Some very strange things had been happening around the farm lately, and Farmer Larry noticed.

Mabel had complained that she had been to the Piggly Wiggle three times that week for canned tuna.  Farmer Larry swore he wasn’t eating it.

The grand kids  sandbox was full of big lumps all of a sudden.  Stinky clumps.

And.  There were no more barn mice.  None.

The cows were all spooked.  And every time  Mabel went out to milk them…. they were dry as a bone.

Yep.

Something wasn’t right around the farm….  and they all knew it.

And they were scared.  But Mabel continued to buy tuna anyway.

“Courage is the art of being the only one who knows you’re scared to death.” – Earl Wilson

Well.  When someone says to you….”You don’t say.”  What is it they really mean?  Really. Is it some sort of awkward acknowledgement of something or other?

Yes. I think that is EXACTLY the case.

For instance.  A lot of someones have recently asked me… “Hmmmm.  Kronenberger.  Now that’s an unusual name.  Are you related to “Such&Such” Kronenberger?”

Then I say…. “Yep.  Cousins.”

Then they say…. “Oh.  You don’t say.”

Well yes. You just asked… and I DID just say.  Now I can not help who I am related to.  I was BORN that way.  But I certainly won’t deny or feign otherwise.  We are all supposed to love each other anyhow.  Yes?

Because….. when you come to think of it.  Aren’t we ALL related?

Now.  I know the Evolutionists think we evolved from monkeys…. and that the earth is more than 5,000 years old.

BUT… there are definitely other schools of thought on this.

Let’s see. Now I am NOT a Bible Aficionado.  Yet I think I have this part right.   Adam and Eve were the first two people created.  God made man… and woman from his rib.  Or kneecap… or something.   Then God put Adam and Eve in the garden and said… “Get busy you two.”   And they did.

And all of mankind has come from those beginnings… from Adam and Eve.  Dad & Mom.  Papa & Mama.  Adam and Eve…. ribs and all.  You, me, and everyone else under the sun.  Brothers and Sisters, all are we.

That good book tells us to love our brother too.

It is great advice really.  Super-great advice to love one another.

So how can there be hate against others?  This part I don’t understand.  How can people hate Jews, or Homosexuals, or Blacks, or Islamic People, or Lawyers? Or… or….?  WE are ALL brothers and sisters.

How?  Heck.  Some people even hate monkeys.

I think I will never understand this part.  Not ever.

With Love,  Polly

And yep.  I did say.  Kronenberger.

Have you ever felt like you were at the end of your rope?

It seems to be a fairly well known phrase.  I believe it is one which is highly used.  At least, I have heard many people say it during my lifetime.

At the store.  The lady looking for French Cut Green Beans.  The store is sold out, again.  “I swear…. this store has been out of french cut green beans for two weeks.  I am at the end of my rope with these people.”

At the playground.  The frustrated mother.  “Ooooooh.  I am at the end of my rope with these kids.”

At the gas station.  A man with the pump, in hand.  “Barney, I swear.  I am at the end of my rope with these gas prices.”

Oh.  You know the drill.

But I never hear folks say…. “Today, I’ll be danged.  I feel like I’m at the beginning of my rope.”

Or how about at lunch time.  A voice from the adjoining cubicle never calls out…  “Uh-oh.  I think I am about half way through the length of my rope.”

Never.

Never ever.

It seems like people always wait to say something when they are at the very most end of their rope.  It pours out when they have reached their limit of patience or endurance for something.

Most of the time… the situation is not good.   Arduous.  Unpleasant.

One feels defeated or exasperated. Thwarted.

Thwart.  Thwart.  Thwart.

Well.  Tomorrow morning I am going to give something a try.   I might just wake up, and tell the world,  I feel like I’m at the beginning of my rope.

Yep.  Just to see what happens.

“When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot in it and hang on.” – Thomas Jefferson

Oh.  Imagine my surprise when I found out that today marks the anniversary of Woolworth’s.  Yes… on February 22, 1879, Frank Winfield Woolworth opened a five-cent store in Utica, N.Y.

Frank Woolworth attended a business college for two terms in NY.  He got all smartened up while he was there. Then….in 1873 he worked as a stock boy in a general store. A smart and business-wise stock boy.  It was there that he got the idea for a 5 cent store. That old general store had a table with items for just 5 cents that always sold what was on it.

