I am up early this morning because I hit the rack early.

It's funny how things change so fast.

As I was planning the lawn the postman showed up with a package for me. It was a ham antenna 177 feet long. I was expecting it Monday, but here it was.

I spent the rest of the afternoon with climbing trees to get the thing set up.

Nothing better for an old man than a day of climbing trees, poison ivy and a bee sting to make him feel young again.

Some of this routing of the antenna was done with the infamous slingshot which probably kept me from falling out of a tree that was too skinny for me to climb.

The slingshot is a basic 'wrist rocket' type with a Zebco fishing reel attached to it. I shoot a 1 ounce sinker over the obstacle and then attach a piece of 550 paracord to the monofiliment and reel it in. The wire is then attached to the paracord and pulled up and over the obstacle. It works pretty good.

I thought of it mmyself and made it and felt pretty smart about myself. At least for about three days until I saw one just like it for almost $100 in a catalog. Mine cost me about 2 bucks to make.

Neighbor Bob saw the slingshot and asked me how I figured that one out and I said to him, "When in doubt, revert back to childhood."

There's something to be said for that. Most people don't think about it too much, but we learned an awful lot of things as kids that can come in pretty handy as we grow older.

Sometimes I think that line about "When I became a man I put away my childish things' is stupidity. A smart man keeps childish things in the back of his head for use as an adult.

About fifteen years ago I was building a cart to carry my shooting stuff around and a neighbor that is now in pretty sad shape commented asked me if I didn't have better things to do than build a wagon like a little kid.

I told him that because I was a man that was smart enough to remember my childhood that I had more things to work with because of that and that because he didn't remember he was consigned to old age at an early time. He scowled and walked off and he is in the process of rotting away now. Figures. He's one of those guys with a stick up his butt. They always seem to rot away miserably when they get older.

We're a sum of all we have learned and can remember and I guess that my childhood did a pretty good job of making adulthood and upcoming old age a whole lot easier simply because I didn't put away all of my childish things.













my other blog is: http://officerpiccolo.blogspot.com/ http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/