Luck and fate stories here.

[Bill Cummings]

Well, It happened again. I chalk it up to old timers disease or whatever it’s called.
Right now all I can recall is dementia.
The medication reminder beeper went off so I knew I had better go get my prescription medication now or I would probably forget if I waited for when I completed dressing myself.

In my socks, under shorts, “T” shirt and wrist watch I headed for the kitchen. When I got to the sink I opened the blinds and saw ice on the bird bath. I had forgotten to plug in the warmer last night. The little birds were skating around on top of the bird bath probably wondering why the water was so stiff.
Quick fix for that I thought (wrong again). I would just unlock the inner and outer back doors, hold open the storm door, bend over, pick up the plug and plug in the bird bath warmer to the electrical outlet beside the door. No trouble so far.

I looked at the bird bath when I straightened up and wondered if I should break some ice so the little birds wouldn’t have to wait so long to get a drink. The back yard is fully enclosed so privacy was not an issue.

I stepped out onto the 30 degree concrete patio slab in my socks and took about five steps to the bird bath. The shock on the storm door pulled the storm door shut with a CLICK!

Blissfully I went about making a hole in the ice for the little birds. The slab was uncomfortably cold and my fingers started screaming about working in ice water.

My jaw shivered open enough for me to stutter aloud, “That’s good enough!”
I headed for the storm door put my left hand on the lever to open the door. Yup! You guessed it three paragraphs back with the word. CLICK!
Who in the hell locked that door? Terry left for her job north of Santa Fe the Sunday before last so it couldn’t be her fault. Humm! Let’s affix blame later I thought because at that moment I had to get back inside.

It would be no problem with a knife but the knife was in its case, on my belt that was in my blue jeans, on the edge of the bed. After exactly several minutes of thinking and disregarding stupid solutions I finally broke a finger (not mine) off of the bamboo grass rake and using it as a knife blade I was able to work back the plunger latch on the storm door and get inside.

I never hear of stuff like this happening to someone else. WHY ME?
Gee Wiz it’s 11:57 and I still haven’t taken my morning pills?
Gotta go.

[Bill Cummings]

We both had a devil of a time.
Hang gliding over the wheat fields of central Washington State I was getting low.
I couldn’t find a dust devil after passing up the previous three without a turn. Once again I had seriously over estimated how magnificent I was as a cross country pilot. I hadn’t even covered 20 miles from launching at Chelan Butte and was about to rejoin the bottom dwellers.
Terry my, wife/pilot/driver, was taking the day off at the Lake Chelan Beach, swimming and reading.

My plan was to stick to the highways so that I could catch a ride back to Chelan but I forgot to stick with the plan.
Then I spotted a pick up truck down near some abandoned farming structures. I switched prayers from, “Lord could you send me up a thermal?” (I almost called it a devil.) to “Cancel that order Lord I’m way too low for a thermal now!”

I whistled from above as I saw the farmer about to crawl into the cab of his truck. He got back out and held his hat to shade is eyes as landed across the dirt road from him.
Most of the farmers in the area are looking for an excuse to go to town so I offered to buy his gas for him if he had any thing he needed in Chelan.

On the ride to Chelan while I was talking about liking dust devils he told me he starting hating them a week ago. (He called them whirl winds. I needed a ride so I didn‘t correct him and even switched to referring to them also as whirl winds for the remainder of the ride.)

As it turns out, I had been flying a mile north of this farm site a week before and had seen a mini tornado or a super thermal tearing, what looked like, the roofing off of these buildings.
I was thinking that all that roofing material could have done damage to my glider or myself if I had been above the structures last week.

The farmer went on to say that last week he was going to off load thirty two, 2 inch by 4X8 foot foam insulation sheets from his pickup truck. He was going to put them on a cold storage building that he and his father was going to make.
What I thought was roofing material in the air last week was really thirty two sheets of light weight foam insulation that beat themselves into pieces against the barn and his truck and then got sucked up maybe 500 feet in that, “G. D. Whirl Wind!”
Putting it mildly and omitting some choice adjectives he went on to say that he and his dad spent a week rounding up and puzzle piece those sheets back together.
I would guess it’s the whirl winds that are the bad ones and the dust devils that are the good ones. Odd. Don’t you think?

[RobinHastings]

Nice story, Bill! There's a lot more coincidence in life than we expect. Of course, the coincidence where my winning lottery ticket comes up, when I haven't even bought one, just hasn't occurred quite yet. I'm still hoping...
-Robin