Month: September 2020

Every once in a great, great while, along comes a person in a very, very important role who is so ill-suited for that role that it makes your skin crawl, your stomach churn and you get a migraine. You’ve never had a migraine before, but you have one now. You’ve had crawling skin before, but it was due to lice or bed bugs. You’ve had lots of churning stomachs, but it was because you drank too much eggnog and eaten too many pop tarts the night before or you were spending Christmas in Mexico and had one too many tacos. No one I can remember in my 77 years on Earth has put me in that medical condition before……….until last night. Last night we saw the Man-Baby for what he was, and it wasn’t pretty.

The last time I had the same feeling as I did last night was watching Sarah Palin. Sarah Palin could spit across the Bering Sea into a bowl of Russian borscht and she could blow off a moose’s head with an AK-47 at 500 yds. (well maybe those examples are slight exaggerations). Sarah Palin fortunately never made it to the White House but she did leave a foul-smelling legacy behind: she opened up Pandora’s Box for the extreme right to become a force to be reckoned with in this country. So much so that she essentially gifted us with the Man-Baby. Man-Baby is the reincarnate of Sarah Palin, only much, much worse.

I woke up at 2:30 this morning with all three symptoms because I watched the debacle last night. We were celebrating my daughter and SIL’s 8^th anniversary and having a beautiful evening on the back deck drinking a great IPA and munching on whores-doors and then the grandfather clock gonged 7 times (MST) and the four of us cozily assembled around the boob tube with our eyes glued to the screen. By 7:15 our great evening had gone south. We were in horror, in disgust, in laughter, in disbelief. We were not watching a debate; we were watching a bad joke unfolding before our very eyes. We watched for 1.5 hours the Man-Baby in all his splendor. The anniversary party wasn’t ruined because we saw Joe Biden hang on tenaciously and survive an onslaught that he probably had never experienced in his 77 years before: THE ATTACK OF THE MAN-BABY.   

As a country, in 2016, the electoral college failed us, and the Man-Baby went to Washington. America was blinded by a desire to want change at any cost, and we got it. In spades. But the change did not come in the form of substantive, positive change but rather the opposite. None of the big challenges were even addressed and we are losing ground against them.

America is being stretched to the breaking point right now.  Our society (and world) is facing a global epidemic the likes we have never seen before in modern history with no end in sight. We are being challenged by climate change that is wreaking havoc everywhere, burning towns, killing people and millions of acres of forests in California, flooding cities and towns all over the Midwest and East, a democracy that is in deep, deep doodoo, and a health care system that is one of the worst in the world. And what is the Man-Baby (aka, POTUS) doing about it? Nada.The Man-Baby believes the solution to climate change is rake more leaves in California. His solution to Covid-19 is to ignore his own scientific advisors and hold rallies of his minions mocking masks and social distancing. His solution to our failing democracy is to call his opponent “Sleepy Joe” and try to get some dirt on Hunter Biden. His solution to health care is get rid of Obamacare and replace it with ????? Blood-Lettting?? Leaches?? Band Aids?? Ventilators??? All of the above??

With this blog, I have been accused of preaching to the choir and I don’t doubt that for a minute. But now is the time, if there ever was one, for the choir to go out and talk quietly and sanely to their conservative friends, if they still have any, and beg, plead, cajole, bribe them into re-thinking their position. Especially the fence-sitters.

Four more years of the Man-Baby is eight years too many. By now, after four years of the Man-Baby any sane human, Democrat or Republican, that can’t see clearly that the Man-Baby is not rational, but insane, has bigger blinders on than Seabiscuit. All you had to do was watch his face last night and watch Joe Biden’s and realize what needs to be done on Nov 3^rd. But before then do anything and everything within your power to ensure that we don’t have four more years of the Man-Baby. And while you are at it, beg, plead, cajole these same people to help us flip the Senate. To accomplish ANYTHING substantive regarding health care, the epidemic, climate change and a floundering democracy, people like Mitch “Gobble-gobble” McConnell and his band of Republican cowards need to either retire or lose as the ruling party. Otherwise, they will hamstring Biden just like the did Obama. In Idaho, this includes Crapo and Risch, both afraid of their own shadow.

