THROWBACK THURSDAY

45 years ago today I married the love of my life.

Amazingly we're still together.

While this is us, this is not our wedding picture.

It was posed in a photo studio for a Christmas card.

This is also not our wedding picture.

Judy handmade the costumes for a Halloween masquerade party at her daughter's house.

This was a fine day during our European tour in 1985.

Monte Carlo, Monaco, at the marina.

The only day in a month that we found a menu with escargot on a restaurant menu.

We gorged.

And this is one of my favorite pictures of the two of us.

On the enclosed patio of our home in Guadalajara, Mexico, around the time of our 20th anniversary.

We've been around a bit and the signs of age are showing.

But we're still creaking along.

Together.

Happy 45th anniversary, J.G.

MEDITATION

This is a mono, or monk that we acquired when we lived in Mexico.

He/she has been with us for several decades and now stands watch in our back yard.

The monk began as a dusty green color but seems to have turned gray as it has aged.

Coupled with that came this even odder picture in my email a few minutes ago.

So it goes.

TUESDAY TRAVELS

Back in the day when we first lived in Phoenix, we discovered Lost Dutchman State Park in Apache Junction.

Located just off the Apache Trail, the park is adjacent to the Superstition Mountains and is named after the perhaps mythical Lost Dutchman Gold Mine.

The mysterious mine supposedly was discovered and its location kept secret by a German immigrant named Jacob Waltz in the 19th century.

Many people have searched for generations in the Superstitions without ever finding the mine.

Some have lost their lives in the search, adding to the mystique.

But we just used the park for weekend picnics for many years.

Not the Lost Dutchman. It was me in front of the Superstitions range.

And SWMBO or as one our friends once labeled her The Storied and Fabled Judy.

My dad spent winters for several years escaping the North Dakota weather by living in Mesa and we took him to the park a couple of times.

One Easter many years ago, Judy and I hiked up into the foothills of the mountains and picnicked with a spectacular view.

This shot was taken partway back down the "trail" as she stopped to harvest some wildflowers.

If you ever get to Arizona you could do yourself a favor by visiting the Lost Dutchman park, about 40 miles east of Phoenix.

And I'd be happy to share if you somehow discover that hidden gold mine.

SENSATIONAL SUNDAY

What could be better than a warm Sunday morning on the patio with a couple of pieces of re-heated pizza for brunch?

Well, let me tell you.

Late Sunday afternoon, with the temperature hovering in the low 70's, SWMBO fired up the grill for the first time this season.

She had found a recipe for Spatchcocked Chicken in a magazine and was determined to fix it.

I told her I had mentioned Spatchcocked Chicken to her several times over the years with no interest until she found a recipe on her own.

She replied "Oh, I've known about fixing chicken that way for years only I never heard it called Spatchcocked. I just smashed that sucker flat!"

So, with apologies for my idiotic camera setting on the chicken picture, here's our meal.

In case you don't know that's a temperature probe in the chicken.

To accompany . . .

A mix of vegetables also grilled.

And my oven-baked sweet potato spears with a citrus sour cream sauce.

Oh and there was this too.

A nice bottle of white.

By the time we got through all of that, y'know what?

I had forgotten all about my breakfast pizza.

THE DREADED ZOMBIE

SWMBO and I visited a Tiki bar when we last lived in Phoenix.

It was my suggestion.

I remember fondly the many happy meals (and drinks) we used to have at the original Trader Vic's restaurant in Scottsdale.

It was loaded with kitsch, fake food of the islands and powerful drinks.

But we young(er) romantics loved it.

So when I read about a bar and restaurant called Hula's Modern Tiki in Central Phoenix, I had to check it out.

We stopped in one day just for a peek and a drink.

The drinks are shown on the banner at the top of this page.

Mine is a Pink Bikini Martini, which featured watermelon juice.

SWMBO said she'd try a Zombie, a drink she hadn't tasted for decades.

Probably for a good reason.

Esquire Magazine's recipe is on the web.

It has light, dark and golden rum mixed with lime, pineapple and papaya juice and a teaspoon of superfine sugar.

Then to top it off there's a "float" of 151-proof rum!

And there's a toothpick with two cherries surrounding a cube of pineapple atop the drink.

Don the Beachcomber supposedly invented the drink back in the 1930's for some guy with a horrendous hangover.

It is said that no self-respecting bartender will allow a patron more than two of these killer cocktails.

SWMBO said hers was good and we left after one to go home for a nap.

All of this has absolutely nothing to do with this next song but I always enjoyed it back in the mid-20th Century.

THE PRESAGE

I can't say I wasn't warned.

It snowed here much of Wednesday afternoon.

I was stunned.

It was the last day of March and I thought we had escaped the traditional early Spring snowstorm.

I should have known better.

A short while before I noticed the snow in the air I had taken note of an extremely cloudy looking sky to the north.

I thought it was just a low-hanging cloud.

Mainly fog.

Perhaps a spit or two of rain.

Even though it looked ominous.

A short time later I noticed the snowfall.

It was warm enough that even though it snowed, on and off, most of the afternoon none of it stuck to the ground.

