A Respectful Happy Mother's Day Remembrance To Our Mom, Our Two Grandmothers, And Our Four Great-Grandmothers

On Mother's Day, May 10, 2026, a greatful remembrance to our immediate three senior female generations.  Expressing very strong appreciation and many thanks for all your past deeds that helped us get to this place in our good Life, our admirable Liberty, and our laudable pursuit of Happiness in this the United States of America's Semiquincentennial Year!

 (DJ's maternal side on left, DJ's paternal side on right) 

(Ladies cited using their Maiden Surnames)

Check out more information on our four Great Grandmothers,

click HERE  

The Mom, Grandma, and Great Grandma Tree Plantings

Three Rows of Norway Spruce Trees, the seven right-side row in first image memorialize Dave's immediate senior female genertions (2018 transplanted trees now approach 12 feet tall).  The center row of Norway Spruce Trees memorialize Terri's immediate senior three female generations (2020 transplanted trees now approach 8 feet tall), and the left side row of Norway Spruce Trees (2022 transpalnted trees now approach 6 feet tall), memorialize the immediate senior three generations of our many near and distant cousins.

 

Norway Spruce Trees Memorialize Mom, Grandma, and Great-Grandma 

(photo dated 4/28/2026), a Northeast View.

Norway Spruce Trees Memorialize Mom, Grandma, and Great-Grandma 

(photo dated 4/28/2026), a Southeast View.

Growing Projects At The Ranch... Spring 2026

 

An amateur for sure, but these days the personal job classification by self-evaluation is best put as a beyond-elementary-hobbyist genealogist, a wild bird watcher & winter birdseed source devotee, a capable cemetery headstone caretaker/cleaner, and a planter-tinkerer holding amateur-horticulturist skills.  A true amateur who holds expanding interests and abilities, but certainly a master of none (while simultaniously clutching-to diminishing technical electronics skills and expertise).

Our small apple orchard started from seed three years ago now sports a mix of twenty-one Honey-Crisp and Macintosh apple trees, where some trees are now beginning their third year, a few starting their second year, and a couple beginning their first full growing year.  All trees survived the winter of 2025/26!  In early April 2026 a new six-foot high 14-gauge welded galvanized wire fence was installed replacing the older rabbit-hole infested 5-foot plastic fence, hopefully to offer better orchard protection from our hungry and significant winter browsing White Tail Deer and Eastern Wild Turkey population. We have an additional ten+ apple trees surviving in different locations on our back lot, a couple of these older trees now bear fruit.

On Arbor Day, Friday April 24, 2026, our customary ten new Norway Spruce Trees were transplanted to their final locations in our back lot grounds. These two-year old Norway Spruce trees were purchased from Herkimer County Soil and Water Conservation District Office. One new 2026 horticulture project is presently underway to plant 25 Rose Of Sharon Tree/Bushes (Hibiscus Syriacus) in the center of our back lot.  Rose Of Sharon seeds were gathered from one of our adult bushes in Fall 2025 and are now started in small peat moss cups to be transplanted in mid-May. 

Subject back-lot photos dated late April 2026 are presented below –

New apple orchard 80'x45' enclosure, a 6-foot welded wire fence.

Northwest view, tree base protected by white cylinders.

Orchard Northeast View. New fenced enclosure late April 2026.

Prospective Rose Of Sharon Hedge planting location, a northwest view.

Holes dug, rocks removed, and fertilized compost mixed in soil.    

Horseshoe-shaped Rose Of Sharon Bush-Hedge planting location,

a southeast view now ready and awaits a mid-May planting.

Three-of-ten Arbor Day 2026 Norway Spruce Trees transplant site.

Our several hundred Norway Spruce Trees planted in

Spring 2003/04 now exceed 30 feet tall.

Truth... the whole Truth... and nothing but the Truth!

I'm back on Facebook today after taking a necessary anti-addiction social-media break since New Years Eve 2025.

The following cases are from a book called Disorder in the Courts.  Allegedly, these are things people actually said in court, word for word, taken down and published by court reporters that had the torment of staying calm while the exchanges were taking place.  

And now for some truths these couple days after April Fool's Day 2026 -- are you ready for some legal insight recently sent out to the cloud by my old buddy Ed? Many thanks Ed!  Thinking these observations can't be true, but then with just a little reflection, a couple lawyers are personally known who fit this profile.  Here goes:

ATTORNEY: What was the first thing your husband said to you that morning?

WITNESS: He said, 'Where am I, Cathy?'

ATTORNEY: And why did that upset you?

WITNESS: My name is Susan!

_______________________________

ATTORNEY: What gear were you in at the moment of the impact?

WITNESS: Gucci sweats and Reeboks.

____________________________________________

ATTORNEY: Are you sexually active?

WITNESS: No, I just lie there.

____________________________________________

ATTORNEY: What is your date of birth?

WITNESS: July 18th.

ATTORNEY: What year?

WITNESS: Every year.

_____________________________________

ATTORNEY: How old is your son, the one living with you?

WITNESS: Thirty-eight or thirty-five, I can't remember which.

ATTORNEY: How long has he lived with you?

WITNESS: Forty-five years.

_________________________________

ATTORNEY: This myasthenia gravis, does it affect your memory at all?

WITNESS: Yes.

ATTORNEY: And in what ways does it affect your memory?

WITNESS: I forget.

ATTORNEY: You forget? Can you give us an example of something you forgot?

