SEIZE THE DAY.

Yesterday, I had lunch at Panera Bread in Lodi. I asked this family what they thought of the restaurant? While they liked it they didn’t express any overwhelming enthusiasm. I had to take my car in to the Toyota dealership for a recall fix, a simple nut, in the power steering mechanism. I always like to “seize the day” when I’m off-tracked. The dealership shuttle delivered me to a shopping center of my choice and I managed to buy some needed socks and underwear. Then I walked across Kettleman Lane to Panera Bread.

I thought it was a bakery, and it is a bakery-with a restaurant.

The major appeal here is the many types of sweets. Since they don’t tempt me, I opted for a half sandwich and salad. Nothing exceptional. For almost eight dollars, (no drink) I had to  pick up  my food at a counter and bus my own fancy plastic dishes, not paper.  It’s just a fancy fast food restaurant, only higher priced. Their stock is sizzling so I wanted to see for myself what all the sizzle is about. I wasn’t impressed.

I went next door to El Maguey Mexican Grill and had a couple of pollo tacos. Customers here were more enthusiastic about their food, but my flash suddenly refused to work and I couldn’t get a picture. The prices were better as well and my food was delivered to me by a waitress.  Cost? Just under $3. Chili Verde is 7.99, and pronounced delicious by two customers. The downside to any Mexican restaurant is they only serve Mexican beer.

I called the shuttle driver and he took me to Lodi Beer Company, a craft brewer. Ah, more like it. Their porter was good, but doesn’t compare to Black Butte Porter by Deshutes Brewery, or Brown Sugah, by La Gunitas. They serve food here as well and I would have liked to try it but the dealership called me and said my car was finished. Besides, I was surfeit by then.  The interior is cool and beautiful. (No flash.)

The best find of the day, was visiting a small, side-of-the-road fruit and vegetable stand, the first on the right on Victor Rd. toward San Andreas from 99. Gail Meltzer was selling “my dad’s awesome white peaches”. Oh, my. Tree ripened, luscious peach perfume filled my car.  Peach heaven.  I bought squash and her homemade chocolate covered cashews, as well. Cheaper than rocky road, she claims by writing on a piece of paper.  (Gail cannot speak.) Better tasting, too.  Gail showed me this giant summer squash. Around Labor Day, or sooner, she is going to take bets as to how big it gets. If you want to guess, call her at 209-200-660. (I don’t know who answers the phone.)

SOUTHWEST, A GOOD CORPORATE CITIZEN

I knew there was a reason I like to use Southwest Airlines when I fly. In fact, I always attempt to put my money where I sense corporate responsibility. Many companies, especially small companies encourage their employees to do community service, often giving them company time to do it.  But how does a huge corporation that does business in so many communities involve itself with people projects?
Several months ago, the Student Conservation Association, which coordinates young adult volunteers on conservation projects across the country, approached Southwest about a collaboration tied to Southwest’s 40th anniversary. Southwest was enthusiastic about the idea and both groups met and came up with  “Conservation in Action Tour: 40 Projects for 40 Years.”
On the ground, that translates as  a circuitous nationwide trip in a painted Southwest RV, moving from city to city  to work on conservation projects.
Prior to each stop, Southwest organizes a group of its employees to participate in the day’s project and the Student Conservation Association mobilizes its own volunteers. They were spotted in Las Vegas last week at McCarran Airport.
The Las Vegas conservation project was scheduled for the Springs Preserve, a 180-acre center-of-town cultural center dedicated to the desert ecosystem. Organizers at the preserve and the SCA planned a morning of tree planting, mulching, weeding and general garden cleanup. But the night before the event, Mother Nature intervened with a flash flood.  The clean-up became a recovery project that included replacing some downed trees.
The 60 volunteers worked through the heat to get the place back in order in one day, a project that probably would’ve taken the area Springs Preserve volunteers many days to complete.
“They didn’t even want to take water breaks,” claimed Tyler Lau, an SCA project leader for the Tour 40 team.
A  midsummer outdoor project in the sizzling heat of Las Vegas probably had as much appeal as skunk grease, but  the  volunteers pitched right in. They have done invasive plant removals, habitat restorations and wetland and riverbed cleanups, but fixing up a desert garden after a storm was something new.
Southwest spokeswoman Michelle Agnew said the Tour 40 project was something new for the airline, but giving back to communities is something it has done for years. Last week, VEGAS INC chronicled the importance of corporate philanthropy, but imagine how tough that is for an airline that flies into 72 cities?
The company initiated a program called Tickets for Time in which for every 40 hours a Southwest employee volunteers for a nonprofit organization, the benefiting organization is eligible for a complimentary roundtrip flight for fund-raising or transportation needs. Southwest employees logged 45,000 hours of volunteer work in 2009, according to the company website.
On last week’s visit, the SCA crew got a day off from RV living to spend a free night at Bally’s on the Strip.
“I never thought  I’d ever spend a night in Las Vegas,” Lau says.
I’ve  blogged a number of times about bad corporate citizens so it gives me great pleasure to illuminate what happens when tourism, business and conservation work together for the benefit of all.

