Waiting for God....(to make it rain, c'mon)

STATE OF THE UNION

I’m not really going to comment on the State of the Union address last nite other than to say that Obama (thanks to rehearsals ’n the teleprompter) gave another good performance…maybe when he’s out of office he can team up with Arnie ’n do beer commercials for Budweiser which pretty much dominates the near-beer market in the USA…

Anyway, it’s Wednesday ’n I’m just waiting for the rain…it’s been 40some days or thereabouts, since we’ve had any rain….’n now, well now, they say we’re gonna get some, at least a little bit ’n it’s overcast ’n feels like it’s maybe gonna rain…churches around the area are telling their parishners to pray for rain…It could rain, wouldn’t hurt…snow on the mountain (Sierra) would help more…lots of snow, the kind of snow they’re getting in Georgia ’n along the eastern seaboard…what we need is some Buffalo snow, feet rather than inches, the kind of snowpack we had last year which our omniscient Democrat legislature pissed away…or allowed to be pissed away which amounts to the same thing….

Here in California (’n I can’t believe that we’ve been here just about 54 years now) we have dry years ’n wet years…during the dry years, we’re always reminded about how we live in an arid climate ’n we’re really dependent on rain ’n snow ’n if we don’t get it, we’re all gonna die or maybe have to move to Oregon or some such Godforsaken place ’n we should all give up our lawns (did that one years ago) but then we’ll have a wet year ’n everyone rejoices ’n all the lakes ’n reservoirs get full ’n we here in norCal sell water to the folks down south who cheerfully waste it on golf courses ’n swimming pools ’n washing their cars ’n the sidewalks ’n streets ’n make fun of us up here because we have trees…go figure…anyway, when we have lots ’n lots of water, our overseers get in a panic that the next year will be wet also ’n the dams ’n the lakes ’n the reservoirs will all have too much water so they, in their infinite wisdom (a bi-partisan thing) release tons ’n tons of water so that there’ll be space for all the new water that’s coming down the pike (in this case, mountainside)….then GUESS WHAT?  It don’t rain.  Drought is upon us ’n panic sets in ’n the political answer is to raise water rates, of course, because the only answer is to FORCE the people to conserve….

I believe that this may be a bureaucratic thing ’n partisan politics really has nothing to say about it because it doesn’t seem to matter whether we have Democrats or Republicns in office as we seem to go trundling along regardless…I guess it’s the bureaucracy that actually runs California ’n the real political struggle is for the shining stars to figure out how to get ’n stay in front of the parade…

"Truth is stranger than fiction, but that's because fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth ain't." Mark Twain

Mendicants 'n other such.....

‘Way back in the long, long ago, the USAF, in its inimitable fashion (’n,  I tho't, with a certain amount of hubris) sent me half-way around the world to a posting that had absolutely no need (at least none that I ever ascertained) for the skill set that had so painstakingly been forced upon me…

After bouncing around thru a couple temporary jobs, I ended up being assigned to the base newspaper office where I wuz to do all the jobs that nobody else wanted to do…

I had a couple short lessons, very short, from the C.O. (editor) about how to write for a newspaper…I wuz told that the first law of journalism wuz that while readers may indeed have short memories, editors, especially military editors…don’t!  

That said, I wuz supposed to adhere to five things, 'n to that end, he held up his hand, fingers spread to enumerate, 'n proceed to tick off one finger at a time,  what, when, where, how ’n why…that, and no more, closed fist for emphasis, no adjectives, no adjectives, no adjectives...and not too damn many adverbs…simple, declarative sentences of no more than five words else I offend the sensibilities of any of the aforementioned editors... 

The lesson took less than 15 minutes ’n included showing me a desk, a typewriter ’n a stack of paper ’n carbon paper…I hated carbon paper then ’n to this date have absolutely no regrets regarding its demise….

