Ramblings from the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia

Announcing the birth of my Grandson, Logan Michael Kohari, born 11/6/2012 at Vanderbilt University Hospital in Nashville. My wife and I were there at the hospital when they wheeled him over to Premmie Care. He was at 31 weeks. Still he weighed 3 pound, 11 ounces and was 15 inches long. He can breathe on his own and is beginning to take milk. My daughter Summer will breast feed him. He is expected out of the hospital possibly before thanksgiving, at least by Christmas! I can't wait! ...

THE SNITCH

Every hunter or fisherman is after the same thing—a trophy. The hunter wants a deer/elk/moose/pronghorn that will make Boone and Crocket. The fisherman is after a bass/walleye/trout that he or she can hang on the wall to make others envious. That is where the snitch comes in.

I’m not speaking here of human snitches, although heaven knows that they are bad enough. The human snitch is one who gives out bad information in order to make others fail in their quest ...

Black Thursday…

Perhaps I would feel much better if I get this all written down, step by step as it occurred. Perhaps it will serve to show how, for people like myself, an ordinary day can go to hell in a hand basket before you can blink. I dunno, but here goes.

I got up Thursday morning, as is my wont, and went to the lake fishing at first light. Now I was having a wonderful time, pulling one fish in after another, when I caught the biggest fish I’ve caught this year, ...

I am an avid fisherman. Almost every morning finds me on the lakeshore somewhere. I have a choice between several fine lakes in the area, so there is no chance of me being bored.

Let me state for the record, however, that I think fishermen everywhere to be slightly demented. I mean we exaggerate the size of fish caught, the amount of fish caught, how we managed to entice them so that we could catch them in the first place, and brag about the “one that got away.” (I find that ...

I've had good reason lately to think about the meaning of the term "friend". You see, when I attempted suicide the other Sunday, the man who talked me out of it stated that we had been friends for 30 years.

I thought about that long and hard over the next days. I appreciate what he did for me, but was he truly a "friend"?

Did he ever write in thirty years? No.
Has he ever called in thirty years? No.
Did we visit each other, did our ...