It’s Time to Remember

Not Joy Bahar

At the golf and yacht club, the patrons were listening to Christmas music when a carol by Jon Bon Jovi began playing.  Two fellow imbibers were smiling while commenting how versatile Mr. Bon Jovi is.

“He does those country-style rock songs and he can do Christmas music, too!  How great is that?” offered one client.

“But he hates Donald Trump,” said the other drinker.  “I’ll still buy his songs because I like them,” was added.

And therein lies the problem with ignorant Americans.

Arrogant, self-centered, anti-American, whiners are still trying to de-legitimize Donald Trump’s election.

Some woman named Joy Bahar, whose claim to fame is having cacti in her shorts, is apoplectic that we have a president other than Barack Hussein Obama.

Bon Jovi, Bahar, and 99% of the Hollywood elite, feel deprived and cheated because their lying, unpopular, abrasive candidate lost to a more popular guy.

All-anti-American singer Bruce Springsteen, made his views about Mr. Trump public during a TV interview saying, “He’s such a flagrant, toxic narcissist that he wants to take down the entire democratic system with him if he goes.”

Stupid Americans will gladly continue buying songs from Springsteen, tuning in Bahar, and listening to Bon Jovi even though those losers have contempt for Mr. Trump and his supporters.

Athletes, wanna-be athletes, half-assed singers, poor actors and actresses, and Alec Baldwin, will take the money from people who buy songs, watch movies, and catch television shows featuring them.

Yes, their pay, which is provided by you, continues funding their hate and annoying whining.  Remember, anything you subsidize, you’ll get more of.

Forget them and their movies and let them earn a legitimate living by getting a real job other than play-acting.  Dirt under your fingernails is not deadly.

George Clooney, another outspoken liberal who feels he knows more about what’s good for us than we do, would quickly file for Chapter 11 if Americans stopped watching his movies.

Kareem Abdul Jabbar, former basketball player, also feels he’s smarter than the voters who elected Mr. Trump.  His fame was derived from playing a game which paid him handsomely, and his opinion was formed from a distorted view of hard-working Americans.

These elitists will eventually run out of funding and popularity if you cease patronizing their works.

Refrain from attending or watching professional sports, quit buying music from these know-it-alls, avoid the TV shows featuring people who enjoy bashing Mr. Trump and his electors.

Quit acting dumb, and the privileged will go away and get real jobs.  Maybe.

You’re Too Stoopid

As children we are given coloring books and crayons to express ourselves.  Then, we are told to “stay between the lines.”  It seems as though if we color beyond those boundaries we are somehow bad people.

That thought came to me while in a bathroom at a Hardee’s restaurant last week.  I had just finished peeing and was washing my hands when I noticed there was no paper towel dispenser, only a one of those useless blow dryers.

When I was a little kid I recall trying to dry my hands with one of those dryers, to no avail.  I remember reading the metal riveted sign that instructed the user to “rub hands vigorously,” again, to no avail.  I wiped my little wet hands onto my trousers to reach the desired result.

The Hardee’s blow dryer produced similar results – none.  I left the men’s room with wet trousers and semi-dry hands.

It wasn’t as much the moist britches as it was the instructions that began to bother me.  After fifty years of wiping my hands on my pants I realized I was still following the instructions by vigorously rubbing my hands together.

Suddenly my mind switched gears to 1964.  That was the year the federal guvment mandated seat belts be installed in all cars.

I have been using seat belts for over a half-century in cars, airplanes, and on amusement park rides.  I would say I have some experience.

Alas, instructions about their use still abound.  Take any commercial airplane trip and you’ll be forced to watch flying waitresses pose, in the aisle, with seat belts.  They obediently snap the two pieces together and then remove them, simulating the procedure you’re supposed to mimic after your emergency landing. 

If you think that a nylon strap across your lap is going to save your life while that metal tube, with wings filled with fuel in which you are seated, is hurtling toward Earth at a blistering 535 miles per hour, you’re only fooling yourself.

The search and recovery team will be sifting through the dust, eventually finding a melted piece of metal, hoisting it proudly into the air declaring, “Aha!  This is a seatbelt buckle, I think.”

Yet we still obediently follow the instructions.  Alas.

Still we use forks and knives on a daily basis, none of which I remember had a warning label to avoid poking yourself in the eye, or directing which orifice the utensil-at-hand should be pointed to avoid injury.

If that is not ridiculous enough, I recently finished rehabbing a home for us on The Eastern Shore.  Every step of the process was followed by a clever system in Accomack County, Virginia called “code inspections.”

It seems code inspections are a special tax imposed on anyone attempting to raise themselves out of living in tents or in caves.

