This Explains A Lot!

Mostly I've felt like I've tried to be a good influence on my family with reasonable control of everything. But I've also always had this, oh I don't know, this funny feeling that something or someone was trying to undermine my authority. I was going through my pictures last night and picking out my favorites of 2007 to place into a separate folder. I saw something in the window behind me in this large photo. After cropping and bring everything forward this is what I found.

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Mel Brookes once said "It's good to be the king." I'm not so sure.

Thanksgiving 2007

I wanted to start off telling you about how thankful I am at this time of year but then I thought well, I'm thankful everyday so why should this be different.
Then my my mind went to days gone by out here on the farm. Thanksgiving truly means stopping to give thanks for the harvest. Since the mid 1950's when my mind begins serving up memories, harvests have been both bountiful, and lean. The harvest has been both completed and just halfway done. Sometimes we stopped just long enough for the feast and went back out to pick corn. Most times the harvest was complete and we celebrated. Some of the time my mind has gone to thoughts of how I might 'spin' this for my banker to ease the blow of a slipping Net Worth. Others found finances okay but worries abounded about other situations.
Thanksgiving always brings the emotions of melancholy and of being victorious. At least to me it does. Melancholy as Gods creation goes from vibrant growth to dropping it's leaves and either dying on the vine or going into a protective rest for winter. Shades of brown and grey begin to dominate the landscape. Victorious from battling the sometimes oppressive heat of summer along with the rest of the problems every growing season provides.
Thanksgiving usually means we can put all of this behind us and concentrate on family. Those who can, will come back to the farm. I think it must be like 'touching home' when we played 'hide and seek' as children. It's where we began. We feel safe if you can make it back home. For you it might be home in general or to the place where the family meets at Thanksgiving.
Even though I have Brothers and Sisters who have gone about persuing other vocations, they like to return. The roots on the Morrow Family Tree are attached out here on this Missouri River bottom farm. Those roots need nourished from time to time.

Broke Down

Dad wanted me to wish everyone a happy and blessed Thanksgiving. He thinks someone shot his satellite down, probably George Bush!
from Dan, (the good son)
P.S. I now have his password! anyone have a blog request?

It's Saturday Night!

This little thing was flitting around our house yesterday morning whilst we readied ourselves for church. I was standing at the stove cooking sausage when she apparently went in and out of the bathroom where her Dad was showering. She excitedly came running down the hall yelling "Gampa Ciff, Daddy's SNAKED, Come look."

We had our budding 'light parade' in town Saturday night. The air temp was above freezing but just barely. Here I'm driving a float for Queen Wilma and King Gordon of our local senior center. The 2008 Mustang they had me drive was just fractionally larger than the driver.

This is my wife's entry in the parade. Not clearly visible is the animated Snoopy on top helping pull Charlie B. out of the chimney. It was a fun night. The parade was preceded by the annual merchant Christmas open houses. The town was full of people. It reminded me of Saturday nights of yore.

Not To Worry

I think I've tried the Sonic Drive In's three different times. The last two I was simply amazed at how short my memory is. It's not my favorite place. On TV last night they featured an advertisement for a brand new product that should relieve all of us about the fears of eating mac and cheese because of the high fat content. Sonic is now serving deep fried mac and cheese. They look like a big tater tot. Finally, a healthy treat. The mac and cheese will actually be the healthy part of 'This nutritious meal'!!
I wonder if they'll serve sour cream on the side?

Click On Ralph Campbell

Click on Ralph Campbell on my blogroll. He has started his 'Ralph On Fire' blogs about his experiences as a forest fire fighter crew boss. It's riveting reading. I hope one day in this series we'll get to read about the day he fell from the top of a tree. A really TALL tree.
Having spent a great deal of time around this guy, his serious side is something I usually don't see. This account is serious.

SALUTE!

Even though I put a post up yesterday about the writers strike I got to thinking. The following is the result of those thoughts:
Today and tomorrow there will be programs honoring Veterans. The brave men past and present who insure that I can continue to go to the church I choose , Worship my God as I please, elect my own representatives in government, and continue to speak the english language if I choose to. The list goes on and on. These freedoms of ours are under constant attack now. Mostly through misguided political correctness and the efforts of the ACLU and the acadamia nuts running many of our extreme left wing Universities.
With that in mind I know that my freedoms are the result of brave service men. None of those freedoms are the result of something that an attorney did. For certain none of them are because of something a misguided attorney acting as a supreme court justice did to try and and write his own version of the law and thereby over step the U.S. Constitution. Bravery cannot be understood by these types. But those who did, and do serve our U. S. Armed Forces know the meaning well. I did not serve. I do have the utmost of respect for those who have and do serve. For you Veterans past and present, I am re-running my post of two years ago.


