Certain Jeopardy

Six American men live behind a protective façade, their real work hidden from neighbors and friends. Different in countless ways, they are intimately the same in one: at any moment their lives can be altered with a phone call, and their actions may change the world.

They are Special Ops. And one team’s mission is about to hit certain jeopardy status when the discovery of an Al Qaeda base in Venezuela becomes secondary to thwarting the transport of a nuclear weapons expert from that training camp to Iran.

Informed by the true combat experience of Captain Jeff Struecker and finessed by award-winning novelist Alton Gansky, Certain Jeopardy is an immersing and pulsating fictional account of what really happens at every level of a stealth engagement: the physical enemy encounter, the spiritual war fought within a soldier, and the emotional battles in families back at home.

Highlights on Friday

Highlights of my Week

Pop Warner Football Kickoff picnic

Kids having fun in the water at the park

All right children, how many times do I have to tell you to behave at the table

A just because gift from my sweetie

And now I am going on vacation for two weeks--a cruise up the eastern seaboard to see fall colors.

One Lump or Two

Heating stove similar to one in our ranch house

Now that fall is upon us, it's time to get the central heat checked.  This is a far cry from the heating in our ranch home when I was growing up.  The main house was heated by a Franklin stove in the living room that burned wood or coal, and a kitchen stove that my Mom could make hearty stews or delicate angel food cakes.  







She would regulate the oven temperature with either one log or two or just the right amount of coal. Her hot water was warmed in a tank behind the stove.   We did have cold running water piped directly from a spring, captured just as it emerged from the ground and before it fed into the upper pond. Sometimes when I take our modern conveniences for granted I take a moment to remember my roots.

Wednesday Hodgepodge

1. What's one thing you learned in September?
That 30 days of hot weather is just too much!

2. Acorn squash, butternut squash, spaghetti squash, yellow squash, zucchini squash, or blech! hold the squash... what's your favorite squash? What's your favorite way to prepare your favorite squash?
I like most squash.  Baked stuffed acorn squash is a favorite

3. The older I get the_more I like to experience new things.

4. What's your favorite television theme song ever?
Hawaii Five-0: The original series' brassy instrumental, composed by Morton Stevens, became a huge surf-guitar hit for the Ventures in 1969 and is still popular among marching bands

5. What do you wish you'd spent more time doing five years ago?
Enjoying time with my friends, who have now moved away

6. What item do you most need (or want) to add to your wardrobe this fall?
I really don't need anything, but would like to have another pair of boots.

7. On October 2, 1950 the Peanuts cartoon was introduced to the world. What was your favorite cartoon when you were a kid?
We didn't have a TV so I never had an opportunity to watch cartoons.

8.  Insert your own random thought here.
I am getting so excited.  Friday morning I leave on vacation--a cruise up the East coast from NYC to Halifax to see fall colors.  Then several days in NYC to see the sights and shop

Not just a garage

Our ranch house had an unusual feature--a garage under the house. This was practical because the house was built on the side of a mountain
The garage was the home of a lot of interesting things.  In the front, the car was parked in the winter, when the heat of the house would enable Mom or Daddy to start it.  In the back was the canning store room, pine shelves filled with rows of mason jars--green beans, peas, beets, corn, tomatoes and fruits.  Potatoes, onions and other root vegetables were stored in bins of sand.  The coal bin was just beside the stairs coming down from the summer kitchen.  

Daddy in front of garage

But there was also room for other things–unused furniture, spare parts for various equipment, and a secret stash of magazines–National Geographic.  We would steal away and look at the pictures of exotic birds and wildlife and of course the people from various countries, including the almost naked folk from Africa.  We were sure these were forbidden magazines, because of those photographs.  We would read the stories of how these people lived and then memorize the exotic names of the countries.  Only later did I find out that Mom had already read them, and thought them just too nice to throw away, and was planning to donate them to the school library.