We can work it out.

If you don’t want to compromise then maybe we can meet in the middle. Maybe a little give and take if you wish. Perhaps mutual concessions if you would like that better.

I am almost certain we all, for the most part, want the same things. Good health and the ways and means of accomplishing that result. I’m pretty sure we want the best quality education for our children. Good teachers, small class size, clean bright classrooms, and plenty of educational resource. It’s an imperative when filling a glass of water to be able to drink it pure and clean. Every time we take a deep breath of air it too is pure and fresh. I am positive we all would like to be paid a wage enough to support a spouse and at least two kids. Maybe enough to put a little in the bank as well. It also would be really nice to drive down the road and not hit a pothole or two. A pothole that would ruin a tire and rim or wreck the underside of a vehicle. Crossing a bridge in your car would be very good if it didn’t collapse. It would be very good if national parklands, deserts, beaches, and most outdoor recreation was kept clean and cleared of trash and waste. It would be good for commerce if rail beds, waterways, air traffic control, and airports were all well supported with the best technology and the trained people to run them.

All of that would be very good. So, how do we get there? How do we pay for all these wished for things. Who is going to do the heavy lifting here? Churches? NGOs? The Rotary Club? The Proud boys? Planned Parenthood? Maybe Jeff Bezos? Wal-Mart stockholders? Who??? What group or entity could do all this? And by what means? Think 300-million. From the working poor to the super rich. The Ma and Pa store to the giant corporations. All can help. All can do the heavy lifting.

Books I discover for my grandkids.

Book Report.

I really liked this book but it was recommended for grades three to six. A middle or high schooler would find it informative and entertaining as well. It is historical fiction and is titled “Letters from Cuba” by Ruth Baher, published 2020.

It is a series of letters written by older sister Esther to her younger sister still living in Poland with their mother and brothers. Esther has left Poland in 1938 attempting to join her father in Cuba. Both had left Poland to escape persecution from Hitler’s army. Esther’s family is Jewish and Esther and her father are in Cuba hoping to earn enough money to bring the remaining members of their family to the southern Island nation.

A side benefit to this book while Yiddish speaking Esther is learning Spanish is many Spanish and English words and phrases are used interchangeably. A beginning Spanish language student would benefit from this book as well. I would strongly suggest finding this book in the audio version. Possibly at your local library. The audio book actor/reader does an expert job. However the print version reads well. My thirteen-year old granddaughter really liked this book. Historical fiction is now on her book list.

So let me leave you with this tip.

We sat down at the table as shown us by the restaurant host and was given our menus. Shortly a young man came, introduced himself, and asked how we were doing. And as we always do we asked him the same. I’m Fan-taps-tic“ he replied with an over enunciated local southern tone as he pumped his fists at his side. So he took both our drink order and meal order. Then later a young lady came with our drink and food. We were well into eating our food and thought of something else we needed at the table. So we waited for the young man to return to check on our eating progress. So we waited. And waited. The young man never returned even though the order taking screen sat on the table. So eventually we had to summons someone else to finalize the meal check. To say the least no tip was offered. We felt abandoned and consequently no gratuity was warranted. I have no problem not leaving a tip. Either they earn it or not.

On another occasion we were at a different restaurant and a young lady came and introduced herself and asked for our drink order. She was soft spoken, most polite, and appeared to be a freshman at the local college. Probably her first job at wait staff work. We couldn’t help but love this shy little college girl by returning back her smiles. But unlike the guy waiter before who disappeared our shy girl waitperson at this different restaurant was very attentive returning several times to see if we needed anything else. She obviously learned service and attentiveness before leaving her home. A reasonable TIP was left.

None the less, if you look in at the mechanics of tipping you begin to wonder, “Why are we doing this?” Why are we the customer paying the salary of the restaurant help? Why it is the wait staff earns an amount well below the standard federal minimum wage. Restaurant operators casually thinking with tips a waitperson makes a reasonable hourly wage. However, at most restaurants the management requires the waitperson share tips with the kitchen staff. Putting an extra burden on waiters to hopefully earn more tips. Therefore customer tipping is how the management pays the wait and cook staff’s wages. Which means the price you pay for each meal is only half the amount needed to run his restaurant. Kind of like buying a discounted airline ticket to wherever but to discover their extra costs for checked bags, carryon bags, overhead storage, meals, drinks and snacks. Thinking you got a good deal on the ticket price but hit with extra charges driving up the cost of a flight to almost double the ticket amount.

My way of thinking is waiting and cook staff should be paid a reasonable wage. Hopefully enough to get by on. But if an eatery were to pay a decent wage and remain competitive some food establishments would go out of business. And perhaps they should. But if a restaurant has quality food and customer service most people would be glad to pay the higher price. Possibly at the expense of eating out less often. So let’s forget tipping. Okay?