I installed a new bathroom which demanded a visit from both the electrical and plumbing inspectors.  Oddly enough, the electrical inspector must have had a trunk full of money because he could find nothing that needed immediate changing.

The plumbing guy, on the other hand, was mortified at the shower arrangement.  I had the audacity to install a shower head, hot water handle, cold water handle, and shower diverter.  The diverter is that thingy you operate to make water come out of the shower head instead of the nozzle into the tub.

Senór Plumbing Inspector was horrified I actually installed a separate hot and cold water handle so that bathers could select a water temperature that suited their needs and desires.

WRONG!

 

It so happens the People’s Republic of Virginia has a law that the water must be premixed before exiting the shower.  It doesn’t matter that I merely replaced the old one nearly part-for-part.  Laws change, by golly.

As with all the above snippets, people are deemed too stupid to figure things out.  In this story, if the water is too hot, the showerer is thought to be unable to rationalize a solution such as turning up the cold water.

We have become a society that looks down upon its masses with disgust and pity.  Personal responsibility, common sense, and basic thought have escaped Americans.  Congratulations.

Now What?

I thought my luck was changing for the better when someone told me that the Kenyan prince who had a $47,000,000 check with my name on it was all a scam.  I was told that was merely a rouse to gain access to my identity, and no money was coming my way, even if I had paid the required $20,000.

It seems this is a fairly popular internet confidence game that preys on unsuspecting greedy people wanting to make a quick buck.

So I decided to look into identity theft and found some stuff that was pretty scary.

No site on the internet is safe, according the “experts” who say, “No site on the internet is safe.”

All those websites that sell products cannot be trusted because they could also be identity theft operations.

Supposedly there are nefarious people who spend hours creating duplicate websites that mimic real ones selling everything from canes for the handicapped to steaming grill cleaners, and even turbo chicken cookers.  Oh, the humanity!

The new thing now is something called “skimming” that involves modifying credit card readers at gas stations.  Ne’er-do-wells evidently place devices into gas pumps that read your credit card information without your knowledge.  These secret replacement readers are then retrieved days later with unsuspecting victim data that are sold to the lazy thieves.

To prevent identity theft, those previously-mentioned experts suggest changing your credit cards every two weeks.  They also recommend moving all your money to a different bank on a ten-day rotation.  And, to be safe, they strongly encourage you to change your mother’s maiden name at least monthly.

Still, with all these safety precautions, you may still find yourself subject to identity theft.

Using your credit cards at major department and big box stores, especially The Home Depot and Target, have been a challenge, too.  Settlements in some of those cases were over $19,000,000!

Yet, that’s little consolation since someone else is now masquerading as you.

But don’t look to government – local or otherwise – to provide much guidance on preventing and/or minimizing identity theft.

Twenty or so years ago, local police authorities strongly suggested people etch their Social Security numbers on personal property to expedite recovery and identification of stolen items.  After all, that number is unique to you.  Many states used your Social Security Number as your driver’s license number, a way to identify you by writing it on the reverse side of checks you wrote.  How did that work out?

And, the federal guvment insisted on digitizing all federal records, including those of employees.  Retrieval of this vital information was absolutely critical to keeping the federal records up-to-date, but completely protected.

Completely protected until the Chinese hacked them in 2015, that is.  Only 22,000,000 were compromised, and the onus is now on those affected victims to fend for themselves.  Nice.

So much for keeping your Social Security Number secret, and relying on Uncle Sam to watch out for the little people – us.

It would seem only appropriate to throw away your credit cards, stop banking, and begin living off the grid.  I’ll keep doing what I am doing because I’m nothing like the Unibomber.

It’s the Keys, Stupid

My sainted wife and I wandered about the mall earlier this week, because that’s what old, retired folks do.

I needed to use the men’s room again, because that’s what old, retired folks do.  That’s when I lost my sainted wife.

Before cheering and heading for the champagne aisle, I remembered she had the car keys in her purse.  Now I needed to find her before she abandoned me.

I dashed from aisle-to-aisle as fast as I could dash without a martini awaiting my arrival, to no avail.

Just when I thought I spied her, it turned out to be another woman who was her same height, weight, with the same hair color and similar do.  She wearing an identical blouse and those britches that only come down to her mid-calf.

It wasn’t long before is espied another woman with comparable physical qualities, again not her.

It seems as though shipping venues are chock full of women who look alike.

Years ago, we had a house surrounded by nut and fruit trees.  As each spring arrived, we would stand in awe at the beauty and magnificence of the blossoms glowing on the pear, cherry, apple, and plum trees.  They served as a barometer for the beginning of warmer weather and eventually summer.

