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Beau Wann, Jr.
Hey Patty, glad you jumped on in, the water is fine. I know women have been doing all this work since the Garden of Eden, especially cleaning up apple cores. My Dad and the men in his family never helped much around the inside of the house, commonly called "womans work", but they did work very hard as Ironworkers and also keeping up the oustide of the house and the cars. I guess there are always tradeoffs in every station of life.
I've always helped around the house, because I like things to be a "certain way", being obsessive compulsive about some things. Plus I learned at a very young age that if you want something done right, (the way you want it done) DO IT YOURSELF... or otherwise, dont complain when it isnt done to your satisfaction.
"Bull in a china shop" would aptly describe me and house work...I just jump in, bulldozer and all, and a "firey steed and cloud of dust and " hearty HI YO SILVER, AWAY...One of the things that chaps my uh derriere, is that I started out in life being clumsy, and wound up being clumsy...dont know where I got the idear that things were suppose to be easier when you so gracefully matured, as we al have, but I was under such a misconception...
One of the things that just really really really chaps me, is having to WORK, to do work...in other words, going out to mow the yard, and having to work on the lawnmower to mow the yard...or having to go get gas so the lawnmower will run, etc...I dont know how I came to be such a problem in life, but here I am...
When I get angry at something, whether it is beyond my control or not, I try to think of people less fortunate than myself...like folks going through cancer treatment, losing a child or grandchild ...yessir, then I think, "I am the luckiest man on the face of the earth" to quote Lou Gerhig, one of my alltime favorite heros...Ted Williams is another....here was a man, actually fought in two wars, and still was the all time batting champeen ever...lifetime batting average .406, if memory serves me correctly, dont see why it should start now though...when Ted was a little boy, he said that one day he was walking down the street with his dad and told his dad, "when I walk down the street, I want people to say, "there goes the greatest hitter ever"....danged if that didnt come true...
Me and Oliver, Jack and Cooper were back by the cement pond one day this week, and the wind was swirling the leaves around like they were...well, leaves...one leaf in particular, shaped like a boat, or elongated cup, landed in the cement pond. This was a rather exceptional leaf, as it rode high in the water, with stern, being the tip pointed upwards and out, and the bow, the stem end pointing likewise..the end of the stem was bent sort of parallel to the boat, forming the sort of "maiden head" that you saw on four masted square riggers and the like. Kind of like "nose art" on WWII planes, ie Memphis Belle, Ruptured Duck etc...(ok, you really have to have a good imagination, so trust me on this)...
This leaf, like I said was exceptional, in that it grabbed and held the attention of two dogs and a cat for quite a spell...Well, maybe not Coopers attention, but Big Ollie and Jack for sure...both jumped when the leaf came winging in from the infinite...then they hunkered down like it was prey, or predator...they stalked it ever so carefully making sure their moves were as choreographed as say a ballet, or waltz...in slow motion...as the wind pushed the leaf turned frigate, both Jack and Oliver were absolutely captivated...when the wind changed direction, both boys went straight down to the ground, silent and still as if they were watching an alien space craft...I guess to them it was...
As time passed, oh say a couple of minutes, just as the wind pushed the little boat to the edge of the black lagoon, the more adventuresome of the three boys, Jack, cautiously approached...and having suffered no ill effects from said sailboat, calmly plucked it out of the water by it's bow, and proudly pranced around the cement pond with the leaf in his mouth..."look at me, mighty hunter, fearless fighter...leaf killer...Cooper was already asleep long before Jacks encounter, and Big Oliver jumped up on the swing next to me and bit my arm and then jumped in my lap and went to sleep...he does that alot...bites me and then goes to sleep...cant figure that one out...he doesnt draw blood, unless I jerk away, so I try not to do that unless I feel I need a good blood lettin, but I can sure feel his saber tooth ancestry...
That leaf reminded me of some things growing up on DuBarry...an illustration in one of our books, that of a young boy, wearing a folded newspaper hat carrying a homemade wooden sword and watching the leafs sailing down a stream...I've done that before...I've even made homemade boats from either my cubscout manual, or from my BOYS LIFE magazine...that magazine was my most prized possession...I would read it over and over until it just fell apart...the plans to the boat, as I recall, were very simple...oh, not back then, but now they would be...you took a 1X4 about 6 inches long, or roundabouts thereof, and cut an inch long and inch deep notch in the middle of one end... it didnt have to be exact, and generally if I did it , it certainly was not exact...
you then took a rubber band and put it on the piece of wood, and stretched it across the notch you cut, then took the piece of wood from the notch and wound it up in the rubber band inside the notch, turned er loose, and voila, you had a "stern paddle wheeler"...I would cut the front to make it pointed like the bow of a boat, so it could cut through the water better, and then add all sorts of good stuff to it...like army men, and trucks and tanks etc...and if I was real lucky and adventuresome, I would paint it...what fun that was...that and climbing trees...Hey Jan, I will remember your account of your tree climbing days, forever...I go by Candlelight park almost everyday, and look at this tree and that tree, thinking about which one was "your tree"...Ive got it narrowed down to a couple of really good specimens...
Guess I should call it a night, eh what? I do get wound up dont I! ! ! I have found to really succeed in life, is to take the "I" out of it...took me a long time to master it, but once I did, voila, a semi-decent human bean...it really is more blessed to give than to receive, and more fun too...
Oh, didnt get to talk about turkey day...it was good, lots of good food...I wasnt much help in the kitchen this year, after working on getting things ship shape here at the wannderosa...I had to lay down, so my beloved did all the cooking this year...she certainly is an amazing woman my sweetie...puts up with me and my shenanigans and crazyness, and never breaks stride in life...I learned how to be a better person by her example...imitation is the true form of flattery, wouldnt you say ! ! ! !
We still have a lot of T-Day trimmings left over...made homemade turkey soup, and still have pumpkin and apple pie...in fact, I had pumpkin pie and whip cream for breakfast this morning...I do love pie...well duh, who doesnt...I didnt get to make my Twinkie Cake, because I could find NO TWINKIES...so instead, I made "pudding in a cloud" ...any of youse youtes ever have that before???? Yummy!!!!
Keep the sun at your 6 and ride boldly ride...
your frien and nutty brother...Beaucephus Allen Badillion Trahern...
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those of us who were fortunate enough to see a full clear night blanketed with millions of stars,each one important to the gravitational ballance of the other;extending to infinity.thankfulness is a prayer in itself and can remove the scales from our eyes and the veil from the truth.
He was quieter and more unassuming than I thought he would be. I plan to read his new book. 
crew member.the personell at site85 were all discharged from the air force and worked as civilians like the flying tigers in ww2 because laos was a "neutral"country.the fact that 'the ho chi minh trail' ran through there and cambodia counter-ballanced the situation; this could be argued by lawyers 'ad infinitum'. anyway,a fixed-wing aircraft being shot down by a helicopter was a first. just a hundred years;whats next?
But with the flu season here and the holidays, cannot take a chance! BIG HUGS to all! 