LOST TO REALITY READING

Found this on the net.

I'm the one on the end the Christmas break I discovered the Rings Trilogy. I tore through The Two Towers in one sitting, at the end of my bed and when I came up for air it was past two in the morning. Man I had a death grip on the library book. Bummed me out when I took my new found love for fantasy to my English teacher. Bad move. "I shouldn't spend too much time on any one kind of book." Thinking back Mr. Putnam had all the imagination of a turnip. When I'm in the zone don't come between me and my book.

THEY DO SHARE THE WEALTH

A waiter for Carrabba's Italian grill got this note from a customer.

“Thank you for your service, it was excellent. That being said, we cannot in good conscience tip you, for your homosexual lifestyle is an affront to GOD. Queers do not share in the wealth of GOD, and you will not share in ours. We hope you will see the tip your fag choices made you lose out on, and plan accordingly. It is never too late for GOD’S love, but none shall be spared for fags. May GOD have mercy on you.”

God/dess where to start? I guess there’s one thing you have to “love” about haters is their absolute inability to see past the current target of their hate. I suggest that you move to a desert island somewhere. But that won’t do you any good will it? Because the chances are excellent that the clothes you take with you, the supplies you take with you, the ship or plane that you pay to take you there will probably have been manufactured, packed or crewed by someone who is gay. So in the end you’ll end up sharing some of your wealth with a gay anyway so I guess you might as well stay home.


How oh how will you manage if you don’t move to that island? Again, chances are excellent that your house, your car, your groceries, the music you listen to, the TV or movies that you watch, your utilities, every aspect of your precious, bigoted lives is touched at some point your fellow citizens (and how that must stick in your craw) who are gay, lesbians or bi. You share your wealth so to speak every day of your lives. 

It must have really galled this couple as the story spread and customers ASKED to be seated in his section of the restaurant. So in spite of your bigoted efforts the young man appears to be doing very well. No thank you.

STOP PLAYING THE PERSECUTION CARD

Can you believe it? Billy Graham is still alive. He had his 95th birthday this weekend. And oh, there was whoop te do all around. Gag me with a spoon. This op ed piece appeared in a South Carolina Newspaper. I'll spare you the picture of a smirking just out of his teens, proud owner of a Strom Thurmond T shirt.

“The hour is late, and the need is urgent.  The eternal destiny of many souls—and the future of our great nation—are at stake.  Pray that we will turn from our wicked ways and that God will heal our land.”  -Dr. Billy Graham

As part of Billy Graham’s 95^th birthday celebration, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association put together a phenomenal video series billed “My Hope America.”  In the series, Graham discusses the secular path on which our nation seems intent upon traveling.  However, Graham continues to present a message of hope.  Despite the chaos America finds herself in, Graham has hope for our country.

His hope is not in government.  His hope is not in celebrities.  His hope is not in medicine nor is it in business.  His hope is in Jesus Christ.

We live during an age when persecution of Christians is becoming more and more commonplace.  In fact, Christianity grows more and more irrelevant in modern society as the days pass.  We have witnessed attack after vicious attack to alienate us and ostracize our beliefs.  Too many “influential” Americans in the spotlight today find strength in themselves rather than in God.  Their self-centeredness gives them a sense of invincibility and they do as they please.

The Billy Grahams of the United States seem to be growing fewer and fewer.  Our once God-fearing nation has become uninterested in Christian teachings and more interested in self-advancement.  Great evangelicals within our Christian community have been replaced by anti-Christian organizations such as the Freedom from Religion Foundation, the American Atheists, Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, and the list goes on.

These groups have taken control of the nation.  They have taken prayer out of schools.  They have murdered more than 50 million unborn children.  They have shoved homosexuality down the throat of America.  They have abandoned morality in the name of “freethinking.”

The bottom line is that Christianity is under attack in America.  Unfortunately, the reason behind these increasing assaults is the church.  The Christian church has become complacent in modern society and has allowed secular progressives to do as they please while we remain silent in the corner.  We cannot expect things to change if we continue to stand by.

