New Blog Character Nico Manuel Zamora...

 New blog character Nico Manuel Zamora arrived today right on schedule and to quote the pediatrician,  "he's perfect."  Parents are doing well and should discharge from the hospital tomorrow. 

Of course the brothers are very excited. 

They all wanted to hold him. 

Of course grandma wanted to hold him. 

And you can expect that baby in the tuba photo soon.

Mary is off work for three months. The boys start school Friday and Milo begins 3 year old pre-k. When Mary goes back to work that's when Pop-Pop's tutoring will begin. 

A New Blog Character...

Here's a new blog character. Cathy got a tattoo of a tie dye rabbit playing a banjo as a memorial to her dad, Bill Cooney. 

In Old Irish legend and the Cooney family is Irish the rabbit is a mysterious otherworldly creature associated with the world of fairies, magic and shapeshifting. Cathy's dad played the tenor banjo. 

The roots of this come from a t shirt design by Miguel (rabbit by Mary) done in November 2016 for one of the jam sessions he like to host for his birthday. This happened to be his 85th. Bill passed in 2020 at 88 years old

Bill's sister Shelia and husband Art pictured front row left have also passed on. RIP to his brother David and wife Peggy, not picture here but also gone to just rewards. 

Bill puts on the I mean business banjo face. 

The jam session crew. 

Cathy has been calling the rabbit Bun-Bun. My advice for that tattoo is make it tell your story. 

 

I Have Good Neighbors, Sorta...

Out here on my little dead end road we are good neighbors. That means everyone kind of keeps to themselves in an unspoken agreement to mind their own business. My next-door neighbor, a hard working young man and his wife are some of those people with a travel trailer who go off to work only returning occasionally to mow the yard, take the boat to the lake and then do it all over again. There's another small house on the property that he seems to rent in a short term manner to women with children. They don't stay long and I don't know much about them other than learning first names to say hello. I can't imagine the rent being much and they seem to move on along, hopefully to bigger and better things. Right now there are two young women, a baby and Roscoe living next door. 

Roscoe is a Feist dog. He's not a full on outside dog and I can kind of imagine him usually in his Alpha male position of on the couch napping at most times. My boat garage abuts his territory and when he hears me doing my old man piddling in this structure he must cause a disturbance in the house that they can only remedy by putting him outdoors when on sighting me he proceeds to, in the words of my late father, "pile a good cussing" on the perceived threat. He also kicks dirt while doing all this barking which was probably a behavior evolved by this breed of dog over a millennium to make themselves look bigger than they were to the animals they were trained to hunt but in modern lay on the couch times it serves to uncover the feral cat landmines in the sandy yard dirt and the tasty candy buried there.           

The first few incidents of this behavior his master appeared and reined him in and apologized saying, "I don't know why he's acting like that." Another time, trying to analyze Roscoe's aggression she said, "he must really like you." Since then she no longer mediates and Roscoe's incursions sometimes reach my porch. I take that her declining interest means we are left to develop the relationship on our own. I have begun to fantasize about Roscoe captured in a landing net that hangs in the boat garage. There's actually two nets, a short handled one and one with a longer handle. I think I'm going to need the longer handle one.      

Of course there is that old silver lining that you find in most situations and I am a glass half full kind of guy. As long as I don't get bit, infected and lose a foot there will be declining amounts of cat candy in the yard. If someone asks I'll say, "Yeah, that Roscoe, he a good neighbor."  

 

Benefit for Anne...

 

Our good friend Anne, who Cathy has known since the late 70s when they were roommates and I have known almost as long recently had a serious heart episode. It looked pretty grim  for a while and I think her recovery serves as a reminder to us all that miracles do still happen. If you don't know Anne I'll just use this blub from the go fund me page created to get a van for her since transferring to drive her old car is not going to be an option: 

   If you know Anne Kelly-Keehnen, you know she has been a paraplegic for 40 years, but that it hasn’t slowed her down at all. If you don’t know Anne, she is a devoted mother, grandmother, sister and friend to all. Anne is a pillar of service and strength to her hometown of Nacogdoches, Texas. There, over the years, she has served as a teacher, a counselor, a Girl Scout leader, a camp counselor, and an original founder of the women's shelter. Anne is in constant service to her community.