But along the way, as the fruit developed into meaningful shapes of deliciousness along with the promise of fresh produce, squirrels began to appear testing these wares.  They would snatch one of the fruits from the tree and, after taking a bite to realize they were not ripe, drop it on the ground.

This was not very annoying until rogue squirrels from adjacent neighborhoods began to help our barrio rodents with their fruit decimation.

It wasn’t long before I began a catch-and-release program for the squirrels.  They were safely trapped in a cage and, to ensure they were not recidivists, they were spray painted with orange paint.

Yes, they all looked alike, very much like our lady mall-goers.

Short of finding orange spray paint and engaging in a cross between assault and vandalism, I had an epiphany. 

Soon thereafter I ran across my sainted wife who was dutifully tucked away in the shoe department.

She was trying on sneakers for her daily walk around the neighborhood.  The kind she likes – Sketchers – are too expensive for our taste so, she was trying on a less-expensive knock-off brand likely made by 6-year olds in Indonesia.

She tried on a pair that Stevie Wonder could see in the dark, in a closet, during an eclipse.

“What do you think?” was her question.  The delight on her face indicated she liked them and was going to buy them no matter what my answer was.

Recalling the spray-painted rodents in my yard, I smiled and said, “I really like them!”

You see, none of the other gray-haired, women in the mall wore a pair of shoes even close to these.  These were neon locator beacons I needed to be able to quickly find my sainted wife in a jiffy.  If I have the car keys, that is.

Calendar Check

During a shopping episode in the beginning of July, when the outdoor temps hovered around 104 degrees, you were able to find the much in-demand Halloween costumes on the store shelves.

The first week in October was when those same stores switched their Halloween outfits off the shelves in favor of Thanksgiving business.  Ceramic turkeys, tablecloths adorned with leaves, and orange and brown oven mitts were everywhere.  Until the week before Thanksgiving, that is.

My sainted wife and I were desperately searching for accoutrements for a Thanksgiving Day dinner we were hosting.

For the New Jerseyites in the gallery, accoutrements are odds and ends, bits and pieces that are used to accessorize.  You’re welcome.

Although we own several calendars, we were slow on the uptake for when that infamous Thursday in November really occurred.  And it was much sooner than we thought.

Sure, we had the frozen turkey, potatoes, green beans, corn bread stuffing, plus the kind I like – good stuffing, haymans, chestnuts, and cranberry business.  But, we needed cardboard plates, turkey-adorned napkins, and other stuff – accoutrements – that we were going to summarily throw away after dinner.

On the Monday before Thanksgiving, all the stores proudly had on display, you guessed it, Christmas trees!

After systematically parading up one aisle and down another, we finally found a clerk who wasn’t busy on their cellular phone.  I politely asked where the Thanksgiving accoutrements were.

Yes, I had to explain to them the definition, too.  After their bewildered look vanished, they uttered, “We put that stuff away last week; ain’t got none.”

Alas, we were nearly forced to exit this establishment empty-handed but for the grace of God.  Tucked away in the clearance section were two packs of cardboard dinner plates, one package of napkins, and what appeared to be cardboard serving bowls.  Not terribly classy, but out company wasn’t either.

We made our way to the checkout counter to pay for our blessed supply of paper products only to find a clerk substituting Christmas candy for Valentine’s Day chocolates.

Adjacent to the cash register was a display of calendars for the upcoming year.  I quickly grabbed one and thumbed through it to ensure the pages were in the correct order and no dates were rearranged to put holidays out of order.

It seems as though merchants are so anxious to make the big bucks during the Christmas season, they begin thee season weeks earlier and earlier each year.  That may be good for the merchants but, not for people like me.

I like to buy my snow tires in the winter, not July.  And if I’m going to the beach in August, I want to be able to buy swim trunks in August, not February.

So, if you need St. Patrick’s Day hats, shamrocks, and other accoutrements, get busy buying it now before December ends, lest you’ll be out of luck.  Get it?

Obit Rules for All

Every day of mine begins with a cup of muscular coffee and a scrutiny of the obituaries.  This has become a habit since I entered that age vicinity where my confidants, family, friends, and enemies begin to finally gain notoriety by finally getting their names listed in the newspaper.

I said “finally,” because most of my associates are law-abiding citizens who would never commit a crime.  And that’s a good thing.  But, I digress.

In today’s age, every living being – including Smokey the cat – has a cellular phone with a camera, and they all use them to excess.

You can’t swing a dead opossum without hitting some amateur, phone videographer/photographer snapping everything and everyone within a cold radius.

