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A couple of days before Thanksgiving, my friend Kay purchased a nice turkey. She brought it home, unpacked it and slipped it into the refrigerator to defrost.

Some back story is important at this point. I had recently read a funny story about one family’s a turkey dinner.

“Last Thanksgiving, my mom decided to play a trick on my sister. To get her out of the house, she convinced her that we needed more half-and-half for the coffee.

While my sister was out, my mom took the turkey out of the oven, removing the stuffing, stuffed a Cornish hen, then put it inside the turkey, packing stuffing around it. She then put the turkey back in the oven.

When everything was ready, my sister took the turkey out of the oven and began removing the stuffing. When she felt something, she reached in pulled out the Cornish hen.

Pretending to be shocked, my mother exclaimed, ‘Patti, you’ve cooked a pregnant turkey!’

My sister began to cry and was inconsolable. It took us half an hour to convince her that turkeys lay eggs.”

The same evening Kay brought home the turkey, I went to the store a bought a hen. I then sneaked it into the larger bird.

Early Thanksgiving morning, Kay was up before Mary and I putting together that evenings feast. She already had a pumpkin pie in the oven and was putting the finishing touches on the stuffing when I wandered out and into the kitchen to fetch a cup of coffee.

Kay pulled the turkey from the fridge and began stuffing it. I sat there sipping my coffee, trying not to look puzzled as she scooped handful after handful into the bird’s cavity.

“You hungry?” Kay asked.

I nodded that I was.

Smiling, Kay responded, “Great. I’ve got a wonderful surprise for you.”

She then pulled the cooked Cornish game hen from the oven. I knew at that moment, the jig was up.

“Yeah,” she laughed, “I read the same story.”

In the early part of this century, the media was against President George Bush, saying he wasn’t elected, rather he was ‘selected.’ Prior to that, when he picked Dick Cheney to be his running mate, they went on the attack claiming Bush picked Cheney only so he would have ‘gravitas,’ or some weight behind him.

Recently I’ve noticed the same media is using a new term: optics. I’m guessing its supposed to be a more adroit way of saying, ‘how things look.’

It’s actually a bull-shit term, especially when used to describe what the Obama Administration is doing publicly. Of all the administrations I’ve lived through, this one cares the least about how it looks to Americans than any other.

For years I’ve claimed that the media in general is much like a school of sharks, feeding on whatever ‘bloody’ morsel it can find. And when that morsel is gone, they start cannibalizing each others’ words.

I’m guilty of this too, yet when I use the progressives’ words against them, I’m accused of plagiarism.

Following President Obama’s tenth address to the nation, where he tried to outline his plan to deal with ISIS, the media coined a new label for him: reluctant warrior. These two words were used at least 20 times to describe him the morning following Obama’s speech.

It’s unfortunate that the media has no original thought of its own. Meanwhile, the sharks continue to circle.

In 1976, the Del Norte County Unified School District was looking to change the location alternative education sites and creating a continuation high school. The preferred spot was the old Dodge garage on Northcrest Drive.

The garage building was leased and included the relocation of the agriculture program that has recently lost its “home.” The owner of the building, Ardella Miller lowered the rent from her original asking price of $1,200 per month to $700.

An additional $71 a month was earmarked for insurance to cover the continuation and agriculture programs.

The district also hired Max Riley to head the continuation high school program. He had served in the psychology department of the school district, working with Roy Krause and Barbara Clausen who gave positive reports about his abilities.

He was placed in charge of selecting five teachers who would press a reality-based curriculum, complete with basic education plus the ability to stay current with what the students need to succeed in the world. Riley planned to model behavior he wanted to instill in the students and wanted to do everything possible to keep them in school.

The expanded continuation program expected to have 50 students the first year and would have as its goal the support and input of the parents, instilling the basics needed for work, taking care of truancy problems, and “teaching them to fish instead of giving them a fish.”

Slowly but surely the national Football League is helping to eliminate itself from existence. It’s not the murderers, abusers or gangsta-types that are doing this either.

Rather it’s the NFL’s managements listening to outside activist organization like the ‘National Organization of Women.’ They, among others, charge that the NFL is rife with domestic abusers and that the league is covering up the problem.

