A Real Census Cowboy Doffs His Hat to the 2020 Census and All Who Served - No Animals Were Harmed

 

With pride and a bit of sadness, I returned my Badge, Shoulder Bag, Non-Response Field Unit Device ( an Apple smartphone dedicated solely to work for the Census) and all of the apparati  necessary to its proper functioning in the field and bid an earnest adieu to my Field Supervis0r, Mr. Bill S_____.

I rode no horse, like the oafish ass hired at $1,000 per day by the idiotic Mayor of Chicago.  I walked the U.S. Census 2020 and was paid the prevailing wage for La Porte County.   I drove a very few times and was fairly compensated. 

Working the 2020 Census was an invigorating, salubrious, entertaining and soul-boosting experience that allowed me to learn my way around Michigan City, meet wonderful people and serve my country in a very small way. 

From  August 8th, until 4PM, Thursday, October 15th, I served as an enumerator here in District 5, Michigan City and LaPorte County. 

On Day One, I took the pledge and accepted my Commission, a shoulder bag, pads, pens, clipboard and the Apple Enumerating device. Over the next seven days, a rigorous training regimen dedicated to the lap-top and the US Census Bureau occupied my days.  Then, I went into the field under the watchful eye of Bill S______ who constantly reminded us of our pledge to keep all information gleaned in the field supremely confidential. 

My Days as a NRFU enumerator began at 4 AM when my device revealed the caseload for the day, generally 30-35 per day beginning at 9 AM and not to exceed eight hours.

Overtime is rarely allowed and I worked only a few hours of overtime during my service.  If one charged overtime, it could be cause for immediate dismissal. If one's hours exceeded 40 hours, one had better have had written orders

My cases were largely within two miles of my home and I walked my circuit. We were expected to take a mandatory  meal break of one half hour every five hours.  I walked on the average of eight to ten miles per day and got to know my part of Michigan City. 

Most of my work took me from Spring Street East out west past the Indiana State Prison on Woodlawn and Chicago and from Coolspring Road on the south to Lake Shore Drive.  

There were a few daunting areas, but largely people were helpful friendly and welcoming. 

 I was threatened a few times by people who who were largely engaged in Crysta lMethamphetamine production and its distribution and in nearby Otis, Indiana a man chambered a shell into his Remington shotgun by way of welcome to the United States Gummint and its  on hand agent, your servant - "Ya, unnerstan THAT doan' ya?"

Quite clearly, Old Son!

Mostly, I enjoyed the company of very nice people, especiall the John Coltrane Society* that meets every day at 10th & Tennessee.   We would jaw and listen to Coltrane, Bill Evans, Cannonball Adderly, Jerry Mulligan, Stan Getz and Miles Davis.    These forty-plus gentlemen steered me clear of the more nefarious doings of the nearby Hillbilly Heroin laboratory situated on the triangle of streets between Chicago, Tennessee and 10th. Streets, of which, I am sure, the LaPorte County Drug Task Force has well under scrutiny. *

I met poor single mothers and well-heeled Urban Pioneers.

The United States Census 2020 was conducted with dignity and grace.   No horses were maimed and the work was done with vigor, rigor and respect. 

I am proud to have served.   

* an informal gathering of worthies, largely middle aged African American patriots. This congress of gentleman was my daily tonic. 

Today's Gospel Readings: Fatal Judgement Upon the Divided States of America

 

Jeroboam ( the post-Solomon Joe Biden) offers scarfice to . . .whatever

Even when you’re minding your own business, your enemy feels threatened.Sometimes we perceive things to be threats even when they are entirely innocuous. An enemy sees vicious plotting even behind the most innocent stroll. Sanhedrin 95b.

I was floored by the Readings for today the 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time.  I am Catholic attend Mass at St. Stanislaus Kostka Catholic Church in Michigan City, Indiana.  Biblically prophetic, they be.  We not only ignore history, but the Holy Writ in favor of flannel mouth jerks like Joe Scarborough and David Brooks.

America is in the Bible.

America has not been so divided since the time of the Civil War. That did not end well, given the fact that this nation continues to allow race alone to guide the emotions.

America is so much more than a nation forged in hate, but given the Howard Zinn narrative adopted at the highest levels of American thought and academia and the shrill moralizing secularist sockdologers dominating the national platform one might expect no less.

Americans in 2020 know more about the Kardashians, Fantasy Football and theri neighbor' s lack of COVID-19 PPI protection than they do of the Electoral College, or the worth of political candidates.  Instead, Americans are polarized into two camps - The WOKE Globalists and the Deplorables, to paraphrase Joseph Joffre.  Each group is intractable.

I count myself a Deplorable, due to the fact that my birth Party, the Democrat Party, has rapidly morphed into a Gulag of closed-minded bigots, snitches and tale-tellers.

The Republicans turn my stomach, in the way that cauliflower brings up a solid retch in any of its culinary manifestations, but it will not kill me, nor GOP the nation.

Republicans tend to be cowardly go-along milquetoasts, bullied by paper-thin chested dweebs and harpies taking orders and talking-points from the DNC, George Soros and Bill Maher.