The Bible teaches that Christians will face persecution.  Upon accepting Christ, one must accept this reality.  When fear of persecution silences the population, well, we have a serious problem.

Our answer is not found in government.  In fact, the government is not at fault for the actions it has taken.  The blame lies squarely with the church.  So long as we appease the Muslims and atheists and gays and other so-called “activists,” how Christians feel is not important.  This is the position in which we find ourselves after years of complacency.  We cannot expect change unless we are going to drive it.  Our hope is in Jesus Christ.

Dr. Graham has been estimated to have reached more than 210 million lives in his 60 years of preaching.  He understands that we cannot make the decision to follow Christ for anyone but ourselves.  We can, however, present the Gospel to the lost and allow them to make the decision for themselves.

I strongly believe that if each Christian in our nation would be as willing to come out of the closet we have locked ourselves in as the homosexuals are, a transformation would occur right here in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.  We must not forget that the Constitution grants us freedom to worship as we please.  We have the sovereign right to worship the Creator of the heavens and the earth.  If we fail to step up to the plate, this right will be an element of history that generations to come will only be able to read about in textbooks.   G. Miller Thompson

I can't find any particular claim to fame for Mr. Thompson other than access to a computer. 

God/dess where do I start?

Martin Luther King Jr. and Billy Graham were contemporaries. It's scary but I do believe they were both Baptist ministers and that is where they parted company. 

Billy Graham had a national pulpit and access to the mighty. He could have used that pulpit to speak  out against the war in Vietnam. He could have used that to come out against racism. He could have raised his voice to attack injustice. He could have used that influence to help the poor. He could have used his access to speak out against our war against "subversion" in Central and South America. A war that claimed hundreds of thousands of lives and left little more than devastation behind. 

He chose not to. Probably would have cost him that national pulpit and that access to the mighty. He chose the rewards of this world while Dr. King became a true prophet. A century down the road I wonder who will be remembered? The Billy Sunday wanna be or the man, who with all his faults, saw poverty, war and injustice and did all he could to stop it. 

I've said it before and I"ll repeat it until I'm blue in the face. When someone uses the word Christian as if everyone from Old Order Amish to Unitarian Universalists shares the same set of beliefs call them out. Better still ask them if they believe in witches and demons. That'll tell you all you need to know. 

AND, WHAT ABOUT THE REST OF US?

This is the other story that caught my attention this morning. For the record folks have the right to own guns. I don't hunt. I've got family that does. And they eat what they shoot. I don't really see the need for guns that have magazines that hold dozens of bullets. But, hey that's just me.

Frankly, I see guns as a canary in the coal mine symptom of a much deeper problem. Why in the hell is this country so violent? Have a wardrobe malfunction during the Super Bowl and the fundies go ballistic because a kid might have gotten a glimpse of Janet Jackson's nipple. Market blow 'em away video games to the same kids and "it's just a game folks." Don't get me started.

But I don't hold with intimidating people who don't agree with you and that's what these people are doing. Intimidation pure and simple. And a lot of commenters got a real "hoot" out of where the group finally retreated to. Yeah, the group included kids. I wonder if these brave souls took there kids with them when they adjourned to the local Hooters.

Anyway, this is the text of the Think Progress article. Check out the picture folks. White bread America out in "force" against I think it's four moms meeting inside the restaurant. Lordy, Lordy, Lordy. Those gals would have me shakin' in my boots.

"On Saturday, nearly 40 armed men, women, and children waited outside a Dallas, Texas area restaurant to protest a membership meeting for the state chapter of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, a gun safety advocacy group formed in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.

According to a spokeswoman for Moms Demand Action (MDA), the moms were inside the Blue Mesa Grill when members of Open Carry Texas (OCT) — an open carry advocacy group — “pull[ed] up in the parking lot and start[ed] getting guns out of their trunks.” The group then waited in the parking lot for the four MDA members to come out. The spokeswoman said that the restaurant manager did not want to call 911, for fear of “inciting a riot” and waited for the gun advocates to leave. The group moved to a nearby Hooters after approximately two hours.

