Warden Callaway

Basically The Alamo 5 years before the John Wayne version. Apache Rifles https://youtu.be/jSk8fNnKo3w?si=j1KvfgyqNbuUZJ7a

At last check at bedtime the wind was 29mph. I got up at 1:00am and the patio door was open. I know I took extra care in closing before bed. Closed and locked it this time. Wind has calmed some now.

I see that. How long has it been there? Dad's been gone 10 year now.

We've never had a White Castle dive remotely close to us. I've only eaten at one and that was on a business trip. Other guys wanted to stop.

Day after day, it it's blowing like crazy. This afternoon it was 22mph gusting to 40. Mary said March was the second highest wind on record nationally with some states setting record. Then the pollen has been off the charts. I would love to go out but I can't stand it. I wear hearing aids and the wind sounds like jet engines screaming. If i think of it, I'll take them out and even put in ear plugs. Flood watch Friday though Sunday evening.

Dad hated onions. Couldn't stand them in the house. Said, a chicken won't even eat an onion. He'd get a hamburger in a restaurant and slam it down and curse, "They cooked it on a grill that's cooked onions." Mom would crave them and eat them when he wasn't around. Not my favorite but I can eat them raw in moderation.

I worked with a guy that had a great memory. He could recall part numbers and phone numbers for years. But he said his mother had a real photograph memory. Said as a kid in the heat of the summer they picked wild blackberries by the 5 gallon bucket full. She would can them and they'd eat on them year round. Said he hated summer because of the heat, chiggers, ticks, and sticks from the blackberry bushes. Said one day they were heading out with their 5 gallon buckets and a covey of quail flew up. He was pointing at them. His mother asked what he was doing. He said he was trying to count them. She replied, you saw them, you can count them later.

Did you ever know anyone with a truly photographic memory? Old farmer lived south in an old falling down house ringed with broken down equipment and weeds and brush. Said his wife cooked on a wood cook stove that's legs had fallen through the floor. He drove an old Chevy rust bucket PU with a battery in the bed and jumper cables strung out to the engine compartment. Of all things, he had a dynamite license. You know, explosives. We were building our house and hit solid rock. We called on him to come blow some. He started and ran out of dynamite. Said, if you'll drive me up to Macon, Missouri I'll get another case. Ok. Picked him up after work the next day and we were off on a "three hour cruse". He talked the whole time. One story led into the next. All I got in was ah "Un-hua" at the appropriate time. War stories, hunting stories, local history. He was a history buff. The one and a half travel up turned into six. He wanted to look up an old hign school buddy he hadn't seen in 50 years. Finally on to dynamite dealer. An old widdow woman. She arranged the have her son meet us at the dynamite storage location out in the county. By now after 10:00. Very dark field covered with large cedar trees and a bunch of grain bins. Got the dynamite and a lot more visiting with son. Return trip. Story after story. Got to Moberly on return and Bud said, let's pull into McDonald's and get a cup of coffee before it closes. Ok. Now neer midnight. Only one customer. A little old man. Bud says to him, "Been awful dry." The old man replied, "Yes, I was at the feed store in Shelbina and the farmers were worried.." Bud inquired, how is Margaret? The old man updated him. I just rolled my eyes, now what. But we got out with our coffee. Walking back to the car, Bud said. "Everywhere I go I meet someone I know or knows someone I know." The next couple hours were taken up telling me about the three sons of the now deceased owner of the feed store in Shelbina. Their military service in the Pacific, what ships they were on. Every detail. Birth dates. Before home he told me that in 1953 his dad was in the VA hospital and the feed store guy was in the next bed. Yet he got all that and retained it.

Mary remembers ever mistake I've made - real or imaginary. I get up in the night and find myself in the bathroom. What am I here for? Oh yeah. Not exactly a memory trick, but we stop in at an independent gas station, small convenient store and cafe above Ogallala, Nebraska for breakfast. Lady comes out and announced, I'll be your server and I'm also the cook. No menu. I have eggs, sausage, bacon or ham. Biscuits are just out of the oven. I have fried potatoes and pancake batter. We told her our choices and she didn't write it down. Another table was filled with regulars drinking coffee and solving the world's problems.

Years ago I read an article about how weaters and waitresses have better memory talent than average. Today Mary and I took a ride to a corn fed town with one stop sign. A little diner opens at 11:00. We hardly get squrmed into our seats when the waitresses arrived with our drinks - she remembered. We've hit this place no more than once a month in the past year and not always gotten the same waitresses. Another example, we made a lumber delivery to West Plains about once a month. Starting out well before sunup, we'd get to a little town of Licking. There was a Diner there with easy off and on the highway. A good time to get breakfast and coffee. We didn't stop there every trip but often. The waitresses would greet us with coffee and read off our orders from memory and confirm. Yes, thats right. But to top that. I and several others were invited by IBM to Poughkeepsie, NY to see software they were trying to sell us. We staid at the IBM hospitality house. They had a dinning room. Large tables seated 8. For breakfast the dress code was dress shirt and pants, add jacket and tie for lunch and dinner. They didn't have a printed menu. The waitresses would announce three choices of meat, choices of vegetables, etc. She'd ask each in turn for their choices. Nothing was written down. She must have served multiple tables. How'd she do that? Oh, on our trip we seen a mature bald eagle about 20 feet off the blacktop eating its breakfast. Later on, spotted an eagle's nest. Big as a VW Beetle.

