O, Bring back my Buddha…

For the last six or eight years, give or take a day or so, we’ve had a Buddha residing under the live oak in our front yard…He wasn’t a large Buddha, somewhat on the smallish side, but he seemed pefectly content where he sat…
A year or so ago, I tho’t he looked a bit lonely so I placed a smallish gnome on his left, about a foot or thereabouts so’s he’d have some company yet not feel crowded…
It seemed to be a happy arrangement and Willie ’n I would greet the Buddha ’n the gnome every day…well, most days…
Until this morning…
Last night, as Millyrose ’n I sat watching the ball game, Willie seemed a bit…well, t’be honest, unsettled…he came t’me several times wanting out…I, of course, having co-habited with dogs for most of my life, took him out…every time he ran to the front porch, nosed around a bit ’n came back in…
This morning, when we went outside for the morning pee, he again ran to the front rather than his normal trip to the rear…being the human, I went along with him and that’s when we discovered that someone had stolen our Buddha…
It’s been a very strange year what with medical emergencies, etcetera, not to mention the strangest election in American hist’ry (worst case scenario, one of ‘em is gonna win)…’n it ain’t over ’til the fat lady sings (I know, I know, not PC sighhh)…
I’m pretty sure that the Buddha thief won’t read this, I’m just venting, ’n perhaps he (or she) needed the Buddha in their life a little more than we do…
Happy Hallowe’en to everyone including the Buddha thief…
Justin Other Smith

In the movie, The Sand Pebbles, Steve McQueens character is shot and killed....as he is leaning against the wall with a surprised look on his face, he mutters to himself, "What happened?  What the Hell happened?"
If there is any justice in this country today, Hillary Clinton is asking, "What happened? What the Hell happened?"

There is no place like this place anywhere near this place…

The national news media, for the most part, seems to be celebrating Hillary winning the election next month already…Trump is dead!…so they say, killed by his own words…as an aside, it seems that it also cost Billy Bush his job on NBC but that is another story…
Celebrity elitists have been screaming that they will leave the USA if Trump wins the election but if Hillary and the democrats win, there is no place for conservatives to go…
This is a last stand situation because the USA is an original, a one of a kind, the shining city on the hill (so to speak) and if it dies, as seems likely, there is truly no place for the deplorables to run…the dream will have ended…the liberals can re-write history to suit themselves…
In the liberal history books, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson (gasp) were slave owners and not representative of the new, sensitive and diverse US of A…ditto, of course, for practically all of the signers who were from the despised (by liberals) and racist South where white fortunes were built on the backs of Negro slaves…Hillary referred to Spielbergs movie vision of Lincoln rather than the actual person who, it is claimed, really believed that those of African descent were inherently unable to compete in a white world (shades of affirmative action) and should be returned to Africa (although most of them actually wanted to stay)…

Up 'n Autumn.....

Two biscuits, two eggs ’n coffee…..and a morning newspaper…well, a facsimile of a newspaper anyway….which is by way of my saying this is NOT about my breakfast on this fine October morning….

The Sac Bee Editorial Board has done it again…I’d write a protest letter to them but they’d never print it…they’re, I think, more into printing ‘made-up’ letters from purported republicans claiming to switch parties because of the abominable Donald Trump…

See, I’m pretty sure that so far as the Editorial Board of the Sacramento Bee is concerned, the only good republican is one who shouldn’t ever be allowed to cast a vote.  

To that end, this morning they castigated the horrible Donald Trump for writing his business loss off his income tax. What a terrible person he must be.  Such a wealthy man and obviously cheating in some way.  What kind of business genius loses almost a billion dollars anyway??

Well, both Warren Buffett and George Soros have lost more than that in a single year AND used the tax system to write off their losses…

I suppose that’s okay since they’re both democrats (and huge donors to the democrat party) and, of course, it’s perfectly acceptable in the progressive liberal democrat (read socialist) party to have two sets of rules…one for the obviously smarter, more informed and superior liberal minds and another rule for the rest of us ‘deplorables’ who, damnation anyhow, are needed to work the fields, mow the lawns, cook the meals, etcetera ad infinitum, ad nauseum….

What an absolutely fine way to begin the first Tuesday in October….Justin Other Smith

"Of ships 'n seas, 'n sealing wax, of cabbages 'n Kings'....

