The Dog Days of Summer?

As we (Jody, our friends Dawn and Mike and their boys and I) were sitting in Braum's last night eating ice cream. We were talking about idioms and what they mean and where they come from.

This is all because we were talking about goats, not just any goat but those goats that fall down when they are scared.  Jody said those goats were where the idiom "Scape Goat" came from, derived from Escape Goat.  He explained to us that they would use these goats, who become paralyzed when frightened, as easy prey for predators that may attack more expensive livestock.  The wolf or coyote takes the goat on the ground allowing the prized calf to get away.  The idiom should actually be Escape Goat, but you know how lazy we can get with the English language.

The subject of Escape Goats came up because we were telling Dawn and Mike about our visitor from the past on Friday night.  About 25 years ago we lived in a small town in central Oklahoma.  Jody worked for a dirt contractor, driving heavy machinery.  Jeff M also worked for this dirt contractor.  Jeff and his wife Jill lived a mile down the road from us.  Jill and I were good friends and the four of us make it 5 because Jolea was a baby about 18 mos. old often spent time together having dinner and playing cards.

Long story short.... Jeff came by our house Friday night on his way from central Oklahoma to Mesquite to pick up a load of goats.  Not Falling Goats, Boer Goats.  Jeff is an Ag teacher in the small town where he lives and these were his 2010-11 show goats coming from Mississippi.  We had a good visit with Jeff, he hasn't changed a bit in 23 years... that was the last time we saw him, when he and Jody did a water treatment job in Naples, Florida.

Our Jeff was able to meet him, and no our Jeff was not named for him.  I had already picked out my names for all the boys I would give birth to long before I started having babies.  Jeffrey was one of those on the list.  Jeff M did call me the day our Jeff was born to make sure I had the spelling of his name correct, "not Geoffery like an English Twit."  Did I mention he's an Ag teacher....?

The reason Jeff M just happened to stop by on Friday night, besides the fact that he had wee goats to gather, was because he emailed Jody after I had given Jill (now ex-wife) Jody's email address for Jeff to email and catch up with him.  Jill and I had talked on the phone Thursday night.  It had been 23 years since I'd talked to her also.

I had gotten a FaceBook message from her a few weeks ago.  It simply said "did you ever live in Oklahoma?"  I had to wrack my brain to figure out why that name looked so familiar, of course she had her first name, her maiden name which I vaguely remembered, and her re-married name listed.  Then I got a second message from her "did you ever drive away from a fast food restaurant without paying?"  To which I answered "if I did it was because I had a back seat full of screaming kids."  A message came back confirming we knew each other "I knew it was YOU!"

Once again FB reunited us with long lost friends.  It was great to see Jeff and we hope to meet his 13 year old daughter soon, as well as meet up with Jill and her 11 and 14 year old girls, maybe get to see Jeff and Jill's 26 year old son again, as well as Jill's husband.  Jill comes to Denton quiet often and we hope to meet somewhere nearby.

So what does this have to do with the Dog Days of Summer?  I have no idea, it's an idiom!  I just know that the 18 day, over 100F degree heat wave finally broke.  We've had rain a couple of times power outages a couple of times and the temps are slowly coming down.  But not in time for school to start tomorrow.  We'll have to have slide warnings.

Hope you all have a wonderful week, may someone you want to speak to from your past find you.