My Wife, The Gardener

My wife doesn’t like tomatoes. (No, we’re not sure what’s wrong with her but she seems to be managing okay). But me, I love tomatoes, even store-bought ones—providing I have a full saltshaker.

Although I haven’t had a garden in a few years, somehow I did seem to always have a few tomato plants. Until recently, that is. The last couple of years, I didn’t want to take the time to water, weed, and care for them. So, I went without. Well, actually, I didn’t. There were enough people giving me tomatoes that I never really ran out—at least not during the summer.

Still, it’s nice to be able to walk out the door and pick my own. I mentioned that to my wife one day last winter—amid my complaints that the tomatoes from the store were creating a salt shortage at our house.

She must have taken me seriously because this past spring she bought some tomato plants, planted them, and took care of them, which included a lot of work to make sure they didn’t freeze when our weather kept insisting winter was not over. She also watered them every day, which is in itself a lot of work. (I know, some of you people live where watering things is totally unnecessary. But where we live, if you want a plant to grow, you have to pour water on it—every day. More than once too.).

And now, thanks to all of her hard work, I’ve been enjoying fresh tomatoes for the last month or so. Yay! But, I’m not sure what she has gotten out of the deal, since she doesn’t like tomatoes. Maybe she’s just trying to keep me happy. Or, perhaps, she was just tired of buying salt! ~

Bruce A. Borders is the author of more than a dozen books, including: Inside Room 913, Over My Dead Body, The Journey, Miscarriage Of Justice, The Lana Denae Mysteries, and The Wynn Garrett Series. Available in ebook at www.amazon.com/Bruce-A.-Borders/e/B006SOLWQS and paperback on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Books-a-Million. Bruce A. Borders is a proud member of Rave Reviews Book Club.

Timing Is Everything

I was treated to a rare lightning storm show this past week. I drove for 100 miles or more with the spectacular flashes right in front of me. It was almost a continuous display of lighting, or lightning, with brilliant blues and orange. It’s been a while since I lived where this is a regular occurrence and I actually kind of enjoyed watching. Of course, it helped that there was no rain accompanying the lightning. I’m sure it may have been raining somewhere but the road I was traveling stayed dry as a bone. Which was fine with me, I don’t really like rain.

While driving along, amid the storm, I noticed a guy pulled over on the shoulder taking pictures. He had a tripod-mounted camera and appeared to be snapping photographs as fast as he could. With the clouds in the night sky and the mountains as a backdrop, I’m thinking he was getting some good shots.

I hadn’t thought of taking any pictures myself, until I saw him, that is. So, I grabbed my phone and started clicking away. I must have taken twenty-five or thirty pictures and only after the show was over did I look to see what I had captured. And... nothing. I had several photos that fit into one of two categories—white and black.

I had figured not all of the pictures would turn out but I knew that depending on the timing, I stood a chance of getting a couple of amazing shots. But no. Apparently, I either snapped too late (the black category), or at the split second, the lighting flashed (the white category).

Disappointed, I put the phone away and continued driving, thinking I was not much of a photographer. Obviously, a good photographer would have better luck in his timing, I told myself. I brooded on that a while and then, out of the blue it hit me that I had impeccable timing. What were the odds of that many photographs being taken at the exact moment they wouldn’t turn out? Especially with the amount of lightning I was seeing.

While I’d like to say that I had another chance on the return trip, it was not to be. The thunder and lightning had moved off to the distance and the only thing I could see in the night sky was the stars. But next time, say in two or three years (or more—remember I said it was a rare thing), that we have a lightning storm, I’ll give it another shot. I doubt I can duplicate my feat of snapping every picture at the wrong time. But you never know, I seem to be pretty good at it.

Or, maybe I just need a real camera. The guy I saw taking pictures from the side of the road happens to work at the same place I do. I saw a few of his photographs a couple days later. They were pretty dramatic and dazzling. I talked to him a bit (without divulging my little attempt at picture taking) and he said he’s been waiting years for the opportunity to get those shots. And what’s more, he seemed fairly confident he’d never have another chance like that. Well, so much for my idea of next time. ~

Bruce A. Borders is the author of more than a dozen books, including: Inside Room 913, Over My Dead Body, The Journey, Miscarriage Of Justice, The Lana Denae Mysteries, and The Wynn Garrett Series. Available in ebook at www.amazon.com/Bruce-A.-Borders/e/B006SOLWQS and paperback on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Books-a-Million. Bruce A. Borders is a proud member of Rave Reviews Book Club.

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Off-Road Driving

Keep the dirty side down—a truck driver’s way of saying have a safe trip. In the case of the place I drive, where we haul garbage to a landfill, through the man-made mud (thanks to truck loads of water constantly being dumped to keep down the dust, all sides of the truck are dirty. So, the saying loses some of its significance.