I invented the term “cold radius” because that is the miniscule distance from which a person is able to contract a cold from another person of the unwell variety.  You’re welcome.

In any case, today, much like the past six-plus decades, is a winner for me.  My name did not appear in the obits making me more fortunate than those whose name did appear therein.

And here is where the rub lies.

We recently celebrated Veteran’s Day.  Veteran’s Day is a national holiday that is something a non-veteran termed “floating holiday.”  This crazy term is applied to holidays many Americans feel are passé.

Veteran’s Day, Columbus Day, and National Pizza Day, are all considered floating holidays because the anointed among us feel those days represent distasteful events or honors.  By the way, Pizza Day is frowned upon because of the meat and gluten.  But I digress, again.

On Veteran’s Day, family members and friends post photos of deceased service personnel in the ‘remembrance’ section of the obituaries.  Looking dapper and freshly pressed and ready for action, many of these photos harken back to World War II, Korea, Vietnam, and Middle East battles.  For those youngsters in the audience, the above reference is to World War two, not 11.

But on ordinary, non-holidays, a smattering of photos of the deceased loved ones appears above the actual final notice.

People possess varying degrees of photogenic qualities.  Personally, I have none.  But I know that as a fact.

So it is with that I would like to make a suggestion.

If your loved one was born during the days of the Great North American Buffalo Hunts, and died last week, please note the vintage of that photo.  You’re not fooling anyone by posting a picture of them posing with President Lincoln during their high school graduation.

And lastly, if the decedent wore a wide-brimmed white hat with a leisure suit in 1979, with aviator sunglasses, please re-think added that photo in the obit.  Unless they were a professional pimp, that is.

Bye-bye!

After roughly two years of political haggling, America has a new president.  This person, very much like Barack Hussein Obama, just made history.

The country desperately wanted a clean start after nearly eight years of painful lying about Iran nuclear deals, paying ransom money to Iran, keeping your own doctors under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), giving 900+ hardened criminals pardons, avoided prosecutions of Wall Street executives, saving $2500 per family on the ACA, and lowering the unemployment rate, so it voted for someone for which they could be proud.

Loud voices chanted “Hillary” in the hopes of numbing the minds of undecided citizens with boloney about Hillary’s accomplishments.  Soon it was clear her biggest undertakings dwarfed those of President Obama.

She lied about Benghazi, Libya, about erasing her computer hard drive, sending classified e-mails, using her political position as Secretary of State to further exercising her methods of extortion for the Clinton Foundation, and perhaps that she even lives as a white woman.

America felt it was time to elect a non-political person to keep the United States of America free.  As such, it elected Donald Trump.

Donald Trump is a non-political person but, he appears to have tremendous business savvy.  He has been buying real estate, and developing it, for years, successfully.

He identified numerous problems with the country to include illegal aliens sucking the financial blood from the working class, liberals spending money like a drunken sailor (my apologies to drunken sailors,) freebies for everyone and anyone, draconian ACA plans with severe financial penalties, and lack of jobs.

Many people liked what he said.  Others, however, did not.

As a result, we have some breaking news.  Select airports across North America are likely slammed with actors, actresses, and supposed musical artists, leaving the country.

The likes of Barbra Streisand, Cher, Katy Perry, Amy Schumer, Alec Baldwin, and Jon Stewart, are probably packing as I write.  Chelsea Handler, Neve Campbell, Lena Dunham, Keegan-Michael Key, Al Sharpton, Natasha Lyonne, Eddie Griffin, Spike Lee, Amber Rose, Samuel L. Jackson, and George Lopez, expressed an interest to head out of the country for their own safety, too.

Not Samuel L. Jackson

Let’s not forget Raven Symoné, Whoopie Goldberg, Miley Cyrus, and Ruth Bader Ginsberg, who also feel they are more astute and intelligent to select the leader of the United States.  Forget all those hard-working folks who actually get their hands dirty for a living, along with people who drive old cars and live in mobile homes.

So I see this new presidential opportunity as a win-win situation.  We get new blood with new ideas, while getting rid of the trash who look down their noses at the rest of us.

Please stay gone.

Post-Presidential Election Assistance

In order to provide an election safe space, please take a few moments on this website.  Breathe easily, close your eyes, and count to ten.

Now get back to reality you whiney losers!

Really?

Just when I think I’ve seen and heard it all I find myself corrected.  It is said that if everyone was the same, life would be boring.  It takes all kinds, is another saying.  I’d like to offer one of my own: Get a life and leave me alone.

