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What Jim has learned today

I learned that when one comes home and two big dogs are laying on the floor, on their backs, their paws in the air, moaning in a way only a dog can moan, and you look over and see the dog food container has been broken into, these dogs will likely need to go outside several times before bedtime. I have learned that when I was a boy and my mother told me not to be in a hurry to grow up, she didn’t mean for me to wait until I’m 60. I also learned that when one is 60 years old, and one calls his mother who is in her late 80s, that the conversation one has today will be the … exact … same … conversation … one had the week before. I learned that such things are the easy things for one to give another. I learned about the planet Venus. I learned that Venus rotates in the opposite direction as Earth. On Venus, the Sun rises in the West and sets in the East. What a mixed-up planet. I learned that no matter how destitute one may think one is, there will always be those more destitute of something. Perhaps, just perhaps, one may have a little extra of that something. One never knows. I have learned the distant sound of a train’s horn will forever make me wish, just for a moment, I was on that train. I learned that when one marries a woman from southwest Asia, one’s diet will change. And that one will begin to feel better and begin to shed pounds. And that okra is not merely a thing that is always battered and deep fried. I learned that at times, one will still secretly crave a hot dog. This is all I have learned today.

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James Wares is retired and resides in Marshalltown. He can be reached at whatjimhaslearnedtoday@yahoo.com

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