Who Is Next?

Posted on 20/06/2020 by Grumpa Joe

While watching the riots around the country last week I wondered how long it would be before the creeps began to pick on George Washington. Well, yesterday I saw an article that showed poor bronze George laying laying face down wondering what the hell happened. I am wondering the same thing. There is nothing that divides a country more then civil strife. I often declare myself a bigot, and a racist, but I live with black neighbors as well as brown and yellow. These people are fine people. All they want is to live in peace, raise their families and to have a good life, they are okay, or at least they appear to be. Frankfort is a magnet for minority families because of the fine reputation of our schools. They come here to give their kids the same chance as I gave mine. They don’t want their kids hooked on drugs, nor recruited into gangs. Yet, Frankfort has both of these problems within the boundaries. My own grand daughters told me exactly where they could go within the school to get drugs. It was a different place for different desires. I read the police blotter in the locals and the number one reason for being pulled over is to examine for drugs. Lately there has been an explosion of burgled cars and homes. I can only reason that these thieves are feeding habits. The number one house that gets robbed is one with doors unlocked, the same for cars. Stolen cars are easy pickings when the owners leave them unlocked with the keys in the console.

What we haven’t seen yet in our town is unpeaceful protesting, rioting, and looting. These activities seem to be organized by political groups mostly leftist or communist for the purpose of creating division between peoples. These are ruthless criminal types that will betray their country for money. Many are highly educated and brainwashed into leftist thinking that they have it bad. Never do these people listen to logic nor understand statistics about how more black lives are lost within their own community perpetrated by blacks. Black lives don’t really matter if it is a black killing a black.

Blacks are progressing in this country. Although because I, a white man has said it they will disagree. There have been myriads of laws passed dictating that blacks are equal to whites, trillions of dollars have been spent to make their lives better, and it has done so, but they don’t think it is enough, they want reparation too. This rioting and protesting will only end when the entire country is communist, poor, and starving. In other words, never. We will never succumb to communism peacefully.

This week I heard the term “Juneteenth” for the first time. The word is completely strange to me, but since that first time it is a ll I’ve heard. Evidently, it is a term used to commemorate freedom from slavery. Southern states have been celebrating this day, but not in my half of the country. There is now a movement to make Juneteenth a National Holiday. I suppose the day will rival the National Holiday of July fourth with picnics and concerts on the National Mall, fireworks, parades, and time off from work.  Hell, if we celebrate more and more none of us will have any time to work for a living. Life will be more acceptable if we didn’t have to work. What an awful four letter word work is.

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Learning to Speak English

Posted on 18/06/2020 by Grumpa Joe
Being cooped up by the virus has pointed many of us to learn something new. I suggest we all use this time to unravel the mystery of the English language.
Subject: HOW does one learn English as a 2nd language?
Ode to The English Plural
We’ll begin with a box, and the plural is boxes,
But the plural of ox becomes oxen, not oxes.
One fowl is a goose, but two are called geese,
Yet the plural of moose should never be meese.
You may find a lone mouse or a nest full of mice,
Yet the plural of house is houses, not hice.
If the plural of man is always called men,
Why shouldn’t the plural of pan be called pen?
If I speak of my foot and show you my feet,
And I give you a boot, would a pair be called beet?
If one is a tooth and a whole set are teeth,
Why shouldn’t the plural of booth be called beeth?
Then one may be that, and there would be those,
Yet hat in the plural would never be hose,
And the plural of cat is cats, not cose.
We speak of a brother and also of brethren,
But though we say mother, we never say methren.
Then the masculine pronouns are he, his and him,
But imagine the feminine: she, shis and shim!
Let’s face it – English is a crazy language.
There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple.
English muffins weren’t invented in England.
We take English for granted, but if we explore its paradoxes, we find that
  • quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square, and
  • a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.
  • And why is it that writers write, but fingers don’t fing, grocers don’t groce and hammers don’t ham?
  • Doesn’t it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend?
  • If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?
  • If teachers taught, why didn’t preachers praught?
  • If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?
  • Sometimes I think all the folks who grew up speaking English
  • should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane.
  • In what other language do people recite at a play and play at a recital?
  • We ship by truck but send cargo by ship…
  • We have noses that run and feet that smell.
  • We park in a driveway and drive in a parkway.
  • And how can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same,
  • while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?
  • You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a languagel”
  • in which your house can burn up as it burns down,
  • in which you fill in a form by filling it out, and
  • in which an alarm goes off by going on.
And in closing, if Father is Dad, how come Mother is not Mad

