I Thought I Was Wrong Once, But I Was Mistaken

With damn little I can see to vote for that really matters, my civic duty is to write this blog. Like until there's a "None of the above", or a vote for qualities and topics other than which group of short-sighted rich folks do you want to have putting it to you, I don't much see the point of voting. It wasn't too important who ran the show until lately, but with the fate of life on the planet seriously at stake, I'm giving this a shot. I'm well along in years myself and had a ball pretty much my whole life, but I have nothing to leave my substantial progeny in the way of wealth or property, so I'm hoping something I write may do some good for their future. That's my motivation for doing this. I don't have a whole lot of hope, I feel like the prairie dog on that T-shirt, giving the finger to the eagle that's swooping down and about to snatch it. My hero.

The practice used to be, when lightning struck a house, folks would rush in and protect the neighboring homes, but let the burning house go, believing the lightning had been sent down by God, obviously to punish the inhabitants of that house for their sins. And it was death for anyone who worked on Sunday, (or Saturday, depending,) had sex with someone they weren't married to, gave their parents a hard time, or any one of a long list of other offenses that ignorant, uneducated people decided would make a god unhappy. And both the major Presidential Candidates here in 2008--in 2008!--are still into that same superstitious invisible-guy-in-the-sky crap laid down thousands of years ago.

Rock the Vote. (Yeah, right.)

It's Monday, Bastille Day, as I type this. Gas, oil, and food prices have been going up for a while now, and home foreclosures are all the rage. More evidence is being revealed every day that our life-support (Planet Earth) is dying. The U.S. of A. has the largest percentage of its citizens imprisoned than any other country in the world--even those real bad ones. And now the stock market is not only dropping like a pipe out the window of a car getting pulled over by the police, but banks are starting to go belly up while depositors nervously stand in line hoping to get their money out. Kinda bleak. It reminds me of my thoughts way back in 1992, when I first wrote "Off The Road" when I sadly realized I was getting too old to hitchhike all the time anymore. The second paragraph: "Looking around, I have to go "whew". I feel vindicated for the last twenty-five years I wasted on fun and travel. With every new wave of layoffs and failed pension funds and savings institutions, my knees go weak. I could have worked all those years and then suddenly still been in the same boat I'm in now." (If you want, you can read "Off The Road"--Parts 1 and 2--and several other articles and essays I wrote at: www.grinninsinner.com., or just: Helium.com, Bob Thatcher.)

On the bus the other day, I saw two teenage young men with their pants cuffs pulled forward and tied under their shoe laces. The first time I ever saw that and I have no idea what it means. Back when I was in 7th and 8th grades, pants had buckles across the back above the pockets. If you wore yours buckled, it meant you had a girlfriend. If unbuckled, you were looking. I remember guys saying to me, "Bob, you have a girlfriend, so why is your buckle undone?" That pretty much signaled my future: a girlfriend, but still available. (We'd later be called 'swingers'.) I would really like to learn the significance if any of the pants cuffs under the shoe laces. Just style? A serious meaning? A signal to others? Anybody know?

A well-known church, known for its celebrity members, was set up on the street the other day offering free stress tests. When asked if I'd like to take a stress test, I said that "stress" was trying to get off their mailing list, and they all suddenly just looked away. (My friend tried for over twenty years to get them to stop sending her stuff. Finally, after she retired, when she couldn't empty her small P.O. Box daily and it got filled with their junk, stopping them became a top priority. After years of letters and phone calls to please stop with their mailings, she had to do something. She saved up all that they sent her for a while and put it in a large envelope, addressed it to them with no return address, and placed a single stamp on it so they'd have to pay the remaining postage due. After twenty-three years of pleading, she suddenly stopped hearing from them.)

Ever notice that when the time changes, people are often an hour late to work, forgetting to change their clocks? . . . but nobody is ever an hour early when the change goes the other way? Hmmmmm . . .

Where might we be today if Ronald Reagan hadn't canceled the programs to research alternative energies started by President Carter?

Plant your seeds.