Rambling Josh

I’m toying with the idea of becoming a guru. Wikipedia tells me that “in Sanskrit, Guru means the one who dispels the darkness and takes you towards light.” I thought that going towards the light wasn’t advisable? Maybe that only applies to moths and those with a penchant for hiking through train tunnels. Wikipedia needs to be more specific.

I don’t entertain any such delusion that I actually am, or ever will be, a guru, but there are people that pay large sums of money to be brought towards some sort of light. As a pert near middle-aged man there are things I need (not want) that large sums of money would assist me in acquiring. Various lifts, tucks, and hair line repopulation procedures to name a few. Guru gotta look good.

A little stroll around the internet in my Google sneakers turned up a number of “silent meditation retreats” being offered to moths with the financial means to leave society behind and sit in silence for a lower extremity numbing period of time.

For those without the means or the time, you can create your own silent meditation retreat, free of charge, in the comfort of your own home, by simply irritating your spouse. You know your spouse’s silent meditation inducing buttons (sometimes), push them as needed (results may vary).

We have a cabin in the middle of nowhere that would look lovely on brochure promising a “life changing silent meditation retreat like no other, guaranteed to bring you to the light”, or at least “a” light. The cabin of course would be the Guru Sanctuary of Silence. The moths would be required to silently disperse into the woods surrounding the cabin, and silently set up their personal sanctuary of silence (tent) in close proximity to the tree or rock that they feel speaks deeply and profoundly to their inner most being.

If you can set up a tent without uttering your favorite string of profanity, you are well on your way to enlightenment.

Early each morning, who am I kidding, each mid-morning at best, the guru, gracefully and serenely, saunters out of the Sanctuary of Silence onto the deck and gazes quasi-wisely at the ascending sun…scratches a bit…farts (the signal for the moths to assemble) and listens to the chorus of tent zippers. The guru is about to speak…or not.

Some days I would send our black lab, Pre, out onto the alter…I mean deck…he too would scratch…most likely fart…and the moths would assemble. Pre is a quiet one, so the moths would have to interpret the message of transcendence his panting and scratching is implying and silently relay that message to the tree or rock that spoke to their inner most being.

There would also be a variety of silent chores each moth would be assigned in order to gain further enlightenment. Silent wood splitting and silent fire stoking to keep the Sanctuary of Silence cozy. Silent cocktail making to keep the guru’s level of wisdom at a sufficiently enlightened level.

I will keep you posted on upcoming silent meditation retreats. You too can come to the light…for a price (results may vary).

This is a noisy world, a world of sensory excess, and this excess seems to expand its reach further and further with each passing day. Bit-by-bit, little slices of quiet and solitude are losing ground to auditory and visual intrusions bullying us for attention.

I’ve always felt that there was something peaceful and restorative about swinging into a gas station in the middle of the night during a long drive and standing outside your car in the chilled evening silence with only the wind and flow of fuel into the tank to be heard. There “was” something peaceful about it, but now a little screen on each pump shouts useless blather, competing with the equally unnecessary music blaring from the canopy above.

Is this assault on solitude necessary? Must we have the latest Hollywood gossip and political toilet bowl water splashed on us while Burt Bacharach assures us from the speakers above that “what the world needs now is love sweet love”? It’s too much. Too much of a lot of nothing that does nothing but contribute to the ever growing pile of uselessness we must constantly dig through to find that which is useful.

It doesn’t stop at the pump. You venture inside for some fluid relief, where Mr. Bacharach (who has a lovely voice) follows you into the restroom where more screens hang over each of the urinals rendering it pert near impossible to ponder all that is in need of pondering. The voices in my head find this loss of ponderable moments to be troubling. If my attention is elsewhere they only have each other to talk to as they voice their concerns over whether I’ll remember to grab a licorice whip and some pork rinds.

Who could have imagined this screen filled world years ago when the only screens we had were massive boulders in the corner of the living room pulling a few grainy channels from the airwaves (try hanging one of those behemoths above a urinal)? A world where “losing the remote” meant that none of the kids were within earshot to turn the knob between one of the three available channels. A world where “The Clapper” was a technological wonder.

For better or for worse, the world is, and always has been, in a perpetual state of change. I’m fine with that, I’m not a Luddite (fun word). I just think that we need to be a bit more cognizant of what disappears when something new appears. Gains generally don’t occur without loss, or as the band Cinderella prophesized “don’t know what you got till it’s gone”. Wisdom and luxurious heads of hair…some get it all. So it goes.

