VIRGINIA 003

I don’t like, and regularly refuse to read lengthy treatises, whether they be articles, BLOGS, or whatever. Yet I find myself increasingly loquacious, with earlier posts averaging around 500 words and recent efforts exceeding 1,000. And so I have determined to write fewer words, hopefully not lesser thoughts. That might also mean more frequent posts, which some might find annoying. Thankfully, the Almighty (Bill Gates, of course) has endowed us with the delete button, an ever present comfort in times of garrulous excess.

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I may be the only person on the planet who has never consumed a peanut butter & jelly sandwich. As an adult the combination just didn’t appeal to me, and as a child the effort was beyond the mean culinary talents of my sainted mother, whose idea of gourmet fare was Spam garnished with a lettuce and sliced carrot salad. On special occasions she would toss in a handful of tiny marshmallows. May provide some explanation for the pull I feel toward L’Isle de France, even as certain other other factors push.

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I wonder if folks realize there are just over 100 days until the 2012 U. S. Presidential election campaign begins, assuming a hiatus between November 5 and January 20, an assumption that carries no assurance of fruition.

Someone (it sounds like Daniel Patrick Moynahan) once opined that we are all entitled to our own opinions, but not to our own facts. I have observed that this dictum is suspended during the political silly season, and now that campaigning is a 24/7/365 sport, appears to have been removed from the books entirely.

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Why, I wonder, are the young so overwhelmingly liberal, yet traditionally grow more conservative with age? Winston Churchill was misquoted (though only slightly) as noting If you're not liberal when you're young, you have no heart. If you're not conservative when you're older, you have no brain. The premise is anecdotally if not demonstrably true. The rationale should be unsettling for liberals.

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Geezers take lots of prescription medicines, and we are always warned against using heavy machinery, and thus I am constrained to ask: how heavy? A blender but not a bobcat? Electric tooth brush but not electric lawnmower? And two of the more popular drugs on the market, neither of which I’ve tried, caution me in the first instance against thoughts of suicide and in the latter to be on the lookout for erections lasting more than 4 hours. I wonder if taken together they cancel each other?

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I have taken to observing children at play, from a distance so as not to incur the suspicion of the ever vigilant guardians of morality, a practice as unfortunate as it is necessary in our troubled times.

Scarlet Ribbons was written in 1949 and performed by over 20 artists, from Doris Day and the Kingston Trio, to something called the Bonzo Dog Band. It’s a tender song about a child who prays for scarlet ribbons, for which her father searches the town in vain, yet they mysteriously adorn her bed at the morn. It used to bring me soothing images of the supernatural, but lately when I hear it I think of Elizabeth Smart, snatched from her bed in Salt Lake City.

Were the song written today, the ending might go something like this:

Through the night my heart was aching
Just before the dawn was breaking
I looked in and on her bed in gay profusion lying there
I saw ribbons, scarlet ribbons, scarlet ribbons for her hair

Called the cops and they came screaming
Convinced them that I wasn’t dreaming
Red lights whirling, sirens blasting
What a nightmare everlasting

Searched hi and lo for perps a’lurking
Insured my Glock properly working
Changed the locks; installed alarm
All to shield my child from harm

If I live to be one hundred
I’ll never forget that scare
Pervert leaving scarlet ribbons
Scarlet ribbons for her hair

…the adventure appears stalled for the moment, but should soon continue…