Way back when, America had three pronouns to identify the two sexes – Mr. was to identify men, Mrs. was used to identify married and previously married women, and Miss to signify an unmarried woman.  And all was well.

Then in the 1980’s some of those liberated, divorced women felt it necessary to display their extreme hate for men by creating a special pronoun for themselves, Ms.

Ms. was devised to stick female fingers in the eyes of non-caring society to identify themselves as divorced.  After all, a divorced woman wants to prove herself empowered enough to run a household, raise a family, and climb social ladders with a gleam in the eye of the beholder.

It wasn’t long before the Mrs. and Ms. of America felt left out.  They felt they were being left behind and demanded they, too, be called Ms.

So we went from three to two identifying pronouns in a few short months, and that is pretty efficient.

It is quite rare when one finds monikers being condensed rather than expanded.  You see, I am aging and have trouble remembering so many different titles and words.

Then, two weeks ago I knew and used pronouns such as he, she, it, and they.  Today, however, I am told to use newly-invented pronouns ne, ve, ze, and xe.  No lie.

Someone with too much time on their idle hands insist we stop being so exclusive and simply changing the language so as to prevent the easily offended from being so easily offended.

Once upon a time, there was an Olympic track star who, as a man, broke a world record in the 1976 Olympics.  He was held up as an American icon and a role model for track and field athletes for decades.  Then, Bruce Jenner decided he was a she.

Much of America cringed; the rest of it applauded his/her decision to alter God’s work.  Soon thereafter, Jenner, with aliases Ms. Caitlin Jenner, and Mr. Bruce Kardashian, began making seemingly endless television appearances about why he wanted to lop off the family jewels.

Frankly, I didn’t really care, anymore than Ms. Kim Kardashian likely did.  In any case, so much of America did for some unknown reason.

Fast forward to today.  If you use stupid pronouns such as ne, ve, ze, and xe, you can summarily disguise the sex of the subject.  I’m not sure why you would want to, though.

You see, the perpetually undecided want to specifically identify themselves as transgender, bisexual, gay, undecided…

Hi!  This is Uncle Paul’s sainted wife.  He asked me to finish up as his hair suddenly caught on fire while in the process of writing this essay.  All this is pretty odd and counter-inclusive.  I say just be what you are, and if you want to be something else, leave us out of it. 

Now I had better get the fire extinguisher and find Uncle Paul.  Thanks. 

Colored What?

It was a day to pick up provisions in the big city when I espied something worth a story.  You see, here on The Eastern Shore, one must drive roughly twelve miles, one way, to buy anything except illegal drugs.  Those can easily be had four doors away.

To prevent embarrassment to the store, we’ll cleverly change its name and simply refer to it as Tallmart.

Preparing to leave Tallmart for the twelve mile trek back home, my sainted wife needed to make the ride more comfortable by using their bathroom.

I waited near the Tallmart Vision Center where I met a five-and-a-half foot tall cardboard display sign touting colored contact lenses.

This display woman model was attractive but, she had two different colored eyes; one hazel, the other blue.

Since I had time on my hands I examined this display closely and desperately tried to make sense of it.

It seems as though Eastern Shore women – those with four kids out of wedlock, pink-dyed stringy and greasy hair, no teeth, driving a rusted Ford Pinto with cardboard duct-taped to at least one window, need only a pair of colored contact lenses to make them more attractive.

That extra step would likely garner them at least one more out-of-wedlock child.  Yeah!

Forget the fact the death trap they’re driving has bald tires and is started with a screwdriver.  Colored contact lenses are a must.

Much like those 70” UHDTVs, with the curved screens, satellite receivers, and the newest cell phones, these corrective lenses are advertised as a must.

This is what people like I call “misplaced priorities.”  People who can least afford them are the ones that buy them.  The young’uns don’t have the funds to buy diapers and formula, while the old relic retirees who have been saving money for decades don’t really need them.

So who is buying these colored contact lenses?

I have been wearing spectacles since I was a little kid and still have trouble putting drops in my eyes, much less contact lenses.  Besides, I really have no need to alter the color of my eyes because I’m not vain and I have my priorities in order.  Period.

After contemplating this scenario for days I realized that the schools are teaching kids the wrong things.  They can’t balance a checkbook, follow no-texting-while-driving laws, understand why children shouldn’t have children, and comprehend why drugs are bad.

Good for Tallmart being able to try and sell these non-critical items to the masses.  But just as the government geniuses place age limits on the purchase of alcohol, tobacco, and firearms, they should place a bank account minimum balance on purchasing such frivolous niceties.

In my humble opinion, that is.

