Dog On A Root

 

Take A Chance - jim Young “Living with fear stops us taking risks, and if you don’t go out on the branch, you’re never going to get the best fruit.” - Sarah Parish As I sat in my hot tub I looked up to see the branch of our cherry birch tree stretched out above. Beyond the leaves on the tree was a blue sky dotted with small white clouds and I thought of the Louis Armstrong song, “I see trees of green… I see skies of blue and clouds of white…” and “I think to myself what a wonderful world.” But just 8 years ago, the tree from which this branch extended wasn’t so popular. In 2016, less than a month after we had our hot tub installed, this very same tree lost a branch that fell and punctured the vinyl on our brand new hot tub cover. No one wants to see such an expensive toy patched with duct tape. It’s like getting the first ding on a new vehicle. You know it’s going to happen one day, but you never want that day to be today.  And like the village people that pursue the monster with...

TV Commercials - jim Young “Advertising is what happens on TV when people go to the bathroom.” - Luke Sullivan I’m a product of TV Commercials. Particularly the commercials from the 1950s and 1960s. “Snap, Crackle, Pop”, “You’ll wonder where the yellow went”, “A little dab’ll do ya”, “Wouldn’t a Dow go good now?”, “I’d rather fight than switch”, “Cross your heart.” Yep - beer commercials, cigarette commercials, we were pretty much exposed to it all.  And we didn’t mind them. Commercials were a time to go to the bathroom or to make a sandwich, get a snack or a drink without missing the show. Sometimes we would even do the supper dishes during commercials. I relied on commercials so much that when VCRs first came out I would sit on the edge of the couch with my legs crossed waiting for a bathroom break. I kept forgetting I could pause it at any time. One of our media college professors told us a story that during the 1960s, one of the workers at a city water department noticed a sli...

- jim Young “Kale is a superfood and its special power is tasting bad.” - Jim Gaffigan “Grow some kale, ” they said.  “It will be fun,” they said. I guess they were right because it kinda was fun growing the kale. At least it was easy. And when it comes to gardening, easy = fun as far as I’m concerned. The kale that year was our best crop.  The only problem was, what do we do with it? As it turns out neither My Shirley nor I are particularly fond of kale so we gave most of it away to our friends and neighbours. Be we did give it an honest shot first. Knowing my love of potato chips and other assorted junk food, a friend of mine sent me Gwyneth Paltrow’s Recipe for Kale Chips. According to both Barry and Paltrow, Kale Chips are “as satisfying as potato chips”. I decided to give it a try and I quickly discovered 2 things: 1) Kale Chips suck. 2) Gwyneth Paltrow is an idiot.  (Barry is not an idiot - he was just misinformed.) "Bake them for 25 minutes," Paltrow said. In...

- jim Young “One penny may seem to you a very insignificant thing, but it is the small seed from which fortunes spring.” - Orison Swett Marsden If I had more faith in the morality of man I would believe more in “free enterprise”. According to at least one definition, “free enterprise” is described as “a component or specific type of capitalism that emphasizes a truly free and competitive market with minimal government intervention.” “Capitalism” on the other hand can be defined as “the broad economic system of private ownership of the means of production and the drive for profit that exists with varying degrees of government control.” And again, if I had more faith in our government to properly govern capitalism, I would believe much more strongly in capitalism as well. Unfortunately too many greedy and unscrupulous advocates of free enterprise and capitalism break the rules. Then, there are those that may not technically break the rules, but often push the limits. Costlo Liquidators a...