Encore! Happy Memorial Day!

I'm feeling just as lazy as I was last Memorial Day. So I'm re-posting the observations from 2011 Memorial Day. The sentiment still stand. Happy Memorial Day! If you can't thank a vet, say a prayer for one.

I’m giving into the warm inertia of holiday laziness by not posting a fresh Memorial Day story.

If you’re interested in reading one of those, you can do so here from 2009 (serious) or here from 2010 (silly).

But I just don’t have it in me today to conjure another one of those.

I feel sort of guilty about that.

Right now brave Americans are ducking bullets in some of the most inhospitable places on the planet. They are away from their heartsick families, their recreations and all the fat relaxing I intend to enjoy today.

They can’t play with their daughters or take them the new wave pool at Idlewild Amusement Park as I’ll be doing.

They can’t sit in a hammock and sip a beer, toke on a stogie, and listen to the Pirate game, which I have scheduled for the afternoon.

If they’re digging any holes in the ground, it won’t be to plant flowers and tomatoes and other vegetables like we’re going to do today as a family. No, if they’re doing any digging it’ll be for protective purposes.

They’re in hostile war zones fighting to protect my freedom of speech and I’m too lazy to even exercise it.

But I will take time to say my prayers and be sure to include ones that God will protect them, their families and all the men and women who’ve ever served so I can enjoy such a splendid little life in the greatest and most exuberant country the world’s ever known.

Thank you, vets. Happy Memorial Day.

Hatfields & McCoys: Let's play the feud!

As an avid student of human nature, I’m eager to watch the History channel’s “Hatfield’s & McCoys.” I’m ignorant of the historic feud’s origins but I understand it involves a stray pig.

Nothing stirs my interest like rationally disposed human beings helplessly giving in to bents of insane passion.

This is true in cases of both love and hatred. 

I’m still following all the news about the messy love triangle between former Highmark insurance titan Ken Melani, his golf cart honey Melissa Myler and her fifth-wheel husband. 

Just two months ago, Melani was earning $4.5 million a year as the CEO of a $14 billion industry giant. He was often feted by local philanthropies and society pages for his keen intellect and social dash. He was a true mover and shaker.

That was before he fell under the spell of the comely half-his-age Myler, who moved and shook in ways that cause older married men like Melani to drive their once-stable lives straight off cliffs.

You can read more about it here and, you betcha, count on me to keep you informed any time any of the trio does anything to make the news.

Then there’s the sad, tragic reverse when people let irrational hatred drive them to the very depths of human experience.

It’s impossible to catalogue all the news stories I’ve written about men who are now serving life sentences that stemmed from conflicts over things as mundane as the disputed location of a hedge.

I can’t recall the details and wouldn’t post them here for fear for my life, but the most gripping Hatfield & McCoy story I’ve ever covered involved two middle-aged western Pennsylvania men who’d led otherwise spotless lives right up until they become neighbors.

One was a college English professor, the other a skilled carpenter.

The story would be better if I could say both men were well-regarded within the community as quality individuals. That was not the case.

The professor was. The carpenter was not. In fact, I spoke to maybe a dozen witnesses from the subsequent trial and everyone said the carpenter was an absolute jerk no one would miss if he dropped dead.

The professor was a man of manners and good humor, at least he was until the carpenter moved next door and began poisoning both their lives.

In fact, the first dispute was over the location of a fence the carpenter built. The professor said it strayed across the border onto the property of his tidy suburban home.

By two feet.

Those two feet led to an escalation of antagonisms the led to attempted murder.

Six months after the construction of the fence, the professor had had enough. He couldn’t sleep. The carpenter kept odd hours and played loud music with the speakers pointed at the professor’s bedroom. The carpenter’s dog was pooping in his yard.

Individually, these may seem like petty irritants. Cumulatively, they consumed the professor. So much so that one day he purchased a gun and approached the carpenter on his back porch and emptied the clip in his antagonist’s head.

Imagine a hatred so all-consuming that you’d willingly sacrifice your freedom to eliminate it. He understood the law. Knew he’d go to prison. Yet he chose the peace incarceration would bring knowing because it meant the end to the source of his soul-searing hatred.

Then imagine the object of that hatred surviving six bullets to the head.

I don’t recall the calibre of the weapon, but it is irrelevant. Experts and police were stunned that this evil neighbor could survive intact. I interviewed him at his kitchen table. Without knowing the history of their feud, he would have seemed like a perfectly normal guy.

