By Barry Bauer

I can be heard sputtering sometimes, "I have a forehead in the front, and a forehead in the back." It's another way of describing what's left over after the shedding of hair that I or anybody else goes through as we grow older. It's something I never thought about as a young man, but I do now.

You know you're getting old when your barber spends more time trimming your eyebrows than he does cutting your hair. I don't have that problem as yet because I cut my own hair with Betty's help. Betty suggested that maybe I should go to the barber a couple of weeks before Kristy gets married. It seems like a good idea.

Hope they leave my eyebrows alone.

I have a theory: the day after I die they will come out with a cure for baldness! Hang in there guys - it's coming.

I started a new batch of homemade wine. I hope to have it ready by Christmas. It's the kind of stuff that will blow your socks off, turn them inside out, and put them right back on you again. Boy is that wicked stuff!

The United States of America is an amazing country. Right now we've been in a heavyweight fight, and we've taken a knockout punch. We rocked back on our heels, saw a few stars, and we weren't exactly in control for the moment. And then as our heads cleared, we got our senses back, we're standing upright, and we're fighting back. Only a fighter experiences that.

The rest of this nation will see to it that whatever needs to be done to reverse the disaster in New Orleans and elsewhere in our country will be done.

That's why we are who we are - the greatest nation on earth.

Good Lord, are any of us safe now that Martha Stewart's roaming the streets again? Before we know it, she'll have the women baking cherry pies and teaching us guys how to take a barbeque sauce stain out of our shirt.

Holy Tumuli!

Most of us are familiar with the right of eminent domain from seeing the State of Michigan buying up land in order to finally finish the limited-access highway from St. Johns to Ithaca. The land is actually seized, and the owner is supposed to be fairly compensated. This is done for the benefit of the citizens of Michigan. I think I can understand that.

Well - along came a spider in the form of something called the "New London Development Company" in Connecticut. They got the Supreme Court of the United States to hand down a ruling giving local governments the right to seize property and turn it over to 'private' developers. The reason given for this is that the local government benefits through increased tax revenues, so that makes it right. They concede that somebody is going to make a lot of money off the deal. You can bet it isn't going to be the little guy.

Makes you wonder, doesn't it?

Morris (the cat) came over to visit Connor today but he isn't here on the weekends. Morris' three or four friends sometimes show up after he's been here which brings up an interesting question. Is Betty feeding those darned cats again? "Just Morris," she says.

Okay, Dear . . .

We played in the Matt Hutton Golf Classic at the North Star Golf Course last Saturday. The Recreation Committee at Federal-Mogul sponsored two teams. My partner Ron Horning was our "A" golfer followed by Doug Burl, Ryan Soukup, who replaced me as league secretary, and of course me. We played hard and ended up finishing 8 under par. We won a 'skin' (lowest score) on hole number 8 and got $45 a piece. We had a good meal afterwards and won a few prizes.

Everyone was given a "Matt Hutton Classic" t-shirt.



Tami and Matt Hutton

How did I play? Not very well. Not bad for an old geezer. Not bad for an old guy with two foreheads. Not bad for someone who had to carry the whole team. Not bad for a golfer that lost 14 golf balls. How about simply - not bad. I was kidding about the rest.

The guys didn't care how I played as long as we beat that other Federal-Mogul team. We didn't do that, but we did contribute to Matt's cause.

Our 'friendly wager' was donated to Matt.

Until the next time . . .