At long last the calendar claims spring is here, we have gained an hour…lost some sleep, and await winter to leave us be for a bit. Reminds me of one of my dad’s Faron Young records popping and cracking from the automotive sized hi-fi parked in our living room many Sundays ago “the seasons come, the seasons go”.

My wife and I were recently in California for a conference in Anaheim, and strangely enough millions of people in a relatively small area makes for some interesting traffic. By “interesting” I mean a constantly congested chaos of creeping ebbs and terrifying flows. I’m still undergoing “unpuckering” therapy.

We landed at Los Angeles International Airport, also known as LAX, in which the “X” apparently is representative of whichever of your favorite expletive you would like to insert. It was roughly 40 miles from LAX to our hotel in Anaheim. A short jaunt in the mind of one that is comparing that particular distance to similar distances in upstate North Dakota, let’s say Lignite to Kenmare for instance.

This comparison would have been accurate if a stiff breeze had taken ahold of the Danish Mill in Kenmare and propelled it, dragging the city in its wake, to a quaint place along the Missouri River just north of Bismarck.

For pert near three hours we lurched along, bumper-to-bumper and door-to-door, shifting amid 6 dizzying lanes of a moving parking lot between speeds of 80mph and 10mph. After an hour of this I found myself desperately hoping for the 10mph parade route reprieves, and dreading the accelerations that the rental car wasn’t quite up to. I told Dawn we should have rented the Corvette, but it was a convertible and she didn’t want the top of my sparsely populated melon getting all leathery in the California sun. So it goes.

We mostly moved along in silence, as, other than randomly blurted curse words, the sensory overload and concerns of a fiery crash wasn’t allowing my prairie trail brain to form complete sentences in this 6-lane mangle of machines. All I could do to maintain some semblance of calm was to remind myself that there was nothing I could do about all the other cars and the manner in which the occupants chose to propel them towards wherever they were all trying to get to, and that they, like me, wanted to get to wherever that might be in a lifelike state.

Other than the soul sucking traffic it was an enjoyable trip, the people were nice, there was just too many of them. The conference was interesting, and having the opportunity to stare in awe at the vastness of the ocean with the one I love at my side was worth the risk of life and limb it took to get there.

Although the beaches and the ocean are a beautiful sight to behold, as I sat in the sand looking out as far as the earth would let me look, a familiar feeling came over me. A feeling of calm, a feeling of awe, a feeling of thankfulness and gratitude, a feeling I’ve felt many times looking out across the windswept landscapes of the Dakota’s. Landscapes where the journey is just as peaceful and serene as the destination.

These landscapes, from sea to shining sea as the song goes, don’t need us, in fact were most definitely better off without us, but we need them.

When my brother Jarvis and I were in elementary school our bedtime was 9:00pm, which meant that we were in bed and sound asleep not a minute past midnight. It also meant that somewhere around 8:59pm on February 13th we would tell mom that we needed to make a Valentines box for school. By “we” we meant “she”.

We did the grunt work, the cutting, the gluing, the whining, the wandering off to catch a little M.A.S.H. with dad, but mom was the idea generator. Our mom was, and still is, an amazingly creative woman, with the power to transform something out of nothing at the drop of a shoebox.

I must admit that I secretly enjoyed being a ringside witness to her endless creative prowess. Maybe she secretly enjoyed it too? If she did, she hid it well as she yanked down the newspaper she had been unwinding with on the end of the couch while contemplating what she had done to deserve the two idiots that had just finished fighting about who could brush their teeth the fastest and were now proclaiming their need for Valentines boxes.

While tossing the paper aside, she would ask through clenched teeth why we had waited until bedtime to bring this up. Asking such a question makes sense when those that you’re asking it to are sensible. Jarvis and I would look at each other and, neither of us seeing anyone sensible, would both look at our mother and shrug. Just shrug, because it seemed sensible to keep our mouths shut.

The dumbfounded shrugs were the starting pistols for moms race to create two knucklehead approved Valentine boxes, get previously mentioned knuckleheads to bed, and enjoy a full five minutes of relaxation before having to stomp upstairs and tell two knuckleheads to get to bed “now…I mean it…this is the last time”. As the parenting expert Merle Haggard once proclaimed, “Momma tried”.