He borrowed $300 and opened a five-cent store in Utica, NY, on February 22, 1879, as I mentioned earlier. But that dang store failed within weeks.  He was not dissuaded.  If at first you don’t succeed… try, try, again.  So.  His second store was in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and it opened in April 1879. He expanded the concept to include merchandise priced at ten cents.

That old Frank was really thinking outside the box.  And it worked.  The guy got stinking rich.

I used to love to go to Woolworth’s.  They had a lunch counter.  The food was SO good there.  Cheeseburgers.  Grilled Cheese Sandwiches.  Cherry Cokes.  What a treat.

But Woolworth’s holds a dark and sordid secret of mine.  It was where my life of crime started.  And ended.  Yes.  It was back in 1972 or so.  My best friend… whom I will call Joanie…  convinced me that we shoplifting was fun and adventurous.  Heck… her older sister Becky did it all the time.  So off we went.  We rode our bikes over to the Woolworth store by Liberal’s Grocery Store.  We parked out front.

Joanie gave me very clear instructions.  “Go in.  Act like you are looking around.  Pick up something, and stick in down the front of your pants… or tuck it down in to your sock.  Make sure no one is looking.  No one.  Then leave the store, get on your bike and ride like hell to the alley behind our street.”

Got it.  Simple enough.  I’m good to go.

And in we went.

Now I was pretty slick.  I looked at the goldfish. Then the hamsters.  I checked the price on the hand towels.  And even strolled past the lunch counter.   Then, I made my way down the toy aisle.

Here is where I made my first big mistake.  The stolen item selection.  I had given it no thought really.  I mean… what did I want to take.  Hmmmm.  What about a pink rubber ball.  I loved those things.  So I grabbed it from the shelf.  It was slightly larger than a baseball.  I stuffed down into my right sock.  I think that’s what Joanie told me to do.  Oh no! Was anyone watching?  I forgot to look around.  Okay…. this thing is in my sock.  Just get out of the store.

Now first… let me tell you.  This was the dead of summer.  It was hot outside.  I had on shorts.  With knee high tube socks.  And now….I was in a full sprint out of the Woolworth’s store….  with a large round object protruding from my tube sock.

I flung open the front doors and out I went.  There was my bike.  No Joanie.  Her bike was long gone.  Now I am on my tenth mistake by this point.  I had locked my bike to the front pole.  I didn’t want anyone to steal the thing…. for crying out loud.  The world was FULL of crooks.

As I fumbled with the lock, I felt a hand on my shoulder.  The store manager had a firm grip on my clavicle.  As I did my best not to pee my pants right then and there…. I swore off a life of crime…. Crossed my heart and hoped to die…….. …. If only Mr. Woolworth-Guy would let me go.  As I recall, he looked a little bit like Frankenstein.  But old Frankenstein Woolworth-Guy did let me go.  No jail term.  He said I was lucky this time.  Do not to come back to his store. Blah. Blah. Blah.

I didn’t do any more shoplifting from that point on.  The fact of it is, I am a terrible criminal.    Crooks, thieves and robbers have to be able to see the whole enchilada.  The big scenario.  All the details.  They really have to think things through to be successful. Like clockwork.

I’m not wired that way.  I run into walls, and get sidetracked.  I bumble.  I stumble.  I lock up my dang getaway bicycle, for crying out loud.  And I’m too nervous… and too worried about even appearing guilty.

Like… when people say… “Do you remember where you were when Kennedy was shot?”  I get all worried.  I don’t really have any kind of an alibi.

Nope.  It is the straight and narrow for me.  Well… definitely not straight… but most certainly, narrow.  Okay.  Not really narrow either.    But.  Not criminal.

Honest.

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” – Martin Luther King Jr.

And then suddenly, without warning or indication, I found myself in the very middle of it.  Yes, swiftly and abruptly, with no hint or heed, the horrendous noise filled the room.   The world shook and trembled.   It was if the bowels of the earth had suddenly opened, and the desperate howls of the darkest demons were escaping.

But.  All of this shameful and tumultuous melee seemed to be coming from our two dogs.  Our little 20 pound dogs.

Now I have learned that when two dogs fight, it is best not to put a bare hand in the midst of their mouths.  I have watched other poor saps suffer that way.  No.  Our two Terriers were in the midst of World War III.  I knew better than that.

I am a old soccer player of long ago.  A defensive back.  So I know how to move a soccer ball from the grasp of a striker.  This is the tactic I would employ tonight.  I maneuvered my way in….. AND…. all the while…. Mary is yelling  “Polly! Polly!”  Now this wasn’t the chanting, cheering “Polly! Polly!” that used to swell in the soccer stands.  No.

