surfing blog sites

I have had some time on my hands the last few days, and have been surfing blog sites. I have probably visited 100 sites in the past week or so. I have noticed several things regarding these sites. 1) There are an inordinate number of teenaged girls with cutsey sites but nothing to say, 2) there are a lot of foreign sites that make me wish that I could read a few different languages. There are usually photos in these foreign sites and the people tend to be thirtyish and are involved in doing the same things that people in this country enjoy such as picnicing with friends and family etc; It makes me realize how similar we all are on this planet. It is just to bad that each country has to have politicians keeping us at odds with one another!!! 3) there are very few people ( in fact none that I've found) my age blogging. That's really to bad because people in their fifties and sixties usually have something to say, and I would enjoy communicating with them.
Ol' Curmudgeon

A Sunday in Deltaville

I am here at the marina today where I am a dockmaster. All is pretty quiet here on Sundays, and especially quiet today. The wind is blowing 15 t0 20 knots from the southwest and is expected to blow hard all day. In addition to that the temperature is in the fifties. Ughhh!!! It should be much better than that this time of the year.
This is the best office that I have ever had. I look out on Jackson creek which leads quickly down a very narrow channel, to the Chesapeake Bay. It is interesting to watch boaters unfamiliar to Jackson creek try to navigate this channel. The water is deep enough, but the captains fail to align themselves properly with the day markers, and periodically run aground. The rule is ," Go slow if you don't know." Gwynns Island forms the backdrop to this channel and is always beautiful as it fades in and out of the fog or sunshine.. The Loons swim in the creek during the winter, and are still here. I hear them calling more and more lately. Perhaps they are gathering the courage to head to colder climes. I watched a Loon the other day try to figure out how to swallow a Hog Choker, which is a small fish in the Flounder family. He worked on the fish for several minutes. He would beat it on the water and then shake it violently turning it around and around. He finally softened it enough to get it down. It bulged in his throat as it slowly went down the pipe.
The Ospreys are hard at work also. They are sitting on eggs which seem to take a long time to hatch, much longer than other birds.
Each year at this time I watch the trees leaf out, and the flowers bloom. I watch the birds and animals start life over, and I am amazed that as bad as we treat this earth it always has the audacity to renew itself once again. How many more years will it happen before we pay the ultimate price for the mistreatment?
The Ol' Curmudgeon

Hey Nineteen!

Billy Joel was right when he introduced his song Hey Nineteen. I can't talk to someone who is in that age bracket. I was surfing through some blogs looking for someone with something interesting to say when I ran across several blogs written by high school and college aged kids. I never lived in the world that they talk about. They all talk differently when they talk to us older folk directly, but when I evesdrop on their blogs and see how their minds work, and listen to what's important to them I realize that it is impossible for me to understand where they are coming from. Probably every generation can say the same thing about the young ones.
On a different note, I was reading this months edition of the National Geographic when I became fascinated by the article on poisons. I was especially intriqued by the Borgia family so I went into Google and typed," Borgia." WOW! what a family. Most people have heard of Lucrezia Borgia, but I also found her father pretty interesting. He was a pope and he certainly wasn't pious!!! He killed many people while amassing a great fortune. Poison was the family's trademark. Catholicsim just isn't as much fun as it was back in his day.

The Platypus Poacher

I am a poet. I write serious as well as humorous stuff. I also attend an open mic. session at the Bay School of the Arts which is held on the first Sunday of every month in Mathews , Va. A fellow writer has heard several of my humorous poems and approached me last month about writing a poem for her. "I have a great idea!" she said. "I listened to a speaker at a writers conference talk about the most interesting character that he had ever met. The man said that he was a Platypus Poacher, and I thought that you could do something silly with that terminology." I came home with my brain buzzing. I thought that I would take the approach of someone who is using a poaching process to cook the Platypus as opposed to someone who is illegally hunting them, and this is what came of it.

The Platypus Poacher

While traveling across Australia
the land of Koala and Roo
I met a man in the outback
stirring a big pot of stew.

It smelled like the gates of Hades
had opened to swallow us up.
He asked me to stay for awhile.
He said that later we'd sup.

I didn't want to offend him
but the thought of eating such stuff
made my stomach feel queasy!
The smell was sure bad enough.

I asked him what he was cooking
that made such an unpleasant smell.
What food could possibly be so strange
as to smell like the wide gates of hell?

"Platypus!" was his unblinking answer'
"I'm a platypus poacher by trade!
They say that I poach the best platypus
this side of old Adelaide!"

"I admit that it smells so horrendous,
but the taste is such a delight
that I guard it all through the day time.
My dingo will guard it tonight."

"With what do you poach it?" I asked him
"What goes into that foul smelling brew?
It smells like a pair of dirty gym socks
and a worn out old tennis shoe!"

"Sit down and I'll tell you." He told me.
The recipes handed down from my ma.
She made it quite often when I was a child,
and one day it killed poor ol' pa!"

"You take the spines from three cactus
and soak them in Kangaroo blood.
You boil this for some hours
then toss in a handful of mud."

" The next ingredient's a secret,
that really flavors the meat.
It's comprised of scalded Kangaroo milk,
and a jar of pickled pigs feet."

"The platypus that's the next thing
and then an old oaken plank.
You mix it all up together.
That's what you smelled so that stank!"

"I will poach it 'til early next Thursday.
This will surely soften the beak.
All and all it should poach in the sauce
for nearly a day and a week."

"Now comes the part that you wait for;
And me you'll remember to thank.
You throw the whole mess down the sewer,
and dine on the old oaken plank!"

Tom Neiger