This month finds Ol’ Dutch and Miss Trixie still in Texas building on the house, going to grandkids’ ball games, selling cattle and yes, you guessed it, seeing the total eclipse of the Sun.

It appears that Spring has sprung at least in Texas where Miss Trixie and Ol’ Dutch have taken to spending their winters of late. You always can tell when it's close as the Big Box Stores load up on flowers and vegetables by the pallet load. It must be lucrative as the dickens as those same box doors often catch a late frost which kills every plant they have in stock. Regardless of the risks, the stores all rush and hurry to be the first with tomato and pepper plants on the shelves.

Anyone that has ever been involved with sports has had a coach yell “get the lead out” usually paired with an anatomical part of your body that is synonymous with your neighbor’s donkey. That phrase has been used “since Hector was a pup” and generally means to get moving faster.

Having grown up around a lot of older people, I got to experience life from their perspectives, some of which pre-dated 1900. My grandfather Kirk was born in 1889 in Dodge City, Kan., and so was probably about 65 by the time I was born, which was quite old in those days when people just did not live too long.

It was 2 p.m. on a recent Sunday in the western Colorado town of Paonia, population 1,500, not an ideal time to gather a crowd to meet the famous Rosa Parks, the woman who kicked off the modern civil rights movement.

Living near a metroplex during the winter brings about all sorts of challenges not found during my summer sojourn in Colorado’s smalltown living. Some of these are to be expected like masses of people, traffic jams, increased crime activity and other things found when you have large numbers of people living closely together. I do believe that the higher crime rate we find here is probably just due to more people jammed into a smaller space as it seems to be increasing wherever we go these days.

KEVIN KIRKPATRICK It has long been thought that a lot of what goes on in the world is manipulated by those in charge. They are thought to use a technique called smoke and mirrors to draw attention away from what is really going on behind the scenes and keep us focused on something really unrelated and often mundane.

It looks like the weather is on a rampage once again across the U.S.A. as the week opens up with rains on the West Coast setting records for amounts received plus snow in the Northeast piling up like leftovers at the church pot-luck dinner which, even though good at the time, begin to smell if allowed to accumulate for too long.

For those of you that follow along on the “great adventure” also known as cohabiting with Ol’ Dutch, you know we have had some experience with “the great tribulation”. Which is also related to living without heat and hot water.

This past week has definitely been a trial of my faith and all things holy.

KEVIN KIRKPATRICK

The New Year dawned on Miss Trixie and me in Texas with its usual fanfare for us to be healthy and safe.

You don’t have to watch much television before you come across the advertisements for emergency devices for the elderly in case they fall. We have all seen those ads and generally feature an old lady falling down her basement stairs trying to get to her washing machine.

Just this past weekend Ol’ Dutch decided to make the long journey up to Kansas and some of my past digs to see family.

According to Google, the phrase “cash is king” originated after the stock market crash of 1987. Just goes to show you that Google doesn’t know everything because Ol’ Dutch knew long ago that anyone with cash in any situation has a distinct advantage over others who do not.

The phrase “seeing the elephant” is a distinct piece of American verbiage that dates to the 1830’s and describes gaining knowledge from a particular experience. It was like going to town to see an elephant which had long been heard of but never seen to that point in a person’s life.

Many of you probably remember the movie “The Great Escape” produced back in 1963 and had a star-studded cast like no other films before or since. Steve McQueen was the main protagonist in the movie and his motorcycle stunts are still talked about today.

The Rio Grande County Commissioners are strongly opposed to Prop HH and urge all citizens of Rio Grande County and the State of Colorado to vote "NO" on Prop HH on the November 2023 ballot as it clearly violates the State Constitution, seems purposefully written to mislead voters, and obscures the fact that passage would eliminate future TABOR refunds and reduce the limits placed on the growth of state government.

For those of you who follow Ol’ Dutch and Miss Trixie on their weekly adventures, you know there is never a dull moment. And just like the character Roseanne Roseannadanna, who was played by the great Gilda Radner, used to say, “it's always something.”

Now, most of you don't know that my Miss Trixie was friends with Lady Bird Johnson, former First Lady of these great United States and the widow of our 36th President Lyndon Baines Johnson. Miss Trixie knew Mrs. Johnson long after LBJ died, of course, but she still heard stories from Mrs. Johnson and other alums from the Johnson administration.