WIXY's Gone Bananas

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I was 13 years old at the time. I remember my sister showing my mom the Medina County Gazette this particular day exclaiming that Pat Duffy had died. During the Vietnam War, whenever someone from Medina County had died in combat, that would be the main headline of the day, complete with a large photo of this now deceased hero. I recall that one family in my town had been notified that their son had died in Vietnam, the story and photo had been run in the Gazette, only to have the story retraced the next day. It was, thankfully, a case of mistaken identity. Sgt. James P. Duffy Jr was a friend of my cousin Billy. I knew him casually but since he was 7 years older than I, we had nothing in common. Pat was one of those young men who was drafted into the service, so he had no choice of joining the army or where he was to be deployed. I got this computer printout when I went to the information center(you can click on it to enlarge) and one thing I noticed was that had Pat Duffy not been kil...

This morning I went over to the mobile display of the Vietnam War Memorial in nearby Wadsworth, Ohio. I will take the next few days to get together some rather serious posts. So take the next few days when you come here to reflect on a time in United States history that tore the country apart. Just the thoughts of this were somber for me as I looked at the wall, the tributes and talked to one of the veterans. I also got information on one whom I knew via one of my older cousins. I will put in some of my editorial comments, but I will shoot from the heart. No flippant comments and my usual characteristics will be on hold for the next few days. I figure there will be some google searches that will bring people here and out of respect I want to treat this with the same tone as I experienced this morning as I visited this display.

I went to visit Bella's blog, "It is What It is" this morning. Imagine my surprise when I saw it had been removed. I sent her an email. It was sent back. Where are you Bella? Cliff Note: Bella now has a new blog up. It's called "Ciao Bella." There is an explanation for the momentary disappearance from the blogosphere .

Yesterday I forwarded an email I received from John G. Miller . He wrote the book QBQ!- the Question Behind the Question . It's a book that deals with personal responsibility, something people try to shirk nowadays. The email is called QBQ! QuickNote . The topic at hand was the price of gasoline , economy and what we could to try to control it. Long and short, it dealt with supply and demand, and cycles. If we don't like the prices in a certain restaurant, we usually eat somewhere else. The same goes for other commodities. Now if we would start limiting our use of crude oil, as far as our driving habits are concerned, we might force the hand of the big bad oil companies. We have seen the price of gasoline more than double in the past three years, but we still practice the same habits. If we don't stop that, we won't have any other choice but to pay increased prices. While we wait(just don't hold your breath) for alternative fuels, we should start practicing alterna...

One of my favorite hangouts lately has been Cathouse Teri's blog, The Road Lester Traveled . I've been visiting her there and she's been visiting me here. When she posts, she always gets many, very interesting, comments. Some of the comments centered around the "My child is an honor student at...." bumper stickers. I always figured if I placed one of those on one of my vehicles, people would read that and say"if that was such a big deal, you'd be driving something better." I also have heard if someone would put one of those on their BMW or Lexus, it would be sort of like painting a moustache on the Mona Lisa. One of my favorites always was "My kid beat up your honor student." But I had one better in mind based on one of my family. Our daughter, Martha(of Welcome to My Crazy Life fame) was suspended a few times in middle school and high school for fighting. The last time, in my opinion, was not fair . But anyway she graduated high school wi...

Happy Memorial Day everybody. We had a cookout today here at the WIXYranch. Instead of the usual fare of hot dogs and burgers(we did have ribs at the inlaws Saturday) our daughter, Martha brought fixings for kabobs. We had some beef, pork and shrimp kabobs. So if you're reading this David McMahon , we did have shrimp on the barbie. Above pictured are daughters Martha and Sylva clowning for the camera. As you can see, someone else was operating the WIXYcam. And no, I still haven't gotten my hair cut. This picture is of my college educated daughter, Sylva, spraying non stick coating onto the gas grill(it is lit.) Her degree is in education and you know what they say, those who can do and those who can't, teach . And of course, no blog post about a family cookout is complete without a few photos of the grand children, as I can't let Cathouse Teri have all the grandparent fun. Above, Silas is patiently waiting for the food to be ready. Right, Makenna is enjoying an e...