When the brain is sleeping...........

A rainy eve in old Fair Oaks......calls out for a cracklin’ fire. S’pity progress has all but eliminated real cracklin’ fires but (sigh) too much pollution. We’ve lost a lot of time-honored things to progress; roaring fireplaces, bonfires, burnt marshmallows. We’re prob’ly goin’ to lose a lot more as the world continues to change around us. S’pect we’d better adapt or we might find ourselves on the (gasp) Guv’mint Endangered Species list.
I just saw an article that they are digging up one of the worlds largest dinosaurs. Poor fellow! I wonder if he had a clue what done him in? I don’t think most of us have a clue what is doing us in.
A few years ago, I was working at the railroad yard. Away down at the western end of the yard, just off the property, a group of ‘bummies’ (railroad slang for tramps and hoboes) were huddled around a blazing fire taking whatever nourishment they could get from an assortment of cans and bottles, almost every one of them smoking a cigarette. One of the rails commented that the ‘bummies’ were doing more damage to themselves huddled around the creosote-soaked ties they were burning than with all the booze and tobacco.
I commented that in countries where starvation was the norm, diabetes was almost unknown. The rail looked at me then went on to explain in detail just how poisonous creosote could be.
A lot of people can become so engrossed in a movie that they are willing to suspend belief. Some people can sit thru showing after showing. Often, they brag about it, quoting chapter and verse from the memorized movie. Or television show. There are ‘Trekkies’ that actually speak Klingon. Heck, they can barely speak English and they understand Klingon. I guess for some people, reality sucks.
And I prob’ly shouldn’t make a connection between reality (or the lack thereof) and politics. Politicians seem to make their own reality, apparently rooted in a state of suspended belief.
And talking with friends and relation elsewhere, a big part of the USA seems to believe that’s a fair definition of California. A State of Suspended Belief.
Ya gotta wonder why so many of ‘em folly the yellow brick road to get here.
And remember, “Oz never did give nuthin’ to the tin man that he didn’t already have........”