Mad at McDonald's

I came home from Hessel, in Michigan's glorious Upper Peninsula, early yesterday morning. I left our place at around 4:45, low on gas but figuring that I could make St. Ignace, the last town before the Mackinaw Bridge which leads into Michigan's cool yet not so glorious Lower Peninsula (sorry, Trolls). I safely presumed there would be gas stations open there. And restaurants, because I had eaten everything substantial which I had bought in Hessel and was hungry.

Gas stations were indeed available. I gassed up the new old van and bought an extra large coffee for the road trip ahead of me. You simply must have an extra large coffee on a road trip, of course. And leaving the station for MacDonald's, I was a bit chagrined to find Mickey D's not open. And I thought, "Why aren't they open at 5:30?" Because they should be, right?

Wrong, quite wrong, as I quickly told myself. It was arrogance on my part to presume the McDonald's in St. Ignace, Michigan had to be open at 5:30 in the morning merely because it would serve my desire, my convenience. But it leads me to wonder how many other wrong expectations I might hold about the world around me. In my case, as I think about it, there are many. How about you?

So to the St. Ignace McDonald's, I offer you an apology you don't know you deserve, because I should at least say it to someone. And the situation caused me to check my thoughts when the McDonald's at Indian River, the next closest McDonald's along my route, was still closed thirty minutes later.

Costly tools

Smitty's Rental was on the northwest side of Detroit for many years. I'm not sure how many, but I remember Smitty when I was still in high school and he only retired recently, so it was quite a few. One day he related a tale to me Pops which, when I think of it until yet, I shake my head in wonder.

A guy came in one day to rent a shovel. Just a regular spade shovel, like many of us have in our basements or garages. Smitty told him they rented for a buck a week or $3.50 a month. He said he wanted it for a month, so Smitty took his credit card information, ran it, and the guy left with the tool.

When he didn't return it at the end of the month, Smitty called him. He wanted it for another month. Having kept the card info as a hedge against thievery or breakage, a standard business practice in the rental trade, Smitty ran another month's rent.

That month passed and Smitty called again. The guy said run his card for a third month.

The next month came. Smitty called once more. After not getting a call back in several days, he ran the guy's card for a fourth month, and it went through. The same thing happened in the fifth and six months. In fact it continued for three years, three dollars and fifty cents a month, the card never rejected, until Smitty had collected $126 on that one spade shovel.

He quit running it at that point. "Bill," he told Pops, "I grossed $126 on one rent on a shovel that cost me ten. This after renting it to a few other people first. But it was my shovel, the fella quit calling back, and nobody ever complained." Smitty paused. "But a guy's gotta have a conscience, right, Bill?"

I understand Smitty's point. I just don't understand what the renter wanted with a such an expensive shovel. 

A Hessel kind of day

I'm in Hessel in Michigan's glorious Upper Peninsula until tomorrow. But it's supposed to rain heavy all day today. That means of course that I'll have to grill in the garage with the doors open. 

I can live with that. A bad day in Hessel beats a good day almost anywhere else.

You notice the differences between being here in the spring or summer compared to now. There's noticeably fewer people, and the weather tends to be more dicey. Still, it's Hessel, and I likely won't get back up here until May. So we takes what we gets and be happy with it. Because I'll be home tomorrow and it won't be Hessel.

To see what is there

We must invoke the most wild and soaring sort of imagination; the imagination to see what is there.

Those are the words of Mr. G. K. Chesterton, and they are found very early on in his book The Everlasting Man. I am endeavoring to read it as I spend a few days this weekend in northern Michigan.

To see what is there. We are told quite often that imagination consists of, basically, the creation of we know not what. Creation is to come out of little or nothing; the truly and completely new is to have no connection with the world as we know it. It is to be entirely novel, and without compare. Yet if it is without compare, how may we know its value? How might we rank it? How might we even find it, with no clue as to its existence, beyond the norms of human pale?