Paperwork, Please

Once again, a newspaper article caught my attention.  In Salisbury, Maryland, a fellow was arrested for “allegedly” stealing $22 and a pack of Newport cigarettes while beating someone.  Yup.

To protect this “alleged” criminal’s identity, we’ll call him Charles “Chuck” Becker instead of his real name, Ecker.

Mr. Becker allegedly approached an employee behind the Quick Mart in Salisbury, and punched him in the face.  He then allegedly kicked the worker while on the ground.  Becker then stole $22 from the hard working Quick Mart employee.

It seems that the surveillance cameras in the mini-mart were working and caught these alleged deeds on video.

Becker, you see, is a gang member affiliated with the Dead Man Inc [sic] prison gang.

Back in 2010, the Deepwater Horizon oil platform, in the Gulf of Mexico, was discovered to have a leak on the gulf floor.  Oil was spewing out of the ground and polluting the waters causing angst to the nth degree.

Rights organizations were quickly established to sue British Petroleum for the projected losses from the seafood that was allegedly tainted and permanently ruined as a result.

Countless watermen wearing those white rubber boots lined up to put in their claim for the billions of dollars being squeezed out of BP to make these watermen whole.

Unfortunately, in the Gulf of Mexico, much like on The Eastern Shore, the area watermen work under-the-table.  For our New Jersey readers, that means they pay nothing in taxes, insurance, social security, or anything else that would benefit their American bothers and sisters economically.

Herein lays the rub.  Upon reaching the front of the claim line, these cash-only workers were asked for their tax returns from the past three years.  Of course there were none because they never filed taxes, allegedly.

Departing with heads hung low, these scofflaws found themselves in quite a pickle.  You see, these guys who overcharge you for a bushel of crabs, a peck of oysters, and a 100 count of clams, are the same ones who laugh at those who are able to pay for these commodities.

There is nothing alleged about that previous paragraph.  But these guys allegedly skirt the law for decades until it’s time for benefit collection, at which they feign knowledge or personal responsibility.

Back to the alleged Mr. Becker.  I’m not very familiar with Dead Man Inc and its inner mechanics.  The words “prison gang” however, brings to mind an alleged organization offering some activities for the unfortunately incarcerated to wile away their time.

Parcheesi, checkers, card games, making shanks, and River Dancing, are what activities I imagine these inmates are engaged.

Now the hard question.  Does Dead Man Inc have a retirement plan or offer some sort of IRA?  There has to be some gang members that reach retirement age.  After all, Becker is 37-years old, and the day this alleged gang member is no longer able to commit meaningful crimes, allegedly, is rapidly approaching.  I would think that’s a little long in the tooth for a gang member.

Will he need to show tax returns for his alleged criminal years or is that an estimated calculation to collect Social Security?

If you know, please write to me.  Thanks.

Leather Shorts

Oktoberfest is in full swing replete with steins full of some of the finest beers, oom-pah music, and lederhosen.  For the uninformed, lederhosen are the coolest things ever.

I actually spent time in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, and recall those times with a smile. 

Canadians should know that The Alps actually wind their way through several countries including the ones mentioned above.

Because of the rugged territory, equally rugged clothing was needed to survive the harsh conditions and tough work.

Americans believe they own the market on creativeness and like to think the greatest inventions emerge from the United States.

An immigrant from Bavaria, Levi Strauss, became immersed in the Gold Rush in California.  He quickly realized the trousers miners were wearing lacked durability.  He was not a good miner but, he was a great tailor hence, he invented a cloth named denim and sewed them into dungarees, aka. Blue Jeans.

Before this genius move, Herr Strauss invented lederhosen.  Lumberjacks, mountain climbers, farmers, and hunters, all use them for their durability.

Made of leather, these britches come in two lengths – above the knee, and just below the knee – and are supported by suspenders.

The originals were buttoned, but now they are zippered with the benefit of two zippers, each offset from the middle for more flexibility by creating a flap rather than a hole.

Clearly kin to the early jeans days, lederhosen were culturally pigeonholing. Men who worked hard and with their hands were considered peasants, so wearing these utilitarian clothes indicated the wearers were uncultured.

Still, they remained popular by Bavarians and are still worn as a badge of distinction much like South American garb, kente cloth outfits, and Scottish kilts, are today.

Especially during Oktoberfest these tough versions of short pants can be espied in most beer halls across Europe.  They are worn with checked shirts and thigh-high socks with climbing boots.

Sure, many readers will chuckle about this essay of praise to robust work shorts that use suspenders to keep them up while gardening and such.  Yet, they see nothing amusing about guys parading around with dungarees, chaps, bolo ties, and scarves wearing cowboy hats.

