The Summer Creativity Challenge

stale [steyl]
–adjective
1. not fresh; vapid or flat, as beverages; dry or hardened, as bread.
2. musty; stagnant: stale air.
3. having lost novelty or interest; hackneyed; trite: a stale joke.
4. having lost freshness, vigor, quick intelligence, initiative, or the like, as from overstrain, boredom, or surfeit: He had grown stale on the job and needed a long vacation.
5. Law. having lost force or effectiveness through absence of action, as a claim.
- verb (used with object), verb (used without object)
6. to make or become stale.
Dictionary.com. Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Random House, Inc. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/stale (accessed: June 07, 2007).

That is how I have been feeling. Stale. No wonder writing has become a ponderous chore as oppose to the joy it used to be. So, I am reaching for the obvious answer to my stagnant, boring state.

I gotta get out more.

To that end, Jennie and I are going to have an adventure every weekend throughout the summer. Some trips will only be as far as the metro area, some across state - some even to other states! (Maybe even - are you sitting down? - Wisconsin!)

And we're going to share our adventures with all of you! Right here at Jumbled Encephalon Noodle Salad. So come along as we travel each weekend to places unknown and unexpected. In fact, I have just pulled down the road atlas and opened it to Minnesota. I will close my eyes, point out my index finger and plunk it down on the map. Where the finger lands, we will go.

OK. Here goes nothing.

My eyes are closed. (I type really well with my eyes shut, eh?)

Here we go...

Plunk!

And the winner is... Henderson MN 56044.

Never been there. Should be cool!

We'll let you know how the first adventure goes.

It Was 40 Years Ago Today...

The album responsible for the "rock" album, the "concept" album, and breaking the rule that stated that every song on an LP must be separated by three seconds of silence, has turned 40 years old this week.

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, release the first week of June 1967, was revolutionary for its time, and turned artistic expression for pop/rock artists on its ear (so to speak). Not only were the sounds on the disc incredible (technically speaking), so was the sleeve. Sgt. Pepper is best known perhaps for the collage of (in)famous folk standing behind the festively costumed (and heavily moustached) Fab Four. These people - from Bob Dylan to Lenny Bruce, Laurel and Hardy to W.C. Fields, Edgar Allen Poe to Aldous Huxley - were people The Beatles (and sleeve designer Peter Blake) admired. (Interestingly, three of John Lennon's choices - Jesus Christ, Adolf Hitler and Mahatmas Gandhi - never made it onto the sleeve for fear of upsetting people. Gandhi came close - he was airbrushed out and replaced by a palm tree - just behind Diana Dors and beside Lawrence of Arabia.)

So, tell me... if you were designing this cover, who would you have on the sleeve and why? I'd love to know! Drop me an e-mail and I'll add your answers to the Jumbled Encephalon Noodle Salad blog.

My Cluttered Little Skull

My mother would be appalled. She always hated seeing my room wrecked as a child, with toys and paper and assorted what-not strewn from closet to desk and over the bed.

If she could look into my brain, she would probably ground me until I cleaned this mess up. (So much for being an active part of society any time soon.)

I am intensely cluttered and scattered, cerebrally speaking. (As well as otherwise - you should see my office!) And it's because of the messed up way I mentally process and file information. It shows in my blogging (4 blogs going, each with a different topic, none updated as often as they ought to be). It shows in my writing / journaling (I juggle notebooks like Gallagher does watermelons - only without the sledgehammer.)

I have a lot of things I want to do:
- write a book of devotionals
- write a book of humorous pieces
- write a cookbook (ok, that entry wins the "least likely to succeed" award)
- develop my drawing skills
- teach
- preach
- find a cure for stupidity (my odds are better with the cookbook)
- broker a deal for lasting world peace (see above)

What it boils down to is finding a way to satisfy this intense desire I have to be a truly creative individual. And it requires being creative at my very core - changing the way I think, the way I work, the way I operate. It requires opening my mind. (Anyone got a good pair of pliers? How about a hydraulic chisel?) It requires overcoming this fear of failure / embarrassment and letting it all hang out, just being me.

Simple, right?

