The Country Thinker

Week­end Thoughts

For the sec­ond time in the last month, I owe a debt of grat­i­tude to Dominique of 4 Walls and a View. If you aren’t a reader of hers, let me rec­om­mend it. Why? One word: Inspi­ra­tional. If you want to under­stand what I mean, go and nose around through her archives.

Any­how, first, she wrote a hum­bling review of my novel The Eagle Has Crashed, and by hum­bling I mean it was a very pos­i­tive review that almost made me blush.

Now, she has nom­i­nated me for the Ver­sa­tile Blog­ger award. And once again, I am hum­bled (and this time I am blushing):

When I think about a blog­ger who is a pro­lific writer, I think of Ted.  Not only does he write, a lot, but he writes in a way that con­tin­u­ally causes me to think, chal­lenges my own belief sys­tem, and requires me to “know why I believe what I believe.”  In pol­i­tics, par­tic­u­larly, that is a rare find!

You can see now why I am so hum­bled. I aim to chal­lenge myself and read­ers to think about and dis­cuss impor­tant issues in a thought­ful and cour­te­ous man­ner. I don’t expect any­one to agree with all of my opin­ions (or any of them, for that mat­ter), and I know of no one who does. That’s a good thing. I am con­stantly edu­cat­ing myself and crit­i­cally ana­lyz­ing my own beliefs, and this blog is an invi­ta­tion for oth­ers to join me in this (some­times painful) process. Dominique’s remarks tell me I am hav­ing some degree of suc­cess, and I am grate­ful for the affirmation.

One of the rules for receiv­ing the award is to tell peo­ple seven things about myself. I thought about a straight­for­ward response to this require­ment, but I woke up on the quirky side of the bed and I decided to take a dif­fer­ent approach. At first blush you might think I’m being snide, but that’s really not the case. I think you’ll actu­ally know more about me than if I told you I was born and raised in Toledo, Ohio, that I have been hap­pily mar­ried for nearly eigh­teen years, and we have a thir­teen year old yel­low lab who we named Mar­ley before the book came out. (Does this tech­ni­cally mean I will have told you ten things about myself?)

Any­how, the list.

Seven Things About Myself

1) If I could only eat from one of the four main food groups, I would choose the veg­etable group. Brus­sels sprouts, okra, col­lard greens, and snow peas top the list.

2) Baby­back ribs (dry rub) are my favorite food. No, make that crab­cakes (100% blue crab, no filler).  Wait a minute! Grilled sea scal­lops wrapped in bacon! Thai green curry, extra spicy!

3) Colum­bus IPA or Great Lakes Brewing’s Com­modore Perry IPA are the per­fect bev­er­ages for any of the above. Say what you want about Ohioans, but we brew beer as well as any­one in the world!

4) I’ll take that beer straight from the bot­tle. No need to dirty a glass.

4–1/2) Coke or Pepsi? R.C.

5) Foods I won’t eat? Pick­led beets or poorly cooked egg­plant. Other than that, I’ll eat any­thing tra­di­tion­ally con­sid­ered to be “food” in the U.S.

6) Music to dine to? Dish Network’s Road­house station.

7) And for dessert? Heck with cheese­cake! Honey, let’s get a babysitter …