MDA later released a statement calling OCT “gun bullies” who “disagree[d] with our goal of changing America’s gun laws and policies to protect our children and families.” The statement added that the members and restaurant customers were “terrified by what appeared to be an armed ambush.” A member of OCT responded by tweeting, “I guess I’m a #gunbullies #Comeandtakeit.” 

Me: great attitude asshole. You can keep it. I sure as hell don't want it. What's the difference between you and a member of the Taliban? Yeah, you're not wearing a turban, maybe you shaved this morning and I'm guessing you're a Christian, not a Muslim. But I'm betting that if we stood the two of you together there wouldn't a glimmer of daylight to be seen between you.

This is not the first time that gun advocates have rallied at MDA events. In March, a group of armed men crashed a MDA gun-control rally in Indianapolis. Other gun advocate groups will hold rallies this upcoming December 14, the anniversary date of the Sandy Hook shooting.


Licensed gun owners are allowed to carry concealed weapons, but Texas is one of six states that prohibits open carry of firearms. Attorney General Greg Abbott, a likely Republican successor for Gov. Rick Perry (R), has vowed to permit concealed handgun owners to display their firearms in public. Four GOP contenders for lieutenant governor similarly hope to put in place open carry laws if elected."

Ok, let's see if you can wrap your brains around this. There are ten amendments. Before the second amendment there was the first. You know the one that guarantees, freedom of religion, speech, assembly and the right to petition for the redress of grievances.

Those women were exercising their rights to assemble, speak and plan how to petition for the redress of what they see as legitimate concerns. Repeat after me. They have the right to do this. Again, THEY HAVE THE RIGHT TO DO THIS. And if I could I'd put that sentence in again in forty point font.

THEY HAVE THE RIGHT TO DO THIS. You may not agree with them but they have the right to do these things without being intimidated by you or anyone else.

This is the anniversary of Kristallnacht. Care to tell me what the difference is between you and Hitler's Brown Shirts or the Pakistani Taliban.? Or the cartel goons in Mexico? Because from where I'm sitting I don't see very much. Oh, did I hurt your tender second amendment feelings. Cry me a river.

I'm on the north side of sixty. I'm running out of time to be polite.

"WE DON'T CATER TO YOU PEOPLE"

This was going to be a two parter. But both stories are worth their own entries. And yeah I'm apt to get  snarky before I'm done. I'm on the north side of sixty folks. I'm running out of time to waste being polite.

Some interesting links on my Facebook page this morning. The first has to do with the craft giant Hobby Lobby. I'd run across part of the story a couple of months ago. This article has a fuller story and the author did research to back up some of the claims.  The original incident happened in a store in New Jersey. You know. The little state across the Hudson from the city that probably has the largest population of Jews in the country. "We don't cater to you people." Ok. Short people? Tall people? Red Heads? Folks with lots of freckles? Folks who wear saris and turbans?

The company's mission statement.  Employees “honor the Lord in all we do by operating the company in a manner consistent with biblical principles.” Let's not examine some of those Biblical principals too closely shall we? And WTF do you think wrote the Old Testament in the first place? And where do you think Yeshua bar Joseph and his followers worshiped? The megachurch on the other side of town? Not bloody likely. They went to the local synagogue. They were Jews. They kept the Holy Days. They were "you people."

Incidentally this weekend is the 75th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass. The orchestrated outburst of violence against German Jews, the synagogues and their businesses. If any German Jews had any illusions left about their futures in the New Germany they died that night. Unfortunately thanks to the attitudes of the folks who own Hobby Lobby the options for getting out of Germany before the curtain fell were limited.

It shocked the hell out of me years ago when I learned that the yearly quotas, such as they were, for Jewish immigration to the US were never filled during WWII. Never, even when we knew, and we did know. Finally what was happening in Nazi occupied Europe. Maybe we didn't know the full horror of what was happening, but we knew.