It also requires doing creative things and submersing myself in creativity (art, music, writing, etc...) To this end, I am juggling a bit of reading:

Rome Sweet Rome: Our Journey to Catholicism by Scott and Kimberly Hahn. My brother sent me this book to read. I am fascinated by the idea of a Presbyterian minister going Catholic. So far, and interesting read. But I just it started last night.

The Arrogance of the French: Why They Can't Stand Us - and Why the Feeling Is Mutual by Richard Chesnoff. Chesnoff is an American who lived in France for years, and has some unique insights into our mutual love / hate relationship. (Hint: it's almost a sibling rivalry type of relationship.)

Don't Shoot, It's Only Me - Bob Hope's Comedy History of the United States by Bob Hope and Melville Shaveldon. This is no history textbook. But it does have some entertaining tales and anecdotes. Fun to read - as long as Bob Hope's humor is your thang.

According to The Rolling Stones by The Rolling Stones. Actually, I just finished this one a week or so ago. What a skewed way to view the world. If you want to convince your kids that drugs are bad, have them read Keith Richards' bits in this book. (By the by - saw the new Pirates of the Carribean movie over the weekend. Keith Richards plays Johnny Depp's dad and needed very little make-up.)

I am hoping to hit the Minneapolis Museum of Art at some point this weekend with sketchbook and pens/pencils in tow.

As for music... hey, you know me. I always have tunes going.

And what about my cluttered mind? Creativity is not conducive to being organized, now, is it? It requires looking at life from a different perspective, being willing to explode what we see, rearrange it and view it in a new way. I guess that means there's hope for me after all!
-

(negative entry replaced)

This morning, I sat down and wrote a blog entry about fast food in general. It was a very negative piece, biting and satirical. The words were right here, in the space you are staring at now.

And I removed them.

Article IV, Section 6(b), Paragraph 19 of the Jumbled Encephalon Noodle Salad charter clearly states (and I quote):

"Adverse negativity is to be avoided at all times at Jumbled Encephalon Noodle Salad. There is enough negativity in the real world without allowing it to permeate this piece of cyberspace. Jumbled Encephalon Noodle Salad is a place of humor, joy and escape from the bad vibes and ugly boogabooga of reality."

I apologize for any bad vibes I may have inadvertently sent your way. On to more happy writing!

It Just Distappeared!

I have read horror stories of writers who lost their work - a lightning strike that fries a computer in the backseat of a car, the only copy of a manuscript disappearing in the mail, the scene from Duplex where Ben Stiller's laptop catches fire and gets run over...

I have some sense of empathy for these folks.

No, make that sympathy.

I just lost all my writing from this year.

Back in February, I was serving jury duty. To pass the time (which was considerable, to say the least), I re-read Kurt Vonnegut's Wampeters, Foma and Granfalloons (a collection of essays, articles and speeches I first read when I was around 16) and, feeling inspired (and bored), began writing again.

I had a little black spiral-bound hardcover journal that my beautiful wife had bought me. I had intentionally saved it for something special. In it, I furiously scribbled thoughts, ideas, anecdotes, drawings, cows, asides, insights, blindsights, opinions, seeds, observations and what-not miscellaneous cerebral bric-a-brac. I have been working in that little book a lot, and had what I thought were some very funny ideas going.

I hadn't written in it for about a month and, last Friday, decided the time had come to get back into the swing of writing. Off I went to a local coffee shop, where I poured ink onto pen and came up with a manifesto / plan to follow for a summer of creative writing and mental pump priming.

Excitedly, I took my little book and a fistful of pens with me to Little Falls MN over the weekend, intending to write whatever I was inspired to write whilst in the woods.

I last saw my book at Linderbergh State Park. I sat it down - on a bench or a ledge somewhere - and, in my zeal to snap photos of flora and fauna and scurrying varmits, I forgot to pick it up.

It is gone.

All that work - gone.

Gone.

As my young nephews used to say when they were three or four, "It just distappeared!"

How foolish. How absolutely stupid of me.

Poof! Presto. Gone.

My hope is that someone found it and, intending to do the right thing and turn it in at the rangers' station, instead opened it, read the words, checked out the cow, and laughed so hard they decided to keep it.

Maybe they'll shelve it beside their copy of Wampeters, Foma and Granfalloons.

Or Breakfast of Champions.

Either way, I would be honored.

So be it.