What our mother didn’t know was that my brother and I had side bets going as to how long it would take her to whip something up. Each year we would reflect on the previous year’s events, “Okay, last year we told her the night before…to easy…this year we hold out until breakfast on the morning of February 14th. Then just as she’s getting into the flow I’ll pop the head off of Amanda’s favorite doll. There’s no way mom can maintain focus with that racket going on.”

If only that were the case. If only it wasn’t simply our stupidity and complete lack of comprehension in the concept of time. But alas, it is so. So it goes.

I still remember the shoebox I…she…we turned into a covered wagon. Complete with a cowboy cut-out from one of my comic books to drive the horses hitched to the wagon. No Pinterest, no Google, just the creativity of a mom that could always be counted on in our time of need. Some things never change.

Happy Trails.

Going to our cabin in Montana during the dog days of winter is always enjoyable. Well actually, being at the cabin during the winter is enjoyable, getting to it can be a bit of a crap shoot, as one never knows what the condition of the road going in is going to be until one is on the road going in.

Calling the road going into the cabin a road may be a bit of an overstatement. It’s more trail than road, a trail that only accounts for about 1.5 miles of a 350 mile journey, a short stretch that occupied a long bit of thought and concern as my good friend Paul and myself made our way west back in January.

The temperature was a concern, stuck well below the donut, it was going to take some time to put the “cozy” into the cabin upon our arrival. More concerning was the record snowfall that eastern Montana had been experiencing. Record snowfall that we were unaware of until Paul, bored of conversing with me, went Googling when we were about 50 miles from the cabin.

Concern upon concern, but we ventured on towards the unknown, with the bravado and confidence generally reserved for the moronically delusional. So it goes.

As I pondered the list of concerns, some ancient Stoic philosophy drifted into my concerned consciousness and reminded me of the dichotomy of control. The dichotomy of control simply states that there are things that we can control and things that we can’t control, and concerning ourselves with things that we can’t control is a waste of time.

What could I control regarding my concerns? I could control the pickup, stop it, turn it around, and come back when the record snowfalls gave way to record wild flowers. Paul had only completely rearranged his schedule and put in two hard days of pre-feeding his cattle and assorted ranch prep to accompany me. I’m sure he won’t mind.

I can’t control if he minds, so why should I concern myself with such a concern? Well, as the great philosopher Forrest Gump once said, “he’s my best good friend, and even I know that ain’t something you can find just around the corner.” So onward I drove, contemplating my concerns and reconciling them with that which is and that which is not under my control.

Record snowfall…nope, nostril freezing temperatures…nope. Moronically delusional it is…it’s gotten me this far.

It turns out the trail in wasn’t so bad. The cabin heated up nicely and we had an enjoyable few days of staring at the fire. Sometimes staring in silence, sometimes staring as we chatted about things we’ve most likely chatted about before, but that’s of little concern. Most things are of little concern when you’re at the cabin.

I was mildly concerned when one of the lanterns had a bit of a flare up, and had a bit more of a flare up when I tried to remedy the situation by blowing out the flame. The logistical issue with blowing out a flame is that you have to get your face close to the offending flame. Otherwise, it’s just heavy breathing in proximity to a potential concern. Safer, but not particularly useful.

The angry lantern only managed to singe about half the hair on my sparsely populated scalp, and my eyebrows were in need of a reduction in force anyway. Thankfully, Paul didn’t appear too concerned. I’d hate to disturb his R-and-R with burn care responsibilities.

What can I control? Good question, and a worthy concern.

Another year has teetered and tipped into the abyss of the past, but worry not my friends, the abyss of the future stretches before you. How far does your future stretch? How should I know? I’m not a certified astrologist, and if I was, the going rate for such information would run you about $150.00 an hour.

I actually didn’t know there was such a thing as a “certified astrologist” until I decided to do some investigating to make sure I gave you accurate information on the hourly rates. All these years I was under the impression that anyone with half a brain could dole out useless information, but it turns out that the owner of that half a brain has to be certified.

Well, they don’t have to be certified, but setting out to face an uncertified 4-star day is risky, and not recommended by the Organization for Professional Astrology or the Astrology News Service (yes they exist). What if your willy-nilly uncertified 4-star day would have been astutely deemed a mere 1-star day by an actual certified astrologist? Rather than sequestering yourself within the friendly confines of your home, with your tinfoil hat strapped securely on, you unwittingly venture out into a certified 1-star day brimming with uncertified 4-star confidence.

