The book I'm reading now

"In The President's Secret Service" is a book about the Secret Service and how it has evolved, as well as the training the agents receive; it also has plenty of dirt on recent presidents.
Ever since Cliff and I went to Plains, Georgia, and sat in Jimmy Carter's Sunday School class (and later had our picture taken with him and Ros), I've had a good opinion of him.  Turns out, the members of the Secret Service did not.  However, after a chapter of griping about him, it was admitted that he really was devoted to Ros, and that he was serious about his religion.  Hey, that's more good than they had to say about some of the others.  The president they seemed to be most fond of was Reagan, but they didn't care much for his wife.  They had good things to say about President Ford, too.  
The way they describe Nixon makes me wonder how he ever ended up in office.  Wow.  I'm not even sure he was safe walking the streets; he had all the traits of a crazed postal worker.  
Oh, and from what I've learned about Lyndon Johnson, Bill Clinton is a boy scout in comparison.    
In the previous entry I mentioned the fact that we had visited the Truman Library; Patsy from Arkansas left a comment that a relative of hers with rather loose morals worked for Truman for years; she and her sister had wondered if there was ever any "hanky-panky" between them.  
Well, nothing would surprise me these days, but from what I've read about Harry Truman, he was really in love with Bess for as long as he lived.  That doesn't mean he might not have slipped up at some time, though.  Boys will be boys.  But if you read the many, many letters Harry wrote to his wife over the years, you will see the love in them.  
So far I haven't read any dirt on Truman in this book I'm reading, but the Secret Service wasn't much of a presence back then.  After Kennedy was assassinated, they started expanding.  
I have a long-standing admiration for Harry Truman.  He wasn't afraid to speak his mind.  
That's about all my ramblings on this hot day (it may reach 108 degrees).

Wow, where to start

Nothing momentous has happened lately, but that never stopped me from blogging before, and it isn't going to stop me now.  The heat outside has been awful, and Cliff finally decided that he's retired and doesn't absolutely HAVE to be outside doing something when it's over a hundred degrees.  He doesn't like sitting in the house, but he will do so now when the weather is bothering him, surfing the tractor websites and watching Craigslist.  

One day last week we took in Truman Library; we've been there before, but this time we took the guided tour, which was well worth the time.  Not to mention, it was something we could do and still keep cool.  I took my cane-chair along in case I wanted to sit down, but hardly used it at all.  When I do a lot of walking like that, my knee still swells some.  If I do a lot of walking two days in a row, it swells even more.  I'm learning to not let this bother me, reminding myself that it won't happen as often as time goes by.   

Cliff wanted to go to an antique tractor show in Macon, Missouri.  He started planning it as a camping trip, but when we found out it was only a two-and-a-half hour drive away, we made it a day trip.  It's just too hot to camp.  As it turns out, the show wasn't all that large.  We had no trouble seeing it all in a couple of hours.  Right after our arrival, we ran into a couple of my cousins, Lela and June.  Seeing them so far away from any of our homes seemed so out of context to me that I didn't even recognize them until Cliff started talking to them!

The road that took us to Macon would have made a wonderful motorcycle ride, but again, it was too hot.  

 I haven't gotten around to digging all my potatoes, but I had a bucket full of them sitting in the kitchen, and I really had no place to store them.  So, I opted to cook a family dinner and invite whoever could come.  My daughter's family; my two oldest grandchildren and their mom, as well as Arick's girl friend; and a favorite nephew who noticed what I was planning on Facebook, along with his son.   

I have a story about something that happened yesterday that may lose some of it's luster in the telling, but if you had been here, you would have laughed with us:  I was in the kitchen, almost ready to pull the rolls out of the oven, when my son-in-law, Kevin, said in a booming voice that almost shook the house, "Oh my god, is that dog sh**ing in that chair?"  

Granddaughter Amber was in my raggedy old recliner playing with my Ipad; she had the footrest up with her feet on it, and her dog, Sophie (a Minipin) was between her feet.  Indeed, Sophie laid a log right between granddaughter's feet.  

It brought down the house.  

Poor Kevin was in a state of shock for at least ten minutes after seeing this sight; he said he had never seen a dog do something like that inside a house without being punished (Not his exact words, but that's what he meant).  Thank goodness, the food I had waiting in the kitchen seemed to revive him somewhat.  

After dinner we gathered in Cliff's shop and talked about old times, telling tales about what all the grandkids were like when they were younger and reliving a few past events we adults had lived through.  In a few more years, I'm sure we'll be retelling the tale of Sophie the Mini-pin pooping on Grandma's recliner.

I had been complaining on Facebook that our favorite Walmart seemed to be out of the freezer pops Cliff and I love.  On these hot summer days, we'll grab one out of the refrigerator in the shop several times a day.  Cliff and I purchased a couple of bags Saturday morning at a different Walmart, but I didn't mention the fact to anyone.  So my daughter blessed us with a bag of pops, and then my oldest granddaughter and her mom came with two bags.  That ought to do us for a few hot days!  (By the way, say hello to Clyde the steer; that's him, neatly wrapped beneath the popsicles and frozen corn.  We had a couple of chuck roasts with dinner yesterday; they were very tasty.)