We are a far, far better country than we appear right now to the rest of the world. If the Man-Baby somehow manages to slink and cheat his way back into office, four more years of vendettas, tantrums, corruption, and inaction when serious action and true leadership is badly, badly needed more than ever before in the this country, could be the nail in the coffin. Last night, the Man-Baby said things that were flat-out dangerous and intimidating. His Proud Boys and inability to condemn radical right groups was extremely unsettling. So, not only is he a Man-Baby, he is a Dangerous Man-baby.

Were he to manage to slink back into office, we could easily not only lose our role as a bastion of freedom and hope in the world, but we will be overwhelmed by the monumental challenges mentioned above. Most of us are good people trying to do the right thing by our country and the world. If Joe Biden loses in November, the Man-Baby and his batallions of Mini-Man-Babies will have won, and the good people of this country and our democracy will have lost big time. Maybe forever.

Our democracy has become an unpredictable system, one that seems to be constantly in flux. And now it is screaming for repair, made more broken daily by a deranged and dangerous president. A president whose potency is exacerbated by surrounding himself with a team of selfish, greedy, narcissists such as himself, who don’t give a hoot about their potentially disastrous impact on our country and our democracy. Trump utters strings of disconnected words that range from that of the aspiring dictator standing before his core to a babbling, bubbling man-baby hovering over his core.

(NOTE: This man represents an excellent example of a man standing before his believers, his core. He is a man who is continuously reaching out to the other side and who understands exactly how much work middle ground entails. A man continously striving to embrace his enemies and to heal their wounds. A man who is not about self, a man who understands real sacrifice, a man who gives and gives and gives some more. But he is upset because he thinks he is not appreciated and needs more time to prove his worth. But no worries, as you can see, his believers believe he is a man for our time.)

(NOTE: This man-baby represents an excellent example of a man-baby floating above his believers, his core. But he is not happy because he has the rare Flatus Mouth Disease (FMD). FMD occurs when a man-baby babbles so much nonsense that he produces so much gas that he becomes airborne. This causes him to float above his core, having to be tethered to avoid floating away to Heaven. But, no worries because as you can see below, his believers will chase him because they believe he is a man for our time.)

A friend just posted on Facebook a commentary by Dan Rather about the precariousness of our democracy. One paragraph in Dan Rather’s essay jumped out at me as being relevant to what I’ve said above:  

…This is a moment of reckoning unlike any I have seen in my lifetime. I have seen this country in deep peril, as the hungry begged for sustenance during the Great Depression, as the Nazis marched across Europe and the Japanese across Asia, as missiles were moved into Cuba, as our political leaders were murdered, as a president ran a criminal conspiracy from the Oval Office, as planes were hijacked into skyscrapers. All of these were scary times, but through it all I never worried about a president actively undermining American democracy and inciting violence to do so – even Nixon, for all of his criminal activity….

Dan Rather has seen and experienced just about everything of import that the last century and the current one can toss at a country and a world. Now 88, a man of vast socio-political knowledge and experience, he has lived through three-quarters of the 20^th and 21^st century. This 120-year period has probably been unparalleled in world history for its lightning-fast change and globe-sized impacts. For Dan Rather to say that Donald Trump is the greatest threat he has witnessed in his 90 years watching a relatively young democracy try to mature in a chaotic world, is saying something.

The crises America faces today, including climate change, a global epidemic, and a fragmenting democracy, spell troubled waters ahead. These three threats singularly are monumental enough, but in concert, they become a synergistic behemoth, morphing and growing every minute. This is a beast that eclipses the Great Depression and the three big wars of our time combined in its potential for untold tragedy and suffering. From a global to personal level, its impacts rival that of a nuclear war and a nuclear winter in slow motion.

To survive to the 22^nd century, we must get our heads out of our asses and start talking to each other again. We need to behave like adults and not like the infantile creatures we have become from Washington to you and me. This means relearning the art of compromise, of seriously listening, and of striving and striving harder for the middle ground. This means putting the common good ahead of me and you, individuals, and ahead of our personal wants and our continuous unhappy striving for happiness. Leaving the me behind and replacing it with my neighbors, my neighborhood, my community, our country, and, last but not least, Earth. It is surprising how comforting and content that shifting of emphasis can make a person. I have never been happier in my life than during the four years my wife and I spent in the Peace Corps in Mexico. John F. Kennedy said it as beautifully as it could ever be said in his famous inaugural address on January 20, 1961, “ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” A little over a month later, on March 1, 1961, President Kennedy created the Peace Corps. Were Kennedy alive today, he would be greatly disappointed.