I am a JFK, Harry Truman Democrat - about as plentiful these days as the triceratops in any zoo.

What I base my social deportment and generally benevolent view of individuals of all creeds, races and conditions is rooted in my Catholic upbringing. 

I believe in ONE God and etc.

I celebrate  Mass,  because if you belong to anything, you are obligated to attend the meetings.  I choose to belong - it is the core of my belief system.  Christ died to save Man. The altar and NOT the pulpit is what the Mass is all about.   Today, the pulpit seemed to take first chair. 

Today's readings were dire, especially 1st reading from Isaiah5:1-7:

The vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel,

and the people of Judah are his cherished plant;

he looked for judgment, but see, bloodshed!

for justice, but hark, the outcry!

After  the death of King Solomon, the nation became divided between North and South: Israel -North and Judah - South. 

  The southern kingdom consisted only of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin and thus became the kingdom of Judah, with Jerusalem as its capital. The northern kingdom consisted of the remaining tribes and was called Israel. After the establishment of two short-lived capitals at Shechem and Tirzah, King Omri established his capital at Samaria, where it would remain for the duration of the northern kingdom’s existence. The kingdom of Israel was larger in size and controlled more significant trade routes than did Judah. Territorial boundaries expanded and contracted over time as Israel and Judah engaged in conflict with one another and their neighbors. Evidence from outside the Bible suggests that Israel was more powerful than Judah. However, Israel was the more ephemeral kingdom of the two. Israel was destroyed by the Assyrians in 722 B.C.E., whereas Judah, though severely damaged, narrowly escaped the dreadful onslaught of the Assyrian war machine. But Judah's escape from imperial domination would be brief. Jerusalem eventually fell to the Babylonian Empire and was destroyed in 586 B.C.E  (emphasis my own)

Now, the Talmud tells us that " example is not  proof," but America sure looks Biblical Israel is WOKE and Judah is Deplorable., to this observer.

The tenant built a vineyard (America)with a magnificent watchtower ( US Constitution), but yielded in 2020 very sour grapes of wrath after, Revolution, Manifest Destiny, Civil War, Reconstruction, Global Expansionism including two World Wars, many Cold Wars and endless Globalist Wars in the Mideast ending in The Howard Zinn Purge of the Nation Heart. 

The Gospel of Matthew is much more direct and frightening

But when the tenants saw the son, they said to one another,

'This is the heir.

Come, let us kill him and acquire his inheritance.’

They seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. 

What will the owner of the vineyard do to those tenants when he comes?"

They answered him,

"He will put those wretched men to a wretched death

and lease his vineyard to other tenants

who will give him the produce at the proper times."

Jesus said to them, "Did you never read in the Scriptures:

The stone that the builders rejected

has become the cornerstone;

by the Lord has this been done,

and it is wonderful in our eyes?

Therefore, I say to you,

the kingdom of God will be taken away from you

and given to a people that will produce its fruit." MT 21:33-43

We are less than  a month away from a Presidential Election.  Police officers are being assasinated while thousands of black youngsters continue to be slaughtered by thugs who become WOKE icons if shot by Law Officers.

Huge cities and some States are readying for a second pandemic shut-down.

The greatest transfer of wealth has taken place globally since the start of this pandemic. 

Teachers pray that the President dies of COVID 19 .

The convicted murderer of Officers Fahey and O'Brien goes free on a politically calculated ruse.

The American vineyard is being set up for the new Babylonians.  Upon the death of Solomon, the self-interested, the self-ansorbed, the venal, the carnal and the cowardly have Balkanized their nation.  We have done the same and will serve up this great nation to the highest bidder and the most threatening. 

The WOKE have served up the innocents ever since 1973 and will continue to do so - Jeroboam offered sacrifice to false gods - NBA,NFL, HBO, NBC, NRA, DNC, GOP.  The Deplorable will take anyone who opposes the Woke. 

  Israel the WOKE  and Judah The Deplorable have picked camps. The ephemeral Woke America, like Israel will vanish having sparked the disunion.  I pray Deporable America will soldier on - defend the unborn, the elderly, the helpless and somehow hang on to universal truth. 

God help us. 

To Understand the Nature of Rioters and Looters and Social Activism, Read Barnaby Rudge by Charles Dickens

 

In 1778 the Catholic Relief Act was enacted to help ease restrictions on Britain's Catholics. The Protestant Association, led by Lord George Gordon, opposed this act and demanded its repeal. On June 2, 1780 the Protestant Association marched to the House of Commons and were joined by a riotous mob of 50,000 Dickens described as "sprinkled doubtless here and there with honest zealots, but composed for the most part of the very scum and refuse of London."

An idiot Member of Parliament, Lord George Gordon, was WOKE by his political adviser.  To advance in Parliament, Gordon was goaded into fomenting anti-Catholic hatred among the low-information constituents of Great Britain.  

