Life in Cayuga

 I planted my garden today.  Well, I call it my garden. It’s 5 buckets with tomato plants.  I’ve downsized from 12. That was too much. Five is just right. I was a farmer for several years as a young man.  I have a degree in agricultural economics and I loved farming.  The economy and the Russian grain embargo of the early 1980s forced me out.  But every spring I still get the urge to plant something.  When I drive by a freshly plowed field and smell the earth, it stirs something in my soul.   So I plant tomatoes.  I don’t do it on the scale my grandfather did.  He would grow hundreds of plants from seed in a “hotbed”. He’d start them in late February or early March and transplant them in April. He usually had close to an acre of tomatoes.  He ate several every day but his greatest pleasure was giving them away.  Pretty much anyone who came in his store left with a bag of tomatoes.  When Daddy would go to New Orleans on tru...

 I live in a small town.  Actually, I live in the country outside of town, but as I’ve said, my legal address is Utica, MS.  When I say small, I mean really small.  The population in the city limits is about 800.  The population of the surrounding area is about 1,500.  There are a lot of drawbacks to small town life.  We don’t have a grocery store or a pharmacy.  We do have a medical clinic that’s been a godsend.  We, of course, have a Dollar General, and we can pick up a few basic groceries there if need be.  But no real grocery or drug stores    But there are many good things about living in a small town.  We know our neighbors and they know us. When there is a celebration, be it a wedding or a new baby, or whatever it may be, we celebrate together. When there is sickness or a death in the community, neighbors and friends are there to support and help however they can. There’s such a feeling of camaraderie and fellowship...

 I’m sitting here tonight in my warm house, with the lights, heat, and tv on, being very thankful for heat and lights.  A week ago today, we were hit by a devastating ice storm.  There was 1/2 to 3/4 inches of ice on trees, power lines, poles, any surface that was exposed to the elements.  My power went out at 6:45 Sunday morning and was off until 10 am Thursday.  I have an all electric house.  Nothing runs on gas.  I had no heat, no lights, no way to run the refrigerator or freezer.  I have a portable generator that I use to run the freezer and refrigerator and I had prepared and had it ready to go.  But it’s just a temporary fix.   A few years ago, my sister bought one of those huge generators that will come on automatically and power the whole house. She got it after the last ice storm, 5 years ago. My mother was living then and was on oxygen.  We used the small generator to run her oxygen concentrator during the day but we could...

 That was the tag line from radio ads for a local funeral home back in the 1960’s!  I’ve posted a lot about funerals, and death, but I have some fairly humorous stories about funerals.  Here’s one.  At least I think it’s funny! My friend Bob always said he was going to have business cards printed for me that read “Professional Pallbearer”!  I don’t know how or why, but I somehow became the “go-to” pallbearer in town if there was a need.  Once I tried to count how many times I served, but lost count at 34. Grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, friends, people from church, even some I didn’t know!   But one time I had to be pallbearer, grave digger, and undertaker all in one!  My great aunt Doris died around Christmas of 2012. She lived in Kansas City near her daughter.  She was a lovely lady and I thought a lot of her.  She had requested to be cremated and her daughter decided to wait until spring to bring her ashes to Utica be buried bes...

 I’m back from the Orange Bowl!  Another fun trip and several bucket list items crossed off!  The game didn’t turn out like we’d hoped, but the overall experience made up for it.   Hard Rock Stadium is a beautiful facility, with first class amenities.  We were sitting in the “nose bleed” seats, and there was an escalator from the ground to that level!  It was the longest escalator I’ve ever seen!  We encountered so many Red Raider fans and enjoyed talking with them.  There were a lot more Oregon fans there than I expected, with the game being all the way across the country from them.  The Oregon people we talked to were very friendly and nice too.  The day before the game, we went sightseeing around Ft. Lauderdale.  We found the prettiest little park with access to the beach.  There were even chairs under some shade trees where you could sit and watch the ocean.  We could have stayed there for hours, but we had dinner rese...

 As I’ve aged, I’ve found that I’m getting more and more “Scroogey” about Christmas.  It’s too much. Too much expense, too much to do, too much worry about getting the perfect gift, the perfect meal.  For some reason, this year has been worse than usual.  But I have found a bright spot.  Something that gives me hope that things might be better.  And it came from, of all places, a group of Buddhist monks.   These monks are Walking For Peace.  Walking from Ft. Worth, TX, to Washington, DC.  They are stopping along the way, meeting people and spreading a message of peace.  They came through here last week.  I saw them on the road and have become fascinated with them and their journey.  They are taking a route through the Deep South, places where I thought they would encounter bigotry or racism. That’s not the case at all. Everywhere they go, crowds of people are there to greet them, provide them with food and shelter, and spreadin...