I may be one of the lucky ones….I am drawing some of the money that I have paid into Federal Old Age Retirement….I paid all my working life and now I am reaping benefits from some of those labors…I hope my children will be as fortunate as me, that there will be money left to assist them in their old age, but I can’t help but wonder about it….Just how many dollars are a trillion?…How long does it take to accumulate a trillion dollars?…If there are 300 million Americans and we each donated 1,000 dollars, what is that?, 300 billion and my calculator will not go that high and all ten fingers and toes don’t help…Do our congressmen have calculators that will register that many zeros?….You know folks, that may be the problem…They don’t know how much a trillion dollars are either….

I have some more pictures to post from the reunion, but I don’t want to bore you….I always want to run when folks start pulling out all the pictures….I don’t want to lose any of you as return readers, but on the other hand you may know some of them….They are all nice folks, I can assure you of that….I will put in a picture every now and again, ok?…I’m still waiting to hear about your favorite type blog. The water melon thumping got more comments than I expected….But that is important stuff right now, huh…I sure picked a good’un last weekend…My thumping paid off……it might have been a little luck…..

Well, it has taken me a lifetime to figure it out. What do you want to be when you grow up? I really believe the answer is ….Retired….I am really not lazy, maybe a little work sensitive, but other than that, I mean….I kind of like this retired stuff…I like watching the traffic jams on tv. I try real hard to stay off the streets early morning and quitting time. I hope you working stiff appreciate that…..I walk out to where I can see all the traffic every once in a while and all you guys seem to be handling it pretty well…If you see me looking, wave, ok?…..

How can one tell when a watermelon is ripe? As the melon ripens, the meat of the melon becomes softer and sugary, slowing down the sound, giving you a longer duration on the “thump”. So, a short “thump” and its not quite sweet enough. If it sings to you with the long “thump” it is going to be a good’un, you can count on it. Now if this does not work out for you, let me know….I think it helps to have a musical ear, and listen for the note, probably an A flat, if you ask me……I was asked at the store today and I told the young man I would post this, just for him…..so here it is and it kind of depends on your musical ear….and a little luck…

One of my favorite writers is Rick Bragg. He’s from Possum Trot, AL. He loved his Momma. I loved my Momma. We both had rough childhoods. That’s about as close as I can get to parallels in our lives other than the odd named towns we are from. I think Possum Trot may win the size war, however, I have never been through Possum Trot so I cannot say with absolute certainity. I can say, “it’s cool to be from Possum Trot and Coal Fire, AL.”  Not many folks can say that about either…But we can say there are some fine folks from each place…By the way, Rick, you can make a guess post to my site any time you like….Thanks……

Calendars at one time helped me keep up with what day of the week it is. Now it is my pill holder or the newspaper. If I skip a day of pills, it really screws me up. Then I have to hunt down the paper (and make sure it is today’s paper) to tell me what day it is….You think I am kidding, right?….It does not happen often but when it does it really screws a person up..The one day I need to keep up with is Tuesday, that’s when they pick up the trash. They missed me this week and failed to pick mine up and that really screwed me up….did they miss me or did I pick the wrong day….I checked my neighbors and they had their trash out so I figured they missed me….Folks, you’re going to love retirement, it brings a whole new set of problems…..You know, you get out in the shop, stratch your head and try to rememeber what you came out to the shop for..so you do a couple of other jobs, go back to the house and then remember why you went to the shop in the first place…Gosh…Now what was this post about?….oh, yeah, goodnight folks….

These boys are the motley crew that helped produce memories for the 1950’s incidents recorded in some of the pages of Cousins, along with input from the Dad’s involved.

Three generations of Hester’s….

This is us…Really…same cousins…little different shapes, but not much….Lots of fun..We wanted to get together when we were not having a funeral…It was nice to see them all…alive…

I listened  to a sports show today singing the praises of the SEC.  And they are a very good conference, I cannot take anything away from them. On and on went the praise, better than the Big 10 and Big 12, etc, etc…… He mentioned Wyoming as in the WAC or Mountain West or somewhere way out there..Gag, Gag…Did he sleep during the Sugar Bowl?… Sometimes when people cannot see the mountains for the trees its like the mountain do not exist…I know the other conferences have to be more consistent, but come on, there are other people who play football and play it well….And I have been singing the praises of the Mountain West, so come on boys and don’t let me down this year…..OK?….