Charles Dickens wrote a wonderful historical novel, when he was only 29 years old.  Barnaby Rudge, is a murder mystery, love story and comic set-piece stuffed with wonderful characters.  Most memorable of these is Barnaby Rudge a mentally challenged youth who devotes most of his energies and sympathies to a black bird named Grip.

He, like Lord Gordon himself, gets manipulated and motivated by evil men and becomes the standard bearer for the anti-Catholic mob.  Barnaby is in it for the fun. 

Evil people are in it for power and money - then and in 2020. 

Idiot politicians, of both American political parties, get WOKE by academic frauds, K-street spin-doctors, 501(c)3 foundations with boards comprised of nasty people and the news media.   We witness endless rioting, looting, murders and the assassination of Law Enforcement Officers by mobs "composed of the very scum and refuse of" America, to paraphrase Charles Dickens.

The etymology of the word idiot from the Greek idiotes meaning "private citizen," or one without any official authority as an active and engaged citizen.   America's last 'active and engaged citizen' to serve as an elected official was Jim Webb. The DNC made sure that no money went to a genuine patriot and man of ability in order to hand the 2016 nomination to Hillary Clinton and the White House to Donald Trump.

An idiot stands in the shadows and whispers in the ears of idiots elected to public office by idiotic voters who know more about sports betting, or celebrities than they do about Electoral College. 

The result was last night's "debate" in which President Trump ate former VP Joe Biden's lunch.  A whispering idiot, Chris Wallace attempted to control the President's rhetorical seiche that washed over the fillibustering flibbertygibbet from Scranton.  Wallace was a disgrace

.

Now, all around the nation later-day Gordons are inflaming crowds of thugs who have a Wall of Moms and other useful idiots giving them shelter, when UHaul trailors are emptied of bowling balls, skateboards, frozen Ice Mountain bottles and other weapons that tossed at police officers.  People have died and been seriously injured in Minneapolis, Chicago, Portland, Louisville, New York City and billions of dollars in property damage in order to shout that black lives matter. 

Dickens would be disgusted, not by the rioting looters, but their stooge politicians and  media types referring to them as activists and solid citizens. 

Dickens wrote in Barnaby Rudge, Chapter 49: 

 

Through this vast throng, sprinkled doubtless here and there with honest zealots, but composed for the most part of the very scum and refuse of London, whose growth was fostered by bad criminal laws, bad prison regulations, and the worst conceivable police, such of the members of both Houses of Parliament as had not taken the precaution to be already at their posts, were compelled to fight and force their way. Their carriages were stopped and broken; the wheels wrenched off; the glasses shivered to atoms; the panels beaten in; drivers, footmen, and masters, pulled from their seats and rolled in the mud. Lords, commoners, and reverend bishops, with little distinction of person or party, were kicked and pinched and hustled; passed from hand to hand through various stages of ill-usage; and sent to their fellow-senators at last with their clothes hanging in ribands about them, their bagwigs torn off, themselves speechless and breathless, and their persons covered with the powder which had been cuffed and beaten out of their hair. One lord was so long in the hands of the populace, that the Peers as a body resolved to sally forth and rescue him, and were in the act of doing so, when he happily appeared among them covered with dirt and bruises, and hardly to be recognised by those who knew him best. The noise and uproar were on the increase every moment. The air was filled with execrations, hoots, and howlings. The mob raged and roared, like a mad monster as it was, unceasingly, and each new outrage served to swell its fury.

 

This roaring animal of 1780 London was engendered and motivated by pale promoters and self-interested opportunists.  Our mobs are paid for by billionaires and defended by sergeants of the courts with their inner eyes wide WOKE. 

Dickens presents Lord Gordon's spin-doctor, Gashford in the wake of the rioters being suppressed by the Eats London Militia and British Regulars -Promising as these outrages were to Gashford’s view, and much like business as they looked, they extended that night no farther. The soldiers were again called out, again they took half-a-dozen prisoners, and again the crowd dispersed after a short and bloodless scuffle. Hot and drunken though they were, they had not yet broken all bounds and set all law and government at defiance. Something of their habitual deference to the authority erected by society for its own preservation yet remained among them, and had its majesty been vindicated in time, the secretary would have had to digest a bitter disappointment.

By midnight, the streets were clear and quiet, and, save that there stood in two parts of the town a heap of nodding walls and pile of rubbish, where there had been at sunset a rich and handsome building, everything wore its usual aspect. Even the Catholic gentry and tradesmen, of whom there were many resident in different parts of the City and its suburbs, had no fear for their lives or property, and but little indignation for the wrong they had already sustained in the plunder and destruction of their temples of worship. An honest confidence in the government under whose protection they had lived for many years, and a well-founded reliance on the good feeling and right thinking of the great mass of the community, with whom, notwithstanding their religious differences, they were every day in habits of confidential, affectionate, and friendly intercourse, reassured them, even under the excesses that had been committed; and convinced them that they who were Protestants in anything but the name, were no more to be considered as abettors of these disgraceful occurrences, than they themselves were chargeable with the uses of the block, the rack, the gibbet, and the stake in cruel Mary’s reign.

