Reminiscing

This date in 1984 was a Saturday. I know this not through some Rain Man-like knowledge of math and calendars, but rather I can remember.

Come now, you say, who can remember a Saturday 36 years ago? I also remember the day as sunny and warm. Way too warm for a tux.

”Ah”, you say. Yep, thirty-six ...hold on...carry the one...yes, thirty-six years ago today the wife and I were married in the local Methodist church surrounded by family and friends. We had a reception at the country club. Beer was provided, no bar, just finger food and cake. There was no DJ or band.

We spent our honeymoon in Gatlinburg.

Life with her has been grand. Our life in general has had some ups and downs and tough times. Even the worst of times were bearable with her at my side.

I have not made many good decisions in my life. Marrying this woman was certainly one of them.

good thing I drink my coffee black

Not much and nothing.

What is going on and what do I have to report?

Life continues here at the homestead. The girls are on vacation this week, so no little kid frolicking to make up the day.

Retail sucks, and I cannot believe how dishonest people are. Even here in the north side ‘burbs - considered wealthy by some* - theft and fraud is rampant at the big box where I work part time. What kind of jerk buys something, uses it, then returns it? Or buys a can of bug spray or cleaner, uses half and then brings it back for a refund? And the dolts in customer service take it all, no questions asked; scan the receipt and refund the cash. They took back store branded items from a competitor the other day, because the customer had a receipt for something.. Was the receipt for the items returned? Who knows. I just get to restock this crap.

But I’m in a good mood and complaining isn’t where I wanted to go today.

Have a great Monday!

Look you know I mean it because I added an exclamation point!

Another one!



* maybe not, I live there

i need to win the lottery

I tried out the new Blogger dashboard for a bit. I hate it and switched back. The new dashboard will be mandatory soon. I’m not sure how a company can continue to push out updates that makes the platform less user-friendly. Earlier this year they got rid of spell check. This new update may push me to finish my participation in this nonsense once and for all.

 I know, old man...lawn...change...blah, blah. When a hobby becomes more aggravation than value it is time to stop.  And no, I’m not going to switch platforms. I had a blog or two on Wordpress for a while and hated their interface too. Yes, I spread my good cheer and words of wisdom in multiple places back in the heydays of blogging. If you didn’t know, you didn’t miss much.

A thousand monkeys sitting at a thousand keyboards

I’m off to have some bloodwork done this morning. Nothing critical, just routine after my virtual doctor visit Wednesday.  Since I have to be fasting for some of the tests, it will be a hungry morning. I have to drive over to the really nice suburb just west of me to get the labs done. I couldn’t get in the one down the street.

It looks like a spate of hot weather and rain will move in later and throughout next week. My lawn doesn’t really need mowed, but after a week of rain it will be exceptionally high. Do I cut it or not?  These are the hard decisions I make about life these days.

In other news, it is Friday. I skipped right over the customary news sites this morning. There is no use getting my blood pressure up.

In celebration, how about we depart from my usual classic rock and listen to some classic country for our Friday music selection this morning?

Hearing no dissent, I offer up some Hank Jr.:

Have a great Friday, amigos.

Just tear it all down

I’m like a stuck record.

The Jscobins have decided the Emancipation Memorial has to go. Too bad it is a tribute to the end of slavery.

Critics say the subservient ex-slave is demeaning.

Is it? I don’t know.

Maybe we should trust the people who commissioned the statue. That would be former slaves. Frederick Douglass spoke at the dedication.

Former slaves were OK with the Memorial. That ought to be good enough for rioters who don’t even know someone who knew someone who knew an actual slave.

Those of you of a liberal bent who are not speaking out against this kind of destruction are morally culpable. And a coward to boot.

Maybe we should revisit the words of Martin Niemöller

Something a little more cheerful

My first “concert”.

intolerance

The Libs have toppled a statue of President Grant in San Francisco because clearly defeating the Confederacy, passing the Fifteenth Amendment, and sending Federal troops into the South to squash the KKK proves he was naught but a racist white dude and needs to go.