The pride and function behind all these outfits seem reasonable when you understand the history of their origin.

I rue the fact I never bought a pair when I was trekking across the Alpen-land.

It should be noted that my sainted wife HATES these products of genius, and promises to leave me if I get a pair.

Now I’m about to scour ebay for some to call her bluff.  Aufwiedersehen!

They’re Wrong

Dangerous for little eyes

We are into the early weeks of football season.  Already we have seen some shenanigans from divas who believe their puny thoughts trump everyone else’s.

That jerk from the 49’ers who so badly demanded press, got it.  The next week, a smattering of other wanna-bes who climbed on the media-whore train received some press, too.

But other stuff has been happening throughout the NFL since the season opener a few weeks ago.

One of the major problems in the football league is the offensive names of some of the teams.

It seems as though over the past several years America has gone from “one nation under God, indivisible,” to the land of the Easily-offended.

Upon examination, the names of the teams have been around for years and years without issue.  Today, however, the easily-offended among us have selected a cause to keep them busy without any redeeming value to society as a whole.

The elite have refused to say the word “Redskins” as a team name because, according to the elite, is derogatory toward Indians.

There I go again.  “Indians” seems to be a bad word, too.

Those elites feel as if you use Indians to describe a nationality of people, those indigenous people will be offended.

Now when I say Indian people, I mean the Indians who are known by tribe names such as Hopi, Mohawk’s, Seneca’s, and so on.  The reason these folks were identified as Indians is because Christopher Columbus landed on pre-America land and mistook the indigenous as Middle East Indians.

That was not derogatory; it was a mistake.  Nonetheless, the ill-informed elites claim the name Redskins is suddenly offensive because the Indians of America fame are denoted as savages and easily identified as having skin that is redder in appearance than Columbus and his crew.

Allow me to try to assist the elite better explain their position for ridding the country of this overly-offensive moniker.

These elites would like teams in violent contact sports such as football to be more demure.  The mere idea of two men running into one another, causing contusions, broken bones, and concussions, is not as frightening and disturbing as uttering the word Redskins.

Of course if the name of the team was changed, it would only be “a good first step.”  Next, we would be awash with debates about which uniform colors were acceptable, eventually ending all the carnage.  Period.

We have seen debates about the color of coaches, number of women being locked-out of these games as players, rampant drug use, steroids, and how we should accept players who beat their spouses.

Instead we are force-fed disdain for non-black America by ill-informed black America armed with misinformation salted with tainted ideas.  Thanks for pointing out our shortcomings.

Schizophrenic Nitwits

Over the past year or so, a loosely created group of malcontents began a fraternity that alienates and

A peaceful protest?

antagonizes a great deal of Americans.

It seems as though this gaggle of rabble rousers started because of a perceived injustice in a previously-anonymous town called Ferguson, Missouri.

A few years back a large street thug was terrorizing Ferguson with strong arm robberies and such, with impunity.  This puke had a photo of him donning musical headphones while wearing a smirk.

This fellow, who could not follow the law, was reported to have assaulted a local shop owner because the racist shop owner tried to stop the shoplifting of cigars bay this turd.

 

It so happens the police were dispatched to the scene but, this over-sized pinhead refused to take orders from the responding officer.  This is where it gets good.

The officer was assaulted by this “gentle giant” who was subsequently shot to death in a move of self defense.

Community members, who were fed tripe about the incident replete with gross exaggerations and lies, felt the need to burn down a pharmacy, because that is what you do when you want to honor a street thug.

Cars were also overturned, dumpsters were set ablaze, and shops were looted, all in the name of justice.

To justify this behavior by these miscreants, two slogans were established.  “Hands up, don’t shoot,” was one.  The other was “Black lives matter.”

The first one was based on a lie by eyewitnesses who fabricated the scene to indict the police officer.  The second slogan was transformed into a movement, of sorts.

These idle hands and minds are now traveling the country to apparently attempt to instigate controversy and possibly create mayhem among the populace.

This is an election year, and some of these self-centered nitwits have sporadically attempted to disrupt campaign appearances and debates by presidential candidates.

Demanding candidates agree that only black lives matter has become a sport among the weak-minded among us.

Still, they cannot gain momentum with the general populace likely because of their racist message.

Black Lives Matter excludes whites, browns, yellows, and reds.  That is not inclusive but, they demand to be separate.  And that’s fine with me.

You see, they are calling me a racist without knowing me.  On the other hand, because of their message to America, I now know them and want to have nothing to do with them or the garbage they spew.

It is time to stand up to these law breakers and say, “Go get a job and a life!”