REDUCING THE LOAD

A collectiholic, such as myself, finds it difficult to reduce the "stuff" we collect. I'm a paper nut and many of my collections involve paper. But, on-line, with this blog, I get to collect "stuff" that doesn't pile up, such as cures for hiccups or favorite poems, and strange-sounding names. Yesterday Elaine May from Canada sent me another sure cure for hiccups.  "I take a few drops of balsamic vinegar. It works every time," claims Elaine. And a neighbor reminded me that a cure for poison oak grows all around us. Simply make a tea of manzanita leaves and drink it once a week in the spring and you won't be affected by poison oak. Another neighbor swears by delicately biting the leaves off a poison oak plant (only in the early spring) and swallowing it. A sure preventive if it doesn't kill you.
And from my other blog comes this old remedy from Homer Maas. "I smashed my thumb in the car door. It swelled like a mini-balloon and I lay in misery all night with it throbbing, and throbbing. In the morning my dad carefully took a paperclip, half unbent it, and heated the pointed end red-hot with a torch. While I cringed with fear, he carefully "drilled" a hole into the top of my thumb nail with the heated end of the paperclip until blood spurted out of the hole. The pressure was immediately relieved and the pain was instantly gone."  Homer was only 12 years old then and he lived through it.
I've been asked how long I'll be staying in Murphys by so many people, I thought I'd explain. I rerouted away from the Motor Home to attend, graduations, my family reunion and business at home. Most of that business involves paperwork and ridding myself of collections.  I'm simplifying my life to handle everything from the road. Lining up accounts for bill paying on-line and doing neglected projects. Then things like a Jury summons and other responsibilities intervene.  I removed propane tanks at one rental because they don't use propane anymore. Supervising yard work that needed to be done. Small repairs made. Reducing the load. It's a small epiphany when I can find a home for old sheet music which a piano teacher friend,  June Foster gladly took. A table and lamp and kitchen stuff for my daughter's new apartment. I off loaded my old vinyl record collection, and so on. I'm far from finished, but making steady progress. Simplifying and reducing the load FEELS SO GOOD. Jim is encouraging me to bring some of my paper projects aboard.  (He knows not what trouble he is getting into, and, I still don't know when I'll be leaving Murphys.)

REMEDIES WE'D RATHER FORGET

Bob and Donna Parker sent me their cure for hiccups which made me laugh. Most are kind of silly and fun, and they work. Here is what the Parkers recommend:


Fold your hands as if in prayer interlocking the finger’s except for the index ones. Concentrating on getting the index fingers as close together without touching and before you know it you no longer have the hiccups

 It kind of put me in mind of those old childhood remedies we'd like to forget. Most of these come from Reminisce Magazine.  Pat Cook from Colorado Springs  explained how her husband's mother would fry up chopped onions, wrap them in cloth and place them inside of his pajama top on his chest to take away his congestion. The smell would cling and the kids at school would give him funny looks and stay away from him.


And from Bay City, Michigan, dipping a hot poker in the fire then sticking it into  a glass of wine for the kids to drink  prevented colds. The taste?  Horrible.


Hair loss was cured by nightly treatments  of heated castor oil and olive oil massaged into the scalp in Carencro, LA. The hapless one wrapped her head in a towel so not to stain the pillow case. 

Taking cod liver oil as a preventive cure for childhood illnesses was a horror from my own past. The teachers at our school gave you a spoon full of the stuff everyday. It made you gag to swallow it. Then you were rewarded with a piece of hard candy. The teacher hated the ritual almost as much as we kids.My mother-in-law treated sunburn and poison oak with kerosene. Surprisingly, it didn't burn when applied.

John Thurston remembers enduring German Liniment, "a bottled, foul-smelling ooze," poured over pulled muscles or into the mouth of a sore-throated child with a liberal dollop of butter. Did it work?  "I surely stopped complaining!" says John. He also remembers a poultice for slivers made from sodden bread and milk fastened over the splinter to encourage it to back out. Other poultices for a thorn or sliver were made from a slice of greasy salt pork.

