I am not an inventor.  I don’t have that particular circuit connected to any wires… in my brain.  I wish I did.

Inventors are an amazing lot, aren’t they?  Oh sure, there is the whole list of usual suspects.  The ones we know and love the best.  The Thomas Alva Edison’s, the Alexander Graham Bell’s.  Benjamin Franklin, Karl Benz, Eadweard Muybridge, Louis Pasteur, Eli Whitney, The Wright Boys, and on and on.

Now me…. I don’t have that punch card.  I am the person with the plastic spray can cap, which is duck taped to the end of a yardstick, and then carefully mounted with a tornado of bungee cords…. at the end of a broom handle.  And as I am struggling to balance my newly “devised” contraption while trying to get that “something” from above my reach (hence the new tool)…. someone saunters up behind me and says…”Polly. Why don’t you just step up on that milk crate right there?”

Oh Blast IT anyhow. Confounded innovation.   Foiled…… once AGAIN.

But… a lot of inventors in history have gone mostly unnoticed.   Think about all of our stuff…. around us… right now.   Somebody, at some point in time, thought of a better way.  And then devised it.

Some of it seems so very fundamental.  But someone thought of it first.   Oh, you say.  don’t reinvent the wheel.  And I  say to that … EXACTLY!

How about the first shelter?  The first big palm brush propped up against a stick to block the wind, or the rain?  Or… how about a sharpened stick for a spear?  Fire? Levers?   …… The iPad?

Okay, I jumped ahead just a bit. But you get the point.

So, to all of those brain-mavens out there… and the ones who have long passed.. I extend a heart-felt-and-whopping-big thank you.

Without you… I’d be sitting naked in the pitch dark.  Outdoors.  Eating bark.   Not typing this.

I love inventors.

 “I’m more interested in what I discover than what I invent”  – Paul Simon

I learn something new every day.

Today.

Don’t hit eight foot long fluorescent light bulbs with a hammer.

Don’t put the chicken sandwich at the edge of the counter and walk away.  A dog may be hiding… in wait.

Don’t run with scissors.  All those mothers weren’t kidding.

“When the student is ready. . . the lesson appears.” – Gene Oliver

There are times when things simply appear differently to me.

What ever that “thing” is……    I will see, or hear, or taste it… a thousand times or more.  Yet, every once in a great while… it just seems different.  Somehow.

Maybe I am more aware.  Maybe less.

It makes no difference.  But.. … .  … I like when this happens.

I truly believe there are dimensions around us that we cannot perceive.  I think this is true, for most of us… for most of the time.

Take for instance, the incredibly miniscule.  To the naked eye, we can not see the electrons spinning wildly around the clumped up protons and neutrons.  But there they are, at this very moment, moving at the speed of light.  Scientifically, we’ve been able to figure this one out.  Smart humans.

But consider perhaps, if we are (in fact), the very miniscule part of someone else’s much larger existence.  Who knows.

Today I saw some things that made me wonder about the all and all of it.

And then I walked past this leaf for the 1,000th time… and this is what I saw.  It sealed the deal.

So.  I don’t know what more to say about that.  I know there are the skeptical and even the cynical.  But really.  Who could possibly say it isn’t possible?  Who could know it all?

For me… I like the notion of finally seeing the things that I never knew could be there.  I like not knowing.  The unimaginable helps me… simply… to believe.

“It’s not the towering sail, but the unseen wind that moves the ship” – Old Proverb

On September 18, 1957, Elmer Dugall claims he was abducted by Aliens from his home in Owens County, Iowa.  He was taken aboard a UFO, and transported to the Planet Pawzania, in the Galaxy of Tunafileaish.

He was experimented on for hours, and then placed in a prison where he had to clean the Queen’s Ears every hour.  Her name was Tabbiana.  She resembled a very, very large cat.

These days, Elmer still resides on his corn farm in Owen County.  Elmer has three dogs, Jed, Buster, and Skipper.    He does not have any cats.

In fact, he is deathly afraid of them.

While Elmer cannot prove the validity of his story, friends and family say that he smells oddly of ear wax.

“Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust, we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible player” – Albert Einstein

Some days just feel strange to you.

And….  other times, you make the day feel strange.

Today.  I suppose.

Was a little bit of both.

“Strange is our situation here upon earth. Each of us comes for a short visit, not knowing why, yet sometimes seeming to a divine purpose. From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one thing we do know: That we are here for the sake of others…for the countless unknown souls with whose fate we are connected by a bond of sympathy. Many times a day, I realize how much my outer and inner life is built upon the labors of people, both living and dead, and how earnestly I must exert myself in order to give in return as much as I have received.” – Albert Einstein

My name is Franklin Lincoln Washington.   But you can call me Link.