This was more like a voice of discouraged bargaining. So again… in I went… a little dribble there… a side block there…. and then….

And then it happened.  I finally joined the ranks of 4.7 million other Americans.  I was bit by a dog.  Our dog. My dog.

Which one … I will never, ever, know.  I can only be sure of one thing.  It WAS NOT Francis, the Saint.

All of this…   tonight.  When I arrived home this evening, I had simply hoped for a quiet evening.  In fact, on my drive back to Preble County, I had PLANNED on a nice and restful dusk after such an arduous day.  A steaming shower perhaps.  Or a nice quiet meal… or maybe a cup of hot tea.  Anything… to take the weariness of this day from my shoulders.

Yet the universe had slightly different plans… in this part at least.

Ahhh.  But truth be told.  I loved life on this day.  It may not have been the day that I pictured… or even had planned out… so nicely in my head.  Not at all.  Yet I still love this day.  I had the good and generous fortune of being with people….. …. and dogs…. who I love very dearly.

Though I have sustained a bite or two along the way…. I do not mind.  Not one bit.

It reminds me that there is no certainty, or absolutes.  And for this reason, I have every reason, to be glad about the now.

I’m also glad for the thick denim found in Levi Jeans.

When the dog bites
When the bee stings
When I’m feeling sad
I simply remember my favorite things
And then I don’t feel so bad
– Maria Von Trapp, The Sound of Music

I believe that love and laughter can only happen when one person takes the time to think about what would cause the other person to feel good. – Yakov Smirnoff

I know why the caged bird sings.

Wellllll ….. as things would have it…. I do not know why the caged bird sings.  Not for sure.

The line from this poem, by Paul Lawrence Dunbar, has been present in my mind all day.  Prominently on my mind.  The line comes in the third stanza of the poem “Sympathy”

I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,
When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,
When he beats his bars and would be free;
It is not a carol of joy or glee,
But a prayer that he sends from his heart’s deep core,
But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings –
I know why the caged bird sings.

So much to think about there, really.  And believe me, I have been thinking long and hard on this.

I am not sure all caged birds sing.  Do they?  If not, why do some sing and others do not?

And those that are singing….. are they really praying from the core of their heart to be free?

Yes.  I know this is a metaphoric reference.  This poem.  About us.  People.  People who have lost their freedoms.

From time to time, I think we all lose our freedoms.  Perhaps we lose our independence or our exemption, or our immunity to something, somewhere.  There are occasions where we have to use restraint and we wish we didn’t have to.  Filters.  Restrictions.

Some of us have more cages than others.  Or cages with stronger bars.

Yet.  Yet.  Some people manage to sing no matter what.  They manage to shine.  They figure out a way to spread their wings, and fly a lap or two inside the cage.  It is not that they are resigned to their situation, I don’t think.  I think they sing because they are in the moment.  And singing seems like the right thing to do.  It beats stagnation, misery, and despondency.

If a bird can manage such things.

“The secret of happiness is freedom. The secret of freedom is courage.” – Thucydides

People will surprise you.  I think this is a fact of life.

I hope….. at long last….  I am learning not to judge people  without any real basis for those judgments.  You know.   At this stage in the game,  I am trying very hard not to slap people with labels.  I am no longer so quick to make judgements by exterior appearances either.

Here is a good for instance.

I know of this man.  He is not especially nice looking at all.  In fact.  He is just a little on the homely side.  He is of Polish descent.  To the point…. he was BORN in Poland.  (Oh, and who hasn’t told a Polish joke in life?)  He is also a bit of an math geek.   At any rate, this gentleman has never married or had kids of his own.  Gay.  (Of course that  part doesn’t bother me one bit.)

But he is such a good guy.  Very smart.  Very kind.  After his sister died, he took in her five children and raised them like his own.

Most people would have turned up a nose at crafting a friendship with such a guy… based on his foreign birth, or his outward appearance, or his homosexuality…. or whatever.  Perhaps because he wears funny hats… and HE DOES wear funny hats.

But I’ll tell you this much.  Once you get to know this guy, he is pretty dang amazing.

As it turns out this guy is Copernicus.  Yes.  Nicolaus Copernicus.  (19 February 1473 – 24 May 1543) He was a Renaissance mathematician and astronomer who formulated a comprehensive heliocentric model of the universe, which placed the Sun, rather than the Earth, at the center.

The dude who put the Sun at the center of the Universe… after so many misconceptions.  Shoot.  It was  even written in the Bible that the Earth was in the center of all things.  Old Nick took some heat for that kind of ‘crazy talk’ too.

