (Muzak: "Love, lift us us up where we belong...") Then she came back to say that the rug I had ordered had been permanently discontinued! So, today I go rug-shopping in town. And I will wait to see what the next credit card statement has to say. I have a feeling this is not the end of the rug story!