Travel and Adventure:

Next month the lovely Avon is planning to take me down to Big Sugar golf course at Pea Ridge, Arkansas for a few days of golf. Now for the benefit of those of you who are not from the area; people from strange and exotic places like; California, Ohio, Illinois, Colorado, Georgia, Michigan, and points beyond our boundaries – there really is a place called Pea Ridge in Arkansas. In fact they had a big gunfight there during the Civil war. They used some really big guns, a lot of smaller guns, a knife or two, and most likely some sticks and rocks. Anyway it’s almost my favorite golf course in the whole world. To say it is beautiful, well maintained, and well designed would be a gross understatement. The fairways run through gullies, down canyons, over ridges, and off cliffs not to mention Big Sugar Creek itself (I've got to put a kayak in that ripper some day).

What makes this place so special is that I can lose all the balls I want with complete impunity and without an ounce of shame. Losing balls at Big Sugar is not only accepted it’s expected.

Books by Lou Bradshaw available on Amazon Kindle

 A Fine Kettle of Fish – Hickory Jack – Blue – and now… Ace High

My next book Blue Norther is now in the proofing and editing stage.

Visit me on Facebook Lou Bradshaw Artist – Author or www.facebook.com/loubradshawarts

A Love Poem:

I recited my favorite love poem to the lovely Avon today and it didn't seem to have the desired effect. Maybe it was the way I did it because it is such sweet and sensitive  poem I don’t see how it could miss. You be the judge.

            You love me for loving you

            And I love you because you do.

            So much in love with us are we

            That you could kiss you... and I could kiss me.             Tommy Smothers around 1962

Doesn't that just tug at your heart strings?

My good judgment has often been questioned by both good friends and some who don’t like me all that much. I was reading a 1988 Calvin & Hobbes book where Calvin makes the statement. “I do too have better judgment. I just choose to ignore it.” I choose to make that my motto.

Books by Lou Bradshaw available on Amazon Kindle

 A Fine Kettle of Fish – Hickory Jack – Blue – and now… Ace High

Visit me on Facebook Lou Bradshaw Artist – Author or www.facebook.com/loubradshawarts 

South Paws:

Yesterday was Left Handed day. They get a day of their own… does that seem right? Well, I guess they should get some recognition for being the ones that are always going against the grain. They’re the ones that seem to be bumping your arm when they’re next to you at a dinner table, and have you ever watched a left handed bowler? It’s maddening! One thing I’ve noticed over the last 35 or so years is that lefties (males) are taller than average… they are almost always 5’ 10” or above. I’ve only met one since I’ve been tracking this quirk of nature that was my size.

I’ve always felt that if I’d been taller, I’d most likely been a lefty, given my nature of doing things the “other” way. Oh, I’m small but not bitsy tiny. If I’d been born a vehicle, I’d probably have been a sports car rather than an SUV…. I like to think I was built for speed rather than power.

Books by Lou Bradshaw available on Amazon Kindle

 A Fine Kettle of Fish – Hickory Jack – Blue – and now… Ace High

Visit me on Facebook Lou Bradshaw Artist – Author or www.facebook.com/loubradshawarts

A Real Pal:

A good friend is someone you can call in a pinch and will put up your bail.

A really good friend is someone who will give you one of his kidneys.

But a Pal is that special someone who will come over and comfort the widow, help with the arrangements, and clear your hard drive when the unexpected happens. Of course, he may download a few for himself.

Had a great time last evening. We went to an artists’ reception at the Juanita K. Hammons Hall for the Performing Arts. Where I received a Jurors Choice Award for my painting “Montana Morning” and got to shmooze with other artists for a couple of hours. 

Montana Morning

Books by Lou Bradshaw available on Amazon Kindle

 A Fine Kettle of Fish – Hickory Jack – Blue – and now… Ace High

Visit me on Facebook Lou Bradshaw Artist – Author or www.facebook.com/loubradshawarts

True Story: You can’t make this stuff up.

While at work one afternoon, a woman from housekeeping came running into the office and screamed, “The dumpster’s on fire!” It was one of those big ones that they bring in on a flat bed truck. I told her to pull the fire alarm and I went to see how bad it was. She came running back and told me that the fire alarm didn’t work. I grabbed an extinguisher and emptied it, then another and another. The housekeeper had disappeared, presumably in her car and halfway home, and I was wondering if I should start running down the hall scaring the hell out of people or get in my truck and head home. Then down the hall saunters the maintenance chief just waking up from his nap. He stopped, blinked several times and asked what he should do. I told him to go call 911. He stood there and blinked a few more times and asked, “What’s their number?”

