I just got back from a short run and I wonder why I don’t spend the winters in Florida and get out of this cold, wet weather. The run was short because, contrary to my good sense, I ran with the Trilanders this past Sunday at the Country Club. I’m not a good trail runner and I don’t know why I did it other than wanting to be a part of “the group”. The front nine was, according to my Garmin, 2.23 miles and the constant up and down wore me out. I almost decided to call it a day when I got my second wind and started running the back nine in reverse order…down 18, then down 17, etc. I got most of the way down 16 when my left soleus muscle (the one below the gastrocnemius or “calf muscle”) began to tighten. Rather than risk a pulled muscle or a torn achilles tendon, I turned around and walked in. So today when I ran, the soleus was tender and tightened some after two miles so that was the end. It’s warmer to run back in than to walk, hence the whining.

 Most of you know that my father was a minister so I was brought up going to church on Sunday. I’ve attended often since I left home but not as often as Dad would have liked. I enjoy the Sunday runs and (sorry Grandma Walker, who was Seventh Day Adventist) Saturday isn’t “church day”. You runners all know that there are only so many running related things you can think about before your mind starts to wander. So I can, and often do, have my own little church service. The songs are really, really short, the sermon is even shorter, but I probably have more “close to God” moments than I ever had in Church. It would seem that with all that devotion, God would give me a break on the weather, but I guess I’m still being tested.

 I sent out a note yesterday to the Trilanders inviting them to a wine and beer tasting get together on December 1st. You all are welcome to come, but I’m guessing for you out of towners, it’s too much of a drive. Anyway, I referred to the “underpants catastrophe of 2007”. I really meant 2006 so I screwed up. Just when I was about to go the whole year without a typo. Darn!! Maybe next year.

 I’ll be leaving for San Francisco tomorrow afternoon. It will be nice to go out and see Matt and Anna. I should send pictures more often to remind them what I look like. We plan to tour the Anchor Brewery (brewers of Anchor Steam Beer), hike around Mt. Tamalpais http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Tamalpais to a pub in the State Park that is only accessible by foot, go to a Barrel-Aged beer fest in Hayward (East Bay) followed by poker at Matt’s place, and brew an all-grain batch of beer. All of this mixed with going to some world class (and my class) restaurants and wandering around the city on my daily walks. Since Jean isn’t going I don’t have to take biking or running clothes and I may even take a few days off training.

Just (Leaving Right Now To Go Vote) Jack

You all know that I write when I’m inspired and I can’t write when I’m not. When I send these out, my Outlook Express “Group” is Sunday E-Mails, but I’m not always inspired on Sunday and today isn’t Sunday, so maybe I’ll have to change the group name. That sounds really easy, but I’ve had trouble keeping up with technology lately, so I’m not sure I can.

A couple of weeks ago, Robin from Pierce Cedar Creek Institute called me and said she had sent a couple of e-mails telling me the investment reports were there and I could come out anytime to do the monthly spreadsheets. I told her I hadn’t received the e-mails but I’d be happy to come out the next day, which I did. After finishing, I asked her to send me another e-mail and I would check it when I got home. No e-mail! I seemed to be getting most of my usual ones and Robin had sent me e-mails each month in the past with no problem. I had her send one to Jean and that didn’t come through either, so I thought the problem was on her end.

I was at a meeting the other morning, and the CEO of the hospital said she had sent me some important updates by e-mail. I had checked my e-mail late in the evening the night before and I hadn’t received them. I checked again when I got home and still no e-mails. I worked with Vickie, Sheryl’s administrative assistant for an hour and still no e-mails from either of them.

Here’s where I lose touch! I’ve always used Outlook Express to manage my e-mails and I’ve never had any problems. I checked every setting I could think of and couldn’t find how they were getting blocked. I had still been getting what I considered my normal e-mails but I haven’t gotten much in the way of spam since I switched from voyager to sbcglobal. So I went to the sbcglobal website to see if there was anything there I could check. To my amazement, my “bulk folder” had 17 messages being held. Once a message has been in there for 30 days, it is purged unless I do something with it first.

