Hello on Sunday

Dear Friends,

It was like I never left when I returned from the toddler sitting gig in Tewksbury on Saturday. Linda was still at the Garlic Festival in Vermont when I returned home. I had a chance to take a nap, and give the lawn a trim before I settled down to watch a multi hour Red Sox game. When Linda did arrive home from her adventure, I drove her crazy a couple of times before I decided it was best to employ my "Separation is Good" philosophy. I used the remote to switch between a seemingly endless array of college football games. I gave up watching them, and I went into sleep mode around 10 PM.

Speaking of baby sitting, unless you have been with Max for multiple hours / days, you don't realize how wonderful a child that he is. He always looks cute in the pictures that Linda and his parents take of him, but when you are with him for hours at a time, you soon see that he is almost the perfect child. I am saying this not as a grandparent, but as an observer of his actions. He really likes puzzles geared for the two year old mind. He picked up this trait from his Mom who life's work is problem solving. He is a good eater, and he will try any food which you put in front of him. Papa, which is what he calls me, cut up a cantaloupe the other day, and he loves this fruit as well as watermelon. The food thing came from his Dad with a little help from Max's mom. Kyla makes a mean meat ball with some vegetable in them that Max might not eat if they were on his plate.
His latest things that he does, is to climb onto to everything. The other day when Max woke up, and Kevin went to rescue him, Max climbed up on the changing table, and was waiting for Kevin to change his diaper. If you leave him for a second, he will slide a chair over and climb on tables and kitchen counters. My greatest fear is that he will fall when trying to get off of whatever he is climbing on.
As I tell these Max stories to friends or relatives who have female grandchildren, they say that their grandchildren don't do the same things that males do. Males and females are wired differently, and no matter what you try and do to make them do similar activities you end up not trying to fight Mother Nature.
Our other daughter-in-law has noticed already that Gabriel (one year old) is starting to be a handful compared to his older sister Isabelle (three and one half years old). One picture that we were sent the other day, Isabelle dressed up Gabriel in one of her sun dresses. You won't see this picture in Grandma Grandchildren's photo album.

Politics -- We have a multiple person race for Mayor going on in Pittsfield.
Like all politicians running for office, Jobs, Education, Taxes, and helping our seniors on fixed incomes to be able to live in their own homes, are what they are all saying. Our current Mayor came right out of the plastics industry form Plano, Texas. He too touted the jobs issue when he was running for office. He soon realized that job creation wasn't as easy as he thought it would be even though he had many world wide contacts from the industry which he came from. I still maintain a nationwide public works project could put a lot of people back to work. Every place in the nation has roads and bridges which need work. Public parks and recreation areas need a lot of renovations and repairs. Our aging schools either have to be renovated or replaced. I haven't heard from any of our Mayoral candidates how they are going to bring jobs back to our area. Our current Mayor turned his strategy in revitalizing our once vital downtown, and bringing the arts to our community. Pittsfield has become a Mecca for the New York and Boston crowds to at least make a stop during their vacation periods. There is a pretty large segment who could care less about the arts, and who can't afford to attend the multiple venues which we have for top notch theater in the area.
When my radio show host gives away tickets to many of the productions, he always asks the people who won the tickets to report back after they attend one of the plays. They play goers always seem to give a favorable response of what they saw. Even my dear old dad went to see "Guys and Dolls", and he thought that it was wonderful.
General Electric provided some great jobs for our community for many years.
Pittsfield like many communities took a wicked economic hit when they packed up and left town. When we allowed our manufacturing industry to first go south and eventually out of the country, it was like the "Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire."
Germany has turned their economy around by producing affordable products with "Made in Germany" label stamped on their goods. The German workers have made some financial concessions, but Germans are trying to only purchase goods made in Germany. Could an experiment like that happen here in the United States?
Some of the companies which have decided to have less educated countries produce the goods which we purchase to save on labor costs to increase their bottom lines, are finding out that not all the goods produced are equivalent the goods formerly produced by American workers.
This got me thinking about China. Have the Chinese had an original thought in anything which they manufacture? They steal industrial secrets, and copy everything that Americans create. They even busted a store in China that was labeled as an Apple Store like the ones we have in the United States.
Everything in the store was a copy of the real Apple products. People in China thought that they were buying real Apple products.

I also see where Sarah Palin is waiting for the current group of Republican Politicians to beat each other up as she "sits in the weeds" waiting for the opportunity to make a run at the President Obama.

I forgot my cell phone charger while in Tewksbury. Our son Kevin said that he would send it off to me.

Well, I have some quiet activities to do before the Sunday newspapers arrive.
As of this moment, this should be a chill day. My bones ache a little from the child lifting, and climbing up and down stairs at Kevin and Kyla's home.
I miss Max already! I don't miss the three cats and two dogs. They sometimes are more work than Max is. I gave into the long haired Dachshund, and let him sleep with me. I got tired of the dog scratching on the bedroom door thinking that he would give up trying to get into my bedroom. Even the two rescue cats took a liking to me. I must project that St. Francis Of Assisi image that I love all the creatures of God. Not!

Have a great rest of the weekend.
Talk to you soon. The Curley Lad