Happy Birthday, Now Get Out And Make Yourself A Life

Apparently, being able to vote in the next election is not that exciting

   The driver of the vehicle above has reached the age of majority and has listed all the wonderful things he or she is now going to be able to do.

   Not listed: Vote, secure credit in one's own name, sign a binding contract, be legally an adult in the eyes of the law, have to register for selective service (just 18-year old males - women still get a free pass on that), not needing to ask permission to do just about anything, live where you chose to, buy a firearm, sit on a jury, be sued, leave the country unimpeded (if you have a passport and the necessary visas...) and buy your very own property.

   Of all those wonderful new privileges and responsibilities, I'd say being able to vote was the biggest thrill for me when I turned 18. In retrospect, I wish I had been a bit more excited about acquiring property.

But Without The Crazy Sound Of The Fuzz Guitar, What Have You Got?

 

Ode To Refrigerators, Past & Present

Near fifteen years ago it arrived

Carried in by stout ham-fisted men

Doors of gleaming stainless steel side by side

A maker of ice built into one of them

25 square cubic feet of storage

For items to be kept chilled or even frozen

Milk and deli meats, maybe left-over porridge

Butter and custard and sweet creams ambrosian

For days on end it hummed along quietly

Performing it's simple task without complaint

Until one dark night came sounds of dubiety

Finally a last gasp as if from a martyred saint

Repair was considered but not for long

As 'tis was the season for after Christmas sales

A 27 square footer could be bought for a song

With features that new technology avails

With well-rehearsed spiel the clerk delighted

In expounding on the merits of the latest device

She even showed samples that got us excited

Of the crushed, cubed and yes, round craft ice

It will be delivered next Wednesday.

Why Bother To Ask If You're Going To Ignore The Answer

   There comes a time in one's life when the thought of acquiring anymore stuff not only seems impractical, it nearly makes one nauseous.

   The fact that the timing of those thoughts coincides with the Christmas holidays is most likely just coincidental.

   The coincidental timing, however, does make it difficult to answer the question, "What do you want for Christmas?"

   Then, because your intensely clear reply of "nothing" to each and everyone of those questions has been roundly ignored, you end up getting a lot more stuff on Christmas.

   And none of that stuff is ever a 1969 Boss 429 Ford Mustang, which was your alternate answer to everyone who followed up your nothing response with, "No, really, you must want something."

On The Other Hand You Get To Catch Up On All Those Shows Stored On The DVR

Know what's worse than having to deal with a whiny sick person over the holidays?

Being the whiny sick guy.

Cough, Cough, Cough *HACK!*

    Having a bad cough these days is painful - and not just the pain in the chest and/or ribs caused by the involuntary action of coughing, but the pain of embarrassment caused by everyone around you staring as you cough.

   For the sole reason that you're coughing. Loudly. In public.

    As if you're patient zero of a new pandemic.

    Coughing in public now requires an abrupt snap of your head into the nook of one of your arms bent at the elbow, and an elaborate set of twisting, turning convolutions so that your cough is not directed anywhere near other humans.

   Which, maybe, should have always been the coughing protocol - might have avoided a lot of the mess of the past four years.

   But that's a moot point, and I have to go find a box of surgical masks.

It's The Somersaulting Reindeer That Makes The Display Happen

                           Down the street a few blocks, great combination of inflatables and lights
 

En Espérant Passer Un Mauvais Moment Mémorable Dans La Ville Lumière

Every time I've been in Paris

Be it for a weekend or for a week

It's been sunny - clear, cloudless skies 

Not one drop of rain

So I've never known the joy

Of slogging through that city 

While a storm howled through it

Ripping my umbrella from my hands

As the dirty little streets became

Muddy tributaries that emptied into the Seine

Each and every time I've been in Paris

The people have been fairly nice

And graciously patient

As I slaughtered their language asking for directions

Or tried to explain I didn't like cold seafood

And not once have I met

A breathtakingly beautiful French woman

Who proceeded to dangle my heart from the Eiffel tower

Like a crippled marionette

Femme fatale my ass

So, you no doubt can imagine my disappointment

And understand fully why

I'll be taking my tourist dollars elsewhere

Maybe I'll try my luck in Bratislava

The Anarchy Of Diffraction

 Feelin' like a truck just clipped you in the hip

Can't get the thoughts to slow down, even a bit

There's snow outside on the ground

And you're sure they'll all come around

If only you could make some sense of it

But the bellwether has left you in the dust

Left you out on the prairie to rust 

                                               In the rain

Just like your mother told you would happen

If you didn't pay attention and apply yourself in school

But she didn't have the means to control your actions

When there's no father at home to enforce the rules

It's easy to become everybody's fool

So you turn on the stereo

Listen to Lydon, circa 1986

You know the one, with the names reflecting the media used

                                                                              Rise is still relevant

And you tap along to the driving bass line, Laswell at his best

And even the violin sounds distressed

Hoping that the distraction will be enough

To help you get through the treacherous rough

Ease the physical aches

Put an end to the persistent psychosis  

That clouds the Doctor's diagnosis

May the road rise with you, indeed

 

 

The Great Pueblo Flood

         Multi-story mural seen along Main St & 2nd in Pueblo, Colorado - signed Refic Strescino 2013

   Pueblo, Colorado is approx. 110 miles south of Denver, and is in an odd area geographically. It is situated at the confluence of the Arkansas river and Fountain creek in a region referred to as the Banana Belt of Colorado, which is a bit warmer and drier than the majority of the state, and gets very little precipitation of any kind - approx. 12 inches of rain & snow combined annually.