Mustard packs could burn the hide right off your chest, but they also cured pneumonia, according to Lorraine Wicks. In later years, chest congestion was treated with Musterole, the same thing in a big green jar. The smell was awful but it worked. I could always go to school the next day.

Runny noses, stomachache, and colds were treated with Simmons Liver Medicine which looked like black pepper and tasted as bitter as quinine. Violet Dickerson of El Paso says she could get hers down but her sister would always immediately go to the bathroom and spit it out.

Cough drops were horehound candies. Its a sin to call them candy because we hated the taste even though they were sweetened. And, if that didn't work, a shot of straight gin burned all the way down to your stomach. Bill Atkinson.

"My Italian  friends at school would come with a bag of garlic around their necks," says Elizabeth Rainy of Vallecito, CA. "It may not have worked to ward off colds, but it kept the rest of the kids from getting near them and they didn't catch colds from anyone else."

Herbert Orr remembers being given a spoon of sugar with kerosene to help his breathing  and sulfur mixed with molasses in the spring to purify his blood.

A cut potato wrapped over a wart and the other half placed under a rock for 12 hours caused the wart to fall off, according to Jean Schaus of Indiana. When the rock was moved for landscaping, the wart returned.

But the horror of all times goes to Charles Wagoner's father. His dad rendered the fat of several skunks and placed the grease in a covered bucket. When any of the kids had a sore throat, he smeared it on their necks and tied a cotton flannel cloth around it. Charles is 96.  He survived the treatment.

Arrgh!

 

ON EATING LESS MEAT

I'm doing some deep cleaning and found some old magazine recipes. I like to eat vegetarian meals as much as I can until I really crave meat. A pecan loaf with brown rice, veggies and eggs  appealed to me and I gave it a try. It was very bland. I realized immediately that we cook with so much less salt and more spices now than ever before. I had cut the salt, but when I added hot sauce and more sage, onion and garlic on the plate, it came alive.  Its a high potassium dish and was very satisfying.
Then I thought I'd try bean patties. I boiled red beans the day before with a ham bone, meaning it isn't exactly meat free, but certainly cuts down the animal kill thing by using meat sparingly for flavoring.
The recipe called for something called Savorex, that I couldn't identify. (I resist having to buy things at a health food store.) By the time I read the recipe a couple of times, which consisted of onions sauteed in oil, 2 cups of bean puree, an egg, tomato juice and then flour to thicken it all with sage being the main seasoning. I realized its simply easier and more convenient to saute the onions, mix them with the mashed and seasoned beans without going the extra step and frying them into patties.  Seasoned meaning a no salt,  sage, black pepper, cummin, garlic, and Rotel.  (The Rotel has enough salt.) Then I topped the beans with raw sliced carrots and celery and surrounded it with spring lettuces sprinkled sparingly with lemon chili olive oil.

 Delicious and healthful. Again high potassium. I'm avoiding fatty cheddar cheese that always goes so well with beans.
There is one more recipe in this magazine for stew using gluten. I learned how to extract gluten from flour in the hippy seventies and don't want to go there. If they had gluten at my local grocer, I'd buy it. So, I'll substitute cous cous or quinoa. My daughter always accuses me of substituting when I cook so the recipe never resembles what I start out to make. She is right. I'm ever substituting, but my main thought on vegetarian cooking is that it can be great stuff, its healthy to eat less meat and I practically vomit when I read how animals destined for food are treated. My favorite vegetarian restaurant is the Sonora Community Hospital Cafeteria. They always have wonderful vegetarian meals but no cook book. If I had their recipes, I'd never go back to meat.
It is still my ambition, and Jim's, to avoid beef, and pork, all together, and my ambition to eat more vegetarian meals. If you have great vegetarian recipes, share them with me.

LOGGING TRUCKS ARE ROLLIN'

At one time, gigantic logging trucks like this one rumbled right through downtown Murphys. Officially rerouted in the 1990′s,  they can no longer do that. They roll down the mountain and keep to Highway 4 on their way to the mill. Loggers can still plow right through  downtown  Angels Camp on Highway 49.  I must admit to a bit of joy at seeing them. In the 80′s I rode with a logger to the woods and photographed  the complete operation from cutting, skidding,  loading, chaining up and delivering them to the mill. In fact, the driver pulled over to tighten his chains once we left  the rugged logging road and I got out  to take the big behemoth’s picture.  A guy backing out of his driveway, without looking, backed into me with his pick-up. I was unhurt, thankfully.  I wish I had those pictures in digital format.

