Category Archives: Senior Citizens

Culinary Risk Taking – MSG – Root Hog or Die

Posted on February 24, 2012 by | 17 comments

Good morning readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read this morning.

Socorro, New Mexico, isn’t long on good restaurants.  But during the several years I lived there, I had a favorite restaurant, and a favorite menu item.  The place was owned and operated by an elderly Chinese man with whom I was on friendly, bantering terms. 

This lasted until the discovery that MSG in food causes my blood pressure to skyrocket.  A few times per week I’d sit myself down, they’d bring the usual, and a couple of hours later my pulse would be visible almost anywhere a blood vessel showed.  This was accompanied by a pounding in my head, maybe audible, maybe only seemingly so.

After I figured out the connection between my favorite food item and the blood pressure problem I attempted to discuss it with the owner, though we had a language barrier.   The result was an outburst of anger and indignation.  I didn’t know yet the MSG was the cause.  Just that particular menu item.

I solved the problem by eating elsewhere, but eventually learned that Chinese restaurants, particularly, lean heavily on adding MSG to their foods, and that a surprisingly large number of people have reactions to it similar to mine. 

I also began watching the labels on food I bought to prepare at home.  What I discovered was that a person sensitive to MSG had best carry a magnifying glass in his pocket and read those labels carefully.  Almost everything a person might buy in a can is loaded with it, but especially soups and soup-bases.  If a label slips past and gets inside the vehicle it notifies the owner by the rods knocking.

But I was going to say, I love oriental food, and I was in town yesterday, so I clenched my teeth and decided it was a day for risk-taking.  There’s an Oriental buffet I’d never tried, so I pulled in.  I tried asking whether they had MSG in their food, but it was clear she didn’t understand me.  So I went root hog or die.

The food was mediocre, but I didn’t die.  I took a couple of extra blood pressure pills when the pounding in my head started, and by the time I got home my blood pressure was so low I didn’t have any business being alive.

I found myself wondering why the FDA cops who faint and revive themselves over one-in-a-billion risks to human health otherwise haven’t jumped on this like ugly on a monkey.

Old Jules

Today on Ask Old Jules: 

Historical Events Duplicated Today?

Old Jules, does any time in history correspond to what’s going on within the US today?

17 Comments

Posted in 2012, Adventure, America, Current Issues, Gambling, Human Behavior, Kerrville, Politics, Senior Citizens, Survival

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Powdered Horse Milk

Posted on February 22, 2012 by | 16 comments

Good morning readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read.

After I finished my morning download ritual this morning and prepared to go outdoors to bring up Old Sol and turn out the chickens I checked Ask Old Jules Biggest Regret? to see which of my brainstorms of the past she’s picked for the day.  I take a lot of things about myself for granted and occasionally one of my answers rattles me a bit, gets me asking questions about me and what makes me tick.  This morning is one of those.

Sitting out there under the tree I found myself asking, “What in the dickens is wrong with me that I feel so content and can’t come up with anything to regret?  It ain’t as though I haven’t gone the last mile to assure myself of plenty any sane person would prefer to be otherwise.”

I can’t guess how many people live the way I do, close to the cuff, physically having to force myself to maintain a comfort range that includes whatever the Universe tossed my way.  Probably a lot do in the poorer countries, but likely not too many within the boundaries of the US.  But when I see some evidence of them, I generally find myself on the edge of feeling sorry for them.

But meanwhile, I’m about as content, almost euphoric about my own life most of the time as a person could be.  Yeah, there are nagging things need doing, need changing, forever being pushed forward in time for one reason or another because of limited options.  But they whisper from the wings and mostly I don’t pay them any mind.

“Would I like, or trust someone like me if I came across him?”  That’s what I finally found myself asking.    And the answer’s a bit confusing to me.  “No,” I’m forced to admit, “I probably wouldn’t.   How the hell could you trust someone like that? “

“So, do you want to change it?”

“I’d hate to.  I’m more-or-less fond of being happy.  But it might be better to cultivate some regrets, some yank-your-heart-out-things I wish I’d done differently.  This satisfaction thing can be taken too far.”

Cultivating regrets, yearnings, deep feelings of loss might just be what it takes to live a life of fulfillment.  It would open the door to finding things to be scared of, frightened they’d happen.  Angry because they did, or didn’t.