He showed me his wounded noggin. It looked like someone had slugged him multiple times with a ball peen hammer.

And everyone in town felt terrible about the whole thing.

Not for the victim.

For the history professor.

Jurors told me they felt bereaved they couldn’t imprison the victim and free the assailant.

It reminded me of what one old attorney once told me. “There are three kinds of homicide: justifiable, unnecessary and praiseworthy.”

I’ve had some wonderful neighbors and some that have caused me to think of how that old English professor reacted with his mortal enemy -- or maybe he thinks of him as his immortal enemy. I may revisit this topic again soon because I’m convinced a bad neighbor can make your life worse than a bad spouse.

The bad neighbor has more permanence.

A friend of mine told me the last time he golfed he was beset upon by tiny, annoying flies. They didn’t bite, they didn’t sting, but they were a constant irritant that ruined his round..

“They were just always there in your face,” he said. “You couldn’t escape them and you couldn’t kill them.”

You mean, I asked, like neighbors?

Exactly.

Yesterday, Arnold Palmer watched me golf

I came within a two-foot putt of committing what would be one of the greatest golf sins in the game’s history. I almost asked Arnold Palmer if he’d leave Arnold Palmer’s Latrobe Country Club because Arnold Palmer was bugging me.

This would be like asking the Pope to vacate the Vatican for being too Catholic.

But, man, he was bugging me.

I was invited by Doc Giffin, Palmer’s assistant of nearly 50 years, to join him and two other golf writers to play a swanky member-guest function at the historic home to one of golf’s greatest legends.

It’s a real treat.

Both Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods have more championships, but golf has no more enduring and endearing star than Palmer. He is beloved around the world and revered here in Latrobe.

And why not?

An expert pilot, he’s set around-the-world aviation records, is best buddies with several presidents and has golfed with all but two of them since Ike. Bill Clinton says one of the great perks of office is getting to play golf with Arnold Palmer. Kirk Douglas said in 1970 that no one alive -- not Sinatra, John Wayne or Ronald Reagan -- has more charisma than Palmer. In 2007, GQ named this 82-year-old gent one of the most stylish American men from the past 50 years, and last year one of the 25 coolest athletes of all time.

And through years of chummy interviews, he’s somehow become my buddy. In fact, he was gracious enough to provide the gushy foreword for my new book, “Use All The Crayons! The Colorful Guide to Simple Human Happiness.”

I told him I’m convinced it’ll be his most successful endorsement ever which, if true, means my book is destined to become more profitable than either Cadillac or Rolex.

And wouldn’t that be a big win for the little guy!

It’s no exaggeration to say I still tingle every time I see him.

What’s odd is I now realize the only place I don’t want to see the legend is in his native habitat, the golf course.

Actually, reverse that: I don’t want him seeing me there.

But that was the situation over three holes yesterday afternoon.

Prior to spying Palmer spying us, I’d been playing well. I’d parred the first and second holes and was just off the back edge of the third hole, a tricky par 5, in 3.

That’s when I saw him glowing in the trees. He was seated in a golf cart -- and he truly does glow. I don’t know whether it comes from wealth, karmic beneficence, or some kind of pricey sunscreen he uses, but there he was shimmering in his golf cart. It was perfectly cool.

Of course, I thought of my late father, the man who bestowed upon his sons a reverence for all things Palmer.

It was a flawless western Pennsylvania afternoon. And there I was playing at Latrobe Country Club with Arnold Palmer, a man I call a friend, about to watch me golf.

So I about crapped my pants. 

In fact, that for the next three holes became my dominant swing thought. Good golfers will address the ball and say to themselves, “Now, keep your head down, use a smooth back swing, and be sure to follow through.”

I just kept thinking over and over, “Just don’t crap your pants.”

I managed to hit the first shot, a dainty little wedge, to about seven feet. I was left with a tricky downhill putt.

Having executed the wedge shot without embarrassing myself, I felt a surge of confidence now that I held the putter, even as I recognized I was on one of the club’s most dangerous greens.

I hit the putt on a nice line, but it grazed the cup and sped past about 3 feet.

“That’s good!” Palmer yelled cheerfully.

So now in addition to thoughts about loose bowels, another herd of questions come thundering across my brain.

Is he being sarcastic? Should I pick up? Is he testing my golf integrity? What if he says, “You know, if I’d have known you putt like that, I never would have endorsed your stupid book.”