You have no idea how far a guy my size can throw a fire extinguisher?

A Note: It seems that I’ll be otherwise detained, unless someone will go my bail, Monday and Tuesday of next week. But I should be back in business on Wednesday.

Books by Lou Bradshaw available on Amazon Kindle

 A Fine Kettle of Fish – Hickory Jack – Blue – and now… Ace High

Visit me on Facebook Lou Bradshaw Artist – Author or www.facebook.com/loubradshawarts

Home Schooling:

The idea of home school has always bothered me. For one thing I loved school – I wasn’t any good at it, but I had a lot of fun and it got me out of the house. Some of the things that have always bothered me most about home schooling, were who would you take to your prom, and what kind of football team can they have.

Books by Lou Bradshaw available on Amazon Kindle

 A Fine Kettle of Fish – Hickory Jack – Blue – and now… Ace High

Visit me on Facebook Lou Bradshaw Artist – Author or www.facebook.com/loubradshawarts

Entertainment:

I have tried and done so many ridicules things in my life that I thought maybe I would try at least one more, and decided to write a movie review – I doubt that many blogs dabble in that sort of thing. Although I haven’t sat in a theater and watched a movie since a large buttered popcorn was a quarter (I think True Grit, with John Wayne, was showing) I still wanted to give it a try. So I rented a movie and settled down with Orville Redenbacher, and here is what I saw.

The film was entitled The California Leaf Blower Massacre. It seems that a Japanese gardener goes on a rampage in Beverly Hills. He proceeds to stalk and trap his victims. They are then battered by hurricane force winds…wigs, falls, and toupees are ripped off and shredded by the blasts…lips are flung back and cheeks filled with air exposing teeth, gums, and soft pallets to stinging gusts…dentures are blown out and sent clattering onto Rodeo Drive…make up is dried out and plastered into pores…$200 coifs are blown into tangled frizzy nightmares…contact lenses are sent as far as Disney Land…body piercings are filled with debris…nipple jewelry is mashed into permanent indentations in soft flesh…friends, it’s just too ghastly! I can’t go on, I am weeping with fear and outrage – can you tell that I’m weeping?  

This movie gets no thumbs up, but does get one finger.

Books by Lou Bradshaw available on Amazon Kindle

 A Fine Kettle of Fish – Hickory Jack – Blue – and now… Ace High 

The next book Blue Norther is a little past 3/4 written, and I'm hoping for an April release.

Visit me on Facebook Lou Bradshaw Artist – Author or www.facebook.com/loubradshawarts

Man and Boy… about the same:

Having reached my maturity and then surpassing it I find that is still a lot of little boy left in this old geezer, and doubt that it will ever be flushed from my system. For one thing little boys like to show off, and this blog is all about showing off. I’m not trying to show off my mind, my sense of morality, or any such intellectual rubbish – those areas have been condemned to a vast wasteland years ago. What I am showing off is the fact that I know how to type.

Books by Lou Bradshaw available on Amazon Kindle

 A Fine Kettle of Fish – Hickory Jack – Blue – and now… Ace High

Visit me on Facebook Lou Bradshaw Artist – Author or www.facebook.com/loubradshawarts

Hmmmm?

            The lovely Avon came home last week with a brand new super product from the grocery store. It was a yogurt that had no fat, low acid, no gluten, no lactose, and no sugar, but yet was touted to have all the flavor, creaminess, and benefits that are expected of yogurt. Personally I wouldn't know about that, having never had the desire to try anything that sounded like it was made from the second layer of a muddy Mongolian Yak farmyard.

            Anyway this miracle product is made from an almond base… In fact, it supposedly made from almond milk. That disclosure brought an image to my mind of someone sitting on a stool with little tiny hands pulling on little tiny almond teats trying to fill up a milk pail. I’d really like to get that image out of my head.    

Books by Lou Bradshaw available on Amazon Kindle

 A Fine Kettle of Fish – Hickory Jack – Blue – and now… Ace High

Visit me on Facebook Lou Bradshaw Artist – Author or www.facebook.com/loubradshawarts

Dr. Amour’s Advice to the Lovelorn:     

Dear Dr. Amour:

            My problem is I have 3 girlfriends. They are all equally, beautiful, intelligent, wealthy, and fun loving. They all have great personalities, enjoy the same things I do, and are all very much in love with me. What should I do?