A statue of a noted abolitionist was torn down and tossed into a lake in Madison, WI.

Where are the authorities when this willful destruction of public property is occurring?

Sorry, if walking past a statue triggers intense feelings and ruins your life, you need to grow a pair. News Flash: NONE OF YOU WERE EVER SLAVES. Nothing you see can remind you of something you never experienced.

Satanic images and crosses dipped in pee offend me mightily. So what? That Pentagram on your shirt has no effect on my daily life. Kneeling during the Anthem is offensive to me. So what? I won’t do it. You do as you see best. No one has a right not to be offended.

Does racism exist? Yes. Is life hard? Yes. What do you do? Study, get an education. Work hard. Make the most of life.

How far are we from mirroring the Taliban when they destroyed ancient statues in the desert because they offended Muslim sensibilities?

Progressivism is the most intolerant of religions. History tells us so. If we don’t erase it first.

Useful Idiots, indeed.

A Second Monday

New day in a new week. Yesterday was semi-wasted. I went under the scope in the AM and slept away much of the afternoon. The kids took me out for a delayed Fathers Day dinner steak in the evening. I went to bed at normal time and slept poorly. That catches us up.

In other news, nothing. The Marxists are moving forward with their purge of history and the ability to  even have a different opinion of their orthodoxy. Look up Mao cultural revolution in Wikipedia if you want a little historical perspective. The leftist playbook has existed for hundreds of years and the average person is somehow always caught off guard.

I’m off to see a different shop about my car’s A/C. I expect the worst.

In the meantime, how about a little music for a Tuesday’s?

Fathers Day

Happy Fathers Day to all you dads out there.

Wikipedia 

This picture reminds me of my dad.

Love you, Pop

Here’s to my Son-in-law, who is a terrific father.

That job really stinks

I hoped I would sleep in a bit this fine Saturday. Instead my eyes popped open at exactly 6:00 according to the ancient digital clock on the nightstand next to my pillow. I call the clock radio ancient because it is old for an electronic device. We got the clock when we got married, or shortly thereafter. That makes it...let’s see, carry the one...36 years old. It still keeps good time. I haven’t used the alarm or radio function for years though. I suppose the alarm still works.

Anyway here we are. I’m up. You may or may not be. For all I know you are reading this in the afternoon. Or evening. Or in 2034. I doubt you will be reading this in 2034. The Committee for Public Safety and Wokeness will have purged both me and my blog long before that point.

It is the summer solstice. Summer will officially begin at 5:43 EST here in Grover’s Corners. I’ll be at work. I’m closing today. I’m working on the morrow as well. I have the midday shift. Then I get to come home and start a colonoscopy prep. Happy Fathers Day! What a pain in the butt.

Yes, I went there.

Anyway, Monday will find me having movies made of my lower innards. I keep thinking that the doctor spent all of those years in med school just to spend all day driving a scope up various rectums. All day. Every day. But I guess he doesn’t go on call in the middle of the night too often. At about $3,000 for the procedure, the Butt Doc is maybe getting a grand per procedure in profit after office and equipment costs. If he does four scopes every morning and golfs each afternoon, that means he is laughing at those idiot OBGYN and general practice docs as he drops his twenty grand into the bank each week. I could do daily poop chute tours for a lot less compensation than that. Heck, even if he gets half of my estimate...

Boy, I bet 2034 you is happy you dropped in for this electronic conversation.

Happy summer. Happy Saturday.

Incontrovertible Proof

Ok, I get Aunt Jemima. Even Uncle Ben. I don’t even care about the Cream of Wheat guy.

But no matter what anyone claims, Mrs. Butterworth is “clearly” white:

No disputing the truth

Bonus question. In a year or two will we see outrage when there are no people of color on any packaging? Who wants to buy Suburban Mom brand instant pancake mix?

Humph

I could rant and complain. I had a most unpleasant experience at my local Ford dealership this morning. I thought my a/c was fixed a few weeks ago. Nope. After spending a couple hundred then, I learn a whole new compressor is now required. The new repair cost is more than $700. I don’t have it, we will have to roll down the windows. Those two Franklins are gone, don’t apply, too bad for Joe.