Confused, I bent down to make the comeback putt. Missed it by a foot.

Now I’m coming apart. My promising round is ruined by the observing presence of one of the greatest golfers to ever live.

I made the next putt, but it had taken me three strokes to negotiate seven measly feet.

And now I begin to wonder how long he’s going to be hanging around watching us. What if he starts to heckle?

He follows us for parts of the next two holes. He’s joking, encouraging and gracious.

He sees me hit six more shots, about four of them decent, and then he simply vanishes. He either drove off without me watching or else uses some kind of time-space transportation beam available only to him. We don’t see him again the rest of the round.

I’m relieved when he’s gone, but I sense a lost opportunity. It will now haunt me that I was unable to confidently sink a long putt, scorch a perfect drive or cozy a wedge shot snug to the pin for him to see.

Arnold Palmer watched me golf and I failed to do something remarkable.

On the other hand, I guess in a way I sort of did.

At least I somehow managed to keep from crapping myself.

Encore! Happy B-Day to Bob Dylan and this blog (from '11)

Please excuse me while we interrupt this blog in progress. I'll be posting a fresh essay about Arnold Palmer watching me golf in about 90 minutes, but didn't want the day to go by without acknowledging the blog turns 4 today, the same day Bob Dylan turns 71. But rather than just update all the stats included here, I figured I'd just float this re-run.

We'll soon be returning you to your irregularly scheduled blog.

Today Bob Dylan turns 70 and this blog turns 3.

It’s certainly presumptuous of me, a not impartial observer, to even make the claim, but of the two it’s this blog that is on track to make the more significant cultural contribution.

First, Dylan has written 458 songs in his life. But he didn’t really write anything until he was about 17 years old.

This post is the blog’s 444th, a near perfect equivalent. So it took Dylan about 53 years to accomplish what this blog’s done in 3.

Compared to Dylan, this blog’s a prodigy.

And only his parents and some farming neighbors in desolate Hibbing, Minnesota, really cared about the boy they knew as Robert Zimmerman (this blog’s not going to have any artsy name change, either; bestowing it with even more gritty street cred).

Guaranteed nobody outside of America had even heard of the boy who became Dylan.

On the contrary, this blog has been enjoyed in 91 countries.

I know this because I obsessively check the blog’s secret “stats” feature. It pretends to tell me which posts are being read, the nations where those readers reside, and the search terms that led them there.

It’s been delightful to see people in Macau, Kenya, Belarus, Iran and even Palestine find their way to the blog. That those hits correspond to search terms like “amish boobs,” “amish blue jeans” and “amish pledge of allegiance” does nothing to diminish the accomplishment.

I’m suspicious of the total numbers and believe they are more substantial than those shown in the home page tally. For instance, the other day, I posted a well-read story about Arnold Schwarzenegger.

As soon as it went up, “stats” told me the story was being viewed by 10 people in the U.S., three in Denmark, two in Germany and two in France.

That’s 17 people. Yet stingy “stats” tallied only six site views.

It makes me want to scream at “stats” for its mathematical deficiencies. I’d try and find a more reliable readership survey app but am fearful it would tell me no one’s reading so I stick with fickle “stats.”

I spend a lot of time thinking how I can increase the blog’s readership without being obnoxious.

Should I write more posts with fewer words or vice versa?

I’ll do neither. I may not have an overwhelming number of readers, but I am thrilled with the ones I have. You’re a great and feisty mix of people and I am truly thankful to each of you.

I believe more readers and blog prominence is bound to happen. The feedback is too heartfelt and persistent to ignore.

To me, the best thrill is checking in on “stats” and seeing a huge spike indicating that someone, somewhere, is devoting an hour or two to reading dozens of old posts.

That’s the kind of readers I want.

It’s kind of like the way I gained an appreciation for Dylan, which didn’t happen until 1988 when he was with the Traveling Wilburys. His songs had a joy and humor I’d not previously detected.

Had he had a “stats” page at the time, Dylan would have seen a kid in Pittsburgh was scarfing up for all his old stuff. I think it would have pleased him the way it pleases me.

So that’s one thing I’m going to change. I’m going to continue to write about 700 words three times a week, but I’m also going to be less reluctant about including lively shorter items and tossing some of my old favorites into the mix with an updated preamble.

