By Bill Shiver

Promise 'em anything.

I heard the other day that some Republicans were threatening to shut down the Government.  That sounds like the best idea I’ve heard since putting ketchup on scrambled eggs.  Just shoot her.  Put her out of her misery.  But no, that won’t happen because we depend on her.  We live up here in the North Georgia Mountains like kings on our Social Security.  Without it we couldn’t pay our electric bill.  We’d have to watch television in the dark.  My great-great-great-grandfather didn’t have electricity.  No microwave oven and managed to squeeze by without a big screen TV.  And he did pretty good I guess.

Now, I find myself about to reach another milestone in my life.  When we stop having milestones we just stop.  My next is turning 65 years.  Whether it’s 65 years young or 65 years old depends on how my knee joints feel that particular day.  Due to the very dry weather and mandatory burn ban we shall be forced to make do with fewer candles.

I now have Medicare.  I tried to use it three times and each time they said “Medicare won’t cover that.”  Makes perfect sense to me.

Nice thing about getting older is you have more to remember.  Both the good and the not so good.  Your glass can be as full or as near empty as you wish.  Memories are nice things to have on a rainy afternoon.  You can be 12 years old again, sitting in that old plywood boat that Edwin Brown built, cruising the Piscola Creek and pitching a cricket for fly brim.  In fact, I think I’ll go there now.  Sorry to leave good company.

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