"Roy Rules"

For you young snots that have no idea, this is Roy Rogers and his horse Trigger. For my 10th birthday my mother and father took me to New York City to the old Madison Square Garden to see a rodeo. Roy and Trigger made an appearance. The ushers got all the little kids down near the fence and we were allowed to pet Trigger as he went by ever so slowly. That was almost 48 years ago and I can still feel his Palomino coat if I close my eyes.

Roy Rogers was my hero. His show was on every Saturday and I wouldn't go anywhere until it was over. I would always sing "Happy Trails to You", at the end, with Dale Evans and Roy.

I want to share the ROY ROGER'S RIDERS CLUB RULES with you:

1. be neat and clean


2. be courteous and polite


3. always listen to your parents


4. protect the weak and help them


5. be brave, but never take chances


6. study hard and learn all that you can


7. be kind to animals and care for them


8. eat all your food and don't waste any


9. love God and go to Sunday school regularly.


10. always respect our flag and country.

" I reck'n I did em all. That's right varmint. I was a good boy.....Hell, it don't say noth'n 'bout no whiskey, women chas'n, smok'n, cuss'n, drink'n, raslin, tobacky chew'n, danc'n or loud sing'n! Does it? You flea bitten galoot! So there, this town aint big 'nough for the both of us, draw partner, slap leather, cut'em off at the pass, "You, Johnny, stay with the horses", you back shoot'n weasel, stay away from the School Marm, but that's injun territory, thank ya Mam, beer for my men & whiskey for my horses, don't care who it is - the gun stays at the town line.........."

Had enough? Oh really!

" It's the calvary, he's a gun for the double bar t ranch, stagecoach's a come'n, they dun robbed the bank, get the women in the back, not in my town, hurt real bad, them's injun tracks, where'd you get that saddle, reach for the sky, hired hand, tie um up boys, string'm up boys, shoot'm boys, hold'm for me boys, keep those hands up, throw down the strong box, give me the money, get a posse and follow'm, we're gonna have us a hang'n, he's plum loco, Pa get your gun............"

LULU

This is LuLu from Louisville, Kentucky. Yes, I do realize that there are no parrots indigenous to Kentucky! Her species is from South Africa but I actually bought her when she was still an egg from a breeder. He hatched her and her brother and after they were weened he hand fed them . She was shipped to me when she was 4 months old. LuLu flew up here on her own - no - American Airlines, in a crate!

LuLu can mimic cellphone rings, a "wolf whistle" and the "come here" whistle. We were a little worried about what her first words might be since her cage is right next to my chair. Since they tend to learn through repetition, it's lucky that it appears my most used words are Kathy, Kate and Kat . LuLu also is close to saying "scratchy scratch", what we say when she wants a feather rub, "knuk,knuk.knuk"and "LuLu."

I spend alot of time with her and she's very entertaining. The only downside is she's a really sloppy eater. Her food goes every where.

If you are looking for a different kind of pet , I highly recommend a "hand fed" parrot. The "hand fed part" is critical. They are used to people and will "step up" on to your hand willingly. She loves our Lab. She's always flying down to the floor and trying to climb on him.He's not thrilled but does tolerate her.

"You Never Forget the First One"

The cars above are 1964 Corvettes; the top is a roadster and the bottom the coupe. In 1966 my father and I bought a roadster and believe it or not, it cost us $2700. It was the color of the bottom picture - " satin silver" with navy blue leather seats. It was a 327 cu. in., 325 h.p., with a four speed transmission. It was the first car I ever owned with an am-fm radio. I didn't even know what fm was and the only fm station I could pick up was WRPI in Troy.The engine was ported, polished, balanced, blue printed, had a 3/4 race cam, Holley double pumper with an Edelbrock hi-rise manifold and Mickey Thompson headers. This car screamed! Fortunately gas was about 30 cents a gallon.

I just about lived in this vehicle. 40 years later people still ask me about it. My father sold it when I was in the service. I came home and there was a brand new Chevy Malibu in the garage. It gone though for good - the kid that bought it hit bridge abutment and totalled it.

God I loved that car!