But there he was.  Genius.  Smart, smart, smart… and very kind.

So today….  as I walk down the street, I need to keep the idea of Copernicus, and so many others… in my mind.

They might be holding a secret of the universe… just waiting to be unveiled.  If only we give them a chance.

“To know that we know what we know, and to know that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge.” -Copernicus

“Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Aggie Barnhart and Mabel Alcorn were sitting around the Hen House one afternoon.  Doing what they do.  Aggie was working a crossword puzzle.  Mabel was carving little replica statues of the Easter Island heads.  Hens have to do such things to pass the time.   While laying eggs.  You see…. each of the roughly 280 million laying birds in the U.S. produces from 250 to 300 eggs a year.  By my math… that is about 75 billion eggs a year.  AND…. if you can believe… that is merely  about 10% of the world supply.  That is a whole big bunch of eggs.  And clucks.  Eggs-actly.

So back to the Hen House.  There they were, old Aggie and Mabel, biding time between pushes.  It was nearly 6 p.m.  Again you see….  most eggs are laid between 7 and 11 a.m.   And as you might guess… these things take time.  A hen requires about 24 to 26 hours to produce an egg.     No rest for the weary either.  After the egg is laid, the hen starts all over again about 30 minutes later.  Pretty egg-streme.

But you can only do so many crossword puzzles.

MA:  Aggie, do you want to put in a DVD?
AB:  Sure Mabel.  What do you want to watch?
MA:  Ohhhhhh….. let’s watch Chicken Run.
AB:  Mabel… we have watched Chicken Run 23 times.  So help me, I cannot sit through that movie again.
MA:  But it is such a white-knuckler.  I love a good action-adventure!
AB:  No Mabel.  How about Casablanca?
MA:  Chicken Run.
AB:  Hmm.  What do you think about watching Star Wars?
MA:  Chicken Run.
AB:  Okay, what about The Godfather?
MA:  Chicken Run.
AB:  Psycho?
MA:  Chicken Run.
AB:  Quit being such a stubborn old hen.  I swear, if I had a deep fryer… I’d… I’d……
AB:  Oh…. I would…. ….  …..  umph……..
MA:  Aggie… you know….. YOU are a real Mother Clucker.

Mabel and Aggie watched Chicken Run that evening……  in silence.  Even hens gets their feathers ruffled from time to time.   But.   If you can’t say something nice… it is best to keep your beak shut, I suppose.

And despite it all.  Like good hens.  They laid eggs the next morning at 7:08 and 9:01, respectively.

Thankfully.

Breakfast.

And finally… Mark Twain once said….“Noise proves nothing. Often a hen who has merely laid an egg cackles as if she laid an asteroid.”

Clearly…. Twain never tried to pass a bowling ball through the opening in his rear end.  My guess is….. he too…. would cackle as if it were an asteroid.

Even though you come equipped with your best shield and helmet… and even though you may be carrying  the biggest stinking axe that you own…..

Something just might sneak up on you and catch you by surprise.

Or it could be… that just maybe… you just been playing Lego’s too long.

“Your current safe boundaries were once unknown frontiers.” – Unknown Quote

Sometimes in nature, things seem so incredibly perfect, and well formed. The ultimate in construction or design.  Looking closely at most anything…. a flower, a spider web, the veins of a leaf.   Or you can go larger, if you wish.  The rugged mountains and natural lakes in Glacier National Parks.  The red cliffs of Zion.  The clouds up in the sky.  All of these things…. I am telling you…. they are amazingly fabulous.

And then.  Nature craps on us.  A tornado rips through a town.  A snow storm blasts a region.  Hurricanes.  Earthquakes.

For a long, long time now … I have worried about those things.  I often say I am a lot like Chicken Little.  My friends always chuckle and shake their heads when I’d do my Chicken Little impression….. running around the room… grasping my head… yelling…. “The sky is falling!  The sky is falling!”

Well Holy Crap-o-moley.  Guess what happened after all that time?

The sky fell, hit Russia…. and hurt 1200 people.

Now… I do not wear the badge of Chicken Little proudly.   I wish I could keep my feathers from getting ruffled.  I hate ruffles.  They make my butt look big.
You see….. it might be best if I quit looking at the sky…. waiting for it fall… and focus more on the little, beautiful treasures…. that exist all around me.  Every day.

I know for sure that what we dwell on is who we become.   – Oprah Winfrey