I will take it somewhere else for a second opinion next week. I have never been at this particular Ford dealership for service that my car, and everyone else in the waiting room, did not “need” additional work. It’s too bad they are but a couple of miles down the road, but I think I have gone there for service for the last time.

I guess I ranted and complained anyway.

head shakin’ stupidity

And we still have no baseball. MLB is missing a golden opportunity to build a new fan base to replace the older one.

Greed, a terrible thing to waste.

Right Now

It is evening here in Grover’s Corners. I’m sitting on the back patio. The little fountain gurgles at my back. Two chipmunks case around the hostas over by the fence. A cardinal issues his stately evening chirp as the robins fuss a cacophony in the Bradford pears.

The wife is pruning her flower pots. The evening is pleasant, warm with uncharacteristic low humidity for mid-June.

Over in the corner, the tiger lilies are going to bloom any day. The oak hydrangea is starting to flower. The big willow rules over the yard like a decrepit king.

I breathe a tired sigh of contentment. I offer a silent prayer of thanks for the many blessings in our lives.

I’ll worry about bills and mortgages another day.

Monday Morning Breakfast

We have a cool start to what promises to be a glorious day. The coffee is hot, the patio just a bit too cool to sit and enjoy the sunshine.

I’m going to make a batch of sausage gravy for breakfast this morning. Biscuits and gravy always makes the day start off happy. I could cook up a full on perfect breakfast — B&G, eggs over easy, fried potatoes, and bacon — but my waistline and arteries are already a bit tight.

We went and stocked up the pantry yesterday. It is the first giant shopping trip since early in the pandemic. The freezer is restocked with meat, the larder with can goods and necessities. We may be out of money, but we won’t starve.

No politics today. That is good or bad. You decide. I’m always under the impression you don’t care for my soapbox rantings, yet those posts have the highest number of hits. If I knew what people wanted, this blog would be far more popular.

I read in Rolling Stone that Fat in Indiana readers are the best readers in the country.

Thanks Bob Seger for that reference.

You might think that obscure reference to a live album would be a great segue to a musical selection by the Detroit rocker. You would be wrong. Instead, this song has been looping through my brainpan since I woke up:

It is, after all, Monday morning. Have a good one.

somebody owes me because...

Reparations.

Taking money from people who never owned slaves and giving it to people who were never slaves.

Where do you stop? Other racial groups had it bad too, by varying degrees. Do you think the Chinese, Native Americans or Hispanics had it easy? What about the Irish or Italian immigrants? What about the decedents of black slave owners? Do they pay themselves? Do the fifth generation progeny of free-born blacks get a partial payment? What if Aunt Betty was in a mixed race marriage?

Do only whites of European ancestry have to be punished pay? What if grandpa arrived after 1865? What if your grandma marched at Selma? Do you get a partial reprieve? Will we all have to take a DNA test, register at Ancestry.com to prove our bonafides or guilt?

Reparations.

What a mind-numbingly stupid idea.

Want another Civil War?

We are going to start by changing out that white ceiling fan

I thought I posted something yesterday. Nope. Apparently I only wrote it in my mind.

So it goes.

One of my favorite historical topics is the French Revolution, probably from my reading of The Scarlet Pimpernel as a kid. In a very small way the events of the past few weeks remind me of that time.

Don’t worry, I’m not heading off on a political rant this fine Saturday. No, I am referring to the whole woke/cancel cultural aspect. As the far left political factions took hold in Revolutionary France, each strived to move further than their political rivals. Eventually people were called out for thought crimes. The political elites went so far as to dress in rags to prove their bonafides; they were no better than the poorest Parisian.

Today we see nonsense like calls to cancel cop shows on TV and even a kids’ cartoon about hero dogs because these shows deign to show police in a positive light. Mme. Guillotine shaved necks for  equally frivolous political points. Yes, 9/11 really was a generation ago. Things change fast in the political landscape.

