Beech Tree News Network

My brain feels like it’s going to explode.  I think it’s because of the chaos of the election.  I couldn’t seem to get away from it.  I probably should have stopped watching the news and scrolling through fb before I did.  I didn’t, however, and my mental well-being suffered for it.

As a consequence, I have been barely able to string two sentences together into a coherent thought.  I’ve had several ideas for a column, but not one of them developed into anything substantial.

We had to make a quick trip to Alabama last week, and I listened to Christmas music on the Sirius XM stations on Garey’s truck radio.  It reminded me how my stepmom wouldn’t let us listen to “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus,” because she thought it was a song about adultery.  I thought about how we would get those great big peppermint sticks that you couldn’t eat all at once, so we wrapped them in foil for the next day and the next day and the day after that.  Today, I can’t stand sticky.  It didn’t bother me back then.  I also thought about how I don’t understand why people can’t write Christmas songs as good as “White Christmas,” “Silver Bells,” or “I’ll be home for Christmas.”  All the new songs seem to sound like 70’s rock ballads.

I started to write about how Garey just seems to stumble into bargains.  If he had a gazillion dollars, he would still bring home pot roast for seven dollars or a rack of ribs for ten.  One day he came home with a bag full of 75 cent sunglasses.  He has an excellent pair of shades that he keeps in his truck.  The ones in the bag would be his “every day” ones, he explained.

I don’t know what triggered the thought, but I remembered the day when Garey and I were putting glass bottles in a recycling bin in Warren County—this was when they still recycled glass—and we came upon something unexpected.  Garey started to put the colored glass bottles in the bin marked for them, when he noticed a backpack.  He pulled it out.  It was a really nice one.  He unzipped it, and lo and behold, it contained a portable meth lab.  We called the police, they took our statement, then confiscated the backpack and its contents.  It was a strange incident, but there’s really not much more to say about it.  I did snap a couple of pictures to show my friends whom I knew would be amused that, first of all, people like Garey and me stumbled upon a meth lab, and secondly, that we would know what we had stumbled upon.  What can I tell you, we watch TV.

I really wanted to write about the guy who trained Lassie, the TV dog, but I’m still ferreting out information.  I guess I could write about TV dogs and their trainers, or even dog mascots and their handlers.  I got to meet Reveille, the team mascot for Texas A&M when I worked at the college bookstore there.  He’s a Collie like Lassie, and he was such a friendly dog.  

I’ve been trying to go outside more this week.  Talking to God and enjoying nature always helps me, so maybe I will be able to focus on one subject long enough to write one column for next week.  Thanks for your understanding.