Old Jules

 

16 Comments

Posted in 2012, Adventure, Country Life, Homesteading, Human Behavior, Outdoors, Senior Citizens, Solitude, Survival

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Shinola, etc.

Posted on February 20, 2012 by | 22 comments

I’ve been coming across the word disambiguation somewhat frequently on the web lately. It always brings a smile when I see it, gives me a momentary ambition to disambiguate something.

But the problem is that I don’t know anything much.  Even inside the 21st Century where uninformed opinion is respectable, almost universal, and carries the certainty and power of positive speaking, I just don’t know anything much.

Besides, the dialup connection, or WordPress is being a pure D Communist this morning.  It’s taking me forever to even load the site.  I’m rolling on the floor with joy everytime it tells me it can’t find the webpage.

So instead of disambiguating you readers on some uninformed opinion I have, I think I’ll give you a quick and dirty on something I know something about because I’ve discovered it around here and watched it happen.

I’ve told you about the Great Speckled Bird and how he’s in decline because of something he did in his youth to cripple him up something awful.  One side of him just doesn’t work the way it ought to, and it causes him a lot of pain and distress.  I’ve expected him almost every morning to be dead when I go out to turn them out for free ranging.

But  I’ve been making up orange-peel tincture and treating him with it for a longish while, and it always makes him feel better after I’ve done it.  Sometimes when he’s in particular pain he actually volunteers, gimps over and sits around near where I am, hinting.

I don’t have arthritis troubling me, but if I did, the Great Speckled Bird testifies it’s the way to the truth and the light, orange peel tincture.  He says it’s the difference between Chit and Shinola.

Costs almost nothing to make, too.  Just put your orange or grapefruit peels into a jar of vinegar instead of throwing them away.  In a while you’ll have a tincture.

Chit and Shinola disambiguated.

Old Jules

Today on Ask Old Jules:  State of Democracy?

22 Comments

Posted in 2012, Chickens, Country Life, Current Issues, Free, Free-ranging-chickens, Homesteading, Human Behavior, Outdoors, Science, Senior Citizens, Solitude, Survival

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Waiting for Joe Chink – All Dressed Up and Nobody to Fight

Posted on February 17, 2012 by | 10 comments

NCOs dressing down fresh arrivals who didn’t clean their rifles or had Frito Lay in their gas-mask bags always began, “When Joe Chink comes across that line [fill in the blank].   Joe Chink.  The imaginary Chinamen poised across the DMZ sharpening their bayonets.  We were there to scare them into not coming South, and whup if they did.   50,000 of us.

They’re still over there waiting, those GIs, 25,000 of them, but nowadays I doubt they’re being threatened with Joe Chink.  Joe Chink makes the parts for all their weapons, ammunition, their boots, every item of their equipment.  Joe Chink loans money to their overlords to pay for it and pay their salaries.

And back in the God, Country and My Baby heaven Joe Chink’s athletic shoes carry America’s finest boys and jerseys up and down pastures carrying Joe Chink’s footballs for the edification of cheering spectators wearing Joe Chink’s clothing, head-t0-foot.

Back then most of us who had any knowledge of the Republic of Korea military didn’t have much doubt the ROK Army [South Korean] could whip the pants off the US Army if they wanted to, and have plenty left over to take care of Joe Chink if he came across the DMZ.

But nowadays it’s probably North Koreans the US Army’s scaring into not doing anything ugly to all those factories in South Korea making the rest of what US consumers need but can’t get from Joe Chink.  Factories, and the ROK Army which could almost certainly still whip the pants off those 25,000 GIs still over there.

“Thank you for your service,” romantic patriots are fond of saying.

“Kiss my ass,” I’m fond of saying back.

Old Jules

Today on Ask Old Jules:  Is Just One Religion Better?

 

10 Comments

Posted in 1960's, America, History, Senior Citizens, Solitude

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Learning How to Not Be So Stupid

Posted on February 16, 2012 by | 12 comments

Morning to you readers.  I’m obliged you came by for a read.

If I’m going to get anywhere in this life I think I’m going to have to learn how to not be so stupid. 

Yesterday I made that post about the F350 wiring, which I’d been fretting and gnashing my teeth about for months.  Ben offered to try to find me a wiring diagram, and tffnguy recommended a Ford Truck Enthusiasts Forum.  I felt fairly uppidy and hopeful, but not sky-high enthusiastic because I’ve learned the hard way to suppress my melodrama.