You run a few red lights and blatantly jaywalk your way over to a convenience store to purchase your 4-star day lottery tickets, and roll the dice on a gas station burrito. What could go wrong? 4-star day all day baby! Well thanks to your uncertified astrological reading you have a couple certified traffic tickets, a certified case of the trots, and someone else won the 3.5 billion dollar lotto jackpot. Someone that most likely had a certified 4-star day. A sad tale indeed.

How far does your future stretch? For the most part that’s a certified crap-shoot. There are things you can do that might nudge the odds in your favor during your quest to stretch your future a bit further. Respecting chainsaws, wild animals, and women is a good place to start. Maybe a better question is how deep does your future go? What resistance is holding you back?

Sure it’s fun, and relatively easy, bobbing around, splashing and giggling on the surface for a while, but maybe this year calls for a change of pace. Maybe this is the year we toss off the water wings, take a deep breath, and dive a little deeper into life. Dive deep and really get to know those we care about, and let them know the depth they bring to our lives. That is within our control. That we can do if we so choose.

Nobody, certified or not, can grant you a 4-star day, but you are more than qualified to go get one on your own, and if you manage to go get one-after-another you will most likely have a certifiably good year.

I’ll wave the $150/hr this one time, and hazard an uncertified proclamation, that as of this very moment, I am quite confident that your future has stretched to this very moment, the present. Regarding that present, in the words of Grandpa Art in National Lampoons Christmas Vacation, “Are you going to bawl all over it, or are you gonna open it?”

Happy New Year my friends.

For those of you that aren’t on our Christmas card mailing list (you know why) I thought I’d share this year’s letter with you. I’m sure you’re thrilled. For those that are on our Christmas card mailing list (who knows why)…carry on…you’ve already ignored this once.

Here we are, jingle bells deep in the holiday season, once again. Round 45 for this elf. Ding…ding… time to come out and take a few swings before the swing slows to a wobble and you find yourself slowly twisting in the breeze with icicles dangling from your Depends. Kids, no matter what your big brother tells you, those are not lemon-mocha flavor icicles.

I apologize for the potentially melancholy and unfestive-like start to this installment of the Ellis Family Christmas letter, but we lost the angel atop our family tree this year. Grandma Rose passed away in August, and although we are all so very thankful for having had her in our lives for as long as we did, the holiday season is proving to be a bit more trying than I anticipated. I’m sure many of you understand, and I wish you strength as the nostalgia of Christmas on The Farm works its way around the string of cranberries and popcorn strung around your memories. I’m sure it’ll be alright, but it still stinks.

All-in-all the Ellis Family is getting along just fine. We’ve avoided incarceration, indoctrination, and remain diligent in the fight for truth and goodness in the face of alternative facts and flatulence.

When should you stop announcing the age of your children in the family Christmas letter? Not this year…Sierra turned 22, and is one semester away from finishing up her undergraduate degree in Film at Montana State University in Bozeman. One semester, and it’s off to wherever life takes her. Scary? Heck yeah, but we are extremely proud of this strong young woman, and have no doubt that she will find her happiness and leave her creative mark somewhere out there…near, or far, from mom and dad. Dawn and I can be strong in these shifting tides of growth and change, because our daughter is strong.

The Boy, is now a young man. Jackson is 18…registered with Selective Service, able to buy lottery tickets, a pack of Camels, and get hitched without parental consent. What else is there? He’s a short timer at Stevens High School, and looking forward to one last season of high school tennis in the spring. One last of a lot of things seems to be the theme around here. Ends are beginnings, and he’s exploring some options on those fronts. I’ve conducted some research investigating high school seniors, and 11 out of 9 wish that people would stop asking them, “So…what are going to do after you graduate?” I was raised by a good man, my father-in-law is a good man, and I feel that I know what a “good man” is, so I am quite proud to proclaim that our son is a good man, and I’m sure the next chapter in his life will be a page-turner.

Dawn and I are just fine. We both get to spend our professional lives doing what we love. Fulfilling, rewarding, and all those things that allow one to flourish in life. If you want to get personal, we find ourselves in uncharted territory. Not exactly uncharted territory, but territory that has not been visited for quite some time. Territory where the focus is shifting from the whirlwind of raising kids back to us. Back to where it all started. The kids are, and always will be, a major part of who we are, and what we’re here for, but the responsibility for wrangling the whirlwind is mostly theirs now. They are both quite capable and we are both quite proud.

