PEOPLE ARE ALWAYS ASKING ME what I think.
“What do you think about the election?”
“What do you think about the Baseball Playoffs?”
“What do you think of this, that, and the other thing?”
I don’t answer those questions directly. I have become very adept at giving non-answer answers.
SOME PEOPLE ARE FUNNY. Of course there are two kinds of “Funny.” There are people who are Funny (Ha! Ha!) And then there are people who are Funny (Uh, Oh). Sometimes it is difficult to tell them apart.
What is it that differentiates these two flavors of Funny? I think it all has to do with their sense of humor. They both have that sense of humor, but it gets displayed differently. An Example:
For Mr. Funny (Ha! Ha!) – A joke. “Why did the Dragon take some Pepto-Bismol?”
“Because he ate someone who disagreed with him.”
That’s it. Simple and to the point. Now that same joke told by Mr. Funny (Uh, Oh)
I HAVE ARRIVED AT AN IMPASSE. I’m not sure anymore that I can define between what is Reality and what is a poorly written Situation Comedy. I watch what is going on around me and I keep waiting for things to cut away to a commercial for a “Wait! There’s more!” infomercial. Let me tell you what is going on here in lovely Terre Haute (That’s French for, “Run that past me again.”) and then you decide if I am in a real place or in a hallucination.
No names will be given because…just because, that’s why.
Throwback Thursday from March 2017 – “What Is This Stuff?”
TO QUOTE THE FOUNDER OF THAT GREAT INSTITUTION OF HIGHER LEARNING – FABER COLLEGE, “KNOWLEDGE IS GOOD.”
Knowledge is that which is universally agreed upon to be really good “Stuff”. And it is better to go through life with good “Stuff”.
“Stuff” can be just about anything, but some “Stuff” is better than other “Stuff”. For example – 
It is good to know that your message will be clearer if you don’t use the same word three times in the same sentence (See Above).
Knowing “Stuff” can be profitable. I once knew enough “Stuff” to get on a couple of Game Shows and I walked away with a lovely selection of “Parting Gifts” and some cash. I would have done better if I had known some additional “Stuff”, but “Hey, Stuff Happens!”
“Stuff” accumulates in your brain as you go through life. You learn “Stuff”. You forget “Stuff”,
but there is always more “Stuff” just around the corner. In fact (Fact aka “Stuff”), there is a 
store in Kansas City called “Stuff.” They are open 365 days a year. There is never a lack of demand for “Stuff”. “Stuff” carries a lot of “Stuff”, but most “Stuff” enters our life through the brain.
I have always held to the theory that the brain is like a garbage can. We start out with an empty can and over time we toss in a lot of “Stuff”, some good, some bad, some obligatory. By the time we reach our teen years we think we know everything and have all the “Stuff” we need. Not true. It is during those years that we turn over our cans and dump out all of the “Stuff” we have amassed. Thankfully some “Stuff” sticks to the sides in our can. That is the “Stuff” we will need to survive those teen years when we do all of our thinking with our pants.
The “Stuff” that sticks in our can is called “Knowledge.”
After a few years “Life” (Reality) intrudes and we begin to start gathering “Stuff” again, 
refilling our garbage cans. What “Stuff” we choose to reject and let bounce off the lid of our can ends up becoming The Congressional Record.
I made the mistake this morning of Googling “Stuff” and I was instantly overstuffed like my Aunt Nellie’s favorite chair. “Stuff” is worldwide. It is not a phenomenon or a movement. It is just – “Stuff”. It seems that the Internet is an attempt to organize “Stuff”. It is an obvious failure, otherwise how would one explain the existence of Facebook?
Much “Stuff” is useless except in emergencies – like first dates and tax audits. However, other “Stuff” can be worth its weight in…“Stuff.”
Knowing how much rice to cook is a bit of important “Stuff.” I know that 2 cups of rice will feed more people than I know.
There are some people who really think that they know all of the “Stuff” there is to know. That, I believe, is both a physical and capacitorial impossibility. How can someone know all that “Stuff?” In the time it took you to read and understand that sentence a whole boatload of new “Stuff” has been added to the pile. One could never catch up.
