Find Something You Like

We had a conference with Ryan's teacher's yesterday and part of what was talked about was getting him the classes he needs for his future profession. ummm... this kid is 14 and changes his mind weekly about what he wants to do when he gets out of school. Evidently he had been asked recently what he wanted to do and put down that he wants to learn auto body repair. Well, that was the first time I'd heard that one. A week ago he wanted to learn carpentry, and two weeks ago he was going to be a surgeon. I'm afraid he's like me, with no clear goal in sight at that age.

I have a nephew who, when he was nine or ten years old, used to sit and read through all my sports pages from the newspaper (I used to collect and keep all articles about our school's basketball team for a couple of years). He would just sit there reading for hours while the other kids were outside playing. His love of reading sports pages stuck with him and he became a sports journalist for a large mid-Ohio newspaper, then went on to become head of the sports department of that newspaper. He found something he liked at that young age stuck with it.

Ryan has always had a gift of taking whatever he likes and learning all about the subject. When he was four he could tell you the weather patterns, and what the forecast was for the next week, and the difference in the types of clouds. He was into weather then. We got him a couple of learning games, one with all the presidents and the other with the states and all their capitals. At age five he could tell you each state, the capital, what their state bird was... the same with the presidents. He knew all of them by number, who their vp was, their wives names, etc. When he started school, and was forced to integrate things he didn't really care for into his learning, he lost most of the knowledge learned previously and struggled to stay within the set parameters of the school lessons. Looking back, I wish we could have home schooled him and maybe structured his studies to get the most out of his potential. These last few years he's shown that he still has that same aptitude for learning things to the extreme... except now those things are Guitar Hero and half a dozen bloody Nintendo games. Oh well. He's probably not so different than most kids his age, I just wish he'd put a little more focus on other, more important things. If anyone knows how to get a fourteen year old to do that please let me know.

Your Opinion Please

I have a question for anyone who's ever watched tv. What show, in your opinion, has or had the best opening theme song? How about the best opening song from a movie?
I think for me, just off the top of my head, the tv show would have to be Dallas. Seems like it brought the enormity of all of Texas right into your living room each week. In the movie world I haven't decided what my favorite is. I'd be interested in hearing what other people think, so please leave me a comment.
This was on my mind today. It was a boring day.

When I Don't Have a Camera

The most fantastic, unbelievable things keep happening to me, but as luck would have it I never have a camera to record the event. Since I go out in the country quite a bit I get to see many wonderful and sometimes strange works of nature, but all I have are stories that family and friends just pass off as another tall tale. For example, there was the time I saw a creature that looked like a human with bat wings gnawing on a deer carcass. It stared at me for a minute or so (long enough to get a really great shot had I brought a camera with me) then took to the air and flew off. No one believed me. And once I was in a field when a gigantic swarm of hornets rose from the weeds. I thought I was a goner, then something strange happened. In what I can only determine to be an attempt at communication the swarm rearranged itself to form images; a tree, a building, Elvis, and a bridge with a car crossing it. After about five minutes they were gone. Just crazy old Tim and one of his stories, they all said. And believe it or not I saw Sasquatch once when I was walking through the woods. It was building some sort of structure out of branches, leaves and feces that might have been some kind of nest to give birth since this looked like a pregnant creature. I mean, the hooters on that babe were... well, I could tell it was female, and I almost got a picture that time! I had my wife's camera phone and I wasn't sure how to use it so I accidentally sent three text messages, called someone named Jose and connected to the internet before I finally figured out how to take a picture with it. By the time I snapped a shot the Sasquatch had lumbered up the hill and all I got was its ass as it bent to pick something up. Everyone swore it was just a picture of Uncle Ralph mooning the camera. Uncle Ralph said it was him mooning the camera. Then, just two days ago I was going through McDonald's drive through and who do you think was just in front of me? Donald Trump! He ordered a McChicken and fries and a Coke from the dollar menu, then threw a royal fit when he found out there was tax on the pop and drove off without getting anything. No pictures, and no one believed me. What else is new.

Memories of Mom

My mother has been gone for twenty six years and I still miss her and think of her when Mother's Day comes around. She was a very special lady who was warm, smart, hard working and had a lot of common sense. She'd go out of her way to make people feel at ease, something rare back when racism and class seperations were part of everyday life more so than they are now. She was always baking pies and cookies and taking them to neighbors. Back then people just decided to go visiting and we'd all pack into the station wagon and head out. Dad was always working on something so most of the time it was just mom and us kids. We might drop in on two or three neighbors through the course of the afternoon, and we would play with their kids while the grownups talked. Or our neighbors would come to visit us, which was always exciting because we could hear a car coming down our long lane and we kids would all crowd at the window to see who it was. Of course mom always had a pie or cookies ready for whoever stopped by... I've lived in my house here in town for twenty one years and barely talk to my neighbors, let alone visit them. Times and people have sure changed.
Having nine children kept mom busy, and to this day I have no idea how she did everything. There was laundry almost everyday, meals to fix, cows to milk, gardens to plant and tend... and she still found time to watch her soaps everyday. I'll always remember Sundays when the family almost always got together and mom was the hub of the entire family on those days. I guess we never realized how much so until she passed away. Sundays at our house weren't the same after that.
There are so many wonderful memories I have of my mother, but the main thing I remember is the way I always felt around her... Loved

Wedding Pictures

Nathan, Sue and Jonathan

Jonathan and grandpa

Nathan waits at the altar

Ringbearer Jonathan

Making it official

Nathan and Stacy- husband and wife

Wedding party

Sue and Tim at the end of a long day