LOOKIN' BACK

Yesterday Joe Paterno tied Eddie Robinson (Grambling coach forever) as the winning-est college football coach in history. Not to take anything away from Joe but I seriously doubt he is in the same league as Eddie.

Back in the mid-80's I was honored by my employer to go to the south and recruit employees from five of the all black agricultural colleges. I had always been a Grambling fan and was always amazed at the number of players Eddie seemed to graduate to the pro's. I always thought it would be really neat to meet and talk to him. Well as luck would have it we arrived on the Grambling campus the night they were playing a football game. I can't remember who they were playing but I talked one of other guys that was with me on the trip to go down to Eddie Robinson stadium (it was brand new at the time) and look at the field.

When we arrived at the field the entry gates were locked. While we were looking over the field there was an old guy down on the sidelines pacing up and down the field. I told the guy that was with me that I thought that was Eddie Robinson. He said nah it can't be, he has got to be getting ready for the game. I told him I was sure it was Eddie and climbed over one of the gates. He asked me what I thought I was doing and I told him I was going to meet Eddie Robinson. I opened the gate and invited him to go with me. To my surprise he came into the stadium.

Now picture this---two white guys had just broken into Eddie Robinson Stadium on the all black (at the time) campus of Grambling University. We walked directly down the stairs toward where this guy was pacing and after a few hundred stairs we reached the edge of the field. The guy walked over to us and asked what we thought we were doing. I asked him if he was Eddie Robinson and he answered in the affirmative. I told him it had always been a dream of mine to meet him personally.

We visited about football and his old teams and the players I was familiar with from the pros. It was fun to have this guy welcoming us to his field even though by rights we had no business being there. It is one of the days in my life that really stands above most of the others. During the discussion I told him that I was always amazed at the numbers of kids he placed in the pros (over 200 in the NFL---not counting coaches he raised).

He smiled at me and said "THAT DOESN'T EVEN COMPARE TO THE NUMBERS OF KIDS I HAVE PLACED IN LIFE."

I dunno Joe---I think it would be really hard for you to top EDDIE ROBINSON. In my book EDDIE WILL ALWAYS BE THE GREATEST.

INKLINGS THIS IS JUST AN EXAMPLE OF THE RULES NOT APPLYING!

30-29-4

Wow do I feel old. Yesterday was my birthday and I have always said I wasn't going to get older than thirty---hence the title. I got a call the night before from one of my retired friends from work. He wanted to know if I would go with him to a town to the west for a trail management meeting in the morning and then go to lunch with him and another retired friend.

We have celebrated our birthdays together like this for several years. There are four of us with birthdays within five days that all worked together. YUP---the scales (Libra) had a lot of influence when we were all working. One friend was at the senior games while her other half participated in the shotgun competition so we missed seeing and visiting with her. I bet he won the shooting competition but time will tell on that.

I took my truck in for servicing and potentially a lot of expensive work on the right front axle, a safety inspection, and re-licensing. When I stopped to get it last night the service was complete and the work on the axle wasn't necessary so I felt really good about that. It still cost quite a bit of money but guess that is the price you have to pay to have a vehicle.

For dinner last night I took Inklings to a steak house here in the valley---interesting that we both had fish for dinner.

AFTER ALL WAS SAID AND DONE---I HAD A GREAT BIRTHDAY!

42 YEARS AGO TODAY

42 years ago today I married the woman of my dreams---and I am still having the same dream. I have now been married over twice as long as I was single.

Inklings posted that I should have known our marriage would not be normal on the second day of our marriage---when we took her 18 month old baby brother home with us because her mom and dad were in a different town and no one was watching him. We saw him nearly get hit by a semi on main street.

Was an interesting night---he had an ear ache and cried all night---Inklings sat up with him all night---just like she did after we got kids of our own.

We raised seven children and have eighteen grand children. Nine of our grand children have lived with us for an extended period during part of their lives. We sure do miss them.

IT'S BEEN A HELLUVA RIDE.

LOOKS LIKE THE BOYS AND GIRLS HAD FUN...

Inklings and I took our annual leaf ride today and I couldn't help myself. I just had to see how the last fuels project that was planned while I was the District Ranger was turning out. Seems that all of my efforts in training them is being well rewarded. Here are three pictures of their recent work.

They are also in the process of fencing these areas with wildlife proof fences in order for the aspen to have a chance to regenerate. These treatments are in the most heavily used elk habitat on the district. If these are successful then they will be able to go forward on the rest of the district without near as many regeneration problems. I told the environmental groups that we worked with on this project that I didn't choose it because it was easy but because it was the most in need. After looking it over with us they agreed and the project has moved forward nicely.

It is always good to see a well coordinated project move forward---TO THE CREW--GREAT JOB!!!!!

LEAF RIDE 2011

We went on a leaf drive today. Took longer than we expected but it was a great day. Ate at two of my favorite restaurants so that we could keep goin'. Here is a sampling of what we saw---beautiful day. The pictures are posted exactly opposite of the way we took them.

SHADOW LAKE

I just returned from the Shadow Lake fire in Oregon. Our base camp was at Hoodoo Ski Resort. When I first arrived the fire was 450+ acres and burning pretty hot and spotting all over the place. Which is what you would expect in this type of timber. When I left it was 10,000 acres+ and was secured along most of the perimeter. The weather changed significantly and the fog rolled in from the ocean and raised the humidity to 100% for a couple of days. I had forgotten how miserable that is to be wet all over from the atmosphere and not be able to get dry unless you went inside a building.

The fire burned the south side of Mount Washington as well as burning through a boys camp and many structures. The firefighters did great. They brought the fire through the structures and didn't lose a single one. There were over 40 pumps and 220 miles of hose and over 200 sprinkler kits out on the fire. It was amazing for me to see where they took the fire through and those structures won't have to worry about fire for at least 10 years.

It was a tough fire for me because of all the supplies that went out and came back. I worked harder than usual to stay in front of the fire fire fighters with the supplies they needed. I also came home really tired.

I'M NOT HALF THE MAN I USED TO BE.

HOME ALONE---SORTA

Inklings is in a town about 175 miles North of here taking care of one of her nieces that is in a hospital there. That leaves me and the CAT in the house. The cat spends the majority of her time yowling and looking for Inklings. Last night she was looking all over the house for her and finally came over and looked in my lap---yowled and went over to the place Inklings usually sits and yowled some more.

The garden has gone nuts---well not nuts---but it is producing a lot of veggies right now. I picked 15 beautiful tomatoes yesterday and gave some of them away. I have been pigging out on them but can't keep up. I gave all of the cucumbers away and will pick the beans today. I don't think there will be too many beans but there for sure will be some.

I went to a retirement party yesterday for a woman I worked with for over 19 years of my career. She is one of the people that I have always been amazed with the amount of work she could do in a short time. I was talking about it with one of my other co-workers yesterday and we agreed she worked easy---she was just able to get an awfully lot of work done and nobody really noticed it...THEY'LL NOTICE IT NOW...I ASSURE YOU. She will be missed a bunch---mostly because the people employed there don't have a clue what she does---or how to do it. I know what she does and how to do it because on another Forest I was responsible for most of her duties. I hated doing that part of the job. There was a woman from the Regional Office at the party and she told me she is terrified with the added workload of teaching someone else how to do all those things.

HOPE SHE HAS AS GOOD OF RETIREMENT AS I AM HAVING.