Good morning GH. It is just past 7:00 AM, and the current temperature in "The City" is 72 degrees as we head for a partly cloudy high of 81. A 30% chance of precipitation brings the clouds. That same 30% chance has produced a few drops of rain now that I can see with the Sun is on the rise. I'll know how serious the forecast is when Sugar the Weather Dog gets up. If T-storms are going to be problem, Sugar will let me know when she won't leave her hide-e-hole. She has moved to my side of the bed already.

Yesterday, Sugar and I spent some time in the "Bone Zone." I read and listened to oldies radio and she chewed happily away. I don't know if I mentioned it, but my eyes checked out perfectly. So, my headaches may be due to the amount of fine print reading I have been doing for Mary the last few weeks. Mary seems to think so, and I have no reason to doubt her judgement. The reading I do for her is done at my desk, and the pages are in front of me and down. When I read a book, I can hold it in exactly the right position for my progressive bifocals. Mary is a person who never gets headaches and so she doesn't quite understand.

Today, we had plans to travel to the big box hardware/home center store to pick up our new chairs for the front porch. But I heard on the radio earlier that our main thoroughfare might be one lane as it goes through town Apparently, it will be closed between Madison and the draw bridge for resurfacing. If that affects the day traffic or just the nighttime traffic, I don't know. If that is the case, the chairs may have to wait for next Monday. You can't get anywhere in "The City" if that road is blocked or down to one lane, and you absolutely don't want to try going north. If Sugar and I go walking this AM, we can take a look.

Otherwise Mary has to finish some work and I have to play music. Sugar just has to be. Speaking of Mary, she made a great lunch of vegetarian Reuben sandwiches yesterday. Who needs corned beef when you have good Sauerkraut and great Swiss cheese?

I wanted to dig into my backlog of stories about my/our life. When Mary and I met, I was working full time at the gas station near her apartment. I was also working part time at the old station where I worked in high school.

One thing about that station that made it fun was the owner, Bob. He had an interesting way of doing things. He kept the station's money in his "safe" in the back room. Sounds like a good plan until I tell you that the safe was actually a 55 gallon drum with a pile of rags on top under which we had to stash the cash at night.

Bob was the best boss I ever had. He fired us on a regular basis for being goof-offs, and when we got ready to go, he'd ask where we were going. He needed us so he could go to the race track and so we played along. He also instructed us to clean the place up when he was gone. He had a bad habit of taking out every tool in the station and leaving then on the workbench. Our pay for this "extra" activity was the key to the Pepsi machine. I think we drank four or five case per week. If there is anything better than ice-cold Pepsi in a glass bottle, I don't know what it is. That was before they put corn sweetener in and assured us that it tasted the same. That's why they sell a throwback product now I guess.

During horse racing season, Bob just had to go to the race track a few miles from the station almost every afternoon. You could almost always count on a daily call from his wife Pat, asking if Bob was there. Our instructions from Bob were simple. If Pat called we were to tell her that Bob had "just left." She always responded that she knew where he was, especially when he came in the door of their apartment about 10 miles away, as she was talking to us. We stuck to the story.

The "safe" room also had a small television which we watched until the station was closed at 9:00 PM. The customers were always apologetic when they had to stop for gas when we were watching one of our favorite shows. There are probably a thousand stories that go with that job, and if I get a chance, I'll add more in the future.

In sports, the boys in blue defeated the Brewers 8 - 5. The Tigers are now in KC, where a 26 hit effort produced a 16 - 2 final score. It got boring to watch after a while. They have a 6.5 game lead over the Tribe now. My beloved Red Sox moved on to NYC where they slam dunked the Yankees 12 - 8 to give them a 7.5 game lead over the Rays and 9.5 games over those same Yankees. The Caps lost to the Lug Nuts, 4 - 9.

Tonight, the Fighting Irish come to the "Big House" in Ann Arbor to face the Wolverines of Michigan. This will be their last meeting for the foreseeable future. The Spartans of MSU play in Florida at noon. So many teams, so little space, so I'll stick to the major college programs in Michigan until baseball season is over. Ciao.