And, it's kind of prosaic after the last couple of paragraphs but is there anyone out there who has shopped at a Hobby Lobby recently? Say last month. I assume that since the owners are such good Christians that there was nary an image of a witch, a black cat or a Jack O Lantern to be found. After all. Halloween is the high jacked version of Samhain, the Celtic New Year. The day when the veil between the worlds is thinnest and the spirits can walk among us. Hardly a holiday to be celebrated by "good" Christians.

SENSE OF ENTITLEMENT?

This story came out just after Halloween  and this one came out a couple of days ago. And ran across a similar story in Bruce Bawer's Stealing Jesus. Told several cases where basically itinerant evangelists had no compunctions about inserting themselves into a group having lunch and  a perfectly good PRIVATE conversation only to be asked "if they've been saved."

There's an air of passive/aggressive about these street "preachers." My interpretation is the right one. Your opinions don't count. We're doing this for your good. And so on. Every so often we get kids from one of the local little Baptist churches coming around with slick brochures. I thank them and send them on their way. I figure it wouldn't do any good to go into my "I was raised Methodist, but right now I'm a Quaker/Celtic I'll get back to you when I figure it out." Unfortunately I'd probably have to explain the Methodists, the Quakers and the Celts. Takes the fun out of it.

THE RIGHT TO WATER?

Not according the former CEO of Nestle. One of if not the largest food companies in the world. The shot is of Victoria Falls in Africa. Found on the net. 

This quote is from a 2005 interview. More of this "gentleman's" interesting views on the public's right to access natural resources that are essentially the gifts of the Earth, the Creator, God, the Goddess however you see it can be found in this outside blog entry.

I love how he goes on about how safe GMO's are. How this is the best fed, best generation in history. Well I guess it is if you have enough money to pay for his products and don't live in the third world where at least a billion people do not have access to adequate food, shelter or water.

A LITTLE RESPECT

Fill in the needed service of your choice, especially food service. Thank heaven they can't outsource lunch to Mumbai. And neither is trash hauling, teaching, repairing anything fixable the list is almost endless and so are the attempts to belittle and degrade.

I've got news for some folks. By the time I was good enough to bake for my first Black Friday at Valley River I don't think I was entry level. Maybe I'm stretching. Lisa, I have to admit I was scared that morning. But you had our backs and by heaven we did it. I was ready to turn cartwheels

And for the umpteenth time it wasn't the cooks or the mechanics or the teachers or the trash haulers or the nurses or the baristas who tanked the economy a few years ago. It was the guys with the MBA's, finance degrees, the fancy suits and the attitude that rest of us are just one stage above what gets scraped off their shoes. Guess what? If all of you disappeared tomorrow the only people who would miss you are the folks who sold you your morning skinny latte's.

MEET CATACLYSM

This story was posted on Face Book via the Crazy Cat Ladies. I hope the original poster doesn't mind my retelling the story of Cataclysm

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Looks to be about two weeks old here. Eyes open wondering what the Sam Hill is going on. At that age Midge could just about walk in a straight line. Or sneeze. Not both.
Cataclysm's Story


August 17, 2011 at 12:29pm
Today is Cataclysm’s 12th. birthday. In her honor, I’m telling her inspirational story to those who have not heard it. Not to mention that she has also gained a certain amount of a FB cult following due to her OCD sock fetish, which is shown in her album....
It was a very hot day, even for August. Katie and I were staying cool by working as volunteers at the local Humane Society. We had spent most of that day working in the cattery – our favorite location. We had, in fact, taken a cat home a couple of weeks before, to foster until her kittens were adoptable. Cheetah had given birth to 5 in our little home nursery. Being in one of those moods that day, we had dubbed them
“Catillac, Catamaran, Catmandu, Catatonic and Catapult.”

It was late that afternoon when one of the animal officers came into the cattery with a shoebox. He took it to one of the vets and said sadly, “It’s too small, there’s nothing we can do.”
“What’s in the box?,” I asked, always curious about anything new. He paid no attention.

