Birthday Cake and lots of Love

The best sister I could every have, Debbie.

Now I know you are like me in that if someone has a birthday you want to celebrate it.  I am lucky to have one of those great sisters who always is looking our for you.  She did even when I was a kid.  Debbie was always willing to do everything for me especially the most important thing you can do for a young man, COOK.  She made the best cookies, cakes, marinated brisket, and any thing else you can think of.  I would also point out that Jon Tanny Olsen and Eddy Harris seemed to always smell the cookies and showed up just in time.  In fact Mom and Debbie seemed to always like to make things for them.  The fact is both of them seemed so appreciative that it encouraged the cooking even more.

So when it was Debbie's birthday one year Eddy Harris and I decided to make a cake for her.  Quit frankly I am not sure Eddy was any help at all but we did make a mess in the kitchen.  Let me give you a little advice and hint at the end result.   Too much flower or too much of anything can mess up a cake.  What I remember is we added flour when it seemed to thin and when it was too thick we added milk and then we figured we should balance that out with some portion of the other things that were supposed to be put in to that cake.  Did I mention we made it from SCRATCH?  Also I should mention that it was chocolate and of course if you like a little chocolate a lot of chocolate is better.  In fact if you like eggs, one or two extra should make it better.

Well when all was said and done we iced that cake and presented it to Debbie and the family with a rip roaring round of Happy Birthday.  She was very pleased!

Until she tried to cut it things looked great.  I don't remember ever even getting a slice out of it.  I don't even think the icing came off it was so hard.  It was pretty.  

After some laughs Mom took the cake out and gave it to our dog.  The dog laid on the ground trying to chew on the thing and finally gave up.  Have you ever seen a shoe or something a dog has chewed on?  this cake did seem to get a few more rounded edges over time, a long time.   Last I remember it rolled around the back yard for a few weeks and then became a door stop and then later just disappeared.

What do you learn in the Osage?

• More of a good thing is not always best
• What looks good on the outside might not be so good on the inside
• If it smells like chocolate and looks like chocolate does not mean it tastes like chocolate if you cannot chew it
• Sometimes it is best to hire a professional 

Thanks for your time,

gary@thepioneerman.com

ADD and ADDHD and adults with handicapps

I have been talking to Jon Tanny Olsen which is long for Jon Tanny and most adults call him Jon.  He at least has a street or road named after him.  Now he married the pretty little Pam Stamper and she is prettier today.  Well that is not the point just editorial.  

Jon Tanny Olsen and my Mom

We got to talking about when we grew up we both had ADD or ADDHD (high definition ADD, that is a joke so don't get your underwear in a wad).  Now if you are prone to calculating what that means it means at least 40% of our class in Grainola had the problem.  However I would contend that Hugh Allen Jones belonged in the ADD club which would mean we had 60%.  Now Eddie Harris was not in our class but he would carry that title in my opinion.   Well we had a few good laughs about our active minds. 

What I loved about the Grainola and Shidler teachers is they knew how to keep us in line and focused as much as possible.  In fact I would say that those teachers loved us and cared for us more than we ever knew or appreciated, at least until later in life when we slowed down to just think about it for a minute. 

Just as a side note if you include the Shidler crowd the list gets much larger and I for sure don’t want to leave out Johnny Payne (most teachers called him Pain in the Neck) later to be known as “The One Armed Bandit”.

Yes, I am crossing over the line in opinions that are based on common sense rather than medical diagnosis but teachers respected the students and students respected the teachers and ADD labels did not exist that I recalled.  What I am suggesting is that someone with a very active mind just needs challenged and the outcome will ultimately be based on the decisions each of us make along the way.  The teachers never failed us.  We may have failed the teachers expectations.  

Now the next point we discussed was there were literally NO handicapped children in our class.  In fact we could not remember anyone in the entire school.  The reason this is so amazing to Jon and me is there are so many in the community today.  Why?

Preston and Leann Harris Theurer

Well that brings me to tell you about a blessing to my family in that we have a child with Down Syndrome named Preston.  I will probably mention him a thousand times over the years but he brings a dimension to life that is greater than you can imagine. 