I rather believe, and I am quite early in the reading of his book so I may be interpreting it wrongly, that I get his meaning. It stems from another statement of his which I quite like, and which says, and please excuse what may be a paraphrase, There is nothing which it takes more courage to speak than a truism. For truth, perhaps, consists in affirming nothing more than what any good conscience would already know. In this world of undue consideration and deference, that is strength indeed.

All I know this second is, I look forward with great anticipation Chesterton's imagination.

Dash it all

As I stood in line at the Dollar General - yes, I mock them but they do have great prices - it dawned on me what I was buying. Not that I didn't know what I had, but that it occurred to me that there was something odd or incongruent about it. You see, I was buying mouthwash - a potty mouth like mine needs it - and snack cakes.

Of course, maybe that's not so out of line. One purchase was to get a hefty dose of sugar, the other to remove the sugar from my teeth, thus avoiding dental problems.

So maybe - just maybe - it wasn't so odd. And maybe - just maybe - I want an excuse to overemploy  dashes this morning.

Luck no luck

As I took my morning constitutional today I came across a slew of lottery tickets strewn across the road. This has actually happened to me once before. My eldest son and I spied a ton of lottery slips across a neighborhood intersection once and we stopped and picked them up. We took them to a nearby party store to check them out. You never know, right? They're bearer items, and even an errant ten bucks buys a pizza.

Alas, after several minutes of scanning the tickets we were not rich. We went and got a pizza anyway. Why not?

So, methinks, so maybe this time will be different. Maybe this time I will be able to get free pizza. I gathered all the slips and on returning home checked them out on my computer. And you know what?

I'm still gonna have to pay for my pizza.

The Oklahoma Party Bus

One day as me Grandpa Joe was hobo-ing across the State of Oklahoma, he either thumbed for or was offered a ride. Either way, he took it. And he quickly regretted the decision.

As I heard the story, the six or eight people shoe horned into this old jalopy (I want to say a Model T Ford but I'm simply uncertain) happily shoe horned him in with them. It turns out it was something of a party car though. Joe talked about careening down rough dirt roads, the car hopping and jumping like a bucking bronco while the driver pushed it to whatever speed limit it could hold. He feared at every turn that the entire lot of them would fly off into a ditch, or worse. I'm just surprised me Grandpa would be feared of any kind of driving, what with what he drove and the way he drove them.

But as I said, it was also a party car. A whiskey bottle made its way around the vehicle freely, each soul drinking deeply of it, and all being vaguely offended that he would have none of the hootch. And with each empty bottle another one produced itself, keeping the revelry on a high.

For Joe's part, he soon wanted the ride behind him. Bouncing all over the road and subsequently being bounced into one another didn't bother the partiers at all. But he tired of it quickly, especially as the largest person in the car always seemed to land right on him with each rut in the road. 

Evening came upon the group, and Joe saw the light of a farmhouse ahead and yelled, pointing, "That's my stop!" even though it was not. Far from it. Anything to get out of that rattletrap Ford and her hard partiers. 

The driver pulled over and let him out at the driveway to the farm. Me Grandpa made sure to start along it until the car was on its way. Well on its way. Then he doubled back to the road, hoping for better luck yet more than happy to hoof it for a spell.

Copper all the way

Whenever me Grandpa Joe would scrap out a fried arc welder he would toss the stripped copper into a 55 gallon drum. When the drum was filled, it was me Pops' job from early on to take it to the scrap yard.

The scrap yard they frequented was owned by an old gentleman. When Dad would go to put the drum on the scale the old man would ask him, "Young man, is that copper from the top all the way to the bottom?" He would motion with an upward pointer at the beginning, turning it down until he was pointing at the floor when he finished his question.

"Yes, sir," me Pops would always answer. He would add, "I can dump it onto the floor to show you."

Holding the palm of his right hand up as though to stop Dad in his tracks the man would reply, "Your word is enough."