In the group of messages were 6 from Robin at Pierce, 7 from Sheryl and Vickie at Pennock, 1 from my friend Ruth in Mississippi, 1 from my son Matt in San Francisco and 2 from Road Runner Sports. I spent half a day yesterday responding to what was there if I needed to, trying to let people know I hadn’t ignored them. I’ve been getting weekly e-mails from a company that I bought a hard drive from a few weeks back, weekly e-mails from Northern Brewer telling me what beer supplies are on special, periodic e-mails from Ernie and Barb passing on cute jokes they get from who knows where, and my weekly updates from Congressman Vern Ehlers on what isn’t happening in politics. So why would sbcglobal put the ones in “bulk” that they did?

I’m so frustrated with our federal government sending billions of dollars to a country (Iraq) that doesn’t want us there but can’t find enough money to cover kids with health insurance, taunting another oil rich country (Iran) so the price of oil goes through the roof again, our state government for, again, not being able to agree on a budget for purely political reasons, and on and on, that I’ve become cynical about most everything “big brother” is doing to HELP us. So I believe that sbcglobal has done this so that I’ll get away from using Outlook Express and start using AT&T Yahoo to manage my e-mails. That way I can spend more of my time trying to close the advertising banners that keep popping up since I’m retired and don’t have anything else to do anyway. It’s a good thing my doctor isn’t here checking my blood pressure ‘cuz he’d have me on meds faster than the blink of an eye.

If that isn’t enough, Jean ran out of ink in her printer some months back so she hasn’t been able to print anything. She has a Dell printer that I got “free” when I bought the computer. You can only get the cartridges from Dell and they’re expensive so, naturally, Jean wouldn’t spend the money. She was finally going to order some the other day when I told her to wait. I figured all I had to do was buy a network cable, hook our two computers together, and she could share my printer. Easy, right? Wrong!! I bought the cable, hooked the two printers together, ran the set-up program on each of our computers, clicked on the toggle to share my printer, and then tried to print something on my printer from Jean’s computer. Nothing!!

I’ve done everything I can think of and I’ve done what the programs have told me to do. I can print something from my computer to Jean’s printer, but that one doesn’t have any ink so that’s useless. I can search from my computer and find Jean’s printer, but when I search from her’s to find my printer, it can’t recognize it as a printer. Frustrating!! I’d say something like “I must have been born fifty years too late”, but that would mean I’d be dead by now and I’d have whined fifty years ago about not being able to get used to those new fangled radios with moving pictures they call televisions.

Just (Still Getting Dumber By The Day) Jack 

Some of you remember the story about my experience in a YMCA locker room in Florida a couple of years ago. For those of you that missed it, you can read it on the website http://www.jackswriting.com/ under the heading “reader favorites” with the title “dilemma”. I should warn you that the story may keep you awake at night and, when you do sleep, you will have nightmares. This isn’t a repeat of what happened back then, but strange things are happening that may just be coincidences.   This past Monday I went to the fitness center to work out. After I finished I went into the locker room to get my gym bag and change into street shoes. The only other guy in the locker room came out of the shower, naked as a jaybird, and didn’t bother to cover himself with a towel. Of course, his locker was right next to mine and, of course, he stood facing me drying his hair while I was bent over tying my shoes, way too close to his nether regions. Other than being a little uncomfortable and definitely grossed out, I didn’t think anything about it.

On Friday, I went to the fitness center again to work out and went into the locker room when I was finished. I opened my locker and started taking off my workout clothes to change into my winter weather gear. Just then two guys came out of the showers, again naked as jaybirds and, again, didn’t bother to cover themselves with towels. One guy’s locker was the next one to my right and the other guy’s locker was the next one to my left. As I sat there  in between them tying my shoes, they both spent what I considered way too much time getting dressed. I don’t think I send out any “subliminal signals” so I’m not sure where these guys are coming from and why this keeps happening to me. Case closed! No salty comments are necessary!