I have the day off. The wife has a list of projects longer than my arm. Most of them are going to suck. That is probably why they aren’t done yet, they involve either hard work, spending money, or both.

A brief rain squall just passed by. That will leave most of the planned landscape projects wet and nasty. But will it be wet enough to strike them from the Honeydo list today?

Since it only rained for about seven minutes I’m gonna guess the answer is a resounding “no”.

Ah well, I hope you have a great Saturday.



PS, only after writing the title did I think it could have a political interpretation* . That is far from the truth. There is a white ceiling fan in the family room. Not only is it ugly, it makes a huge noise when you turn it on. One of my to do projects is to replace that ugly white fan. The new one has been sitting in the garage for a couple of weeks.

* that is a sign of how far we have come, even referring to color in general terms can get you in trouble. See French Revolution above. Remember the cure to all of that craziness was Emperor Napoleon.

Spring Break at Sugar Beach

Boy was I surprised upon waking to discover a party going on downstairs. It wasn’t the noise that woke me, I got up because I was awake. What shocked me was the numbers involved.

Ants were having a party on the countertop. It was like spring break at sugar beach. As in the movie, the little black ants went where the boys are. In this case the boys were a Snap, Krackle, and Pop.

The wife made a pan of Rice Krispy treats for the pool party last Saturday. The little insects were after the leftovers. Apparently, each ant called ten friends, who called ten friends...you get the picture.

I don’t like spraying bug spray with the girls around, especially the one-year-old who never found anything that won’t go straight in her mouth. In this case I had to soak the cabinet top.

Ants are a problem in the whole neighborhood. This suburb was built on old farm land and this particular area must be built over a giant colony of ants. Just digging in the flower beds can cause them to boil out of the ground on occasion. I know the neighbors have the yard sprayed professionally. I have in the past. This year I am going with the DYI method. While I was spraying poison on the counter I did around the windows and doors outside. I also hit along the foundation outside the kitchen.

What a way to start the day.

At least we don’t have the scourge of fire ants.


PS  I have tried the non-poisonous to humans variety of insect killers. They haven’t worked for me. Ortho liquid bug killer works on contact, and keeps on killing for days.

Medical Issues

After his exam the doctor said to the elderly man: “You appear to be in good health. Do you have any medical concerns you would like to ask me about?

“In fact, I do,” said the old man. “After I have sex with my wife, I am usually cold and chilly, and then, after I have sex with her the second time, I am usually hot and sweaty.”

After examining his elderly wife, the doctor said: “Everything appears to be fine. Do you have any medical concerns that you would like to discuss with me?”

The lady replied that she had no questions or concerns. The doctor then said to her: “Your husband had an unusual concern. He claims that he is usually cold and chilly after having sex with you the first time, and then hot and sweaty after the second time. Do you know why?”

“Oh that crazy old fart,” she replied. “That’s because the first time is usually in January and the second time is in August”

Jokes are a far more pleasant topic, amirite?

no, nope, never

So here’s the thing. I can be more than just a little obstinate. It is true.

I have long said I will bow to no one. Ever. Not a Japanese customer. Not a queen or king. Not a Pope.

I’m sure I have said it here. Check the archives. I will wait.

I won’t bow. Nor will I take a knee to beg forgiveness for melanin crimes.

That is not how things work

Can we at least get one fact correct?

Colin Kaepernick was not fired. He was not cut from the 49ers. HE OPTED OUT OF HIS CONTRACT. You cannot “give him his job back”. You cannot give him “back pay”. He had no contract. He chose to leave the team.

Any activist who states otherwise is ignorant, misinformed, or lying. There is no other choice.

Things started fine, now we are heading to full on crazy

I bet Native Americans are sitting around watching current events and muttering. Talk about a race that has been screwed.

Meanwhile craziness is ramped up. Minneapolis is going to dismantle their police force with full admittance they have no idea how they will respond to crime going forward. Guess which community will suffer most under this new woke programming?