Thank you, Ralph, in Salt Lake City

Dear Ralph:

            Three wives in Salt Lake City shouldn't be a problem, but 3 girlfriends is something that even the Mormons of old couldn't get away with. Remember this, hell may know no fury like a woman scorned, but the earth knows no misery like a man caught. Learn to duck.   

  

Dr. Amour  

Truths:

An open mind may let many a vagrant breeze blow through your thoughts,

but a closed mind becomes stale, stuffy and stinky.

Books by Lou Bradshaw available on Amazon Kindle

 A Fine Kettle of Fish – Hickory Jack – Blue – and now… Ace High

Visit me on Facebook Lou Bradshaw Artist – Author or www.facebook.com/loubradshawarts

             

Men still can’t cook:

            You mess up one time and a woman will never let you forget it. The lovely Avon had me make a packaged rice dish, which I had made hundreds of times – a no brainer. Well, I picked up the wrong measuring cup and used twice as much water as was called for. Now each time I’m asked to make it she cautions me not to use too much water. So what I do out of spite is boil twice as much as I need and pour half of it out – drives her crazy. If she ever read this blog, she’d know that I wrote an entire article on the fact that men really can’t cook. What does she expect from untrained labor?

Books by Lou Bradshaw available on Amazon Kindle

 A Fine Kettle of Fish – Hickory Jack – Blue – and now… Ace High

Visit me on Facebook Lou Bradshaw Artist – Author or www.facebook.com/loubradshawarts

Tolerance:

            I was talking to a fella the other day, and the subject turned to all the differences and prejudices in the world. Normally, I don’t get into things that deep, but he wanted to talk so I let him. He raged on about how the blacks and whites don’t like or trust each other, and straights don’t like gays. He got off on the Yankees and the Red Sox, and ended with Muslims don’t even like Muslims. I asked him what he thought we aught to do about all those intolerant people, and he replied, “I don’t know...... but I sure hate ‘em.” 

Truths:

           He who struts around the workplace decked in self-importance is making himself a slow moving target.    

Books by Lou Bradshaw available on Amazon Kindle

 A Fine Kettle of Fish – Hickory Jack – Blue – and now… Ace High

Visit me on Facebook Lou Bradshaw Artist – Author or www.facebook.com/loubradshawarts

       

Fish or Foul?

            A word of caution for the summer months. If you love shrimp as we do, then be sure to choose your serving day carefully. Be fully aware of when your trash pick up is. There isn’t much to get rid of when you clean shrimp, but those shells are powerful. If they have to set more than 2 days you can’t double, triple, or quadruple bag ‘em enough. Fortunately, I snuck them into the neighbor's (Napoleon and Josephine Biggs)  trash can across the road – and that was still too close. 

What I do when I’m not blogging or working on a book

Something Softer.... 11 x 14 Acrylic on board.

Books by Lou Bradshaw available on Amazon Kindle

 A Fine Kettle of Fish – Hickory Jack – Blue – and now… Ace High

Visit me on Facebook Lou Bradshaw Artist – Author or www.facebook.com/loubradshawarts

                                                                                                            

The Junk Drawer:

Almost everyone has a junk drawer; it’s that place where things that don’t have a proper home go to live. The other day I was running short of junk and went to get some from the junk drawer. I found that the junk drawer was so full of junk that I couldn’t get another item in it, and everything was so wedged in that I couldn’t get anything out. To make matters worse, the junk had started bowing the sides of the drawer so that it stuck. It wouldn’t go in, and it wouldn’t come out. I can think of only one solution, but I think you need some sort of permit to buy dynamite. Of course, this being the Ozarks, and knowing how good old boys like to blow stuff up…. I’m sure to find some.

Truths:

            Miscellaneous: Murphy’s Law states, “If something can go wrong – it will.” I believe that Murphy was and optimist.                                                                                         Unknown

Books by Lou Bradshaw available on Amazon Kindle

 A Fine Kettle of Fish – Hickory Jack – Blue – and now… Ace High

Visit me on Facebook Lou Bradshaw Artist – Author or www.facebook.com/loubradshawarts

Some things just keep on coming at you:

            Yesterday at the bank, the lady assisting us pushed the form across the desk and was reading my name upside down “Louis E” and she called me “Louise”. Fortunately, the lovely Avon knew enough to keep from laughing, and I let it slide. But in days gone by I wouldn’t have been so forgiving.