But I went to the Forum site and immediately remembered I’d been there before, several months ago.  The reason I remembered was the popup advertisement for Phoenix University that blocked the entire screen and came back as soon as I clicked the X, every time.  The site took forever to load on a dialup, too.  So I blew it off and spent the next few months twiddling my thumbs trying to find ways to fix the immediate problem.

But yesterday, because of tffnguy’s recommendation I fought my way through the esoterica, waited while things loaded, killed popups as though I could dress them out and have them for supper.  Registered, posted a question about the wiring, along with pics, and asked for any help anyone could offer.

In a matter of hours I had a reply and a wiring diagram.  Now I’m back where I could have been several months ago if I’d had the patience and determination to wait for that site to load and posted an identical request back then.

Gale’s fond of saying that during the 40-odd years we’ve been friends every mutual acquaintance, if asked to list my traits would have had, “If there’s an easy way and a hard way, he’ll pick the hard way and stay to the end.”

Maybe I’m beginning to understand what they were talking about.  If I can get that grapefruit out of my mouth I might try to sort it out and change it.

Old Jules

 

Today on Ask Old Jules:   World Ending in 2012?

Old Jules, is it true that the world’s gonna end in 2012?

 

12 Comments

Posted in 2012, Senior Citizens, Survival, Transportation, Trucks

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Incentives Not to Go Off Food – Rice and Veggie Steamer

Posted on February 13, 2012 by | 17 comments

I’ve been mildly curious watching myself for a considerable while.  Weight was peeling off me and I was forgetting to eat.  My body would notify me I hadn’t eaten anything in a day or two by a dose of the blind staggers, or just a dizzy spell to get me thinking back on when I last ate something.

Most of what I cook around here’s cheap and simple because of the fact I ran out of propane early last year and haven’t refilled the bottle, and because hauling water makes washing cookware an expense measured in hauling trips.  So I was living mostly on potato combinations, yogurt combinations, fruit combinations and various bean concoctions.  I was at the point of hating to look any one of them in the eye.

Then one day in the Salvation Army Thrift Store in Kerrvillle I saw that rice and veggie steamer still in the box for sale for a dollar.  It didn’t appear to ever have been used.  So, I bought it, thinking rice and steamed veggies would at least be different.

Sheeze, the best purchase since my High Roller back in 1972.  The tow bar I bought the other day might turn out to be a better deal, but I haven’t figured out anyway to cook with it.  But I’ve digressed.

What I’ve re-discovered is the absolute, euphoria-laden joy of food.  I’m making better meals on that thing than I could even find in a restaurant in town, but if I could, couldn’t afford them.  I’ll make up a batch of one or another Asian-like mix thinking it will last two days, then find I have to fight a war with myself to keep from eating it at a single sitting.

It does require loads of fresh onion, garlic, jalapeno, cayenne, curry and ginger.  I buy bags of trail mix of various sorts, dried mango, papaya, raisins and cranberrys at the Dollar Tree and pour on top, a little of each.  The food bills went up something awful last month.  But I don’t forget to eat.

And the simple truth is, some of these meals turn out to be classed among the best I’m able to recall having anytime in my  life.

Anyone says an old dog can’t learn new tricks is kidding himself.

Old Jules

 

17 Comments

Posted in 2012, America, Country Life, Senior Citizens, Survival, Thrift Stores

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Crazy Lost Gold Mine-ism Re-visited

Posted on February 13, 2012 by | 7 comments

Crazy Lost Gold Mine-ism

Good morning readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read this cold morning.

The adventurers are getting old and long in the tooth.  I’ve written about this in the past a number of times, but a few days ago I got an email that got me thinking about it again:

Hi J,  I hope this finds you well….cats too.

Age 72. Raised in northern Wyoming. Made my living mostly in electronics and related technology. Army vet.

I have been obsessed with that lost gold mine since 1974 and many years ago received a copy of your CD via a guy I think you know….If you had ever watched him shovel.

Bought your book several years ago. Lots of good stuff but editing sucked on the CD.. Also, someone you might know, Bob Gordon of Dallas went on a trip with us once to the Mangus Mt. area (probably in the early ’80’s) and I think I gave him his first copy of Allens and Byerts.  Excuse me, but I am currently too many margaritas along right now and need to cut this short. I am convinced I have a lot of the story figured out….Yeah, like I’m alone. But seriously. 