This holiday season hold onto it all…the little bits…the big bits…all of it. All we have is each other and the bits of time we get to share as life pulls us this way and that. Our clan lost a bit in August, but we’ll gain a bit in May, and we’ll all keep moving along. Have a good year my friends. Health and happiness to you and yours.

Often times when I’m standing in front of a class of 18 to 22 year-old college students I feel the need to bring a bit of harsh reality to their youthfulness. A few weeks ago, I was finding the fact that they are twice as young as myself particularly troubling, so I had them write their own obituaries. As with most assignments, some were good, some were not, and most were solidly mediocre and uninspiring. One made me laugh, just one out of 25 was kind enough to entertain me. So it goes.

Not wanting the youngsters to have all the fun, I wrote my obituary as well, and shared it with the class. I thought it was at least mildly entertaining, they read it, and gave me that patronizing smile that young people give in response to old people humor. What do they know anyway? Strutting around with their smooth skin and hair covered heads. There’s nothing funny about that. Oh, their funny is coming.

I apologize for the rant, old people do that sometimes. Anyway, as Mark Twain sort of said, “The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated.”

Joshua C. Ellis (45), was kicked to the curb of life on Wednesday November 15th, 2017, after suffering a short bout of brain freeze and third-degree burns while enjoying lunch with colleagues in the Chadron State College Cafeteria. Witnesses say he was attempting to quickly eat a fist-sized scoop of chocolate-caramel-fudge-peanut butter ice cream, so as not to be late for his 1:00PM Personal Health class. The third-degree burns were a result of lifesaving measures attempted by a student in his Personal Health class, who attempted to ease the anguish from the brain freeze by dumping a large bowl of lobster bisque soup on his face. Before succumbing to his fate, he thanked the student for their heroic attempt to end his misery, complimented the CSC dining staff on the subtle, yet complex, flavor of the soup, and with his final breath of life in this beautiful world, asked that his family be told that he loved them, and that the soup and ice cream splatters on his shirt please be contended with before the stains set in.

Josh was a loving family man, and leaves behind his wife Dawn of Rapid City SD, two children, Sierra (22) of Bozeman MT, Jackson (18) of Rapid City SD, and his beloved black lab, Pre (9 or 63). He was a deeply dedicated professional, who truly cared for each and every one of the students he had the pleasure of sharing his classrooms with over his 16-year career as a college professor. The Chadron State College campus was much more than a place of work for Josh, it was his second home, and he considered everyone that he was fortunate enough to share that home with, as family.

In accordance with his final wishes, an educator to the very end, Josh was immediately transported from the cafeteria to the Chadron State College cadaver lab, where his lifeless body will hopefully bring life to students budding dreams of a career in medicine.

A raucous celebration of his life is planned to take place during his cremation at the CSC homecoming bonfire next fall. The bonfire sea shanties will be led by the deceased’s good friend, Paul Richter of New Underwood, SD, the remaining member of their world renowned musical duo, “Donnybrook”. Gluten-free s’mores will be provided by Josh’s lovely bride of 21-years, as group flatulence and bonfires are in direct violation of state and federal fire codes. FR clothing is encouraged.

He is survived by all that have not yet died, and was preceded in death by all that have. In lieu of flowers (Josh couldn’t smell), please send monetary donations to Chadron State College in support of a campus-wide initiative to teach proper emergency life-saving skills, so others may be spared from suffering the same fate that befell our dearly departed.

There are many edges in life. Some we approach knowingly, willingly, courageously and others unwittingly, blindly. Most have moments of choice involved, a moment when we decide to move towards or away from the edge. Sometimes we recognize that choice, and choose to move forward, move a bit closer to the edge, to a place that forces us to grow forces us to be a better version of ourselves. Sometimes we don’t see the edge coming, and as we move towards it we feel ourselves moving away from ourselves, away from those we love, away from what could produce that better version of ourselves. How do we know what edges to move towards, and what edges to step back from? Intuition, experience, a willingness to listen to those that have toed those very same edges in their lives? Hard to say, hard to get it wrong. Life is hard, harder for some than others, but hard just the same. It’s not that the life of others doesn’t matter, it’s that your life, your edges, need to matter a bit more. For if you fall, if the edge takes you away, you can’t be there for others. Finding love can take you to the edge, an edge that is uncertain, an edge that makes you want to be someone for the sake of someone else. Being a parent can take you to the edge. It can move you further than you ever thought you were capable of moving. Sometimes these two edges, the edge of that one we fell for, and that edge of parenthood can seem to be on opposite sides of the same mountain top. We lose sight of one for the other, we can’t approach two edges at the same time. As we move towards one, we move away from the other. Or so it would seem. When approached with clarity one can see that they can be the same edge, but clarity is generally in short supply while mired in the fog of the day-to-day. The kids need to be taken here and there, meals need to served, dishes need to be done, the life needs to appear somewhat in order. The one we love has needs as well, the need to not be pushed to the edges of the life they were once the center of. It’s easy to lose sight of that in the fog of the day-to-day. Someday, someday sooner than imaginable, the children will begin pushing towards their own edges, and we must let them push without pull. If we pull excessively they will push harder than is necessary, and when our grip slips, they will fall harder and further than if they were allowed to approach the edge on their own. On their own, but knowing they can turn back anytime and ask for help, ask us to steady them, ask us which edges should be explored and which should be avoided or stepped lightly towards. Let them step towards their edges, loosen your grip on them, and take that opportunity to tightly grab the hand of your love and stride towards your edges. The edges you talked of many years ago before the day-to-day fog moved in. Those edges are still there, and hopefully, so are the two of you.