Today’s logs, compared to logging in the seventies and eighties look like toothpicks. I’ve seen two or three or four logs fill one of these trucks. A tree trunk riding high half above the cab made you fear a slipping chain would allow a log to  smash through the cab and kill anybody inside.  The weight of the load was especially noticeable on Murphys Grade from Forest Meadows to Murphys with the driver managing the winding road, his jake brake scudding.  The memories, the sights and smells are great and I’m glad for the truck owners and loggers who have work again. Standard recently opened their mill in Sonora and I followed three trucks down to the river, and across the other side over Parrots Ferry Bridge on my way to the dentist. I returned by way of Stevenot Bridge on 49 through Angels Camp. I counted, coming toward me, four logging trucks which means a full truck was moving through town every five minutes on both highways.  As I did some errands,  I saw two more pass. Sure enough, I waited and caught this one moving through town.  While the jobs are great, they are most likely clear cutting for Sierra Pacific. SP refuses to compromise and do select cuts. They clear huge swaths of land and destroy the beauty and ecology of our area in the Sierra Nevadas. SP owns over a million acres above us, and young trees are falling to the axe.  A local group, Forest Watch, has photographed and protested their business practices, but the best way to make them accountable to the local community is to refuse to buy Sierra Pacific Lumber. I recommend you  buy certified lumber that is sustainably cut. It is stamped on the end of each board. It is possible to log without desecrating the land and habitat, but the bottom line for corporations  is people, nature, and animals last and money first. When I saw that logging had resumed, I speculated on the recent appearance of bear and feral pigs at our elevation and wonder if clear cutting could be upsetting the balance?

CURES FOR HICCUPS.

I have a cure for hiccups.  It works every time. I’ve encountered people who look a bit askance at my simple cure, until they try it.  You  lie down on a bench or bed on your back with your head hanging over the edge, practically upside down, and you take a swallow of water in that position. Works every time.  Someone long ago passed this cure on to me and it seems quite sane. However,  I found out that hiccup cures are really quite varied and entertaining, so let me pass on a few I’ve heard about that are “sure cures” in other families.

1.-Using both hands, stick your fingers in your ears. Take a deep breath. Have someone hold your nose while he or she gives you a drink of water. Sort of the same principle as the one we use in our family.
2.-Cut three holes the size of half-dollars in a paper bag. Put the bag over your head, and breathe deeply 20 times. Hiccups disappear.   Hmmm!  Sane. I’ll try and remember to give that one a go. Why the three holes in the bag? And, exactly 20 times?
3.- Put a teaspoon full of sugar on your tongue and hold it until the sugar melts. When the sugar is gone, so are the hiccups. Sounds practical. Let me know if it works.
4. If you can stand on your head, do it. If not, put your head between your knees. Close your eyes as tight as you can, take a deep breath and recite “Mary Had A Little Lamb” or “Little Bo Peep.”   This is a real chatty cure. I’ve heard just holding your breath works for some.
5. Make a fist and bite the knuckle of your little finger. Take a deep breath, and hurry up and bite the next, then the next, then the next and then the thumb. By the time you bite all your knuckles twice, you are cured. Realize,  I can’t vouch for any of these cures. But, it you are desperate, you’ll try almost  anything, right?
6.-Said to be 100% effective. Take a tablespoon of peanut butter and keep it in your mouth, making no attempt to eat or swallow it. As the peanut butter disappears, so will the hiccups.  Kind of like that sugar cure, but where does the peanut butter go?
7.-Fill a clean glass with water and cover it with a handkerchief. Drink the water through the hankie. No sipping. No holding of the breath. The hiccups disappear like magic.
8.-This is goofy but it works. Open your eyes as wide as you can. Stick out your tongue-all the way. Reach for the ceiling-really reach. Try to sing “The Star-Spangled Banner.”  Of course, you can’t  do it with  your tongue sticking out, but if you make the sounds, that is good enough. By the time you get to “the rockets red glare.” the hiccups will be gone.
I’d like to see a bunch of people in a room with hiccups, as an experiment, each trying a different cure, to see which one works best. The laughter alone would vanish the hiccups.

If you’re not into gimmicky cures,   grab a gin and tonic,  go outside and smell the flowers.  Hey, whatever works.