“We have no nursing mothers and it can’t stay here,” the vet said. “We may as well just take care of it now.”
“What’s in the BOX??,” I was becoming more insistent.
“It’s a kitten,” the vet responded, “it can’t be more than about a day old. Someone left it on a hot windowsill to die.” We were horrified at the cruelty with which people treat defenseless animals, and this was such a bittyy baby.
Katie and I looked in the box at the tiny blue-cream baby. It was not even wiggling or making a sound. It was soooo small. We had always been animal lovers but babies of any kind, especially kittens, were a real soft spot for us.

“I heard you say something about a nursing mother. What if you had one?” I asked.
“Then there’s a slim chance that the mother might accept the kitten, but we don’t have one.”
“We’ve got Cheetah,” Katie reminded them, “her litter is only 2 weeks old. Can’t we take her home and try?”
A tiny ray of hope came over the workers. They said that we had nothing to lose. We asked what to do and were told to rub the baby up against the other kittens to try to cover her with their scent. If Cheetah tried to nurse her or bathe her, we MIGHT have a chance. But they made it clear that it wasn’t a good chance.
We immediately took the box and headed out. When we got home, we headed straight for the nursery and sent Cheetah out for a walk. While she was out of the room, we took out the new baby, naming her “Cataclysm,” since she was having that kind of day.
We picked up each of the big kittens, they were about 5 times the size of the newcomer. We rubbed them each fairly vigorously all over her tiny body, she should be good and “scented.” Then we put her on the floor of the nursery and sort of piled all of the big ones on top of her. It was time to let Cheetah back in.
The mama cat sauntered back in, going immediately to the pile of babes. She pushed them around with her nose until they were all spread out. She suddenly stopped and just looked at the newborn. She nosed them all some more, like she was counting and was understandably confused. She started arranging them to nurse, finally picking Cataclysm up in her mouth. This was the moment that made us hold our breath. Would she kill the teeny stranger with one bite or go ahead with the feeding? Our tension was palpable.
She held the baby gently and pushed her into her abdomen, licking her gently, we breathed a huge sigh of relief. But nothing happened, the infant was too weak and dehydrated. We tried to help her latch on to a nipple, but had no success. After 20 min. or so, I told Katie that we were going to leave the nursery; it was out of our hands.

We waited about 2 hours and couldn’t stand the suspense any longer. Down to the nursery we went. Before we even got close to the door, we could hear kittens squalling loudly. That had us wondering! We opened the door and peeked in cautiously. Cheetah had taken the 5 big kittens and piled them in a corner. She was in the opposite corner with a tiny bundle. Slurping loudly and kneading Cheetah’s belly with minuscule paws was Cataclysm!

In just a couple of weeks, “Catty” had almost caught up with the others in size. Her eyes were open and she was beginning to walk around. She had overcome all odds and was firmly entrenched in her new family. When it came time to adopt out Cheetah and the babies, we couldn’t part with her, she has been with us ever since.

Every month, the Humane Society wrote a newsletter for the volunteers. I gave them a copy of this story, figuring the other volunteers would like to know about our determined little cat. To my surprise, instead of going into the newsletter, it was given to the person who wrote the monthly fundraising letter. Our chapter of the Society made about $98,000 during that year. Unbelievably, Cataclysm’s story had raised almost half that amount. Who would have thought that she would become a “$50,000 throw-away?

I can almost see that momma kittly puzzling over the situation and finally deciding "well I'm not MISSING anybody. The humans will explain everything when they're ready."

DON'T GO OUT AFTER DARK IF YOU'RE...

I promise I'll get back to the pagans, semi pagans and other wild life in Massachusetts. Honest. And I have some ideas in answer to Lisa's questions about how to spread some of the holiday joy around.

However, this greeted me when I checked out FB this morning. There is a corroborating entry on Huffington Post from the weekend. And I'm trying to get more recent information.