In WOKE America we change the subject and begin tearing down statues and people considered deplorable by the elites. 

In Hanover England, they read the riot act, "dispearse within one hour, or be shot down by the troops."

We will have many more riots and many more people will suffer, 

Read Barnaby Rudge.  It is never taught in our schools anymore. Our rioters never heard of Charles Dickens, let alone the novel of the Riots of 1780. 

 

David Brooks and His Ilk - Why Trump Will Win Again and by a Landslide

"A purity spiral occurs when a community becomes fixated on implementing a single value that has no upper limit, and no single agreed interpretation. The result is a moral feeding frenzy." Gavin Haynes -How knitters got knotted in a purity spiral:A process of moral outbidding is corroding small communities from within in UNHERD

I am supposed to hate President Trump, America, past and present, my skin color and myself.

Not gonna.

The people who insist that I do range from celebrated faux-intellectual David Brooks to members of my vast and blue-collar family.

I love blue collars, but only wore one at work when I had to wear one.  For 46 of my 68 years, I was a high school English teacher,  I consider teaching a profession.  I joined no union to ensure my continued pay days.  I am an independent contractor, like an accountant, or lawyer.  You know, other professionals?

I am an Irish Catholic.  I adhere to the faith that fought Communism and teaches eternal truths.   Too many Irish Catholics adhere to the moveable feast of Cardinal Teddy McCarrick's  American neo-Unitarian catholic thought - abortion is a personal choice and marriage is . . . well, who's to say?

My father and his brothers fought fascism and communism.  My uncle Bart told me that the difference between Nazis and Commies is  the difference between horseshit and manure,

My Uncle Bud sealed an expensive crematorium shut that was  purchased by Cook Country Hospital and dedicated to burning aborted babies.  He threatened to quit as Chief Engineer of Cook County if ordered to unseal it and Cook County Board President George Dunne backed down.  Until, Uncle Bud retired.

That was long ago.

Now, things have evolved and the union that was once led by people who fought abortion and Communism are Ok with policies embraced by Abortionists and the Communists, Rioters and Looters.

Donald Trump was a real estate hustler and a media darling when Uncle Bud and Uncle Bart had something to say about my beliefs and actions.  They are at home with Christ and we are taking a knee when told to do so and  always trying to stay WOKE.

I never had the slightest regard for Donald Trump, until he became the 45th President of the United States.  I viewed him to be a narcissist and a boor.

I believe that he still might be both, but also more so.

In fact, any scan of my blog posts attests to that statement,

Once elected, Donald J. Trump was treated to a Tsunami of hate that runs madly to its yet unfinished spiral down into history.

Once elected and inaugurated,  Donald J. Trump did exactly what he promised to do. He repealed Obama Care, re-negotiated the idiotic NAFTA trade scam, enforced genuine immigration reforms, reversed Obama's fascist (benefited oligarchs like Warren Buffet) Energy policies, enacted real reform in Education.

Doing exactly what he said he would do set loose the Dogs of WOKE - Martin Sheen, Rob Reiner, Barbra Streisand all of the JOURNOLISTAS of Obama and of course David Brooks.

From the howling cast of Hamilton to unemployed jazz musicians, from artists dependent upon the 65,000 annual NEH grants, to skilled tradesmen with paid up dues, to every media outlet and academic charlatan in the United States President Trump and his family and supporters are reviled, denounced and lied about with active and energetic joy.

No President has ever been treated as badly and with zero let-up. Even President Obama was cut yards of slack and merited very little consideration.

President Trump seems to invite greater and more virulent hostility, but he also seems impervious to the darts and spit-balls.  Trump's wife and kids have my sympathies.  The President?  Not so much,  He calls the tune.

That said,  I detest the people who hate President Trump much more than their target.  They are the people who hate everything that I admire - loyalty, genuine patriotism, religious tolerance, dedication to vocation and willingness to help a neighbor.   People can get away with any lie, accusation, or calumny, because everyone is willing accept anything said or claimed against Donald Trump.

Lately, President Trump is claimed to have denigrated fallen American soldiers.

I doubt that very much.  This is another morality spiral - out of control.

There are 58 days until the election and President Trump will trounce Joe Biden on November 3rd.

Why will he win?  David Brooks.  David Brooks is a fatuous ninny, with a career as a fatuous ninny.

Here is David Brooks on why Trump can't win :

Donald Trump has been running on a sense of menace, a sense that there is a lot of danger out there in the world and that he is the one to restore order. And so the keystone of his visit was the image of him standing behind — in front of a burned-out buildings, and he wants to convey that message.
Joe Biden has run as a uniter. And so he went to speak to the Blake family. He pleased them very much with his sensitivity of what they were going through.
And you would have to say the evidence so far is that the law and order campaign that Trump has been running since the convention has not shown much impact on the polls. He is still down seven or eight points.
If you ask people on a whole range of measures which candidate makes you feel safe, Biden wins on — any way you ask that question, Biden wins. If you ask people, is Donald Trump making it worse, 55 percent say Donald Trump is making it worse.
So, the law and order message, at least so far, and as expressed through Kenosha, not working...Real Clear Politics

Biden Wins!  Morality spiral.

