I had an interesting experience yesterday. Actually, it all started about a year ago.

I was walking down Langdon St. in Montpelier VT and I spied a WWII enlisted man's army hat on the sidewalk. There is a coffee house at the end of the street where numerous young people wearing this type of clothing congregate and I suspected that it belonged to one of them but when asked, no one would claim it. At the time, I thought it would make a good addition to a halloween costume, and I put it in my truck to save for future use. It remained there for some months and moved from truck to garage during the next hoeing out of accumulated truck junk.

Fast forward to yesterday when I was hoeing out the garage in an attempt to create room for my car's winter abode (I have yet to use the mythical hoe in my garden!). I again found the hat, and this time noticed a name and dog tag number printed in the hat band; Nimtz 35161292. Finding more information about Mr Nimtz sounded like more fun than garage hoeing, so I took a little time to do some web searching.

It took about 20 mins to find a web site where I could get free army info using his service number. This gave me date of birth, date of induction, place of induction, stuff like that. I kept typing the name into google in different ways until I ran across an election record which stated that he was elected to the house of representatives in the 1957 to 1959 session. The Congressional bio. records supplied enough information to send me to the South Bend IN Tribune where I found a reference to the 12/13/05 news release from the S.B. mayor's office about the F. Jay Nimtz Award:

"This award was established to honor the late F. Jay Nimtz, a former U.S. Congressman,

long-time President of the South Bend Redevelopment Commission, and attorney and

community preservationist. F. Jay set the standard for community advocacy and commitment to

building a better South Bend. Created in 1989, the award is given by the City of South Bend and

South Bend Heritage Foundation to an individual in the community who has shown exemplary

public service through long and varied volunteer activities."

By now, I had learned enough about Mr. Nimtz that I wanted to find something better than halloween for his hat. So, I called the mayor's office. The woman I spoke with knew Mr. Nimtz, who died in 1990, and was quite excited about this find. She indicated that there are a couple of museums in the area that would be interested in having the hat and I sent it to her in the afternoon.

It's almost scary to me. Finding a significant amount of information about someone I'd never heard of, who lived a third of the way across the country, with only a last name and service number to start with was quite easy, particularly for a clueless web browser (me) who didn't really know what they were doing. Within about an hour, I had the man's full name, service history, political history, place of birth and had spoken with someone who knew him. 6 degrees strikes again.

Someone more knowledgeable about the process can probably do all this in less than 5 mins. If you are seeking anonymity, good luck. On the other hand, the amount and accessibility of information available "out there" is staggering. I guess I knew this all along, but my first experience in actually trying to use it was a real eye opener.

Karma is an interesting thing.

A few weeks back, I borrowed my son's Kubota tractor to do a little landscaping. The lawn has sloped toward the house ever since I put an addition on the kitchen. This was the year I decided to change the slope to direct rainwater away instead of into the cellar. The tractor is an amazing tool and was quickly changing the slope when suddenly one of the hydraulic hoses on the bucket split open. The ensuing fog tsunami of hydraulic fluid coated the tractor and this driver with an even layer and since it's a hydro drive, the entire beast was disabled and unmovable.

Within a couple of hours, I had a new hose installed and finished the job without further incident.

Fast forward to today. In order to maintain at least the appearance of even, flat lawn, I borrowed an old Troybuilt tiller from my good friend John. It's one his father bought when he was in high school and has been salvaged from the scrap heap many times. I was tilling merrily away and had about two passes to finish smoothing things out when there was a sudden belching of thick blue smoke from the engine, which faltered miserably and nearly died. I shut it off, drove the truck onto the back lawn, loaded it in and returned it with many apologies. John wasn't overly concerned and seemed to almost expect it of a 30+ year old machine, but I feel crappy about it nonetheless.

Since I was almost done, I decided to just roll the lawn out, seed it, put on the straw and call it a day. I rented the roller, hooked it to the lawn tractor and rolled the whole patch - almost! with about 15 mins work left, suddenly the tractor wouldn't steer. One of the tie rod ball joints had come apart. No amount of coaxing would keep it together, and I can't get the mower shop to answer the phone. When I do, I won't expect them to have one.

What is it about this lawn project that is so anti? Virtually every chapter has been fraught with mechanical breakdowns, for no apparent reason, other than bad Karma.

I managed to get the tractor into the garage , with the 500 Lb. roller attached, but now I think I'd better go out and make sure the roller's not not leaking water all over the garage floor!

The longer I manage to stay alive with the ability to maintain some semblance of cognitive thought , the more I realize the need to live for today.