The road to the site is paved but narrow and has a few corners. When meeting other traffic, you absolutely can’t move over. Though it goes against all instinct, you have to hug the centerline because the 1-foot shoulder is very soft. If a trailer tire goes onto the shoulder, you’re sunk—or the trailer is. The shoulder gives way and it pulls the trailer, and then the truck, right into the ditch.

As you can imagine, the ditch is not all that solid either so the entire truck then sinks—well, at the least the side that is not on the pavement does. And then physics finishes things off, giving the driver a ride they hadn’t anticipated as the truck and trailer turns over.

While this scene is far from an everyday occurrence, it does happen occasionally. Last Monday was the latest incident. Over the next two days, I got a good look (several looks actually) at the truck laying there on the side of the road. Surprisingly, it didn’t look all that damaged. Of course, I couldn’t see the side that was on the ground.

What I did notice though, was that the bottom of the truck, or what was supposed to be the bottom of the truck, was by far the cleanest side. Apparently, the swirling spray of water from driving in the man-made puddles, washes away the mud on the underside but doesn’t do such a magnificent job on the rest of the truck. This realization has led to a modified version of the old trucker’s saying—that will probably never be understood by other drivers unless they work at my job —keep the clean side down! ~

Bruce A. Borders is the author of more than a dozen books, including: Inside Room 913, Over My Dead Body, The Journey, Miscarriage Of Justice, The Lana Denae Mysteries, and The Wynn Garrett Series. Available in ebook at www.amazon.com/Bruce-A.-Borders/e/B006SOLWQS and paperback on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Books-a-Million. Bruce A. Borders is a proud member of Rave Reviews Book Club.

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Move More, Eat Less

Made the mistake of mentioning to my wife that I’d like to lose a little weight. A mistake because now she keeps coming up with these ways I can do that. Insane ways. Her suggestions are things like walking, running, jogging, bike riding, an exercise routine and... dieting of all things!

I’ve never gone on a diet in all of my forty-nine years! Just the thought of dieting makes me hungry. Much as the mere thought of running, jogging, bike riding, or exercising makes me tired. I’m not a teenager anymore! My life these days consists of driving a truck and working at my computer! I can’t really be expected to actually be active can I? Besides, I don’t have time for any of that.

Seriously though, I’m pretty sure that’s the real reason I don’t do any of those “healthy” things any longer—I don’t have the time. And yes, I know, not doing those things would be the reason I need to lose some weight.

But I’ve come up with a solution! I’m going to exercise in my sleep! Should be easy to lose weight that way, after all, I get about five hours of sleep a night! That’s thirty-five hours of exercise per week. The weight should just fall off, right? Yeah, I know, in my dreams.

Actually, my real solution is even simpler than that. I’ll just stop eating. Well, not completely. That might cause serious complications. But maybe if I stop eating so much that just might do the trick. Might, but there is still that hunger issue to deal with, so it may take a little work. What I won’t do is mention my plan to my wife; she might start dreaming up ways for me to eat less—like not cooking. I don’t need my first diet to be a starvation diet! ~

Bruce A. Borders is the author of more than a dozen books, including: Inside Room 913, Over My Dead Body, The Journey, Miscarriage Of Justice, The Lana Denae Mysteries, and The Wynn Garrett Series. Available in ebook at www.amazon.com/Bruce-A.-Borders/e/B006SOLWQS and paperback on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Books-a-Million. Bruce A. Borders is a proud member of Rave Reviews Book Club.

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God Bless America

I like to record songs in my spare time. Okay, I really don’t have any spare time. What I do is make time to record because I like to sing. Recently, in light of the upcoming Fourth of July holiday (Independence Day for those of you who think the Fourth of July isn’t a holiday), I recorded a few patriotic songs. I did several of them, America The Beautiful, Battle Hymn of The Republic, This Land Is Your Land, and others.

Singing songs about America made me realize again how lucky, or blessed, I am to be an American, living in this great country. Most patriotic songs are full of meaning and even more so when you sing them over and over and them work on the production of the recording. You start to actually pay attention to the words a little more than normal.

One song that I felt had the most meaning was God Bless America. Although for a patriotic song it is very short, it still holds a lot of truth. These days it’s not exactly popular to mention God but, well, I don’t care. Actually no, I do care, which is why I made a video of the song and posted it to YouTube. I’ve also included it below in this post but if it doesn’t play, you can see it here.

And now, I shall return to recording. Maybe a few Christmas songs. I know, it’s kind of the wrong time of year for that but ever heard of Christmas in July? I’ll let you know how it goes in December or so.

Happy Fourth!

Listen to God Bless America by Bruce A. Borders

Bruce A. Borders is the author of more than a dozen books, including: Inside Room 913, Over My Dead Body, The Journey, Miscarriage Of Justice, The Lana Denae Mysteries, and The Wynn Garrett Series. Available in ebook at www.amazon.com/Bruce-A.-Borders/e/B006SOLWQS and paperback on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Books-a-Million. Bruce A. Borders is a proud member of Rave Reviews Book Club.

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