The Army is considering changing the name of some of their bases. Some are named after Confederate generals. I have no doubt the nomenclature of helicopters will follow. The Navy is thinking on renaming the USS Chancellorsville because that battle was a Confederate victory. I wish I was kidding. If we are going to continue down that rabbit hole, most public buildings in West Virginia are going to get a facelift after the “Byrd” is removed. After all, the former Senator was a card carrying member of the Klan.

If we are going to erase history, let’s do it right.

Here is a new list of the actual “Legitimate” Presidents of the United States of America:

1. Lincoln, but we must know he wasn’t really a a Republican.
2. FDR because Eleanor
3. Clinton, but he might still get purged
4. Obama

All the others were illegitimate. They should be erased from textbooks, and public memory.

A recent NPR opinion piece recommended we purge our book shelves of old dead white men.

I guess we can use our empty public libraries after that as homeless shelters.

George Floyd was murdered. He did not deserve his fate. Before we elevate him to sainthood or start naming ships or military bases or schools or streets after him can we at least recognize that Floyd was a serial criminal? He wasn’t a great guy. He held a gun to a pregnant woman’s stomach during a robbery. He victimized plenty of people before he died. Besides, The whole reason for his encounter with the cops in Minneapolis was he was attempting to pass counterfeit twenties.

I know, the woke leftists are going to castigate me for this one. Will it help if I vow it was written while taking a knee?

Still no baseball.

Celebrate

Today is the wife’s xx birthday. I won’t offer her best wishes on these pages since this here blog is sooper  sekrit and she doesn’t read it.

I went and fetched donuts from her favorite donut place already this morning. See what a wonderful person am I? It is true, no matter what Anonymous Commenter might think.

The weather is warm and sunny, just as we should expect this time of year. The grass is green, the flowers are blooming ,and chipmunks are running rampant everywhere in suburbia. We and all of our neighbors are overrun. Multiple customers were asking how to rid their property of the miniature tree rats at work yesterday.

The wife wants them gone from the property. They dig in her flower pots. I have a hard time with exterminating them. I might have mentioned we had a pet chipmunk when I was a kid. He lived in his hamster cage from grade school until I was away at college. He lived 8 or 10 years, eating peanuts and sunflower seeds. Maybe I haven’t mentioned it? There are many facets to my life you know nothing about.

That’s is probably why you find this blog so fascinating. That or my humility. Either/or. Both. Whatever.

The big round up

So.

We can discuss my great day yesterday. We can delve into the politics of the day. I can relate a funny story from my part time gig at the big box store.

Which do you choose?

You don’t get a vote in real time so I guess it is up to me to choose a topic I think best will entertain you. That is, after all, the whole point nes pas?

I suppose I could offer up a short overview summary of each proposed topic; a bloggity Cliff Notes, if you will.

Here goes:

We gathered with friends yesterday to hang out, swim, eat pizza, and play some euchre. They are our oldest and best friends and we haven’t seen them since late February or early March - before the Chinese Crud closed the country. It was great to actually socialize. Sure, I got a mild sunburn, but it was a glorious and gorgeous summer day here in God’s country.

I took a phone call at work Friday. Karen wanted to know if we had a certain bird suet in stock. I told I would check. Standing in front of the bird seed section I asked which one. She said there are two in a yellow package. She wants the darker yellow.

There is but one yellow package on hand. I tell her that. She demands to know if it is the light one or dark yellow one. I can’t compare THERE IS ONLY ONE YELLOW PACKAGE. She insisted I tell her if it is dark or light. IT IS YELLOW. After a few rounds of this Abbott and Costello routine she insisted she talk to the manager to complain about how unhelpful I was.

Somehow I accidentally hung up on her while transferring the call. Whoops.

Protesters have defaced historical monuments worldwide in anti fascist/BLM/anti police demonstrations. These marchers are historically ignorant, willful destroyers of public property, or just plain assholes. Who is more anti-fascist in history than Churchill? Why is Lincoln’s statue or the Soldiers and Sailors monument in Indianapolis being defaced? Lincoln emancipated the slaves. The Indy monument honors the men who went to war to end slavery. WTH? *

Indianapolis’ Democrat mayor has bowed to pressure and will dismantle a marker listing those Confederate soldiers who died at the Civil War POW prison Camp Morton in Indianapolis.

