Ya Gotta Know This About That: Skip To My Lou My Darling

When was the last time you skipped?

I remember skipping with a lot of my friends when I was a kid. I remember hopscotch too....and a couple of years ago I saw a chalk hopscotch grid on the sidewalk and I did it!! But I don't think it was a skip I was doing....more like a hop, charge, gallop and maybe a skitter....and I know I looked like a buffalo in a china shop. But I tried.

People skip all the time....they skip out on bills. They skip court. They skip jail. They skip a couple of steps in a procedure. They skip out of their wedding. There are lots of things to skip about and out of.

One time I had to work overtime....the big building was empty except for me and the security guard who knew me well. I went to my floor and started to skip to my office but I kept on skipping and skipped around the floor. When I got to my office my phone rang.....CAUGHT! It was the security guard laughing and laughing....he saw me on the cameras.....I invited him up to my floor to skip too but he laughed more. When I heard that phone ring in my office, I felt like the caller was going to say "GO TO YOUR ROOM NOW!" Oh well...I had fun.

It's my personal feeling that grumpy old women and grumpy old men would be a lot less grumpier if they skipped....I mean the real foot skipping. I know it ain't pretty to see a bunch of old fat and hairless women and men skipping but who cares.....it's awesome that we feel young enough to do it!! Skip Skip Skip To My Lou My Darling! Where's my sidewalk chalk?

Old Passage About Petersburg
This passage is from a story called The History of Petersburg, narrated by J. Colby Beekman. I don't know the year it was written.

"They had the city of Petersburg laid out in 1832-1833 and after the town was surveyed they sat back and waited for customers to come. Well, they didn’t come. Petersburg was passing through the same throws that other pioneer towns were. Now we go out west to see these pioneer towns, those ghost towns while we have them right here. We have a resurrected one right across the street here. We get on-half mile north of where Arthur Johnston lives over towards Curtis and out where the cornfields are (I don’t know whether there was ever a house there or not) is where NEW MARKET was surveyed and laid out. East of Petersburg, about one-half mile off of the hard road, there was a town named GREENSBURG laid out. Farther north along the Sangamon River was HURON and MILLER’S FERRY, but later on they were located in Mason County, but they were originally in Menard because Menard County at one time comprised what is now the County of Mason and Menard. When the court house fight was on for where they were to locate the seat of justice, all those towns were candidates for the courthouse but Huron and Miller’s Ferry were removed form the picture because the legislature about that time cut off the north part of Menard County and made Mason County out of it and that took Huron and Miller’s Ferry over into Mason County. Along about 1835, Warburton and Lukins sold their interests. It hadn’t grown very much – the city that they had laid out. They sold it to HEZEKIAH KING and JOHN TAYLOR. The town was re-surveyed. I was allowed one, a good many years ago, to see a copy of the original survey and bout the only difference that you can notice between that one and the one that Abe Lincoln surveyed of the present town, is that the centers, the main street, the two main streets, one from the north and south and the one east and west, intersected at the public square. They came up not on the sides of the square but in the center or in the middles of the sides of the sides of the square. Lincoln threw the square in there between streets. There is on file in the Circuit Clerk’s office a copy of the Lincoln Plat of Petersburg and it was recorded on February 22, 1836. It began to grow. Somehow or other it took on new life. These other towns began to pass out of the picture As New Salem began to die, Petersburg, began to grow.

In 1841 the legislature passed and act making a town out of Petersburg. Then the COUNTY OF MENARD was laid out in 1839 and the courthouse was located here and then the town began to grow. At the time it was made the County seat it had a population of 300."

Recipe
One of my resolutions is to become a quasi-flexitarian.....that means lots more veggies and a lot less meat. But I still will eat meat because I really don't like tofu! And a vegan I'm not!

I will be starting this flexitarian regimen after tonight's meal of dry rubbed and smoked pork ribs cause they are a favorite of mine.....might as well go down with a belly full of good food before the flex stuff starts. But for the most part I will be using some vegetarian recipes and in some I will add very lean meat or chicken or fish.....but small amounts of the meat product.

But come tomorrow I will be making veggie pasta.....simple to make....chop carrots, celery, onions, squash and toss in parsley, olive oil and pepper (and salt if you like) with lots of herbs for flavor. Spread in a pan and roast at 425 until they are golden brown....toss with your choice of pasta and sprinkle with Parmesan cheese.

Thought For The Day

None of us is as smart as all of us.

--Phil Condit

I sure don't mind having a good beer every once in a while. When someone tells me I should try a certain drink or a certain beer I will try it just to see if it's the one I've been waiting for all of my life.

But.....sometimes there are those "try it" drinks which should be flushed down the toilet or buried in the ground because they aren't fit for human consumption.....that has happened to me!

Someone told me I should try a wonderful beer called Mephistopheles Metamorphosis Beer ..... when I heard that name I thought to myself....I bet the devil is in that beer since old Mephistopheles himself, in legend, worked for the devil and is the one Faust sold his soul to.

But being the good joe that I am, I went ahead and tried it. I looked at the nice head on it...I was kind of surprised at this...then I thought maybe it will be like Hornsby's Hard Cider which I love. I smelled the Mephistopheles first....oranges, bananas, apples, bread, flowers, yeast, sugar, candy.

The first taste was weird....I tasted a citrus....then a peppery taste....then tartness....then kind of like an apple taste....then spicy...then like bread (the yeast probably)....then yeast. I tasted again and I thought of a strong golden ale which I usually can't stand.

I really can't say that I liked it...and I know that I had a headache the next day but I don't think I will try it again...I'll have Hornsby's Hard Cider thank you and will leave the devil alone!!