I suspect the lense was clouded on the inside too. I've seen were they clear headlight lenses with heat gun or torch. The new gauge has a clear lense where the original has an amber lense. The new lense looks to be an upgrade.

Mom and Dad grew up in large dirt poor families in the Great Depression. They learned the hard reality of using things up, fix it and keep using it. I witnessed may times when most anyone else would just throw it away and buy a new one, Dad would cobble something up. Just one of many examples, I was using the industrial loaded to push up brush and tree tops. I ran up on something and broke a valve stem on a front tire. It was Sunday. I took it to a tire shop at a truckstop not far away. The guy got right on it and replaced the tube -. $9.00 tube and labor. (it was a while back.) I got home in about an hour figuring that I done good. Dad came out to watch me put the tire back on. When he seen I'd gotten a new tube, he went on a rant. "Why they ripped you off. They should have been able to vulcanized on a new stem." Dad, the old tube was 25 years old and had been patched a couple of times. Well, we have an old Kawasaki Mule 2510. The plastic lense in the fuel gauge got to where it was chalking up making it hard to read. I've polished it several times to get by. Earlier in the week I tried again with Dremel tool with buffing wheel and Flitz. Better but still cloudy and not easy to be sure. In frustration of being defeated, I looked on eBay and found a new unit for $7.39 delivered. Just came an hour ago. It only took a couple of minutes to install. I'm sure Dad wouldn't approve.

Rough house. With Fatty Arbuckle, Al St. John and Buster Keaton. Pure slapstick.

Sometimes we have a bounty of mushrooms. Find them by the bucket loads. Some years, it turns off hot and dry and we only find a few. Last year I hunted a lot and only found four. A few years back, I found a patch and gathered a bread sack load. I returned a couple of times and found more. In total, probably near a bushel. Went back year after year and never found another at that spot.

I usually fry them up with breakfast.

Lots of rain in southern Missouri and Arkansas. Even too much. But it's dry here north of the river. I went out to check Dad's never fail early mushroom spot. It always produces a few. And on south facing hillside, produces the first. It's not an easy climb with loose rock and leaves. Lots of down trees an limbs. The Russian olive has invaded. Got up there and found none. Rested up a bit and headed back down. I got to within 20' of the Mule and lost my footing. I did a slow motion fall on my butt with my left leg under my right. I figured it was a good time to rest up. While resting, I looked down the hill and spotted the top of a mushroom. I took a picture. I pulled myself back up on my feet with help of ironwood tree and continued on to Mule. Mary texted and wanted to go to the library. Ok, I'll be there in a bit. I'm in the Mule. Went to pick my mushroom and couldn't find it. Returned home empty handed and puzzled. Went back this afternoon and did another search. Nothing. Looked at my picture and by looking at the down wood, I could see that I looking in the wrong spot. I looked up the hill about 4' and there it was, standing in plain sight. About the size of my thumb and starting to dry.

If it's as stiff to open like they all seem to be.. set in living room and open and close it until your wife hits you with a frying pan. Then shoot a flat of shells through it. It should fall open then.

James Cagney trained in judo to do his own fight scenes in Blood on the Sun. This movie was considered the first American martial arts film. Blood on the Sun (1945) According to the DVD sleeve notes, prior to production James Cagney trained intensively in the martial art of judo in preparation for his role. He trained under Ken Kuniyuki, who was a 5th Degree Judo Master. Cagney insisted that he perform his own stunts. He said in his memoirs, "I grew so fond of judo I used it to keep in shape until a back injury I picked up doing something else put me on the sidelines." Moreover, another instructor for Cagney was former LAPD policeman John Halloran, who plays the role of Capt. Oshima and can be seen in the closing fight sequence. Apparently Halloran quit the LAPD after FBI agents investigated him because he was an expert in judo.

James Colburn hang across two chairs.

Oh yeah, a texting problem. One of my contacts is neighbor up the road. Nice guy and done ablot for us. (He has a TIG welder and knows how to use it.) Anyway, he texted some greetings like "Merry Christmas" and included a group of people. For days I would get junk text messages and copies of replies from people I have no idea who they are - mostly saying "quit sending me messages". Another annoying problem. We're on several cowboy action shooting clubs Email lists. Get the message and someone or several will reply to all something nobody is interested in.

If all the terrorist and hate groups want to channel their anger somewhere, they can find these people and eliminate them.

I don't do phone calls. I have about 10 contacts of people in my innermost circle that I'll answer a phone from. And they know not to call me. A couple times a day or more I get SPAM messages. Don't answer but often they leave a massage. It's easy to delete a phone call record but more trouble to delete a phone message. Samsung Android has a setting to reject phone calls from anyone not on contact list. But it doesn't work. I've tried help from the phone Geeks and there is no way it works. Blocking numbers is not working. The Geeks say the telemarketers just create a new number.