___________________________________________

ATTORNEY: Now doctor, isn't it true that when a person dies in his sleep, he doesn't know about it until the next morning?

WITNESS: Did you actually pass the bar exam?

____________________________________

ATTORNEY: The youngest son, the 20-year-old, how old is he?

WITNESS: He's 20, much like your IQ.

___________________________________________

ATTORNEY: Were you present when your picture was taken?

WITNESS: Are you shitting me?

_________________________________________

ATTORNEY: So the date of conception (of the baby) was August 8th?

WITNESS: Yes.

ATTORNEY: And what were you doing at that time?

WITNESS: Getting laid

____________________________________________

ATTORNEY: She had three children, right?

WITNESS: Yes.

ATTORNEY: How many were boys?

WITNESS: None.

ATTORNEY: Were there any girls?

WITNESS: Your Honor, I think I need a different attorney. Can I get a new attorney?

____________________________________________

ATTORNEY: How was your first marriage terminated?

WITNESS: By death.

ATTORNEY: And by whose death was it terminated?

WITNESS: Take a guess.

___________________________________________

ATTORNEY: Can you describe the individual?

WITNESS: He was about medium height and had a beard

ATTORNEY: Was this a male or a female?

WITNESS: Unless the Circus was in town I'm going with male.

_____________________________________

ATTORNEY: Is your appearance here this morning pursuant to a deposition notice which I sent to your attorney?

WITNESS: No, this is how I dress when I go to work.

______________________________________

ATTORNEY: Doctor, how many of your autopsies have you performed on dead people?

WITNESS: All of them. The live ones put up too much of a fight.

_________________________________________

ATTORNEY: ALL your responses MUST be oral, OK? What school did you go to?

WITNESS: Oral...

_________________________________________

ATTORNEY: Do you recall the time that you examined the body?

WITNESS: The autopsy started around 8:30 PM

ATTORNEY: And Mr. Denton was dead at the time?

WITNESS: If not, he was by the time I finished.

____________________________________________

ATTORNEY: Are you qualified to give a urine sample?

WITNESS: Are you qualified to ask that question?

______________________________________

And last:

ATTORNEY: Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?

WITNESS: No.

ATTORNEY: Did you check for blood pressure?

WITNESS: No.

ATTORNEY: Did you check for breathing?

WITNESS: No.

ATTORNEY: So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy?

WITNESS: No.

ATTORNEY: How can you be so sure, Doctor?

WITNESS: Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar.

ATTORNEY: I see, but could the patient have still been alive, nevertheless?

WITNESS: Yes, it is possible that he could have been alive and practicing law.

As Our USA 250th Anniversary Approches...

 

The sailing vessel USS CONSTITUTION in Boston Harbor, 

she is the most senior commisioned ship in USA nautical service.   

A No Peek CHALLENGE:

Take the following exam, testing your knowledge

about two of our most important founding documents:

The Declaration of Independence; and, 

The Constitution of the United States.

Click on the image to expand for better reading...  djp 

An Old Fleet Boat Submariner's Remembrance Story

"I Love The Smell Of Diesel Fuels In The Morning!"

"That smell... those diesel smells... smells like...

VICTORY!"

DBF (Diesel Boats Forever)

Following her 1942 commissioning as USS GROUPER (SS-214) 

USS GROUPER as SSK-214 (Hunter-Killer conversion)

USS GROUPER (AGSS-214) serving as an

Underwater Sound Labatory sonar test platform.

Recall now that Grouper's six torpedo tubes forward were removed and the Forward Torpedo Room (FTR) was simply renamed the Forward Room Compartment... a massively large power supply and associated SONAR electronic devices were then installed in the Forward Room to support the various Underwater Sound Lab SONAR equipment under Test and Evaluation. That array aft of the sail (right over the After Battery Compartment [ABC]) – was called "The Colossus." One of the trick qualification questions was how many hydrophones are mounted on the Colossus [??] – the answer remembered is 196.  Not sure why that was important to SS qualification, except to make an unqualified new-bee submariner fail testing on his first SS qualification attempt. When that Colossus was lighted off... a very loud sound resonated through the boat indeed and any sleep was near impossible in ABC where my rack was located. The Colossus sounds like a super-amplified 100k+ flight of Yellow Jacket Bees might sound. Another Grouper anomaly... main ballast tank #7 (MBT-7) originally surounding the After Torpedo Room (ATR) pressure hull was somehow closed off to sea... that space brought inside the pressure hull with an access hatch in the ATR deck. This new space creation inside pressure hull was used for dry storage of food, spare parts, and general dry goods. Don't know just how the MBT-7 conversion was done in the ship yards, but obviously the new #7 storage room was somehow configured inside Grouper's pressure hull as part of the AGSS conversion. This MBT-7 conversion had to be done since whatever dry storage space formally available in the FTR was unavailable for ship's company use, the Forward Room conversion space was now reserved exclusively for the Underwater Sound Lab gear and work/bearthing space. Grouper simply had 4 aft torpedo tubes in the ATR. Funny, Grouper still got the Battle E as evaluated shooting when running away.

DJ Paul, "Submarine Qualified" in December 1963 as

ship's company aboard USS GROUPER (SS/SSK/AGSS-214),

for a "Wikipedia" historical trip down memory lane, click HERE.

For another historical look at the Fleet Boat Story

(aka Pig Boats),

view some insightful writing by clicking HERE