We headed west a few weeks back, predominately uphill, through wind, snow, and dark of night, so that the family could be together to celebrate the 22nd year of our daughters head first exit of the womb. For those planning such an event, head first is preferred by all persons and personnel involved.

Sierra doesn’t recall much from that day, which is probably for the best, as I recall lots of yelling, unflattering accusations, name calling, fist shaking, and finger flipping in St. Luke’s Hospital that afternoon. How was I supposed to know that was the last piece of finger jello in the hospital cafeteria? Never mess with a hypoglycemic nun eight hours into her twelve hour shift.

I don’t even like finger jello, but they say you get to see the world through the eyes of a child when you become a parent, so I gave it a shot. Not the first, or most likely last, error this dad will be charged with attempting to navigate this rule-less game of parenthood. The kids are 22 and 18 now, old enough to make their own errors, and then lay the blame squarely on shoddy upbringing.

The blame can be laid, but like the dog crap in the yard you were asked to take care of nine years ago, it will not be picked up. It might stink for a while, get squished and smeared around a bit, but eventually it will dry up and disappear without a trace. If only we had taken them to Disney Land. The “Tragic Kingdom” would have made up for all of our parental failings. So it goes.

Maybe if we become grandparents, in the very distant future, we will take our grandchildren to have Mickey Mouse and the gang purify their souls. Probably not, I’m putting my life in grave danger with this confession, but I hate Mickey Mouse. As a wee lad I was excited to watch Fantasia for the first time when it was broadcast as the NBC Sunday Night Movie.

The excitement faded quicker than dry pajama bottoms on a potty training toddler and NBC at midnight. The excitement of us kids having control over what was on the television for a bit, was quickly replaced by a lifelong repulsion towards all things Mickey Mouse. Walt & Roy Disney lost a fan, gained an enemy, and by proxy potentially ruined my children’s lives, because I refused to make a pilgrimage to their mouse infested magical world of landfill fodder.

I guess to a kid whose television viewing had mostly been comprised of M.A.S.H., Gun Smoke, and Quincy, Fantasia was bit too far removed from my “normal”, and my normal is pretty far removed. Too odd, a bit creepy, and lacking in all things entertaining. That was my 8-year old self’s review of Fantasia. Two Bugle’s snack adorned thumbs down.

Speaking of “crap”, Sierra has been missing our black lab, Pre, quite a bit since abandoning all of us for college. Her birthday wish was that we bring him for her birthday, and she would return him when she came home for Thanksgiving. We talked it over with Pre, he was a little hesitant, but thought maybe it was time he do a little traveling now that he’s in his 60’s.

Sierra’s boss at Movie Lovers (yes there are still video stores surviving out there) brings her dog to work, so Sierra was anxious to bring her dog to work as well. Shortly after arriving at his first day on the job, Pre left a calling card on the floor to let the boss’s dog know that he appreciated the opportunity to work at Movie Lovers.

Pre got let go. Maybe that was his plan, maybe at 60-years old he came to Bozeman to take up philosophy at the university or be a street mime, and he felt this video store gig would stifle his creativity.

Or, he found Fantasia, and anatomically unable to give a thumbs down, laid down what he felt was the appropriate review. Mickey Mouse is to blame for the whole mess, but Sierra had to clean it up. Will this mouse’s terrorism of this family ever cease?

It’s all so goofy.