Dog On A Root

- jim Young “Change is inevitable. and the disruption it causes often brings both inconvenience and opportunity.” - Bob Scoble Our retired life has become pretty routine, especially this past winter. I get up between 6:00 am and 7:00 am, put Myra out for her morning run - or not. Sometimes she's just not ready to go out, particularly during sub zero temperatures and I can't fault her for that. Next I stoke the fire to get it going and add some wood followed by making a pot of coffee. Some mornings I will put some bacon on low, not so much for breakfast as we aren’t regular breakfast people, but just so the aroma of the coffee and bacon will be a pleasant awakening for My Shirley. If Myra has been out, I will let her in. She will run to either My Shirley’s or my chair in the sunroom to curl up in front of the fire. And if she hadn’t already been out, she’s probably ready to be let out now. I sit down to my computer to write, pay bills, see what’s happening on FaceBook and/or ans...

Jesse James Bond: Firefighter - jim Young "Just being able to help the people is what's important to me," Jesse Bond When you're born with a name like "Jesse James Bond" you might find yourself wondering if you are destined to become an Outlaw or a Hero. My nephew Jesse however, never seemed to have any such identity crisis. Jesse knew from the beginning that he wanted to be a hero and from the time he started to talk, all Jesse ever talked about was one day becoming a firefighter. Following in the footsteps of a great-grandfather, two of his grandfathers and, joining forces with several cousins and his brother, Jesse donned his first fireman’s helmet in 2008 at 18 to become part of another family, the brotherhood of firefighters.  Not content to just “do”, by 2014 Jesse was living in the United Arab Emirates teaching basic rope rescue, firefighting techniques and medical response to the men working on the oil rigs there.  Jesse’s firefighting knowledge a...

- jim Young “Memory is more indelible than ink.” - Anita Loos The pen pictured here is actually a “dip” pen and a little older than the fountain pen described in my story. Dip pens did not have cartridges or bladders to hold the ink that the fountain pens had. Subsequently dip pens required dipping into the inkwell much more frequently.  At one time, desks in offices had two inkwells, one sat on the left side of the desk and was filled with red ink and one on the right side that was filled with black ink. Entries were made in black ink to record “debits” while entries in red ink represented “credits”. This is where the expression “in the red” came from to describe someone that was in debt. Eventually blue ink replaced black ink. The writing surface of the leather writing pad shown here, stored sheets of blotter paper used to quickly dry the ink on a sheet of paper by simply pressing down on it. Care had to be taken so as not to smear the ink while it was still wet.  I was...

  - jim Young “You know what I heard? I heard… two girls over here singing in harmony. That’s alright honey, this is a free country. Live like you wanna live, baby! Yeah. Ain’t nobody gonna knock it darlin’.  Yeah. FREEDOM! Yes sir. One guy right over here was singing ‘My’ too. That’s alright brother. Yes sir. You got a right, baby. Ain’t nobody gonna bother you.” - Chuck Berry singing “My Ding A Ling”, 1972   Gay people don’t bother me. Neither do transsexuals, asexuals, pansexuals or any other of the Baskin-Robbins-31-like flavours of " sexual " there seems to be today. I fully support everyone’s right to their own sexual identity. I don’t even mind their parades and rallies, although I’m not likely to attend them. I will support their right to have parades and rallies even if I don’t support their cause by going to them.    Growing up in the 60s I adopted the philosophy of “Live and Let Live” preached by psychedelic drug guru, Timothy Leary. It’s kind...

Stuffing or dressing, whatever you call it, I love it. Sometimes, when I get a craving, I will even just make up a box of store bought Stove-Top Stuffing and enjoy it with nothing else. While My Shirley makes excellent stuffing for the turkey for Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas, I know it won’t last long so I always make extra in the slow cooker using the recipe you can find by clicking here Slow Cooker Stove Top Turkey Stuffing . For the next few days following any one of these holidays we will enjoy turkey dinners made of the leftovers and when we get tired of that we will make leftovers from the leftovers such as Leftover Turkey Casserole .  And even after all that, we will sometimes still have some stuffing leftover from all the leftovers. Stuffing sandwiches are fine, but this is another great recipe that I like to make from Turkey Stuffing. Here’s another little secret. You don’t even have to wait for Easter, Thanksgiving or Christmas to come and go, you can always make th...