A quick check of statistics on this crime show that domestic abuse is no more prevalent in the NFL than in all of society. So NOW really has no footing when it comes to its accusation.

The politically correct pressure is so great on the league that before every game there seems to be some dumb-ass commentator spouting off about the leagues’ evil. I’m certain that no-one tunes into a televised game to hear about the nation’s social ills.

Couple this with the leagues capitulation to the PC crowds attack on ‘hard hits,’ during the game, causing concussions, that left untreated can lead to dementia, et. al., and you have a good foundation to rid the country of the sport. By the way, there is no scientific proof that concussions lead to any brain dysfunction or any other disability it’s blamed for.

Also, if you look at the growth of the Latino and Hispanic populations in the U.S. and how the media hyped the 2014 World Soccer Cup, the NFL’s days are numbered. And sadly, the league is assisting by pound nails into its own coffin.

It was sometime during the Clinton Administration when I concluded the helicopter jus’ might be to my generation what the gasoline powered automobile was to our grandparents. Both were around when we were born and both have become vital to our society within our lifetimes as the technology advances.

At the time of writing that, the Internet was jus’ beginning to take hold around the world. In fact, not only have computers improved, so has the Internet.

When I finally invested myself in the understanding of this burgeoning technology, there was but two ‘search engines,’ available: CompuServe and America Online. And honestly, until Yahoo, Google and Bing — neither were much in the way very good at ‘searching the net,’ rather they were more for opening ‘chat rooms’ and such.

Also jus’ starting to find its place in society was the cellphone. Though I had seen one back in the early 80s and even owned a so-called ‘Brick,’ I didn’t have an operable one until 1995.

Today, cellphones are not only smaller than the palm of one’s hand, they are prolific. Even many homeless people seem to have cellphones as well.

There are some days I’m left to wonder — do we own this technology, or does this technology own civilization? It’ hard to tell.

With all this said, I still look upon the helicopter with fascination as I do the Model-T. Both are agents of change for their times.

It is with equal fascination that I view both the Internet and cellphone as great equalizer within the bounds of society’s structure. They are both so revolutionary that it is hard to see life without either.

Lastly, as technology finds its way into the weave of everyday life, I cannot even begin to dream of what our great-grandchildren’s lives will be like or what great invention waits their future. For all I know –it could be sticks, stones and the simple foot-fall.

Someplace in the Bible it reads that a ‘father should not vex his son.’ Unfortunately I believe I’ve done jus’ that.

For the last couple of years I’ve done my level best to get Kyle out from under his mother’s control. When I say ‘control’ I in fact mean her insistence he go to church and surrender his paychecks because she says too.

While attending church is not a bad thing, it is wrong to force an adult to go when they don’t want to go. As for handing over his paychecks for her use — the money goes towards the household and I don’t think I need to expound on how this is unfair.

During one of my conversations about his being under his mother’s thumb, I told him how I acted out of ‘tough love’ and ‘disappeared’ from my families lives for over a year. I explained he could do the same.

The following day I knew he was to return to his mothers’ home and because I miss him when he’s gone and I was feeling selfish, asked if he could stay another night. The request went sideways on me.

“Call your mom and tell her you’re not coming home,” I stated, “instead tell her you’re going to spend another night with me.”

An obviously exasperated Kyle responded, “I’m sick of you trying to change my mind all the time!”

There was a long pause between us — before I finally broke the silence, “Well, I’m sick of you being a mama’s boy, with no say and no life of your own!”

I wish I had chosen my words a bit more wisely, but sometimes love mixed with frustration causes me to say things in the most hurtful way.

The ironic bit of this tale is that Kyle is practicing, ‘tough love,’ jus’ as I explained it to him. I didn’t expect him to use it on me.

Say what you will about Bush 43, but you gotta give him props on this one. Here’s part of what he said in a speech given on July 12th, 2007:

“I know some in Washington would like us to start leaving Iraq now. To begin withdrawing before our commanders tell us we are ready would be dangerous for Iraq, for the region, and for the United States. It would mean surrendering the future of Iraq to al Qaeda. It would mean that we’d be risking mass killings on a horrific scale. It would mean we’d allow the terrorists to establish a safe haven in Iraq to replace the one they lost in Afghanistan. It would mean increasing the probability that American troops would have to return at some later date to confront an enemy that is even more dangerous.”

