As a movie title, I suppose it was sufficiently titillating. Without further investigation, Judy ordered the DVD . The cast alone should have sounded the alarm.

Remember Fred MacMurray ? (The Absent-Minded Professor. Son of Flubber.) No ? Your movie watching career doesn’t stretch back that far ? How about the TV series My Three Sons ?

I’m just trying to underscore the antiquity of this movie that we settled in to watch last night. MacMurray starred with the hottie of her day, Barbara Stanwyck (Stella Dallas. Meet John Doe.)

It was almost startling to recognize that Remember Last Night is an eighty year old movie ! I should stop now before I date myself . Oh, that’s right . I already have .

If Remember Last Night demonstrated one thing, it would be how far the movie making craft has improved since days past. In terms of writing, acting, credibility of plot, screenplay, the whole nine yards was a vast improvement from eighty years ago.

That said, we were briefly entertained before this flick met with the wrath of the remote button. Remember Last Night became quickly forgettable.

Oh well. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Jude’s movie picking credentials , however, did slip a notch !

My name is Pete Tucker and I am an addict.

Sounds like someone’s opening line in a drug intervention meeting, doesn’t it ? Well, truth be told, the whole reason that I haven’t contributed to this blog in so long has everything to do with my addiction.

My drug of choice ? Maybe you’ve heard of it. I hope you’ll understand. It’s called Words With Friends .

Back when I was a kid, something called Scrabble was all the rage. The new drug is a lot like it, without the hunks of wood. Remember those pesky things ? Hey, it’s wonderful to be digitized! I have to believe that when cave men played Scrabble, they used those nasty hunks of wood.

ANYWAY, I can hardly put this game down! Am I good at it ? Well… I’ve gotten better, but am quite humbled by the veterans out there. One of them is simply brilliant! ! I have her to thank for putting me on to the game in the first place. She is my one and only daughter-in-law, Becky Thomas.

Becky and I play continually. She whops my butt continually, as well ! Have I ever beaten her in the myriad games we’ve played ? ONCE ! I have that to cling to.

Then there is Toby Baker. I play her as frequently as Becky, but just the opposite is true. I pummel her game after game. She keeps coming back for more. I keep beating her . A theme is consistent throughout, however. We all keep getting better at the game. In fact, Toby has beaten me a time or two.

I fear that some day in the annals of Words With Friends history, we’ll all be playing in the Toby Baker Invitational, just hoping to leave a mark on anyone who dares to challenge.

The game parlays an unusual dynamic. For the most part we don’t know each other. Surely, as with Becky and I, there are close friends doing battle, but I have no idea who my other contestants are or even where they’re from. Sometimes their photo accompanies them on the game platform, but otherwise they just appear on the screen of my IPad, ready to wage words.

So… when next there is a capacious gap between my blog entries, you’ll know why .

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The White Horse Tavern. My imagination kinda runs wild when I find myself in a place this old.

I know. I know. In Europe, things were quite established in 1658 when this building was built.

Well, this isn’t Europe. This is Newport, Rhode Island, and The White Horse Horse Tavern is old to me. In fact, it’s the oldest tavern in America. The structure was originally built as a residence. The tavern transition occurred in 1673.

My intent here is not a restaurant review . Suffice it to say, dinner was fantastic last evening, but I’m as much taken by the fact that folks were milling around here in this very dining room 368 years ago.

That was 124 years before our Declaration of Independence was signed ! WOW ! What were residents talking about in this room back then ? Politics ? King George ? A crop in the tiny plot they’d managed to clear thus far ?

America was but an infant and many “Americans” were still loyal to the British crown. What fascinates me is the fact that a handful of them had boarded some rudimentary ship and turned their lives totally upside down on a new continent. Who does that ?

Some of them may have been in this room.

Europe had been “built out” for centuries. America was wilderness, her natives living still in teepees and, understandably, not always welcoming.

I am intrigued by those 124 years of sunrises and sunsets between the building of this tavern and a miraculous congregation of brilliant minds in Philadelphia that placed America on new footing. Surely there’s plenty of Americans who don’t even recognize the breadth of our history before the Liberty Bell tolled.

Admittedly a curious way to spend early morning coffee hour, here on the Writer’s Perch, that is, squinting through a rifle scope. Damned coyote.

It must have a den just across the lane from the house. Sizable fellow, he is. I’m told that over the years they’ve inter-bred with wolves, thus evolving a new improved, bigger coyote !

They have varied howls, yaps and barks depending on their frame of mind and the time of day. Surely that bleak and desolate midnight howl isn’t the only screech in their sheath.

He stood stock still for a fleeting moment, a shoulda , coulda moment . Then he ambled over the knoll and out of sight.

Me who hesitates is lost ! Tomorrow was teased.

Would you know how old you were

If you didn’t know the day you were born ?

There comes a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conclusion that envy is ignorance, that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself, for better, for worse, as his portion.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

– Henry David Thoreau

You can get in the car and see what Man has made or you can get on a horse and see what God has made .

I AM A GREAT BELIEVER IN LUCK AND FIND THE HARDER I WORK, THE MORE OF IT I HAVE. -Thomas Jefferson

Do you know where your kids are ?

Those were the days, eh ? Surely our country’s kids are more recalcitrant today than they were in the mid 60s. Weren’t they ? Nontheless, at 9:P.M. American TVs regularly posed the question as a public service announcement.

It was 1963. It was 9 o’clock in the evening. Did you know where your kids were ?

I’m not really sure where this wee bit of “public service” originated. Did The Department of Health and Human Services even exist back then ?

As I think about that, a cynical smile purses my lips. I can just hear a gaggle of today’s parents recoiling at such a prompt.

“Who do they think they are, telling me how to parent my kid ? I’ll bet their kids are out raising cane , too.”

After decades of perspective on the matter, I spin the question a bit differently. Upon waking Jude in the morning, I’ll gently offer the following: “It’s six o’clock A.M. Do you know where you are ?”

Sometimes she does .

Somehow it harkens me back to an age more innocent. Was it not ? That’s for you to determine, dear reader.