This happened every time, me Pops often related, that he took copper out to scrap. "Young man, is that copper from the top all the way to the bottom?" "Your word is enough."

Dad wondered if perhaps it was some form of ritual, simple habit, or the owner's way of letting you know that he trusted you while being sure of what he was getting. Or maybe he simply believed in believing in people.

Well, a man's word should be his bond, right?

Analyzing lawn signs

It's election season (heavy sigh). As such, we see quite a few lawn signs out there. Most are pretty straightforward: vote for this or that person, party, or ballot issue. But a few can be confusing.

Out on a Sunday drive with my dear mother yesterday, the signs were on display in all their, all their, uh, glory. Yet I was taken aback in confusion by one which I actually spied on about three lawns. It said, plainly, Romeo Concrete.

It didn't identify a party. It didn't say anything about Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, or tiny little political party of your choice. It was not red, white, or blue in any combination. There wasn't so much as a small, star backed elephant or donkey on it to clue me in on what the sign supported.

I can't find a Romeo Concrete on any party website. I can't find where he/she/it is running for anything at all, or where he/she/it (they?) stand on any issue or ballot initiative. Indeed, politically I can't find anything about it at all.

So I think I'll vote for Romeo Concrete. If I'm in their district that is, which I can't find out either.

House Rules rule

I believe in house rules. So long as it's not immoral, your house, your rules. Fair enough, eh? So I would never drink or bring alcohol into the home of someone who didn't want it in there. It's the right thing attitude to have, out of respect for them.

One time however while we were staying with a tea totaling aunt of mine we brought in Cheerwine, a cherry soda very popular in North Carolina. Indeed it's so popular there there's a Cheerwine Festival every year in Salisbury, North Carolina where the pop is made. I'm not sure why, in a state with something of a dry history, the makers would add the term wine to their beverage, but hey. Their house, their rules, right?

Well, me Aunt found the empties and proceeded to lecture us on how we might dare bring wine into her house. It took us a few to minutes to explain that we would never do that, that it was a harmless, non alcohol, cherry pop, and that was all. Mollified, she allowed us to stay with her a few more days. 

It's a good thing the vodka we had added was odorless.

I kid, I kid! We did not and would not have done that. But in retrospect I probably would have showed her the Cheerwine upon arrival and let her have a bottle if she had liked, just to try.

A nickel an hour

Me Grandpa Joe was always proud of his willingness to work. Sometimes this led to impressive results; sometimes to the unusual; sometimes to the funny.

He never went more than two weeks without a job, even during the Great Depression. That's considering he would quit a job, when jobs were scarce. Why work for someone or something you didn't like, he reasoned.

Once he and a buddy found themselves working long hours. They decided, in friendly rivalry, to see how long they actually could work (this was before rules and laws forbade such things). The two of them concurrently pulled 61 hour shifts, which only ended when the foreman ordered, "You're both crazy. Get the hell outta here!"

Joe took a new job once while he was already employed; it paid twenty five cents an hour (significant at that time) more than the one he held. While getting his gear together his suddenly former employer begged him to stay, ending his plea with an incredulous, "So you'd leave me for a quarter an hour?"

"Hell, I'd leave ya for a nickel an hour," Joe said simply as he left.

I don't know about you, but I admire the man.

Marty's being an Infant

As if I don't waste enough of my life on nonsense, let me share with you the nonsense I've wasted time on in the last day.

You know how people frequently use the word 'baby' as a term of endearment? Your wife or husband or long lost lover is your baby, right? Well, isn't that kind of demeaning when you think about it?

I was listening to Linda Ronstadt cooing her old song Oooh, Baby, Baby and I thought, how would that sound if we replaced baby with another term for a tiny human child? What if we substituted infant for it?