Yes, I do understand that planning ahead is a necessary evil, but it's not the most accurate or reliable way to live one's life. The advantage to planning ahead is that it gives one purpose. With the right amount of planning ahead, you can convince yourself that you have laid the foundation for the success of whatever event you have in mind. This creates a comfort zone in which the planner can happily live, that is until the plans are changed from without.

The trick to planning ahead is in realizing that all things can, and will, change without forewarning. One cannot plan for the changes since any prediction about what they may be will likely be inaccurate. I have often seen otherwise calm and rational people totally lose it in the unraveling of their anticipated future. I am a victim of this as much as anyone else (although the rational part of this equation has sometimes been brought into question). My wife is less subject than I to the syndrome, which seems to rear its ugly head most often in driving situations. She spends drive time which would otherwise be consumed in the pages of a good mystery trying to calm nerves frayed by a wrong turn or too much stop and go traffic.

But - recently, I have tried to be more amenable to the "make lemonade with life's lemons" theory. Sometimes it's difficult to create opportunity out of unexpected change, but this often can be done. It is all in my flexibility, expectations, and ability to avoid trying to manage the outcome. Knowing things rarely happen exactly as intended regardless of the plans I make is a good start. In other words, plan for change. And, don't presume to predict what that change may be; just know that its going to happen when least expected.

Right now, I plan to replace the worn out strings on my guitar and practice a few tunes.

Waukeena farm party

Every year for some time now, my oldest brother (I have 2) and sister in law have had an annual pre-Thanksgiving party for family and friends. We tried to remember when this all started at the party last weekend, but none of us were sure. Suffice it to say that if you can't remember, it's been awhile.

A few years back, I started arriving a day early to help set things up, and I began bringing my turkey frying pots and flame thrower to add fried turkey to the menu. This is in addition to the 2 roast beef, smoked ham, sometimes smoked turkey, bean hole beans and smoked pork loin that we serve. Everyone else brings potluck.

The number of people who attend varies year to year, but there is always a pretty good crowd with several families camping out in the field.

The day after, Sunday, we cook a pancakes and bacon breakfast for anyone who shows up. It's often almost as big as the previous day's party.

About 5 years ago, I bought a 3 burner Camp Chef outdoor stove to hasten the pancake cooking. Then my brother got one for his birthday, so there's now 2 in operation. For about 3 years now, Marion runs the second one.

Marion is my teenage 1st cousin, once removed. Those genealogists among you can figure that out for yourselves. She is firmly ensconced as the second breakfast cook and has successfully withstood the annual takeover onslaught perpetrated by her other cousins. Cooking pancakes with her has become one of my favorite weekend events at this party. Collectively, we are the pancake czars and take no abuse from anyone without meting out equally satisfying retribution. "No pancake for you!!" is a terrifying threat to the hungry masses.

It's a wonderful thing that my brother and sil are happy to have this party. There are times when it is the only chance we have to see other members of the family and, in some instances, their friends that I also grew up with. Because it's really a 3 day event for me, it's an opportunity to actually catch up and spend time with people instead of trying to jam it all together in a few hours. There are few things that are more important or satisfying than this.

We took a trip to the Boston area this weekend, and now I want to know why the hell everyone is in such a hurry all the time.

Actually, the question is more closely directed to how the hurrying is done rather than why. We drove and were, therefore, subjected to the driving habits of the Boston area population. These habits are not pretty, nor are they something with which I have no experience. I grew up there, drove, and owned a cab there for a couple of years in my early 20's. In fact, that is one of the reasons I now live where I do. But now I've had years to think more about the experience and I still don't fully understand the inability of drivers to understand the relationship between weaving speed, danger to life and limb and the miniscule advantage gained by this insane activity.

The nature of traffic is that those behind catch up to those in front whenever there is an increase in the number of cars causing a slow down. So, if you are on the highway going 80 mph and you come to a little construction, heavy traffic or accident, you loose the entire advantage gained by the excessive speed for the last half hour. All those cars you passed catch up to you and indeed, if you are in the wrong lane, may actually go by.

Hurrying while driving doesn't work. It may make one feel better, but it gains one little or no advantage. I once read a report on a test in Germany in which there were 2 cars crossing 1000 km or so of the country. One was told to go as fast as possible and the other to obey the speed limits. At the end, there was a 15 minute difference in a 6-7 hour trip. Big deal.

I find this holds true in other aspects of my life. Whenever I hurry something, the resulting mistakes invariably cause so much additional time consumption that the whole process takes more, not less, time.

So if you get behind me and become impatient because I'm only going 5 mph over the speed limit, relax! Your nose up my exhaust pipe won't make it happen any faster.