I haven’t posted for awhile now…I began this blog at the suggestion of my oldest daughter ‘way back in ’06 after being diagnosed with Hodgkins Lymphoma and advised to limit my interaction with other people so as to minimize any chances of acquiring an infection…the blog was supposed to be a way for me to keep friends and family informed of my progress…
Well, I beat the cancer as anyone who has been following this blog will know and went on to talk of many things….”of ships and seas ’n sealing wax”…whatever took my fancy…I commented a lot on political stuff because politics in this country (’n I suspect around the world) is absurdity in action…
I’ve met a lot of diosenchanted souls  that claim ‘it doesn’t matter who gets elected, they’re all corrupt’….’n there is truth in that statement, at least to a degree…BUT like Diogenes searching the world for an honest man, I stubbornly hang on the belief that I got hooked on after watching the late, great Frank Capra’s classic movie, Mr Smith goes to Washington…somewhere, sometime, there must be an honest man in politics, someone who is not in it just for the power and wealth that can be amassed by ‘screwing the pooch’ …the pooch, of course, being us, the American public…
I don’t know what kind of POTUS Donald Trump will make…I kind’a somewhat believe that the office just might make the man and he really could go down in history as the man who saved the republic…I’d like to believe that…I really would…and certainly not for the sake of Donald Trump but for the sake of the republic..”My country, t’is of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing…”  Silly, ain’t it…but I believe in it…all the sappy stuff that cynical people make fun of…
Hellfire and damnation (quoting Manuel Smith here) that’s the way I was raised…
I do know that Hillary and the democrat party are intent on the destruction of the America I love…I’m not sure why…hard to believe that they’re all so intent on lining their own pockets that they don’t give a damn about everyone else…
I think, I hope, that the working people of this country will take over the republican  party, hold elected officials accountable for what they do…for what they’ve done…
Y’see, I believe in the United States…I believe in justice for all…
I think it was an ancestor of mine (p’haps, p’haps not)…a fellow named John Addams who, on is dying bed, is reputed to have asked about health of Thomas Jefferson and when told that Jefferson was still alive, remarked that the republic was still safe….or words to that effect…..
anyhow, if I’ve bored anyone, I apologize…if you find my remarks interesting or trite or whatever you may think of them, if you’ve got this far, I’m thankful for that…
Got some personal stuff that we’re working through here but I will post again…God willing and the crick don’t rise……..have a good day, Justin Other Smith

Popcorn for sale....

The following tale is a short one, a capsule shot, if you will, of these modern times and how little things have actually changed…..

As the (somewhat) elderly couple exited a church, they were beset by a group of urchins clad in the distinctive blue uniforms of a para-military group better known as Cub Scouts…The man knew instinctively that he was going to have to pay some sort of ransom to get off the church grounds….

The group led the couple to the Masterminds (?) of the operation, grownup, seemingly adult men also clad in the distinctive blue of the Cub Scouts…

POPCORN…different flavors and sizes…

Okay, said the lady (who shall remain nameless here for reasons that will soon be apparent)…we’ll have a large bag of caramel corn….

Very well, said what appeared to be the fearless leader…That will be 20 dollars…

(Here it comes, make yourself ready)…”Are you shitting me?” said the lady……

The tale, of course, goes on just a bit but you have the salient part so I think I’ll just end right here…..

Oh, hope you have a good day….

Achilles had a vulnerable heel....

All our heroes are flawed, one way or another...mostly, we tend to overlook those flaws...

at least for awhile....

When I was a boy, I went to Sunday School almost every week where I learned about God and Creation and Jesus and his disciples and it has pretty much stuck with me all these long years.

I also went to school, pretty much five days a week from September ’til June. At that time, in almost every classroom in every school all across this country of ours, there hung a portrait of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the head of the democrat party and the by God savior of this nation.

And then, this demi-god died.  The railroad tracks were lined with people who doffed their hats and bowed their heads as the train bearing his coffin to Washingtod passed by.

His place was taken by Harry (the buck stops here) Truman who put an end to World War II by dropping two atom bombs on Japan.  Theorticians and wannabe intellectuals can debate forever about Churchill and Stalin and Eisenhower and Montgomery and all the rest but the people knew that Harry S Truman stopped the damn war.  And then he went home.  To Independence, Missouri, where he walked the streets as a normal man.