Tonight, I start again. I hope I'm still funny.

The Echinertia Excuse

Wow... has it really been two months since I last posted at Jumbled Encephalon Noodle Salad? Well, please allow me to explain.

When last I posted (7 March 2007), cold and flu season was still in full bloom. Now, anyone who knows me knows that I do not like taking medication, unless I absolutely have to. However, I was also trying to stave off coming down with a nasty bug as spring approached. So... I strolled down to this local pharmacy to pick up an herbal suppliment to bolster my immune system.

Evidently the pharmacist was new. He looked like he was about twelve and, while I thought he might be albino, come to find out he was just really blonde and had a milk moustache. He thought he was handing me a bottle of echinacea.

He gave a bottle of echinertia instead.

I ended up taking echinertia. For two straight weeks, I kept popping these echinertia suppliments and slowing down more and more all the time. Quite frankly, by the time I realized the pharmacist's error, I had taken so much echinertia that I'm just now getting back to normal speed.

The good news is I didn't catch a cold. The bad news: it still takes me about ten minutes to walk to the bathroom in the middle of the night. And that's a problem!

No Wonder I Love the Nightlife!

I've known for quite some time now that something wasn't right. I could feel it - I mean deep down feel it. The sensation - a tingle, if you will - would begin in my legs, or my spine, and spread throughout my nervous system and into my arms. It's usually worse when music is playing. Still, I could never figure out the cause of this odd sensation.

Until today.

This morning, I had to stop at the local Megamart to stock up on some supplies. As I was pushing my wobbly cart up the critter care aisle (they had one whale of a deal on salt licks, 3 for $10), I heard a song blasting through the PA system that I hadn't heard in years.

And then... I felt it. The tingle. The itch. The need to move - indeed to groove. My legs were beginning to buckle and sway. My fingers were snapping and popping uncontrollably. It was as if my nerves were suddenly and inexplicably under an influence that was not my own. I couldn't control my feet as they danced around the cart, causing me to knock over several bags of Monkey Chow.

When I heard the words to the song that was playing, it clicked. Ah-ha! It was coming together. I knew what the problem was - at last.

I got the Boogie Fever.

Evidently, the most prevalent symptom of the Boogie Fever is an uncontrollable urge to boogie on down. Another thing I learned: the Boogie Fever outbreak is an epidemic - dare I say a pandemic. How do I know this? The song clearly states it: EVERYBODY got the Boogie Fever.

I wonder if the people at the CDC know about this.

There is no known cure for the Boogie Fever. There aren't even treatments available to relieve it's Kung-Fu grip on those this wretched disorder infects. I guess I have no choice: I'm just gonna have to boogie oogie oogie till I just can't boogie no more.

Announcement

Jumbled Encephalon Noodle Salad no longer accepts competitors' coupons.

We're sorry for any inconvenience this may cause.

When Three Blogs Just Aren't Enough...

Once upon a time, I had a website for Hoosiers who had moved away from Indiana called Expatriate Hoosiers. I'm now in the process of resurrecting this site as a blog.

The Expatriate Hoosiers Blog site will be a place for the vast Indiana diaspora, and those who love them. It will be a place to catch up on all things Indiana, visit linked Hoosier websites and celebrate the Colts' imminent Super Bowl victory. (And, yes, pray for Peyton Manning's thumb!)

So... if you know a Hoosier - either someone who is from in Indiana or still lives there - please tell them about The Expatriate Hoosiers Blog. It makes the ideal Christmas gift!

Irritable Vowel Syndrom

My accent is fading. I used to speak with a pronounced Indiana twang - a verbal reminder of my homeland of which I have been stubbornly proud for years. However, this year marks the 13th anniversary of Jennie and I's incredible escape from the Hoosier state (for extremely fictious details, read my blog post from 29 March 2006, The Great Escape). I still remember the brush and the briars, the terror of being hunted down by snarling dogs and various farm animals, the guards in their coveralls atop their tractors, having to crawl through that crudely dug tunnel, emerging on the Illinois side of the razor-wire electric fence...

Alas, I digress...

While my twang may be fading, there are still some word pronunciations that drive me up a tree. Much like our beloved president who talks about "nu-kyuw-lur" weapons (its nu-clee-ar, folks!), I cannot make myself refer to my parents' sisters and sisters-in-laws as "onts". They are my aunts (pronounced "ants").

