Peanut butter spring

Bring on the warm(er) weather! I've been walking the sidewalks, alleys and best of all the walking trail in McCook. Mine is an attempt to melt off belly fat and yes I know the exercise of pushing back from the table will help greatly in that effort. Watching spring happen is most enjoyable. Buds on the trees bursting into brilliant white and purple colors of fruit blossoms. Wild plums are showing their pretty white flowers but still too early for choke cherries. The lilacs should start blooming this week. Tulips, jonquils my favorite, bravely stand up to show their color and even some of the ground hugging weeds are pretty for a few days. With the promise of rebirth come and gone with Easter it is a good to be alive.

My love affair for jonquils harks back to the early 1960's and temporary duty in London for the Air Force. It must have been right this time of year and the usually dreary wintertime London was brightening with jonquils and they were everywhere parks along sidewalks and streets, people's gardens just bright yellow, some white and all adding needed cheer to the atmosphere. I remember the English name was different from what mom called them, daffodils or maybe it was the other way around.

The beautiful warm days of late have brought out the brave youth that use McCook's new Bolles Canyon Skateboard Park. Located in Kelly Park, it is tucked away somewhat protected from strong gusty winds. I marvel at the ability of those young men to rocket up the smooth steep slope, pause at the top and then zip down again all done with grace and confidence. Falls are few more often the rider just steps off regains his balance and shoves off to try it again. Gravity, inertia, management of energy it is a commendable skill. Maybe one day they will make great fighter pilots.

Now this old guy feels perfectly confident to dance a 150-ton jet-powered tanker on the head of a pin at 35,000 feet. It is a matter of "feel" to hold an exact altitude and airspeed flying in formation with another like behemoth. When things would be quiet cruising out over the vast reaches of the Pacific Ocean I would occasionally gently hand-fly cork screws wrapping my contrail around the con pulled by the tanker in front of me. Gentle, smooth, up over, down and around easy does it. I always wondered what that looked like from the ground! Airplanes I can do but skateboards--beyond my kin.

I don't suppose you noticed but Saturday the 2nd of April was National Peanut Butter and Jelly Day. Yep I missed it too. Adrian Van Zelfden even printed out 14 different recipes to upgrade the high calorie treat. Click on www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/26peanut-butter-and-jelly-upgrade_n_4854550.html Grannie Annie wondered about replacing jelly with Nutella and then adding bacon. How about French toast PBJ all of which we have never tried? For peanut butter I love the crunchy and she prefers the smooth kind. Now she is on a kick to save calories by dipping into a whipped variety for a 25% lighter count. Then there is also the dehydrated dry kind PB2. It is powered for an 85% savings from the familiar stuff and you can even get it blended with chocolate. Nothing like spoiling a good thing!

Americans and our choice of diet. No wonder we are becoming an obese population.

We watched a great start of a six part TV mini-series by Morgan Freeman Sunday evening. The Story of God. In my opinion it doesn't challenge one's knowledge of the Bible but adds to it. Grannie Annie and I enjoyed as Morgan and crew explored and interviewed on site great religions of the world and our common quest for eternal life. Good stuff.

Morgan Freeman, the actor, the man occupies a special place in this old guy's heart. For one he is only three weeks younger than your scribe. Then too he is a pilot that flies his own business class jet aircraft. If you look carefully in his Story of God screenings you can see him in the right seat flying his jet. Evidently he hires a captain to take care of details but for hands on piloting Morgan is doing it. Yes he has landed and refueled here in McCook in his tripping across our USofA. It 'tis a treat to hear his sonorous masculine voice on Unicom announcing his coming and going. My kind of guy!

That is how I saw it.

Dick Trail