Welcome to Ocala.com Blogs

Ad Perfect | Ocala.com | Star-Banner | Ocala, FL

Opinion

Home > Opinion > Blogs > Frame 37

Ocala.com Bloggers

Search Blogs



KeywordsPhrase

Blog Archives

Archive

March 2007

Sun

Mon

Tue

Wed

Thu

Fri

Sat

Monthly

September, 2008

August, 2008

July, 2008

June, 2008

May, 2008

April, 2008

March, 2008

February, 2008

January, 2008

December, 2007

November, 2007

October, 2007

Sly Comments

Author:	Emory Schley	Created:	10/4/2006 3:15 PM
Readers are invited to comment on any of the items or discussion seen below, or any matter of concern here in Beautiful Marion County!

Why not let the sunshine in?
	By Emory Schley on 3/31/2007 5:56 AM

I always thought it would be pretty neat to have some of that dark shading film installed on my car windows so people wouldn’t be able to see me when I’m out and about driving around. Not only that, but it would tend to keep the strong Florida sun we experience here from being so intrusive and warming up the interior of our vehicles to something approaching the level needed to bake cookies. However, I have now changed my mind about window shading. It’s not that I’m concerned about being in the public view when driving – and it’s not about reducing the amount of heat from the sun that invades our cars – no, it’s neither of those. It’s a newly-realized sense of diminishing safety which I feel is caused by dark window shading. &nb ...

Comments (0)	More...

Quite a surprise in a sleepy little town of long ago...
	By Emory Schley on 3/30/2007 5:48 AM

Back in the early ’60s, while in the Army, I was stationed for a time at Fort Stewart, Ga., a sprawling military installation of about 280,000 acres spreading into five different counties. Just outside its main gate is the town of Hinesville. Back then, the town was a rinky-dink little place with one closed theater, two gas stations, perhaps three or four bars, a dime store, and little else. Permanent population was perhaps 300 or so. One day on post, someone told me that Smiley Burnett was going to put on a show in Hinesville the following Saturday. Now you may never have heard of Smiley Burnett, but everyone knew who Smiley Burnett was back then. He was a multi-talented guy, who had appeared in many of the most popular Western movies of the day, back when Western ...

Comments (1)	More...

Putting a sparkle into Life
	By Emory Schley on 3/29/2007 5:55 AM

Bright, sparkling, happy people are what makes Life most worthwhile for all the rest of us, don’tcha know? Whenever I’m around such a person, I just sort of automatically start feeling better. You probably do, too! Some people seem to be born with a positive outlook and each little pothole on the Roadway of Life seems to be just a small barely perceptible wrinkle, nothing more. Guys like me always see potholes as being something like bomb craters, instead. I have the great good fortune to be married to a lady with a bright, sparkling, happy personality who just never seems to be bothered by the vagaries in life. I’ve often wished I could be much more like her. After 41 years of married life t ...

Comments (0)	More...

Maybe we should rethink this military draft situation
	By Emory Schley on 3/28/2007 5:50 AM

Last Sunday marked the 41st Anniversary of the day I got out of the U.S. Army. I had served five years, eight months, three weeks and four days, not quite two full enlistments. Not that I was keeping track, of course! :-) I never got drafted, because I enlisted at age 19. I’ve often thought in the years since that reinstating the military draft would be a good move for the nation to make. The draft was suspended in the wake of LBJ’s Vietnam war, a very unpopular stain on our national history. The Army that I was in, provided a pretty decent life for those with a particular type of personality. The armed services now use Social Securit ...

Comments (5)	More...

How many pennies would it take to fill a cube 50 miles on a side?
	By Emory Schley on 3/27/2007 5:51 AM

Monday may not be a good day to run this particular blog, but I’ve chosen to do so because, theoretically at least, you should be at your freshest early on a Monday morning. (You DID go to bed at a reasonable hour last night, right?) I’ve always been fascinated with numbers, the higher, the better. Why that is, I do not know. Perhaps I was frightened by them as a child, and overcompensated for that fear later in life. I don’t remember any such event befalling me, but there must be some reason I feel so keenly about numbers, and that reason sounds as good as any other to me. Time was, and not that many years ago either, when most peop ...

Comments (0)	More...

A place where I NEVER get my news!
	By Emory Schley on 3/26/2007 1:11 AM

I’ve never had a very high opinion of TV news, ever since I witnessed a scene one day long ago. I was living in Washington, D.C. back in the 1960s. Following the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., riots were breaking out all across the city. After several days, when things had settled down a bit, a buddy of mine and I decided to venture downtown to check out the damage. We were standing on a street corner watching a fireman – perched high atop one of those extension ladders that rises up from a firetruck – wielding a steady stream of water into one of the few remaining burning buildings. A cameraman from CBS News was there also. Back in those days, there were no portable video cameras. ...

Comments (0)	More...