I was baptized in a creek (pronounced "crick"). Creek is the sound your wood doors make when they need oil.

And don't pick on me because my car has windahs.

OK... there's plenty of room for multiple pronunciations of most of the English language. That's why I love English so much - it is so pliable! You can abuse it, misuse it... heck, practically destroy it! - and it will still convey your message. Sometimes even better!

Yabetcha! (OK... another non-Hoosierism I refuse to adopt.)

This Week at the Cineplex

OHMAGOSH 84 CINEPLEX

WHEN YOU HAVE 90 MINUTES AND A CAR PAYMENT TO BURN

This week's concession stand special:

• Super-Huge Feedsack of Popcorn with Yellow Liquid Oil you can pretend is butter
• Two 1-gallon sodas
• $159.95
• (Home Equity Financing now available at the snack bar. Ask for Tommy.)

NOW SHOWING

BLIND DADDY'S REVENGE (R) - Betsy got her daddy's eyes. Now Daddy's come to get them back. (Michael Caine, Hillary Swank, Queen Latifah)

TERROR IN THE SKY (R) - No legroom. No pillows. No free peanuts. And someone with a foot odor issue won't leave their shoes on! (Louis Gossett, Jr., Sally Field, Queen Latifah)

PENGUINS OVER A VERY STEEP CLIFF (PG) - This charming animated feature promises to bring an end to the genre of penguin-infested children's flicks. (Voices by Howie Mandel, Rosie O'Donnell, James Earl Jones, Queen Latifah)

HELLO, LARRY! (PG-13) - Just when you thought the last possible old TV show had been mined for motion pictures, along comes this offering from the bottom of the well. Larry and his two teenage daughters get into an argument over cleaning the microwave. Showing on 60 of our 84 screens! (Hillary Duff, Jessica Simpson, the late McLean Stevenson, Queen Latifah)

BACK TO THE FUTURE IV: THE FINAL VOYAGE (PG-13) - Doc Brown travels with Mick McFly (Marty's third cousin) to ancient Mesopotamia to discover that the same people who hated each other back then still hate one another today (Ben Stiller, Christopher Lloyd, Leah Thompson, Queen Latifah)

THE ADVENTURES OF ALVIN AND SCOOTER 2: CHEW ON THIS (G) - The heartwarming tale of a boy and his cuddly-yet-rabid pet ferret. (Peter Billingsley, Beyonce, Chad Stewart as the firm-yet-understanding neurosurgeon, Queen Latifah)

The Next Big Move (or not...)

Everytime Jennie and I move, we go further north. Indiana to Chicagoland, Chicagoland to the Twin Cities... I tease my wife that our next stop is Winnipeg. She threatens me everytime I mention migrating to Canada, with everything from refusing to do my laundry anymore (so what) to no longer cooking her homemade Chicken and Wild Rice Soup for me (ok, that gets my attention).

However, after watching the local weather this morning, I've had a change of heart.

According to one local meteorologist, Winnipeg was looking at wind chills in the neighborhood of -55*F.

That's below zero.

That's painfully below zero.

When I saw the "-55" on the regional weather map, my toes instantly turned a lovely shade of violet blue, and icicles began to form on my spleen.

However, I am still holding out hope for a northward move. (Jennie, if you're reading this, don't contact the divorce lawyer. I promise this isn't Manitoba.) A couple of years back, we fell in love with this small town on the north shore of Lake Superior called Grand Marais.

I figure, as a pastor / writer, I can live just about anywhere. Besides, writers make beaucoup bucks, because they know lots of linguistic tricks, like how to abuse foreign words (like beaucoup) and make them sound like they fit. The way I figure it, all I have to do is write and sell about 250 articles a month, and we're in like Flynn! (Well... that and Jennie getting a job at the Gunflint Tavern - home of the world's greatest vegetarian chili!)

There's not a Supermegawegotitall store to be found. But they have the Dockside Fish Market. Between the smoked fish, pickled herring and the Gunflint's chili (which, as an employee, Jennie could get the recipe for), we will eat like royalty!