My job wuz simple, at least in the eyes of the Major...I wuz to take the notes from the reporters, as dim-witted 'n unimaginative crew as wuz ever gathered in a bare-bones three room office, ’n remove all the beloved adjectives, most adverbs, ’n basically anything the reporters had thought provided colorful insight ’n turn their notes into easily digested information that didn’t take up too much precious space on the page...   
The unwritten rule of the newspaper biz is that one must never, never, never interfere with the real business of newspapers which was the sale of ad space…
An interesting concept since military newspapers as with all bureaucratic publications are not only not dependent on the sale of advertising but are pretty much forbidden from doing so…oxymoronic, but my first lesson in wherever you go, there you are rule of engagement….
I wuz pretty good at re-writing, tho’t I’d found my calling…rather than becoming a wandering mendicant, I’d be one of those ink-stained wretches inhabiting chattering, clattering newsrooms across the width ’n breadth of this wide land…’n then I found out how much newspaper jobs actually paid ’n tho’t maybe I’d make more money as a wandering mendicant….

In the meandering economy of our world today, wandering mendicants can make a pretty good living, especially if you can beg, borrow, or steal a child (the smaller, the better) to use as a front for your mendicancy but in the good old daze of my golden youth, standing by the roadside with a sign begging for help might well have got one in front of a local Justice of the Peace ’n 30 daze of picking up trash along the roadside as a vagrant…

I managed to avoid the occupation of mendicancy by stumbling onto a career course popularly known as ‘Marketing’….(My great-Uncle B.D. Parsons called it horse trading but the  ten dollar word is marketing)…

Anywaze, I wuz able to take some advice from that old-time sage, W.C. Fields who said, “If you can’t dazzle ‘em with your brilliance, baffle ‘em with your bullshit.”  

I tho't Mr. Fields, possibly a distant cousin, wuz an outstanding mentor, given as he wuz to booze 'n blather 'n it came as a pleasant surprise to find out that people would actually pay me to drive from bar to bar, boozing 'n blathering the day away....go figure....

Caveat Emptor 'n other sage sayings.....

If you just gotta buy a used car....

Back at the tail end of the 19th century, automobiles gained a toehold in the USA….by the early part of the 20th century, that toehold had made great and irreversible inroads on four-footed transportation (horse, mule, etc)…

Just telling this ‘cuz my great-uncle B.D. Parsons made his living as a horse trader….Now horse traders didn’t deal exclusively in horses, nosirreebob…horse traders ‘ud trade just about anything ’n ever

thing ’n Uncle B.D. warn’t no exception to the rule, ‘specially since there wudn’t all that many people still depending on horses ’n mules, at least not for ever’thing…

Uncle B.D. wuz what you might call ‘sharp’ when it came to wheeling ’n dealing, I mean, if you wuz dealing with him ’n there wuz a scale involved at all, you’d better keep an eye on his thumb or you’d pay the difference…

I ain’t sayin’ he wuz a crook, he wudn’t…he wuz honest as they come, at least for horsetraders…

Uncle B.D. was a strong believer in that old rule ‘Caveat Emptor’….in fact, that wuz the lesson he taught me at an early age ‘cuz B.D. Parsons didn’t take no prisoners when it came to dealing ’n age, kinfolk or the amount of the transaction didn’t make no difference…

Anyhow, Caveat Emptor is the rule that comes to mind when talking to people who support Obama ’n his administration…I never could understand why people ‘ud pay Uncle B.D. for his thumb more’n once ’n I can’t understand why normally rational people still argue that Obama ain’t cheating ’n it’s all the fault of those hypocritical godless republicans…I mean, Obama ’n his posse have been in charge for six years now ’n it seems like ever’thing he touches turns to crap…His signature achievement(?) of Affordable Health Care for the masses ‘ud be a joke if it wasn’t so damn expensive…’n his lying about just about everything is really hard to take…well, hard to take for those of us who can see that the Emperor’s new clothes ain’t….

I still have liberal friends that try to excuse Obama’s lies by stating emphatically that “Bush lied.”

