Damn Building with Eddie Harris

 Eddie and me.. what year, heck if I know.

Not to be offensive and just for clarification, we are not cursing a building here.  In fact Eddie and I were wondering up and down the creek (small river with running water) and we decided to build a dam.  Now The Damn Building was not Eddie and me but was what David Harris called our efforts.  How do you spell ooppppsssss?  I guess I just told on David but we were probably around 12 years old and needing something to do and we were structural engineers at an early age.  Actually long before Dave got involved (Dave is short for David so I did not make a mistake) Eddie and I proceeded to gather up every rock we could find and some logs and proceeded to DAM up the creek.  Eureka, it worked.  

Vea and me at her back yard.  (right behind us is where the garden use to be)

The only problem is Dave had some cows down stream from our dam and he did not like that we cut off the running water supply.  Now the way I figured it, that as soon as the water filled up our newly created lake (that might be a stretch since it was about 12 feet wide and about one to two foot tall) there would be running water again.  Doesn't that make sense?  Well, Dave did not think so and when he figured it out he came and broke the dam and that was a DAMN shame as it was a structural success.  

Not to get too mature audience rated we will stop there but it seemed that every time Eddie and I were trying to have a little creative fun, Dave or Bob (Dave's brother) got involved.  Luckily Vea (their mom) had a better sense of humor and generally was supportive of our efforts.  Except the one time Eddie and I took all the mints and peanuts that were for the Home Demonstration Club party at Vea's house.  For those who don't remember, the Home Demonstration Club is where all the farm women would get together to talk about their husbands or their wonderful children, like Eddie and me.  Anyway, as you may know from previous stories, Eddie and I went to the garden and planted the mints and salted peanuts so we could have more later.  One time we planted a bunch of our toy trucks in the garden so we could grow more.  We were not popular for that either.   Oh well, shrug shrug.

So what do you learn in the Osage?

• If you don't plant good seed you won't grow anything
• If you don't try you will miss all the HOPE in life, NEVER GIVE UP
• Be an optimist, there might be a truck in there somewhere
• Give a kid a break as long as they are trying to do something good even if it lacks a little bit of knowledge, after all, wisdom comes from experience

Thanks for listening,

gary@thepioneerman.com

credit cards-- what happened to good old cash? 08 27 2020

Just FYI, Mom is the lady on the far right.  This pic is of her classmates reunion. 

I remember the first time my mom, Opal Olson, used a credit card.  In fact I remember the first time she needed one and we did not have one.  We were coming home from Winfield, KS after a doctor appointment (Dr. Cecil Snyder) and when we were about to Dexter, KS we realized we needed gas.  I should mention that Dexter is where they made candy canes and the O'Henry Bar was invented by the man who made the candy canes.  If you remember that hard candy we got at Christmas each year that had a Christmas tree or other design inside, that was from the same place.  Anyway, mom did not have much money with her and we had a farm tank at home where gas was cheaper as we bought in bulk.  Gas at the time was 11 cents a gallon in Dexter due to a gas war (who even knows what a gas war is?).  Mom wanted 25 cents worth of gas put in the pickup.  She gave me a quarter and told me to pump the gas, actually back then they pumped the gas for you.  I was embarrassed and did not want to do that, but I was not allowed a choice.  

Now for the credit card.  Mom and Dad and I went to Weatherford, OK to visit the college where I ultimately did attend and on the way back we stopped by Binger, OK (home of Johnny Bench, the great Cincinnati Reds catcher)  to visit some friends (my girlfriend at the time and her dad).  They filled up their gas tank and mom popped out her credit card which was declined.  She had it for a few years but had never used it.  With a phone call it went through but it was another of those embarrassing moments.  I don't know why I got embarrassed so easily but I did.  Can you imagine?  It was 1971 and it was the first time my mother had used a credit card?  

😊😊When was the last time you used cash?  Yesterday I tried to use cash and they told me they could not take it!  Are you kidding me?  Credit cards add about 2 to 3% additional expense for every item.  Do you ever wonder how we got in this situation?  Actually I know a little of how it happened.  Visa and Mastercard and probably all the other card issuing companies make the merchants/businesses sign agreements that they can not mark-up or charge extra for the added expense, therefore, they had to add it to the cost of the goods.  Strangely enough the government entities, like the tag agencies, do not follow those rules.  They have an up-charge for using a credit card.

Well, this is just another one of those moments in life we learn from.  I wonder why it would be legal for ALL credit card companies to limit the ability to charge extra, huummmmm?  If the two major card companies did the same thing, would you think they are monopolizing commerce?  Just thinking out loud, please forgive me.

So what do you learn in the Osage?

• Gas wars have nothing to do with Iran, Iraq, or Saudi Arabia.
• A little embarrassment can make a kid grow up just a little.
• Adversity is good for people if you learn from it

Thaks for listening,

Gary 

gary@thepioneerman.com

Hornets and wasp and mission impossible

I would say that sometimes a country boy can find something to do no matter the situation.  I use to love going out to the barns and finding wasp nests and the bigger the better.  Generally those nests were at the highest part of the barn and that was probably over 20 feet in the air.  I would say that some of those nests had over 100 wasps.  So what does a country boy do, he figures a way to disturb those nests and kill a few wasp.  The objective is to kill them before you get stung and sometimes things just go wrong.  

Now there are a number of ways of going about this mission.  For one, you can take a sprayer (the old fashion metal cans which are heavy) and get it pumped up as much as possible and fill it with diesel fuel (we did not have all these insecticides and wasp traps).  The good thing about this approach is you typically can run away more easily and the probability of getting stung is much less.  Now that I think about it, I guess I was pretty good at statistics at an early age, hummm?  Did you get it?  The second approach, is to climb up on the hay to get closer to the nest and still carrying the sprayer of diesel fuel.  This was pretty accurate and the good thing is you could be much more secure in getting most of the wasp on the first shot.  The bad side is you had to jump and run which gave them the advantage.  The third approach which I do not recommend and for sure don't try it when the folks are around, is take your 22 rifle and shoot them.  The good side is that you can be a long way away but the bad side is you are most likely going to put a hole in the tin roof.  Now I am not saying I did the third approach but I am just saying..... ? 

My results:  I killed a million wasp in my youth and did not mind getting stung a few times.  It was worth the excitement.

Yesterday, 8/24/2020 I was standing in my backyard visiting with Archie who was repairing my garage door springs or at least he had completed the repairs and was standing near some hidden wasp nest.  They came from behind him and he said one of those words you are not supposed to say, especially as a kid, when he got stung.  He took off and the swarm came after me!  What did I do?  I was innocent but I got hammered.  Mostly the stings just hurt but one was on my cheek bone (not my bottom cheek but my face cheek for you thoughtless folks).  It started swelling up and it burned and so did the other bites but the one on the face worried me.  I ran inside and took some good old Benadryl to stop the reaction.  

Well, what do you learn in the Osage?

• Statistics long before the classroom
• what heebeegees mean, go figure
• How to create fun
•  Everything has consequences, some good and some bad, but I am responsible for my actions not someone else

Well, thanks for listening,

Gary Olson

gary@thepioneerman.com