Just think... sitting along the shore, writing all day long, preparing sermons, and munching on smoked fish with not a care in the world... Works for me! Besides, right now the wind chill is only -16*F in Grand Marais. That's a lot warmer than Winnipeg!

Overly Lame Blog Entry Removed While Author Can Still Step Outside Without Hiding His Face In Shame

Earlier today, I wrote a blog entry that started thusly:

I was just reading the hometown online newspaper and this headline caught my eye:

COUGAR ESCAPES - STILL MISSING

For my homepeeps back in Clay County, do not panic. John "Cougar" Mellencamp is really quite harmless...

From there the writing quickly slid down hill, devolving into a series of lame puns based on John Mellencamp song titles. For the sake of what little dignity I have, I will not mention the pink house he escaped from, or the names of his captors (yes, Jack and Diane).

One of the lessons I have read time and again about writing is to turn off one's inner self-editor. Just write and don't worry about the words. Just get the message out - rough as it may be.

Well... there's rough. And there's coarse sandpaper. And this little blog entry hurt so good... er, uh, you know what I mean. I got to keep on writing, no matter how bad. It's still early, and I ain't even done with the night... uh-oh... sorry!

Stop me before I pun again! I don't want this blog to come crumblin' down under the weight of all these Mellencamp puns. Arrrgh!! I did it again!

Wanted: Prompts (or Send Me A Word - Or A Phrase - Or Some Inspired Clipping)

A couple of summers ago, Jennie and I took a daytrip to Red Wing, MN 55066. On the way home, we stopped at some garage sales near Hastings. It was at one of those sales that I picked up a couple of hinged wooden Hoyo de Monterrey de Jose Gener cigar boxes. I found them to be nice repositories of clipped writing prompts.

What I do is, when I'm reading a newspaper, magazine, etc., and I see a word or phrase that catches my eye and tickles my creativity, I clip the words out and put them into the cigar box. When I need some prompting in my writing, I reach for the box of prompts and dig. When one of the clippings sparks my brain, I begin writing.

Here is where you come in: I'm asking each of you to send me a word. Or a phrase. Something fun and creative that I can print, clip and add to the box. Just a starting off point for some freewriting.

I will post any resulting writings either here, or (if the prompt is Christian in nature) the Contemplative Encourager blogspot. If your prompt begets any writing, you will receive my deepest gratitude and a name-drop on the blog entry.

Hope to hear from you soon!

GRAND RE-OPENING!

JUMBLED ENCEPHALON NOODLE SALAD

GRAND RE-OPENING!!

WE'RE BACK AND AVERAGE AS EVER!

After a month-long, much needed break from any and all non-vital cerebral functions, it is time to get back in the swing of writing again! So... here we go once more... the Jumbled Encephalon Noodle Salad Blogspot is back again, with more useless info / trivia / outright lies / stuff to cram into your cranium.

This week's Randomly Chosen City of the Week: Antiquity, Ohio

This week's Flavor of the Week: Rum Raisin with Garlic

This week's Album of the Week: Living in the Material World by George Harrison (1973)

This week's Addiction of the Week: Coke Zero (49 weeks running!)

This week's Getaway Destination of the Week: Lodgepole, SD (a mere 41 miles from Reva, 84 miles from Redig, and about 95 miles from the geographical center of the United States - give or take 10 or 20 miles).

This week's Quite Unpleasant Side-Effect: canker sores.

This week's Lunch Meat: Olive Loaf

This week's special: Navel Piercings - 2 for $9.99 (without antiseptic wash)

This week's Gravy: Redeye

This week's Bad Memory: getting shot in the can with a B.B. gun by a surprisingly apologetic fellow student who claimed he thought I was someone else (approximately 1980)

Love Love Love...

Throughout the sixties, it was a yuletide tradition: a new Beatles album for under the Christmas tree. With The Beatles in 1963 (UK only), Beatles For Sale (1964, with Beatles '65 being released instead in America), Rubber Soul (1965), A Collection of Beatles Oldies... But Goldies (UK only, 1966), Magical Mystery Tour (1967), and The Beatles (White Album) (1968) were all timed for release at Christmastime.

