Keeping your eyes on the prize.

There are so many ways to look at the world; it all comes down to “keeping your eye on the prize”.  6 can recall a story about a famous baseball player who was chasing a record and only needed 78 hits.  As he was being interviewed by a reporter he was asked “How many times at bat do you need to break the record” his response was simple. I just need 78 at bats if I “keep my eye on the prize”.  Don’t we all need that much self confidence! How about our favorite person, Mr. Clark W. Griswold. Did you ever notice that he never does anything for his own gain? The pool, it is all about the family, Sled riding “Don't go puttin' none of that stuff on my sled, Clark. You know that metal plate in my head? I had to have it replaced, cause every time Catherine revved up the microwave I'd piss my pants and forget who I was for a half hour or so. So over at the VA they had to replace it with plastic. It ain't as strong so I don't know if I should go sailin down no hill with nothing between the ground and my brains but a piece of government plastic.” the turkey “Catherine, if this turkey tastes half as good as it looks, we're all in for a real treat!” the tree “The most enjoying traditions of the season are best enjoyed in the warm embrace of kith and kin. Thith tree is a thymbol of the thpirit of the Griswold family Chrithmath.” the trip to wall- mart If only I had that money Catherine and I gave to that TV preacher who was screwin' that hockey player. What about the kids? His kids can fend for themselves.” He just wanted to bring a little Christmas joy to the family… need I go on? He is a good man. Now here is a test for you all, let’s see if you can guess which person has their eye on the prize. Picture this, a typical Wednesday after noon on the Kiawah beach, you see a man approaching the beach with his kids as they crest the top of the walkway the kids take off running while the father is on his cell phone. He doesn’t notice that they have run away. The kids run right thru our private beach domain kicking up sand and covering our towels which have been strategically place to ward off intruders. The man is still standing on the walk way on his cell phone. When all of sudden what should appear the mother towing a wagon full of chairs towels coolers tents and toys, as she crests the top of the walkway a sudden gust of wind blows her beach hat into the dunes. She reaches into the wagon and pulls out a tent pole to retrieve her hat while the man on the cell phone just laughs at her. As she extends herself with the tent pole to try and retrieve her hat the wagon breaks free and rolls down the walkway and empties itself on the beach. By now the kids are long gone out in the ocean having a blast. The poor mom gathers her composure and casually picks up all the crap from her overturned wagon and proceeds to find a suitable site on the beach. It was about this time that she realized that her kids where no longer with their dad. In a panic she starts running all over the beach in a frantic search for the kids, mean while the dad is still on his cell phone. Relief at last she spots the kids in the surf, and begins the long task of setting camp on the beach, the tent goes up, the chairs come out, the towels go down, and the coolers are placed carefully under the tent. She sits down for a breather, and the kids come back looking for a drink, the dad comes back and sits in the char she was sitting in while she begins putting sun block on the kids. Now tell me who has their eye on the prize. That one was easy, now for a little more difficult one. When we go to mass, what is the priest talking about when he says.. Keep your eyes on the prize? Each year he talks about it, is he asking for money? Is he asking you to strive for goals that will improve your standing, or what?  The whole idea of keeping your eye on the prize is over 2000 years old. It simply means, forget what you did yesterday, and strive for the everlasting prize.

New beginnings

Each winter all things fall into disarray, trees lose their leaves, grass dormant, life pulls all of its energy back into its roots, we wander and loose our direction among the Behrend (play on words)  landscape. So we are looking to the sky to save us, looking for that sign of life. As the days pass, the sun becomes more intense; the days are filled with light, the roots release that stored energy nature has risen, the sky has saved us, from the path of darkness, cold, bitterness and anger. Make our way back to Kiawah where we learn to fly. Look up to the sky and call the angles to whisk us to Kiawah! Each day is a new beginning, void of complications, only new beginnings!