Oooo, oo, ohh, Infant, Infant. Oooo, ooo, ooh, Infant, Infant. Funny, eh? How about this: Oh where oh where can my infant be? You know, from Pearl Jam's Last Kiss. And you can do it with almost any song which employs baby as a familiar. Carl Perkins' rockabilly standard Everybody's Tryin' to be My Baby becomes Everybody's Tryin' to be my Infant. Peter Frampton's famous hit is now Infant I Love Your Way. The Beach Boys are singing Don't Worry Infant. And have you heard the Beatles sing Infant You're a Rich Man? For you suburban rapper wannbees we have Vanilla Ice performing Ice Ice Infant.

I could go on. But I so hope I've given you the ear worm now. So tell me what you come up with. 

Not your cable

As I've said before, and quite contrary to his father (me Grandpa Joe) little could set off me Pops. But what did set him off, set him off.

We sell things, drain snakes and drain snake parts and accessories, as many of you know. So we have often fielded calls about this or that. 'Cosgriff, do you have a 3/4 cable?' and the like. If when taking such a call we did in fact have one, me Pops would of course answer that yes, we did. "Cool, Cosgriff. I'll be down soon to get it."

When, as happened with some regularity, they didn't come down soon to get it (and this was before credit cards were used to hold things) Pops would sell the cable to someone else. Invariably, sometimes several weeks to a month after vowing to quickly get it, the original caller would arrive.

"I'm here to get that cable, Cosgriff."

"I sold it," me Pops would plainly say.

Incredulously, late customer would snort, "Aw man, you sold my cable?"

"No, I sold MY cable!" the old man would snort right back at them, except with deeper emphasis. It was his until it was sold, not some latecomer's, who would then get a lecture on how me Pops owned it until HE sold it, because that that was how sales worked.

Such attitudes irritated me Dad, and I'm with him on that.

Lidsville

I am going to throw my brother Phil under the bus today. Sorta. Because it's his fault I found myself in the predicament I was in this past Sunday, all over something I had never before considered.

He had mentioned that it might be a good idea to have cups with lids at the Shop for our coffee. We have our famous Newark Keurig up there for our hot beverages. Yet the old barn is a dirty place where things might fall into our drinks, or they may get tipped and such, so it would be a good idea to cover them. Fair enough; I know a good idea I can steal when I see it.

As it happened I was out with Mom this past Sunday and I stumbled onto paper cups with lids on sale. I began to pick them over. There were brown cups with images of steaming coffee on them. I set them aside to study red ones with vaguely Christmas, wintery scenes on them, also with what I am thinking was hot chocolate filling the cups. Another set was green with an evergreen theme. I found myself looking over those and other choices intently, trying decide which were best, making comparisons of this and that. That's when I heard a masculine voice in my head tell me, "Dude, you're shopping."

Guys don't shop. They go into a store and grab what they want and get out. We all know this. Still, I protested, "But the winter cups would be nice, what with winter coming up and all, while the green ones are kind of timeless."

"The brown ones are more like what you'd use for coffee," masculine voice opined, "Although the blue ones over there are sporty, with baseballs and footballs on them."

A second, even more masculine voice then said emphatically, "Guys, you're shopping!"

I coughed and took a package of the brown cups. They were properly generic, and that's all.

The standoff

You know how people, when driving, never quite know how to react when four cars come together at the same moment at an intersection where every direction has a stop sign? There's those precious few seconds where everyone is eyeing everyone else, waiting. Then one guy creeps up at the same time as another, so they both stop. Finally everybody is waving everybody else through, and it all snowballs until someone decides to hell with it, I'd rather crash my car than sit here being polite. With one car gone there is an audible sigh of relief from the other three, as now there's a reference point and everyone can go about their business. You know how that is, right?

Thanks to the corona virus (don't fret, I'm not going to rant about t today per se) I had the experience of such an instance while walking this morning. With social distance and what all, I have learned to watch ahead for other walkers, joggers, and those who have their dogs on a morning constitutional, and cross the street well ahead of time to avoid each person, as even near contact means certain death to us (okay, I'll rant a tiny bit). Others apparently do that for me too. Although I do realize that they tended to cross the street ahead of me before the virus struck, now that I think about it.