Here's what we know. The victim was black, young female, apparently had an accident in the early hours of the morning, had a dead cell phone (anybody remember when we DIDN'T have cell phones), went looking for help in a white neighborhood and ended up dead from a shotgun blast to the back of the head.

Although the neighborhood is described as white here is what we don't know. The identity, age or race of the shooter. We do know that Stand Your Ground has been invoked.

Let me get this straight. She's outside. I assume you can see her through the window or the peephole. I assume she appears to be unarmed. I'm also assuming that your door is locked and it isn't a hollow core piece of card board. There is no record of a 911 call to report an intruder. Nothing. Just a blast in the middle of the night and a dead African American woman. The latest in a long, too long line.

And I have a curiosity bump to scratch. In all the pictures of folks exercising their "right" to make us wonder about the sanity of the guy up the street with the rifle slung over his back have seen either a woman, an African American or a Latino with a bushmaster or an AK47 knockoff slung over their shoulders? I sure as hell haven't.

THIS IS THE USA RIGHT? OR WAR ON DRUGS HORROR STORY

This isn’t the first story like this I’ve read, and the far right fundies who are so worried about the black helicopters and FEMA camps are strangely silent about the real invasions of the civil rights of real people. This isn’t conspiracy theory folks, this is the real freakin’  deal.

This story comes from two sources, The Daily Kos and  Think Progress they match up pretty well. This is a prime example of how the War On Drugs has totally distorted the relationship between the civilians and the folks that supposedly take an oath “to protect and serve.” Traffic stops that used to get you a warning or a citation have become the camel’s nose allowing some police departments to, apparently, do anything they damn please.

And from Penny Lernoux’s books and a dandy little volume called School of the Assassins: Guns, Greed and Globalization there’s good data that the war on drugs was never just about keeping drugs out of the US. That war provided a handy cover to allow support for the covert war against so called “subversion” in Latin America.

The real kick in the teeth were cases where the cops in countries like Argentina who were supposed to be helping the US keep drugs out of the US were actually the drug lords we were fighting against. Damn, you couldn’t tell the players even with a score card and a lot of locals ended up jailed, tortured, disappeared and dead. Find a used copy of Lernoux’s Cry of the People and don’t read it just before lights out. It’s very uncomfortable reading.

The real kicker is that the cops managed to get a search warrant. Now, my knowledge of the chain of command here comes from watching Law and Order and Blue Bloods. Cops have suspicion go to somebody in the DA’s office and the DA goes to a judge. Judge says yay or nay and the warrant goes back to the cops. I’d love to get my hands on that warrant because this is a list of the procedures a man stopped for doing a rolling stop through the sign was forced to undergo, without his consent. In fact over his continued protests.

A review of Eckert's medical records, which he released to KOB, and details in the lawsuit show the following happened:

1. Eckert's abdominal area was x-rayed; no narcotics were found.  

2. Doctors then performed an exam of Eckert's anus with their fingers; no narcotics were found.

3. Doctors performed a second exam of Eckert's anus with their fingers; no narcotics were found.  

4. Doctors penetrated Eckert's anus to insert an enema.  Eckert was forced to defecate in front of doctors and police officers.  Eckert watched as doctors searched his stool.  No narcotics were found.

5. Doctors penetrated Eckert's anus to insert an enema a second time.  Eckert was forced to defecate in front of doctors and police officers.  Eckert watched as doctors searched his stool.  No narcotics were found.

6. Doctors penetrated Eckert's anus to insert an enema a third time.  Eckert was forced to defecate in front of doctors and police officers.  Eckert watched as doctors searched his stool.  No narcotics were found.

7. Doctors then x-rayed Eckert again; no narcotics were found.  

8. Doctors prepared Eckert for surgery, sedated him, and then performed a colonoscopy where a scope with a camera was inserted into Eckert's anus, rectum, colon, and large intestines. No narcotics were found.  Throughout this ordeal, Eckert protested and never gave doctors at the Gila Regional Medical Center consent to perform any of these medical procedures.