Speaking of thing raising, this past weekend was Easter, complete with tradition and pageantry. Early Friday morning the mini-truckster began the long journey to the old homestead. Relaxing drive on the beltway thru the  driving rain, followed by fish sanmwich’s from dawntown Etna, then a Good Friday service featuring  an up and coming canter named 7. It is really funny how we do follow the same traditions, for example Saturday night we color Easter eggs. This tradition has been carried out in the homestead for at least 65 years! Humm, the children coloring eggs are now in their 20’s.  Nope we still do it! I do have to say the act of coloring eggs is the same but the methods have changed. This year being no exception, 61 was replace by 32, and soda pop was replace by whiskey and beautiful colored eggs was replaced by the most hideous eggs imaginable. 6 got up early Sunday morning to hide the eggs to find an empty bottle of Markers Mark, and 2 dozen colored eggs. Friday night was pizza and wine night without the wine, around 9:00 the power went out, so we pulled some magic from our Kiawah vacations and played some poker with pretzels acting as chips and a Sacred Heart of Jesus, and our lady of Guadalupe candle lighting the way.  No winner was ever declared,  we had a full bag of pretzels, we never had to create any more chips, 6 bets that had more to do with the no wine than anything else. Before you knew it was Sunday morning, after mass on Easter morning, we all met at the homestead with the exception of 1, 4 and 61and had a wonderful meal, filled with family and friends.

Back to the new beginnings.  As we look to the sky, not only do flowers grow, and trees blossom, but the blue umbrellas magically appear on the beach. There are now many people walking the beach swimming, as well as riding on the beach. Others are done nursing the patience of a long cold winter, we are surrounded by signs of life. All we have to do now is sit back follow the sky and enjoy the flight to Kiawah! 

Words of Wisdom:  Age is what you want it to be, never loose your youth!

Do we really belong in Kiawah?

Do we really belong in Kiawah?  We all have our own little quirks. Let me clarify, you all have quirks. 6 is normal, the bazaar behaviors of others is what 6 professionally calls abnormal (pronounced Abby normal).  One could argue that 6 posses the traits which might fall into that category, but then again thru 6’s eyes that is just normal , “it is the way it is”. For example one may assume that performing activities consistently on time is obsessive behavior, to a person with superior intelligence it is clinically considered normal behavior. For example: watching Christmas Vacation at 7:00 thanksgiving night,  Cheese/crackers and Rex Friday night at 5:45, shot of Jack at 8:00 on March 15^th, Church  at 5:00, grocery shopping at 8:00, leave for Vacation at 5:30, Spaghetti  at 7:00 on Saturday night on Vacation,  Fish sandwich at 2:00 on Good Friday, Trip to Belk at 8:00 (by the way Pandora has a Belk station now featuring southern contemporary Blues/Jazz and Rock), Rex on the beach at 5:00, gym at 7:00, 6 thinks you get the point. They are not quirks, but facts of life, now that I look over the list, half of those things are tied to drinking!….Oh well..  Now I will describe a quirk…. 7’s fascination with waffle house! Think about this for a minute, you are on vacation in a place where the whole family could pool all of their resources and not be able to pay the HOA fee’s on a mobile home in the back 40.   We are surrounded by natures glory, multi-million dollar homes, 5 star restaurants, resorts, all with-in a 10 minute walk of the front stoop.  Here is the background.. as OA, 4, 32, 71, 7 and 8 and their luggage for a week piled into a car designed for 4 passengers passed the waffle house on their way to Kiawah, it was said that 7 was hungry, and just had to stop there, no place else and get some grub. When 8 told him that he was not stopping, 7 was as disappointed as a gator in a cage surrounded by raw meat.  For the next five days, 7 begged everyone who had a car to take him to waffle house. It actually was not as bad as one might think telling him NO every hour on the hour, for the disappointment on his face was worth the aggravation. As with anything it all came to a head on Wed afternoon when 7 went over to Scooter and asked him if he would drive him to waffle house. Can you just imagine that! When he was turned down by Scooter, he came walking back to the group of us sitting there and said What! At that point 4 with her big heart told 7 that she would take him Thursday morning.  So Thursday morning off they went, 4 giving up a day on the beach, but 7 as happy as a pig in slop. What made me think of this is the other night there was a guy on the radio talking about his trip to Fredrick to shop for cheap booze. As the story goes, he was on 70 and saw a waffle house, (there you go 7 you could come on thanksgiving and stop on the way!) and being from the south just had to stop in and have a meal. For the next 20 minutes that is all he talked about. He never made it to the chap booze, but the waffles there must really be something! Well here are some things that you never knew about waffle house.  Joe Rogers, Sr. and Tom Forkner -- founded Waffle House in 1955, "Covered" is with cheese, "smothered" is with onions, "chunked" is with ham, "topped" is with chili, "diced" is with tomatoes, "peppered" is with peppers, "capped" is with mushrooms, "scattered" is spread on the grill, and "all the way" is something high schoolers traditionally talk a big game about ordering after prom everything, you gluttonous madman, it is open absolutely every day of the year, it  gets  a classy makeover on Valentine's Day , FEMA actually uses something called the Waffle House Index to determine the severity of hurricane damage, Waffle House has hosted World Waffle-Eating Championships, in which competitive eaters shove as many as they can into their face for $7500. There you go! So if you notice that 4 and 7 are mysteriously missing from the beach someday, you know where they are headed!

