Jeremy Herndon

Last weekend I was power washing the siding on our house and noticed that several of the vinyl shutters need to be replaced. We’ve had the house a long time, and I’m sure that the shutters that were on it when we bought it were old to begin with. Anyway, they have seen a lot of years and it’s time to spruce up the house and get some new ones.  I’m going to let the wife pick out what color she wants, I’m thinking that when you replace one, you should replace them all.

I was out raking an old lady’s lawn the other day, as usual, one of my side jobs, cleaning up her lawn, and a woman from across the street came over. She said “This is so-and-so and I was talking on the phone the other day and she told me that you come over to clean the lawn every spring and every fall and when the lawn gets too much for her in the summer you come over and straighten it out for her; mowing and trimming.”

She told me that she is going on vacation and a couple of times this summer and wanted to know if I could mow her lawn while she is gone. I said “Sure, I’ll be glad to.” She told me that she had been watching me for the last couple of years and that I did a really good job. She then told me she was going to tell all her friends. I said “Don’t do that!” She said, “well, it’s hard when my friends come and see how nice my lawn looks and they know it wasn’t me!” I said “well, just tell a couple of the ones that can really afford it because I feel my time is really valuable and I really can’t afford to mow more lawns for little or nothing.” She said that was fine, money wasn’t an object. So now I have three new lawns to take care of for occasion for the summer, but I can use the money!

My wife and I love to eat dinner at restaurant at The Senator Inn in Augusta. There is a good salad bar that I like to eat a lot of salad from, and they have a really good seafood alfredo dinner that my wife and I both LOVE. They also have some good steaks. The inside of the restaurant is really fancy, so we like to dress up in our “good” clothes to try to make the night special. Unfortunately there are usually a lot of people who show up there straight from their job at the farm, wearing their tattered jeans and flannel shirts or t-shirts with rude sayings on them and not even enough class to take off their baseball caps covered with grass clippings when they sit at the table. We try not to look at those people and try to enjoy our meal regardless of the low class folks that wander in from time to time. I think that this restaurant is classy enough that they should have a dress code for dinner – like shirts with collars, sports coat and tie.

Anyway, the food is good, and we enjoy eating there when we can!

Bryce’s son Jared just bought a Honda motorcycle – a 900RR. It’s bright red, black and white graphics. Just sitting still it looks like it’s going 100 mph! It’s registered for 170 mph and he says it will do every bit of it! Better him than me! He just got done changing the exhaust over because it wasn’t loud enough. There again, he was questioned by “the authorities” but he produced a legal sticker and they told him to “cool it” and let him go. That’s a joke! But still, what a nice bike!

My friend Bryce has a new 4-wheeler. Actually, to me it’s a four-wheel drive Cadillac! It looks like a golf cart, and it’s all enclosed with a fiberglass top, windshield and doors. It has a full bench seat and a heater that you actually have to shut off even when it is cold out because you get so warm! It has four big all-terrain tires on it and you can go anywhere in the snow, but the other day, when I went over, to my surprise he had bought a conversion kit and turned it into a bulldozer! It actually has four independent tracks on it in the shape of a “V” and it really looks funny when you stare at it because the tracks turn independently on the front and you can go anywhere – and I mean anywhere!

The first one I ever saw belonged to the bait dealer in town where I live. He wanted something that would go anywhere anytime he wanted without worrying about getting stuck. The kit was an extra $3,000 but he said it was worth every penny. Now there are two of them in town! It’s camouflage green, so when you park it in the woods in the summer you can barely see it. He keeps asking me to come over and go for a ride, he says I can drive it, but I just haven’t had time. I hope to do it soon!