11/11/2024 - Donuts and Veterans Day

O.C................
You reminded me of an old,old song...........Bless them all, bless them all, the long and the short and the tall, bless all the sergeants, the sour puss ones, bless all the corporals and their dopey sons, cuz we're saying goodbye to them, as back to the barracks they crawl, no ice cream and cookies for flat footed rookies, so cheer up my lads, bless them all.
(no idea why I remember those lyrics..........Tis like the poem "In Flanders fields the poppies grow......" which the class learned in 8th grade, when we did something or other for parents on Veterans' Days. I just suddenly started, just now, reciting the whole dang thing, which has been years and years! Weird.
 
Poirot, it's funny how that works. I'm always remembering songs from 50-70 + years ago, also tv ads, poems, and jingles, etc., but can't remember more recent things. One fun thing about the internet is being able to find the words to fill in gaps of songs and things if I can't remember parts of them. But I never heard the song you just quoted, which is strange. I usually know most of the ones you mention.

On a note unrelated to Veteran's Day, I'll tell about a kind of "trauma" I had on Saturday but if you are very faint of heart you may not want to read it.
I'm pretty sure I wrote on here a weekend ago about the two turtles that were in my driveway as I was leaving for church, and how I had to get out of the car and shoo them off the road. Well, as I was leaving to go get a haircut on Saturday just past, there was another pretty big turtle in the same spot, only this one did not have a happy ending.
It was far enough over to the side that I thought I could easily drive past it without hitting it, but I guess the turtle ran toward the car just as I was even with it. (Why do animals do that)? With no time to stop, I swerved to try to miss it (was going slow) but I heard the sickening "crunch" and knew what had happened.
I felt terrible about it but I drove on to town, unable to stop thinking about it all the way up there. It gets worse. When I came home the turtle was still there and it was still alive. (It had never occurred to me that it might not have died instantly). To my horror, only half of the shell had been run over. That part was completely shattered and gone, openly exposing all the insides of the turtle. It's head was still sticking out a little and when I got out of the car to take a closer look, it was looking up at me with blinking eyes.
What was I to do? The poor creature absolutely HAD to be put out of its misery, but exactly how to you go about killing a turtle in any way that could seem humane and not excessively messy? I do NOT like killing things, and ordinarily won't do so unless I feel threatened by something. I won't even kill raccoons, which are some of my least favorite animals!
In the end, I came in and got my little .22 revolver and did the deed. :sad:
 
That had to be so hard for you, O.C. You were very brave and did what had to be done. Mostly you were very kind, not to just leave the turtle to suffer, as it eventually dies. God Bless!
 
Thank you, Poirot and Mrs. Clean. At the risk of being overly dramatic, while walking back to the house after the distasteful deed was done, what was going through my mind was the very sad old song, "Old Shep," about a boy who had to "put down" his old, sick beloved dog. I don't mean to compare a wildlife turtle to somebody's precious pet but it also got me remembering how in my childhood days we didn't take animals to a veterinarian and have them "put to sleep." I don't know of anybody who did. Veterinarians were primarily for treating livestock. When our pets--horses, dogs, whatever--got to the end point, my dad would take care of it the way I did with the turtle. Now that would be seriously traumatic! He was always discreet about it and didn't let my sister or me see it or even know when it was happening, and nobody ever talked about it. Things like that seem awful to us today but people then had their own kinds of hardships and there's a reason they are now thought of by many as "The Greatest Generation."
 
I truly understand how you feel. When I drove to the Yukon, I thought I killed a baby bear. When I stopped to check it definitely was a porcupine...quills everywhere. For the next 2 days I had a hard time. But I still think about it
 
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It's been a day.... got to meet a nice Sheriff today while he was working..... we will take care of the issue tomorrow.....

rf I hope your brother inlaw is doing better

OC I've only had the bad luck to hit birds when they decide to "flock" into my car as I drive down the road..... we have turtle crossings here too.... and armadillo's the amount of road kill over the weekend was huge.... not sure why..... half moon clear skies maybe they are getting ready for winter....
 
Hate Instagram.........they always ask for a code they claim was sent to my e-mail.......only they never send it.......so whatever Instagram has on the page.........I never am able to see. No idea what is going on with them.
 
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