DEAD RATS AND TACKLE BOXES
It is Monday morning and I decide to call my wife to find out how things are going on the home front. I am greeted with the news that we have suffered what can only be a death.
I listen sympathetically as my sweetie tells me that she thinks something has crawled [...]

SUSPICIONS CONFIRMED
Hello fellow Ranters!
Don’t you just love it when you are vindicated?
For a long time I knew in my heart that the common litterbug was a few bricks shy of a full load and now I have absolute proof!
Yes, I am talking about the common litterbug, otherwise known as litterbuggus disgustus, and in some areas [...]

“Men are incapable of rational thought and it is a well known fact that due to what is known among medical experts as the ‘lard’ gene, an amorphous and somewhat mushy blob located in the center of the brain cavity and taking up approximately eighteen square inches of space in the average man’s cerebrum, men, [...]

Have you ever heard the lonely far off wail of a steam locomotive’s whistle? You might expect that a train’s whistle would sound the same, night or day, summer or winter but what you expect is not necessarily what you get.
Night, due to the cooler air has as much the ability to change sound as [...]

It was one of those special, other worldly, northern winter nights when nothing can surprise you and you just know that anything might happen.
A full moon made the snow shrouded woodland glow in a mysterious, almost magical iridescence.
It was one of those nights when all of nature held its breath, waiting, just waiting. One of [...]

SOME THOUGHTS ON FEAR
By
Charles Towne
Bertrand Russell said, “Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.”
We see these “NO FEAR!” signs everywhere. What the heck is that other than a macho clothing line? You show me a man who says he [...]

If we don’t care for the land, if we don’t care…?
Great blue herons are such magnificent creatures.
There are three herons feeding in the shallow waters at the lakes edge while another stands elegantly on a fallen log dozing. Or perhaps it is meditating.
Whatever it is doing it stirs and lifts one wing and grooms itself [...]

When I was knee high to a short toad I was always playing with sharp and pointy sticks. mama was always saying, “And don’t you play with any sharp and pointy sticks, if you do you are going to poke out both of your eyes and you will be blind for the rest of your [...]

HSSSSSSSS
By
Charles Towne
Of all government organizations the U.S. Peace Corps, by its very name denotes a benign, yes, even peaceful existence, after all it is called, “The Peace Corps.”
One can only imagine the pains the organizers have gone to in order to make the time served as safe as possible for the volunteers but then one [...]