Friends, family and community came together yesterday in a benefit concert at the Fredonia Brewery and rumor has it that with the outpouring of generosity monies required have been raised through the contributions of the Brewery, the generosity of friends and items donated in the raffle. I can't even begin to name all the people that helped so the best I can do is publish these photos of the musicians. 

Another great thing about the day was getting to hang with so many old friends including the ones that do not get their blog character photos on here much but continue to keep in touch by reading what I publish.  

  

One more photo of us. It is my blog and other than Cathy holding a catfish I am the main character. 

It's a wonderful world. There are good people and good things happen all the time.  

    

Milo Eugene Zamora...

May 25th is quite a day. It's the birthday of various friends and relatives. Today also happens to be Mary and Miguel's 10th wedding anniversary and they made it one to remember by having their third child, Milo Eugene Zamora born today weighting in at 8 pounds 13 ounces and 21 inches long.

Brothers Ezra and Luca meet him for the first time.  

 Mom and dad are doing just fine after the delivery. 

That looks like a tuba player to me. 

 Grandma and Pop Pop are happy and made it through the delivery just fine. Eugene just happens to be my middle name. I grew up being called Carl Gene and my dad was called Gene. Every now and then an old friend or a cousin still calls me Carl Gene and of course I answer to it. 

Keep tuned for more new blog character adventures. He will be fishing before you know it. 

Fishing With an Old Friend...

An old buddy, Darwin came into town for a fishing trip. We let him catch big fish. It was the only fish he caught but some people are like that, going for quality unlike those people like Cathy who who fish in a rage of getting them all out of the water before they use up all the air in it leaving the lake a dead space where nothing survives.  

Luca enjoyed the fishing trip. When you pull a catfish in the boat Luca says, "I eat it, I eat it." Only problem was that his momma showed up to fetch him back about the time we were cleaning the fish and preparing to fry so later on he probably sat at home thinking, "They ate all that fish I caught and did not leave me any."

Darwin and Luca share a boat lunch

Here's a new toy that for about $12 looks to make my life better. I occasionally stick an old candy thermometer in my fish grease to see the temperature. About 350 to 375 is recommended for fish. I like just a little less for the hushpuppies which I usually fry first as the oil is coming to this temp. It seemed like with this more scientific monitoring I was more consistent.  

I shot the BBQ grill the other day while cooking a local favorite, chicki-legs and noted the temp at 249 which is about prefect for BBQ. 

For you foodies I made a mustard/beer wash using non alcohol (warning Kris Rock trigger) Bud Zero (50 calories, 0 alcohol, 0 sugar, no hangover)  and then rolled in Zatarains Cornmeal. Probably start doing this all the time. I do have a box of what is called air fry fish meal which we won't experiment on any of you good people with but instead keep cooking with all the health benifts of old cheap cooking oil when serving the masses.      

After making sure we had enough fish we gave Darwin a bird watching boat tour and poked around looking for gators (no luck, probably have to wade the back water after all that rain) which he wanted to see. After dining we fixed him up with a pack of wild caught fresh fillets, some left over fried fish and  gave him a fishing rod. He said Cathy would have made a good pioneer woman and left us a paddle board to use in further outdoor adventures.

For the fishing log final count was 16 fish on slip corks. It was a real good day. 

  

 

Yelling Out the Backdoor...

We have a little game we play around here when we are alone to test out grandkid names. We stand at the backdoor and yell the name with all the fake urgency that can be mustered into the wilds of the yard. Lately we have been yelling:

MILO EUGENE ZAMORA GET YOUR ASS IN HERE! 

It's a test just to see how it rolls off the tongue. I think this name will tumble out well. 

Now of course we would not really call a grandkid in this way. You can imagine all sitting down to a dinner at our table, it's all set with my mouther's pink rose china pattern that she bought in the late 1940s before she was married to my dad and all heads are bowed in reverent and appropriate postures of thankful grace for the thoughtfulness of adults who go ahead and serve meatball, wieners and other delicacies so kids will eat without any fuss and someone sings out:

GRANDMA GET YOUR ASS IN HERE! 

It's not a good look. 

