Month: August 2025

Rambo Rides Again! (Repost)

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In the story “MS. Rambo And The Fox” I told you about two of MS. Rambo’s escapades. To re-cap a little for you, she was a little thing, probably half Siamese because she had that trim build and I doubt that she weighed as much as eight pounds. She was just a young cat when her people, our neighbors up the hill, moved out and left her. For the next few months we saw her going from house to house, mooching a meal wherever she could. Pat always left some food and water on our patio for her. One dark and rainy evening we heard a terrible howling outside our front door. We opened it to discover that Ms. Rambo had decided to move in with us and to prove her good intentions and display her good manners, she had a live rat in her mouth as a hostess gift. Pat dried her off and I finally caught the rat, which she had dropped, and we began our coexistence. Pat and I petted Rambo and played with her and she became a delightful pet.IT turned out though, that Rambo pretty much hated everyone but Pat and I. When our grown kids were at the house, they kept a wary eye on her and hoped they wouldn’t be attacked.

At the time of Rambo’s next major performance, we were living in a gated community of 110 homes known as Avocado Estates. It was a great place for people and their animals. There were three avocado groves (free pickin’s for homeowners), an Olympic-size pool, club house, tennis courts, a fishing pond, and a hiking trail. We lived there for 11 years and enjoyed every minute of it. We only left because retirement was on the horizon and we wanted to downsize and simplify our lives.

The tract was built on a couple of the steepest residential hills I have ever seen. This meant that most of the homes were split level. Our home was on a corner lot, having a street running across the front or east side and a street running down the south side. That street on the south side was the steepest hill in the development and crested at our corner. Our lot was so steep that if you looked at our house from the front, it appeared as a single story. If you looked at the house from the back, it looked like a three-story structure. The redwood deck, outside the main floor was the same height as a normal second story. The redwood deck ran the full width of the house and had a standard 36″ high railing.

One beautiful day, Pat and I were sitting on the back deck. Ms. Rambo was seated, on her haunches, on the railing at the south side of the deck. We were busy, talking, and not paying much attention to Rambo. She was busy, bathing, and enjoying the sun. All of a sudden, Rambo jumped to her feet and went into her “high alert” stance. Naturally, we were curious to know what was going on and jumped to our feet, too. We all looked out to the south and saw a neighbor walking down the middle of the street as his dog wandered ahead of him. This guy never had his dog on a leash but let it wander through every yard it came to and was probably relieving himself at each one though it was hard to catch him at it.

The dog made it over into our yard and was going from bush to bush and smelling everything. We could see that Rambo was itching to go after this mutt. She was strung up tighter than a guitar string. “This intruder needs to be punished!” The dog kept coming until he was nearly below us. All of a sudden, Rambo jumped! Pat and I leaned forward to see what was happening. The area directly behind the house was fenced off and there was a gate almost directly under the deck. Rambo went flying through the air and landed on the top of a 4″ x 4″ gate post. She bounced off on to the back of that rotten dog. The dog jumped straight into the air and then took off running, yelping at every step. Rambo had her claws in deep and looked like a regular jockey looks when they are hunkered down and the horse is running flat out. The dog’s owner was yelling and flapping his arms and trying to get them to stop but there was no stopping Rambo. She was making a “money ride” today.

A while later Ms. Rambo came prancing home. Maybe it was just our imaginations, but we thought she had a big smile on her face and was acting mighty proud. Well, we were mighty proud, too.

Dave Thomas
June 16, 2017

Negative Stuff

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Negative Stuff

-We are using up our trees and other natural resources and turning them into trash so fast that we may have to consider using the Grand Canyon as our next landfill.

-The Fourth of July holiday was created to celebrate the founding of America, our Constitution, and our democracy. If we are converting to an authoritarian regime, there is no longer a need for the 4th of July holiday.

-They said they are following the Rule of Law, but, most likely, they are following the rule of the outlaws.

Dave Thomas

8/21/2025

I Thought Superheroes Were Kid Stuff

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I’ve been thinking about all of the superhero-stuff we are experiencing today. According to the news, superhero movies are bringing in millions of dollars. This is quite a contrast to what I saw when I was growing up. At that time, the superheroes, Batman, Superman, Captain Marval, and Plastic Man were available for 10 cents in their monthly comic books. What has changed? Are we looking at heroes and superheroes differently now? Are our fellow citizens just looking at the superheroes as a 2-hour escape into fantasyland for entertainment or is it something deeper than that? Is something missing? Why are our people looking so desperately for a hero? Let’s take a look at this hero-thing.

Going back to 1954, the year I graduated from high school, things were much different. My hometown, Augusta, Kansas, a city of 5,000, was like most of the country. If I walked the sidewalks of our 3 ½ block business district, I would be surrounded by heroes. On the military side, there were veterans of WWI, WWII, Korea, and maybe even the Spanish-American War. The adult civilians would be people who survived the dust bowl and the depression. Heroes, all, in my book. They were all people of grit who had gritted their teeth and made it through.

The next big event was the Vietnam War. The attitude toward heroes was changing. Americans should be ashamed for the way young people who served were treated after giving their lives and limbs for their country.

Next came the Middle-East wars. Does anyone think seriously about them? It’s like we were sending those young people off to summer camp. Was anyone getting excited or worried about what was happening to the lives of those kids?

Attitudes toward leadership and heroes have changed. What about the single mom or single dad who are working 2 or 3 jobs to provide for their kids and still are taking the time to instill in them the qualities that make for a good citizen? This paper requires more smarts than I can come up with. I hope it provokes some consideration from you.

Dave Thomas

8/21/2025

Caring and Sharing

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Ordinarily, either three crows or five crows would show up for breakfast.  However, these last few days only two had come in. We were lucky in that it was Lame Foot and Clucker who were easy to recognize. Pat put out some food for them and then went back into the house. Suddenly, one of the crows started cawing, and Pat looked out and saw that it was Lame Foot.  He was giving a set of 3 caws over and over again.  The sounds were raspy and seemed to come from deeper in the throat than usual. After a couple of minutes of thism crows started landing on the driveway and they kept coming, one after another, until there were sixteen of them. They were both hungry and thirsty, and they really went after the food and water. Lame Foot and Clucker flew up and perched on the edge of the garage roof and watched or supervised the feast. Apparently, the crows hadn’t found a food source that morning and really needed some help. Pat had to replenish the food to get them filled up.

I understand that crows are just crows. However, they become quite interesting when you learn of their intelligence and some of the human-like traits they sometimes display. In today’s story, Lame Foot showed examples of his leadership ability   and his feelings of empathy and compassion for members of his feathered community.

Crows seem to know something about training, too. Lame Foot was one of the group of five crows that were being fed by Pat every day. Boss Crow was the leader of the group,                      and he strode around aggressively and jabbered incessantly. He would come right up to within two feet of Pat and would say what was on his mind. Meanwhile, Lame Foot just sat back and watched and listened as a good trainee should and never said a word.

When Boss Crow left, Lame Foot stepped up and took the leadership position. There was no question of who was in charge. Lame Foot handled the job easily. He continues to show up every day, and the other crows recognize that he is still the boss.

Dave Thomas

8/7/2025