Y’know, even if that is true (’n there’s been no evidence, WMD notwithstanding)…even a child knows that excusing one wrong by citing evidence of another will not work on a Mom…..

My Grandmother Smith gave me the best advice about dealing with Uncle B.D. ’n that  wuz simply “Don’t!”

A chance of rain...is this climate change or ?....

Sati’day ’n a chance o’ rain, or so they say~well, ackshully they say a slight chance of rain, just t’be precise ’n as a practicing conservative (have to practice cuz I ain’t quite there yet)…it’s overcast ’n gloomy, a much more fitting day in January than the sunny ’n dry Springlike daze we’ve been having…my fault, I suppose for having remarked t’other day that in about four more weeks, it’s spozed to be Spring here in norCal..

‘Course, we need the rain…or more precisely, snow on the sierra…lotz ’n lotz of snow on the sierra…an article in the SacBee, a veritable fount of min-information, t’other day stated that we’ve had three straight years of drought…not true…last year we had ‘way over normal amounts of snow on the mountain ’n the bureaucracy in charge of water squandered it (as usual)…

Ah well, it goes how it goes ’n there ain’t a damn thing you c’n do about it….which is paraphrasing a line from an old Barney Miller show…it’s 2014 now ’n let’s all of us hope  that it’s better than 2013 because, as so many of my neighbors have opined, 2013 just plain sucked….

Ariel Sharon died…I’m betting that Barry Soetero privately don’t give a big rats behind about that…makes me wonder whatinhell’s the matter with the Jewish communities throughout the goodoleusa that they still continue to support the liberal agenda…

The mainstream media is screaming about Chris Christie shutting down a couple lanes of a bridge ’n causing a massive traffic jam…it doesn’t seem to matter to them that it probably wuzn’t his fault, that he himself didn’t do it tho’ he did say that since some members of his staff did it, then he was ultimately at fault (which is a lot more responsible than Obama or Hillary have ever in their life done)…anyway, all the noise about the traffic jam seems to be drowning out the should have been noise about the IRS, Benghazi, etcetera, et al….ah well, the aforementioned SacBee (our local NYTimes Democrat propaganda sheet) has aspirations, I guess….

Things at The Homestead seem t’be meandering along pretty much as usual, the new gato, Lady B (Beatrice) is settling in ’n appears to have given up baiting Willy tho’ she still ignores all of his offers to play…

Another day 'n time.....

I wuz six years old, Christmas 1942.  I can’t tell you what I got for Christmas that year, probably a toy gun, a book, some clothing.  The world was at war ’n things were rationed, hard to come by.  Sugar wuz in short supply ’n expensive so candy was rare.  Well, lots of things were rare back then. But, there wuz a Christmas tree.  Almost every home had one.  But there weren't many strung with lights.  Matter of fact, not many of them had lightsat all.  Heck, not every home wuz electrified in those halycon days.  Hard to believe but people would put candles in their trees ’n light them. Can you imagine, open flames ’n dried evergreen. Had to keep an eagle eye or watch the house go up in smoke…And because it wuz wartime, outside lights were prohibited.  Air raid wardens made sure that blinds ’n curtains were drawn so that no light showed to tell enemy bombers where to drop their explosives.  Not that there wuz much chance of any enemy bombers finding their way to the middle of the country but everyone wuz patriotic ’n nobody wanted to take any chances.

It’s a different world today in so many ways, one of which is that people are encouraged to enter into competitions to see how many lights can go on a home.  I’m told some of the decorated homes can be seen from space.

I don’t think people are any happier today but probably not really any unhappier. Most likely, six of one 'n half dozen of the other. Every age has its own problems, its own fears.  People like to remark that the forties or the fifties or whatever age their childhood happened to be, wuz somehow a more innocent time, slower, less stressful.  It ain’t true, y’know.  People been making their own stress since the dawn of time. We are supposed to be unique, I'm told, as every snowflake is supposed to be a little different, but what we are, what we really are, what makes us human is our similarities.  We’re all pretty much alike, the same fears ’n frustrations, the same dreams.  And it don’t much matter what your pigmentation might be, or your gender, or your religious beliefs or lack of them. To quote the long forgot Mr. Kipling, the Colonel's lady ’n Rosie O’Grady are sisters under the skin…..