David Brooks backed Hilary Clinton in 2016 and predicted a thorough drubbing of Donald Trump.

David Brooks deplores Trump supporters - guys like me.

This from his pre-2016 election day New York Times brain-ooze:

A few weeks ago I met a guy in Idaho who was absolutely certain that Donald Trump would win this election. He was wearing tattered, soiled overalls, missing a bunch of teeth and was unnaturally skinny. He was probably about 50, but his haggard face looked 70. He was getting by aimlessly as a handyman.
I pointed to the polls and tried to persuade him that Hillary Clinton might win, but it was like telling him a sea gull could play billiards. Everybody he knows is voting Trump so his entire lived experience points to a Trump landslide. He was a funny, kind guy, but you got the impression his opportunities had been narrowed by forces outside his control.

Trump wins and will win again!  He will win because people like David Brooks, caitiffs, poltroons, and alarmist wimps, hate happy people who can read a news article, pay attention to human events, pay their own way and cast their own votes.  Like the guy in Idaho in soiled overalls, millions more Americans will cast their votes for Donald J. Trump.

Because filthy people like David Brooks feed the morality spiral, it will bring many millions of people " wearing tattered, soiled overalls, missing a bunch of teeth and . . . unnaturally skinny." to the polls to pull for Trump.

Review - Disney's Live Action Mulan!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Not gonna see it! The cartoon stunk like Gary and the Chicago Stockyards in the 1960's.

Now, how about a Wuhan - a live action treatment of the bat-eating dope who allowed billionaires to ruin global economies and affect the greatest transfer of wealth in human history?  That would be cool.

Now, back to The Rebel, starring Nick Adams as Johnnie Yuma!

Eat the Peach, Pitch the Stone, but Save the Ball Mason Jar - Hoosier Evolution

Eat the Peach, Pitch the Stone, but Save the Ball Mason Jar - Hoosier Evolution



Would you like to throw a stone at me?

Here, take all that’s left of my peach.

Blood-red, deep:

Heaven knows how it came to pass.

Somebody’s pound of flesh rendered up.

Wrinkled with secrets

And hard with the intention to keep them.

Why, from silvery peach-bloom,

From that shallow-silvery wine-glass on a short stem

This rolling, dropping, heavy globule?

I am thinking, of course, of the peach before I ate it.

Peach - DH Lawrence





I live in peach country, northwest Indiana and southwest Michigan, and revel in the lucious fruit all summer long.  The Peach is the Ava Gardner of fruit and it would damage a love-sick heart like Frank Sinatra's with its tantalyzing flesh, alluring syrup and beguiling aroma.  I can get huge, juicy and fragrant Michigan peaches from the weekly Farmer's Market located at 8th Street & Washington every Saturday.  These are tree ripened beauties for $.99 a pound, or $15 a bushel.  The way I go through peaches between July and September the bushel would make sense, but I was never a thrifty gent.  The peach appeals to the wastrel, the prodigal and the easily allured.

I would tear my Covid-19 Mask off, in front of Dr. Fauci and a squad of underfed, snarling Karens wearing I had Twenty Abortions T-Shirts, if offered a lush sun-rise colored Michigan peach and gnaw on it to the stone and wipe my chins with the PPI intended to arrest Covid dropplets.

I get allured.

I devour peaches from July, until the supply runs dry and go fresh peach abstinent until next summer.  I will eat canned and jarred peaches, which is like kissing a homely cousin, and dream of the return of Amish Peach Pies, Cabo’s Peach Smoothies, Peaches and Cream for breakfast and Fresh Peach Chutneys.

I am a lousy baker, but a pretty fair cook and peaches make a wonderful addition to pork and chicken dishes. My peach pies are unworthy of the fruit itself.  A cobbler?  Maybe.  A Pie, or cake?  Not a chance in hell.  Peaches make great sauces and jellies and living in this Hoosier Heaven I am surrounded by Mason Jars.

I have put up peaches, but not for a few years.  They never seem to live long enough to get par-boiled, peeled and sliced for the Bell Mason Jar.

The Ball Mason jar was born in Buffalo New York, but moved to Muncie, Indiana, in 1889.  The glass blown to make the iconic green tinted glass jars came from the sands of now vanished Hoosier Slide right here in Michigan City,Indiana.  The Hoosier Slide was over 200 feet at its peak and dominated the lakeshore, until the sands sent by the rail-car load to Ball in Muncie erased the dune from the shorescape 100 years ago. Ubi Sunt? 

Well, many of those jars, bottles, ashtrays and glassy geegaws returned to the Lake and now are returning to the shore as indigenous jewelry which is sold by  Michigan City Dunebillies in the many high-end Yuppie Shoppes for Fine People of Illinois (FIPS) on Franklin Street and near Lighthouse Mall.