The marina picked up the pontoon boat this past Wednesday. I asked Jean if she could follow me down to the lake, pick me up from the landing, and drive me over to the cottage. That way, when I took the pontoon over to be picked up, I’d have my car there and I wouldn’t have to walk back to the cottage to get it. Jean was way too busy meeting her friends for breakfast and, afterwards, having her hair done. It was cold, spitting rain, and the wind was strong from the West Northwest so the 2.3 mile walk from the landing to the cottage was not very pleasant, but Jean had a wonderful time back in Hastings. When I got to the cottage I had a little trouble starting the motor due to the cold air, and had some trouble keeping it running at idle throttle. I took the front rope off the dock cleat and the boat swung out away from the dock. I jumped on before it got too far away and restarted the motor after it stalled. I was too far from the dock to go back out the gate, so I climbed over the stern and stepped down to the dock, almost falling in the lake. I untied the back rope from the other dock cleat and just about lost the boat when the wind caught it and pushed it toward the shore. I struggled to pull the boat to the end of the dock and turn it parallel with the shoreline. The wind had it pinned tight against the end of the dock, so I didn’t want to put the motor in gear and drive away for fear of scraping the boat or dragging the dock with me across the lake.

I walked around the console to the gate and was just about to push off the dock when the engine stalled again. I walked back around the console, restarted it and waited until it idled smoothly. I got up, walked around the console to the gate, and it stalled again. Again I started the motor, stepped around the console and pushed the boat away from the dock. I ran around the console, trying to hurry so the boat didn’t crash back into the dock, and put it in gear. I went about three feet before the motor stalled again and the wind started quickly taking me toward the beach. I restarted it again, trimmed the motor up so it didn’t hit bottom, and turned out into the lake. The “shallow water alarm” was beeping at me non-stop but I finally made it through the weeds and on my way to the landing. Of course, I had only unbuttoned the mooring cover on one side because I thought I would be late getting to the landing by 10 AM as I had promised. As soon as I turned into the wind, the cover started billowing up so high I couldn’t see where I was going. I had to steer with my right hand while holding down the mooring cover with my left. That whole experience must have been quite a sight. I could just see the neighbors telling their friends the whole sordid affair at cocktail hour and having quite a laugh at my expense. So what’s new?

I’ll have my cortisone shot on Tuesday at noon and will not run on it for three or four days. By Saturday I’ll have the left hip of a twenty year old. Watch out Tom and Brian. I’ll be hot on your heels on the Sunday runs.

Just (I’ll Run So Fast I’ll Be A Blur) Jack

When Jean and I first met, I was making that initial awkward small talk and I told her I had offered to make an apple pie to take to my parents’ house for a holiday get together. I was complaining that I had lost the rolling pin in my divorce and probably should go out and buy one. She said that I could use a water glass dusted with flour to roll out the crust. I found out later that the glass leaves lots of telltale lines in the crust and I found out much later that she baked very few pies in her life. She showed up with pies at family outings, but didn’t let on that her mother made them and she always made really good ones. So maybe we all overstate a few of our talents during the courtship period of our relationships, but it’s not the end of the world.

When it comes to food, Jean has her likes and dislikes, and I have mine and they aren’t the same. Jean puts cottage cheese (which I dislike) on almost anything; pizza; spaghetti; chili; and on and on. Her favorite vegetable is canned spinach (which I also dislike) which she eats several times a week, often slathered in cottage cheese. So when you look at me, you probably ask yourself how I could get this big (not portly, just “big”) when she makes things that I don’t like to eat. It’s because we often eat at the same time, but we each make what we want and I, apparently, like food that isn’t on any of the healthy eating list of foods.

