The Older They Get...

Husband put on his baseball cap and headed out the door. He had that look in his eye! Earlier in the day, on our Monday dump/dollar store/post office run he narrowly missed the pot hole that snapped two wheel covers off the Buick a month ago. Darn that hole was deep. I'd heard him hatching a plot then, as we picked the wheel covers up on the way back home that first time -- "bring shovel...get some gravel from the parking lot of the trucking company..." Luckily the trucking company moved out.

He had a few minutes open this afternoon, and said something about putting the shovel in the car. Oh, no, I thought as he drove away...fully expecting to get a call from him, begging me to come to the County Courthouse, with my checkbook. I could see the headlines in the newspaper, maybe even on the TV. "Man caught filling pot hole--Wife refuses to bail him out!"

The reporter would quote me: "He's a repeat offender at taking on projects he thinks the locals are ignoring. Back when we were in Erie, he put the lawn mower in the car and went to mow a playground. The only thing that made him come home was that he ran out of gas. And me sitting home with a baby, wondering what would become of him. That was a rough neighborhood."

This time he came home a little sooner than I expected him. He had to wait for a county truck with asphalt in it when he left the drive. It turned onto the road he was going to in front of him. By the time he got to the hole, they were already fixing it.

That hole had only been stealing wheel covers for two months -- I can't think what the hurry was!

How Does My Garden Grow?:

The weather is hot, even here in the Smokies. I haven't been able to weed the garden as much as I'd like too.

But things are shaping up. This spring, husband bought rose bushes and a trellis. Granted, the roses aren't big enough to climb the trellis yet, but it looks nice in the side garden...sort of toward the front yard...lined up with the porch. Well, we have a huge yard.

Anyway, he helped a neighbor with some plumbing but didn't want to take any money for his expertise, so the neighbor gave him a three-piece concrete bench -- sort of ancient-looking, which suits this house just fine -- and husband put in under the trellis. I put a potted plant on it just to keep it company. It really sparks things up. And when the roses bloom next year......

It Rained All Night

Like the rest of the country, it has been hot in east Tennessee. I've had to haul water to my garden, a do a little sprinkling with the hose. All of us had gotten to the point where we hardly wanted to move.

But last night we got rain, about half an inch of it -- off and on through the late evening, during the night, and into the morning hours. It was wonderful.

We have a metal roof on our house. We think it was original to the front section -- the new section, which was built in 1900. I used to think that rain on good ol' asphalt shingles was good enough, but if you haven't heard rain on a tin roof, it is something else! It is a lullaby.

I'm reminded of the song from Camelot -- I think the song is Camelot -- when it says that it only rains there at night, probably so no one is inconvenienced. Of course, their houses may have been thatched. Because there is nothing as soothing as rain on a tin roof.

The Irony of It All

My husband served in the USMC -- first in Korea, where he was the last combat Marine ordered out -- and also later at HeadQuarters Marine Corps in Arlington, VA. He was a desk jockey, which stood him in good stead for a lot of the rest of his life.

We listen to news over the radio, namely on NPR. Lately he's been a little depressed. To him, Gitmo was always a symbol of the USMC holding onto a tiny bit of land in Cuba, holding off against a Communist regime. He dispairs over its current use -- doesn't say anything, but I see it in his eyes.

A couple of days ago, he went into his bureau and took a dusty dark red book from his bottom drawer and brought it into the living room to read it. It was presented to him in 1959 while he was in California, but he got the most use out of it at Henderson Hall -- it's the Manual for Courts Martial, United States, 1951. It's thumb indexed in three colors and shows a lot of use.

He was stenographer to the Commandant of the Marine Corps for over three years -- he knows that book forward and backward. He read it for a while, shook his head and put it aside. The look on his face said that someone was in trouble, but didn't say who.

Pet Post Script

Husband is back, says that he handed the kitten to the girl at the shelter and the little guy escaped into the woods behind the shelter! See! It's just a heartbreak all around.

Pet Peeve!

We live on a country road where there are a lot of houses -- this was a farm and was subdivided into two and three acre lots. We live in the old farmhouse -- big yard, lots of trees, kind of nice place.

Well, people think this is a great place to leave off unwanted pets. Right now my husband has taken the latest -- a cute little grey male tiger with four white paws -- to the animal shelter because I just can't take another stray! The last dog that was left off was a sweetheart, big thing with pale blue eyes, good as gold.

But the one before that -- wild as anything. The guy from the shelter tried three times to catch him before finally stopping by when he had another dog in his truck --that s did the trick.

I wish people would let me choose my own pets. If we don't want to take care of them, they will either get hit by a car or go to the shelter. End of story.