Anyway, that all works well. Until today. Today I had the experience of four of us coming from each direction about to meet at a corner. At that point the car stop scenario came into play.

Initially I began to slow my gait, intent on waiting for the others to pass. Yet each seemed to be doing that exact thing for me and the other two as it were. We all slowed until facing each other from four corners at Commonwealth and Warren Avenues. And we stood. And we stared.

The glances were next flying about as four sets of eyes (actually six as one young woman had her dog) studied the all others, none of us with any real clue what to do. We weren't masked and that's too bad. We might have seemed like a recreation of the O.K. Corral or an old west bank robbery if our faces were half covered.

Someone broke and took a step precisely before someone did. That caused them each to stop and take a turn back. The dog looked about as though we were all stupid. The staring, the watchful glances, began anew.

I finally did what a car cannot do easily. I turned around and went back from whence I came. I still had a few blocks to go to make my quota anyway.

The sigh of relief from behind me was indeed audible as I retraced my steps, the remaining three happy to have an exit strategy with an open corner available. And I'm going to get back to starting my walks at 6:30 when there ain't so many people about.

Sunday morning downer

Yeah, why not use Sunday, the penultimate day of the week, the day we relax and refresh ourselves and our psyches, the day we look upon the coming week as chock full of possibility and potential-fulfillment, as a day to pop balloons? Because let's face it: in the world of axioms and catchphrases meant to inspire, some are just plain wrong.

We try to inspire our kids by saying they can be anything they want to be. But they can't. There are too many people and too many things beyond their control working against them. We simply cannot, by force of will and the power of daydreams, be anything we want to be. Some teacher or interviewer simply won't like you. Your path will be blocked. That's life.

You can if you think you can, we are told. Well, refer back to what I just said. Because, no you can't. You can't be a walrus without a lot of miracles. Or a lot of expensive surgery. Or eating just far too much.

Never give up! But, you know, sometimes the smart thing is exactly the opposite. Sometimes you need to give up; sometimes it is the best thing to do. Sometimes it's the only thing to do: there are no other options. Nothing. There are times to cut bait.

Follow your dreams! Do we actually want to be walking the hallways of our schools in our underwear?

There, now. Still looking forward to the week?

Blue golf

Some things, you just don't know how they happen.

A couple of days ago I got out of bed early to take my morning constitutional. I got dressed, got my keys, wallet and cell phone (all the standard items a guy needs these days) and was out the door. Then I thought I felt something in my shoe when I went down the front porch steps. But as soon as I was on the sidewalk everything felt fine. So I kept walking.

Nothing more happened at first. But once I was about four blocks away I definitely felt something. Leaning against a tree, I took off my shoe and, holding it upside down, shook it. Nothing.

Huh? So I felt under my foot to discover something under my toes. Taking off my sock and reaching inside I found - I am not making this up - a blue broken golf tee.

How in the world did such a thing get inside my sock? It was a fresh pair which I had rolled together after taking them out of the wash and putting them in my sock drawer a few days before. On top of that, I don't recall ever having any blue golf tees. Virtually all of mine are painted white or simply plain wood.

One of the mysteries of the universe I suppose.

September 11, 2020

Nineteen years have now passed since what may become the defining point of a generation. Nineteen years, almost to the minute as this is being written, terrorists attacked the Pentagon, the World Trade Center, and were overcome by the passengers of an airplane over the hills of Pennsylvania. All that time, and we still cannot make any sense of it.

The trouble is that there is no sense to be made. To be sure, we can understand the reasons for even such terrible actions, in the same way that we can understand the reasons Hitler did what he did. Yet that is not the same as understanding.

How do we, how can we, come to actually understand rape or murder or thievery, mass murder or any any other evil which may be added to such a gruesome list, if we are to be decent human beings ourselves? It is only in a warped mind where such heinous acts may be justified. As such, reasonable people simply cannot understand them. It is beyond their ability; it is to them pure nonsense. Because, of course, it is pure nonsense.