I make myself eggs by breaking two in a small fry pan, break the yolks to swirl them around (but not scramble), put a top on the pan, and let the eggs cook hard. Jean puts two eggs in the same pan, covers it, and goes off and does something else for a while. Most women do “multitasking” better than men (it’s in chapter one of the “How To Get Your Husband To Do What You Want And Think It’s His Idea” manual that all girls get before they get married) but Jean is starting to slip. Four times (that I have witnessed) in the last two weeks I have seen her run through the house muttering “Oh s&*%” only to pull the eggs off the burner just before they burst into flames. I know none of you guys will admit publicly that your wife ever burnt eggs, but you know what I mean when I say it makes the whole house stink for hours. That’s all I better say ‘cuz the couch isn’t all that comfortable.

After months of tolerating and complaining about pain in my left hip after running, I went to an orthopedic surgeon last Friday. He says it has some arthritis, which we all knew, but it wasn’t “all that bad” and I should try a cortisone shot in or near the joint, so that will happen Thursday or Friday. I told him I’m not a great “shot guy” but he’s had it and says it isn’t that bad. He’s used to performing lots of surgeries and makes a living removing old worn out joints with an electric saw, so I guess pain is all relative. I don’t expect to jump up from the table and run ten miles instead of the three I have been running all along, but I hope I can increase the mileage gradually without much residual pain. We’ll see. If it doesn’t work, you can expect more whining.

Last year when I made arrangements to have the boat picked up for the winter, it snowed like crazy and it was a miserable lake crossing. This year, they will pick it up Wednesday. For those of you who don’t live in Michigan, we’ve had a run of unseasonably warm weather, but a cold front will come in tomorrow evening followed by an even colder front on Tuesday. The weather on Wednesday should be, at best, in the forties or fifties with a good chance of rain throughout the day. It should be fun. Anybody want to go for a boat ride?

Just (The Weather Pox Kid) Jack

I’ve always considered myself to be of “passable” intelligence, but I don’t think I’m smart enough to make it in this day and age. Without going into the gruesome details, most of you know of my bout two years ago with ulcerative colitis. The doctor told me that I would probably have to take medication the rest of my life, so I have been. It’s three large capsules three times a day, so it’s not fun, but it is better than the symptoms coming back.

Anyway, a couple of months ago I called into the gastroenterology office to renew my prescription (it’s renewed for a month with 11 refills). They contacted me and said the doctor would only renew it for a month or two and I needed to schedule a recheck colonoscopy. You all probably know that I did that on September 13th and everything went fine. On the discharge instructions it said, among other things, continue the colazal, three capsules three times a day. A week ago last Friday, when my final supply of pills was starting to run out, I called the pharmacy to see if my prescription had been called in. They said it hadn’t, so I called the doctor’s office. When you call, you can’t talk to a human being, so I pushed the “4” button and got the prescription refill recording.

I gave them all the information they asked for but I forgot to give my area code (it’s different than Grand Rapids) and I didn’t have the telephone number of the pharmacy they have called it to for over two years. The recording said to allow them 24 to 48 hours to respond. I worried about that missing information all day long but I didn’t call back. They didn’t call back Friday, Saturday or Sunday. I ran out of pills on Monday and still hadn’t received a call but, to me, that was 24 business hours. Still nothing by Tuesday morning (48 business hours) so I called back and gave them the same information all over again. Someone from their office called me later in the day and said the prescription had been called in to the pharmacy Friday at 5 or 6 PM. I said I had expected them to call and let me know which prompted the response “Oh, we don’t have time for that”. I guess, to them, I should have the time to call the pharmacy several times over that 48 hour period to find out if they got my call, decided to renew the prescription and actually did it.

Our house guest is getting better by the minute, although she had a setback Saturday afternoon with an infection in the incision. When Jean started going through the details of removing the stitches, opening the “outer layer” and squeezing the puss out, I decided it was time for me to go far enough away to not hear anymore. Becky says she still isn’t back to 100% yet (not a realistic expectation) but she’s come a long way from a week ago. She worries about causing us more work, but we’re happy to have her here. It gives Jean someone to talk to who actually listens and I really don’t need to hear the television.

