I have written several times about going to the local hangout and drinking coffee.  Some of the more narrow minded people call this gossiping but I see it as being almost tribal, a throw back to the days of being around a camp fire or the hearth in a cave.  In the old days when communications were word of mouth, we sat around the fire and told stories.  Stories about the best place to find game for hunting.  Stories that told of lessons learned the hard way, how we know not  to do something because it will in fact leave a scar.  Stories that passed the wisdom from generation to generation.  Just this morning we had a discussion about Gregor Mendels law of dominance, of how parent organisms passed dominant traits on to their offspring.  All things considered Marsha is lucky that we don’t sing and dance around something that we have set on fire.  I’m sure her insurance premiums would go up.

 It would be hard to find anything wrong with the weather that we have been having lately.  We have had the rain that we need and also a lot of sunshine.  The other night it was cold enough to make you use your electric blankets and like an idiot I was standing out in the yard listening to owls hooting.  It seemed like they were all over town, talking about whatever it is that owls talk about.  In Greek mythology the owl sat on the shoulder of Athena giving her the ability to see on her blind side, enabling her to see the whole truth.  In the Bible the owl was seen as being a sign of wisdom.  It was viewed in many cultures as being good luck but in others it was bad, even to the point of being a harbinger of death.  All  I know was that standing there on that cold clear night hearing all those birds hooting back and forth, it was a beautiful sound.

 My eldest brother, Scott who could accurately be described as being old school, was telling me Sunday that in his toolbox at the shop, there is a laptop computer.  This machine is not even part of the diagnostic equipment that is part of being a modern auto mechanic.  This particular computer is for ordering parts that he needs.  The companies don’t send out the old fashioned books made of paper the way they used to do.

 In the last twenty years, every job that I have had, involved using a computer.  From the warehouse to selling hunting and fishing permits.  Even paying my sales tax on  the plant business includes those infernal machines, as my good friend Jon Harris calls them.

 I remember when I was in high school, my counselor suggested that I go to college and get into computers, that was the coming thing.  I told him that  was the silliest thing that I had ever heard.  According to the seventeen year old Dennis, no one is going to want to sit at a computer all day. 

Sitting here looking out the window on a cool, overcast and dreary Sunday after- noon. Johnny Cash singing about the ring fire and I’m thinking that I need to stop looking out the win- dow and get down to business. The poor woman is telling the world that she is falling to pieces and now she is crazy. Take a drink of scalding hot coffee and yelp like the proverbial scalded dog and now I start writing.

This morning at JW’s Travel Stop and Christian Science reading room here in Ryan, we were sitting around drinking coffee and talking about this and that when cheese became the center of conversation. Someone mentioned commod- ity cheese and then we talked about all the other stuff that they gave out each month. If you ever got commodities, then you know what I am talk- ing about, there was peanut butter, a canned meat product that to me was unidentifiable, powdered eggs and powdered milk, various beans and peas. the cheese, peanut butter, beans and peas were all good but I never developed a love for the milk and eggs of the powdered variety. The former County Com- missioner in the group told of having a refrig- erated trailer to send to pickup a load of gro- ceries and one time the cheese was so rank that they called in the health official and it was promptly condemned and was taken out to the old Ryan dump to be buried because it was so high smelling that no one could stand to be around the stuff.

Here is a good one, Jim Reeves singing “He’ll have to go”, had to stop and listen. That son of a gun could re- ally sing.

Congratulations go out to the Ryan High School Cowgirls bas- ketball team for their runner up finish in the Wilson Eagle Classic tournament and also to Samantha Good for being named to the all- tournament team. Well done ladies.

The Ryan Ag Boosters had their first annual jack pot show this last weekend. By all accounts it was a huge success. Young people from all over Oklahoma and north Texas came to Jefferson County with their pigs, lambs, goats and cattle. David Sorrell judged the goats and sheep Friday night and Blaine Red took over with the pigs and cattle on Saturday. The Ryan Ag Booster Jack Pot Show may well be- come a new tradition.

Ran into an old friend at lunch Sunday. He informed me that he reads the paper every week and he enjoys seeing me in the paper because #1, it’s not in the sheriffs report and #2, he said that he likes a little BS as much as the next man. Shout out to Kenneth Blevins. On the subject of people reading my column, last Saturday

I had to answer ques- tions about something that I had written with regards to her grand- daughter. I explained to her that what was said was a joke, turns out she doesn’t think that I am funny.