A Bob's Life: Monday Musings

Monday, May 11, 2026

Monday Musings - May 11, 2026

1. The march of May continues as it is not the second Monday of the Month. In just two short weeks Memorial Day will arrive to announce the unofficial beginning of Summer. There remain 33 Mondays in 2026.

Under the Banyan Trees on Beach Road
Hobe Sound, FL
May 9, 2026

2. A hearty congratulations to the Arundel High School Baseball Team for a thrilling season. It did not end the way we all desired, but still, you all did great. Congrats.

3. Mother's Day was throughly enjoyed by Chris. We ended the day with dinner at Cooper's Hawk followed by watching one of her favorite movies: The Sound of Music. She also enjoyed hearing from each of her children.

Tortoise Number 4 on my Ride
Tequesta, FL
May 10, 2026

4. I completed an 18-mile ride during which I saw five gopher tortoises. That was the most I have ever seen during a ride. I guess it was a busy day in the tortoise world. It was also the hottest day I've ridden this year.

5. Saturday, I had to take the truck out for a drive to keep the wheels round and the fluids flowing. I drove the reverse of the rout I had ridden my bike on Friday and was able to get a great image of the banyan trees lining Beach Road in Hobe sound. It is an iconic road and when a tornado damaged the trees a couple years ago, they were speedily repaired and reset. that is why they look a bit thin.

6. The words of Péter Magyar's inauguration speech in Hungary caused me to pause and dream of better times here in the USA. He said, “We inherited a country where politics deliberately pitted Hungarians against each other,” he said, and he explained how Orbán mobilized supporters with hatred and fear, poisoning “the collective psyche of an entire nation.” “The Hungarian state must never again do this to its own citizens,” he said. He vowed to heal the country: “We will once again learn to think of ourselves as one nation,” he promised. (Letters from an American)

7. Today in History. On May 11, 1934, a massive storm sends millions of tons of topsoil flying from across the parched Great Plains region of the United States as far east as New York, Boston and Atlanta.

At the time the Great Plains were settled in the mid-1800s, the land was covered by prairie grass, which held moisture in the earth and kept most of the soil from blowing away even during dry spells. By the early 20th century, however, farmers had plowed under much of the grass to create fields. The U.S. entry into World War I in 1917 caused a great need for wheat, and farms began to push their fields to the limit, plowing under more and more grassland with the newly invented tractor. The plowing continued after the war, when the introduction of even more powerful gasoline tractors sped up the process. During the 1920s, wheat production increased by 300 percent, causing a glut in the market by 1931.