To be honest, for a change of pace, some of the recreational activities I have participated in can be called, a. ‘exhilarating’ or 2. ‘adventurous’ or c. ‘stupid’. Going back to school days when taking multiple-guess tests remember the rule-of-thumb, “When in doubt always pick ‘c’”.

   A while back, I was visiting an Army buddy inCalifornia. At the time, he was a devotee of hang gliding. This was before the days of licensed instructors and tandem gliding with pros that would show you how it is safely done.

   After a night of well-lubricated reminiscences, we found ourselves on a very steep, near cliff-like, hill overlooking the Pacific. As I was getting my flight instructions, which took all of five minutes, I was strapped into the flimsy wing and it was, “Off we go into the wild blue yonder” which in this case was wet.

   I have to admit the flight was exciting. It was the landing that gave me a bad time. I tried to go into the wind, but no luck so I ended up running as fast as I could, but I could not slow down. I then made a perfect three-point landing, both elbows and my chin.

   I would strongly suggest to our friends inCalifornia that if they must walk their dogs on the beach bring along a pooper-scooper and a plastic bag. To those who would like to canter their horses oceanside, bring a shovel and a very large plastic bag. People are trying to land face-first in your waterfront litter box.

   As risky as hang gliding may sound the most trouble I ever got into was playing golf. “Golf!” you say. Golf it is.

   I have been threatened by every possible creature found in the woods from furious chipmunks to lovesick deer. The chipmunks can be gently brushed aside and the most golf carts can out run a territorial deer. In the worst case deer cannot climb trees. However the mammalian inhabitants are a bunch of lightweights in comparison to our reptilian representatives.

   Since I play my golf in the places where these critters feel they have squatter’s rights and they enforce them. I have come to be able to identify snakes at a single glance or the slightest rattle. However, the real bad actors amongst the ‘Johnny No Shoulders’ crowd, the Copper Head and the Water Moccasin, have brought me to the point where I carry a change of undies in my golf bag.

   However, for reasons I cannot understand, the crocodilians give me the worst time. I have been chased by caimans in the Canal Zone, crocodiles in Florida and alligators in Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Louisiana, and South Carolina.

   My playing partners all say the same thing, “For an old guy he can really move, Yeah, but he screams like a little girl”. I guess I smell like lunch. © 2012, Jim McGowan

   I totally agree with former Judge Andrew P. Napolitano when he says that the Democrats take the taxes from the middle class and give it to the welfare recipients to buy their votes and the Republicans take the taxes from the middle class and give it to the corporations in order to get cash to keep them in office.

   The above listed incompetent scoundrels have failed to act to save a corporation from bankruptcy thereby leaving the people in helpless to the forced consumption of food that is good for them.

   “Twinkies”® is going under! The famed snack food of legend and glory will be no longer.

   Twinkies has a long history. Just recently, an archeologist was working in tomb of Egyptian Pharaoh Moped III. Moped was known to his subjects as King Putt, Putt, Putt. His tomb dated back to Tuesday, October 12, 3,432 BC around 4:15 pm, not to put to fine a point on it.

   In the tomb were found a case of Twinkies placed there to aid him in his trip to his last reward. They were still fresh.

   It was in Egypt where the first herds of Twinkies roamed the desert, wild and free. If you look at the Sphinx you will see what they looked like, only much smaller. Simply take away the head and paws and you have the modern Twinkie. We will forego any discussion of a comparison of ancient and modern contents.

   The Hostess Baking Company, which also produces Wonder Bread, has refiled for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy. The Russians call Wonder Bread and all American white bread as, “water that stands”.

   The going under of the company will also end the traditional lunch box combination of peanny-boo and jell-jell sandwich with a Twinkie desert washed down by a chocolate milk. Admittedly, there is more food value in grazing on four square yards of the school playground grass, but we are talking about tradition.

   This will present a problem to schoolteachers who usually expect their students to come back from lunch buzzing at around 5300 rpm with a sugar high. Now the kids will come back with bellies full of healthy food and ready for a nap. The thumps from the kid’s heads playing table basketball will be heard out in the 5^th grade parking lot.

   I find it ironic that President Obama has not stepped in. Whenever his wife Michelle goes on a speaking junket to expound upon the benefits of a healthy diet her limo is followed by a swirling cloud of Ho-Ho and Ding Dong wrappers. © 2012, Jim McGowan

   Then there is the constant pounding on the door by the same group of intensely sincere supporters. I have a neighbor who is handy with electricity. He rigged up his doorbell so that when it is pushed a hidden loudspeaker blasts out President Obama’s Inauguration speech.

  This results in the victim soiling himself, slamming his hands to his ears, and running down the street screaming incoherently in panic. The downside is he has to hose down his porch and pick up all the campaign literature that was scattered on his lawn.

   I have another friend who, on the rare instance when an actual person calls on the phone instead of a recording, gives the phone to his five-year-old daughter and tells her it is Sponge Bob Square Pants calling. One can hardly tell who is babbling more.

   So let us look at our latest tourists.

   There is Mitt Romney who is going to tell us he never institutionalized health care in Massachusettswhen he was governor and had nothing to do with the poor showing of employment while he was there. (47^th out of the 50 states.)

   Newt Gingrich is going to try to sweep under the rug the fact that he was sanctioned by the House of Representatives and fined $300,000 also, that when he was out of office he made $1.6 million dry humping the leg of Congress as a lobbyist for big business.

   I checked with some friends of mine fromTexasabout their Governor Rick Perry. The best they could say about him was to paraphrase the character, Captain Jack Aubrey in “Master and Commander”. “He was the lesser of two weevils”, was the consensus.

   Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania gave Romney a rough time in Iowa, however no one seems to remember he got crushed in his home state when he tried to run for a third term in the Senate. Why was that I wonder?

   Ron Paul gives one pause to think. A Libertarian to the core, he wants go back to the strict interpretation of the Constitution as defined by the Founding Fathers. He should know he was there when it was signed.

   That leaves us with Jon Huntsman ofUtah. All Have to say about him is, “Who?”

   Normally, I pretty much agree with the policies of our State representatives. However, moving us to the head of the primary line is doing us no favor. So now, we have to endure detailed inaccurate analysis by out-of-state journalists who will portray us as a bunch of backwoods, redneck, uneducated, racists. That causes me to award credence to the descriptor, ‘dam-Yankee’.

   So, it looks like the Republicans will nominate a member of the equine genus. It will be a dark horse or a jackass.© 2012, Jim McGowan