I am a good pig… I’ll tell you that much right now.

Today was such a day… filled with all things Pork Fest.  At least…. for me.  It was a squealing good time.  We went Hog Wild!  So tonight, I am sitting down and writing this with my Pig Pen.

Any way.  We had a bunch of fun.  And then….  it seems that for Preble County… on this evening….  the Sky Gods decided to paint things pink…. just like us pigs.

I would be remiss this evening, if I did not tell you….

The Pigs Are Coming.  The Pigs Are Coming.

(…. yes.  The Pork Fest starts tomorrow.  Head to the Preble County Fairgrounds, and support one of Ohio’s Longest Running Festivals….  The 42nd Annual … Very Famous Preble County Pork Festival.)

See you at the Smorgasbord.  Chop. Chop.

Something happened here.

What it was…… I will never know for sure.  But there is no doubt in my mind, that the incident involved a guy wearing a hat.

I mean.  It just LOOKS like something bad happened here.  And 90 percent of the time… I’ll bet  you…. some guy wearing a hat had something to do with it.

Take that fellow….. The Cat in the Hat.  Trouble.  Yep, trouble, everywhere that guy goes.

The laundry list is long.

Jesse James.  Cowboy Hat.
Atilla the Hun.  Big furry hat.
Hernan Cortes.  Dapper Hat.
Wicked Witch of the West.  Black Pointy Hat.

That Waldo Guy… the one everyone is looking for….

You guessed it.  Hat.

They are looking for him for a reason, you know.
He may have even been the cause of the destruction in this photo.   Who knows.  It could have  been the cat.

I could go on and on about this theory.  Take the Kentucky Derby for instance. Debauchery.  Gambling.  Drinking…. and OH my goodness gracious….look at the hats.

My advice to you.

Save the World.  Let your cranium breathe.  Keep your noodle…  undeniably… hat-free.

“Any man can lose his hat in a fairy-wind” – Old Irish Proverb

Who really knows what goes on when we aren’t looking?

I sure don’t.

I tend to believe in the magical and the mysterious.  I do.  For me, it makes life a little more interesting.  A little more fun.

I like to entertain the possibility that everything is perhaps… a possibility.

There may be life in other places… far away places.  Or perhaps there is life in the after-life.  There could be angels.  Maybe dogs think more critically than we know.  Maybe lobsters do too.  It could be they truly are screaming their little eyes out… when someone drops them into boiling water.  Maybe I should stick to happy thoughts.

All I am saying is… we don’t know what we don’t know.

Your salt and pepper shakers may race each other once you turn off the kitchen lights for the night.

Or maybe time travel could really happen.    I know that when I consider the expansiveness of the universe, and even beyond… I sure feel like a little speck i the infinity of it all.  In the midst of the uncertainty.  The mystery.

It swirls all around us.

And tomorrow is another day.

“For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream.” – Vincent van Gogh

“Uncertainty is the only certainty there is, and knowing how to live with insecurity is the only security.” – John Allen Paulos

“Uncertainty and mystery are energies of life. Don’t let them scare you unduly, for they keep boredom at bay and spark creativity.” – R. I. Fitzhenry

This is my first pig painting.  I call him Ziff.  Yep.  His real name is Ziff Perkel the Pig.

I like old Ziff.

I like Ham too.  But…. I have to keep these two things very separate.

And speaking of keeping things separate…..

A pig named Ziff goes into the Western Union. It goes up to the counter, picks
up a slip, runs over to the table, grabs a pen in its mouth and starts
writing.

After a couple of minutes, Ziff picks up the slip and takes it back to
the clerk at the counter.

The clerk, Mr. Jenkins, picks it up, reads it, “Oink, oink, oink, oink, oink, oink,
oink, stop.”

Old Jenkins looks at the pig, and says, “You know, you get 10 words for $3.50.
You could add three more words to this.”
Ziff shakes his head condescendingly.  He looks at the clerk and says, “Well, I could, but it wouldn’t
make much SENSE THEN, would it!”

And… here is another important message…..  The Preble County Pork Festival is just around the corner.  This DOES MAKE SENSE.  It will just be a good time, with great food, lots of arts and crafts, entertainment, and more.  And for $3.50… you can get a LOT more than just 10 words.

I hope to see you there.  September 15 and 16… at the Preble County Fairgrounds.