I have a story to tell

  During my travels with Hollie we stopped in Monmouth, Maine at the Agricultural Station/Farm operated by the University of Maine.  On this farm the primary study is apples and apple trees, but they also study vegetables primarily those grown in a garden.
  A man was working with a stalk of corn and I asked him,
"what are you doing with that?"
He answered,
"trying to improve yield"
I replied,
"oh great! we've been talking at coffee about yields, you could teach people not to enter a road without yielding to vehicles already on the road"
he said,
"no.  Improving Yields, yields!"
I said,
"you could paint the signs brighter and make them bigger"
he said,
"Yield!, Yield!"
and he hit me with what he was working on and part of it stuck to me, he said,
"Yield! , can't you hear?"
I said,
"not with this ear in my ear!"


This is not a true story, just in case you're wondering, it was manufactured in my mind while driving through Monmouth.  Hollie was listening to music and my mind wanders, not too far.

Sleep; there ain't nothing like it!

Just like this.
www.cartoonstock.com

  I first went to sleep during the 5PM weather report.  I slept through most of the 6:30PM national news, and the first inning of the Red Sox game.  After that I went to bed.  I woke up at 2:10AM.
  Now that's a nice nights sleep, really.  I must have had over seven hours of sleep.
I guess I was resting from my day trip with Hollie, because I didn't do a whole lot yesterday.  I went for coffee and a two mile walk, came home for a couple of hours, went to try on more shoes and then to a meeting, and some grocery shopping.  I was home before 2PM and we, my wife and I, went up the road to a nursery and bought some flowers to plant (I know what they were, the names are missing from my brain at the moment) snapdragons, geraniums, ivy and a basket of petunias.
  I planted to snapdragons, ate a meal, watched TV then - go to first paragraph.  The following cartoon doesn't apply to me, it's just funny.

www.sleepnosleep.wordpress.com

Not at all a bad trip

The geezer gets the boot at LL Bean
Photo: Hollie Grant

  Well, we had a pretty good day and a 275 mile round trip - just enough to touch off the old back!
We got on the road about six, and with a stop at Wal-Mart in Waterville, got in to Augusta at 8AM, for the first visit to Staples and put some of the stuff in plastic.
  Then we finished the trip to Freeport on the I-95/I-295 routes, that was the last of interstate highway travel, except for the last five miles.  We did go to the "world famous" LL Bean for the photo op, and Hollie wanted an LL Bean cap and a couple of post cards.  I got off easy :)
  Up route 1 to Brunswick and over to Cooks Corner (near the old NAS Brunswick), that little mall has just about emptied out, the base is gone and a lot of stores are too - lots of empty space in all of the "strip malls" - not as in strip club.  There were only two people working a Staples! Two!  We had a wait so had lunch - it was ten AM and lunch time according to my clock.  We took a walk through Wal-Mart and she found a tie dye sweatshirt, couldn't pass it up, I didn't need any money any way (it was a good buy).
  Up, or over, to Lewiston for some more lamination's at that Staples, a quick side trip to Bull Moose Music for a used Dolly Parton CD and on to Maine 202 east.  Short stop in Augusta to use the facilities and a DQ Blizzard and on to home.  Piece of cake.

Hollie at the boot.
Photo by the geezer

Off we go...and this ain't no wild blue yonder

  Well the day is here; the first of two "vacation days" for the Hollie girl.  I am sure she is ready to go, she does get quite excited about these things.  It's obvious that I'm ready, heck I'm even alert enough to write this drivel.
  It is my plan to go directly to Freeport and LL Bean first, and go to Brunswick (which is a start back north) second.  I don't really know if this will fly - she needs those laminated projects - that may change the order of things.
  We would move on from Brunswick to Lewiston via Maine route 196 and push up to Augusta from there and then the one hour drive back to Bangor/Brewer/Levant; you know, something like that.
  I do not dread these trips, I look forward to them and I like to participate - the thing is I really don't have a lot of choices in where and in what order things get done - I'm not the real autistic one.
  I'm sure there'll be a lot to bore you with tomorrow so stay tuned.

T minus 1

  Well, this morning I slept in until 2:35AM.  It wasn't on purpose it just turned out that way, it's a really screwy thing, it messes my head up.  Now it's 3:20 and I'm still sitting here typing this - I feel like I should be on the road and walking.  But, it is a little chilly this morning at 37 degrees and falling (until the sun comes up).
  And then there's tomorrow, I hope I'm ready for a full day of chatter.  The main problem is she wants me to look at things she's holding up; it's hard to see when you're going 55mph and turning a corner but she really thinks I can look! 
  I am hoping she brings a favorite (of the moment) CD and listens most of the way down, or sleeps, then I'll talk and she'll ignore me.
  I got to go!

Are you ready?

  Now it's time to get ready for a whole list of things:
1.  The Boston Red Sox tumble to last place.  It's really not far off - you can tell if you watched just the last two games.  No bats.  No defense.  The list goes on.
2.  Hot weather to complain about.  No getting ready for that, I've already done it.
3.  Hollies vacation days.  There is one this Wednesday.  Do I wear my hearing aids, or not?  That's a very good question, she'll talk non-stop from here to Brunswick; maybe not I did invest in a new CD player.  Sometimes she falls asleep in the early part of the trip - then talks.  Who knows?
4.  More insane reasoning from the Governor of Maine - won't have to wait long for that.  Hell just blame Hillary now.
5.  The 2016 elections have gotten ready already, bummer!

Happy Mothers Day

High School Graduation 1931

  Geneva Goodwin was born and raised on a farm in Shapleigh, Maine on August 27, 1913.  She had 3 sisters and one brother, so the farm work was shared by all.  There was never much cash money but the family shared a good life in other ways.  My grandfather never owned a car or truck but used horses and oxen for his farm and his work in the woods.  I remember the time Hollie asked her what kind of doll her grandmother had when she was a girl and mom said "I never had one"; she made doll clothes for all of her grand daughters.
  She and my dad got married in 1934, neither family could afford a wedding so they eloped to a neighboring town and were married by a minister in Acton, Maine.  They lived in a small little house in Sanford where dad work in the Goodall mills.  In 1936 they bought a farm in Lebanon, Maine, my home town, the farm consisted of a house connected to the barn by a shed and about 8 acres, mostly woods, there was also a detached forty acre woodlot, the "crop" was chickens and eggs, and a pig.
  My brother Lysle was born in 1937 and I followed in 1940, and that was the family unit in which I was raised.  Mom was good glue and held it all together no matter how hard I tried to make things worse.  She and my father were strong in the Christian faith, and strong on family there were many many trips to see grandparents none of them far away.
  Ma, as Lysle and I called her died in March of 2011, ten years after her beloved husband Stuart, she was ready to go all of those years but was patient in waiting.
  Happy Mothers Day ma.

My mother with me early in 1941