Spring has sprung — in February
Tuesday, Valentine’s Day 2023, the Old Men of the Mountain met at the Chuck Wagon Diner in Princetown. At this breakfast, it is not hard to imagine what the initial comments of the day were. It was, of course, the weather and how unusual it has been so far this year.
The OMOTM reported some of the events that should not be happening this early.
One OF reported that last week the red-winged blackbirds showed up; another reported the sap is running; yet another said his early flowers are showing their green beginnings above ground; and one OF added that his apple trees are budding, and he thinks he is seeing buds on his lilacs.
Wow! It is only the middle of February.
This scribe said we are going to pay for all this, say in April.
One OF added that many are saying it is global warming; however, the OF said, while this may be true, he does not think so, because this is not the warmest winter ever. We have had warmer. We have also had summers with no summer.
This OF thinks it is all just part of a pattern and that next year it may be one of the coldest and we will be wishing for this year all over again. Well, this is a good case of only time will tell.
Thoughts on balloons up in the air
The balloons flying over parts of the northern hemisphere and the Air Force using them for target practice was a concern to the OMOTM, especially the big one with the apparent solar bar on the bottom to keep whatever instruments that were housed inside the balloon charged up.
The other smaller, metallic-appearing balloons could be nothing more than college-kid experiments. One OF said that the smaller ones interfering with standard air traffic came down in areas where people were not able to just drive over and pick up the pieces.
Another OF said that, with all these objects, it is going to be tough to get at the debris to check and see what this is all about.
One OMOTM said that he thinks some private individual should find the large balloon pieces in the ocean first and then turn them over to the authorities.
This OF thinks that, if the Navy or Coast Guard latches onto it, we will have another Roswell incident and there will be one great big government cover-up and the OFs will never know what it is, or was, and it will probably be marked classified and wind up in some president’s garage.
One OF suggested these balloons may be from outer space, to which another OF said he doesn’t think the extraterrestrials would be messing around with balloons. This OF thinks that extraterrestrials consider us and our planet still in the Neanderthal age and, if they were responsible for the balloons, they would have done it just for kicks and giggles to watch what kind of effort we would put forth just to pop them.
Hey! Another time will tell.
“Don’t get old”
One OF reported, if some of his family did not have bad luck, they would have no luck at all.
The OF related a story that one of his siblings is ill and requires hospital care and so was just taken there. In the meantime, her daughter was on vacation in Aruba, and had just returned home from her trip.
She arrived at the house at 2 a.m. which is in the morning, and darn early for most of us. The OF said she put her suitcase down and then proceeded to trip over it and break her leg, so she too was taken to the hospital, and the OF himself had a doctor’s appointment at 11:30 Tuesday morning.
So, for this OF, the day begins with having breakfast with OFs, then charging off to the doctor, then proceeding to the hospital to check and see how the two girls are doing. The OF suggested that we should all stay young.
“Don’t get old,” the OF said. “It ain’t worth it.”
One big scam
As most know, the Super Bowl was this weekend. Some OFs watched it, some didn’t, and some wanted to but couldn’t because it was blocked out. These OFs were furious.
Through no fault of their own (and the OFs say they pay good money for the service), they could not get the game. The OFs felt this was rotten. One OF said we should go back to satellite antennas in the backyard.
Another OF claimed this whole TV thing is one big scam. We pay a ton a month to get TV and there is nothing tangible for it. If we pay for an orange, we get an orange. For cable or dish, we pay and pay — and get nothing but rotten news, and the same shows over and over. These OFs were just ranting but in a way they are right.
Those Old Men of the Mountain who were greeted by the sunrise as the daylight hours grow longer shook the fog from their brains so they could make it to the Chuck Wagon Diner, and they were: John Dab, Herb Bahrmann, Lou Schenck, Jack Norray, Dave Hodgetts, Bob Donnelly, Elwood Vanderbilt, Rev. Jay Francis, Miner Stevens, Harold Guest, Wally Guest, Doug Marshall, Roland Tozer, John Muller, Jake Lederman, Russ Pokorny, Jake Herzog, Mark Traver, Joe Rack, Robie Osterman, George Washburn, Bill Lichliter, Paul Guiton, Dick Dexter, and me.