Busy Here, There, And Everywhere

It was sure busy around our place yesterday, with a lot going on. After a light breakfast of sliced mangoes and an English muffin, I spent the next hour or so answering emails while Terry was filling several bottles of distilled water for use in my CPAP machine. Since it’s sometimes hard to find distilled water, a while back she bought a distiller and now she makes it at home. She’s always taking care of me.

When I was done with the e-mail, I spent another hour or two doing research on the Allied occupation of Germany at the end of World War II and what conditions were like for the German people and the Americans stationed there to keep the peace and help get the new German government up and running. This plays a role in my upcoming Tinder Street book, Baby Boom.

Later on, Kenny and his daughter Britni showed up and he went back to reloading ammunition in the garage. By the time he was done, he had cranked out somewhere around 300 rounds of 9mm ammo. Britni got bored watching him so she came into the house to ask if she could read the first book in my Tinder Street series. Hey, anytime a young person wants to read, I’m all for it! Even if it’s not one of my books.

Later on, Terry made a delicious dinner of pork chops with wild rice, along with a side of zucchini, peppers, and onions for the three of them. Kenny may not have had the chance to experience her cooking before we moved here, but he’s certainly getting plenty of it now, and loving all of it.

Friday night Terry had put several trays of stuff in her freeze dryer, including cherry tomatoes, pineapple, bananas, and kale. After dinner last night it was time to take it out of the machine, then start bagging it up for future use. Well except for the stuff that Kenny and I scarfed down before she even had it out of the trays.

Today Kenny and I are going to throw a bunch of guns in the truck and go burn up some of that ammo he’s been reloading, and I’ll try out the new guns I recently acquired. That should be a lot of fun.

Be sure to enter our latest Free Drawing. This week’s prize is a hardcover copy of Ballad Of The Green Beret by Marc Leeson. Young people of my generation are no strangers to Army Staff Sergeant Barry Sadler’s The Ballad of the Green Berets, honoring the Special Forces soldiers he served with in Vietnam. It was the Billboard Top 100 single in 1966, outperforming songs by the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. But the handsome soldier’s public persona hid a darker reality in which alcohol, women, failed relationships, and violence reigned. In Tennessee, Sadler was charged with killing a man who had been involved with his ex-girlfriend. After being acquitted on grounds of self-defense, he left the country and became a gunrunner in Central America, was involved with various guerrilla groups, and consumed booze like some people would water. In an attack that still is shrouded in mystery, in 1988 he was shot in the head and severely injured while in Guatemala and died a year later. Leeson’s book pulls no punches telling the story of this American hero’s rise to fame and how it all came crashing down around him.

To enter, click on this Free Drawing link or the tab at the top of this page and enter your name (first and last) in the comments section at the bottom of that page (not this one). Only one entry per person per drawing please, and you must enter with your real name. To prevent spam or multiple entries, the names of cartoon or movie characters are not allowed. The winner will be drawn Sunday evening. Note: Due to the high shipping cost of printed books and Amazon restrictions on e-books to foreign countries, only entries with US addresses and e-mail addresses are allowed.

And finally, here’s a chuckle to start your day from the collection of funny signs we see in our travels and that our readers share with us.

Thought For The Day – Being a trophy husband is exhausting.