He keeps things simple like his love for music.  He loves all kinds and can remember every word and when the song comes on the radio he can immediately tell you who is singing.  He remembers everyone’s name.  Preston thinks everyone is his friend and treats them special.  Just yesterday Shouna, my wife, and I were talking about how these adults with special needs or mental challenges love Jesus.  They are not messed up,  sophisticated and have deep spiritual insights.  They don’t argue over differences from one church to the other.  They don’t care if you are Catholic, Presbyterian, Pentecostal, Baptist, or even Jewish.  In fact one of the adults we know who sings about Jesus is Jewish.   These adults don’t judge you by your looks, your religion, how pretty you are on the inside or the outside, how you talk, or your skin color.  They just don’t judge.

So what do you learn from the Osage?

·        All folks are valuable and bring spice to life

·        ADD and ADDHD are letters looking for someone with an active mind and don’t necessarily needs drugs but maybe a little respect for their teacher

·        What we think is normal may not be normal and in fact the abnormal might be normal and better

·        Us normal folks might be the ones who are handicapped with prejudices, opinions, expectations, and more

Thanks for your time,

gary@thepioneerman.com

Common Sense of the Osage

I have a habit of saying "I am just a country boy" and most folks respond, "grab your hip pocket".  The other thing I like to say is, "I may be a little slow let's look for some common sense in this".

I was working on my taxes and everyone knows that in life there are only two requirements:

• you are gonna die
• you are gonna pay taxes

And one more thing you might not have heard and that is what does "THE IRS" do for you?

You should notice that "THE IRS" owns everything because if you put The and IRS together you get "THEIRS"  and that is the real meaning of the IRS.

Anyway, back to my point, I was looking at the IRS rules about itemized deductions and non-itemized deductions and they have a table for "standard deductions".   Basically every person married, single, divorced, widowed or head of household gets a basic $5,800 per individual deduction.  Now I may be slow but if everyone "who pays income tax" gets the $5,800 deduction then why have it "at all".  it is a waste of time and money to have to educate everyone and then probably pay an accountant to figure all this mess out.  By the way did I mention there are more tables for more deductions?  Why wouldn't we just make the tax paying folks pay based off of a rate table without the deductions?  Does that make sense?  One last point so you won't think I am crazy but they say it is to make it fair for those who do not itemize but my point is just lower the tax rates and get rid of all the exceptions and tables.  If you would like it I can make this seem a lot more complex and discuss 2% floor of AGI, etc. but let's keep our "common sense".

Now I know that if you are a CPA or Tax Lawyer this is probably offensive but let's get real and stop this stuff.  

So what did I learn in the Osage?

• A little common sense for politicians would not hurt
• The IRS who interprets the laws could use some common sense
• If we all used some common sense and a little forgiveness we would not need lawyers
• Don't offend a lawyer you might need one, WHOOOPPPPPPPS!

Thanks for listening,

gary@thepioneerman.com

  

I am NEVER going to say "the good old days"

I don't know about you but I never thought I would say, "the good old days" because Mom and Dad and everyone that was 50 or older when we were young said that.  We use to make fun of how they "walked to and from school barefoot up hill both ways in the snow".

Now I want to tell you I really do like the good old days!  Today I was visiting with a friend and he was getting ready to give a speech at our "client appreciation luncheon and dinner" and he had gone back and read a speech he gave to the clients in 1994 and basically here is what it said:

• today we are experiencing earth quakes all over the world
• the weather patterns are changing
• the stock market is in a mess
• people are scared and uncertain about their financial future
• the government is spending too much
• and on and on

Well you figured it out by now, things never change, they simply have a new wrapper on them.  Just like "the good old days"  has a new wrapper on it but it is me saying what Mom and Dad always said.

The new wrapper is we drove cars with no air conditioner and only a radio that had AM and FM and when eight track tapes came in we added a black box screwed underneath the dash board and wired it ourselves.  We never locked our cars and we always had a gun in case we wanted to go hunting.  We never worried about  someone shooting someone and we left our houses unlocked.  We ate three meals a day and two of them were with everyone in the family sitting down at the same time.  The third meal was at school and we called it dinner not lunch.

You get the idea.  Those were really great times and I am looking forward to my next high school reunion.  Hopefully David Howell will be there handing out life savers.

What do you learn in the Osage?

• there are cycles to life and they are never as bad when you look back
• those hard times were the best of times
• forget the bad and remember the good
• the older you get the more you realize everyone is just as smart and just as good looking  and we are all alike but everyone just has their own abilities, strengths and weaknesses

God bless America

and

Thanks for your time,

gary@thepioneerman.com