22ndJanuary2011 Starting a Blog

My sister, Shelley, has inspired me to start blogging.  As punishment, she'll have to follow it.  My daughter, Joanna, helped walk me through the set-up, so she'll have to follow it, too.   I look forward to their constructive comments.

My high school English teacher was Mrs. Martin.  She taught me well, but I'm sure I was a source of aggravation to her.  Do not blame her for any poorly constructed sentences or grammatical errors.

Winters are cold and long in Minnesota.  It's gonna be below zero again tonight.  As my son, Daniel, would say, "It's cold enough to pop the balls off a brass monkey."  That might sound vulgar, but it isn't.  Back in the days of sailing warships, the cannonballs were stored on a brass rack called a monkey.  If it got cold enough, the rack would contract & the balls would pop off.  I tried this on my deck a couple of years ago.  When the mercury hit 5 below it sounded like the climax of the 1812 Overture as the balls bounced around on the deck.  I didn't find all the balls till the snow melted in the Spring.