Railroad Spikes - EV Melotte

Is it not wonderful waking up to thunder?  Sometimes after a lot of sun a rainy day is nice . . . unless the plan was to mow a grass that is already too tall.

The forecast is looking pretty bleak for tomorrow for the Agora Art Fair (my superbowl).  I loath skipping art fairs because they  1. cost a lot of money  2. Collectors tend to follow me and buy stuff and 3. a lot of guilt,  but the problem is putting $3000 of art work in harms way due to weather not including a $3000 canopy and a LOT of physical labor setting up tearing down and literally being on my feet, being cheery and talking to people for 9 straight hours.

I'm not sure how many people realize how much work an art fair is - I SURE DIDN'T before I started doing them.

With 90% chance of thunderstorms along with wind  . . . . . it's not looking good.   I skipped Lake Mills last year. Told my friend Cassius Callender not to go (he was there already) and a massive storm hit ruining many of his works and creating a mud bath.   SO - I'm 1 for 1 on skipping so far.

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Golfed the Legends of Bergamont yesterday and was tearing up the course . . . . until the last two holes, 8 and 9.  We started on the tough back nine and I was cruising on the front (last) nine when I seemed to lose concentration taking a 7 and a 9 on the last two holes.  I was actually ALMOST going to break 90 for the first time in my life. Well, I had a chance at least.  Just a total break down.

There was a conversation about the decline of golf on Facebook and one comment was how horrible golf courses are for the environment with the amount of junk and water they spray on the course.

Look at it this way.  If Madison had never built The Bridges, what would that swamp land be doing now, strip malls?  Low income housing? Shop-Ko?   How about Monona,  More strip malls?  A Wal-Mart?  Golf courses keep away massive parking lots of concrete and big box stores and instead they have trees and grass and wild animals.  We saw a fox running across the course yesterday,  The water used goes back into the ground water and helps cities pay for things because someone has to buy the water.  Water ain't free.

So yea - golf courses do use a lot of pesticides but look at what would happen if not for a course.      

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22% of the methane that is created by the US is from cow farts.  Add another 8% from their poop!

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Trumps unfavorable rating is up to 65%, up from 58%.  This might be a problem for him.  Clinton is in the low 50s.

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Daily Fantasy Sports is the new online poker and it's legal. I'm seeing the same type of people playing as I did on online poker.  I've been doing some testing looking at the competition.  The $1 games have most of the action. The $2 games have people that are starting to understand how to play. Then the $5 games the competition is worse then the $1 games as you get the gamblers trying to make a quick killing.  Just like online poker where the higher table you play the dumber people are (up to a point).

I have yet to test the $5000 games  LOL

All you have to do is beat 50% and you win in the conservative games.

Fanduel

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I might have posted this one but I'm just going down the line.

Railroad Spikes  - EV Melotte

Pa came across a railroad spike in the hayfield. On checking with old-time residents he found that way back when that area had been logged a logging railroad had passed through there.

I immediately went out and walked over every foot of that field and found three more spikes. From then on I searched for railroad spikes the way some children search for Indian arrowheads. Pa brought me every one he found. Before we left Goodrich I had thirty-six of them. There is no accounting for the tastes of collectors.

At that time I had never seen a train. I'd seen pictures of them, and had listened enrapt to Pa's big bass voice singing, "Casey Jones" and "The Wabash Cannonball " and especially "John Henry was a steel-drivin' man--." "John Henry's" low notes made goose-bumps run up and down my spine. I don't suppose they really rattled the window-panes, but I always felt like they did.

The romance of the old railroad legends and railroad songs made the actual presence, right here on our land, of solid proof that at one time trains had passed right by fed my imagination. As thrills go, it would compare favorably with finding pterodactyl bones.

When we left Goodrich my spikes were left behind. I didn't miss them at all, but I sure missed searching for them.

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Don't forget - my moms first book is at our library SnapShots along the way: a lifetime of poetry
 - EV Melotte . . . now ranked  #1522 in Books > Textbooks > Humanities > Literature > American Literature

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Have a great MUCH cooler weekend.

OH - Get to Mullins before summer ends or you will regret it.