Words of Wisdom: Keep perusing the good, for it is right in-front of you

People are strange.

 People are strange.

It just so happened that I was viewing the earth cam and looking at Kiawah and once again it made me wonder what is wrong with people. Granted it is spring, and it is not 100 degrees and sunny but what the heck, it is 75 and cloudy and it appears there is a small gust of wind. So why is the beach empty? After hours of mediation on the subject, there are only two plausible reasons: First, the personal magnetism, charm, intellect and sear “rock star” status of 6 not being there, drawing hundreds from the far reaches of the globe and second people are strange. We all know the real reason is the first, but as to not let the power of 6’s persona influence a debate as to why no one is on the beach, 6 will attempt to explain, why people are strange.

As we all know this has been a frightful winter. Eddie sent me a text the other day and told me that for the first time he has been able to “clean the shitter”, since Thanksgiving it has been so cold that the chemicals in the chemical shitter were the consistency of Jello. The more 6 thinks about this and wonders if he may have one of the jelly fish from last year cloggin up his shitter, 71 look out Eddie has put it back into the Chicago sewer system buy summer that thing should be back to Kiawah waitin on ya?  Picture that, now that is cold! So one would logically think if it has been that cold, then 75 degrees would feel like the middle of the summer! No, not to the people who vacation in the spring in Kiawah! I then decide to look and make a estimate of the prices of the rentals in the spring. The Kiawah Island chamber of commerce and tourist bureau, say prices are anywhere from 15 to 20 percent lower in the spring vs. the summer. The quote 6 received was for a $10,000 per week rental it would go in the spring for $8,000 to $8,500. Once again, people are strange; they have more money than brains! 6 knows the place is empty, wrong again, this week they have 68% occupancy, where in the summer they hit the low 90%. Could it be that scooter has not started back to work? 6 can just see it now, these people who pay $10K for a rental don’t want to get sand on their bottoms, and god forbid they buy a $10 chair from target, that is just beneath them. After all 61,62,63 and 71 stay with us in the low rent district, and spend the day covering themselves with beach sand, while sitting on re-pained $10 target chairs! How about the water is too cold, come-on the water comes from the south, granted it is probably not like the bath tub when we are there, but it is 68 degrees, that is warmer than the Pacific Ocean in the dead of summer! Where are the people? I know they are all sitting back over there on Melody lane with all the other rich people watching re-runs of Friends, trying to answer that age old question… “What do they do for a living?” Hey, Kids, I heard on the news that an airline pilot spotted large Jelly Fish on its way in from Chicago. Great Balls of Fire!!

Words of wisdom: Cherish each day, for they are all a gift.

It is cold out therre

On this bitterly cold winters day, 6 wants to put all of his energy it to dreams of  warmth and relaxation. The way that 6 has this figured, if we live each day with a positive attitude, the negative just does not seem as daunting.

