You're always 17 in your hometown

                             There's a man who walks beside me

                             He is who I used to be

                             And I wonder if they see him

                             And confuse him with me

My friend Curt ran into that verse somewhere and said it reminded him of me.  Well, it reminds me of me.  All my good friends know that I've felt a little anonymous since moving away from Alaska. I was part of the community and part of something . I was successful and known for good counsel. I had friends who'd known me for 45 years....Well one of my new buddies swayed me into going to a planning meeting for a 55 year High School reunion event to be held in week or so. I ran into a few people I knew from High School but everyone changes right ? I felt like I was starting over . I had a woman I don't know walk by and whisper to me  " behave ". When the meeting broke up all these people were celebrating their years of friendship with hugs and best wishes and I felt kinda weird and after thinking about I guess the closest I could get to an explanation is to say that I felt jealous.  It made me remember what I left behind. So, as I chewed on it I decided to not attend the event because I wasn't feeling good and of course want to avoid feeling bad. I was a little shocked with myself because I've never been jealous of anybody or anything in my life. I was having feelings I wasn't used to , I felt like it is  little late in the game to run for class president. But on further review I came to the conclusion that if I go there's a better chance of good things happening than bad things. Maybe a new friend, maybe an invite, maybe it will just be fun. And I remember ruminating on this Mile 14 blog about the difficulties of the ageing process and how I promised myself to face all and I mean all of them head on.....so, I'll see you at my 55 high school reunion ....

Ya know what.....this would be good time for a song.

My friend Terry came from Iowa home to the Bitteroot Valley to present some of his writing at a Cowboy Poet / music event . Well that was a first for me and it was REALLy good and really fun. Terry is the second from the right here . Like the other presenters his poetry was personal and charming, revealing and entertaining. I highly recommend this type of show of which I'd never attended. In Alaska they do Fishermen / music and I guess it really celebrates the history, the under current of our communities.

On our way home from Hambone we drove up the Seely valley to check out a couple boat launches on Lakes we have yet to visit. MP googled the Fiberglass bull ' Stoney ' that's anchored the intersection of highways 200 and 83 ever since we were kids. It's a Montana story for sure . The Stone family who bought the roadhouse style gas station brought him from Iowa in 1971 . He's had his pic taken jillions for times . When he started to look a little long in the tooth his first shave and haircut was in 1979 when they repainted him and reattached a missing tail and horn along with patching 38 bullet holes, yep you read that right.  Well, when the early 2000's came along he was sent to Missoula for another refit as us boat people say and this time he had roughly 200 bullet holes and a few missing parts...mmmm.....Montana .

So we've been harvesting. Here's the tally as of last week. Yesterday we picked all the corn, more than 60 cobs. The zuchs are finally wearing out and we still have Broccoli , onions, carrots and potato's...Hehehe, we like this chalkboard real well.