I would like to chat with you if only email,  Fergy

I replied to his email saying I’d be willing to discuss it by email.  Back during the day I spent enough hours on the telephone hearing where it was to break me of any desire to ever do that again.  But there’s always a chance someone will come along and add the piece to finish out the puzzle.

When his reply elaborating on his ponderings arrived, he didn’t clear anything up, but it did get me thinking about some things. 

Over the years those phone calls and emails have gradually squeezed down to men of advancing age.  Most of us are getting so old we’re not likely to tromp up high mountains anymore.  And we’re dying off.  Of the hundreds of letters and phone calls I got over the years, every one of the originators had solved the mystery, or was near unto solving it.  As I always was.  Heck, as I still am, though I don’t think about it much anymore.

During the 20th Century thousands of men tried to find that lost mine, as did a similar number during the 19th Century.  There was even a movie made about it in the late 1960s. 

Mackenna’s Gold (1969)

Format:  Mackenna's Gold DVD 
 
Sprawling frontier adventure with Gregory Peck as a sheriff who is given a map, said to show the location of a large cache of gold hidden in a valley, and soon finds he’s the target of every fortune hunter in the West. The star-laden cast also includes Omar Sharif, Telly Savalas, Julie Newmar, Lee J. Cobb, Edward G. Robinson. 123 min. Standard; Soundtracks: English Dolby Digital 5.1, Dolby Digital stereo; Subtitles: English, Chinese, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish, Thai; biographies; theatrical trailers.

 

But as the 20th Century wound down something interesting happened.  There were no new legions of youngsters replacing the old ones, researching, reading, poring over maps and trekking into remote canyons.   Something was gone, and it’s over.

Old Fergy, Keith and I, a few others are still out there thinking about it, but what we are and what we were is something modern humanity has left behind without noticing it’s done so.  I don’t know what that means, but I’m not overjoyed about it.  My preferred view of humanity and youth is going to require some adjustment.

Old Jules

Previous posts referring to the lost gold mine search:

Crazy Lost Gold Mine-ism, Wilderness Threats, Adventure, Imagination and Keeping the Juices Flowing, Cold Mystery, Fevered Romance and Lost Gold

Today on Ask Old Jules:

Old Jules, which prophet out of known prophets could make a good philosopher, and vice-versa, and why?

http://askoldjules.com/2012/02/13/prophets-and-philosophers/

7 Comments

Posted in 1960's, 1970's, 1980's, 2012, Adventure, America, History, Human Behavior, Outdoors, Prospecting, Senior Citizens

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Clarifying the clarification

Posted on February 9, 2012 by | 9 comments

Let no fate willfully misunderstand me and snatch me away, not to return. Robert Frost

Good morning readers. Thanks for coming by for a read.

Evidently some readers were left with the impression yesterday post was a farewell notice. It wasn’t. I’ll be posting here, but not so often, is all, until I’m where I can’t. I just won’t be spending so much time online.

Keith: I got your email, but I can’t do Facebook because of the slow connection. Check your Yahoo mailbox, amigo. I know you have computer issues, but I think that’s the only way available from this end. J

The invader cat has raised the ante here. It’s evidently a female and in heat. Walks around mewing all the time, to the disgust of the four resident felines. But I’ve begun feeding it because I’m not going to have it starving while I figure out who it belongs to.

My friend, Rich sent me a RAM upgrade for my offline computer and it arrived yesterday. Jumped me from 4 gb of RAM to 12 gb with Readyboost, and it allowed me to follow some computations I’d never been able to do before. Uplifting, satisfying day.

Gale’s fairly under the weather, but he brought down the RAM chips and we conversed a while. Seems he might have come across a tow bar for sale without recognizing it for what it is. Got me fairly excited, because the towing issues are the reason the New Truck isn’t in town being worked on, or isn’t finished, licensed, inspection stickered, lock stock and banana peel. I’m borrowing Little Red to go into town today and try to chase it down.

Maybe I shouldn’t have made the post yesterday, though I wasn’t smart enough was the reason I did. It seemed an explanation of why I’d be making fewer posts.

For those who read it rapidly I suppose it seemed I was about to take off all my clothes and run naked into the sunset.

It’s too cold still for that.