I went to a meeting with the new hospital CEO at the Amway Grand Plaza Hotel in downtown Grand Rapids last Friday. The place is quite elegant and, with the event being sponsored by Spectrum Health, we got complimentary valet parking. Most of the people attending the event were doctors, CEOs of hospitals, and some board members of Spectrum and affiliate hospitals (Rich DeVos, one of the founders of Amway, was there, not to be confused with his son, Dick DeVos who ran for Michigan Governor and lost). Needless to say, they all had money and drove really nice cars. With all the Mercedes, Lexus, Cadillacs and Lincolns in the drive was my 1998 Jeep Cherokee with 182,000 plus miles. When I left in the afternoon, I checked my wallet and, other than a couple of twenties which was way too much for a tip for the kid who brought my car, I had two dollars. At least I didn’t hand him change. I could almost see the wheels turning in his head, thinking “With all these high rollers, I had to get this poor b*#$^%$”.

Just (Going Along With The Flow) Jack

Sometimes it’s sad when you think about how much of a rut you are in. The renters moved into the cottage on Friday, so I no longer have a place to go to “get away”. I’m really not “getting away” from anything in particular, but it feeds my addiction for lake living. I think I only spent three or four nights there this summer, but I was there almost every day. I imagine I’ll be like a caged lion for a while, pacing back and forth, thinking I have nothing to do. As soon as I go downstairs I’ll see the piles of stuff I brought from the cottage and, now, need to find a place to put it.

As I look out the window I can see the “over the hill gang” playing golf. It’s a group of men over 50 that play together at nine each morning. I look at the clock and it’s only 8:55. Maybe when you get to be a geezer like me, you figure if you don’t wait around for the clock to hit a certain number, you may get a head start and outrun the grim reaper. I know I said “men over 50” and that makes it sound like a middle aged group, but if I join them I’ll be, by far, the youngest person out there at almost 61.

I sold the Lund fishing boat yesterday. I bought it brand new when Jean and I got married and used it a lot that first couple of years when we were at Algonquin Lake. When Jean made me move into town (correction – when I decided that I was tired of lake living and asked Jean to give up the water and move into town) we didn’t use it nearly as much. It hasn’t been in the water for three years and probably hasn’t been used more than ten times in the last ten years. It was time for it to go, but it’s like losing an old friend. The boat brought lots of good memories.

The final word on the pontoon fiasco is that it now runs. Apparently the guy at the marina overestimated my mechanical abilities when he said an idiot could replace the battery cables. I took the cover off the engine and it looked like a mass of foreign objects. I couldn’t follow the red wire, couldn’t see where the black wire attached, and it looked like you had to take out way too much stuff to get to them. I consulted with ace boat mechanic, Martin, and he told me the best way to make a splice of the broken wire. That I could handle and, after ten minutes, the motor was purring like a kitten. The splice should keep it running so I can get it over to the landing when the marina picks it up.

By now most of you know that Becky is in the hospital. She called Jean in the afternoon yesterday and sounded like she wasn’t well at all. Jean took her to the walk-in-clinic and that started the ball rolling. An ambulance transported her up to the emergency room and, by nine she was in surgery. By eleven she was on her way to recovery. Let’s just say it’s a plumbing issue and you can get the details from Jean. It’s like looking at a fine automobile. I admire the sleek lines and long to take it out for as spin, but when it comes to lifting the hood and looking at the inner workings, I’m not mechanical enough to understand what I’m talking about. We’ll keep her in our thoughts and prayers.

Happy retirement, Paul.

Just (Happy To Be Jean’s Go-fer) Jack

(npi=no pun intended).