SWMBO escaped the weather wrath as she was visiting a friend in Sun City, a suburb of Phoenix, on that day and was enjoying 70 degree weather.

She returned the next day and brought warming temperatures with her.

The forecast says it will be 82 F/28 C here NEXT Wednesday.

"If you don't like the weather, just wait an hour. It will change."

                        --an old expression, used everywhere

FRIDAY FUNNIES

How could anything be any more perfect?

It is Friday and time once again for the Friday Funnies.

AND

It's April 1st!

April Fool's Day!

Could anything be more perfect?

Well, one thing, maybe

All right.

With that little gift for the dog lovers among you, we'll say good-bye for this week.

Here's hoping you don't get fooled too bad today, that you have an incredibly satisfying weekend and that you always remember to keep laughing.

Here, kitty kitty.

(Ohhhhh, this is gonna hurt . . .)

THROWBACK THURSDAY

Before I discovered the pleasure of a beard.

Auditioning for the role of the Sundance Kid in some movie with Paul Newman.

(Just kidding.)

It was a selfie taken in a bathroom mirror in Indianapolis back in the very early 1970's.

LATE NEWS FROM WEATHER CENTRAL

Turn your sound up.

This is Arizona, folks.

This crap ain't supposed to happen!

DRIFTING, THROUGH THE SANDS OF TIME

I was meandering around on this blog yesterday and checked to see how long I'd been writing it.

I was stunned to see it has been over 8 years!

My first post was on March 2nd, 2008 and it concerned my starting it up again.

This was my third attempt at blogging.

This is the 2,454th post.

That averages out to more than 290 posts every year!

What, one wonders, can one find to say for that much of one's life.

Nothing important, I'd guess.

Nothing earth-shaking.

Nor newsworthy.

Some time in the past I began copping out, sort of, on three days of each week.

Tuesday is devoted to Tuesday Travels.

Thursday is Throwback Thursday.

Friday is the Friday Funnies.

But with persistence, the number of page views has risen.

While, on a good day, I may get around a dozen comments, I know there are many more "lurkers" who check the blog from time to time.

In the 8+ years I've been posting here, I have accumulated more than 280,000 pageviews.

What do they find so interesting, I wonder.

I have contemplated stopping, like so many other once-upon-a-time bloggers.

Like I did twice before.

Still I keep plugging along, looking for something to fill these pages.

Many times, in desperation, I turn to music, and that's what I shall do today by taking the Wayback Machine to 1945 and Spike Jones and the City Slickers.

See you tomorrow.

TUESDAY TRAVELS

Deep into the Great Sonoran Desert, the adventurous archaeologist discovers a mysterious petroglyph, which he is working night and day to decipher.

Actually it was only a day trip to Painted Rock Dam State Park, about 90 miles from Phoenix and I was only posing with a pictograph.

But Indiana Jones had nothing on me.

He didn't even have one of those snappy Marlboro cigarettes fishing hats!

THE CRISPY EGG

It's something I had read about awhile back.

I told SWMBO about it.

She turned up her nose.

Basically, it's an egg cooked in oil in a very hot pan until the bottom is brown and crispy, the white is set and the yolk is still liquid.

It's delicious!

You can read about it here in a posting by Deb Perelman on her blog The Smitten Kitchen.

She's a New York lady who cooks in a tiny kitchen in one of those typical apartments in the Big Apple.

But she keeps coming up with amazing recipes.

Be sure you click on the link in her article for the short video showing a New York chef, Frank Prisinzano, doing a crispy egg.

I showered my egg with some coarse Sea Salt and a dash of Mrs. Dash, SWMBO's go-to spice seasoning.

But you can use whatever herbs or spices you prefer and serve the egg over anything from a simple plate to toast to spaghetti.

It's a good 'un.  Try it.

And let me know what you think.

PEEP-PEEP-PEEP

"What do you suppose got him?"

"I heard it was diabetes."

"Yeah, apparently the sugar just ate away at him."

CAN'T TAKE HER ANYWHERE

TRANSITIONS

Life is change.

It's always changing.

So I've made some changes.

I've removed a couple of blogs from my blogroll.

Their authors haven't posted in a year or so and I think they reached the boredom point.

But I have it on good authority that they both read this blog, at least once in awhile.

So, if y'all decide to come back from the brink, let me know and I'll happily put you back on the list.

Actually y'know, I have no idea how many of my Gentle Readers actually go to any of the blogs I recommend.

I know some of them do because I see their comments.

But just so you don't feel deprived, I have ADDED a couple of blogs to the sidebar.

The first is written by an old buddy who hides under the name Jager.

Actually I think that may be the name of one of his long-lost dogs.

But he's a talented guy in many areas, including radio broadcasting and management, teenage driver instruction, cars, boating, writing and women. (He has a beautiful wife.)

You can find his sometimes profane screeds under the heading of You've Got a Lot to Learn over there on the right side of this page.

The other newcomer is a lovely lady that I've had a crush on for decades.

Problem is she's married to a friend of mine, who blogs from the Central California coast which he might refer to as The Little Mediterranean.

She is an extremely talented artist who had a long career as an arts educator in Hoosierland.