Those ignorant bigots have been intimidating good citizens because they want trouble of an apocalyptic nature.

They’re phonies much like Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and other race pimps.  Crocodile tears stream down their black cheeks while attempting to explain away violent behavior and chanting “black lives matter.”  They are lying.

A case in point, Chicago had, as of September 5, 2016, 474 murders, and 2,300 non-fatal shootings this year.  In August alone, there were 92 murders, and 384 non-fatal shootings.  Most were black.  But, those lives don’t matter.

No protests, no sitting while the national anthem is played, no looting – nothing.  The reason being, they’re racist hypocrites.

Nice.

Call Me

Just in case you spent some time wondering what my biggest irritants in life are, you happen to be in luck.

Although I live in the middle of nowhere I still receive the occasional visitor.  And when they do visit they invariably get a phone call from someone very, very important.  In fact, the caller is important enough to have my guest ignore me to take the call and proceed to yak for quite a while.

Some call this behavior 21^st Century Communication.  I call it rude.

Of course there are other big annoyances in life to include prima donnas who refuse to stand for The National Anthem, guys who pee on public toilet seats, ignorant douchebags who aimlessly drive in the passing lane, and Hillary Clinton supporters. 

But to me the worst are the phone whores.  Whores are people who sleep with everyone except you so, in this case, the term “phone whore” is appropriate.  You’re welcome.

Take the plumber, for instance.  This is the guy you are paying by the hour to repair or install something in your home.  It took four tries to leave a message on his voice mail.  Eventually, after three days, he calls to explain he will call you Thursday about whether he will be over on Friday or Saturday.

Two weeks later he calls to explain he is going to be free in about an hour.  This is about the time I explain to this self-centered jerk that I found AND PAID someone else a week and a half ago.

As he is stuttering about his hectic schedule, I interject a little physics about long walks and short piers before I hang up on him.

Then there are the professionals who interrupt you in the middle of an office meeting to take that “important call.”

It is at this time I remember calling this turd and my occasional visitor and the plumber.  They never answered when I called but, they always picked-up when they were called by someone else in my presence.  Rude.

So here’s some free advice: If you want to ignore my calls, I’ll quit calling you.  If you’re working on my dime, hang up or I’ll deduct for your time spent on your phone; that’s double dipping.

And finally, when my phone rings in a public place, you do not need to scan the room for who selected that ring tone.  I use that ring tone because it’s not the same as the one you are using hence, no confusion should arise when I get a call.

Otherwise, my life is pretty good and without issue.  Thanks for asking.

Say What You Mean

Recently while having a drink at the golf and yacht club, I met a guy who was somewhat under the  Seated alone, and being full of tongue lubricant, he felt it was necessary to engage the first person who made eye contact in meaningless conversation.

influence.

That would be me.  Yea!

This fellow was clearly suffering from diarrhea of the mouth and proceeded to tell me his whole life history.

When we reached his college years, he told me about his road trip across some New England state.

He told me his teeth were cut on this newly-purchased bike which he later sold to buy another, and he has one he regularly rides until this day.  He LOVES biking.

After and easy twenty-minutes of this blather I feigned interest and inserted a question.

“Do you have a Schwinn?  My sainted wife got a Schwinn adult tricycle for Christmas,” was my best offering.

A hard glare from him was added to his slurred speech before he sharply attempted to retort, “No.  Ith a Ha Ha Har ley Davis.  Son!”

I didn’t feel bad because he failed to say what he meant.  He should have said, “I bought a motorcycle and stupidly bought another until I graduated to another overpriced one that is noisy, and simply serves as a symbol of sexual inadequacy for middle-aged guys.”

People do it all the time.  They want to fluff their résumés so they use sentences with titles such as “I’m a bouncer.”

That immediately brings a visual in to my mind of a giant balloon of a guy being dribbled, basketball-like down a sidewalk.  Of course that’s not what they mean. 

They really mean they were lousy at high school wrestling and football, they smoked too much weed between classes, and finally dropped out of school.  In order to find gainful employment they got a menial job abusing strangers in exchange for looking even stupider than they really are.

And don’t think for a moment that women are immune from such shenanigans.  While in a public situation, women will buddy-up to allegedly powder their noses.  For the uninformed, that means they’re going to gab about their dates, in private.

If they are one-on-one with a guy, they will use the same words about their noses.  In this situation, they really mean they’re going to either pee or launch a poop.  They would be more accurate if they said what they meant.

“I’m going to take a dump.  Do you happen to have the sports section with you?  If not, we’ll gab about our underachiever dates, is far more succinct.

You see, there would be little or no miscommunication if we all said what we meant.  Let’s try it.