Beech Tree News Network

Mis Mash: I used to think people couldn’t get an crazier than they are.  No so.
Recently on TV I saw where a six-hundred pound shark washed up on shore. “Surely they’ll kill that thing” I thought, “what with all the shark attacks we’ve had recently.” Not so again.  Instead people gathered around poured water on the beast to keep it alive, and then they all got a-hold and pushed and dragged the thing back into the water.  This after the animal wildlife people came and tagged it. Then they all clapped and wished it well- as if to say, “Blessings, now go and bite off another human leg or worse.”
These drone-type flying craft are becoming more hazardous.  Some are dangerously interfering with commercial traffic around airports.  Supposedly a day or so ago one got too close to a man’s house.  He got his gun and shot the thing down.  This was said to have happened at Shepherdsville; Bullitt County.
Gasoline prices are back up- some places in the mid-west as much as a dollar per gallon higher.  The blame is laid to a refinery in Indiana; said to have cut back production by half.
One refinery! Give me a break.  All that swallows this stand on your head and stack grease b-bs.
I sometimes wonder if generations to come will be able to partake of good writing like my generation has- good word crafting, yet simple and elegant; entertaining, but at the same time speaking to the heart and soul.  Much of the junk out there no doesn’t. 
We don’t even have good TV comedy writers any more- just silliness… too often vulgar.
The following is an exert from her book, The Vintage Years, by Margot Benary-Isbert.  This, a memory from her childhood; in the era of horse drawn taxies:
“THERE WAS AN OLD CAB DRIVER WHOSE STAND I PASSED EVERYDAY ON MY WAY TO SCHOOL. SOMETIMES I HAD SAVED A PART OF MY BREAKFAST OR AN APPLE FOR HIS WEAK-KNEED MARE.
SOMETIMES THE MAN AND I EXCHANGED A FEW WORDS, ABOUT WEATHER; THE BLOOMING BUSHES IN A NEARBY GARDEN, OR HIS HORSE.  I WAS A HORSE-CRAZY CHILD, SO TALKS ABOUT THE HORSE WERE ALWAYS WELCOME TO ME.
THE OLD CABBY AND I UNDERSTOOD EACH OTHER, AND I SAW THAT HE AND THE MARE, LISE, UNDERSTOOD EACH OTHER ALSO-THE WAY HE PUT A BLANKET OVER HER IN FROST AND RAIN, OR FASTENED THE FEED SACK AROUND HER NECK; THE GENTLENESS IN HIS OLD HANDS WHEN HE PATTED HER FLANK OR BRUSHED THE FLIES FROM HER EYES.
ALL THIS WAS SIMPLE AND GOOD AND MADE ME FEEL THAT THESE TWO HARD-BITTEN CREATURES BELONGED TOGETHER AND HELPED EACH OTHER.  HOW MANY HOURS A DAY THEY STOOD WAITING FOR A PATRON.
THE KINDNESS AND STEADFASTNESS IN ENDURING THE HARDSHIPS OF LIFE MUST HAVE GROWN IN THE OLD CABBIE, THE WAY AN APPLE TREE GROWS: SHAKEN BY STORMS, BITTEN BY FROST, YEAR AFTER YEAR, UNTIL ONE DAY IT STOOD THERE OLD, GNARLED, AND CROOKED, BUT HEAVY WITH FRUIT.
Happy reading.
Kindest Regards…