OREGON COAST - A GREAT ESCAPE

I am remiss, I am remiss, I am remiss! I see my last entry was April 22 - just days before Kim and I took off for a four day vacation with my brother, Father John, on the Oregon coast. We flew on frontier Airlines, with a layover both ways in Denver, Colorado. I had forgotten how very cramped airliner cabins are! This plane had two sets of three seats on either side of a tight aisle. I find that I have become more and more claustrophobic with age and consequently had to get up and stretch by taking a trip to the rest room a couple of times on each leg of the journey.

John and Fran picked us up at the Portland airport and from there it was an hour and a half jaunt down the coast to John's beach house (pictured) at Glen Eden beach. We didn't really get to see this magnificent ocean view until the next morning. It is truly a magnificent home on a magnificent setting and i told John that I don't see how he can ever leave it - but leave it he does, traveling not just all over this country but all over the world.
The four days are really quite a blur - we did so many things that I won't even begin to touch on them. We ate lots of fresh crab, raw oysters, razor clams, halibut steak and did a lot of traveling up and down the coast near Glen Eden Beach, including an afternoon at the Yaquina Coast Lighthouse. We even climbed all the way to the top and observed the light at work.

Our thanks to John and Fran as ell as to my brother Bob and his wife Dorothy who very kindly delivered us to and then picked us up again at the Minneapolis airport on our return. It was a memorable trip - we did, however, miss Hammy and Stella terribly.

We also owe Patty Stangel a debt of gratitude for looking in on our furry little guys every day while we were gone. NOw its back to reality and trying to find money to pay the bills that arrived while we were gone!

It is hard to believe that soon John will be here and we will be doing our three nights of "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother".

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TODAY IS MAY THIRD - HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY ELDER SON, JONATHAN. GOOD TO TALK WITH YOU ON THE PHONE THIS MORNING.

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THIS FROM HUFF POST'S BRAD WHITFORD:

Poor Dick Cheney.

Free at last from The Bunker and ready, as always, to do whatever it takes to protect the United States of America, he's seen the vital information that proves that waterboarding works, but, doggone it, the country went and elected this softy-brainiac guy who just doesn't "get it" the way George Bush did, and doesn't want to release it.

Obama's such a wuss, he's making it sound like America doesn't have the guts to torture people anymore.

What's a patriot to do?

It would be illegal to leak classified intelligence himself. Dick Cheney has too much respect for the rule of law to do something like that.

But waterboarding works. American lives are at stake. And Dick Cheney has the all the information we need.

Open your ears America! Are you so jaded you can no longer hear the patriot's call? He's begging us. The time has come.

Waterboard Dick!!!


AMEN, AMEN, AMEN!!!!!!!!

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Yesterday I was at my local Wal-Mart buying a large bag of Purina dog chow for my loyal pet, Biscuit, the Wonder Dog and was in the checkout line when woman behind me asked if I had a dog.

What did she think I had, an elephant?

So since I'm retired and have little to do, on impulse I told her that no, I didn't have a dog, I was starting the Purina Diet again. I added that I probably shouldn't, because I ended up in the hospital last time, but that I'd lost 50 pounds before I awakened in an intensive care ward with tubes coming out of most of my orifices and IVs in both arms.

I told her that it was essentially a perfect diet and that the way that it works is to load your pants pockets with Purina nuggets and simply eat one or two every time you feel hungry. The food is nutritionally complete so it works well
and I was going to try it again. (I have to mention here that practically everyone in line was now enthralled with my story.)

Horrified, she asked if I ended up in intensive care because the dog food poisoned me. I told her no, I stepped off a curb to sniff an Irish Setter's behind and a car hit us both.

I thought the guy behind her was going to have a heart attack he was laughing so hard. Wal-Mart won't let me shop there anymore.

Better watch what you ask retired people. They have all the time in the world to think of crazy things to say.