Trending
We’ve all heard or said the phrase: "How high or low can you go," right? To answer that question is interesting, so here are some personal insights.
Back in my younger years on the farm, we always grew corn. Naturally, we had a small patch of sweet corn (yum!), but the largest fields of corn were planted, tilled and harvested to feed our livestock. We didn’t grow to sell, but grew to feed -- a big difference between today’s farmers and the farmers of my youth.
The ongoing motto was that the corn should be knee high by the 4th of July. Usually, the corn plant eventually grew to a height of a bit over six feet. I liked walking through the field listening to the leaves answer the call of the wind, feeling the ears of corn and, kind of, liked looking over the stalks across the field. Boy, things are higher today!
Recently, my brother sent the family a picture of him standing in a cornfield. He was dwarfed by the corn stalks! He couldn’t even reach up to the top of the stalk. Of course, he is a "dwarf," but don’t tell him I said that because as you know, what goes around, comes around! Obviously, things are higher in the cornfields of today.
Now, let’s talk a bit about the lows of something. At a recent Happy Hour event, a box of Summit Chardonnay was on the table. After serving many others, I took a sip of the wine. There was definitely something wrong with it. It was obvious that I needed to do some research tasting. You know, someone has to take it for the common good, correct?
I was quite sure I knew what was wrong, and later poured a bit of the wine and let it stand for an hour or so. Then, upon tasting it, the wine was quite pleasant with flavors of green apple and peach with a nice buttery finish. The wine had been chilled below its proper serving temperature. When brought up to about room temperature, it was good. You have to watch the highs and lows of wine temperatures.
One of life’s urgings is to reach high. Therefore, it’s pleasant to always tell our grandchildren to reach for the stars. Naturally, that’s a hyperbole, but it’s my wish they will always strive for the beautiful heights during their journeys. One never knows what will be discovered during that reach.
Then, there’s always Mother Nature and the Weather Gods. As we all know, the temperatures have reached a very high mark on the temperature gauge lately. It has been uncomfortable (to say the least!) because of those high temps, and when you toss in lousy air quality, it seems the low point has been reached.
Oh well, as we always say: "It can always be worse." Yet, let’s have faith. Cooler temps are a’coming, and one day soon we’ll be asking for some of the summer warmth to balance the winter cold.
One last thought: when I played basketball, if someone was over six feet tall, they always played the center position on the team. Lacking just a tiny bit of height, my position was a forward. Today’s basketball teams features the highs of us. My how the highs and lows of the game have changed.
May your highs and lows always balance each other.
As always, eat and drink in moderation, but laugh with reckless abandon!
Cheers!