Posted in Life, neighbor, neighborhood

“Is he wearing two different colored socks?”

Posted on by William Douthwaite

If you’ve ever read my writing, you know I love to take a photo and wonder, “What in the world is going on here?” This is one of those moments.

The big dog and I were half way through our early morning walk when we came across this gentleman watering his gardens. He just moved into this just build house. He immediately tore out the builder’s stock landscaping plants and must planted something new, otherwise he’s just watering the mulch.

But the thing that really caught my eye was his socks. I asked the big dog, “Is he wearing two different color socks?” Intentional? Accidental? I don’t know.

  • I know that you’ve all got orphan socks at home. Dryers consume them so that we are left with drawers full of single socks with no partners. After a while, you just pull out two, knowing that you’ve got no matches.
  • It could be a special sock for a special foot condition. Perhaps a clean, white sock (or a black one) is better for whatever toe ailment he is nursing.
  • If you wake up before sunrise and don’t want to disturb other sleepers, you might pull out a mismatched pair in the dark. But most mismatched pairs would be blue-black, or colors not too different from one another. The contrast here would be difficult to miss, even in the darkest room.
  • Maybe his partner is wearing the exact same pair, and he had no others to choose from.
  • Some of my grandsons wear mismatched socks on purpose. They find certain color combinations appealing, especially when dressing in uniform for a sport.

I should have stopped and asked. Maybe he didn’t know. Maybe he doesn’t care. I know, maybe it’s none of my business.

But it’s fun to speculate.

Besides, black and white works, right? It works for cookies, zebras, newspapers, and photographic effects.

Posted in Food

Review: JoJo’s Country Cafe in Deland, FL

Posted on by William Douthwaite

The cool, breezy morning had given way to a hot summer day by the time our grandson’s baseball game was over last Saturday. We didn’t mind the early drive to the field, but now we were hungry. A quick search of nearby restaurants on a maps app guided us around the corner to JoJo’s Country Cafe in Deltona.

As we pulled into the strip mall parking lot, we saw JoJo’s, along with the usual tattoo place, barber shop, 24 hour coin laundry, and other assorted businesses. Tucked away between some hotels and a housing addition, the strip mall had been there a while. Our initial reaction: “Sketchy.” But it got decent reviews, so why not give it a try?

JoJo’s is a typical breakfast and lunch place. The coffee was hot and strong, but only tasted average. My wife and I split “JoJo’s Platter”, which included eggs, bacon, sausage, ham, hash browns, and toast. We added a pancake, too. The good was good. As I told her, “It’s hard to get breakfast wrong.”

I thought the decor was interesting. There was no rhyme or reason to the stuff hanging on the walls. There were some old photographs, a US Flag, a bible verse, some old signs, and a framed flower. A few old Uline catalogs were scattered around. I guess people like to page through those. (Actually, we did that, looking at some boxes and shipping materials.) None of the coffee mugs matched. In fact, ours advertised banks in Texas. I’ll bet they purchased these at a thrift store.

It was 10:30 on a Saturday morning, and we were the only customers there. The restaurant must be crowded on weekdays or earlier in the morning. Only one other couple wandered in for some lunch.

On a shelf behind the counter, my wife noticed large boxes of cereal. Nothing appeared on the menu, but we could have asked for a bowl of Cheerios or Raisin Bran. Neither of us have seen cereal offered at a restaurant for a while.

Overall, JoJo’s wasn’t a bad place for breakfast. The average reviewer gave it four out of five stars. That sounds about right. I doubt we’ll ever be in this neighborhood again, so I’m glad we stopped in.

Posted in running, seasons

It has to be summer

Posted on by William Douthwaite
Photo by Herbert Goetsch on Unsplash
Daily writing prompt
What is your favorite season of year? Why?
View all responses

When I used to run a lot, it felt so good to simply pull on shorts, socks, and shoes and hit the road on a summer day. Within half a mile, I had my rhythm, a little sweat covered my body, and my muscles felt nice and loose.

In the summer, you don’t have to worry about hats, gloves, or layers of clothing. The days are long, so it’s light out for an early morning run. I can feel the slightest breeze on all my exposed skin. I chuckle as random passersby comment, “It’s too hot to run!”

I really like summer. I like the heat and the humidity. Even though I use lots of sunblock now, I love to feel the sun’s heat on my skin. I love the feeling of sweat cooling my body. I appreciate the longer hours of daylight, love the early sunrise, and look forward to a late sunset.

Summer meant no school. Although, I kind of enjoyed school. Summer meant baseball, and a job at a major league stadium. Summer meant cutting the lawn weekly, a pleasant chore for me. Summer meant tomatoes and sweet corn from south Jersey, the Mr. Softie ice cream truck, Monday night 5K races at Lake Takanassee (NJ), my July birthday, and Vacation Bible School.

Now, summer means hurricane season in Florida. Summer means sporadic, hard-to-predict thundershowers. Summer is the season between the spring and fall gardening seasons in Florida. Summer means “I hope you had your AC serviced recently.” Summer means wear a hat, bring sunblock, and rent a cabin in North Carolina for a few weeks,

Summer is my favorite season of the year. Just about everyone else I know thinks I’m a little unbalanced to think so. You may be right. I might be crazy.