Young women must think I’m a 77-year old Hunk.

On a regular basis I receive Friend requests on Facebook from women a quarter of my age. Curvy girly types. Youngish women with finely sculptured torsos and hips. Most of which lacks sufficient drapage. Displaying it’s not what they know but what they possess. Indicating to me they have more style and very little substance.

Now, why would they be interested in Friending me? A wrinkly old man with barnacles up and down my frail pre-cadaver body. I honestly don’t believe they looked closely at my Facebook Profile picture and postings. What would my wife think if she saw these alluring friend requests? She probably would think? “Oh these girls must have made a big mistake. He’s taken. He’s the only guy around that can reach my Ninja blender up in the top shelf.”

But anyway, I would rather have Facebook friend requests from someone who reads John Grisham books, the New Yorker, and listens to NPR. Someone who remembers what a transistor radio was and has driven a 1958 VW beetle. I would certainly prefer someone who has read volumes of MAD Magazine and thinks Rocky the Flying Squirrel was the funniest cartoon on TV. Do you think these fleshy girls share my likes and dislikes? NO-o-o. None the less, I have turned down their friend requests. Sorry girls. Where’s my compression socks and Preparation-H?

The first in a series. Butchy the Chicken Whisperer.

Butchy the chicken whisperer

He doesn’t like to compare himself to Harry Potter but Butchy the chicken whisperer has mesmerizing powers over his following of chickens. Three in all. All Rhode Island Reds named Manny, Moe, and Jack. A trio of cluckers who think they have special divining powers to find buried treasures. After all they lived in East L A. A place once inhabited by dwarf pirates who often buried their stolen treasures but often forgot where they buried their purloined goods. Never thinking of drawing a treasure map with a big black ‘X’ over the buried treasure chest.

So Butchy the chicken whisperer became a chicken whisperer when he decided he no long could become Roy Rogers. A decision Butchy made since he wore cheap wire rimmed glasses. Glasses made of real glass and easily broken if someone tried to punch Butchy in the face. So riding horses and chasing down bank robbers was just out of the question. So chicken whispering became his career of choice. And one thing he hated to admit to others was his older sister thought Butchy looked like a pint-size bookkeeper with his gold wire rimmed glasses. “All he needs is his green eye shade,” his older sister would comment to her giggling teen girl friends. But Butchy thought he would show them who he really was someday. “I am Butchy the chicken whisperer. Proud and true. Filled with magic whispering powers.

So, stay tuned. More excitement next time.

Book I read.

Book Report.

Even though this is a John Grisham book it has nothing to do with ambitious lawyers, run away juries, conspiring judges, innocent convicts on death row, or ambulance chasers. It’s about NCAA and NBA basketball.

The title is ‘Sooley’ by John Grisham, fiction published 2021
Samuel Sooleymon 17-year old six foot two(and growing) basketball star want-to-be from his village in South Sudan gets a rare chance to go to the United States with a traveling African team. With the hopes of being chosen by any college offering a basketball scholarship. Shortly after being invited to play for a small Black college in North Carolina he gets word from his African home his village had been raided and burned down and learns his father was killed and his mother and two brothers escape as refugees into a camp outside of South Sudan. None the less, Sooley eventually finds extraordinary success in playing basketball for his small college but not necessarily with a happy ending. However a serious attempt is made to bring Sooley’s family to the United States. A very good fall day read. The book is most compelling and gives a somewhat good understanding of how amateur and professional basketball sports might be organized. A good escape from complicated and convoluted relationships. I liked it. Read it. You’ll like it too.

“Sooley” by John Grisham. Fiction 2021.

Rocketing the Rich.

Yes, I have been watching with casual disinterest to the Space-X three day orbiting with four non-astronauts. Just guessing trying to replicate the first manned space orbiters. You know John Glenn, Allen Sheppard, Gus Grisham, etc. People who knew what they were doing. But now with just passive ‘passengers’ along for the ride. Oh sure it was a fund raiser for a famous children’s hospital. But mostly PR. Media bla bla bla.

All hoping as a dress rehearsal to eventually ferry very rich people to the Moon. However, once they get to the moon, what will they do while there. Take a few selfies down in a shadowy crater maybe or attempt to swipe a few moon rocks and stick them in their purse. And once they return to earth they can smugly tell their friends, in a narcissist bragging manner, “I’ve been to the moom.” “See, look at this rock. Cool huh? Kind of like saying, “I’ve been to “Terra del Fuego. Just look at this gas cap I found under an abandoned VW. Woo-haa for them. All this hoopla just to say I’ve been to some place you haven’t been. So there! Ha ha ha.