Old Jules

 

Previous posts about the transportation issue saga:

 Got me a new truck! Scouting the Escape Route Wobblehead Extensions, Crowfoots and Mayan Ruins in Georgia   The New Truck Resurrection Post-Y2K Cross-Cultural Trials, Trucks and Unwelcome Wisdom The Communist Toyota 4-Runner  

 

9 Comments

Posted in 2012, Adventure, Senior Citizens, Solitude

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Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die

Posted on February 4, 2012 by | 7 comments

http://www.teapotparty.org/

If I believed in representative democracy I think I might be tempted by this, even though I don’t smoke dope.

 

There’s something refreshing about seeing someone injecting some humor into all the scowling.  This modern religion of self-important in-your-face sneering between opposing political illusions and conflicting certainties about ‘What this country needs‘ and who’s most worthy of hatred and purple scorn ought to get boring for those doing it.  For the good of their souls, maybe.  Or, failing that, just as a means of demonstrating a human brain resides inside the human skull.

ABOUT WILLIE NELSON’S TEAPOT PARTY

  • Willie Nelson was busted in Texas for possessing marijuana on Nov. 26, 2010. Following the arrest, Willie founded the Teapot Party, declaring: “Tax it, regulate it and legalize it! Stop the border wars over drugs. Why should the drug lords make all the money? Thousands of lives will be saved.” Since then, Willie clarified the focus of the party. “The purpose of the Teapot Party is to vote in people who believe the way we do,” he stated, “and vote out the ones who don’t.” With that in mind, we’ve embarked on a campaign to find candidates to support in upcoming elections. So far we’ve made four endorsement and there will be many more to come. We encourage Teapot Party supporters to use this site to their advantage. Learn who we’re supporting, read the latest blogs, find out what’s happening in the marijuana-reform community, order free stickers, buy Teapot Party merchandise, keep up with our Facebook and Twitter feeds and upcoming events, such as rallies and meetups. With your support, we can make a difference by ending cannabis prohibition in our lifetimes. Please send donations to the candidates of your choice. Then go out and “vote in people who believe the way we do and vote out the ones who don’t,” just like Willie says.

I suppose old Willie still believes in representative democracy.  I’ll try to forgive him being stupid by believing something I don’t.  I’ll reciprocate by being stupid enough not to start smoking dope again.  Too damned much trouble. 

I’m trying to remember when it was I figured that out.    Sometime a long time ago, but before too much later, I think it was.  I had the High Roller already, but I don’t think I had the gray John B. Stetson yet.

Old Jules

7 Comments

Posted in 1970's, 2012, America, Current Issues, Politics, Senior Citizens, Solitude, YouTube

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A Search for the Meaning of Life

Posted on February 2, 2012 by | 33 comments

In 1992, when my 25 year marriage dissolved and I moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico, one of the projects I was determined to pursue was an attempt to understand the meaning of life, or something in the neighborhood.  I did a lot of thinking and planning about how to approach the matter in a way I considered the most likely possibility for success.

Part of the project involved learning everything I could about religions and metaphysics, and I began with an intense study of Christianity, early Christian history, pre-Nicean Christian documents, practices and beliefs at a time before anything qualified as Canon.  For a couple of years I submerged myself in the subject.

During the same time period I got up 3:30 am and spent a couple of hours watching Christian television to get a better understanding of what was going on with Christianity today.  I found I got a lot of enjoyment doing it, and I discovered one I liked particularly well and thought of almost as an old friend.

Garner Ted Armstrong.  I spent a year or so in my early 20s working for Rainbow Baking Company in Houston loading bread trucks off a conveyor belt 12 hours a day, and I filled some of the solitude listening to Garner Ted over a portable radio and earpiece.  I considered him one of the best rhetoricians of the 20th Century already when I found him preaching on television.

But what I hadn’t realized was his level of scholarship and open mindedness about Christian history.  The fact I was submerged in it at the time led me to write a letter to him asking his take on some issues I’d found ambiguous.

From that time until his death several years later, Garner Ted Armstrong and I indulged in exchanges of 20 page letters discussing the nuances of Christian history, Christian texts, the implications of the Nag Hammadi codices, news coming out of the Dead Sea Scrolls, where Christianity had been and possibly where it was going.

A truly strange time of my life, though just one of those side-trails that had little to do with my coincident search and research involving a lost gold mine, nor with understanding the meaning of life.  The former, I never found, and the latter, when I found it, didn’t need elaboration.

I still miss old Garner Ted Armstrong and those long letters.

Old Jules

33 Comments

Posted in 1990's, Adventure, History, New Mexico, Relationships, Science, Senior Citizens, Solitude

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