Eugene is my middle name. I was called Carl Gene by my parents up until my teenage years when I realized that I could have a say in my fate and that name seemed at the time to definitely have a bit of a backwoods ring to it so I asked my parents not to use it when yelling out the backdoor for me to come in the house. Some of my cousins and oldest family friends still call me that and I'll answer to it, it's ok. I've kind of stayed in the backwoods anyway.

Old Milo Eugene will be here late May and I'll ask him what he wants to be called.

       

 

Those Blog Visits Are Totaling Up...

I had been building and selling cigar box guitars and a musician friend asked about them and I said, "check out my blog, there's pictures of some I've made," and gave him a business card with the address. Now a days it would be that picture of a thing that probably has a name but I don't know it that you scan with your phone to be taken right to the site but when my friend heard the word "blog" he said "you don't say bad things about ____ on there do you" and named the sitting president. He went on to say he would not be able to read it if I had said bad things. 

I guess I had not said anything bad about _____ because he bought a cigar box guitar.  His reaction made me see that apparently some folks think a negative thing at the use of the word blog. I'm the same way when someone mentions their podcast. I've never been able to get past the first 30 minutes of a podcast where they talk about how great it is they are having a podcast. 

Technically I guess the reading comprehension required for a blog is a lot more exhausting that the listening of a podcast so I guess it is of note that in the almost 18 years of blog operation I have going on I will probably hit 2000,000 page visits sometime next month. I thank all of those that took the time.              

Of course the last couple of blog posts have had only 3 visits so the success is based on the ever popular posts Another Guitar Story  and the Girls on the Beach Blog Post. There's also a blog posts that involves an ex son in law that's had 540 visits for some unknown reason but we won't link that here. 

Back when I started writing this blog my father in law, the late Bill Cooney urged me to monetize the blog with ads. I could link to the type of perch jig I use when I'm out in the canoe and while I'm at it the type of canoe and so on on Amazon and if you clicked the link I'd get .0002 of a cent or something like that. At the time I was pure, a writer who wrote. 

Now I think "well what if everyone of those 200,000 visits had scanned that thing I don't know the name of that I have started putting at the end of the blog when I think about it and donated a dollar it would have been a nice chunk of change." I mean not life changing money because after all in my life I've bought a house, about a dozen or so cars, several outboard motors, put all my kids that wanted it through college, put myself through college, visited at least half the states and at least 8 foreign countries, saved up a couple of retirement 401ks that are speculated to last me till I'm 90 years old gone and done what I wanted and ate pretty much what I pleased. $200,000 I'm here to tell you isn't what it used to be and wouldn't cover all that. 

What it would do would maybe put me in Gibson guitar territory. Which I don't know that I really need at this point because I mostly play at backyard fish fries using my old Student Princes and somehow I don't think all that would be as much fun with expensive guitars. There's always a guy going to sit down where you lay it and Student Princes are pretty rugged.  

I have been paid a little now and then to write someone a blog and I certainly sold cigar box guitars through the blog and I play my best when I'm singing for my supper so I guess I've done all right.

Thanks for reading and here's this thing I don't know the name of. Someone actually left an anonymous comment on the blog about how much they enjoyed it "but couldn't justify leaving me any money" whatever that means. At least I got some blog material from the visit and the comment. 

    

      

 

Old #9...

Mary and Miguel told us a while back they were expecting another baby. They waited till yesterday when we finally got our whole clan together to reveal the sex and it's going to be a boy. If anyone needs advice on raising boys looks like this couple is going to be the go to because this will be their third. 

The due date is May 25th which is coincidentally their wedding anniversary. Mary always keeps quiet when another baby is coming so it does not seem like these are long pregnancies at least to me. It's a little different from when my generation was getting pregnant. Now they have tests where you can know if you are or not about 15 minutes after the latest opportunity and when you find out that quick 9 months seems like a long time.

Anyway however you do it we pray for them and all mothers and fathers to have the best of luck with children. 

They need it because as this is our 9th grandchild it's going to be hard not to say, "old #9, coming down the line" all the time which may impart certain personality traits. I don't know what those might be but I do know that in some cultures 9 is considered the perfect number. 

Mary and the new blog character. 

I think I captured most of the blog characters in this photo if they weren't chasing down other blog characters that need more supervision.

Coming soon the official family photos. For good work contact Newfoundland Photography.