She now paints and blogs (occasionally) under the heading of Lana E Cochrun.

Check her out.

They are a couple of fine folk who join our happy band of warriors and thieves.

Enjoy.

FRIDAY FUNNIES

Here's hoping you're having a Good Friday, Gentle Readers.

Actually any Friday is a good friday for me because I get to sift through . . . the FRIDAY FUNNIES!

First off this week a lesson in how to be a symphony conductor.

O.K. With that one for the ladies . . . or the liberated men . . . or just the bachelors who don't have a Chinese laundry in the neighborhood, we'll call a halt to this parade of mirth and merriment.

I hope you all have a totally terrific weekend.

Happy Easter to those who celebrate it.

To all of you, keep those cards, letters and cartoons coming and always remember: let a smile be your umbrella.

Here kitty, kitty.

(oops, caught in the act)

THROWBACK THURSDAY

Back in the early 1970's, I was newly married to SWMBO and living in Indianapolis, Indiana.

One Sunday afternoon in March, about this time of month because I remember it was close to Easter, the phone rang.

It was my friend, Tom, calling from the radio station where we both worked.

He said there was a report of a tornado on the east side of Indy where we lived and asked me to look out the window and see if I could see it.

I did and I could.

As Tom put me on the air and I began describing what I was seeing, the twister seemed to be getting larger and darker and, more seriously, closer!

After a few minutes of live broadcasting I told Tom it looked like the tornado was headed in our direction and I was getting out of there.

We piled a few belongings and whatever family was home at the time into the car and drove away.

The tornado tore into a different apartment project about a mile from where we lived before it dissipated.

It didn't come any closer to us but it did a lot of damage where it did come down.

We eventually returned home, glad to be alive and safe.

Tornadoes are scary and while I had seen some small twisters as a kid in North Dakota this was the closest I had been to a big one in Tornado Alley.

Here's a picture of Judy and me outside the apartment house we were living in at the time.

You'll just have to forgive me for my clothing.

It was the Disco Era, you know.

INDY MEMORIES

Once upon a time, a long time ago, I worked for several years for a radio station in Indianapolis, Indiana.

My friend and colleague, Tom (he of the Light Breezes blog) was a young whippersnapper fresh out of college in those days.

Tom is at the upper left here, I'm at the lower right.

It's a newspaper picture taken when we each won awards for our coverage of schools.

The general manager of the radio station in those days was a fellow named Jim Hilliard.

Snappy dresser, eh?

Anyway there was a mini-reunion of a handful of those guys over at Tom's house in Cambria, California recently.

Jim is in the center of this group with Tom next to him in the dark shirt and glasses.

On the far left is Mike Griffin, who was a disc jockey at the FM station, and Bob Christy, who got into management. 

On the far right is George Johns, who was a sales guy who I never met. 

He came after I had moved on to Arizona.

The years have been better to some of the group than others.

But speaking of that, when I was in Indy, I met a college pal of Tom's with a weird sense of humor.

He was a weatherman at a local t.v. station in those days but he was looking for something different.

He wrote and recorded several pieces of his humor for our radio station.

He later parlayed that comedic talent into a pretty good career.

You probably recognize him as late night talk show host David Letterman.

Well, old Dave retired awhile back but a photographer caught up with him as he was out jogging recently on St. Bart's Island in the Caribbean.

As my wife said "I'd walk right by him on the street and never recognize him."

Time. 

Aging.

Hair loss.

Weight gain.

As has often been said "Old age isn't for sissies!"

TUESDAY TRAVELS

Back in the 1970's when I was a television news reporter in Phoenix most of my travels were related to my job.

In those days the man who became Baseball Steve was my photographer on many of those trips.

Here we are, "hard at work", high atop what I referred to as The Dread Mogollon Rim, known to the average person as just the Mogollon Rim, in Northern Arizona.

As you can see by our attire, it can get chilly even in sun-swathed Arizona.

I am standing very close to the edge of the rim, with a vertical drop of a couple of hundred feet straight down just behind me.

SWMBO says I always had to go right to the edge of places like that in my younger days. 

False courage, I suspect.

SPRING INTO THE KITCHEN

SWMBO prepared one of my favorite meals last night.

Chicken Piccata.

The sauce is butter, lemon, capers and white wine.

(We were out of white wine so she used a dash of vodka.)

Our entree is customarily served with Fettucini Alfredo.

My contribution was a couple of baguettes, baked earlier in the day.

It is a meal fit for a king.

I discovered it many years ago in a Georgetown, D.C. restaurant while visiting with an old pal, Frank.

It was actually veal in the restaurant.

But it was that sauce that attracted and eluded me for quite some time until we found a recipe in Bon Appetit magazine and discovered the secret ingredient to kick it up a notch were the capers.

Success!

And I'm happy to report there were enough leftovers last night for a repeat performance soon.

I've said it before.

I'm a lucky man.

IT'S SPRING!

When I went out to replenish the bird bath this morning I noticed, just above my head, the first of the Redbud tree's blooms had turned into a green leaf.

On the official first day of spring!

It won't be long before the entire tree will go from the showy purple blooms into a green foliage for the birds to hide in.

Spring is here!