   Which makes the fact that there was a huge flood in 1921 that nearly wiped out the entire town quite an exceptional freak occurrence.

   The mural above looks like an exaggeration of the event's scale & scope, but from what the Southern Colorado Heritage Museum has on record, it is not.

   The horse stuck in the tree was not a real horse - it was a life sized papier mache horse, and it was found stuck way up in a tree 15 miles east of where it was originally located, R.T. Frazier's Saddle Shop, which was in the building that the mural was painted on until 1958. 

   When the papier mache horse was found (after the floodwaters had subsided), the only noticeable damage was to the horse's ears. That damage was repaired by Kittie Frazier, R.T.'s wife. 

   The horse was put back into service as a display model for saddles and other tack after the repairs were completed. When the Frazier's shut down their store, Fred McConnell bought the horse and featured it in his store, Mack's Saddlery. A fire destroyed the building housing Mack's Saddlery in 1989, and the papier mache horse survived that, too.

   The horse can currently be see at the Southern Colorado Heritage Museum in Pueblo. The name of the horse? Lucky, of course.

Oh No! There Goes Tokyo

 

The Bright, Twinkling Tunnels Of Christmas Cheer

 

One of the many tunnels of light at the Colorful Christmas event in the Water World parking lot

   The origins of these particular Christmas holiday decorations seem to be lost to the passage of time - or at least to the amount of time I'm willing to spend on the internet searching for their origins.

    Someone, somewhere, at some time in the fairly recent past got the idea that making a skeletal tunnel out of a long row of connected arches and then stringing strands of Christmas lights along the arches and the braces that provide structural integrity for the tunnel's length would be a great way to decorate for the Christmas holidays.

    By "fairly recent" I'm thinking sometime after National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation was filmed, which was in 1989. If the Christmas holiday tunnel of lights had been around when that movie was filmed, I'm fairly certain the set designers would have included a Christmas holiday tunnel of lights in Clark Griswold's front yard or maybe his driveway.

    So, sometime in the past 34 years the idea of festooning a skeletal tunnel with Christmas lights as a holiday decoration came into being.

   And now they are everywhere, in holiday displays large and small.

   So here's to you, anonymous originator of the Christmas tunnel of lights display, you created what has become a world-wide phenomenon.

   Large municipal and commercial displays can now be seen just about everywhere Christmas is celebrated on the planet. From the Longwood Gardens Holiday Lights display in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania to the Winterfest in Costa Mesa, California (Southern California's largest winter carnival...in a land of no discernable winter), to the Norwich Christmas lights in Norwalk, England (the Tunnel of Light on Hay Hill) to Charleston's (in Cornwall, UK) claimed and famed longest indoor tunnel of lights (with approx. five miles of lights - that's a lot of lights).

   Christmas tunnels of light can be seen in London, Munich, Paris, Brazil...even in Red Square, Moscow. 

   Heck, there are at least 12 municipal or commercial tunnel of lights displays within twenty minutes of my house.

   There are also several smaller, front yard-sized tunnels of light in front of several homes in the neighborhood (most of these appear to be store bought - kits are now readily available at several stores and online retailers).

   If you want to build your own tunnel of lights (and who doesn't?), there are plenty of online resources for those who are so inclined, such as https://www.mymydiy.com/diy-christmas-light-tunnel-archway-plans/ or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEW106rkXXc.

   As for me, I'm going to just stick with the single strand of LED bulbs that grace the eaves of the roof in front of the house. Those and maybe the candy cane lights up the walkway.

Tail-Wagging, Barking, & Biting

 Trouble is as trouble does

When you're an adorable puppy surrounded by what recently was

Inside an expensive little squeaky toy

That the pet store clerk swore 

Could withstand anything short of a lumberjack's chainsaw

The Little Voice Telling You No

Those arguments inside your head

Between the parts of you that differ in opinion

About whether or not you should take a chance

On singing a song out loud, doing a little dance

Maybe just the once you should let the fun guys win

Passing The Torch To Light The Latest & Greatest Fuse Yet

 At this point in time there may be someone, somewhere, sitting on the next big powder keg of controversy.

Will it be something along the lines of medical research that reveals chewing gum causes nonconformity in field mice? Will it be a geopolitical disagreement that results in a new and even more exciting twist in the commonality of mankind's ever-present need to be angry and outraged to cause enough dissension in the gun-chewing communities of the world to beget an upsurge in used-gum deposits on the sidewalks of major cities? Will it be a sudden change in the attitudes of artists and entertainers regarding the size of the average stick of chewing gum which will bring about a sea change in not only the packaging design but also the size of display racks used for chewing gum in retail outlets everywhere?

The tension is almost unbearable.