[PornoDoggy]

Serge ... I do my part for the economy quite well on my own, as I am on a first-name basis with most of the clerks at Home Depot (60 miles away) and my local Ace Hardware. I'm not sure exactly how old this place is (120+, I am sure), but a lot of what's left of the original construction doesn't use "modern" round nails. According to an old fellow who did some work on the place in the 30s or 40s, some of the cabinets and woodwork he replaced back then wasn't nailed at all - it was pegged.

I live in an area of the country where the only thing that outnumber the bean fields are the corn fields. We have them-there ternaders, which cannot be compared to hurricanes (unless one hits your house) but are still pretty nasty. In the three seasons I've been up here, they have come within a mile of the house at least twice, and within five miles six or seven times.

Slav ... you kin git shot fer referin to where I live as "the hood." I live "in town" (1700 people). We don't have a "hood" (unless you count the ones in the back yard of the trailers the other side of the highway, a few of which might even be attached to cars, with the remote possiblity that one of them has run within the last five years).

That's not to be confused with living in "the city" (20,000, 8 miles away, where they do have a "hood" of about 50 families).

"Up to Chicago" is 350 miles, "down to St. Louis" is 200 miles - all of both places is considered "the hood" out here, except the 'burbs, which are almost the hood.