How To Capture A Cougar Or What Are You Waiting For?

Cruising through hints and suggestions on Ancestry is always an adventure especially when I come across information that I know is wrong.

Sometimes I write the person and tell them the dates are off, the name is misspelled or something along those lines. I try to be polite and provide some details that establish my credibility.

“Are you sure about the person and the picture?”

“Yeah, I am the original poster. I can tell you when and where it was taken and that someone edited my son and I out of the photo.”

That someone was me, but I don’t need to share every detail.

“Are you sure that you have spelled Orrie correctly?”

“Yes, he was my father. I can answer virtually any question and know how grandma originally spelled his name.”

Some of these other people are family and some say they are related to family by marriage. There are some fascinating connections and other things less so, probably only of interest to certain family members.

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Someone is reading The People Who Fit In Carry On Luggage but I don’t recognize the address. That is probably not anything to be concerned about but sometimes I get interesting visitors.

The country bumpkin redneck attorney periodically shows, people who come from government agencies, school districts and old acquaintances.

Occasionally they ask about the headlines and what they refer to. Sometimes I answer, sometimes I don’t and sometimes when I do I make it up.

Most of the time I throw something up there with little regard or concern for using it to motivate people to read. Those that enjoy these posts come regardless of headline and the others, well who knows what motivates them.

How To Capture A Cougar Or What Are You Waiting For?

That subhead is the kind of headline I enjoy because you take it a million different directions. It is not the kind of thing I’d use in a professional setting but I write differently for those venues.

Now that summer is here my thoughts float back to past adventures and experiences as well as thoughts about days yet to come.

Facebook shows mention of children heading off to the same summer camp I used to attend and there are little blurbs on the alumni group of the fraternity about an upcoming reunion.

It reminds me of some times in college where a group of us would be out and we would sometimes see a group of professional women at happy hour.

Sometimes they would be willing to talk to us and sometimes they would blow us off quickly with comments that made it clear the age difference and lack of employment were problematic.

There are stories that could be told and stories that can’t be. There are conversations about how to capture a cougar and reasons why one might wait to say something or make an attempt.

Sometimes I think about how interesting it is that 30 some years later some of these conversations are coming up again as men I know are single again.

They are the same yet different because there is an acknowledgement of time and impact of it upon our lives. There is less freedom in some areas and more in others.

I can almost overlay the two periods of time in my mind and see the places they intersect and where they do not.

Sometimes We Can Bend Reality To Our Will

The Bradbury quote above is an old favorite and one I have used in conversations about writing on multiple occasions but today it strikes me differently.

Today I hear the words inside my head and think about what bending reality to our will means. I don’t think of it as being the truly impossible like walking through walls or flying without mechanical help.

No, at the moment I think of it as referring to not letting obstacles and complications prevent our ability to go after dreams and ideas.

I think of it as a reminder that sometimes the most important thing you can do is keep trying and keep moving forward. Inertia is hard to break free of, but once you do you often find you can accomplish quite a bit that you weren’t ever sure you could.