{"id":1112,"date":"2014-06-08T23:42:07","date_gmt":"2014-06-09T03:42:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gollypolly.com\/30473\/?p=1112"},"modified":"2014-06-08T23:42:07","modified_gmt":"2014-06-09T03:42:07","slug":"gary-my-pal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gollypolly.com\/30473\/?p=1112","title":{"rendered":"Gary. My Pal."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"woodychuck\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"leafystart\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"spider\"<\/a><\/p>\n

All you really have to do is look around.<\/p>\n

I have had a couple of big travel adventures recently.\u00a0 And I\u2019ve seen amazing things.<\/p>\n

But right here today, at my very own home, I was in the company of some great friends\u2026 sharing tasty food\u2026 and having a pretty darn good time.<\/p>\n

And this evening I took a nice walk and enjoyed the sights and sounds of the neighborhood.\u00a0 There were the usual suspects about\u2026 lots of plants, trees, and foliage.\u00a0 There was plenty of wildlife.\u00a0\u00a0 Birds, insects, bunnies, and such.\u00a0 But then\u2026 but then\u2026 what did my eyes see?\u00a0 Actually\u2026 what did my ears hear?<\/p>\n

Well.\u00a0 I heard just this.\u00a0 \u201cHey.\u00a0 You\u2026over there\u2026 you thick headed human.\u00a0 Do you have any idea how much wood I can chuck?\u00a0 Well\u2026. DOOOOOOO Yoooouuuuu?<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0 How much wood do you think I could chuck\u2026. say\u2026. if in fact I could chuck wood.\u00a0 Which\u2026 I can.\u00a0 You don\u2019t have any idea do you?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

I looked over\u2026 slowly.\u00a0 And there. Up in the tree was Gary, the world-famous groundhog.\u00a0 My jaw dropped.\u00a0 My mouth hung wide open.\u00a0 Of course I looked like a thick headed human\u2026 standing there speechless.<\/p>\n

BUT\u2026 I had only READ about Gary in the tabloids and such.\u00a0 And here he was\u2026 chucking wood right in our front yard.\u00a0 I just couldn\u2019t believe my eyes.<\/p>\n

\u201cMr. Groundhog.\u00a0 Can I call you Gary?\u00a0 The pleasure is all mine.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

As it turns out\u2026 Gary was the nicest dang woodchuck you could every meet in all your days.\u00a0 We strolled down to the creek and gnawed on a Maple for a while.\u00a0 I offered him a Diet Coke\u2026 but he opted to lap right out of the pond.<\/p>\n

We had a great afternoon.\u00a0 And believe it or not.. that dude is famous for good reason.\u00a0 He is quite the handsome Marmot.\u00a0 And wow\u2026 can he EVER chuck wood.<\/p>\n

At any rate\u2026 we parted ways.\u00a0 His only message for the masses was this: “Punxsutawney Phil is a fake.”<\/em>\u00a0 From what Gary says….\u00a0 he has NO idea about weather forecasting.\u00a0 Turns out\u2026 he is a retired bus driver from Philadelphia with a wife and four kids.<\/p>\n

So…. Yep.\u00a0 A good day indeed.\u00a0\u00a0 I spent time with friends.\u00a0 Ate great chicken.\u00a0 I met Gary.\u00a0 And. Beauty abounds everywhere.\u00a0 From the soil beneath my feet to the sky up above.\u00a0 And especially in the trees.<\/p>\n

\u201cPhilosophy begins in wonder. And, at the end, when philosophic thought has done its best, the wonder remains.\u201d\u00a0 –\u00a0 \u00a0Alfred North Whitehead<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

All you really have to do is look around. I have had a couple of big travel adventures recently.\u00a0 And I\u2019ve seen amazing things. But right here today, at my very own home, I was in the company of some great friends\u2026 sharing tasty food\u2026 and having a pretty darn good time. And this evening […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nowyouseeit"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gollypolly.com\/30473\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gollypolly.com\/30473\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gollypolly.com\/30473\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gollypolly.com\/30473\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gollypolly.com\/30473\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1112"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/gollypolly.com\/30473\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1112\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1119,"href":"https:\/\/gollypolly.com\/30473\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1112\/revisions\/1119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gollypolly.com\/30473\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gollypolly.com\/30473\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gollypolly.com\/30473\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}