Paraphrasing my other friend in his comment, “…..In the current political environment, it would help if there was mutual respect but that is sorely lacking. I would have thought that having a common enemy would bring both sides to the table, but unbelievably, it has had the opposite effect.” We must regain that respect for each other he is talking about and to be able to take on the “common enemy” as a country. That enemy could be Coronavirus or climate change or the tangible threat to our democracy or all three. This can only happen if we accept the wisdom of JFK. And once we stop focusing on what is best for me and replace it what is best for us, we will make progress.

Merriam-Webster dictionary defines “middle ground” as, “a position or set of opinions that is acceptable to many different people.” Also, according to MW, the first use of the term was in 1752 as meaning, “a standpoint or area midway between extreme or opposing positions, options, or objectives.” Obviously, the second definition must have been in reference to military geography.

Regardless, definitions are boring but how the term is thrown around currently is not. Now, instead of a military application, we now use the term most commonly in reference to politics. What we find is that opposing sides, or “teams” or positions, e.g., Congressional Democrats vs. Republicans, liberals vs. conservatives, Left vs. Right, Red vs. Blue, Trump’s core vs. World, etc. are unwilling to compromise and search for areas where there is commonality or agreement. Thus, middle ground seems have both political and military meanings. Like the Maginot Line which were concrete fortifications built by the French in the 1930s to keep the Germans out. The Maginot Line was not physically nor politically negotiable.  

Middle ground implies building bridges where both sides can meet and maybe not embrace but at least shake hands. In my writings, I have not been good about furthering that goal. If anything, I’ve tried to make conservatives look like fools and masters of bullshit and liberals like angels and righteous torch bearers of truth. Metaphorically speaking, that only freezes the poles further, when, in reality we need to be unfortunately emulating the North and South poles, and melting, which perilously mixes cold and warm waters in the ocean as it regards climate change, but what is needed politically.

When I was a boy in the 50s, I used to go fishing with my grandfather and his best friend. On the way to the river, they would sit in the front seat of the ’55 Ford and smoke cigars like fiends, filling the car with smoke. Grandpa was a Democrat and Adlai Stevenson supporter, and Brownie was a Republican fan of Eisenhower. They screamed at each other, puffing away, while I was succumbing to secondary smoke in the back seat. Every now and then, I would hear, “you’re right,” but, admittedly, it was rare. On the river and the ride home in the dark, no politics, only deep and lasting friendship. Maybe that was their way of building a bridge of acceptance and a tiny bit of compromise. Brick by brick; a great lesson for me and for everyone today.

I believe we are the only country in the Covid-19 21^st century world that would ever consider allowing social gatherings even close to the magnitude of Sturgis, now officially at 462,182 boneheads in attendance, unless it is absolutely unpreventable, such as crowding in the massive overcrowded developing cities of India, China, etc.

I can think of many reasons why we have reached this state in the evolution, or de-evolution of our American culture and why we are unsuccessfully handling massive challenges today, such as climate change and Covid-19. I believe we last behaved as a cohesive society during WWII.  These are just a few of the reasons:

No national Covid-19 plan. As everyone knows, the dysfunctionality of Washington has exceeded our wildest nightmares and certainly broken record books, somewhere. We are not only a leaderless ship but also a crewless one. We, as the name of the great British rock band, would imply, are in Dire Straits. Essentially, we have no Congress, we have a worthless president, a weak cabinet and a badly lopsided, and maybe getting more lopsided with the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Supreme Court;

Individualism has displaced the common good.  Since WWII, the common good has melted into history and doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in Hell of being understood today. I think I understand why so many people in the U.S. don’t even know what the phrase, “for the common good,” means, because, as best I can tell, it was never actually mentioned in the Constitution and definitely never married to the currently badly abused First and Second Amendments, unfortunately.

Alexis de Tocqueville, the Frenchman who wrote the classic, “Democracy in America” in 1835, idealistically believed that individualism in America could work because, at that time in our history, we would be able to overcome individual selfish desires, thus resulting in an active and vibrant political and civil society.  While he saw egotism and selfishness as vices, he saw individualism as not necessarily a failure of feeling, but as a way of thinking about things which could have either positive consequences such as a willingness to work together, or negative consequences such as isolation.