So the goal today should be to remember. Remember the victims and their families, remember the countless acts of heroism that day, remember even the perpetrators of such despicable carnage if for no other reason than to remind ourselves that such twisted souls do exist, seeking the ruin of those those not in lockstep with their worldview. Remember even so that their redemption may be possible. If we are the good people we claim to be, even that shouldn't be so difficult of a task on so difficult of an anniversary.

Halloween 2020

Well, Halloween is creeping up on us, isn't it? That means I have to put some thought into my costume.

I've went as myself many times and have been successfully scary (I saved you the joke; you're welcome). I've been the Charlie Brown ghost with all the extra eye holes. A couple of years ago I wore an old style hockey goalie mask like Jason from the Friday the 13th movies. I was actually a bit unnerved myself then because of the number of seven year olds who knew who Jason was. 

Last year I wore a goat mask while wearing a flannel shirt and farmer's overalls, sort of like the killer from (I think) the Texas Chainsaw massacre. I say I think because the horror genre is not one I'm actually up on. Oh, I know the most famous ones, Freddy Krueger, the aforementioned Jason and so on. But who doesn't, in this world of advertising and Halloween excess?

But I think I have my costume set for this year. I'll wear normal clothes but I'll walk around without a mask or a face shield. I will also violate any and all remaining social distancing guidelines. You know, get within four feet of someone rather than six. That should work.

After all, according to the mainstream media and Governor Whitmer, that makes me a monster, right?

And if you can't see the humor in what I just said, take a pill will ya?

The keys to my kingdom

Keys, wallet, cell phone. That's my basic checklist every time I leave my house. But it does leave me to wonder why I have so many keys.

Some of them I have to have of course. The keys to my house, my car, and the old barn for example. I can't work, get back into the house, or drive without them. Yet even there I find duplicity. Two house keys are on my key ring: the one I use and the original key, the first one we got when we bought our house in 1981. The original one has worn down so bad I was afraid I'd break it off in the lock, so I had a second made. Yet I keep the first one with me. It's too sentimental, perhaps, that I do. But I do.

I always have my keys to our place in da UP, in Hessel, on me. It makes me feel as though I could at any time, on a whim essentially, just say forget everything and go up north. Sure, I haven't ever came close to actually doing that. But hey, maybe one day as I leave Indianapolis after a sales trip I might just think that I'll drive up Interstate 69 and into US 127 by Lansing and onto Interstate 75 just before Grayling and go straight to Hessel. That can't happen if I don't have my Hessel keys.

I still have my last classroom key, which I think I was supposed to have turned in. But I haven't taught since January 2010, and the Warren Consolidated Schools know where to find me if they need it. I'd be shocked if the locks haven't been changed anyway. Especially to keep me out.

I even still have the key to the gym of old St. Alphonsus in Dearborn, from when I was a coach there. I know they've changed that lock. I don't care if they have. I haven't had to use it since 2003.

There are keys from old locks which are so gone to history that I'll never be able to figure out where they went. I mean keys to locks we had at the Shop in the 1970s. I carry old suitcase keys, an old locker key from when the Detroit Curling Club was on Drake road in West Bloomfield, and one which I haven't a clue of its origin. And I keep them all.

I just think of it as small time hoarding.

Max and Gilligan

This past Sunday I wrote about watching a Get Smart marathon. The show was of course about a bumbling secret agent, Maxwell Smart, who was a lovable dolt. He drove his boss, who was only known the Chief, crazy. Yet things always seemed to work out despite Max. I suppose they'd have to; not much of a comedy if the lead character actually gets killed because of his stupidity.

I happened into an old friend yesterday (I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name) and mentioned that I spent a lot of the weekend watching the marathon. He asked, "Did you see the one where Max did something dumb and the Chief yelled at him, Max!"

