Welcome back and Happy New Year! It has been a while since we visited but I am sure you all have been as busy as I have over the past couple of weeks and didn’t have much time to read anyway.

      So, did you get everything you wanted for Christmas and have you kept all of your New Year’s resolutions so far? I hope so in both cases.

     My wife and I got a lawn mower for Christmas. No kidding! It was a mutual decision, sort of. Actually, I wanted a riding lawn mower but we got a self-propelled version instead. It would be good for me, she reasoned, because I needed the exercise. We got the lawn mower because I don’t have a job right now and we decided that I could do the lawn rather than pay a company big bucks to do it for us. That made sense to me. Hey, I wouldn’t lie to you, would I?

      I didn’t make any real resolutions this year, just the same old same old that I haven’t followed in the past anyway. You know, lose weight, exercise more, get organized, yada yada yada. Oh, I will still try do to those things like I always try to, but I have chosen this year year just to have them as objectives, rather than goals. Not sure there is a big difference, but it makes sense to me anyway.

      One of the things I do vow to do this year is cut our household expenses as much as possible and I am making good headway at it. First, I cut our telephone, cable and car insurance bills. Now we are refinancing our house, which will cut our monthly obligations on the mortgage nearly in half. If anyone has any ideas on how to cut other things, like electric and water bills, I would appreciate a heads up. I do practice conservation measures as much as I can, by the way. Read the rest of this entry »

 

A much coveted trophy from the Bass & Ass Tournament. You be the judge as to who won it one year.

By Lamar Thames 

     (My wife and I have a group of very good friends — the group includes some relatives, too, I might add — who live in Orlando and are known, rather informally, as the Steak and Ale Gang. Members of the group have pretty much gone their separate ways in recent years but we get together on occasion. A gathering of the gang is being organized and in tribute to them here is an account I wrote of an activity the gang used to participate in known as the Bass & Ass Tournament. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed composing it.) 

         I had heard so many stories about the infamous Bass & Ass Tournament that I was both anxious and nervous about the impending experience when my first invitation arrived.

      In essence, the Bass & Ass weekend was an exercise in machoism to celebrate the summer season at the Lago D’ Oro Golf and Country Club, deep in the Ocala National Forest.
     The much-anticipated event had been hosted on and off for more than two decades by a trio of Orlando residents who held the lease on a rustic cabin on the shores of Lake Dorr — or Lago D’ Oro, as the Spanish explorers called it because of the water’s deep golden color. Read the rest of this entry »

Being a grandparent is one of the greatest blessings I have ever known. It can also be a very funny experience at times. Thanks to Annette for providing these humorous glimpses at grandparenthood:

1. She was in the bathroom, putting on her makeup, under the watchful eyes of her young granddaughter, as she’d done many times before. After she applied her lipstick and started to leave, the little one said, ‘But Gramma, you forgot to kiss the toilet paper good-bye!’

I will probably never put lipstick on again without thinking about kissing the toilet paper good-bye…2. My young grandson called the other day to wish me Happy  Birthday. He asked me how old I was, and I told him, ’62.’

He was quiet for a moment, and then he asked, ‘Did you start at 1?’

3. After putting her grandchildren to bed, a grandmother changed into old slacks and a droopy blouse and proceeded to wash her hair. As she heard the children getting more and Read the rest of this entry »