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No More Twinkies

This is a sad and tragic milestone in our history.

I’m sure you have all heard about the imminent demise of the baked goods company Hostess, maker of the most iconic and delicious treat ever to grace this very earth… the Twinkie. I’m sure you are all also having sleepless nights, lying awake, plagued with concern that my goats will no longer be able to get a Twinkie every time you leave a comment on my blog.

Now as much as I’d like to jump on the bandwagon and blame yet another ridiculously outdated, greedy, asinine and out of touch Labor Union for destroying one more company on the ever shrinking list of U.S. manufacturers…

… I won’t … because frankly I feel I may be partially to blame here.

You see, I have not been writing much and thus, you my fabulous fans and readers have not been leaving comments on my blog and thus, my goats have not been getting nearly the volume of Twinkies that they used to get when I was writing four to five posts a week.  Now granted, my goats are likely much healthier but I think that this decrease in the volume of Twinkies they are consuming may be the root cause of why the Hostess company had to file for bankruptcy in the first place.

I don’t know…  it’s just a theory but I’m feeling a little guilty about it.

Now apparently the Hostess company is going to sell off the rights to some of the brand names that they manufacture, so perhaps Twinkies will resurface in some other incarnation of snack food. But it won’t be the same, it’s a Hostess Twinkie and that’s all it will ever be.

Tragic…

In any case, apparently this will be the last post of mine in which my goats will receive a Twinkie for every comment you leave.

So make it good…

Because they are not going to take this news lightly.

And if you have any thoughts about what I can give my goats now, every time you leave a comment, I’d welcome the suggestions.

 

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Of Anniversaries and Birthdays and Mid-Life Crises

Today my wife and I celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary. Kim and I met at Colby College in Waterville, Maine in 1986. We got married in North Reading, Massachusetts, her home town in 1992. Our reception was at the Hawthorne Hotel in Historic Salem, Massachusetts. We moved to Michigan in July of 1993 and bought the home that is the theme of this blog in December of 1995. Two children, several jobs and lots of pets later, here we are celebrating 20 years as husband and wife.

Ours is not a perfect marriage, none are. But it’s pretty close. We’re very similar people and we like each other. Yes, I specifically used that word… “like”. We like each other, we’re friends, we get along, we know when it’s okay to talk to each other and we know when it’s best to leave the other to themselves. That old adage that opposites attract should be thrown out the window. Opposites don’t attract… well, perhaps they attract, but do they last?  People that are the same, that have the same interests and personality traits have relationships that last. Sure, we are in love too. But “love” is one of those vague words that has so many levels of meaning. It’s a word for young people testing the waters of newly discovered relationships. It’s a word for romantic’s spending a week in Paris or watching a sunrise on the beach or picking daisy’s in a field. It’s a word that’s important in our lives, but when it comes to a successful marriage words like friendship, commitment and loyalty should trump the word love any day. When you’re raising kids and trying to pay a mortgage and thinking about college years… you better be friends… you better be committed and loyal… and you DAMN WELL better LIKE each other!  So, to my wife, if you are reading this… I may love you… but I really LIKE you. Thanks for being my best friend.

Today is also my oldest brother’s 50th birthday!  This is quite the milestone day! I have two older brothers, both of whom I look up to tremendously and who have been friends and mentors to me. Unfortunately they both live far away and I don’t get to see them that often. But they are important in my life and I wish the oldest the happiest of 50th birthdays today.

I have to admit, as I sit here and type this morning, all these large numbers, 50’s and 20’s make me feel old and throw me deeper into my so-called mid-life crisis, which I have written about periodically and that I suspect I’ll be dealing with for the rest of my life. Mine is not the traditional mid-life crisis of fast sports cars and yachts and trips to the Caribbean. It’s more of a “can I check the fuck out and become a quirky, long-bearded homesteader who raises bees and writes poetry and doesn’t have to deal with the daily shit storm of life?” But that’s not very responsible and fortunately (or perhaps unfortunately) I am a mostly responsible guy and understand that’s not a suitable option at this stage of my life.

Plus, I’m not sure my wife would “like” me anymore!

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A Ghostly Tale (the audio version)

http://soundcloud.com/user217119/a-ghostly-tale

The original post here if you’d like to read along.

Or here you can read about the real Abbie Hill in the photo.

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Happy Halloween

To the new readers… a little story from Halloween 2011. This post holds the record for most hits in one day – 738 – on Brown Road Chronicles due to some  Stumble Upon activity, whatever that means!  Anyhow, Happy Halloween – hope you aren’t visited by too many ghosts tonight!

TRICK-OR-TREAT

Last year on Halloween night I was home with the flu. Because we live out in the country, we typically spend Halloween evening at the home of some close friends whose kids are similar ages to our kids. They live in a small neighborhood nearby and the kids can trick-or-treat to their heart’s delight while the adults sit back and share a pizza and a few drinks. That’s the one thing I don’t like about where we live, that we don’t get to experience kids coming to our door, dressed as ghosts or witches or hobos or athletes or all the other myriad costumes. Halloween is one of my favorite holidays and I’ve always felt our home would make the perfect spooky haunted house.

I just didn’t feel up to being out though, with an aggressive fever and the toggling of sweats and chills. So I sent my wife and the kids off for the evening and plopped myself down on the couch to watch some of the usual Halloween fare on the TV.  Flipping through channels of zombie and werewolf and vampire movies and the yearly Halloween series marathons, I eventually settled on the classic Boris Karloff version of Frankenstein, knowing I’d probably fall asleep in a few minutes anyhow… which I surely did. It was about 8:30 p.m. when I was awakened by someone knocking on our front door.

Who in the hell would be here on Halloween night, I wondered, especially at our front door, which no one ever uses. Shaking the sleep from my head, I hoisted myself off the coach and walked into the kitchen where I could vaguely see someone standing on the front porch…….

Read the rest of the story here!

Mwahahahahahaha…….

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