"Cloyce," I said, "That's like asking if I saw the Gilligan's Island episode where they almost got off the island but Gilligan messed it up."

Cloyce is a bit like Max when you think about it.

Would you believe it's been off 50 years?

Some things never get old.

I've been watching a Get Smart marathon this weekend. It really was a pretty funny show. Yeah, much of the humor is goofball. But goofball done well is still good.

And the catchphrases. "Would you believe?" " I can't believe I fell for (the old gun in the stuffed bunny trick) or some such." Followed by, 'that's the second time this week'.  Or, "It'll never work," Maxwell Smart would opine, dismissing an evil plan. When threatened by the assailant he would then then finish, "But it's certainly worth a try."

Then there's evil KAOS against Smart's agency, CONTROL. Kaos vs. Control. I love it.

And I laugh every time at the closing credits. How stupid is it that Max walks right into the closing door and pinches his nose? But I laugh every time.

It's said you can't beat the classics. Get Smart is classic.

Same old Lions joke

I avoid clickbait. You know, those ads which entice you with a headline then ask you to run through a slideshow one click at a time so they may inundate you with ads. I get that. I'm not saying it's wrong. I'm not entitled to their information. But I'm also not going to sit there and click through 20-40 pages of stuff either for the one morsel I actually am interested in reading about.

Anyway, I click on an ad yesterday where the teaser said, "Next Michigan city to get an NFL team." And I immediately thought, "Detroit?"

I know, I know. It's just a variation on a tired old joke. But you thought it too, didn't you?

The Shop's Mystery Spot

Years ago I wrote about how this one spot in the alley alongside the Shop always dried out quickly. Rain evaporated quicker and snow melted faster. You can read about it here if you like:

https://thesublimetotheridiculous.blogspot.com/2009/06/dry-spot-in-alley.html

The mystery had perhaps been solved! Our neighbors across the alley unfortunately have been having sewer troubles. Their basement filled with water every time there was a heavy rain. After trying many things, it became apparent the sewer had to be dug. The problem was determined to be in the alley where their line tapped into the city main.

Tuesday they had it dug up, right at the place where the concrete dries so readily. The contractor found that there was a sinkhole about twelve feet deep under that spot. That may, he opined, explain the dry spot which I had mentioned to him. In a heavy rain the hole would fill, and once that water was higher than the level of our neighbors' basement floor the basement began to fill, through the broken sewer which was deep in the sinkhole. The sinkhole would be warmed, maybe, as the water sat seeping into the ground and/or the city main.

I'll be watching that spot closely now, and I'll try to think to let you know the result. But it may be a couple years to know for certain.

Why I cannot vote for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris

I am going to be as charitable as I can with this piece. My honest intention with everything I write is not to offend people, especially family and friends. I know I have and will likely again fail this goal. Yet there are things which must be said, some of them in self defense, some because I really believe that not saying them is to neglect my duty as a Christian. So I am going to explain why I cannot vote for the Biden-Harris ticket.

First and foremost, they are pro-abortion up to the moment of birth in a Democrat Party which is creeping towards outright infanticide. Or is Governor Northam an outlier? Of that I'm skeptical. The Party as a whole sure hasn't rushed to condemn him any way you slice it. And was I the only one who heard the cheering when Governor Cuomo signed the abortion until birth law in New York? Both positions are reprehensible, indefensible, and wholly contradictory to Christian ideals.

You may assert that this amounts to single issue voting. That is not the case, as I will get to in a moment. I will admit that abortion is the litmus test question for me. But if that amounts to single issue voting I can't think of another issue which would merit such consideration. It is surely a greater evil than racism or sexism or gun violence. While racism certainly can involve murder, it does not of necessity involve it. Abortion involves murder Every. Single. Time. No exceptions. This includes, of course, the abortion of minority children and female children too. The only way around this is to assert that abortion is not murder. Well, assert it then. But you would be wrong. Human women have human children. And we quite honestly don't need the Bible to know that. Common sense, right reason, says so.