After all, Dylan doesn’t just play new stuff. No, if you go to see a Dylan show (I’ve seen him 29 times), he’ll play about three new songs and maybe 15 oldies.

The comprehensive www.bobdylan.com says he’s played “Like a Rolling Stone” 1,816 times.

So it’s crazy for me to keep pumping out new stuff while just ignoring a really respectable back catalogue.

What if someone mistakes a new blog as the go-ahead for a pee break?

Will www.EightDaysToAmish.com have a more impressive run than Bob Dylan?

Only time will tell.

Either way, thanks for reading. I hope you’ll continue to check in and refer it to friends whenever you find it worthy.

And you can go ahead and take that pee break now.

My fears of public speaking

I used to be very comfortable speaking in public. Did it all the time. In fact, I was a regular guest on Pittsburgh morning radio and on a popular panel TV show.

I’ve taught college classes, have spoken to writers’ groups and once addressed more than 200 people at a Manhattan awards ceremony where I was a guest of honor for a series of stories I wrote about people struggling with dystonia.

That’s why recent anxieties about public speaking left me unnerved.

Because I’m intending to do a lot more of it.

On its face, that last statement will alarm my family and my friends at the bar, my core demographics and the ones who think I never shut up.

They fail to understand a key difference between public speaking and drunken babbling.

Public speaking requires some wit, monetary incentive and an alert audience eager for entertainment or information.

For me to babble drunkenly, all I need is booze and people with ears who prefer hearing me incoherently yap at the tavern to being home and hearing a sober spouse complain about their shortcomings.

But I have a new book coming out and I plan on reaching out to every civic group in Western Pennsylvania who’ll be interested in hearing how a guy who can’t help himself is now a self-help author -- you can check out the still-evolving website, www.UseAllTheCrayons.com.

So the stakes are high. 

I want every appearance to be polished and entertaining, an oratorical home run.

It wasn’t last week on a Michigan radio show, which I’m regarding as more of a foul out. I’m friends with Michael Patrick Shiels, host of a lively program syndicated on 10 different stations across the state. Recent guests include Mitt Romney, Capt. Chesley Sullenberger and me.

Michael couldn’t have been more generous with his introduction. I remember listening and thinking, wow, this guy’s gonna be good -- and I’ll bet he’s handsome, too. It was so flattering that when he started asking me live questions about my book I responded with dumbfounded silence.

I kept waiting for the brilliant man he’d introduced to speak up and say something intelligent.

That guy was a no-show.

I was so choppy and awkward I’m convinced my old friend won’t have me on again until I heroically land a packed jumbo jet liner on the Hudson River.

The result? I had just one guy get in touch after the show asking me to send him a free copy of the book, which I happily did for reasons stated here.

It shook my confidence.

That’s why I felt relief the other night at a gathering of about 100 international journalists and Pittsburgh big shots when the microphone seemed to safely pass me by.

The Pittsburgh Regional Alliance and Visit Pittsburgh brought these distinguished journalists from as far as Spain and Germany to Pittsburgh to learn why the only color becoming more dominant than Black 'n' Gold is green.

The David L. Lawrence Convention Center, Consol Energy Center, and other dazzling new downtown structures have embraced green technologies in ways that are being hailed around the globe. Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens is unveiling the new Center for Sustainable Landscapes, which ingeniously produces all its own renewable energy and waters its lush gardens solely on water captured and treated on site.

It’s is among the greenest buildings on earth, quite a feat considering it earns the designation over thousands of other places that have an advantage of starting out being called “green” houses.

And I’m busting with pride that Pittsburgh is its home.

I just didn’t want to have to say it through an amplifier at the Monday evening reception.

We were on the spectacular 12th floor porch of the Reed Smith building, adjacent to the new Fairmont Hotel in the heart of Pittsburgh’s Golden Triangle. I was standing with fellow freelance writer Chris O’Toole, the kind of journalist I want to be when I grow up (I’ll be 50 in February so any day now)

Her credentials include bylines in many of the world’s most prestigious publications. She’s poised, classy and beloved by all.

My most impressive credential at the time was I was standing next to her.

The MC, Pittsburgh TV personality Bill Flanagan, concluded his chipper opening remarks and asked each of the visiting journalists to introduce themselves and offer a little background. Happily, he and the mic passed right by Chris and I.

I felt a huge surge of relief. I wouldn’t have to address the crowd.

