At 5AM All Time Is Warped

Ever since I retired I no longer have to get up early to get to the office and solve the problems of the world. I can sleep in and start my day whenever I darn well please.

Well, that’s the theory anyway.

The reality is considerably different. I know that I’m retired. My coffee maker knows that I’m retired. The world knows that I’m retired.

My body does not know I’m retired. Or at least it is pretending to not know.

No matter what time I crawl into bed my internal alarm clock pries open my eyes at about 5 AM. Try as I might to roll over and sleep until later it just doesn’t work. Once my eyes pop open at 5 AM I am up. 

There is not a lot for me to do at 5 AM. No stores are open – not even Starbucks. The sun isn’t even up yet. So, I end up watching TV while I’m getting dressed. And there is not much of a selection at that hour even with 200 channels. That means that while I am struggling to figure out how socks work I am tuning into “The Cowboy Channel.”

At 5 AM I am treated to ancient reruns of “The Roy Rogers Show – Starring Roy Rogers, King of the Cowboys!”  It’s his show so he gets top billing. Second billing goes to his horse, Trigger. After the horse comes Roy’s wife “Dale Evans – Queen of the West.” She may be the Queen, but Roy’s horse gets better placement in the credits. She must not have had a very good agent that she lost out to a horse for all those years.

Poor Dale lost out on another thing too. Roy (Real name: Leonard) had his horse named “Trigger” and a dog called “Bullet” – all rough and tough. Real macho for the “King of the Cowboys” even though dressed like a member of the Village People. Dale on the other hand, even though she is a Queen, has to ride around on a horse named “Buttermilk.”

“Buttermilk?” What kind of a name is that for a horse? I’ll bet that if she had had a dog it would have been called “Cottage Cheese” or something equally non-threatening.

That whole show was a collection of weird stuff and anachronisms. On one hand it was your classic western shoot-em-up with posses and outlaws. Their town (Mineral City) had wooden sidewalks and hitching posts. Everyone wore gunbelts and rode horses – except for one guy who drove around town in a Post-World War Two Jeep. I never could figure out that bit of business. In the confusing Old West setting of Roy Rogers and Dale Evans where did their “Comedic Sidekick”, Pat Brady,  get his gasoline? His Jeep always seemed to be possessed by evil automotive demons, driving off on its own. 

Was it a Cowboy show or was it a Sci-Fi  Western? Nothing made sense to me. I’ve been watching that show for years, since I was a kid, and I always found it to be one of the most confusing things on television. Even the Three Stooges made more sense to me. I’m hoping that there is a lost episode that might show up one morning where we might get to see Buttermilk kick Trigger’s Palomino butt.

L to R – Dale Evans, Trigger, Roy Rogers

 

Holy Batcave, Krafty!

THINGS ARE BEGINNING TO GET SCARY AROUND HERE. Indiana State University has started playing football again, St. Arbucks is playing Dean Martin ballads at 6:30 AM, and now Terre Haute (That’s French for “Is that really ‘Amore?”) is being beset by sinkholes.

Yesterday I am at home minding my own business watching “Battlebots” on the “Science Channel” (Go figure that one.) when a Bulletin from the local TV station begins to crawl across the bottom of the screen like a drunk on Sunday morning.

“Mane And Tail” Is Not An Intersection

 

I’LL BE THE FIRST TO ADMIT IT – I am a person who is easily amused. I laugh at “Knock, Knock” jokes. “Animal House” is one of my favorite movies. I can be heard laughing out loud as I walk up and down the aisles in one of those huge Mega-Stores like Wal-Mart and Meijer’s. I find them very entertaining.

Last week my wife, the lovely and much more commercially sophisticated, Dawn, and I were pushing our shopping cart through our nearby Meijer store in search of…all sorts of stuff. Dawn is shopping while I am browsing. She is looking for a good price on Pork Chops while I am wondering how many of those “Happy 100^th Birthday!” cards they sell.

Je Ne Suis Pas Un Cheval

I SCARED A WOMAN THIS MORNING. I didn’t mean to. It was accidental and unintentional. If I’d meant to do it you’d see it on the 7 O’clock News. I was just trying to be polite.

It was early – too early, and not all of my societal filters were in place. You know, my Uber-Macho, Harley riding (if I had a Harley), Twinkle in my eye, self. I hadn’t had my coffee and I was little more than Organic Matter wearing shoes.

I had ordered my coffee from the Barista and I was lurching back to my seat in the corner when I was faced with a woman who was coming in the other direction. She had a carrier tray full of coffee.

“This town ain’t big enough for the both of us.”

Do You Believe In Miracles?

A SATURDAY MORNING IN THE RAIN. While you are reading this on a Tuesday I wrote it a couple of weeks ago. And it’s raining again. We could seriously use a miracle.

The past two weeks have been very wet here along the Banks of the Wabash – and those banks are a lot closer than they were before all of this rain. We have had over 7” of rain in the last week or so. Everyone and everything are waterlogged. All I can say in a positive sense is – At least it’s not snow.

If I Had A Pony

SOME WINDOWS ARE BETTER THAN OTHERS. There are some windows where I can’t wait to close the drapes so I don’t have to see what’s on the other side of the glass.

I’ve stayed in places where the view outside the window was a brick wall or another window looking back at me. Those are the windows that get the drapes closed immediately.

Chariots Of Fire-Brewed

THIS AFTERNOON I WAS ON MY WAY to the office and trying to come up with an idea for this blog posting.

I was stopped at the red light, so I had some time to look around, and on the other side of the intersection, by the Mobil gas station/Mini-Mart, something caught my eye.