The word 'barrel'

Just a little bit ago, Diane came out of the den with the flyer I had created about the special contests at the golf course for the Tuesday Men's League. She was getting after me for my wretched spelling, again, and apologizing for not noticing it a little earlier. Just for your information, the word was 'barrel' and I had slipped another 'l' onto the end of it, making it 'barrell'. Seemed okay to me though I did wonder at the time, Monday afternoon. Bric Parker happened to be out in the parking lot so I asked him if 'barrel' had one 'l' or two. He wasn't exactly sure so he asked Curt Johnson who was just a few cars down. Curt, ever the helpful one, wanted to know how big the barrel was, as if that had anything to do with it. Never did get an answer to my question and by the time I got back into the clubhouse, didn't even remember that I had a question. So, the flyer got printed and the Tuesday Men played their golf and day passed to night and... Well, Diane got herself up on a Wednesday morning and saw the flyer. She's out playing golf now and I don't expect coming across too many misspelled words. And I'm here making sure misspell is spelled correctly - did use only one 's' the first time...

Baby bird underneath the fir tree

Taken earlier this evening while I was playing golf. My tee shot had wandered off the beaten path and underneath a fir tree to the right of #1 fairway. When I reached under the tree with one of my irons to scoot the 'ball' out where I could hit it, the 'ball' went peep! It was a baby bird letting me know that he was not a golf ball. I offered my apologies and went about retrieving my actual ball which was just a few feet away (and still under the fir tree). I imagine the baby's mom was much relieved when I left the neighborhood.

Tanner, the neighbor's dog

Had to get out and walk some today - the wind and the cold don't really keep me from my daily rounds'. But the slick surface makes me walk in tiny little mincing steps and fills my head with visions of legs and arms going every which way and the rest of my body, after a brief period of being airborne, coming into solid contact with good old Mother Earth. Not nice, so I make minimum walking in such conditions. Did however go down to the mail box both this morning and this afternoon.

When I do walk, every now and then a neighborhood dog, I call her Maggie, will run out and fall all over me and insist on escorting me up and down the road. She's a little cutie and full of energy and friendliness and pays me no nevermind if I should ask her to do something, like get to the side of the road to avoid the oncoming 3 ton mass of steel barreling down on us from the west.

Another dog in the neighborhood, I called him George, will always greet me when I get to the bottom of the hill at the start of my travels and then again when I return thirty or forty minutes later. Lately I've been stopping and responding to his greetings, for a few minutes at least, just enough to ware him down a bit, let him get his talking done so he doesn't stay up all night trying to say another thing or two. Today I learned, from one of his mistresses, his real name: Tanner. Tanner, I called out rather than George as I went back up the hill from a walk to the mail box. Tanner. He didn't seem to mind my using the name. I mean by that that he responded in just about the same fashion as when I called him George. But I'm sure it makes a difference. I imagine dogs, just like people, enjoy being remembered and addressed with their very own name. Tanner. Gotta remember that now. Wonder if he came about that name from being a little more tan than the dog that lived there previously? Of course, he might have been a real tanner in a previous life, you know, someone who works skins. Or maybe someone thought he might be worth about sixpense, which isn't all that much to my way of thinking, sixpense being a tanner for the Brits. Guess it doesn't make much difference, one way or the other. Tanner.

Getting to be about dinner time. Enchiladas tonight. Already smelling awfully good.

Catching up on Larry's Stories

On Thursday, Diane slipped me that single page of the Loogootee Tribune, the one that contains Larry's stories about this and that. I faithfully carried it around with me for two days, from home to work and then back again, tucking it within the pages of The Book Thief. My expectations were that there would come a minute or two somewhere that would allow me to slip into Larry's world and enjoy a bit of a walk into the past. He had even given me a heads up a week ago about his intentions to write a story of some devilish thing that he has been reluctant to write about.

So, after I see him again this morning, and after I take the big mower home and cut the grass, and after I return to the golf course and take over from Diane, and just minutes before the start of the ND-SC ball game, then I get to read his story. And it was worth the wait; in fact, it probably aged well during that unexpectedly long waiting period. In any case, a good story and a good telling of one of those times in our growing up that each of us has probably experienced where we were faced with a choice and, well, go read it. Find out a bit about the Larry man as a boy.