Bull by Bull - 9/16/2020

• I got lost in Sisters the other day, after living here for over 34 years. When I needed to return from where I’d just come, my plan was to hang a U-turn on Brooks Camp Road, knowing it was a dead end. Not only is Brooks Camp Road now a through street, I was met by huge apartment buildings and houses on both sides of the street. McDonald’s Golden Arches ahead was the only thing I recognized.

• It’s beginning to feel a lot like fall in Cloverdale. The acrid smell of hemp fields and the smoke from wildfires permeate the air, the nearby elk can be heard bugling, and the Three Sisters are as bare of snow as I can remember. Oh, and the badgers are back.

• George Carlin once said, “When I was a kid, if a guy got killed in a Western movie I always wondered who got his horse.” Somehow, it makes me wonder, too, who gets all those beautiful horses on the controversial statues that have been torn down.

• Around this time of the year I always enjoy stacking my pellets and getting hay in for the upcoming winter. This is the first year, however, that I have felt the need to lay in books for the winter to come. Thus far I have stashed 14 whodunits, three autobiographies, and 99-year-old Raymond Alden’s newest release, “Exploring the God Idea.”

• Some nights before going to bed in the summertime, I drag my bare feet through the newly watered lawn to remove the day’s dust. Works great, especially right after I’ve mowed. Talking mowing, Lee Christensen found me the greatest used mower on Craig’s List (who is Craig, anyway)? Just one pull and I’m good to go. Seeing my old mower going down the road in the back of Lee’s pickup, though, made me feel like I was attending my own estate sale.

• The doc has me monitoring my BP lately. I feel as though I’m taking a lie detector test every time I check it; it’s impossible to fool. Talking docs, some of the best advice I ever got from one a few years back: “When it gets in the way of your bowling, call me.” I was all signed up to get my knee replaced this summer and decided to take care of a big toe problem before surgery. Long story short, fixing my toe allowed me to use my entire foot properly for the first time in many, many years and straightened my leg right up. Bingo: no knee surgery and back to bowling — for now.

• One day after COVID house arrest I came across a tiny, dead, dried up, shriveled mouse in the carport closet. Instantly, I realized it looked exactly like I felt when we were first set free from stay-at-home orders.