Bank Robbery with very low interest earnings.

Checking around a one year CD(certificate of deposit) pays a whopping 0.55 percent on a minimum one thousand dollar deposit. So a person could realize enough money for the year to buy a cup of coffee at Starbucks. In the meantime the banks will assess a ten dollar a month service charge on your checking account. YOU pay out a hundred twenty bucks for the year. So YOU pay THEM for using YOUR money.

Now consider this: back in 1954 when I was in the fourth grade I had a school banking account with Bank of America paying 4.25 percent with no service charge. Not bad for a dirty sweaty den-year old kid. Then in 1965 my wife and I opened a savings account which paid about five percent annually. Later at another savings bank it paid a little over six percent. All these accounts insured by the federal government with no bank service charges. Plus saving transactions not done during a time of inflation.

But during inflationary times(1978 to about 1985) I had a one thousand dollar CD that paid 9.1 percent. Enough interest paid out for a nice dinner out for my wife and me.

So what happened? Why are the banks not paying off to the account holder? Simply because the banks loves its Stockholders. So the account holder no longer gets the lion’s share of interest accrued. They, the banks, rather pay off the stockholder and let them take the risk with non-insured accounts. So when did all the rules change? It started when banks were allowed by reduced regulations to start up or buy brokerage firms or when brokerages opened banking services . Naturally insisting and pushing account holders towards investing rather than saving. Driving banking customers from savings accounts over to high risk brokerage investment accounts. And if the investment goes south, the investor is the loser. But the CD savings holder gets his half percent annual interest. All accomplishing what? The bank/brokerage wins no matter what. You get a very low yield or nothing at all. Possibly being assessed a service charge for the banks trouble. And again all of this a result of reduced banking regulations. And there is nothing you can do about it. Well, unless you hammer congress maybe.

The takeaway congress.

 
So you want congress to take away your affordable health care?  And you want congress to cancel your mom’s Medicare?  And you want congress to take away your grandparent’s Social Security?  And you want your single mom’s sister Child Health Insurance Plan cancelled?  Plus you want congress to take away your blind uncle Social Security Disability?  Just too much socialism here.  Right?

And on top of that its okay for Payday lenders to screw your cousin while he and his young family is in the Navy?  Right?  And I’m sure it’s okay for sellers of consumer products to not be responsible for products that fail before their time.  Right?  Just too much regulation favoring the consumer.  And we don’t want lenders and banks to miss out on high lending interest.  They have stockholders to take care of.  No sir!  Keep government out of business.  A free-wheeling market without regulation and government oversight is best.  Right?  A healthy Wall Street is a healthy America.  And take your global warming crap and shove it.  Bah Humbug!  Never mind the poor and homeless.

Just vote straight Republican.  Those guys will stop all this freaking give away.  Right?

Blogs are for blockheads.

Blogs, like this one, is just for the semi-illiterate and lazy. Blogs are thoughtlessly composed by the impulsive and reactionary. Hastily written with no fact checking. Opinion with no scholarship. Just stupid scribbling on an old model PC.

Here is my point; newspaper journalist typically come from accredited journalism schools. People and institutions capable of gathering raw information and then print it in a grammatically simple and correct fashion. Filtered through fact checker and editors. Possibly the most expensive way to present information but the reader knows the paper and journalist have done their homework. Composers of blogs, like mine, are just spume out willy-nilly and composers hope no one is checking facts. Most blogs could be considered as creative fiction. Something cute but not true. Something entertaining but not accurate. Something outrageous but not rational.

Read your local daily newspaper instead. And for Pete sakes turn off talk radio. Bottom line, I love the smell of news print. Think about it. You can’t wrap fish in a blog. That’s 30 for now.

Freaking Freeways

The omnipotent self-important state highway pinheads who want to widen major freeways in southern California should rethink their road and transportation strategy. More and/or wider freeways, as they propose, only serve to congest and pollute. It would place more diesel belching stinky trucks traveling over already polluted highways. Plus remove by demolishing low income houses and displacing thousands of people. People who couldn’t necessarily find reasonable and affordable housing near their jobs. Possibly becoming homeless in the process.

Here is what I suggest. It’s oh so simple. Dismantle and tear down the freeways. Could you possibly imagine the vast land these wide ribbons of concrete cover. It could open up thousands and thousands of acres of land for new housing and businesses. Creating a land boom. Real Estate developers would wet their pants over this. Thousands more homes could be built. Medium and large businesses could be built not far from housing areas. Creating a short commute and no need for freeways. Resulting in manufacturing goods right here instead of shipping goods from China and trucking the goods across most of southern California.

This in itself could put tens of thousands of folks to work and make their lives a bit easier. Shorter commutes. Less pollution. Less honking. More smiling faces.

Such hair-brain non-sense.

 
Why is there hair growing out of my ears?  Is this some kind of joke?  Worse yet, why is hair growing from my nose?  This is absolute proof God exists.  He has a very different crazy sense of humor.  It must be to keep us oldsters humble.  And most of all to discourage our goofy selfies from appearing on Facebook.

And by the way, what has happened to the hair on my legs.  It looks like I’ve been shaving my legs.  And this is not to mention the missing hair on my head.  Zip!  That went away fast.  My head hair is now coming out my eyebrows.  But anyway to me bushy eyebrows are an accidental mark of distinction.  Just call me Andy Rooney.  But as a reaction to gnarly eyebrows, my older daughter absolutely insists I trim my eyebrows at the earliest opportunity.  None the less, why do I not have complete jurisdiction over the placement of my body hair?  Yep!  It’s all a big LOL coming from above. 

Sheriff Sheba.

