Brian Fleck

A couple of surprises came out of the old hen house recently.
The coop isn’t old at all, but it’s been a few seasons since the girls were spring chickens. Nevertheless, they shouldn’t be over the hill, egg-laying wise. Typically, a hen produces from five to seven years. We have six chickens, average age three-and-a-half, so we should still be making omelets and deviled eggs to our heart’s content.
Wrong.
Creation tapered off this spring and then stopped all together with the beginning of summer. It was a bit of a mystery since production typically goes up in the summer months.

Talk about your emotional swings.
In just 10 days, I went from the elation of the Cubs winning the World Series to the deep depression of the election of Donald Trump.
This week’s column was going to be about my earliest days of fandom for the loveable losers. I even started writing it before Tuesday:
Dave (Buzz) Buzello and I were as a thick as thieves in our preteens.
He lived a half-dozen houses down the street. Our mutual life’s goal was to discover a secret formula that would either: A.) Stink to high heaven or B.) Explode.

We went on our annual fall bicycle ride on the Kewash Nature Trail recently.
It was a gorgeous fall day. Sun out, temperature up and leaves in all their glory. On our half dozen or so rolls up and down the trail, we encountered a bunch of beautiful flora and fauna. On one early summer ride the periwinkles bloomed in all their blue and violet glory. On another, a huge buck with a splendid rack stood in waist high corn and watched us as we watched him.

Talked with Mom and Dad on the phone this morning.
The big news of the day was the Cubs. They don’t have cable so they couldn’t watch the series clincher against the Giants, but they did have a radio tuned in until about 10 p.m. That’s bedtime, they observe it pretty closely. It’s a rare evening that finds them staying up past or, even rarer, going to bed early.
We both agreed it’s actually better listening to it on the radio. The television announcers might be talking about what they had for lunch and completely miss describing the triple being played out on the field.

When I first mentioned we joined the church across the street, several of our friends were fairly astonished.
I guess this is because I am, by nature, a fairly irreverent person.
I like to drink alcoholic beverages, for example, sometimes to the point of being howling at the moon drunk. I also smoke cigars occasionally and swear frequently. I make up stories about selling pot and amassing fortunes.