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yesterday i woke up in marengo, IA after thunderstorms took the edge off the triple digit heat index. it was the last day of the 46th annual herman family reunion. reminders of years past (like this pic of jenny & andi in the 1970′s) were all around the 4-H hall where the family gathers. we circle up for spaghetti and hot slaw on friday night, circle up for lunch and dinner on saturday, count to see how many hermans made it, sing, pray, and eat. oh yeah, the auction raised over $3,000 this year despite a low turnout. i’m still a herman every fourth of july weekend, couldn’t be prouder!

here’s another melancholy song from the vault that i started 8 or more years ago. it was when i first recorded right on to the computer’s hard drive. it ends kind of abruptly because, well… i never finished it! i call it gypsy wagon.
i sat by my window
til the breeze
hit my face
and i
never wanna leave
i never wanna leave
i never wanna leave
my window…
the wind comes down my street
like a gypsy wagon
everybody’s wind chimes singin’ along
like they’re hangin’ on a gypsy wagon–
————-
any input on how to finish this song is welcome.

found an old matchbook cover with a phone number on the spine that young folks today might find confusing because it only has 5 numbers on it. phone numbers with names at the beginning were gone by the time i learned how to make calls. i still knew about the old system because of black and white movies like call northside 777 and songs like beechwood 4-5789. it feels like i’ve already made a post about this topic. i’m sensing some deja vu, but what else is new? just did a search on the site & didn’t find anything. oh well.

i was working with chloé at homer’s monday when i noticed she had drawn something smaller than my pinky nail– it was an eye. i must have looked like mr. magoo when i held it an inch away from my camera to get the detail. i asked her if i could post it on instagram. she said “yeah” & a minute later, her cousin jonelle saw the eye & wrote “Please replicate this in latté art” –and chloé did it!

jenny & i got married 30 years ago today. last night we went to the hotel where we stayed our first night as a married couple. a lot of things have changed downtown since then. the italian gardens restaurant is gone, and the sheraton is now the aladdin hotel. we went upstairs to a little bar & met robert and sam. robert was our bartender, and sam was just a friendly guy on our side of the bar. that downtown hotel is still a cool place to check in.

i bought my big brutus travel mug so long ago they don’t even sell it any more at the little gift shop in west mineral. sometimes it goes missing, and i wonder if it has a mind of its own & it’s trying to get back home. i can’t count all the times i’ve forgotten where i put it. i should have lost this thing years ago. one day i left it at the coffeehouse, and a customer brought it up to the register and said “look at this cool travel mug i found!” you could see the disappointment in his face when i said “i knew it had to be around here somewhere, sorry bud, that’s mine.”

found an old postcard image & messed around with it until it looked like this:
this is what the top part looked like before editing:when i tell people that i do this type of editing on microsoft paint, they either roll their eyes or act impressed. i know there is such a thing called photoshop, but there’s also such a thing called doing more with less.

…i made a post about a t-shirt that looked like donkey kong and felt like ghostbusters– but did i buy it? sadly, no. my stomach has been stretching out a lot of t-shirts lately, and i didn’t want to add that one to the list. maybe after i get my cholesterol down & drop a few pounds i’ll get donkey puft.

my throat started feeling a little sore yesterday. waking up at 4:20 this morning was a MAJOR accomplishment. fortunately there was a constant onslaught of customers to deal with. one of them chatted with my co-worker as i stood at the register. after awhile he said “oh i’m sorry, you’ve been waiting patiently for me to order haven’t you?” i responded, “i’m just waiting for the sweet release of death.” if we had any weather to be under that’s where i would be.

…the weird start singing in a fake chevy chase voice. that’s what i did anyway during a E minor to C jam with gabby, cesar, luna, and tenoch on mango and play-doh. earlier the kids explored music & sounds on the theremin & tiny casio. is it strange that i showed them how to play star wars & they showed me how to play beethoven’s ode to joy?