Thursday is D-Day. Well, actually it’s C-Day for my third colonoscopy. That means one for every Ironman race I’ve completed. I think I may retire from the long-course scene ‘cuz I’m tired of these humiliating experiences (the race and the scope). It’s bad enough that a doctor is standing behind you with what seems like a 50 foot pole with an umbrella on the end, but opening the umbrella is worse. That crap (npi) they tell you when you have your first one “You won’t have to have another for 6 to 8 years” isn’t true for everyone. It seems like the hip hematoma, the a/c joint separation and the bike wreck of ’03 would have been enough bad luck. And it’s quite expensive when it’s my turn to bring the wine and candles.

Everyone who I have talked to who has had one (me included) says the preparation the night before is worse. Jean had the foresight to get scheduled to work from 4 to 8 tomorrow evening. My preparation starts at 5. By 8 I’ll have an imprint of a toilet seat on my butt that won’t go away for weeks. I would just as soon none of you stopped by at around 7 to see how things are going (npi). If you do please be warned not to blow out any of the scented candles. You’ll be sorry and I’ll be sorrier because I won’t be able to go outside for fresh air.

I’ve told some of you my ills regarding the pontoon boat. I exhausted all the things that the guy at the marina told me to look for, so today I took the next step. All the connections were clean and bright; the fuse was not blown in the engine; the battery was good and fully charged; and the remote was in the neutral position. It was windy and cold today, so I got on my waders, went out to the boat, and crawled on my hands and knees underneath to follow the wires. On my knees trying to shuffle through the weeds that had grown under the boat was bad, but the 10 jillion spiders and spider webs was worse.

As I had expected, some muskrats had build a sleeping bed of grass and mud right over the cables that go from the engine to the control box. I shook all the cables and looked at them as well as I could, and I didn’t see any breaks. I was a bit discouraged and was standing at the stern by the motor, when I saw the positive cable that goes from the battery to the motor, in the pan below the motor, submerged in a half inch or so of water. The spot where it touched the pan had some green crud on it and, bingo, a light went on. Green crud on wires means oxidized copper (anybody knows that from 8th grade science class) so I reached down and pulled the wire up. I ran my finger along the cable covering and it had worn through to the wire. That’s where the break is and, if I replace the wiring harness, it should work.

I went to the marina and picked up a set of cables (for a Mercury engine and I have a Honda) to the tune of $58.00 plus tax and will try to replace them tomorrow. I asked the guy if an idiot could change the wires and he said yes. We’ll see! I’m not very mechanical, but I should be able to disconnect the old black cable (negative) and hook up the new black cable and the same with the red cable (positive). If it baffles me I may cry for help from any of you who are more mechanically inclined than me. I’ll trade help for beer.

Which reminds me, I bottled the first batch of the Fat Tire Amber Ale Sunday and today I transferred the second batch to the secondary fermenter. I’ll cold condition it for a couple of weeks and bottle it around the end of the month. Mountain Bike Sam has some wine that’s about ready, Pike’s Peak Pat has some homemade wine too, and I’ll have way more beer than I’ll ever drink. I’ve talked with Jean and Sam and will talk with Pat about having a Trilanders wine and beer tasting get together around the holidays. The beer will be at its best around my birthday, so we’ll see what works for everybody.

Better go (npi).

Just (Not Looking Forward To The Next Two Days) Jack

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that I was going to brew a clone of Fat Tire Amber Ale. It was developed by Jeff Lebesch who melded his love for quality Belgian beers with his love for mountain biking. I don’t know if I reported any of the details after the brew but it didn’t come out exactly the way I thought it would. The recipes normally give a range of what the specific gravity of the wort (unfermented beer) should be after the boil but before fermentation. It showed an expected gravity (the O.G.) of between 1.048 and 1.050. I followed the recipe exactly and mine came out to be 1.042. It’s not all that much lower but it can have an effect on the alcohol content and the fullness of flavor.

