I was out walking around the neighborhood the other day and run into Pearl Plaisted dead-heading her geraniums. “Ida!” she says, “I haven’t seen you all summer. Why don’t you come in for some iced tea, dear?” “No need to twist my arm. I was going to do a little vacuuming, so thanks for rescuing me.” Pearl seemed a little stuck in the “half way up” position, so I give her an assist, and into the house we go. “Hank,” she yells, “you decent? Ida’s here.” We settled into the screened in porch, and got to talking about the big celebration coming up next weekend down to the K of C. Get this: Frank and …

Charlie and me are going to be on vacation, so no blog post for the next two weeks. I’ll be back on August 26. I bought a new vacuum cleaner head. The old one had seen better days. The lever that switches back and forth from “carpet” to “floor” broke, and it was permanently stuck on “carpet.” Hard to get good suction going on a wood floor. If your husband is anything like Charlie, most likely he has a big, honking lawn mower and snow blower, too, for that matter. Why? Because if you have good equipment, it does a better job in less time. So true! A vacuum is something you use all year …