Lake Michigan Beach Glass is formed by the undulating waves and time from glass bottles tossed into the Lake by idiots for generations.  These are beautiful local artifacts that smart locals sell to the Fine People of Illinois for up $65 per collection. God beat all of us to recycling. When an idiot tossed his Old Dutch Root Beer Bottle, a Drewerys, a Green River, or an empty Ball Mason Jar into the foamy lquid of Lake Michigan, God began setting Nature to its task.  “ LO, make some Beach Glass for generations upon generation, while a I Smote this Yamhead’s ass!”

And it came to pass!

So, a few decades ago some Yamhead walking along the Lighthouse wall polished off a pint of peaches and tosses his Ball Mason jar into the mighty waves of Lake Michigan and then force and matter come together to make beautiful beach glass.




The great-grand daughters of the said Yamhead take the South Shore Line from their hipster homestead in Streeterville on the Mag Mile, in order to play at the Blue Chip Casino and win a hundo-a piece on the slots.  They take their boodle to Franklin Street and buy beach glass that originated when the grand-Yamhead was too lazy to take his Ball Mason Jar home or find a proper recpticle,




The girls spend the last twenty on a bushel of Peaches at the Farmer's Market at 8th & Franklin.  Then, they heft the heavy fruit aboard the South Shore Lines for the long trek back to Streeterville.




Peaches, to glass, to beach glass.  Eat the Peach. Toss the stone.  Save the Mason Jar.




Science, kids! Everyone loves science.




I love peaches and Mason jars.

Thugs Kill Baby, Again! Trading Shots for Votes and Calling it Gun Violence

I got up this morning to a bold orange-colored sky, announcing a glorious Sunday in Michigan City, Indiana.

Mass is at 10 AM at St. Stanislaus, six blocks to the south of my home and up a paved street that was once a sand dune.

I read the news, beginning with Second City Cop, the only reliable source of news in Chicago and run by a mysteriously literate, witty and clear-thinking police officer.

The officer/writer included a Chicago media report of the slaughter of the baby and the wounding of his mother, while they returned home from a laundromat near 60th & Halsted in the Englewood neighborhood.  A car pulled up next to their car and seven to eight shots were fired, hitting the infant in the chest and grazing the mother.

Second City Cop knows all too well that no shooter will be brought to trial for this horror, but points directly at who is responsible:  Mayor Lori Lightfoot, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, her creature States Attorney Kim Foxx, Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart and Chief of Cook County Courts Tim Evans.

These pandering politicians are intellectual lightweights and shameless hucksters, concerned only with playing race-opportunity cards at every deal.

Tom Dart's press people paint him as a really WOKE and thoughtful agent of change, but he should act like a sheriff.  Hollywood actor John Cusack already grabbed the role that Dart insists upon playing to the advantage of no one but himself and his connected siblings. Dart has allowed the worst of the worst back on to Chicago's streets and preened before the likes of the oafish Mike Flannery and other propaganda spinners in Chicago's supine media.

Mayor Lightfoot proved herself to be a total incompetent this past May when she gave the green light to looters and Marxist agitators.

Toni Preckwinkle is a proven bigot and a vindictive power wielding oligarch.

Tim Evans is a career Democratic Party hack who parlayed his seat as a do-nothing alderman into a race-baiting grievance-policy autocrat who sends career criminals back to do havoc on Chicago.

The common shield used by each of these vote-sucking hacks is the strawman "Gun Violence."

The car used to drive up to the infant and his mother was driven by a thug.  The 7-8 bullets sprayed into the mother and child were helped along by the fingers of thugs.

Guns are inanimate objects.

Politicians and thugs know exactly what they are doing and they could care less about consequences.

I buried a score or more of bright and talented young men when I worked at Leo High School -1995-2016.  From Eric Ersery to Jason Riley to Antonio Collins, same old, same old - no one was caught, charged, tried, convicted, or imprisoned.  Hey, it's gun violence. No harm, no foul. 

I woke up in Michigan City, Indiana.  There are shots fired in this Indiana town, but they do not become part of a compelling narrative used to keep grifters elected to office.

I will go to 10 AM Mass at St. Stanislaus and say a prayer for the baby's mother. The child is home with Christ.

Chicago, Cook County and Illinois will do absolutely nothing for the grieving and wounded mother. 

Tom Dart will preen for Mike Flannery.  Lori Lightfoot will blame Trump. Toni Preckwinkle will raise taxes on everything and anything but her perpetual scowl and contempt for anyone not Toni Preckwinkle,  Kim Foxx will whine about police officers leading happy lives and she can't have that, and Tim Evans will open the iron bars and let more thugs out to exact more gun violence.

These politicians are not the only problem, however.

The other problem is that nice people will continue to allow Dart, Lightfoot, Preckwinkle and Foxx to hold public office,  Can't do a damn thing about Judge Tim Evans. He ain't going nowhere.

Neither is a former one-year old from Englewood.