President Barack Obama did withdraw troops before the commanders on the ground said they were ready to do so. In fact commanders recommended leaving 20,000 troops in Iraq — but Obama left none.

After our forces left, Al Qaeda’s successor, ISIS, the Islāmic State, came into power and has quickly grown in strength. Now – with ‘limited airpower’ and 495 U.S. advisors (but no ‘boots on the ground’) – we are returning to the same battlefields under our latest war-president, Barack Obama.

New DNA evidence in the 1976 murder of a University of Nevada, Reno student points to another and exonerates a woman serving life in prison without the possibility of parole. Cathy Woods is being granted a new trial, set for July 13th in the murder of Michelle Mitchell, and is being released from prison pending the outcome of a new trial.

The DNA matches Rodney Halbower according to the Washoe County Forensics Science Division. He’s already in prison on several convictions that include use of a deadly weapon, rape and escape.

The match was discovered this year after Halbower was transferred from Nevada to Oregon for crimes there. He’s also a person of interest in the 1976 Gypsy Hill murders because of a DNA match made by the San Mateo County Crime Lab.

Woods was found guilty twice, using only her recanted confession and circumstantial evidence, and not even the victim’s family believes she’s the one who slashed Mitchell’s throat, leaving her to die.  It seems the only reason a third trial’s been ordered, is so the Washoe County District Attorney’s Office can finally get it ‘right.’

It’s said that “justice is blind,” but does that doesn’t mean the DA’s office has to be dumb, wasting taxpayer’s money, when it can simply ask the court to vacate the verdict, setting Woods permanently free?

ABC News reports: “A respiratory illness sweeping through parts of the U.S. has landed in Colorado, sickening hundreds of children, according to local doctors. The disease hasn’t been officially identified but (they) suspect a rare respiratory virus called Human Enterovirus 68.”

While authorities plan to investigate where the illness originated from, I think they ought to start by looking at the 60-thousand-plus children that allowed in to the U.S. illegally. Too bad the Obama administration will not release this information to the public or confirm or deny the possibility.

And I know that jus’ by recommending such an action and because political correctness dictates — I’ll be called a racist.

It’s a ‘rookie mistake’ on my part, shopping for shoes with a woman that isn’t my wife. I should have known better, but I did it anyway.

My friend Kay claimed to need new walking-shoes before going on a cruise later this year. So I thought, “How hard can that be?”

If I had to rate it from one to ten, with ten being the hardest possible, I’d say it was a 21. We looked through several different stores for nearly five-hours. But I must admit that our last stop was a classic.

After finding a shoe she absolutely ‘loved,’ Kay took nearly half-an-hour to find the right size. She explained that she needed to make sure the pair she purchased fit in a specific way.

By specific, she meant not too tight, not too loose, not too much heel, no uncomfortable pinching, etc. I know that had she been able to see my face, she would have seen a blank stare in my eyes.

I know it isn’t nice to check out like that – but sometimes self-defense comes before friendship.

The sales woman, a pregnant young lady of 19, ran back and forth pulling shoes from their stock. She climbed up and down the ladder in the back room searching for each shoe-size Kay requested.

At the end, and with 10 shoe boxes open and shoes of every size between 6 and 8, Kay simply looked at the woman and stated as fact, “I don’t like them.”

I nearly walked out of the store so I could go hide.

That’s when Kay said, “I’ll come back Sunday.”

Triggered, I responded, finishing her statement, “…and make this nice woman run up and down a ladder and back and forth again.”

Hearing my smart-assed remark, the young woman looked at me, “Oh she can come back Sunday, but I won’t be here – I have the day-off for my baby shower.”

“You’re pregnant?” Kay exclaimed, adding, “I didn’t notice!”

Once outside and at the car, Kay looked at me and asked, “I should I go back and buy a pair.”

“I thought you didn’t like them?” I responded.

“I don’t,” she answered, “but I feel bad for making her work so hard.”

Fortunately for the pregnant woman and my sanity, I was able to talk Kay out of returning to purchase a pair of shoes out of pity. But then on our way home Kay declared, “We need to find me a new purse.”

I nearly jumped from her car as we sped along northbound 395.