A working democracy requires moral restraint and respect for the betterment or common good (or welfare) of society. In certain situations, the rights of individuals must step aside in favor of the collective will of a group or community. With the advent of Covid-19, in no way could the Sturgis rally and any of the other anti-lockdown, sick extravaganzas be twisted enough to be considered for the common good. 460,000 jammed idiots into a small South Dakota town relative to 7.8 billion (2020 world pop) is a drop in the bucket but could be an epicenter of disaster as they return to their respective homes around the world.  

To attend Sturgis implies you don’t give a shit about the fact you could be perpetuating severe suffering and death, however indirect or unintended. The Sturgis Harley Davidson fanaticism normally is a relatively harmless cult gathering, but not this year. It is tantamount to collective insanity and perceived mass suicide, not unlike the 1978 Jonesville Massacre in Guyana, but with delayed consequences.  

Social and physical remoteness from the field of play. If we don’t watch a friend or relative die from Covid-19 or watch an epic hurricane or fire due to climate change wipe out our town, neighborhood or a few friends and family, some of us may be dense enough to not believe the event is real, even believing it is a product of the media. A hoax, in other words. We can fight wars and fire on computers and watch NFL players get battered and broken on TV without emotion. Meanwhile, the actual casualties on any field of play unconsciously become collateral damage for the price of success (especially financial) and progress.

A strong minority has thumbed their noses at civility. The media has made sure that the world sees us as lacking respect for virtually everything that means anything: each other, science, facts, evidence, authority, laws, our Founding Fathers and the American Constitution, and death. The big question, at least in my mind, is why? I see it not unlike the classic question asked of mountaineers: why do you climb mountains? Storybook answer: because they are there, and I can. To be conquered, to be beaten. Thus, throw any self-imposed moral restraints out the window. We can’t do it, as Garrett Hardin said in his classic 1968 paper, Tragedy of the Commons. If given the opportunity, we will always destroy the commons, as I said above, for the sake of the individual.

The Constitution has been forced to become an anachronism. Because of our greed and selfishness to test every conceivable contingency, we have become blinded as to what our Founding Fathers really intended, at least regarding the First and Second Amendments. If the Founding Fathers could see how we have abused and twisted their brilliant document, they would be sad, flabbergasted, and unbelieving. They were smart men but not palm readers. I’m sure they thought they were considering as many contingencies as their free-wheeling brains would allow, but there are limits. Of all the signers, Ben Franklin, being an inventor, might have anticipated automatic weapons and disease vectors that could mutate in seconds, but even Ben would have needed the aid of some serious mega-hallucinogens and Tim O’Leary wasn’t around at that time to help. I don’t have to sit down with Alexander Hamilton or Benjamin Franklin or George Washington or any the other 36 signers of the Constitution to predict their sentiments toward our current sickness.

The upshot of these factors and certainly others seems to point conclusively to this: we have become an undisciplined, ungoverned, uncivil, ignorant, semi-lawless, greedy, selfish, detached and desensitized nation as defined by a minority of our fellow citizens. And this minority is currently leading the rest of us by the noses. Not unlike the Pied Piper. A fragment of this demented minority is even proud of being selfishness (see earlier post on June 28, “American Pride”).

For such undisciplined events as Sturgis to continue could only lead to one end: anarchy. Some might say that we have already arrived. Not unlike the mother of all tipping points for climate change, whenever and whatever that will be, or has been. Anarchy under the conditions of runaway climate and a deadly disease would, in every sense of the word, be Hell, just as some are describing California ablaze.

I’m not a religious person but I am beginning to think we, globally, have painted ourselves into a corner, socially, politically and environmentally for which there is no escape except through Hell and perhaps beyond, whatever that entails. It won’t be “To Hell and Back,” the book and movie about, by and starred in by Audie Murphy in the early 50s. We ain’t coming back from Hell in any time soon.

At this point in history, climate change and an epidemic are causing global destruction. We can change our social and political future, but the environmental future is locked in for years and it is frightening to put it mildly. We need only look at West Coast fires and East Coast flooding for proof.  

As I said at the very beginning of Part I, Sturgis is not just another huge gathering of motorcyclists this year as in past years, this year, 2020, it represents the best, or worst, depending on how you view it, example of how far our society has allowed itself to drop in the name of individualism. We will rue the day, if we recognize it when it arrives, when we chose selfishness over the common good. This is a heavy price civilization will have to pay for a long, long time.  