I consulted with Matt, my mentor, and we discussed all the possibilities for why it turned out the way it did. I decided this last Friday to brew another batch using the same ingredients but using more pounds of grain. I entered the original recipe in ProMash which is a beer brewing software that does all the math for you. I changed the batch size to 5.5 gallons, reduced the mash efficiency to 64% (from my last batch) and I added enough grain quantity to get the estimated O.G. to 1.050. I OVERADJUSTED! On this last batch I went to Bells in Kalamazoo, bought the grain, and crushed it myself using the hand mill they supplied. I did change the process of the sparging of the mash, but everything else remained the same other than the quantity of grain. I ended up with an O.G. of 1.064. That will change the estimated alcohol level from an estimated 4.33% abv (alcohol by volume) to an estimated 6.87% abv. I guess bartenders have to drink their own mistakes so wish me luck.

I hate to rat on good friends but I know who caused the recent storms and heavy rains that have flooded areas all over the country. I hate to kick a guy when he’s down but it’s Bill Bradley! It’s a little complicated so try to follow along. I’ve written many times about the fact that I’ve become a triathlon race weather pox. No matter what race I enter, the weather will be bad. Either way…hotter and more humid than normal or cold and rainy. It’s my lot in life so I have to live with it. After my bike wreck of 2003 and the attendant brain injuries, my friends have taken turns watching me to make sure I don’t do anything weird or detrimental to society.

All summer without any rain made Crooked Lake drop about 8 inches and the first section of my dock was over dry land. My pontoon boat was on shore half the time and it took all my strength and body mass (no comments, please) to move it enough to go for a boat ride. I asked Bill to help me move it out one section. It was Bill’s turn to keep an eye on me and he agreed to help me anyway, knowing full well that when I moved the dock it would start raining, and it did. Now you have to wade in water for five feet just to get out to the dock. And look at all the people who are now homeless from the floods.

I usually don’t comment on politics but this past week has been a field day for the media. I told a couple of people Friday night, before the wine set in, that I try my best to avoid public bathrooms to do “number two”, but the few times that I have, my foot hasn’t come anywhere near the guy’s foot in the next stall. And I wouldn’t reach down to pick up a piece of paper (that’s the senators’ story) with my worst enemy’s hand let alone my own left hand. And if I was picking up something I thought was that important, I wouldn’t wave to the guy in the next stall under the partition. With that story and Michael Vick claiming that he didn’t actually kill the dogs that didn’t do well in the dog fights he didn’t promote but he was there when others did, I get upset. If people are going to do those kinds of things they need to take responsibility for their own actions and pay the price. People are so quick to blame someone else for their own bad actions. It makes me sick!

Better get out to the lake and rake some weeds.

Just (Glad I Take Responsibility Like A Man) Jack

I’m not sure whether I believe it or not when people say age is a state of mind. When I look at how hard it is to roll out of bed in the morning with nothing hurting, I know I’m getting old. When I look at how much slower I am at almost everything than I was just a few years ago, I know I’m getting old. When I look at how long it takes to recover from a five mile run, or a forty mile bike, or a two mile swim, I know I’m getting old. Don’t get me wrong! I know there are a whole lot of people younger than me that can’t do a five minute run, or a forty minute bike, or a two-laps-in-the-pool swim, so at least I’m ahead of all of them.

I wrote last week about driving “the girls” down to Three Rivers and looking up places where I used to live and go to school and how it made me take a trip down memory lane. So Monday I drove up to “the cottage” at Bass Lake near Traverse City to see my mother and my Aunt Juanita (we called her Aunt Neat). My grandfather built it in 1950 when I was three so it’s been in the family all my life and we spent every summer vacation there as I was growing up. I helped do a couple of things that were too heavy or too awkward for Mom and Aunt Neat to do and then I took another journey into the past. I remembered all the good times we had there and every story I told was a story of not just me, but family activities. I didn’t feel like I was six years old again, but I did feel a lot younger than sixty and that must be what people mean when they say age is a state of mind.