Sunday, November 13, 2005

Veterans Day
Friday evening there was a Veterans Day program in our little town. About four to five hundred people filled our auditorium. The reason they all came, was to witness a production of Bob Brodersons Diary. Bob is a highly regarded local farmer, who by the way, has had to reside in a 'care home' for the past couple of years, and who had piloted 37 missions over enemy territory in World War II. The Brodersons, (pronounced as broaderson)are an old Burt County family and you'll not find their enemies here. There aren't any that I know of. The show consisted of period songs sung by a quartet, mixed with readings from the diary he kept during the war. An actor played his part. They carried on five or six large black and white photos of him from the combat zone, during the show.When he went over, he was promised that all he had to do was fly twenty five missions, and he could go home. When he was more that half way to that number, they extended the number to thirty. At about the twenty five mark they extended the missions to thirty three. When he got over thirty missions flown, his commanding officer 'asked' him if he would fly four more missions out of Russia. "No hard feelings if you won't". Part of his crew were to finish with him, and part needed the flights out of Russia to finish. His crew begged him to fly with them so they could all get done together. They had no desire to fly with someone else. So he did. They finished. There is no bravado in the diaries. There is none in Bob's life. He is plain spoken, quiet, and if you'd ever talked with him you'd get the idea he hadn't done anything in particular worthy of note in his life except to raise a fine family and become a good farmer. In my book, both worthy of note in these times.The diary just told of the struggle of keeping a B-17 bomber in the air that was continually being shot at and hit. It told of the planes from his squadron they lost nearly everytime they went out. Of constantly being under attack as they flew. Of one of his buddies who began as the pilot but had a sort of mental melt down and couldn't take-off or land the plane anymore.Of he and his buddies who had a job to do and just did it. Of the first plane they lost. "She was a good ship" Bob said. Of some humorous things that happened like the night he and buddy won a lot of money playing poker and bought a horse and buggy to take back to the base. These same two dated a couple of local gals from near the base in England. Only to find out they were dating a mother-daughter combo.We laughed with him as he tried to divert his mind while off duty, we struggled with him to endure all of those missions he detailed so eloquently, and we cheered and cried for joy when the plane crossed the channel into English territory after the thirty seventh mission. He described the jubilation in the plane as they shook up a bottle of beer and sprayed it around. He wrote that it was the end of what he knew would be a part of his life he would never forget.In the end he simply wanted to come home to Burt County and farm. He did. A lot of his friends never made it back to America alive.The frail little man was there in a wheelchair. I'm not sure he knew why he was there, but we did. He represents the men from Burt County, from Nebraska, and our Nation,who went to battle, in this war and others. Without these plain spoken heros, America doesn't survive. Thanks to you Bob, and to all the others. We too must never forget that part of Bob's life.

Re: The Writers Strike

I've developed a theory since the writers strike hit the news. My theory goes like this: Back when we had 3 networks plus the edcational channel we had a pool of talent. Lets assign that volume the letter X.
Now 40 years later we still just have X available to us for the sum of the talent but with 4 or 5 hundred stations and networks. It spreads things pretty thin.
I hold up Saturday Night Live as the best example of this.
Having said all of this I guess none of this will impact me in the least. I slept through the shows the first time they were on and will likely do it again.
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This reminds me of something that happened to me a few weeks ago. Marilyn and I were eating dinner and not wanting to listen to 30% of one side of every news story as offered by the network news, we went to a rerun of designing women. One of the actors in the story thought she was pregnant (she wasn't) after using a sperm bank.
She was all of a sudden horrified at the fact that she didn't know who the father was or even if he had a good sense of humor. Then the actress said, "Or worse yet, he could be the type that thought Benny Hill was funny."
Marilyn jerked her head up from dinner and looked at me and started laughing.
Benny Hill was funny.
I tell ya I don't get any respect.

Yippee!

This early morning photo is of a brother piloting my combine and dumping corn (on the go) onto my grain cart also driven by another one of my brothers.

I had picked my Dad up from the end of the field one fall day many moons ago. We had just finished a long harvest season at that very moment. The combine was parked at the end of cornfield and we were on our way to town to eat lunch. Maybe a piece of pie was in the offing to help celebrate the end of this long ordeal we call harvest. That is if we weren't too late to get a piece of the coveted pie at the City Cafe. We passed some combines working away and Dad said "Look over there, those guys are still picking corn, don't they know it's too late to be picking corn?" Dad was always a bit understated. Okay, he was always a LOT understated. He then said, "Well, I feel like celebrateing...Yippee...(said in a monotone) okay enough with this constant celebrating, lets get started on the field work." We were then off to another 2 long weeks of tractor work.

As of last Saturday night the 3rd of November, it is officially too late to be picking corn. Yep, that marks the end of folks asking me if I'm done with harvest. I've had to say 'no' to that question for 3 weeks now, but now that I'm done, no one will ask.

This harvest was a good one. Yields for me weren't quite as good as last but that would have been nearly impossible. The moisture content was low so the dockage was low. The prices are at near record highs. So here goes. In keeping with a family tradition.

"Yippee!"

I'll be on a tractor if you need me.

A View From The Office

Sorry about not blogging much as of late. We are in the middle of harvest and recently I've been watching the sunrise and sunset from my 'office.'

Here's a view from my 'desk'.

BTW my office moves around this time of year.

(Also the pic makes for a nice background on the screen)