Where Is That Damned Free Hugs ‘n Kisses Booth?

The wildfires in California are far from a laughing matter. It doesn’t help when we have a president who is clueless about climate change and living in a fantasy bubble of his own construction.

To lighten the gloom I’ve re-focused an old song on Trump’s stupidity. The lyrics of “Donny Dump” are to the classic tune, “Charlie Brown” made popular by the Coasters in 1959 and written by the great song writing duo, Lieber & Stoller. I’m posting it on www.greegorspeak.com today. This is my first shot at public song alteration and probably my last when Trump sends his Rake Brigade to sweep me in. As my elegy, I would like people to write other verses and carry on a proud and wonderful tradition until November 3, 2020, when Donny Dump will become only a grease stain in the history books.

DONNY DUMP

Fe-fe, fi-fi, fo-fo, fum

I smell smoke in Cal-i-forn-i-a.

Chorus:

Donny Dump, Donny Dump

He’s a chump, that Donny Dump

It’s gonna get cooler

Just you wait and see

Why’s everybody always pickin’ on me?

That’s him with a rake

I know that’s a fake

Why believe them scientologists

When you can just believe in me?

Chorus

Who’s always lying 24/7?

Who still thinks he’s going to heaven?

Who’s always throwing little fits?

Who’s always grabbing women’s tits?

Guess who? (who D?), yeah, me.

Chorus

Who walks in the pressroom acting like a fool?

Who calls the skinheads really, really cool?

Who wears his mask upon his dick?

Who thinks a rake will do the trick?

Guess who? (who D?) yeah, me.

Chorus

Sturgis is not just another huge gathering of motorcyclists this year as in past years. This year, 2020, it represents the best, or worst, depending on how you view it, example of how far our society has allowed itself to drop in the name of individualism. We will rue the day, if we recognize it when it arrives, when we realize we have committed ourselves eternally to selfishness over the common good.

Quoter: “If We Get It, We Chose to Be Here” (quote from Mark Walker’s editorial, The New York Times, 8/7/20 regarding Sturgis Bike rally).

“Screw Covid I went to Sturgis,” read a black T-shirt……(M. Walker, NYT, 8/7/20)

Question to these two wise men : And if you do get it, what about those people who get Covid-19 from you before you’re aware of it, and who just might die, and who didn’t choose to be there?

Friday, Aug. 7 – Sunday, Aug 16. Ten days of 250,000 concentrated brain-damaged bikers gathered in one location, Sturgis, SD. And now, WebMD recently (9-4-20) reported that 260 cases and one death have been linked in 12 states to the Sturgis rally.

I’ve been wondering what group would capture the honors for holding the gathering that would top the list of bone-headed “none of that lockdown bullshit for me” gatherings as the most selfish, pig-headed group of losers in this free-wheeling, devil-take-all, democracy of ours. They represent the extreme example of horrid events that reflect a growing number of deluded, self-identified saviors of the First Amendment in this country who espouse a simple mantra (please repeat after me):  

Gimme, gimme, gimme, I worship the God of greed and selfishness. It’s what our four fathers fought for: freedom of everything. I’m a red-blooded ‘Merikan’ ‘n I believe in the Constipation.

And thus, as a result, the anti-lockdown bumble-heads probably guarantee the U.S. will remain the No. 1 outlier, certainly amongst the developed countries, for the number of Covid-19 cases and deaths, for a long time to come. Globally, the U.S. currently stands alone at 6,335,244 cases and 192,146 deaths. Brazil is number 2 at 4,046,150 cases and 125,584 deaths, and India number 3 at 3,936,747 cases and 69,749 deaths (Worldometer, 9/5/2020).

