Gas Hunt

Thanks to our local media, which reported that some gas station owners are afraid of running out of gasoline because of hurricane Ike, there has been a run on gas. Long lines of anxious drivers wind up and down the highways creeping forward to get their ten gallons of gas (the local maximum).

Gasoline, which has been sitting underground at the stations for a week, now costs a dollar more. People, It's the same gasoline they had, and didn't sell, yesterday!

And still I hear people remark that they 'have the number' of the media. They, the people, are not going to get sucked into believing everything they hear. They, the people, are going to be discerning and make up their own minds about what the truth is. They, the people, know that media bias infuses every word out of the talking heads. They, the people, will not believe all that they hear.

Apparently not.

That's what I think about it.

9.11

Please read my friend's blog about his experience on 9.11. You will find
Far from the Madding Crowd at http://martyandry.blogspot.com/

Drums

One of my first blogs was about my percussion teacher, then a high school senior. Now he is a freshman at a university in Nashville. Naturally his major is percussion.

The first week of school there were auditions in front of a panel to determine which student would be assigned to which faculty member.

Tension ran high because one of the auditors was a world-famous drummer. Of course I had never heard of him, him with the one word name...and that starting with Z.

But it went well for my friend. He felt good about how he had performed. Although Mr. Z is not going to be on the faculty at this school the instructor assigned to my friend is the drummer for Phil Collins and Genesis.

No, I am not real sure who they are either...OK, I have heard of Phil Collins and could probably pick him out of a line-up. Yet this does sound like a very good connection to have in the music world.

So I am happy for him and look forward to following his career. That's what I'm thinking about today.

Hawk

He was about the size of a bread box, if you can remember what those look like.

I was just minding my own business, sitting at the table in front of the glass doors to the porch opening up my computer to the news and weather, drinking my morning tea and suddenly "Whack!" Windows rattled in the door. I was startled but looked up in time to see a hawk hit the porch floor.

Intellectually I knew he could not get in through the door to attack me but emotionally I did not want to take any chances so I tip-toed over to the door and peered out and down. He looked out for the count, a long count. Who do I call, I pondered, since I believed that hawks were an endangered species. Could I in anyway be blamed for this poor creature's demise?

Then, from his upside down position, I thought I saw his little wingtip flutter, or was it my imagination? Then a definite flutter, and another and then both wings were weakly trying to flap. Even upside down, or a little askew, he looked formidable. He was struggling but he was on his own. I was not about to open the door and help the creature, after all I saw Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds. Slowly up righting himself to a severe list he took a step and fell. Up again, tentative step and over he went again.

However you have to hand it to the tenacity of living things to want to survive. My cat, KatKarson, hearing the ruckus had meandered (Maine Coons do not speed) over to the window. Whether it was the sight of a cat who outweighed him by a few pounds or the fact that he really was recovering, the hawk spread out his wings and with a little list to starboard soared back out into the woods.

My tea was lukewarm. That's what I'm thinking about.