I know I’m not supposed to reveal other peoples’ ages, but if you know I’m sixty, you know my mother must be older than that, so I’ll tell you that Mom is 82 and Aunt Neat is 78 (sorry Mom…don’t tell Neat I gave away the secret). Both are in excellent health but certainly not spring chickens. I listened to them both tell stories about when they were growing up in Owosso. They talked like it was yesterday and they were still teenagers. They talked about their sisters and their friends and what they did after school. If I had closed my eyes I would have thought they were both still sixteen and their sisters and parents were still here with them. So then I believed, even if only for a day or two, that you’re only as old as you think you are.

Many of you know by now that Thursday was quite exciting around here. We were watching the evening news when they said that Hastings was going to have a severe thunderstorm around six-thirty. The wind was very strong and was swirling here at the condo so Jean made a bee-line for downstairs. I was looking out the window when I saw what I thought was a large limb falling. I realized that a whole tree was going down and, luckily, it fell toward the golf course.

It was a huge oak tree and the very large one next to it has quite a crack at the base and will probably have to be cut soon. There are several “widow-makers” (broken branches hanging from the tree that’s left) that need to be taken care of before it will be safe to walk around out there. At the end of the cul-de-sac in front of the condo another two trees bit the dust, missing the cart shed at the Country Club by inches. With all the bad luck we’ve had in selling the Green Street house and the cottage, we were lucky that the trees fell the other way and not on the three seasons room. The cottage and the house on Green Street had no damage at all. The power was out at the cottage for four days and all I lost was three small bags of frozen vegetables, a half a jar of mayo, and eight eggs. Small price to pay compared to the people who were in the path of the tornado over by Potterville.

Glad for Nancy and Bill that all went well and the recovery train is on the tracks.

Just (Happy To Have Dodged Another Bullet) Jack

It speaks to the fact that I have no life when I volunteer to drive Jean and Becky to a Triathlon in Three Rivers on a Saturday morning at 5 AM when I could be doing so many other things. Kim and Diane rode with Judy and a few more “ladies” from Hastings were there. I know I got estrogenated (that’s an often-used word in the “Real Man’s Survival Handbook”), but when you look at the ages of the group, I’m sure it’s a mild case and I should recover fully with no lasting effects.

Actually, I had a good time and it may have stimulated my desire to get back into training and racing. My training is still on hold due to equipment failures, but the parts have been refurbished and should be as good as new in a month or so. I still say that standing around watching a race is almost as tiring as doing one. OK, OK! I exaggerate, but it is a bit grueling. It’s also hard to watch everyone else eat after the race and not steal some of the food. I’ve done too many races where I didn’t have a good day, finished late, and, by the time I got to the chow line all the food was gone. Since I didn’t pay for the race yesterday, I don’t think it’s fair for me to take the food. I know they throw a lot away, but I don’t want to eat the last of something that was in the mind of the last racer to finish and that’s what kept them going.

I lived from the time I was 5 until I was 11 at Center Park (a wide spot in the road with a church and nothing else), about 10 miles from the race site at Corey Lake. We met at a restaurant in Schoolcraft for an after-race-meal, but not before I drove past where I used to live and took a short trip down memory lane. The house burned down and another one is in its place, but I recognized the place immediately. The one-room school is gone from the corner about two city blocks away. It was bordered on two sides by Osage Orange trees, but now it’s a corn field. As I look back at the times we played eenie-eye-over, red light-green light, softball, football and tag in that schoolyard I’m reminded of a quieter, more serene lifestyle. Going to town was a really big deal and we didn’t eat in restaurants very often. When we did, I heard my first music from a juke-box (Blueberry Hill). My only exposure to drugs was taking the polio vaccine in a lump of sugar. When I hear today about young children growing up in homes with “meth labs”, I thank God I had the parents I did.

I showed the cottage Wednesday, a guy stopped by Friday asking about it while I was in the middle of brewing Fat Tire Amber Ale, and it will probably be shown to someone else tomorrow at around 10 AM. I don’t know why the mild flurry of activity but I’m not getting worked up about it. I still plan to pull it off the market and rent it out for a year or two if nothing happens by September 1st.

Just (Thinking About Nancy and Bill On Wednesday) Jack