The Harley Hogsters of our culture can typically be defined by their uniforms of leather, bandanas, tattoos, blond biker babes (gawk below), a decent number of buried belt buckles and plumber’s butts, and of course, sans helmets (bandanas make better head protection, stupid!) Besides, real men don’t wear helmets because real men don’t die, and if they know, they’re quite likely proud of raising all our health insurance rates. If interested, see: (http://one.nhtsa.gov/people/injury/pedbimot/motorcycle/safebike/costs.html)

At this rate of lockdown defiance, the U.S. is on track to ensure that the virus will be running wild in our country until we are saved by an effective vaccine. Never mind that possibly every developed other country in the world, and even some undeveloped ones, may have eliminated Covid-19 even before the vaccine and moved on to normalcy. Never mind that our economy, our health care system, our education system, and our social communication and integration fabric are currently in shambles and could get a lot worse. Never mind that U.S. citizens may eventually be prohibited from entering any other country in the world until we get our act together (see: American bikers display of free-dumb is yet another reason to keep our borders closed. M. Richardson, The Globe and Mail, 8/5/2020). Never mind that possibly hundreds of innocent, lockdown-abiding citizens with Coronavirus will have died because they couldn’t get into a hospital in sufficient time due to all facilities being swamped with people with the American flag tattooed on each butt cheek. And of course, most importantly, never mind that the rest of us normal citizens are forced to get our tattoos and bandanas on the black market.

But, consider this: even though the Sturgis rally didn’t require masks and distancing and hand sanitizer stations were placed every mile, they did prohibit back-slapping, hugging, kissing, high fives, sharing joints and needles and copulation with complete strangers. These activities were only permitted with one’s spouse or main squeeze.

Gov. Kristi Noem, a Republican, encouraged people to attend the rally in an interview on Fox News on Wednesday night, saying the state had successfully hosted other large events — including a Fourth of July celebration at Mount Rushmore that President Trump attended — without seeing a direct increase in virus cases. Plus, she said, the state’s economy benefits when people visit. (Walker, NYT, 8/7/20)

(Note: Based on reliable Fox News reporting, Governor Noem dropped out of school after kindergarten, but returned to take a degree in economics from Fox U (please be careful how you pronounce that!).

I swear, man, she ain’t plastic ‘n she’s ALL blond, if ya know what I mean?

by

JJ Davis

(Story loosely based on conversations during and after July with Grandson Jordan)

My brothers and me are the Seattle 3. I’m a poet and know it. Dad taught me that. My name is Jordan, but everybody calls me JJ or J.  Sometimes we call my twin brother Ben, Bennie BenBen, and we’re 6, but Mom says I’m really older because I popped out first and fastest. We look different. I’m big and strong and Ben is strong but smaller. Garrett, our older brother is 8, and Baba calls him G-Man because he likes to think he’s a Superhero, but I think he’s too skinny and too smart. I don’t think the Superheroes can be very smart because they do a lot of stupid things. Baba is our grandpa and Ama is our grandma. When we were born, Dad says I looked like a balloon going to pop, and Ben looked like a worm. We look more alike now, but I’m still bigger and stronger than Ben.

My Brothers and Me

We have a small dog, Sprout. Sprout looks like a rat with big ears. We were on the beach a few weeks ago and the wind was blowing hard, and we were worried Sprout would blow away, so we tied his leash to a big log. Mom took a picture of Sprout with his big ears blowing. Dad said we couldn’t forget him because the tide would drown him. The second picture of Sprout is a selfie he took in the car.

Sprout on the beach

Sprout Selfie

This summer, our family stayed with Baba and Ama for what Baba said seemed like a lifetime, but it was only a month. Dad stayed only a week and then was suddenly called back to work by his boss. He said he had to go or he would lose his job and that would mean we would have to come live with Baba and Ama. When Baba heard Dad say that he asked him if he needed some gas money for the trip. Dad said he was an important “piece of the puzzle” which didn’t make any sense to me and my brothers because we work puzzles sometimes, and Dad does not look like a piece of puzzle.

Baba and Ama’s home is pretty big, but Baba says it’s not big enough when we visit. He says it’s just big enough for the Gates’ family gardener and their cat, Money, whoever the Gates family is. All I know is that G-Man and Ben and I had room to play with our Hot Wheels. Because of a dangerous disease, pandemic, we couldn’t play with other kids in the neighborhood, or go to the Zoo, or the Y, or museums, or movies. Baba said he asked some old friends of his how long they consider a normal visit from their grandkids especially when they like to go to bed at 8 o’clock. He says his friends told him about 3 days. He said they gasped and crossed themselves, whatever that means, and one even passed out when they heard that we were staying a month. I think he’s kidding. Besides, I think a month is too short when you’re having as much fun as we had. He told me that a good subtraction problem for me was 30 – 3. He said the answer would tell me how many days he will need to drink lots of Mr. T, his special medicine from Mexico. 