I have little respect for the argument that we can't force our beliefs on others. We do that All. The. Time. Laws making us drive on the right hand side of the road are enforcing a belief in order on the highways as necessary and proper, and rightly. Obamacare forced a belief on me which I found completely repugnant, indeed tyrannical, yet there were no cries against forcing a belief there. All public acts force beliefs. Force alone is no valid argument against anti-abortion laws.

To be sure, I cannot force matters of pure faith upon anyone. I cannot make you attend Church via legal order nor support legislation compelling you to confess your sins to a priest. Yet those are indeed entirely matters of faith, and faith itself teaches that it must be freely accepted. Abortion is a moral issue which we in the body politic have the right to oppose no matter what our personal backgrounds or belief systems.

But as I said, it's about more than abortion, though all the other issues pale in comparison. The ticket is blatantly anti-Catholic. Mr. Biden may say what he wants about the importance of his Catholic faith; his words and actions render his pablum meaningless. Again, he supports abortion. He also supports making Catholic medical centers and practices pay for contraception. He wants to make religious institutions go against their most basic principles. For her part, Ms. Harris openly believes that Catholics should not be on the Federal bench, opposing one appointee merely because he was in the Knights of Columbus, a charitable organization which does much good in communities across America. Take a look at this if you will, as I take a certain delight that it comes from a Jesuit source, Jesuits being the most liberal of Catholics:

https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2020/08/20/kamala-harris-knights-of-columbus-catholic

And if abortion and being anti-Catholic means little to you, Ms. Harris will take your guns too. She's made that clear as well.

Truthfully, every question after these, while perhaps important enough on their own and in need of discussion and analysis, do not rise to the critical levels of abortion and anti-Catholicism (and of course by easy extension anti-Christianity in general). Although I wouldn't like it, I could live with bloated government, high taxes, and a smaller military more quickly than I could abortion and infanticide. If we won't support life at its most critical and defenseless, as the Nun who CNN and MSNBC wouldn't show speaking from the Republican Convention opined so very well (you can see it here: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/watch-at-rnc-nun-lauds-trump-for-being-anti-abortion ), can we trust Biden and Harris's commitment to humanity generally?

I don't think so. And that is why I cannot, as a faithful Catholic in good conscience, vote for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. I encourage my Catholic and Christian brethren to vote likewise.

Golf, kind of

Jumping around on a Wacky Wednesday...

I haven't golfed once this year. Even though for years I rarely went out more than once or twice anyway, this probably makes the first time I haven't golfed at all in a year since the 1980s. Of course, there's time yet.

I haven't been to a baseball game this year either. But that, unless things change dramatically, will not happen.

Of course (get it?) there are those who say I've never actually golfed. You know who you are.

On the plus side, I've yet to bogie.

On the down side, uh, on the down side, uh, I'm not sure there is a down side. Though I've tried my golf game hasn't hit bottom. I know this.

Of course (I'm trying this pun again) I have lined up the wrong way on the tee box. And Ron thought standing behind me was the safest place to be, ha, ha!

Go ahead, you want to say it. And with that, adieu!

Tea treason

I have developed a taste for the style of hot beverage known as English breakfast tea. It began in 2018 when I was fighting a cold while working a trade show in Indianapolis. The Keurig in my room had two pods of regular coffee, one of decaf (not sure anybody's drank that yet) and one of the tea. It tasted so good and seemed to help settle my cold so well that I trundled downstairs and bought several more pods from the hotel commissary. The tea honestly raised my spirits and made me feel physically better.

English breakfast tea is dark and coffee like in appearance. Taken without milk or sugar it actually rivals coffee in flavor. It also has more caffeine that coffee (most teas do as I understand, so why are we always told to watch our coffee but never our tea intake?). What's not to like?

Still, I feel, I dunno, like it's un-American to drink a tea so English. Do I have to turn in my patriot card?