Suddenly, It's Summer

And time to review the posts over at Dad's Car Radio I've been much better about posting over there.



Soon, there will be new posts at Phunny Business, too!



I did take some time and set up a Dangerous Assumptions MySpace page so that when I finally get around to digitizing the music of this amazing Baltimore band they will have a place to go.

Goosed!

I went goose hunting on Saturday. I had never been goose hunting before. In fact, any desire to hunt had been well camouflaged. Well there I was, now well-camouflaged myself, lurking in the grass at the edge of a cornfield on the Eastern shore of Maryland's Chesapeake Bay awaiting the arrival of a flock of Canada Geese.

It was a beautiful morning, clear and about 45 degrees, quite mild for December and as I lay there staring up at the sky hearing the booming of other hunter's shotguns in the distance, I had time to think. But I chose not to. Instead I just breathed in the cool stillness and waited.

Goose hunting is really more like goose ambushing. First you set up a field of decoys. We had about 75 of them in various poses arranged on the edge of the cornfield. Some were seated some standing with heads down to the ground, others moved slowly in the breeze - moving back and forth on a single leg. They looked quite realistic. There were even decoy full ears of corn. The arrangement left room in the middle for other geese to join them for breakfast.

Some geese flew by at high altitudes not giving our buffet a second look, some came in lower, looked like they might come in and kept on going to the next field. Finally a pair landed in front of us, but we waited because it looked like others would join them. These two were squawking and honking away and my fellow hunters restrained the urge to pop up and fire, waiting for other geese to come on down. Finally, the call went out "Smoke 'Em" All at once four men pop up out of their layout blinds and open fire. Well, three did, I was a bit slow and didn't get my shotgun up and aimed until these two geese had been brought crashing back to earth.

Next time.

After another wait of 30-40 minutes - with various geese flying by and not landing, the sky was filled with the sound of literally dozens of honking geese, they kept getting closer some from the East coming up off the Wye River, some from behind us - flying in from the Eastern Bay, directly overhead there were V formations going in multiple directions then a group of 6-10 came in "Cupped and Coming" wing s cupped to slow for a landing - in formation - an amazing sight. Then again the doors flew open and the booming of 12 gauge shotguns filled the air - and geese hit the ground. Did I hit one? I honestly don't know for sure. But I took one home.

All the Truckers Eat There

Way back when before the American landscape was completely taken over by chain restaurants, there was a popular notion that one good way to tell if an unknown restaurant was any good was to see how many Long haul big rig trucks were parked there with the truckers inside eating dinner. the thinking went, "The drive all the time - they live on the road - they know all the best spots"

This was a Dangerous Assumption.

Coffee that could peel paint off your Peterbilt, waitresses stuffed into uniforms like pork and spice in a sausage casing, glaring fluorescent light and a jukebox full of country music were to be found inside most of them. Upon further reflection, proximity to the highway, late hours and BIG parking spaces probably attracted more truckers than the accumulated wisdom of where to find fine road food.

Ladies and Gentlemen, The Dangerous Assumptions!

I always wanted to name a band "The Dangerous Assumptions". Actually the full name was to be "Jump Conclusion and the Dangerous Assumptions". But, alas, this never came to pass and starting a band now would be yet another invitation to mockery by my teenage daughter.

So, I've now named a blog Dangerous Assumptions. It's so wide open - and yet lends itself to a number of themes which are near and dear to my heart. It won't be as focused as Dad's Car Radio or as overtly commercial as The Other List is going to be. It should be interesting to see where it goes...