We played in the house most of the time or in the backyard. Sprout and Ryder both pooped in the backyard and Mom or Baba had to clean it up before we could play out there. Ryder belongs to Aunt Tessa and Uncle Sean who live around the corner and Ryder is a black dog and big. He is happy even when we jump on him and tease him. Ryder likes Baba’s backyard more than Aunt Tessa’s yard for pooping because Aunt Tess only has stones. We think it’s fun to play dodge ball and see if we can keep from stepping in any poop or throwing the ball in poop.  

Ben and Ryder

We love our Hot Wheels. We brought boxes of them with us for our visit. Baba says there must be billions of different models, and we have all of them. That would be great, but we don’t. We play car accidents with them, doing ramps and loop loops and bouncing them down the stairs or just throwing them at each other. We play with them in the garage, the bottom of the stairs and on the deck. They don’t work so well on grass and stones.  

Baba says he has poor feral vision and bad balance. He says skateboarding on our cars early in the morning in the dark is not fun and could kill an old man. He wears a headlamp when it’s dark in the morning when he gets up to make coffee and write. He says he has to write before the sounds of revving monster cars and our screaming and running drive him crazy. Baba said he should have the hospital always on alert when we are visiting. Sometimes Mom forgets to remind us to put away the Hot Wheels before bed. Baba says each car hopes to be the lucky one to send him to the Promised Land. Wherever that is. He sounds like he would like that.

During July, Ben and I each lost a front tooth from the same place. Both in the front. They were tiny, but size doesn’t bother the Tooth Fairy. Mine came out first, and so I put it under my pillow with a letter to the Tooth Fairy asking her to be generous. Ama said that the Tooth Fairy always brought her a quarter when she was a little girl. I hope the Tooth Fairy has lots more money now. A quarter won’t buy one wheel.

When I woke up and looked in my envelope, I found $5. A few days later Ben lost his front tooth and the Tooth Fairy brought him $5, too. Garrett had some of his piggy money so Mom and Ama took us to Fred Meyers to buy some more Hot Wheels. I think the neatest one was Ben’s. Ben got one that rolls over and always lands on its wheels, so if it has an accident, nobody gets hurt inside. Only for tiny people. Just kidding.

After we returned to our home, Baba called and said he was finding Hot Wheels all over the house and garage and in the yard. When he was in the garage he found one on a high shelf, too high for us, when he was showing his friend something. He said he thinks it flew up there and wondered if he should mail the ones he finds under chairs and on the deck and on shelves and in his coffee. He said he gave it to his friend to give it to his wife and say to her, “Hey honey, I finally bought you that sports car you’ve always wanted.” That doesn’t sound true to me. Dad says that Baba is always telling stories, not just before we go to bed. Mom said she told Baba that it would be cheaper to go to Freddy’s and just get more because we will anyway when the next tooth comes out. Baba said OK, but he was thinking about going to Freddy’s himself to buy a Hot Wheels for himself. He said he might get an ambulance just in case.

On August 10, 2020, on Facebook, I posted the following 2 posts:

1. I realize that I’m running out of time, but I’ve had a itch that has needed to be scratched for many years. Today, I’m planning on buying a Harley Hog, a few colorful bandanas, several Death Angel and American flag tattoos and an inflatable blond babe and head up to Sturgis. Other than the babe, who is very shy, I would like some additional company. Anyone interested? One word of warning: do not even think about bringing along a mask if you want to join me. Even if you have it hidden in your saddle bags or on my babe somewhere, I’ll find it. Trust me. And, of course, I know you know better than to have a helmet anywhere on your bod or your bike. You know the stats: they cause more deaths than they prevent cuz the guys tend to put them on backwards.
2.  I need to modify my first Facebook post early today a little because I got a call from a biker friend who had seen the post and thought it was a good idea to re-remind any takers of my offer about the risks of using a helmet. He was already in Sturgis and wished me luck. He said he had alerted all his buds, who will spread the word to all 250,000 attendees that a virgin was comin’ ta town, and possibly two. “When you get here,” he said, “You can expect all the bros are gonna want to give ya big hugs and the MAGA handshake, and the babes have said you can throw away your inflatable, if ya get what I mean.” He ended the conversation with the usual, “Rumble on bro, rumble on.