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Adventure Is Dangerous But Boredom Is Lethal

Posted on 15/06/2020 by Grumpa Joe

A friend called me Saturday evening and said simply, “come pick me up.”  She was seventy miles away. I didn’t hesitate, I put on a shirt, got in the car and drove to get her. Earlier in the year we had made a deal. Basically, I would let her stay in my house so she could become independent of her son. It took her four months to finally make it happen. On the ride back to Frankfort, we discussed her need to de-stress. I told her, you need an adventure. “What is adventure,” she asked? She is from a foreign country and can speak well enough to make a living, but every once in a awhile she will stop dead and ask the “what is” question about the meaning of a word. I am becoming a better linguist as a result of it. Having to define the meaning of words which are natural to me is quite a challenge. I defined adventure as a trip or activity that is  new and exciting. I was dead on Webster correct except for one additional descriptor, “new, exciting, and possibly dangerous.”  I explained to her that adventures stretch us and make us think about life in a new way. An adventure can be exciting, like taking off on a whim at sundown on a Saturday night to drive to the far north side almost to the Wisconsin border in the dark on roads, and through towns I am not very familiar with.

Normally my adventures are quite tame compared to that one. Like for instance taking my car to get emission tested in another town from the one that currently shut down and converted to COVID-19 testing.

I read a meme describing adventure is dangerous but boredom is lethal. Complacent activity doesn’t move the blood like adventure.

All my life, I have enjoyed taking adventures, mostly bicycle trips. There is nothing like the thrill signing up for a one week long bike trip with twelve thousand other crazy people to ride from one border of a state to another. The whole thing takes ones mind off of the stresses of daily work which tends to get a bit stressful at times. Once you punch out of the job and head for the car packed with your equipment and bicycle your stress level changes from the job to the new adventure. Excitement and adrenaline takeover the body, and you move forward, away from the stress that was grinding on you.

My friend recently had an illness which consumed her body. For her entire life she has been healthy, robust, active person without any complaints and then painful joints hit her like a ton of bricks. Lots of tests, and pain later the doctors concluded that she had fibromyalgia. She never heard of it. She asked where does it come from? Believe it, or not they couldn’t, or wouldn’t answer her question. Being naturally curious she searched the internet rigorously until she learned that one cause of fibromyalgia is stress. What stress? she asked herself. I listed some possibilities: you were unemployed for three months and couldn’t find work, there is friction between you and your son with whom you have lived for over twenty years for starters. It all adds up, some of the stressors are tiny, but I believe they are additive. Your cup fills with stress and when it reaches the rim it causes your body to react with pain.

I ended my adventure by driving home in the night. I missed a turn at a round about, and wound up giving my GPS a workout. Eventually, the stress of being lost changed to being comfortable in the dark after I began to recognize where I was.

 

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My Update on COVID-19

Posted on 13/06/2020 by Grumpa Joe

With all the new knowledge of Covid-19 it is becoming more apparent that people don’t give a damn any more. Our Governor just announced that Illinois is not ready for Phase Four reopening. I agree. Last night after supper I was invited to meet a group of friends in town for a drink. I thought, why not? I’ll take my mask and have a beer with some friendly chatter. I’m tired of talking to myself even though I am the smartest person I know.