            It seems like every time we had a substitute teacher, she would fall into that trap set by whoever named me, and like the line from Johnny Cash’s A BOY NAMED SUE “Some kid would laugh… and I’d bust his head…” Yes, Louise started many a fight during those grade school years. Louise doesn’t show up much anymore, and that’s a good thing because I’m not eager to get down and dirty with the old knuckle and skull stuff these days. “Life ain’t easy for a boy named Louise”

What I do when I’m not blogging or working on a book...

The Launch, 11 x 14,  Acrylic on board,  Red Tailed Hawk

Books by Lou Bradshaw available on Amazon Kindle

 A Fine Kettle of Fish – Hickory Jack – Blue – and now… Ace High

Visit me on Facebook Lou Bradshaw Artist – Author or www.facebook.com/loubradshawarts

Chisels are what you make them:

            A few months back the lovely Avon informed me that she was going to take a Chisels class. You can imagine my surprise. I never dreamed she had any interest in sculpturing. So as not to show any surprise I simply said, “Blue would be nice.” This would make her think I wasn’t paying attention (it’s a husband trick). As it turned out Chisels is an intense workout class designed to restructure the body and increase strength. It must be working because yesterday she beat me 5 times straight at arm wrestling. That was a blow to my ego, but watching her walk away was worth it. 

Books by Lou Bradshaw available on Amazon Kindle

 A Fine Kettle of Fish – Hickory Jack – Blue – and now… Ace High

Visit me on Facebook Lou Bradshaw Artist – Author or www.facebook.com/loubradshawarts

Do we really see what we see?

            I saw an optical illusion from my front window this morning. It concerned a road, some tree trunks, and fog. What was close was somehow moved far away, and what was behind it had been moved to the front. The whole scene floated in mid air, and it was one of the most unreal things I’d ever seen. If you've ever stood on the rim of the Grand Canyon and had a feeling of incredible depth, and your head started spinning, then you’ll still not know how it was. Confucius said a picture is worth a 1,000 words…. It  would take over 10,000 words to describe this, and you still wouldn't be able to see it…. I’m sorry I brought it up, so don’t read this.

Books by Lou Bradshaw available on Amazon Kindle

 A Fine Kettle of Fish – Hickory Jack – Blue – and now… Ace High

Visit me on Facebook Lou Bradshaw Artist – Author or www.facebook.com/loubradshawarts

Beautiful blunder:

            A few years ago, I was watching a TV reporter interview Lorena Ochoa. She was the number one ranked female golfer in the world at the time and a comely lass or should I say senorita. He introduced her then turned to her and said, “Beautiful,” he paused, and she blushed and beamed, then he continued, “playing conditions out there.” She was embarrassed – rightfully so. Had I been that reporter I would have said, “Beautiful,” pause, “and so were the playing conditions.” That ain't no way to treat a lady.   

Books by Lou Bradshaw available on Amazon Kindle

 A Fine Kettle of Fish – Hickory Jack – Blue – and now… Ace High

Visit me on Facebook Lou Bradshaw Artist – Author or www.facebook.com/loubradshawarts

         

A gross misunderstanding:

            I ran into Uncle Ed at the sawmill yesterday, he was just sitting on the tailgate of his truck looking at a huge pile of sawdust. He was looking rather poorly, and I thought he might be sick, so I asked him if he was okay, he said he was. So I asked, “What’s the problem then?”

            He said, “Roy, (he always calls me Roy) I’ve always wanted to go to Japan, and now I learn that those Geishas are just high dollar waitresses and singers.” I agreed that it was so. He sighed and said, “I always thought they were strippers.” I guess that means he isn’t going.

Elvis and the grape:          

What does an Elvis song and have in common with a bottle of wine? The early Elvis hit Love Me had the opening line “Treat me like a fool…” That is exactly what 2 glasses of any kind of wine does to me.

Books by Lou Bradshaw available on Amazon Kindle

 A Fine Kettle of Fish – Hickory Jack – Blue – and now… Ace High

Visit me on Facebook Lou Bradshaw Artist – Author or www.facebook.com/loubradshawarts