Well, That's Over

For the BIG XII fans (really  BIG X but they want that name even though the have 12 teams now) our Basketball season is over.  Both Baylor and Iowa State fell to other teams and eliminated the last of our teams from the tournament.  I guess that's the end of that for me.  At least until the next season rolls around next year.  I am a fan of college basketball and it is always a fun ride.   I did get to see a few matches of the College wrestling tournament on ESPN and always enjoy how hard they work.  I don't fully understand all the rules but having known a couple of wrestlers along the way makes it fun for me to watch.  I absolutely don't watch the pro wrestlers and find it fake in a lot of ways.  I also don't care much for baseball.  To me it is a lot like watching paint dry.

One thing I do love is music.  There is very little that I don't really enjoy.  I love the newness of the Sugarland music to the old ballads sung by Barbershop groups.  I think the only thing I really don't love is too much of anything.   After a while even the new Country and Western songs begin to sound alike.  I am listening to the "Beautiful Prairie Rose" by the PR Wranglers. We pick that up when we had chuck wagon dinner down in Butler County.  They were the entertainment and I had a ball listening along with them.   One of the hits was when the kids all sang Deep in the Heart of Texas.  Good food served chuck wagon style and good music.

What are the things you have in your life that bring you smiles?  I don't mean those hundreds of things you  have to dust around but those items that make you smile when you see them.  Yesterday I was looking in my dresser drawer and found my Father's 25 year Beechcraft Hamilton Automatic.  It is a beautiful gold watch with the letters Beechcraft around the dial.  The Second hand has a little red plane that flies around the dial.  There is a kind of funny story about that watch.  One of the many trips Dad made to the VA near the end of his life was about a week long.  I stopped in to visit and he spied a new watch I had just purchased. It really was not a very expensive watch but it was a Timex Triathlon with a lot of nice features.   Dad saw that watch and said he always wanted one of those.  What do you say to a man who can't get out to buy his own watch?  "Here Dad."  He took off his old watch and asked me to put the a scruffy rubber watch band from it on the new Timex.  "Sure Dad" and he wore that watch away.  The next visit he looked me in the eye and told me that that watch told him three things he didn't need to know.  I think it told you the Day, Date and pulse rate. None of witch he cared about.  When we were getting ready for Dad's funeral, I asked Mom if Dad was going to be buried with his Beech Aircraft Tie Tack.  Mother said, "Oh there was something your Dad wanted you to have."  She came out of the bedroom with Dad's 25 year Hamilton watch from Beechcraft.  What a great trade.  She said, "Dad wanted you to have this."  I was honored then and now.

One trend I started a few years back is now a problem.  Instead of hiring people to fix things at my rental houses, I started buying the tools.  It is nice to have the tools I need, but keeping track of them and finding just the right tool is a royal pain in the patootie.   I think about half of the shelves in the new shed are filled with those tools.  I could spend hours just going through storage containers to get everything organized.  I have everything I need and most of what I want - The corollary to that is I am damned lucky to be able to find what I need.

Oh well, enough of this, on to bigger and better things.  Lunch is starting to sound a lot like a road trip to Five Guys over in Lawrence.  Believe me, Barb made that suggestion as she really knows the true way to my heart is through a Hamburger Stand.  

MUD