We humans are fond of picking our heroes to pieces, exposing the clay feet that support the idealized statue so, over the years, the myth of FDR has been debunked. He was, after all is said and done, a man.  With feet of clay.  Damn!  Ain’t that a big surprise? 

Still, it doesn’t seem to stop us from seeking our gods amongst ourselves. We tend to idolize entertainers, movie stars and athletes and such, but, like barnyard fowl, when we discover a weakness, we gang up on the offender and destroy them.

They deserve the punishment. They mis-led us. Or we mis-lead ourselves which makes us even angrier and someone must pay. Not us, of course, but someone.

Once upon a time, I voted for Bill Clinton. Bill was, and is, a charmer. A seller of snake oil, a pitchman for the greatest sideshow this country can offer.  And I voted for him. Only once, mind you, because I couldn’t bring myself to countenance his lies.  A lot of people voted for h im because, it was after all, a guy thing to lie about women.  And since it just could not be the fault of our chosen god, we opted to destroy the object of his affections, Monica Lewinsky, a naive youngster whose crime was simply to be the wrong time and place.

And now we have Obama, the ‘black’ savior come to part the sea of prejudice and thwart the bad guys. And his lies, egregious and many, are forever captured on video for all the world to see, to either judge or ignore. Our choice. And Hillary, on his coattails, attempting to re-create his success.   

The rationale, that I heard from a neighbor, is that George W. Bush lied about weapons of mass destruction over a decade ago and that seems to be justification enough. It doesn’t seem to matter that there has never been proof that George W. actually lied, only that he professed to believe what he was told. 

Ah well, once upon a time, I believed in FDR and the democrat party…but then, I grew up…..

It ain’t easy getting old and I do try not too judge too harshly those innocents who believe that the fault is not theirs, cannot be theirs, must then lie elsewhere…let us blame the wealthy, the rich, those who force us to load that barge and tote that bale so that they may so that they may dine on caviar and oysters…

As for me, an old friend told me the other day that if and when I chose to visit, she’d fix me cornbread and brown beans, fried potatoes and maybe a slice or two of fresh tomato and a hunk of onion…

                                         ~30~

Beattyville, part 2...

Beattyville, part 2

The hills, across the tracks and above Beattyville were covered with honeysuckle. To this day the smell of honeysuckle (or jasmine) can take me back.  The hills are still there, and the river. I have it on pretty good authority that they will still be there long after all of us have turned to dust or whatever it is that we become when the worms get at us…

I see photos of Beattyville today and it’s similar to the one I grew up in but also different…when I was a boy, seemed like the alleys were full of vhildren…I don’t think that any of us ever thought of ourselves as ‘children’…kids, yeah, definitely not adults.  Adults were the ones that kept telling us to slow down, don’t talk so loud, must’nt fight…seems as though we needed adults to tell us to go home at night…well, y’know how it is when you get to counting stars…

I remember Betty Euton  (double-jointed, they said )…she ’n Margie (?)  Kieth and Marilyn Harvey practicing cheers in the Euton’s front yard…loved those uniforms…not surprisingly, friends of mine, Yvonne Fultz, Betty Jo Cooper, Barbara Craycraft, all aspired to be cheerleads also…and they could all of them do back-flips and cartwheels…and they made it look easy which was all the more frustating ‘cause I couldn’t do anything like that…’n right offhand, I don’t recall any boy that could…

When I was 10 or 11 years old, Yvonne had a birthday party ’n we played what was then called ‘kissing games’…spin the bottle and postoffice ’n some others, I think…one of those girls was the first girl I ever kissed ’n I don’t know that I ever got over it…

My mem’ries seem to come to me as snapshots, unrelated pictures that play in my mind.  And they don’t come in order…I remember joining the Cub Scouts and the the Boy Scouts…Delbert Fultz was the scoutmaster and had all of us in his house for a meeting, I can’t recall if it was weekly or monthly but he and his wife, Iva, are in my memory just as the honeysuckle and the river…

I have no idea where I’m going with all this mem’ry stuff…if you like it, let me know, if you get tired of all this BS, let me know that also…that might give me enough incentive to stop…

until whatever…..David Smith