And what a distinguished group it was. It included a reporter for The New York Times and representatives from many other renown publications who’ve been rejecting my inferior work for years.

I joked to Chris it was a good thing they passed us by because all I’d have to say is, “I’m Chris Rodell and I need more wine!”

And that was true. When the wine is free, I could just stand there and drink myself into a giddy little puddle. Free from concerns about having to speak, I was having a splendid time.

That’s why I almost dropped my glass when Flanagan said, “And, finally, we’d like to introduce two outstanding local journalists, Chris O’Toole and Chris Rodell!”

If we’d have just been about four stories lower, I’d have jumped off the building and made a run for it.

I don’t recall a single word she said, but I’m sure it was brilliant.

And I don’t recall a single word I said either, which is a pity because it, too, was apparently brilliant.

I was the last speaker, the clean-up hitter. As fate had it, mine were the valedictory remarks of the evening and I somehow pulled it off.

The reaction couldn’t have been better. Prominent Pittsburghers kept coming up to me to thank me for my heartfelt gush. Fellow reporters sought my acquaintance. 

I tried to think of why the results of these two episodes of public speaking differed so widely; one a failure, the other a success.

For one, I was prepared and had a list of talking points at the ready.

For the other, it was completely extemporaneous. 

After careful consideration, I blame the apparent sobriety of Michigan residents who listen to the radio at 8:30 a.m. Tough crowd.

It wasn’t like that on that scenic Pittsburgh porch. 

You see, I wasn’t the only guy there enjoying lots of free wine.

The results have me considering altering my business model for selling my book. To heck with rubber chicken dinner talks before Western Pennsylvania civic groups.

Napa Valley, here I come!

Mark Zuckerberg's amazing weekend

When I saw Mark Zuckerberg got married the day after FaceBook’s IPO earned $20 billion, my first thought was, “And someday those kids are going to be fighting over money.”

And I’m not talking about divorce settlements, although that romantic Trump is.

“They get married and then for some reason over the next couple of years they get divorced and then she sues him for $10 billion and she hits the jackpot,” he told CNBC. “I think if she made $1 million, that would be very good.

A romantic indeed, but only about things that stir the pulses of people proficient in accounting.

I’m talking about whether one is maybe a coupon clipper while the other is extravagant. Many couples agree on the great moral issues of raising children yet spar over whether the breakfast waitress deserves an extra quarter.

Money’s just an evergreen source of conflict with every couple.

A friend of mine forewarned me of this on the eve of my marriage. He said it was absolutely essential my bride and I run all our finances through the same bank account.

“Trust me on this,” he said, “having a joint bank account will eliminate all the arguments about money. It’s one of the things that helps my marriage succeed, that and mutual respect.”

Back then he was utterly sincere.

Fifteen years later, he’s divorced. He busted his wife cheating on him with their kid’s karate instructor and now he sits in the bars and advises singles as to why they should never marry.

Of course, I wisely ignored him. My wife and I have joint accounts for savings, but we have separate accounts for individual spending loot. We argue about big decisions but we arrive at our points through positions of fierce independence.

And it’s worked out well. Through 15 years of marriage we’ve rarely fought over money.

The skeptics will point out we never fight over who gets to drive the Lamborghini either, which is something else we don’t have, so the point may be moot.

But we did nearly have a fight over Facebook this weekend. It’s free so that we have.

Our 11-year-old asked Val to check something on Facebook and said, “I know you’re always on there anyway,” to which she responded indignantly, “Not as much as your father!”

For some reason, them’s fighting words.

Neither of us wants to admit we’re on Facebook more than the other.

Why is that? Has there ever been an institution in which we’ve participated with almost compulsory dedication that as a whole we enjoy less?

I mean besides high school.

I felt good when I learned economists deemed his $106 billion IPO “a disappointment.” It seemed like a healthy development.

And I felt relief, too, that those same honest brokers haven’t taken the time to examine my finances.

I still don’t know what to make of Zuckerberg and Facebook. Of course, my opinion of him is colored by the exaggerations of his portrayal in “The Social Network.” That and, like R2D2, it is said Zuckerberg doesn’t blink.

It’s true. Interviewers and confidants say he spends his waking hours staring like a birddog fixed on a pheasant.

I guess he scares me. He’s got so much money and power earned through something so trivial I feel compelled to resent.

I guess I’m looking forward to his second act, something that will define him better than just a guy with massive brain power who seems oddly incapable of mastering the common Windsor knot.