Christmas of 1942 wuz seventy years ago, a diffent time ’n place.  Seems like the more things change, the more they saty the same.

Merry Christmas to all…..

Waiting for the snow…

well, ’They’ say it’s gonna snow here…here meaning Ol Fair Oaks…I’m taking one of those I’m from Missouri stands on it howsumever ’n I’ll believe it when I see the white stuff in the air…it could happen….but I don’t think we’ll see it on the ground….

I recall one time when we lived over on Montcurve (‘bout a mile away)…it wuz early evening, around dinnertime, I think, when the word began to spread that it wuz snowing ’n we, along with most of the neighbors, came outside to stand in the street ’n watch the snowflakes as they drifted around…I don’t remember any of them ever actually hitting the ground…I do remember Ron Buehler standing in the street ’n offering me a glass of wine…I believe he wuz drinking Gallo Hearty Burgundy at the time…

Ron had a ’62 TR3….it wuz technically, I think, a TR3B which means that it wuz a TR3 body but a TR4 underneath…Triumph Motors wuz big on doing that…didn’t like to waste money…made for some interesting models however, ‘specially when an owner went looking for replacement parts…..back in those halycon daze, I owned for a couple years, a ’57 TR3…interesting model year as there wuz an early model ’n a late model ’n both of them looked the same on the outside…the early model using up all the parts that had been left over from the ’56 model year….

When reminiscing about my little Triumph, I generally describe it as being the best and the worst little car I ever owned…it wuz certainly the most fun being essentially an oversized skateboard that you cudn’t find parts for this side of the Atlantic Ocean…

The last year I owned it, the canvas top shredded so bad, I just threw it away ’n went topless….

Hak, hak, koff, koff....

Debilitate is a ten dollar word that translates into getting one’s butt kicked…

So, the cold, sneezy, runny nose part ain’t exactly fun but it’s the omnipresent coughing, the dry hacking, the light-headedness that ensues from attempting to expel all the air that occurs with the damn coughing, that is the true definition of debilitate…

The good news is…I don’t have pneumonia…pneumonia c’n be treated with antibiotics ’n suchlike but I don’t have it….I got a virus…my doctor very professionally informed me that I have “some kind of virus.”  

And antibiotics don’t work on viruses…they just have to run their course…so I came home with another bottle of codeine cough syrup ’n instructions not to take with alcohol…

In the olden days, I believe doctors use’ta prescribe brandy ’n whiskey….ah well, times change….when I wuz a boy, even tho’ most people knew that cigarettes were called ‘cancer sticks’ for a reason, advertisers insisted that smoking wuz good for you…I recall oldtimers blowing tobacco smoke into children’s lungs in the belief that it wus helpful…now the anti-tobacco people scream if they spot someone smoking on the street where they live ’n the ‘do-gooders’ want to raise taxes on cigarettes by another two or three dollars a pack….I suspect if you’re a shrewd enough biznessperson, that’ud look like an opportunity to go into the bootleg cigarette trade…

I saw a US Senator arguing with a pundit about the need to double the tax on a gallon of gas…the Senator wuz wearing a bicycle lapel pin ’n I’d say it’s even money than someone in his family has a vested interest in the bicycle business….they say Americans don’t really trust their fellow man all that much these days I say that you c’n almost always trust a politician to not only serve his or her self first but to take more’n his share if he thinks he c’n get away with it….’course, maybe I got a different definition of trust going on here…..

Anyway, according to the information that I got from my doctor this morning, the virus that is causing all my discomfort is just about run its course ’n I maybe got another week of the cough to deal with….that ain’t so bad, I guess…it’s cold outside ’n I c’n prob’ly force m’self to snuggle up ’n wait it out….Time flies whether you have fun or not….good tidings to all….