Dear Blog Reader
I hope that this finds you doing well. The lovely Miss
Beverly and I are newly returned from a wonderful vacation in the Seattle area.
We took the occasion of our Nephew’s graduation to spend a few days looking at
Seattle and its environs. It is a beautiful place. It appears that they sent
all of their rain to the Midwest so things were quite dry during our visit. One
thing that weighed heavily on my mind was all of those mountains. We went east
on I90 into some mountains. I just kept thinking that these mountains want to
crush me. My people held deep foreboding that nature was out to kill us. We
were thankful to get out of the Smokey Mountains and just decided that the flat
side of Indiana would suit us just fine. It appears that those irrational fears
still brood in the ancient part of my brain.
One of the side trips
took us to the island of San Juan. While there, I got a powerful sunburn after
I fell asleep on the beach while watching for Orca’s to appear before my
camera. Note to reader: watching for Orcas can be powerfully boring but the
resulting nap can be quite blissful. Just remember the sun screen.
While visiting the San Juan Island, we found that it was the
site of the Pig War. It wasn’t actually a war so much as a kerfuffle. It
stemmed mostly from a bunch of diplomats saying close enough during the negotiations
over lines drawn in the waters between a bunch of arid islands and British
Columbia. They left the details to the devils on the ground. It appears that
one of the British Governments lackeys did not believe in the old adage about
fences and neighbors. So he let his pigs roam around San Juan Island and said
pig was turned into bacon when he dug up one too many of an American farmer’s
potatoes. One thing led to another and we sent 66 solders under the command of
General Picket to tell the British to stay off our island.
This happened in 1857. San Juan Island is a dry piece of
dirt on the backside of nowhere. It is dry because of atmospheric affects
caused by mountains and ocean storms interacting to cause a rain shadow. They
receive approximately 19 inches of rain a year. For comparison, we have
received 19 inches the past 19 days. Anyway; it was decided that these potatoes
and that potato scarfing pig were something to fight over.
Almost: the powers that be decided to send George Picket
from Virginia to San Juan Island to protect our potato growing honor. No shots
were fired. Cooler head prevailed and we got to keep the island. It struck me
as surreal though. George Picket went from Virginia to Oregon. He did not fly.
I cannot imagine. I suppose that he was the closest general stationed in the
Oregon territory so he didn’t have to make the trip all at once. Still can you
imagine being that far away from home to fight over a pig? I cannot.
Can you imagine that six years later he was being tasked to
have his troops march across Pennsylvania pasture land to certain slaughter at
Gettysburg? It is good that we are not omnipresent or omniscient. It would be
too much some days.
While I was out in the great Northwest contemplating these
great existential thoughts, the world was going crazy. I thought that the
editors at the Onion had hi-jacked my mainstream news feed. By the end of the
week, I was sure that the world had gone crazy.
Here is a rundown of the news highlights. The white woman
who identified as black until her parents outed as being white. An elephant
escaped from a circus in Germany and attacked and killed an elderly man who was
out for an early morning walk in the pre-dawn hours. The nudist hikers in
Malaysia who caused an earthquake because they exposed themselves on a holy
mountain.
And finally, the Russian man who expects to have his head
transplanted on a “donor body” within the next two years. Come on now. You have
to be pulling my leg. Actually, the lovely Miss Beverly has assured me that the
head transplant has been proven to be a hoax.
That sure is a buzz kill. I was kind of hoping that it was possible.
Just put my noggin on top of a 7 footer’s body and viola I have my NBA
contract. Talk about your identity issues. Bruce could have become Caitlyn
without all of the muss and fuss of hormone treatment. In fact, if you were to
find the right person you could have a two for one swap. Just like a Mr./Mrs.
Potato head.
Such a breakthrough would answer so many questions. Where
does the soul reside? Nature or Nurture. I learned it. I was born that way. You
go Mr. Russian Dr. Frankenstein.
Speaking on answering the great spiritual questions of our
time. What were you naked people thinking taking your clothes off in front of
the Great Spirit Mountain? I know you weren’t thinking. You had walked a good
long distance with people of the opposite sex in a foreign land. The opposites
were reasonable attractive and being millennials, used to starring at your own
belly buttons considering said bellybutton’s proximity to the center of the
universe, you figured what the heck. I don’t want to be all repressed. What can
getting naked hurt right?
I get it. While in Seattle, the lovely Miss Beverly and I
hiked up a really big hill to see a beautiful Alpine lake. The setting was
beautiful. I do not believe that I have ever seen water as crystal clear.
The
sun was shining. The day was calm. We were sitting there communing with nature
and several millennial coeds come traipsing down the trail. Confronted with
such beauty one blurted out “which one of us are going skinny dipping first?”
Luckily, there was a reasonably attractive young man nearby to assure said coed
that he could happily provide moral support. Unfortunately, creepy 52 year old
man was standing at the shore. I suppose that is the best reason for we middle
aged people to stay active. Getting up off the couch maybe the only thing
standing between us and violent mountain spirit cataclysms.
I do have a bone to pick with the great mountain spirit. Why
don’t you get all exercised when hundreds of thousands of people come to your
shores to participate in the sex trade? There are thousands of trafficking victims
who could use some righteous indignation that registered on a Richter scale.
Speaking of the earth shaking, how would you like to be the
70 year old guy out for a pre-dawn morning constitutional? Suddenly, you feel
the earth start to shake as a full grown fugitive elephant comes around the
corner and takes “aggressive action against” you. That is what the authorities
were trying to figure out. Why did the elephant take “aggressive action against
the man?” That and how did it escape?
Aren’t the two intertwined? Obviously, the man had been a
lover of circuses when a young child, but he was a mean and nasty little child.
He had heard that elephants were deathly afraid of mice. So he went to the
circus with a mouse in his pocket. When his parents and the elephant trainers weren’t
watching, he would take the mouse out of his pocket and taunt Babar mercilessly.
The elephant was a young elephant at the time and could not escape his bonds at
the time.
However, elephants have tremendous memories and the ability
to gauge the changes in human voices and appearance that attend the aging
process. Now 60 years later, he is big and strong and he sees Fritz. Sees the sneer on Fritz’s face as
he recalls the diabolical fun that he had tormenting Babar in his youth. Babar
remembers. Overhears, Fritz say to his grandson, “Let’s go home. It’s late. I need
to get up early for my neighborhood watch shift over on Maple Street.” When his
grandson throws a fit, Fritz promises that they will bring a mouse tomorrow
night and they can have fun “teasing that big brute.”
Babar calmed down and made his
plans. I think that you can fill in the rest of the story from there.
That is why I am here: to help
make sense of a weird and whacky world. I hope that I have simplified the
complex.
“But wait Roger. You haven’t
explained the white woman who thought she was black until her white parents
outed her.”
I am sorry. You can’t explain
crazy.
Take care.
Roger
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