The world is moving at the “Speed of Stuff.” If somehow you were able break the “Stuff Barrier” you would hear a booming, “What the heck…?”
I don’t see that happening anytime soon. There is just too darn much “Stuff” in the way.
THERE ARE SOME THINGS IN THIS WORLD I WILL JUST NOT AGREE TO DO. I have standards – they’re low, but they’re mine. A lifetime of making the decisions that have kept me alive this long have proven to me that, as unlikely as it may seem, I must be doing something right.
For example:
No matter what the political climate I will not run for any elective office – not now, not ever. As far as I’m concerned the only office I relish is the corner table at St. Arbucks where I sit and write these…these…these things whatever they are.
I LOVE LANGUAGE and it use, misuse, and ability to be twisted and return to its original shape. It’s a lot like Silly Putty.
There are so many times that I hear words come flying from the mouths of relatively sane people that I have to stop and listen just to make sure that it’s not my hearing that is cuckoo. Words will go wherever we point them.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary there are 171,476 English words in current use. Most of us don’t know and use more than a tiny fraction of that total. Personally, I feel comfortable with dozens of those words.
Throwback Thursday from October 2015 –
OK. THAT SOUNDS A LITTLE CYNICAL, I SUPPOSE. I’m not against Halloween or anything like that. It’s just that it paints me into a corner every year. What kind of costume should I have? Should I buy something or make it myself? Should it be in good taste or just the usual?
I haven’t gone “Trick or Treating” for years. I finally figured out that people don’t like to part with their Snickers when the bag is being held by a guy with a white beard – a real white beard.
Nowadays I wear a costume when I’m handing out the goodies at the door or when we go to a party. Neither one is as much fun as hitting up the neighbors for a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup.
TODAY IS THE FIRST MONDAY IN SEPTEMBER – LABOR DAY. It is a celebration of the Working Man and Woman in America. They are honored by having most people take the day off.
The first official Labor Day was in 1887 in New York City organized by a couple of labor unions. We still celebrate it today even though the number of people who are union members is a bit over 10% of all workers. That number peaked about 60 years ago when about a third of all American with jobs held membership cards in one union or another. The reasons for the decline are many and likely to get me beat up if I discuss them here.
HOORAY FOR ME! I’m getting the chance to be a loving and supportive husband tonight. I’m going with my wife, the lovely and involved, Dawn, to a “Meet the Candidate Night” here in Terre Haute (That’s French for “Vote for me. I can smile.”)
My wife trusts me. She knows that I will behave myself in public and not truthfully answer any questions asked of me by the candidates.
We have gone to events like this before. I smile and I shake hands with people I wouldn’t ordinarily touch without wearing a Hazmat Suit. I quietly sip at my plastic cup of Diet Coke.
I’m a good husband.
THIS PAST TUESDAY was Election Day around here. All sorts of people running for all sorts of governmental offices. As usual, the voters stayed home in droves. Primary elections are really just political party love fests. The various party leaders decide who they want as a candidate for the November General Elections then they hold these Primaries to move the cards around on the table to let you try to pick the winner. It is sort of like a Three Card Monty game with lawn signs.
On Tuesday afternoon my wife, the lovely and politically enthusiastic, Dawn, and I went to vote. That is when the curtain slipped a bit and The Wizard became visible.
SOME MORNINGS I JUST FEEL LIKE SLAPPING SOME PEOPLE upside the head and down the other side. Not out of any anger, but as an attempt to get them to wake up and smell the coffee – the coffee that I am trying to drink in peace.
Almost every morning lately I’m in my corner at St. Arbucks and no matter how hard I try to ignore it – I cannot avoid hearing the conversations of other people. The problem arises when all they want to rant about is Politics and Politicians. I can’t think of anything that I want to avoid more at 6:30 in the morning. The sun isn’t even up yet, let alone me. At that time of day I’d prefer a little music or the voices in my head who tell me “knock – knock” jokes.
WELCOME TO THE NEW YEAR. We made it. We have survived 2017 – a year filled with many good and wonderful things and a few that should make us all ashamed.