So of the twin Facebook news bulletins -- the IPO and the wedding -- I believe the surreptitious nuptials will be the more pivotal.

It’ll be up to the new Mrs. Zuckerberg, Priscilla Chan, to use her matrimonial influence on her husband, something she’s already done by convincing him to use Facebook as a force to transform how we donate life-saving organs. Bravo.

She needs to encourage his philanthropy so in 10 years we’ll all think about how wrong we were about Zuckerberg and Facebook.

She’ll need to do it with guile and logic. She’ll need to be persuasive and perseverant.

And she’ll need to understand in matrimonial arguments, it’s not always about who blinks first, especially when it comes to Mr. Z.

Re-runner: Cock-a-Doodle Don't!

I just woke up from a really great night's sleep. Hope you had one, too. But I thought I'd re-post this June 2009 piece about back when I didn't. The rooster's gone. I don't know what happened to it and I swear I didn't kill it. I wish I slept great every night, but I know I wouldn't appreciate it as much if I did as I do.


I don't miss that rooster even one little bit.

I haven’t enjoyed a really good night’s sleep since I first became ambitious about girls and having reckless fun far from the confines of the crib.

For many, many years my lack of sleep could be blamed on unwise decisions regarding liquor consumption and late night diversions.

Lately, those interests have diminished. I’m usually tucked away at 11 p.m. in time for the 110th viewing of a Seinfeld episode I first watched in 1996. After that, I close my eyes ever hopeful the next sound I hear will be Al Roker alerting me about what’s happening in our neck of the woods.

The full slumber never happens and I blame the rooster.

Understand, the rooster is not some metaphor for sleep deprivation. It’s not some spectral dream creature stalking me through the twilight. It’s a flesh and feather creature that nests just down the winding road from our home.

The rooster is my neighbor.

I hear it most every morning now at 4:30 a.m. Whomever coined the reveille onomatopoeia for this alarm clock bird never heard my neighbor. If they did it would be spelled -- oooock-a-oooodle-woo-wooooooooooo!

Or maybe my neighbor bird just has a speech impediment.

Either way, in farm vernacular, that bird’s a real cock.

If I lived in the city, I would understand the sound of gunfire is part of the background ambiance. Same goes for rooster crows if I lived in farm country. But we live amid a sparse cluster of homes in the mountain woods.

The rooster is owned by a dour German immigrant who apparently enjoys fresh eggs. Maybe a half a dozen chickens are clucking around the place. It’s jarring because the home is spiffy and looks sort of like the one Mike and Carol Brady raised their brood. And did The Brady Bunch ever do a rooster episode? It sounds like it might make for funny situational comedy.

Just not when it’s happening to you.

Each trumpet blast -- it’s piercing clear even through closed windows and about 500 feet of woods -- lasts about 12 seconds. Then there’s a peaceful lull of about 45 seconds where you can delude yourself into hoping maybe a pack of sleep-deprived coyotes are ripping the bird apart with their powerful jaws.

But that prayer goes unanswered. The shrill siren without fail returns and continues for hours to come. My wife and kids can sleep through it. But once I’m awake I start thinking about the meaning of life, how I could earn maybe a dollar, and why sometimes my tee shots rainbow to the right while others pull dead left.

My mind is just too restless to achieve sleep more than once a day. So I go to the couch and read or watch TV.

We even hear its raucous call in the afternoons. It made me wonder if it, too, is so sleep deprived that it can no longer function like a normal rooster. Really, 4:30 a.m. strikes me as awfully early for even a rooster.

I told a friend about it. He said, “Well, I once saw a chicken play tic-tac-toe at a county fair, but I doubt even one that won most of its games could adjust to the concept of daylight savings time.”

He was making a joke at my expense.

I’ve read all the nagging studies that say we’d all function better if we could get 8-10 hours of sleep each night.

That seems excessive. I think I’d be in tip top mental condition with about six hours a night. Ten hours of sleep isn’t going to make me any smarter. Don’t blame the potter for the inferior quality of the clay.

I suppose I could storm down there one day and confront the old German about the offending bird or make an example of the offending fowl by showing him how one neighbor keeps the peace in the rustic woods.

But I’m not that kind of guy. I don’t have that kind of angry nerve.

When it comes to those kinds of situations, I’m basically a common chicken.

I don’t feel too bad about it. The woods, at least where I live, are full of those.