It has been several years now, but does anyone recall the year that the actual temperature was 100 degrees not counting the humidity?  It was back in the day when we got the two bedroom condo’s, 3 of them in fact, where the men folk stayed in one condo, and the woman in another. Ah the “good ol days”  “Do not cry because it is over, smile because it happened”. Now let’s just think about this, today at high noon, it is 8, 12, 13, 28 ,37 or 55. (6 will bet you that you cannot figure out where those temps are) As per the morning ritual, several of us were gathered around the TV watching the Regis and Kelly, 8 was telling us to shut the heck up as he was making Tee times or was it High Tea time…Kind of the same thing, and you know it was 102 already!  Yes they are extremely different temperatures but, 6 did not hear one single complaint about how hot it was, where today 6 got texts from several people telling me how cold it is. 6 is going to once again use his superior intelligence and logically explain the nuances, between the disparity in perceptions, and its effect s on day to day activities.  Ok let’s start with the setting of the thermostat in the house Vs. the condo. This 6 will never forget,  as 7 walked the first thing he did was walk to the thermostat and turned it down to 65, within an hour you could no longer see thru the windows, as a result of the condensation,  there are other benefits such as sleeping with blankets when it is 95 degrees outside. So when it is cold 7 sets the thermostat to 68-70 on a hot day he sets it at 65. Conclusion:  When it is hot 7 sets the thermostat colder than when it is cold? Let us continue, the sun shines when it is hot and when it is cold, so we need our shades, when you leave your house/condo, what do your shades do? Well they fog up your glasses don’t care if it is 0 or 100. Your car, when it is hot out, you burn your hands on the steering wheel when it is cold you also feel the pain. When it is cold, you hear about people having problems starting their cars, but did you know that more batteries fail in the extreme heat than in the cold? 32 has experienced that personally after having to run to Wall-mart to get a battery for the truckster. Let’s see, salt, you have it when it cold on the roads all over your car etc. when it is hot, you still have it on your car, and all over yourself from that nice ocean breeze. As I type this blog, I look at my hands and from the cold and dry the skin, looks like a gator, so once again the same. As I look out over my yard all I see is nice white snow, looks just like the beach, it has a few foot prints in it and as the north wind blows the sand to smooth out the rough edges the north wind blows the snow wiping away all the activities of the day. Need I go on? Back to the golf, we paid our $130 to play 18 holes of golf, as the pro told us that it was 106 outside, so we better drink a lot of water, as you could imagine, he had a cooler of water bottles there with the Kiawah labels on them for sale for $2.50 a pop, but 6 figured that they must have water out on the course, so 6 passed. As we arrived at the first tee the started gave each of us a couple of bottles for fee… now what is that all about? I stood there drinking a bottle of free water and patiently waited my turn at the tee box at the first hole. As you might expect 6 launched into that ball and drove it far past my competitors and landed it right in the center of the fairway, next hit a wedge to within 5 foot of the flag and proceed to sink the putt. Birdie on the first hole! This is going to be a great day! Hole number two.. par… three the same!  Three holes down one under par, and three bottles of water down! As 6 stood on the fourth tee box drinking still another bottle of water, it became painfully obvious that if you drink that much water in shuch a short time, it has to go someplace. The sweat was just not cutting it! On the forth tee 6’s drive went a little right and landed on the roof of someone’s million dollar house. Oh well let’s try this again! The second drive was struck with perfection, it was a long booming drive, but this time went a little off line to the left, and landed in the pool of another house! Let’s try this again.. 6 pulled out his trusty wedge and stuck the ball perfect 100 yards right down the middle, landing 50 yards short of the fairway. The next shot, 6 found a tree, what a relief! The 4^th hole was over and 6 was now 4 over par! I will not continue, but you know how the pro’s keep track of how many fairways they hit, I was keeping track of how many houses 6 hit! In the end 18 holes were played and 18 houses were hit, 6 would like to see a pro do that! So you want some more stats: 6 and 8 once case of water, 6 score was higher than the temperature, 15 golf ball gone… there were more lost but 6 found a few. 12 gator sightings, two sitting on the tee box on the 10th hole,  7 trees hit, 18 greens hit 3 in regulation, 4 houses hit, three pools and one beach. After that round of gold, one could conclude that 6 would be a little negative about golf, or even make some excuses for his performance… my hands were constantly wet from perspiration thus causing my club to slip, or 6 did not know the course, or it was too hot, or the golf cart was too slow, or the sun was to bright, etc.. But ya know, it was a perfect day.

Words of wisdom: Enjoy each day, for every day  we have is even more special than the last.