The Merriest Springald in Our Pandemic, Part VI: March 25, 2020- Declan The Horse and Jimmy Bond

“To have compassion for those who suffer is a human quality which everyone should possess, especially those who have required comfort themselves in the past and have managed to find it in others. ”
― Giovanni Boccaccio, The Decameron

“‘All in’ is our anthem and point of pride. Illinoisans staying home for the good of each other and the good of our state . . . Be all in. ‘All in Illinois’ means we care about one another, we care about our communities. We are one Illinois, and we’re all in this together.” JB Pritzker

Recap of Parts I-V

Wesley Dioneo is the only son of Chicagoland real estate tycoon, Martin Dioneo and his society maven wife Allyson.  Martin Dioneo caught the COVID-19 virus from his Laplander personal trainer and is on a ventilator in Chicago's Northwestern Medical Center.  Allyson is holed up in the couple's massive east Lake Shore Drive apartment building a score of yards from the iconic Drake Hotel.
Allyson has sent Wesley Dioneo to the family get-away home at Stop 30 lake Shore Drive in Long Beach, Indiana. Wesley is a senior at St. Ignatius College Prep and had been since the school shut down on March 16, 2020.  Ally immediately sent Wesley to Long Beach, where he can be safe.
Wesley invites over his pals and trusted companions, the Nardo Bothers and Habib( Declan & Brian) and Habib Samer for a few days of social distancing, Super Smash Brothers and Pater Dioneo's Czech beer cellar.  The quartet do what young men do - eat, play and spirit up the atmosphere with verbal assaults upon cant and cowardice. They tire of Super Smash Brothers, if that does not stretch the imagination, wit and Wesley proposes a story telling contest with the prize of his high-end kayak going to the person declared the winner.


Into this subjective yarn tossing arena will arrive six LaPorte County lovelies: Addison Pawliak, Paisley Ewan, Aaliyah Justice, Genesis Mullen, Kennedy Lynch, and Amy Kinsley Briddlestone.  Wesley decided to allow Declan Nardo the opportunity to tell his tale about beating Chicago Bulls 1993 Title winning Myrmidon John Paxson at a game of horse, when the aging NBA star visited La Lumiere's Marsch Gym, a few years after that school own the national high school basketball title.   Addison Pawliak, Paisley Ewan, Aaliyah Justice, Genesis Mullen, Kennedy Lynch, and Amy Kinsley Briddlestone arrived at the Stop # 30 address of Wesley Dioneo at different times and by different modes of transportation.

Part VI - March 25, 2020

On this Wednesday, while the COVID-19 plague gave elected officials all over the nation an opportunity to exercise executive authority over the people who elected them - shutting all business, mandating a universal stay-at-home order, stopping travel and dominating the very compliant news media.

No one rebelled, but some tried to exercise common sense and were immediately arrested and hauled into court.  Essential businesses, like the vitamin factory where this writer works remained open and employees were mandated to wear masks, gloves and maintain a social distance of 6-12 feet from one another. People shrugged and went about shipping Gummie Vitamins for Women, Men, Children, Stressed, Sleepless, or WOKE Americans.   In Chicago 12 people were gunned down; Governor Pritzker and Mayor Lori Lightfoot extended the stay-at-home-order to well past April 7, 2020. What can you do?  Get a haircut?  Well, only you if you are the Mayor. 

But our tale about tales is set in Indiana!  Most definitely.  Northwest Indiana is a part of the Chicagoland market for media, politics and consumption.  Smart Chicagoans buy homes in this lake front region, because the quality of life is far superior to the Big Windy.  Kids do not get gunned down every three hours, as they do in Chicago and Indiana is not a bankrupted oligarchy run by a Governor who waddles with penguins and traffics in marijuana. 

The waddling oligarch of an Illinois Governor put Illinois on its knees and under house arrest. 

The Governor of Indiana responded to the threat of the mystery virus with far more common sense.  Therefore, citizens felt more at ease walking, riding bikes and visiting friends and loved ones. 

In Long Beach, Indiana  ten young people, high school seniors, ate submarine sandwiches from Jimmy Johns and began a story-telling contest.  Jimmy Johns sandwiches all tasted the same, be it turkey, beef, ham or vegan.  The taste was secondary to the filling of the maw and bags of Salt and Vinegar Chips overcame whatever disappointments the purchase might allow to creep into the smart and savvy minds of early adults. 

Wesley Dioneo had a disarming smile and a thick head of brown, uncombed hair over a wide forehead that indicated a broad intellect and inquisitive nature. His dark brown eyes radiated warmth and inviting membership to people with good hearts, but also acted as an early-warning system for frauds and bunkum-slingers. 

After eating half of an erstatz Italian sub from Jimmy Johns, Wesley intoned, " Let the contest for the Old Town Sportsman Minn Kota begin !  Remember.  Each story must fulfiill each of the five following requirements


1. The story must amuse
2. The story must teach a lesson
3. The story must reveal the character of the person telling that story
4. The story must be something to bring people together

5. The story must acknowledge our own mortality 

Ladies, Declan has a yarn that would reignite a campfire on the plains of Wyoming long cooled by the Western Winds.  Declan Nardo, ladies and Gentleman!"