This kind of nose thumbing started way back when the Queen Mary ferried passengers from New York across the Atlantic to London Town. ‘Yes, I did that and you didn’t.” Ha ha ha. I even ate at the captain’s table. Never mind it cost a zillion dollars.

The bottom line is very few of us will ever make it to the moon and back. Many of us will most likely never make it to Milwaukee and back either. So, who cares? I have to leave now and go buy some toilet paper and dog food. Let me know when you get back. I’ll look at your selfies then.

I really do want your money.

If you are in the classification of being very rich; I want your money. A person with too much money must give up a good portion of your currency. So, give it to me now.

I am going to recklessly spend it on crumbling bridges. Remember the I-35 W over the Mississippi River between Saint Paul and Minneapolis? It fell down with cars with people in them. Plus I want to fill every pothole on I-80 between San Francisco and Philadelphia. Saving gillions of dollars in car and tire repairs. Then without much thought I will take out old leaded water pipes in most major cities and replace with suitable replacements. Then when that’s done I will start on laying new RR tracks on old railroad beds. Making it safer to run faster trains on. Then with your money I will build new school buses and hire new teachers to educate our kids. Then as soon as that is done, I will build and install renewable energy sources. Making energy costs to come down. And at the same time educate and train willing workers to build turbines and solar panels. Replace old coal burning generators with Geo-thermal plants. Then we will train new recruits in today’s technology to war against hackers and ransom mongers. Then reduce health care costs. Making for a healthier citizenry.

So yes. I want your surplus money. Talking to you Warren Buffett, to you Jeff Bezos, to you Mark Zuckerberg, to you Bill Gates, to you Mr. Big Spender. All of you. Fork it over now!

Existentialism

Every so often and more often than not words comes along that almost everybody likes to use in a simple sentence. It’s mostly used on cable news shows by erudite and professorial news wonks. You know like Lawrence O’Donnell, Brian Williams, or Anderson Cooper. Talking heads with a vocabulary bought from Saks Fifth Avenue or Nordstrom’s. Spoken to folks like us who got our vocabulary from Wal-mart or Old Navy. None the less a word or two over used to the point that almost everyone we encounter uses these words either semi-expertly or recklessly. But used too often. I’ve heard people use one of these words surrounded by single syllable words. People obviously using a multisyllabic word to impress his or her friends. Look at me, I can say and use big words in a sentence.

And the word TV folks love to use the most is “Existential.” Meaning to exist or being in existence. Often combined with the phrase ‘existential threat.’ Ignoring a phrase like ‘danger does exist.” Or the existing threat is…” But exist is a nice simple two syllable word. Most anybody could easily understand.

But media people love big hard to pronounce and hard to understand words. Just to keep we simple minded people off guard or impressed.

There is an existential problem here. Most of us are not impressed. I’ll watch Antique Road show instead. And don’t get me started on ‘Infrastructure.’ And you can take the over used words calculus or algorithms and shove it.

I didn’t get Smallpox.

We school kids did as was suggested. Take the vaccine. It first started with a note to our parents pinned to our shirts and taken home. Parents were to sign a permission slip for the vaccine and taken back by we kids to our teachers. Then on a designated day we kids all stood in line at the nurse’s office and took our shots. As far as I can remember, no one I knew of got Smallpox. We were told by our teachers that Smallpox was not a good thing. Without the Smallpox vaccine the symptoms start with fever, headache, backache, neck ache, and a full body itchy red rash appears. All lasting for some time. Plus easy to pass on to others.

Later we also got shots for Diphtheria which is a horrible disease that coats the throat with a whitish membrane and causes high fever, a very sore throat, and difficulty breathing. Death can easily occur. Whew! So we got our shots.

Then came vaccine for Polio. Several kids I knew contracted Polio. Some lost ability to walk on their own and some kids had to be placed in an ‘Iron Lung’ because they could not breathe on their own. Many kids, including my wife at age 7, had to stay in the hospital for many weeks of therapy. Time spent alone without their parents. Scary. One gentleman that lives here in our community at age eleven had to stay in the hospital for almost two years due to Polio. So when the vaccine came along we all stood in line. First it was a shot in the arm and later it came in the form of a sugar cube with vaccine in it. So we all took our vaccine. I don’t like getting ill. It’s bothersome. Prevents kids from playing outside. None the less, it often hurts. I don’t like hurt. Here! Put that shot right here in my right arm.

I do not remember back then religious leaders or politicians ranting and railing on resisting the shots. Neither for religious or political reasons. They certainly knew better to profess such a thing. Plus parents did not want to deal with all the horrible symptoms of various diseases. For Pete sakes, GET YOUR VACCINE!!! So for now, you religious and political leaders stick it up your waazoo.