And guess who is being dunned by the hospital for the bills it isn’t the cops, the DA’s office or the judge. Frankly I’d give the “hospital” the one fingered salute and dare them to take me to collections. And then I'd call every TV, radio station and newspaper in a three state area. 

Either the cops grossly overstepped their bounds or a judge who is so far nameless signed off on a warrant that allowed the cops to do whatever they pleased. Frankly, I believe that everybody from the cops to the DA to the judge should get their asses canned.  And I hope the hospital is part of this lawsuit because they have no business even getting involved. And the impetus for this crap? The PD’s get a share of any resources seized, especially cash. Follow the money it will usually lead you to the truth.

FAMILY TREES

It's said that you can choose your friends. Family? You not only don't get a choice, it's pretty much potluck. Especially when it comes to the generations past aunts, uncles and cousins. In the late 1690's Salem Massachusetts was the site of a notorious set of witch trials. Much of the sting is gone, and the town capitalizes on the notoriety with month long street theater, crafts, pagan celebrations. More about that later. 

The unfortunate subject tonight is a certain Reverend Nicholas Noyes. Apparently my great uncle. Several times removed. During the trials he acted as one of the official ministers. When he called upon Sarah Goode to confess and avoid the rope she cursed him. "I am no more a witch than you are a wizard and if you take my life God will give you blood to drink." It took a few years and he publicly repented of his actions during the trials, but he died in 1717 of a hemorrhage. I think I would rather have known the witches, not the ministers. I'm afraid I would have made a very poor Puritan. 

THE GREY PILGRIM

Wisdom from Gandalf the Grey. It's easy to say what someone else "deserves" in our semi blind opinion. We can't know how decisions will work out in the end. Look at history and how many decisions that seemed like good ideas at the time have turned around and bitten us in the ass. Yeah you'll get bitten, especially if you don't proof read your caption. My bad.

VISIONS OF HALLOWEENS PAST

Well Halloween came and went. I think we had three Trick or Treaters. I was in bed with the flu and mom was manning the door. We packed it in about eight and turned out the lights. The cute little kids are all home taking stock of their stash by then anyway. There’s a small church down the street and they did a Halloween party. I’m guessing that’s where some of the kids ended up. And it was raining. It’s hard to look like a prince when your frog costume is soaking wet. Heck, there wasn't even anything good and scary on the tube. Even if I'd been up to staying vertical that long. Thbppppb as Bill the Cat from Bloom County used to say. 

Then, to add a little insanity to the mix, there  was this gal in North Dakota who was going to hand out “fat letters” to T & T’rs who were overweight. In her opinion. Twit. She’d probably have been perfectly at home at a judge in the Salem Witch Trials three centuries ago.

Or maybe she’s just a prime example of American lack of imagination. I mean she could have stocked up on sugarless candy. It’s out there. But I’m not sure if it comes in a nice, safe wrapper. What I’ve seen comes in bulk. She could have handed out granola bars. Or boxes of raisins. Heck our local butcher shop carries their own brand of jerky. I bet they’d shrink wrap individual servings on order. Of course that would take planning, imagination and more investment in time and cash than just going to BiMart with a coupon and picking up a couple of bags of Snickers or Milky Ways.

I’m old enough to remember Halloweens when you could give out popcorn balls, or cookies, or even donuts. We did that one year. Made a batch, Sampled, Found then ok, but probably won’t do it again and handed out the rest to the door knockers. Did a double batch of chocolate chip cookies one year. Again we had what we wanted, gave away the rest. Did popcorn balls a couple of years. Even tinted the syrup a color that resembled orange. If you used your imagination. The rug rats that knocked on the door didn’t seem to mind.

There was anticipation. What will we get at this house? Well, you pretty much know what’s coming. It’s be in a wrapper and hopefully untouched by human hands. Arrrrrrgh!

Then people started finding pins in the popcorn and razor blades in the apples. The industry came up with “fun” size candy bars and the rest is history. And Halloween really got really, really boring.