Natural forces can pack quite a punch!
	By Emory Schley on 3/25/2007 6:44 AM

I saw a photo one time – and I might add this was decades before the advent of digital photography and Photoshop® software – that showed a straw impaled into a large rock. The caption under the photograph explained that a small tornado had sucked up a stack of hay and sent it cartwheeling through the air with a tremendous force. After the tornado dissipated, the landowner, inspecting the damage wrought by the storm, discovered the straw embedded into the solid rock and took the photograph. I wondered about that straw for a very long time. How could something as fragile as a straw become embedded in solid rock? It just didn’t make much sense to me. Some years later, someone told me he had once seen a few straws embedded into the bark of a couple of pine trees after a similar storm had passed through his area. I had no reason to doubt ...

Comments (0)	More...

Bringing balance to the Universe
	By Emory Schley on 3/24/2007 5:46 AM

Yesterday, we were talking about balancing unboiled eggs on end. Personally, sometimes I can do it, sometimes I can’t, and most times I try, I can’t. One of several reasons why I first started this was that I read it can’t be done. The other reason is that I once saw a fellow on a TV talk show balance a number of bowling balls, one atop the other. He was trying for eight as I recall, but his structure fell apart after six. I remember thinking, as I was watching, this is impossible. You can’t possibly balance bowling balls, one on top of the other, but there he was, doing it. After careful consideration, I thought it MIGHT be possible, with a BIG “maybe,” that you could balance ONE bowling ball on top of another, but three, four or more would be ...

Comments (11)	More...

Vernal equinox: Keeping it in balance
	By Emory Schley on 3/23/2007 5:51 AM

Early this morning, we experienced the vernal equinox. I remember reading one time that it was pretty nigh impossible to balance an unboiled egg on its end unless you tried it on the vernal equinox when supposedly various “forces” in the solar system lined up to “assist” in the attempt. So, having been entrusted with such authoritative information saying it couldn’t be done, I never tried it. For years, I never tried it. I didn’t even know what the vernal equinox was, I just knew you couldn’t balance an egg on end unless it was the “official” day of the vernal equinox, whatever that was. Now I know the equinox is that time of year when the sun crosses the plane of the earth's equator, making night and day essentially equal in length all over the earth. It occurs about March 21, sometimes the 22nd. Six months from now, we'll have another equinox. The Autumna ...

Comments (0)	More...

Reviving the glories of old
	By Emory Schley on 3/22/2007 5:53 AM

Rainbow Springs State Park, located a bit north of Dunnellon, Florida on U.S. 41 is truly one of Beautiful Marion County’s best-kept secrets. At one time, it was a tourist attraction featuring rodeo events, a sky ride, an aviary, magnificent springs, submarine boats and lots more. Most of that is gone today, leaving only walkways through beautiful wooded areas, a couple of waterfalls, and a few other goodies. Today, it is slowly recovering – thanks to many hard-working volunteers – from years of neglect and non-use. Slowly, the flower beds are returning, the swim area is in operation, and canoes once again ply some of the most beautiful spring waters in all of Florida. It’s a bit out of the way of the mainstream tourist trade, so you generally don’t have to contend with lines, and the admission price, by anyone&am ...

Comments (0)	More...

Fighting the battle of the turf!
	By Emory Schley on 3/21/2007 5:56 AM

As summer slowly awakens and begins rousing from its slumber, the rains come, the sun shines, and inevitably the old brown grass starts taking on deepening shades of green. Soon it will be time to roll out the lawnmower, change the oil, clean up the sparkplug, clean the air filter and get it ready for another season of weekly grass-cutting sessions. It was about 15 years ago or so, that I decided to splurge on a REAL lawn-mowing machine, something that would make me the envy of the neighborhood. So I went over to Paddock Mall, picked out a likely candidate, plunked down my plastic, then eagerly awaited delivery of my $1200 mowing marvel. Several day ...

Comments (0)	More...

Looking forward to a hot time!
	By Emory Schley on 3/20/2007 5:55 AM

The pepper seeds which I planted in peat beds several weeks ago are beginning to sprout up like crazy in their little mini-greenhouse which is sitting on our dining room table, a space appropriated temporarily because it’s one of the few spots in the entire house that doesn’t seem to attract either of our two cats. The Thai pepper seeds came from one of my daughter’s friends at her workplace, and they have renewed my interest in the capsaicin arts, if I may call them that. I tried growing jalapeños several times, with no success at all, but Thai peppers seem so hardy that even a brown-thumb guy like me can do it easily. &a ...

Comments (0)	More...

The downside to a long life
	By Emory Schley on 3/19/2007 7:47 AM

Taking care of an elderly parent is sometimes every bit as trying as taking care of a baby or a toddler. When I was younger, much younger, I used to think it would be great to live to be 100 years old. Now, I’m not so sure. Living to the century mark would be OK as long as you retained your health, your good humor, sufficient money, and your intellectual and physical abilities, but to lose some of those qualities, or any of them really, is tantamount to squeezing the joy from life. With no joie de vivre , life would seem hardly worth living. My mother passed away recently at the age of 86. Most of the people in my family, on both my mother’s ...

Comments (1)	More...