Now, 38 years after the last Beatles Christmas album, we get Love - perhaps the closest we are going to get to a truly "new" Beatles album. Love, the soundtrack to the Beatles-based Cirque du Soleil show of the same name, is not merely a compilation or greatest hits package. George Martin (along with his son, Giles), having been given unfettered access to EMI's library of Beatles recordings, have mixed up a very fresh, very new, very modern-sounding Beatles album. To be sure, there are plenty of moments that sound very familiar (indeed, I'm not sure what changes were made to "Help!", except that the acoustic guitars sound crisper). But so much of Love sounds... well... new!

I ran out and bought the CD/DVD version on the day it was released, and waited to listen to it until we took off for Indiana. And so it was, at 4:15 on Thanksgiving morning, I popped Love into the car stereo.

Wow...

The first thing that grabs you is the sound quality. How on earth do tapes that are, on average, forty years old, sound so doggone good! And - amazingly - almost every sound on the album comes from a Beatles recording (exceptions: sirens before "I Am The Walrus"; new - and beautiful - George Martin string arrangement on the acoustic version of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps"). There are moments one is left to wonder: where did all these sounds come from? Drums from here, backing vocals from there, guitars and sitars and tablas from everywhere converge and merge to create whole new sounds and audio surprises galore.

Love has moments of genius aplenty. The rhythm track from John's "Tomorrow Never Knows" marries perfectly to George's "Within You, Without You". Out of this mix fall drops of sound that gather together to form an incredible new mix of "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" (which interpolates snipets of tape loop from "Tomorrow Never Knows" and horns from "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band"). Likewise, the mixing of "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!" with "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" is an unexpected treat, and "Drive My Car / The Word / What You're Doing" is not a medley - it is a song all it's own.

"Strawberry Fields Forever" grows seamlessly from charmimg John Lennon home demo to take one to the more familiar (albeit much faster and more echoey) version Beatle fans know and love, ending in a controlled cacophony of Ringo's heavy drums with more "Sgt. Pepper" horns, the piano solo from "In My Life", "Penny Lane"'s picollo trumpet solo and the harpsichord from "Piggies" mixed in, closing with the ending of "Hello, Goodbye".

Perhaps the most charming moment of the disc comes with Ringo's "Octopus's Garden". The track opens with the strings from "Good Night" and sound effects from "Yellow Submarine", creating a beautiful, etherial opening before launching into the more rocking song we know from Abbey Road. However, more surprises are in store as the middle-eight launches into a bubbly double-time rhythm with unused vocals and exclamations from "Revolution 9" thrown in for good measure.

"Octopus's Garden" slips smoothly into the opening of "Sun King", which gives way to a quick, interesting, almost native sounding rhythmic intro (again - where did these sounds come from?) to "Lady Madonna" - another mix-up that features the guitar solo from "Hey Bulldog" and electric guitar that I believe comes from "While My Guitar Gently Weeps".

There are gorgeous moments as well. "Here Comes The Sun" is a lovely mix, incorporating percussion from "Within You Without You", crisper acoustic guitars, improved sound on the strings, and a beautifully remixed piece of "The Inner Light" as a closer. (This was the moment that nearly moved me to tears as I drove down I-94 in the pre-dawn hours of Thanksgiving morning.)

I'll stop here - I don't want to ruin all the surprises for you. But, when you get a chance to listen to Love, don't skip to "Hey Jude", "Eleanor Rigby" or "Get Back" because they may be your favorites. Love is a piece of work all its own, to be taken as a whole, in its entirety. This is a nearly eighty-minute work, cohesive and perfectly matched. Also... listen to Love with headphones. Otherwise you will miss the intricacies of the new mix of "A Day In The Life", as well as some of the sounds that are buried deeper in the mix. (You can actually hear the bass and guitar strings vibrate, as well as other sounds one misses when listening to "A Day In The Life" on their Sgt. Pepper CD. Likewise, the new stereo mix of "I Am The Walrus" - which does not slip into fake stereo when the Shakespeare radio broadcast begins - is amazing through earphones.)

Love has moments of beauty, freshness and surprise. Best of all, this CD is exactly what a Beatles CD should be: fun. Grab it and enjoy. Better yet, ask Santa to put it under your Christmas tree this year! And, if you've been extra good this year, maybe Saint Nick will leave the deluxe edition with the audio DVD, so you can experience Love in 5.1 surround sound.

Town of the Week

We have a new feature!