Now that we are alive and over the hump of the Holiday Season I hope that we are all determined to make this year one to remember with smiles and not cringes. That’s my hope anyway. I’m going to try to do my part.
IT IS BARELY 6:30 AM AND PEOPLE ARE ALREADY ARGUING WITH EACH OTHER. I’m not sure what they are arguing about but they sure have their BP numbers going north. At this time of day I cannot imagine what could be so important to warrant turning purple over.
Maybe it’s me. I find that there are very few things worth arguing about at any time of day. Most arguments don’t accomplish anything positive – unless you are a Paramedic or an Undertaker.
I’m sitting across the room from the verbal combatants and I can’t hear them well enough to determine the topic.
TODAY IS FRIDAY, THE GATEWAY TO REAL LIFE. I sat down this morning to write something brilliant, moving, hilarious, and earth shattering. After about 15 minutes of staring at a blank page I downed half of my coffee in one gulp and started looking through the detritus of links I’d saved on my phone. After another couple of minutes I came across a link that made me down the rest of my coffee.
SOMETIMES YOU SEE OR HEAR SOMETHING THAT JUST TICKLES YOUR RIBS and makes you laugh out loud. I’m not talking about hearing a comedian on TV, but something that comes out of somebody’s clever imagination. Something that you weren’t expecting that reaches out and hits the proverbial nail right on the head. I had one of those yesterday morning. A friend posted a comment on Facebook that hit me as so unusual, so out of literal context, but so right in its imagery that it stopped me in my tracks.
The general context was a discussion about a person’s irrational (read cuckoo) thinking about things when my friend posted this picture.
Fiction Saturday
Chapter 36 Continued
Outside, the sun was beginning to go down and an offshore breeze was finally cutting through the hot and hectic city. The shopping-mad tourists were heading home and the drinking-mad tourists were arriving. The mood in Tijuana was changing, like it did everyday at this time, from commercial cordiality to alcoholic depravity. The zebra-painted donkeys that pulled small carts along the avenidas so tourists could have some unusual pictures to take home to Iowa, were being replaced by other donkeys for another kind of entertainment that Tijuana was famous for.
WHILE THE CIRCUS IN WASHINGTON CONTINUES I find that there are smaller side shows going on that I find both interesting and entertaining.
Example: While we were down in Texas, visiting family and avoiding nasty northern weather there was a great story on the TV about two Congressional Representatives from The Lone Star State who felt the need to get back to Washington and actually do their jobs. The problem for them achieving this end was that the entire northeast, including D.C. was getting blasted by a late winter snowstorm and airports in the area were closed down.
Fiction Saturday
Chapter 31 – Continued
“That’s two Egg McMuffins’ with cheese and two coffees, and thank you for visiting McDonald’s, Buenos dias.”
“And buon giorno to you.”
Laura picked up the tray and turned around to look for Davis. He had found them a table by the wall. The restaurant was already half filled and would soon be packed, just as Vivian had predicted.
“Here we go,” she said. “Oh, could we switch seats? I want to be able to look out of the window.”
“Sure, no problem,” said Davis. They traded places. Davis could see the side door that opened onto the small parking lot and Laura could scan the entire plaza.
As she poured a pink envelope of sweetener into her coffee, Laura’s eyes picked out the good guys and the wise guys.
“Vivian was right. This plaza is overloaded with cops and I see three guys that might be Dominic’s boys and two more over on that bench back by the train. He must have called in reinforcements. I don’t recognize them. Damn!”
TO QUOTE THE FOUNDER OF THAT GREAT INSTITUTION OF HIGHER LEARNING – FABER COLLEGE, “KNOWLEDGE IS GOOD.”
Knowledge is that which is universally agreed upon to be really good “Stuff”. And it is better to go through life with good “Stuff”.
TODAY IS THE LAST DAY OF FEBRUARY – at least I think it is – let me check.
(Brief Pause)
Right! Today is definitely the last day of February which means very little unless you were born on February 29th. But it is still winter.
I know. I know, but you’re wrong. This is not going to be another of my diatribes against snow and cold. No. This is going to be a scholarly discourse on why the Calendar needs adjustment and realignment.
Down the Hall on Your Left 