Whatcha got goin' today?
	By Emory Schley on 3/18/2007 6:35 AM

Here it is, another weekend already! Florida just has to be one of the greatest places on the face of the planet for weekend activities. Beaches line both coasts and are about an hour’s drive away, more or less, Disney World is an hour away, Tampa-St. Pete not much further, and SeaWorld, Universal and lots more all within easy driving distance. Extend your drive to two hours, and lots more attractions are within range. It’s enough to keep you going to a different place every weekend throughout the entire year with no repeat visits! Talk about an embarrassment of wealth. Busch Gardens, St. Augustine, Daytona Beach, the Kennedy Space Center – you could easily spend a fortune trying to see everything there is to see. And that’s not even counting the sites in Beautiful Marion County itself that one ...

Comments (0)	More...

A mystery surrounds a monument to a lost love
	By Emory Schley on 3/17/2007 5:59 AM

Coral Castle, down in Homestead in south Miami-Dade County, is a most interesting place to visit. It is a memorial one man built for his lost love, a young woman who had rejected him on the eve of their wedding date. Edward Leedskalnin was an emigrant from Latvia who eventually settled in Florida. Over a period of years this 100-pound man with only a fourth-grade education was able to quarry, shape and erect over 1,100 tons of coral rock into a monument to his lost love, and he did it single-handedly with no assistance from others or any machinery or heavy equipment. Leedskalnin worked alone, at night, supposedly so others could not observe his techniques. When asked how he was able to move such massive weights, he would only ...

Comments (0)	More...

Want to learn something "new"?
	By Emory Schley on 3/16/2007 6:02 AM

Sometimes when I’m thinking that Life is just getting to be too much drag and drudgery, I resolve to bring a little something extra into my life, something totally new and different. It was during just such a time several decades ago, that I decided to take up a new form of communicating with people. Well, “new” form is to be taken somewhat advisedly, you understand, because it was “new” only in the sense that it was “new” to me, but not to the rest of the world. What was this “new” form of communication? You’ll probably laugh, perhaps even sneer, when I tell you – Morse code. What, you’re probably asking yourself, ...

Comments (2)	More...

The never-ending parade of thunder
	By Emory Schley on 3/15/2007 5:49 AM

Last Sunday, Dearly Beloved and I drove over to Daytona Beach. It was the last scheduled day of Bike Week, an event I had long wanted to attend. It was a spur of the moment thing. We really hadn’t made any advance plans to go, it was just one of those items on my “someday I want to do this” list. The opportunity presented itself Sunday morning, so we jumped in the car and took off. We took highway 42 over to the other side of the state, a route recommended by a friend. I’ve been to Daytona many times, but I had never gone by way of 42 before. It’s a pretty leisurely drive through lots of picturesque countryside, an unexpected benefit, because I was mainly wanting to avoid traffic. We didn’t really stay in Daytona Beach very l ...

Comments (0)	More...

You gotta have the correct tools!
	By Emory Schley on 3/14/2007 5:54 AM

Yesterday, we talked about learning how to juggle. Hope you tried it out, because it can be a lot of fun. What discourages many beginners is difficulty in finding the proper equipment. Balls will work in a pinch, but they are not the ideal juggling props for beginners. Bean bags are far better because they don’t bounce and roll away from you when they’re dropped. And I know this will come as quite a surprise to you, but beginning jugglers frequently drop whatever they’re trying to juggle. That’s why you don’t start with raw eggs! :-) Finding pre-made bean bags can be a problem, but they’re easy enough to make yourself, even if you have few sewing skills. First, “liberate” a worn-out pair of panty-hose from a family member. A “close” friend would work, too!

Comments (1)	More...

Juggle? Sure, YOU can do it!
	By Emory Schley on 3/13/2007 5:46 AM

Have you ever thought about trying to learn how to juggle? It’s a pretty difficult task if you don’t know exactly how to go about learning the skill. But once you’ve been told how to develop that skill, you can pick it up pretty quickly, with just a bit of practice. The equipment you use is quite important. You need three objects to juggle, preferably ones that are easy to grip. Balls are a popular item to juggle, but bean bags offer significant advantages over balls. A bean bag is easy to make yourself, and it’s ideal for learning to juggle because a bean bag is “dead,” that’s “dead” in the sense that when it is dropped it will fall to the floor and stay there. It won’t bounce, roll an ...

Comments (0)	More...

Peering through the mist at reality
	By Emory Schley on 3/12/2007 8:16 AM

I received a note from a reader recently asking why the Bush Administration has replaced “all military personnel at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center’s hospital with private workers at a much greater expense than it was costing for military personnel? . . . I would also like to know why, when our President last visited the hospital that he did not notice or see the mold, roaches, rats and other horrible conditions there?” she asked. My crystal ball provides only perpetually cloudy images. They never seem to clear up and come into sharp focus for some reason, so I guess I must have gotten a dud when I bought mine. However, having been in the Army for six years back in the 1960s’ Vietnam Era, and having spent the last six mon ...

Comments (0)	More...

Copyright © Ocala.com — All rights reserved. Restricted Use only. Login