The purge of unpleasant history continues.



* with acknowledgment to LSP. You outta read him every day.

D Day

Soldiers, Sailors, and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force:You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months.The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you.In company with our brave Allies and brothers-in-arms on other Fronts you will bring about the destruction of the German war machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over oppressed peoples of Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world.Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well trained, well equipped, and battle-hardened. He will fight savagely.But this is the year 1944. Much has happened since the Nazi triumphs of 1940-41. The United Nations¹ have inflicted upon the Germans great defeats, in open battle, man-to-man. Our air offensive has seriously reduced their strength in the air and their capacity to wage war on the ground. Our Home Fronts have given us an overwhelming superiority in weapons and munitions of war, and placed at our disposal great reserves of trained fighting men. The tide has turned. The free men of the world are marching together to victory.I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to duty, and skill in battle. We will accept nothing less than full victory.Good Luck! And let us all beseech the blessing of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking.

Eisenhower’s Pre-invasion Order of the Day.

Semi-appropriate musical interlude

I wrote a final paper in college on the Chicago Seven.

Innocent protesters they weren’t.they certainly were not there just to sing.  They got the violence they were looking for.

I got an A anyway, even though my 1968 Berkeley grad Professor hated my paper.

He got even later with a horrid letter of recommendation when I was contemplating grad school.

F-ing hippie.

a post I am sure I will regret

I will not fall to my knees and confess to racial sins I may or may not have committed knowingly or unknowingly. 

I have already and continually confessed my sins to God. That’s enough for me. 

I refuse to mea culpa to a purity test of other’s design. 

Condemning my birth melanin is wrong no matter if my skin tone is dark or light.

I am aware this post will be exhibit #1 at my upcoming show trial.

And Another Thing

Just get off your phone and drive.

From my back yard

Singin’ Songs and Carrying Signs

Believe it or not Dear Reader I was once a young radical. Back in the halcyon days of the late seventies I led a sit-in at our little semi-rural high school. Tbe object of our protests’ ire was the evil Iranians and the American hostages they held as weak-kneed Jimmah Carter wrung his wrinkly hands and hoped for a change in the Mullah’s hearts.

The Government and Social Studies Teacher moseyed  down on his lunch hour to witness our little protest. “OK”, he said, “You have our attention. Now what do you propose as a solution?”. At the time it ticked me off, but he was right.

And there lies the crux of protest. Today’s protests have a distinct air of Biker Johnny as his gang descended on Carbondale in the flick The Wild Ones. When asked what he was protesting, Johnny replied “Whaddya Got?”.

That is certainly not to say there are not plenty of grievances for today’s marchers. There are. There truly are. Protesting racism, sure, I’m with you 100%. Police brutality? OK. Let us recognize there are lots of good cops. Inequality. Maybe, but we need to stipulate equivalent outcome is far different from equal opportunity. Holding police and politicians to the same legal standard as the rest of us? Absolutely. Reparations for slavery? Nope and never. Protesting that the Wuhan Flu disproportionately affects the black community (yes, I heard that gripe mentioned on the news)? WTH are supposed to do with that?

But to harken back to my teacher critic on my little protest, “Now what do you propose”? What is your solution? Marching, anger, violence, riots, looting all garner attention. Now what do we do about it? And don’t tell me forcing the Vikings to hire Colin Kaepernick is an answer. That proposal is so asinine it barely warrants the time it took for me to hunt and peck the letters to make up that sentence. What is the goal? What is the end game? What do we want?

The murdering cop in Minneapolis has been charged. The rest of the cops who aided and abetted the crime should get their due soon, I hope. We cannot March and stage die-ins indefinitely. At some point there will be no more windows to break.

What change do we want and how do we fix it?

Seems appropriate part two