Each week (well, what I really mean is each week that I feel like it), the staff here at
Encephalon Noodle Salad will highlight a town for all to learn about and perhaps travel to some weekend.
If you have a town you would like us to spotlight, just leave us a comment.

This week's town: Gasconade, Missouri.

Population (2000): 267
Geographic size: 0.2 sq. miles
Location: where the Gasconade River meets the Missouri River
Time Zone: Central
Approximate travel time from Coushatta, Louisiana: 11 hours, 13 minutes if you take I-49 (as if there's any other way!)
Median age: 38.9 years old
Median income: around $27,000
Nearly 1/4 of all residents over age 15 have never been married.
Nearly 1/2 of all residents over age 15 are currently married.
Women outnumber men by about a 5:4 ratio (or, as the Beach Boys might sing, 1.25 girls for every boy. Which means Gasconade ain't exactly Surf City. Hard to hang ten in a cornfield).
Last major tornado in the area: May 1, 1983
Times Styx, REO Speedwagon or Creedence Clearwater Revisited have played there on reunion tour(s): 0
Items of historical interest: On Novemner 1, 1855, the wooden trestle on the Gasconade Bridge collapsed as a Union Pacific train crossed. 30 were killed, hundreds injured.
Civil War factoid: Confederate General Sterling Price raided Gasconade County on Oct. 3, 1864. The local Burger Chef never reopened after the raid.
Celebrities who never lived near Gasconade: Oprah Winfrey, Pee-Wee Herman, Mel Gibson.
Number of Starbucks Coffee shops: 0
Reason to go: ability to tell people, "I done went and been to Gascoade, Missouri!"

A Question

A train leaves Cleveland heading westbound at 65 MPH. In Las Cruces, another train leaves at precisely the same time, heading eastward at 70 MPH. At this rate of speed, how long will it take TBS to realize that nobody watches those old "Friends" episodes they rerun ad nauseum?

Middle-Aging Gracefully (or So Long, Flavor Saver!)

I was talking to my beautiful bride this morning about the rut I seem to be stuck in. We talked about my need to be happier, and she said to me the following: "I was looking at you this morning, and you look old." She explained that my moustache didn't help me appear any younger.

So I shaved it off.

And, as I gazed in the bathroom mirror, I made a discovery. It isn't the moustache that makes me look old. It's the hair growing out of my ears, nose and eyebrows that age my appearance.

My problem isn't my moustache - or my unruly eyebrows. My problem is - frankly - me. So, with the help of God above, I intend to find my happy place - fulfillment in life, use of the gifts God gave me, a change of mind, a change of heart, a change of pace. Like Sheryl Crow sings, a change will do me good.

I begin by shaving off the 'stach. Next step: retro bell-bottoms to attempt to recapture my long-past youth. (Okay... I'm kidding about the clothes. My wife would never let me become one who pathetically pines for the good old days. They weren't all that good anyway.)

Actually, I believe the next step is to lighten up and enjoy the moment. Have fun. Stop trying to control the uncontrolable (after all, how much of our lives is truly in our hands?) and laugh a little. Laugh a lot.

Maybe I'll bungee-jump my way out of my mid-life crisis. Or sky-dive. Nawwww... both could end up with me as a great big greasy splat. Maybe I'll just start living the life I was intended to live.

As soon as I figure it all out, I'll let you know.

Don't hold your breath on me figuring it all out, though.

BACK IN THE BLOG AGAIN...

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh................... it feels good to have time to blog again. The past few months have been a whirlwind of school work and homework and ministry work and work work... Very rewarding, but quite busy.

At least by my standards of busyness - standards I'm certain will change when Lily comes home next year.

Now school is over, and I actually have time to play.

And write.

So I am trying to resharpen my writing skills and get back to it.

So... let me pose this question to all y'all: I'm sure you've heard the Elton John song "Crocodile Rock". When I was eight or nine, I loved that song. Today it makes me squirm with self-conscious embarrassment (in much the same way an Adam Ant video would). I heard "Crocodile Rock" on the radio the other day for the first time in years, and one line leapt out at me. Is Elton singing "Susie went and left us for some foreign guy", or "Susie went Leftist for some foreign guy"? It certainly alters things if she did the latter.

Whadda YOU think?