A round of enthusiastic catcalls and faux fanfare greeted the thick-set basketball star of La Lumiere ( local teams only and not the national tour squad, mind you - Declan was good but not destined for D-1, D-2, or D-Zed college teams. ) Basketball. 

" Last November, when we getting ready for the season, JohnPaxson, the old GM of the Chicago Bulls came to talk to us about team building and trusting your teammates. Paxson went to LeMans Academy in Rolling Prairie - the schools that's now a priest school for some Mexican Catholics.  He went there knew all about La Lumiere and followed the Lakers when we won the national title,

I play on the local squad, me and Brian.  My left-handed shots suck donkeys.  Brian is way better than me.  Anyway, Paxson went on and on and on and everyone wanted to get to the main house for dinner with boarders, but I liked him and stuck around.

He asked me, " How 'bout a game of HORSE?"  Now, he is number 5 and scored the winning basket in 1993.  None of us were even born, but you know . Anyway, I figured he's an old guy and how good a shot can he have now. "

The game of HORSE is played between two people and called shots are the courtesy.  If you call your shot, Hook, Set, Jumper, Backboard, In with Rim, Nothing But Net, that is what counts. If one makes the basket, the opponent must make the exact same shot and from the exact same position on the floor.  If one misses he gets a letter, until the first player with HORSE totals out.

" So, Paxson gave me first shot.  I went to the top left side of the Key and called Set Shot - Nothing But Net.  Missed.  Paxson went to half court and called Jumper - Backboard - nailed it. 

We shot back and forth for twenty minutes, and Paxson called Under Hand from Free Throw Line SWISH and Nailed it.

I did the same and nailed it.  

Then he says Left Hand Set Shot -Back Board!

I am so screwed. I am dead!

He missed. 

I called Shot from the left top of Key Swish.  Dropped like a bad habit!  John Paxson Missed.   HORSE!!!!!!  I beat Number 5!

John Paxson shook my hand!"

At that, a weak round of applause nodded a nice bit of approval for Declan Nardo's true account of his victory over a legend.  He was only "dead" for a moment. 

Wesley called up the lovely Amy Kinsley Briddlestone. 

Amy tossed her golden locks and chirped, " Mine is a tale of struggle and courage in the face of circumstances of birth.  Jimmy Bond owns the great Jamaican Restaurant and Pub over on Route 12 near the old Knoll Brothers gas station.  Jimmy is half Chinese and half English.

He was born in Jamaica - a Jamaican Woman's Detention Center called Fort Augusta.  Portmore, Jamaica.   His mother had been a secretary to British Colonial Governor in Kingston in 1962.  She was a beautiful bi-racial woman whose father had been a drunken Hong Kong police man and mother a gorgeous Irish prostitute. Her name was Moira Taro.  

Miss Taro was enthralled by Dr. No, a nuclear engineer who bedded the young Moira and put her to work spying on the British.

She was told to study the actions of a British MI-6 agent James Bond and to intercept any reports she may have filed concerning Dr. No's radioactive wave experiments on his private island at Crab Key.

Miss Taro invited Bond to her mountain cottage for a tryst - that's a date, boys - and try and get him killed by Dr. No's many agents on the island nation.

They did the deed.

Miss Taro secretly enjoyed her dalliance with handsome James Bond, but she was betrayed by him and arrested as a terrorist. 

After Dr. Julius No died in an explosion that destroyed Crab Key, Miss Taro was tried in a colonial British Court to ten years at hard labor.

She was pregnant by Bond. In August 1962, Jamaica became a Commonwealth Nation, but Miss Taro was still considered a dangerous enemy of the Crown. 

Her son James was born in 1963, on the same day that JFK was assassinated. The lovely, but vile Moira Taro died of uterine cancer in January 1964. 

Jimmy was handed over to a Jamaican family by the child courts one year after his birth.

They had a Jerk Chicken cantina and huge following.  Jimmy Bond learned to jerk meats, as well as run a restaurant.  He was not a black man, but grew long dred locks and learned to play the bass guitar. For a while he had hoped that Michael Manley would improve the lives of Jamaicans, but he was just another Communist gangster and his policies ruined the business of Jimmy's adopted parents. 

When Manley was re-elected as Prime Minister in 1989, Jimmy Bond moved to Miami and applied for United States Citizenship. 

Jimmy played bass for Jimmy Buffet on two national tours and bought in on a Jerk Chicken restaurant in Bonfield, Illinois.   Jimmy Bond's became a regional hotspot with great food and hot music. 

In 2010, Jimmy Bond bought his restaurant on Route 12 and moved to Michiana Shores. 

Life had not treated him well but hard work and a sunny outlook made Jimmy Bond, Shaken but Unstirred!"

Habib spilled Russian dressing out from his Jimmy John's sandwich all over the carpet.  " Sorry, Dude!  My bad. Amy, that's the Bond Movie.  Is that plagiarism?  Besides, Cool Runnings is way better food.  Dude, I got the spill.  God. "

Wesley began cleaning up the Russian dressing. 


Part VII - Russians and Hamlet