POTPOURRI

Not a bowl of stinky dead flowers but a miscellaneous gathering of items.

First and foremost: A thank you to Carol Dresser who came to visit me at the Mill Street Festival in Plymouth, WI. yesterday. (I tried to insert a picture of Carol and I here but this software aint up to the game.)

Carol was the very first person to send me fan mail. (It was just a note telling me she liked a story I had written for Dying In A Winter Wonderland. I prefer to call it fan mail.) She pointed out to me yesterday, "If someone goes through the effort to do something well, the least one can do is acknowledge that fact."
A lesson learned from a lady who has more class in her little finger than I will ever have in my lifetime.
So in an effort to make up for this lapse on my part, Thank You All From Amadeus to Mrs. Zimdars (a grade school teacher I was gifted with). Thank you all from the bottom of my heart.

The State of Confusion

I realize that there is a down side to any place you choose to call home. Kansas has its whirly-winds, Arizona the moon like landscape and incredible heat, and I don't want to start in on ocean bound California, but I have picked two doozies.
I'm saving Florida for another time. I can't be bothered with little old ladies in huge Caddies without turn signals or brakes that don't function at red lights right now. I'm in the process of studying a phenomenon that may be peculiar to Wisconsin alone.
I should let you know that for most months out of the year I live here, and believe it to be one of the loveliest spots on the globe with the qualifying, but!
For all of the fair weather months, when the major highways are traveled by tourist, nearly every intersection is occupied by a large tent or permanent building packed full of explosives.
Don't get me wrong, I love fireworks. I have on more than one occasion trimmed my hair and eyebrows with gun powder. I loved lighting up the sky, particularly with rockets I had judiciously set aside for new years eve. There is a particular attraction by me of a burst of color reflected off new fallen snow.
That was until they issued the citation. Naive as I can be, I thoroughly miss-understood the concept of it being against the law, and so costly, to actually use a product that was so readily accessible.
When one considers the overall impact of this system it is quite ingenious. Our government representatives have devised a way to collect sales tax on a tantalizing product and also fill the state coffers by fining those of us stupid enough to fall into their insidious trap and light the stuff.
Of course I don't believe that makes our elected officials particularly smart, just very cunning.