Posted in Life

Don’t take yourself too seriously

Posted on by William Douthwaite
Photo by Irene Strong on Unsplash
Daily writing prompt
If humans had taglines, what would yours be?
View all responses

My tagline would be “Don’t take yourself too seriously.” It’s been my mantra for a while. One could paraphrase that as “Lighten up,” “It’s not about you,” or “Just relax.”

My tagline helped me keep perspective during my career in full-time pastoral ministry. The church was there before me and it’ll be there when I’m gone. Don’t take yourself too seriously.

Believe it or not, there are a lot of unhappy people who go to church. I would wonder, “Was it something I said or didn’t say?” Or, “Was it something I did or didn’t do?” Most of the time it wasn’t even about me. Don’t take yourself too seriously.

Knowing how fragile memory is, I knew that within months of my retirement, some would mention, “The pastor who was here before…what was his name?” I know that because they forgot my predecessor’s name a few months after I started preaching. So, don’t take yourself too seriously.

On one occasion, I was at the church and dressed in a black clerical shirt. Someone walked in and asked me, “Are you the pastor?” I chuckled then and I’m chuckling now. Don’t take yourself too seriously.

Much of the time, people aren’t really paying attention. They aren’t listening to you. They’re thinking about themselves. They tell you what they think you want to hear.

In response to all of that, I try to pay attention to what’s going on around me. I work hard to listen. I try to express myself in a sincere, positive way.

And I don’t take myself too seriously.

Posted in senses

Do you smell that?

Posted on by William Douthwaite
Photo by Nick de Partee on Unsplash

“It always smells in here.”

I chuckled at my wife’s comment as I opened the door for her. I knew she was right. Goodwill stores are filled with row after row of clothing donated from innumerable closets. You can find new items with price tags still on them. You’ll also discover pieces with stains that were never washed out.

We weren’t there in search of clothing. We hoped to find a few vintage plates, cups, and saucers to use as photo props. But we had to walk past aromatic racks of shirts and pants to get to that part of the store.

Later, I thought about other places that always smell. That’s not always a bad thing, is it?

  • Like a bakery, for instance. It’s hard not to like the smell of freshly baked bread and cookies.
  • What about a shop that sells leather goods? A store filled with belts, jackets, wallets, and vests has a distinctive and inviting smell.
  • A coffee shop smells wonderful. Noisy grinders and hissing espresso machines fill the air with the aroma of roasted beans from all over the world.
  • The smell of barbecue hits me before I walk in the front door of a place with an active pit. You can smell the smoked meat from inside the car as you drive by.
  • What about cedar? They aren’t common, but it always smells so good when I walk into a cedar closet.

Other great aromas include the ocean, pine trees, freshly cut grass, and a brand new car. It’s amazing how much smell is a part of the places we go and the things we experience.

Posted in Home improvement

Another shelf bites the dust

Posted on by William Douthwaite
Just so you know, these are not my shelves.

“What in the world was that?” The crashing sound came from the garage. It almost sounded like someone crashed into the garage door. But the overhead door was open. Maybe the neighbor across the street was working on something in his garage. No, it didn’t look like he was home.

When I stepped into the garage, I saw stuff all over the floor. A shelf had come down off the wall above my workbench, scattering boxes of nails and screws across the floor, dumping out another box of household batteries, and leaving the light, eero (wifi repeater), and echo hanging from wires. And the worst – the plastic box with all my fountain pen ink bottles.

Fortunately, that last box was still closed up. But a bottle had broken open, covering everything in blue ink. I fished out some ink cartridges and converters, and then threw the whole thing away. I couldn’t even tell which bottle of red, green, blue, or black was which.

After I got some better hollow wall anchors at the hardware store, I reattached the shelf and decided to put all the organizer boxes of nails, screws, nuts and washers in a workbench drawer. Lighter things like a can of WD-40, picture hanging hardware, the box of batteries, and some extension cords were fine up on the shelf.

I hadn’t planned on it, but this was a good chance to declutter my workbench area. It’s interesting how stuff accumulates in places around the house. Unless you intentionally declutter, stuff will take over your living spaces. I gathered up various screws, wrappers, rags, packets of seeds, receipts, dog toys and leaches, tools, pens and pencils which accumulated there. Since we enter the house through the garage, this surface is the catchall spot for just about everything.

Clutter happens. Decluttering is intentional. Sometimes I remember. Other times a shelf falls off the wall to remind me.

Posted in books

A favorite book: Ripley’s Believe It or Not!

Posted on by William Douthwaite
Daily writing prompt
Do you remember your favorite book from childhood?
View all responses

I was just thinking about childhood books a few days ago. One of my grandsons asked, “Can we go to ‘Ripley’s Believe it or Not!’ again?” My wife and I took them to the first permanent odditorium in St. Augustine last summer. The older boy loved it. The younger was too weirded out to make it through the whole museum.