"MY ROLE MODELS"

Remember these guys? I new them as the "Our Gang" kids, others
know them as "The Little Rascals." We watched them every morning before we left for school .
I can remember being small enough that Steve Dondalski and I would sit in the same chair in my livingroom watching them. Spanky was every ones favorite. The girls liked Darla the main reason that the "He-man Women Haters Club" was started.
They were filmed in the 1930's during the Great Depression so everyone was poor. Also notice that the films are mixed race. We grew up knowing this was the way it should be. Go to http://www.youtube.com/ and watch a few. "The Teacher's Beau" is one of my favorites. There is one about them at night with ghosts, that's hysterical and there's always the "Wish I had a watermelon" episode! Buckwheat',"Oh-tay", was so funny and not one character mentioned his speech impediment.
Their antics were all good fun. No one got hurt or shot and though they walked a fine line with the law they were great role models.
I think it's fair to say that the infamous "Two Idiots", Glenn and Nick, owe them some credit for many of their pranks. It's crazy to get my age and realize that "Our Gang" and "Looney Toons" were a large part of forming my values as a youth.
Another time we'll talk 1950's cowboys!

"What Time is it? How can that be?"

The first time my wife and I drove cross country in our motorhome we left at 5:30 a.m.. I'm a morning person, she's not! She slept in the passenger seat with her blanky and pillow until I stopped just southwest of Buffalo for breakfast at Cracker Barrel.
When we got back in the motorhome Kat took out our road atlas and the three ring binder that I set up over the spring. I had gotten trip planning software and made a trip tik which included a map, directions and our camp ground reservations for each day. This was a well thought out plan!
Almost every stop I had been able to get a site with electric, water, sewer and cable hook ups. Livin' large! We were set both ways. I had planned a leisurely drive both ways with sight seeing stops along the way. This was our long shake down cruise - our first big trip I wanted to be prepared.
Our first stop was in central Ohio, arriving in the earling afternoon. We had a nice dinner and relaxed.
Still excited, the next morning I broke camp at 5:00a.m. without waking Kat. We were headed to Iowa next. I pulled out quietly, figuring I'd drive a couple of hours and then stop for breakfast. Which is exactly what I did. Just after crossing in to Indiana, I saw a billboard advertising a Cracker Barrel. I stopped there and woke Kathy up. One of the nice things about this chain is they have large RV parking spots. No one was parked in the RV reserve.
Other than one other customer, we were it.
Kat asked what time it was I said 7 and our waitress said, 6.
6?
The waitress informed us that the time changed when I entered Indiana. We'd lost an hour or gained one, whatever!,
All my planning and I hadn't figured in time changes. Good news - extra time going out - less time going home. All Kat heard was it really wasn't necessary for me to leave so early.
It turned out for the best. I spent many beautiful mornings drinking a cup of coffee and smoking a nice cigar watching the day come to life in places like South Dakota, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada and California. One of my favorite early mornings was on our second trip when my daughter-in-law and I went into Sequoia National Park just after sunrise and watched a young deer feed.

This weekend I watched some of the Earth Live concert and saw all the stats on plastic water bottles. They talked about how much energy can be saved if we would refill an empty bottle. I've never understood why we bought water. Rotterdam, New York, where I grew up, still has award winning tap water. No lie! It was actually decided in a blind taste test.
When I was a kid if you were thirsty you drank water. In grade school we had the old fashioned porceline drinking fountains with the silver handle. It wasn't even cooled. Junior High and High School you knew better than to drink from them. We even had one outside at Bigsbee School near the playground.
Everyone had a "water bottle" in the refrigerator so you'd have really cold water.
Sometimes if you needed to, you drank directly from the outside faucet on the house. You know you're old if you can remember the taste of water from a garden hose - how about the taste of warm water from a garden hose! Yuck!
So just a thought - how about we all stop buying bottled water?

"SISSY BOYS"

Have you noticed that all the reality shows are hosted and judged by Brits? How did this happen? Idol, So you think you can dance, Dancing with the stars - damn - now that I think about it there's Canadians on too! Paul Schaefer, Alex Trebeck - but they're really Brits - sissy boys!

I'd like to see Simon Cowell, Nigel Lithgow and Len Goodman get dropped off somewhere in a large American inner city area, like Detroit, NYC or even Albany . Imagine them getting dissed by a group of little brothers and sisters and them trying to just defend themselves verbally. "I say young man, you're a bit cheeky." or "Young lady lower your voice it's pitchy." or Simon telling them,"I didn't understand a word you just said. It was just awful!"

You want a good laugh? Check out BBC On Demand. The shows suck. I get their humor, it's like their teeth - bad. Monty Python was a classic but name a couple more really good Brit shows.

"Eh da unna stun mooch a wa shi sez," but I do like Cat Deeley! She's really the only good thing to come out of this latest Brit invasion.