Down The Hall On Your Left

A farewell to John…

JOHN’S KRAFT John Andrew Kraft, 75, wrote the last page of his incredible autobiography on Sunday, August 1, 2021. He was born to James Walsh Kraft and Blanche Rodger Kraft on July 3, 1946, in Cleveland, Ohio and raised in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania. John is survived by his wife, the Rev. Dawn Curlee Carlson, his son, Alex Carlson, nieces, nephews, and an abundance of friends, including his…

Ooh, I Can Hear Myself Thinking

THIS IS ONE OF MY FAVORITE TIMES of the year at the Chapel of St. Arbucks here in Terre Haute (That’s French for, “Why did I buy more onion dip?”). At this time every year we have a Scholastic Solstice of a sort. For about ten days this place is quiet. The Public Schools have resumed classes while the colleges and universities don’t kick into gear for another week or so. As a result, the usually…

I like to laugh. It can lift my spirits. It can help me tolerate the stupidity and insanity I see around me. It’s fun and it just feels good. Given the universal turmoil of the last year or so I have been desperate to find new things to make me laugh more and deeper. I have found it. Actually, my wife, the lovely and equal fan of a good guffaw, Dawn, found it and got me belly laughing and knee…

Steps Must be Taken

FOR AS LONG AS I CAN REMEMBER my doctors have been on my case, saying that I need to “Get more exercise.” (more…)

I’m Alive

I’m Alive. And I don’t say that lightly. Recently there have been questions. Today is the second day of June, 2021. On May 23rd – just a little over a week ago I was one sick Geezer. I had been fighting what I had taken to be the remnants of a cold and the congestion had been coming and going for a week or two. On that Sunday, the 23rd, it was getting worse. I was having more and more…

Coffee Should Not Be Difficult

I like coffee. No, that’s not true. I love coffee. I think coffee is one of God’s greatest gifts. Coffee starts my day. It makes the rest of my day possible and an experience filled with joy. Most mornings during the week I start my day by putting on my shoes and heading off to a local coffee house where I meet up with a collection of other retired dudes – “The Usual suspects.” We discuss our…

I’ll Be Calling You…Ooo…Ooo…Ooo…Ooo.

SOME THINGS ARE INEVITABLE. Some things are expensive. Some things are inevitably expensive. That was a big part of my day yesterday. I went cellphone shopping. I didn’t want to. I had to. I have to admit that this shopping excursion was overdue…several years overdue. My phone was, literally, held together with Scotch Tape. About six months ago it had started to disassemble itself. I never knew…

The Cookie Monster Is My Hero

Sometimes there are just too many choices. Every day I am faced with the tasks of making choices as soon as my eyes pop open. Get up or not get up? Matching socks or just grab any old two? It goes on like that until I have made the choices that will make m,e presentable to the world. Once I get downstairs I am faced with an unending Q&A. It goes on all day. It seems like I can’t go anywhere or do…

THE LAST FEW MONTHS have been rather busy. Since last October my wife, the lovely and excellent Navigator, Dawn, and I have driven from Indiana to south Texas and back three times. At roughly 1250 miles each way that adds up to… (Musical Interlude while doing the math)…7500 miles. Most of it on various Interstate Highways, but we also had to deal with some State and local roads. We saw Speed…

It Was What We All Needed

In this hustle-bustle world where we all find ourselves these days we don’t often get the opportunity to lift someone’s spirits and “Make their day.” I recently had that opportunity. We were down in Texas for most of January and February – right in the middle of the winter storms that wreaked havoc in most of the state. Where we were in the Corpus Christi area did not escape the troubles. We were…

I love my Microwave Oven. It does what I ask of it. It makes me feel well fed and it warms my innards. There aren’t many things in this world that can make that claim. I use my Microwave Oven to heat up my favorite frozen burritos. I use it to make my favorite instant Oatmeal. What more can I ask? My Microwave is a Thousand Watt device and I know just how long I need to set the timer thingy to…

As I have mentioned before my wife, the lovely and talented, Dawn, and I have been watching a lot of cooking shows recently and we have had some really tasty dishes cross our table as a result. I think part of these new and delicious meals is an attempt to expand my diet beyond frozen Mexican food and Manwich. Inadvertently, I think that I may have killed that golden (and crispy) culinary…

One Man’s Collection Is Another Man’s Trash

Lately I have been seeing a lot of things online about people and their collections of this that and the other thing. It seems that if it exists there is someone who collects it. I was never much of a collector. I left all of that to my older brother. Jimmy was just a little guy when someone gave him some stamps and an album to stick them in. That gift lit the fuse in him and he became a serious…

Does This Answer Your Question?

NOT LONG AGO SOMEONE ASKED ME A QUESTION. They wanted to know where I got all of my ideas for my Blog. After more than 1500 postings since 2014 I had to think about it myself. Finally I came up with an answer. Question: Where do I get all of my ideas? Answer: I dunno. Most days I just sit down at my computer and start typing. That doesn’t require much concentration so while my fingers hit the…

Pop Goes The Wall

  I know that this will hardly come as a shock to you, but… THERE’S A LOT OF STRANGE STUFF IN THIS WORLD. One small example of this has been all over my Facebook lately. There have been daily, sometimes more than daily, postings by someone I don’t know myself who has been cluttering up the world with updates on the medical woes of her pet pig. If this had been about her child or some other human…

Mipissssissippi, Misippiss, Mippiississ,…Texas

SOME DAYS THINGS WORK OUT FINE…and then other days – well… Mipissssissippi, Misippiss, Mippiississ… I do believe that we have become “Snow Bunnies” of a sort. Consider that we have made three – count ’em, Three trips since October from our home in Terre Haute down to south Texas. It is only a two and a half hour flight, but we have done these trips earthbound. In these days of Nasty Viruses we…