When he asked his question, I had a flashback to my childhood. Some of my favorite books were the Ripley’s Believe It or Not! paperbacks. I think my mom bought me a couple of them at a church rummage sale. I would lay on my bed and read those books over and over again, long before that first attraction opened. I was fascinated by drawings of the world’s tallest man, a goat with two heads, a tree growing through a house, and pages of amazing things.

A close second would be a World War two comic book about air battles in the south Pacific. The only thing I remember is the words used for the sound of the guns: “budda-budda-budda!” So my brother, sister, and I would call this the budda-budda book.

I must have really liked Hardy Boys mysteries, too. I remember checking them all out one at a time from the library.

Posted in dogs, running, walking

Don’t worry about me. Just go.

Posted on by William Douthwaite
Photo by Alex Radelich on Unsplash

She stopped right in the middle of the road.

I shouted, “What are you doing?” I actually shouted that to the Great Dane who was, for once, obediently sitting next to me. We were just waiting for the traffic to pass so we could cross the street and continue our walk.

But this lady decided to stop. Right in the middle of the road. Right in the middle of a busy street.

Okay, let me explain. I’m a city boy. I grew up in suburban Philadelphia. You don’t walk out in front of traffic. Not if you don’t want to die. But here in Florida, people do it all the time. I know, pedestrians have the right of way. But that’s assuming pedestrians have looked both ways to see if any cars are coming.

The rules are different in Florida. I blame Walmart. In front of their store, cars have to stop for people walking through the striped areas of the parking lot. I watch many walk out without a glance for oncoming cars. I’m not so brave. I wait. I let them go. I don’t trust them. (I don’t trust anyone.) I’m not going to walk in front of any car, assuming it will stop for me.

So we are out for our morning walk. The Great Dane and I have crossed to the middle island of the four lane parkway that runs north and south through our city. She is doing well today. She sits next to me as we wait for the traffic to pass. I am ready to say, “Heel,” as the last car in a pack goes by. But the car slows and comes to a stop. Really? Just like that, when other cars are zipping by?

I’m not falling for that. We’re staying put. I simply look away, as if I don’t notice them at all. I’ll wait. I’ve got all day. Finally, they drive off, and we can cross the road.

I’ve had this problem running, too. I am pacing myself, waiting for a car to pass, and they slow down or stop. They think they are doing me a favor. I chuckle, and run around behind them. Just drive your car. Don’t worry about me. Just go.

I’ve run and biked enough miles that I know how to avoid people who aren’t paying attention, couldn’t care less, and probably shouldn’t be driving anyway. You live longer when you’ve got some situational awareness and don’t trust anyone.

Posted in Food

Lemonade? Yes, please!

Posted on by William Douthwaite
Photo by Laura Chouette on Unsplash

A while ago, I joked with my barber, “The only thing you need cash for anymore is a haircut and drugs.” When I wrote about this, I came up with a list of scenarios where cash makes sense.

But I left one out. The lemonade stand. While walking the dogs (yeah, I know, a lot of life happens walking the dogs) we happened upon a garage sale around the corner from our house. We were excited to see big bags of Legos and other kids toys. Once we got home, we got some cash at the ATM, and headed back, happy that those items hadn’t sold yet.

After I grabbed the two five-pound bags of Legos, a “Lemonade” sign caught my eye. Yes! A young lady was standing at a table behind a bowl of ice and a jug of lemonade. Her eyes lit up when I said, “I’d like a glass of lemonade.”

When she filled a red solo cup with ice, her older brother said, “Whoa, not so much ice!”

“It’s okay; I like a lot of ice!”

After she filled a second cup with ice for my wife, she asked, “Can you help me pour it?” The unopened gallon jug of lemonade was a little much for her to manage, so I filled the two cups and left two dollars in the bowl on the table. She then said, “You need a napkin,” and unfolded a lemon-shaped napkin for me to put my drink on.

I asked, “Did you make this lemonade?”

“No, we bought it at the store.”

As we talked for the next few minutes, I learned that she was five years old and had just finished kindergarten at the school up the street. Her older brother would be in fourth grade next year. their family attended a church just across the street from the backyard.

After a few sips, the young lady asked if I needed more. I said, “Not yet.” But I assured her that the people poking through the garage sale merchandise would see my drink and want some lemonade of their own. She started getting some cups of ice ready just in case.

A few months ago we drove past a corner lemonade stand on the way to my daughter’s house. I so wanted to stop, but had no cash. I said, “I really should keep a few dollars in my wallet.” Either that or let your kids have a QR code on the sign for digital payment.

A lemon-flavored beverage is mentioned in the history of 12th century Egypt. The first lemonade stand was set up in New York City in 1879. I’ll bet kids have been selling it ever since. Believe it or not, some states require a permit to sell lemonade. I would hope that local law enforcement would have more important things to do that shut these down.

My memories are hazy, but I think I had a lemonade stand when I was growing up. If so, mom would have supplied the cups, ice, and lemonade. Pure profit for us!