 
 
Sheba, the cookie sheriff is back in town with knight stick and handcuffs.  My secret nameless wife is telling me my choice of cookie which I wish to bake and give to some friends is a bad choice.  Tomorrow is our friend Doug’s birthday.  I suggested baking what I call my ‘butter pecan’ cookie.  Lots of real butter, crushed pecans, sugars, vanilla, and all the other tasty ingredients.  Something like a Mexican Wedding Cookie.  None the less, Sheba says my butter pecan cookie is not healthy.  She suggested baking oatmeal cookies instead. 

Let me mention this.  I bake cookies as a special treat.  An almost dessert.  Something most people eat only once in a while.  Not every day.  It’s Doug’s birthday for Pete’s sakes!  Just once a year.  I’m giving him only a half dozen.  Six very tasty and possibly somewhat fattning cookies.  Probably be shared between him and his wife.  The rest go to our nearby neighbors.  To me oatmeal cookies are nothing special.  Plane.  Dull.  However, my Butter Pecan cookies are very special and tasty.  Sheba!  Put your gun and badge away and go back to your TV sofa.  Rachel Maddow is calling.  But anyway I certainly hope Sheba doesn’t read this.

Where would I keep baby cows?

 
 
But I don’t want to be a cow farmer.

All of us teen boys and girls just walked in to Mr. McIntire’s ninth grade science class and took our seats.  Before he took role Mr. Byerman, the audio visual movie operator and math instructor opened the room door and came and asked all boys to follow him upstairs to the AV room to watch an important movie.  I’m pretty sure this was planned by Mr. McIntyre and Mr. Byerman.  So all of us boys got up and followed the tall redhead math teacher as he instructed.

“But why aren’t the girls coming too”  “Just follow me and walk quietly so we won’t bother the other classes in their classrooms,” Byerman snapped.

So we made our way upstairs to the dimly lit A/V room, grabbed a chair, sat down, and clickity-click went the Bell and Howell projector.  On the large roll-up screen shown cows grazing in a field.  Then a bull entered the picture and proceeded to stand on his Hine legs behind another cow.  “What is he doing” I whispered to a class mate.

He responded, “That‘s how they make cow children.

I whispered back, “does Mr. Byerman expect us to become cow farmers.”

“No dummy.  Just watch,” my friend whispered back.

But very worried, I mentioned, “But our backyard is too small for a cow family.”

“Just shut-up” my movie mate barked through his teeth.

But I don’t understand I thought to myself.  What are they telling us?  I knew sometime in the past they taught agriculture at this junior high but this is ridiculous.  What would I feed a family of cows?  Aren’t they messy and poop a lot? 

Then the film projector stopped and Mr. Byerman said walk quietly downstairs and wait for your next class.  Fade to black.

The big wedding.

 
May 8, 1937.

The two met out that early morning on the gravel road going to town.  It was a Saturday and their intent was to see the Justice of the Peace in Ardmore, Oklahoma.  He was wearing his best seersucker pants and white dress shirt.  She in her flowery cotton dress and wide brim hat.  The goal?  To be married and start a family.

So the two of them alone started walking in hopes of arriving at the JOP by noon.  So they started walking.  And as they walked down the dusty road a neighbor in his soft top covered touring car noticed the two of them walking and stopped to see if they needed a ride.  The neighbor asked where they were headed and they said they were going to Ardmore to get married.  The driver of the car said hop in and I’ll take you there.  Even better, he offered to be a witness.  “Let’s go.”So off they went.  No wedding invitations.  No wedding cake.  No flowing wedding gown.  No best man or maid of honor.  Just two in love off to be “hitched.”

As you may have guessed, the two were my mom and dad.  Carl and Odessa.  I asked my dad a few years ago if they were eloping.  And he quickly retorted, No!  Everybody knew were going to get married.  So that was the way it was done in southern rural red dirt Oklahoma.  Happy Anniversary to my late mom and dad.  Carl and Odessa Ayers.

We gotta do this.

It takes a village.
Actually it takes a significant population to do the heavy lifting.  It takes a significant number of people to fund a benevolent charity.  It takes money and volunteers to run a helping organization like the Red Cross or to support research for diabetes.
None the less, it will take a little bit from all of us to help the working poor and their children, the homeless, people with pre-existing medical conditions and the disabled to be able to afford health care.  It’s up to us to do the heavy lifting for those who are unable to help themselves.  It’s our moral responsibility.  America needs either Medicare for all or a single pay health care system.  Tell your congressperson we need this.  We all can help do this.  It’s not a political issue.  But we can do this together.  Millions of us can pitch in and do the heavy lifting.  Probably doing without a monthly pedicure, couple of streaming movies and a dinner out could pay for this.  

Stories of the south

Book report.
Author Rick Bragg, Pulitzer Prize winner for his bestselling book “All over but the shoutin’ has published a compilations of his writings taken from various columns and articles he had written for newspapers and magazines titled, “Where I come from: Stories from the Deep South.”  Where he came from varies between Alabama and Georgia.  Autobiographical, humor, biographical, and more.  Non-fiction 2020.  
I had also recently read Rick Bragg’s book, “The greatest cook in the World: Tales from my mama’s table.  Autobiographical, biographies of various family cooks and their caricatures with background stories, southern humor and recipes from Buttermilk biscuits, cornbread, BBQ’d pig’s feet, to how to prepare and cook an Opossum.  For both books be prepared to laugh yourself silly.  Both of these titles are available in audio book form and read by the author.  Even though the printed version might be hilarious, the audio books will bring you to tears of laughter.  Sorry, no suspense, mystery or romance in these two titles.  Just southern barefoot humor.
Chuck