ARMED ENCAMPMENT

Last night, shots rang out and I knew the feral pig hunters were actively patrolling. The picture above is a skinny pig compared to the pictures my neighbor, Gary Gonzalez  got of five pigs invading his yard July 4th.  Sunday night,  one of my Hanging Tree neighbors in a golf cart-like vehicle, with a powerful strobe light and a cross bow,  was cruising the road flashing the woods looking for pigs.  I’d planned to take a cool evening walk  Monday night and thought better of it. Not only because of the hunters but because Gerry Baumgartner, another Hanging Tree neighbor reported he had been visited by a bear twice in the last two weeks and the neighbor above him has had three visits from two different bears. Both have armed themselves with canned horns.  Its beginning to feel like an armed encampment here.

Bears and pigs are related and their meat tastes similar. I know that for a fact since I once butchered a bear for my brother who hunted and killed a bear in neighboring Tuolumne County when he was only 18 years old.  Bears and feral pigs compete for the same food. Both can be aggressive and can and will attack humans if cornered or threatened, though that rarely happens.  In the 1980′s I encountered feral pigs in Wilseyville and Railroad Flat, the upper, mountainous western part of Calaveras County. I’ve lived in Murphys since 1978 and have never seen a bear within two miles of my place, nor have I seen feral pigs. I find it somewhat disturbing to realize that the bear population and feral pigs are wandering into new territory. It makes me wonder what shift in the environmental balance caused them to hunger out of their range? From past experience, it is usually human activity that upsets the balance. In any case, one neighbor was feeling very sympathetic to the feral pigs being hunted and considered setting out corn for them.  It seemed to be the right time to get educated about feral pigs and the damage they do. I looked at a couple of sources but Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources has the most thorough information on feral pigs and I copied my pictures from them:
http://www.dnr.state.wi.us/org/land/wildlife/PUBL/wlnotebook/Pig.htm
There are approximately four million feral pigs in the United States. Fact:  more people are killed by pigs than sharks. Domestic pigs were originally brought here from Spain and allowed to propagate in the wilds of California. Russian razorbacks and pigs from Germany were brought to New Hampshire, the Carolinas and California in the early 1900′s. They are ferocious fighters, can produce two or more litters per year and live for 25 years. They’ve become a serious problem in 23 states.
Mountain lions, bobcats and bears will feed on young pigs but the adult pigs are voracious predators. President Roosevelt once watched a pig dismember a jaguar.
” They especially relish acorns as well as hickory and beech nuts in the autumn. At other times of the year they eat forbs, grasses, leaves, berries and other fruits, roots and tubers, corn and other agricultural crops, insects, crayfish, frogs, salamanders, snakes, mice, eggs of ground-nesting birds, young rabbits, fawns and young livestock, such as lambs, calves, kids. They can also kill larger livestock that are weak from illness or injury. When fresh meat is not available, feral pigs will also readily scavenge carrion.”
They destroy wetland habitat, muddying the waters, breaking down the banks of rivers, destroy aquatic plants and have been known to corner larger prey and hunt as a group, breaking  legs and getting an animal on the ground. Their powerful bite can snap a kneecap or crush a peach pit with equal ease. They have been known to gnaw down a small tree and trample bushes in the wild. In domestic gardens and landscaped areas the damage is formidable. So, I say to my neighbor, don’t feel sorry for these invaders and let us support our hunters. In Wisconsin, they can be taken at anytime. In California, hunters need a pig tag, unless you are defending your property or livestock.  I’m told they are  better tasting than what we buy at the store. Luau time.

LIMBAUGH AND BECK ARE DISTORTIONISTS

I just got a message from the League Of Conservation Voters about a new bill in congress to repeal the mandate for efficient light bulbs enacted with a lot of bi-partisan support in 2007. It seems Rush Limbaugh and Glen Beck have been ridiculing them on their shows, and, in the process, distorting the truth about these new bulbs. That, then translated into a bill by a friendly congressman. It always amazes me when congress people listen to rumor and crap and disregard solid science when they make a decision. Kind of makes you wonder if candidates shouldn't have to pass the citizens test given to immigrants before they run for office. 

Truth be told, I didn't like the new bulbs either, at first, because I'd purchased several of them at a high price only to have them fail. You can return, them, yes, but who keeps the receipt? What bulb did you buy where? I began keeping the cardboard backing and attaching the receipt to it and writing where those particular bulbs were inserted. All for naught. In the end, most of the bulbs work just fine and last a long time. And, the cost has come down, down, down. In fact, in Arizona second hand stores (where Jim and I always look first for anything we need in the motorhome), the bulbs are subsidized by the state to encourage their use. 

