"Just fine, Dick," Chris responded.
About that time I noticed Chris had a big pair of binoculars dangling from a leather thong around his neck. "What'er those for, Chris? Don't tell me you're a window peeper," I said.
Chris gave a hearty laugh and admitted that the binocs might seem strange equipment for a meter reader. "But so many homes have those solid wood privacy fences the glasses are necessary," Chris told me. "With 'em, I can read the meters from outside the fence."
Naturally, anything so unusual as binocs on a meter reader is bound to have one or two good stories. So Chris told me about the time he was reading meters in the Fairview Addition. "You know that day care center at the corner of Cedar and Iola? The wood fence around that yard is so tall I have to have a box to stand on to read the meter," he said.
"After reading the day care meter with my glasses, I went on reading other meters. Pretty soon, a Sallisaw Police car came along. I waved at the patrolman, but he stopped. 'Ohh, it's just you' the patrolman told me. Someone in the neighborhood had reported a peeping tom at the day care center," Chris said with a chuckle.
Associate District Judge A.J. Henshaw, Jr., (a Cherokee, no less) says that old-time, real American Indians called telescopes and binoculars "long eyes."
Speaking of Sallisaw's electricity, I don't know about your house, but here on South Wheeler we've had so many bumps, jumps, zits, breaks and interruptions in our electrical supply over the past year, I've nearly worn smooth all the plastic reset knobs on the electric clocks, tv and other appliances.
The interruptions have also cost us a $30 telephone, a $14 answering machine and a bunch of enamel I've chipped off my few teeth.
Hopefully, clear sailing is ours now that we've installed a $67 starter delay relay on Gracie's treadmill and a $40 battery backup and surge protector on the telephones. Plus an untold amount (I don't even want to think about a total) in technical advice and labor.
One of several items on the Denny's restaurant menu was "Moons Over My Hammy." Surely I was in the kids section.
For a news story to be belittled as "old news" or "not newsworthy" or, as President Bush said, "Nothing is farther from the truth," the items regarding the 2002 spring and summer meetings between "a senior British intelligence official and his U.S. counterpart" have had tremendous staying power-if only on the blogs and an occasional mainstream piece.
Now referred to as "The Downing Street Memo" (or memos) the official memos blatantly state that Bush had made up his mind to invade Iraq long before he did so on Mar. 19, 2003.
In a June 28 Wall Street Journal article, Christopher Cooper reported: "In the document, the senior British intelligence official reported: 'a perceptible shift in attitude' about Iraq in Washington months before the war. 'Military action was now seen as inevitable,' the document said, and 'Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism' and weapons of mass destruction. 'But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.' " [Italics added for emphasis and clarity.]
Then there is the following July 23, 2002, memo questioning Bush's justification for war: "It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided. But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbors, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran."
Obviously, those high-level fellows were just playing Dungeons and Dragons.
Yes, and I'm a nuclear physicist.
West of Shawnee and facing east-bound I-40 traffic is a modest sign: "Resistance Is Not Futile-Vote Democratic."
That former Snow Bird lives in the neighborhood of Fin 'n Feather Resort. He wrote to let us in on a possible new method of air conditioning. Saith 'Bird: "Our rural water comes out of the bottom of Lake Tenkiller-like ice water.
"One of my neighbors measured it at 50