We were meeting at the bowling alley. Frankfort’s bowling alley is very old and has been in business non-stop since the forties. It is in a two story building which houses a number of shops. The bowling alley is on the second floor. Phase three rules state that restaurants and bars can open only if outside on patios with tables spaced apart and servers must were masks. The bowling alley has a small strip of property adjacent to the building which they fenced off and converted to a patio.  To make it nicer they installed a tent over the entire space.

When I arrived, the patio was crowded with people, none were masked. They congregated in groups around stand up tables, and were being served by an unmasked server; the owner behind a makeshift bar. It was an enjoyable evening seeing friends whom I haven’t seen in quite some time. I even managed to make a new friend who happens to live in my neighborhood on the next street over. That made me happy. What didn’t make  me happy was how congenial everyone was and handshaking like old times. That made me uneasy, and I couldn’t wait to get home to wash my hands. Granted, these people were ten-twenty years younger than me so they are not as affected by the virus. I’d like to think that I’m in great shape and have robust health enough to resist the virus or to beat it if I contract it. The statistics don’t say that. I should not take a Laissez-faire attitude about it all, I should maintain strict adherence to the Covid-19 protocols. I told myself that I must refuse new invitations to meet with my friends.

Will County, Illinois which is where I live is still reporting thirty-five cases of the virus daily with surges to over a hundred. That tells me the virus is still present and very close to me. Nationwide, the spread is concentrated in the southern states. They are stretching toward a peak. A month ago, my son in Texas reported to me that the virus was not very active, but now, the hospitals are nearing capacity and the number of deaths is increasing. This southern wave extends all across Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. When will it end, who knows? While it is stretching across one part of our country the northern states are beginning to allow people to travel and to enter the country from other places. No doubt, the virus will be like a ping pong ball going back and forth across the lines and probably changing forms as it does. The big news was that Disneyland in Florida reopened. They thrive on visitors from South America, and the virus is spreading like wildflower in Brazil; we shut down air traffic from Brazil.

In my younger days I would have dreamed up a plan to take my anger out on China. My plan would have been to drop a bomb with COVID-19 on Bejing and Shanghai. In my current state of mind, I have too much empathy for the common folk who live there. They wouldn’t deserve such treatment. So, I have to modify the plan to develop a bug that only evil government officials are affected by, but instead of that I will concentrate on developing a vaccine to take out COVID-19 and all forms of corona viruses. The only form of selective bug that I know of for taking out evil people is the bullet. It is better to think positively and to do what is least evil to mankind.

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Who Am I?

Posted on 11/06/2020 by Grumpa Joe

I Used To Be A Normal Person

As a man, I used to think I was pretty much just a regular person, but I was born white, into a two-parent household which now, whether I like I or not, makes me ‘privileged’, a racist and responsible for slavery.

I am a fiscal and moral conservative, which by today’s standards, makes me a fascist because I plan, budget, and support myself.

I went to High School, paid my way through college, earned a degree, and have always held a job. But I now find out that I am not here because I earned it, but because I was ‘advantaged’.

I am heterosexual, which, according to ‘gay’ folks, now makes me a homophobe.

I am not a Muslim, which labels me as an infidel.

I believe in the Second Amendment, which makes me a de-facto member of the ‘vast NRA gun lobby’.

I am older than 60, making me a useless person who doesn’t understand Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter.

I think and I reason, and I doubt much of what the ‘main-stream media’ tells me, which makes me a ‘right-wing conspiracy nut.

I am proud of my heritage and our inclusive American culture, making me a xenophobe.

I believe in hard work, fair play, and fair compensation according to each individual’s merits, which today makes me an anti-socialist.

I believe our system guarantees freedom of effort – not freedom or outcome or subsidies, which makes me a borderline sociopath.

I believe in the defense and protection of America for and by all citizens, now making me a militant.

I am proud of our flag, what it stands for and the many who died to let it fly, so I stand and salute during our National Anthem – so I must be a racist.

Please help me come to terms with the new me, because I’m just not sure who I am anymore!  If all this nonsense wasn’t enough to deal with, now I don’t even know which restroom to use – and I gotta go more frequently!

Author Unknown

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