But all this talk of bulbs made me kind of reflect and chuckle because while working in the Bay Area at the Santa Rita Jail in the 1950's, I was told there was a light bulb still burning in the Livermore fire department that was over 50 years old. I eventually went to look at it and indeed the story was true. Just for kicks, I went into my search engine and asked for the longest burning lightbulb, and sure enough, it's still going. Here is what wikipedia has to say:

The world's longest lasting light bulb is the Centennial Light located at 4550 East Avenue, Livermore, California. It is maintained by the Livermore-Pleasanton Fire Department. The fire department claims that the bulb is at least 109 years old and has only been turned off a handful of times. The bulb has been noted by The Guinness Book of World Records, Ripley's Believe It or Not!, and General Electric as being the world's longest-lasting light bulb.
There are some other long lasting light bulb stories on the wikipedia site if you want to check them out at:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longest-lasting_light_bulbs

The other reason I didn't like the new bulbs is they didn't fit into my lamps and my light fixture globes didn't fit over the new bulbs. Bare, they are just plain ugly. But, I've dined at some pretty fancy restaurants and seen those same ugly bare bulbs and figured if they can do it. I can do it. And, they are going to transpose the whole lighting fixture industry which translates into more jobs. The real benefit, as I see it, and the reason that the bill won't pass, is because businesses that watch their bottom line already realize the cost savings of these new bulbs. They've already made a $12 billion dollar annual savings in this country alone. So, while Beck and Limbaugh claim the new standards are part of a "nanny state" governance, the reality is the bulb technology is getting much better because of the law and we (or our children's children) may someday be reading about a rare thousand year light bulb.  

BILL FOSTER OF ANGELS CAMP.

Cleverly set up, this photo of Bill Foster, commanding a table with drink in hand, was so life-like I called to him from the street thinking he was set to greet his guests for his seventy-fifth birthday.  Bill is from  Angels Camp and is a medical miracle. He has spent more time in hospitals trying to kick the bucket than anyone I know. It’s no fun being a medical miracle, but what I admire about him most is his irrepressible sense of humor through it all.

He was actually greeting his guests inside the front door and I caught him with two of his grandsons.

I believe this neon sign with the State Farm logo is going to be on his tombstone   Once you are a State Farm agent, always a State Farm agent. Out of college, he served as a pilot in the air force, but  State Farm snagged him for life.  He always referred to the people he worked with as part of the State Farm  family, and they came to celebrate him in numbers.

There were a number of his good neighbors there as well, and I have no clue who was who by their names, but they and he  knew, and that is what was important. I heard some joking about his days with State Farm and more about his medical adventures.  Bill is a generous, helpful friend and neighbor and I treasure our friendship because he is intelligent, knowledgeable and mentored me many times through my insurance decisions.

This fellow told me if you take a picture, do it right. I took it twice so I hope it meets his approval.

His son Steve with Linda Strangio a close friend of Bill’s who helped bring the party together. We who were not with State Farm, were in the minority.

Another very special person in his life is “Mama Sue”, a local woman who has lived in Angels Camp for 51 years. She cooked for him, and kept his house during most of his medical problems.  He calls her his angel.

Bill’s daughter Pam avoided the camera, but I did manage to catch her before she  completely turned away. I’ve never understood why people do that, because then they guarantee that you will get a poor picture of them. A terrific woman, she was the major mover behind this party and shed a tear as she verbally applauded her dad.

Bill’s good friends, Tom and Gail Crawford are from the Bay Area where Tom was insured by State Farm. Bill referred to Tom as a Nascar Racer. He always drove fast cars and was noted for speeding…and I guess he got a few tickets in his life.

When the cake arrived, Bill gave a very short speech, thanking his approximately 70 guests for coming and told them he was glad to have finally gotten “leied.”  But the best quip came from a woman who piped up and said “I think Mae West said it best when she returned from Hawaii . ‘I’m glad to be back home where you can get laid and they don’t get it mixed up with a  bunch of flowers around your neck.’
So, Bill-
You’re seventy-five
And still alive?
At seventy-three
You could not pee.
You have no enemies to meet,
Unless you stumble over your own big feet.
My best advice?
(It isn’t nice.)
Drink lots of gin.
It may be a sin.
But sin is forgiven.
So, sin is in.
Yes, drink lots of gin
So the doctor can’t win.
Happy Birthday.
To view more pictures go to:https://picasaweb.google.com/106530979158681190260/201179FosterBirthday