The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

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In these Dark Times of Post-Truth you know deep in your grief stricken hearts that somewhere, somehow, there must be a place where the fires of civilization still smolder, ready to be rekindled, their embers primed to burst forth in a blaze heralding some New Renaissance. That place, that Polaris of Verity, that Constant Star which guides the Lost and the Lame back home, awaits you!

Yep, the South End New Year’s Party! For 35 years this beacon of Eternal Truthiness has been welcoming those wandering in the wilderness back to renewed Hope. 2017 might seem to many, not a path to making America great again, but a dirt road down a desolate dead end. Sounds pretty much like the South End to us. We aren’t going to try to make New Years great again, it’s already great. Okay, it’s good enuff. Well, anyway, we’re used to it. And you should get used to it too.

Come on down and join us for a sorrow-drowning, tweetless, rollicking good time. If it’s lies you want, we got em by the bushel. If it’s reassurance that the country is going to be hunky-dory, we can do that too. If you want the swamp drained, well, bring a bucket. But by all means, bring yourselves, bring a friend, bring a dish, bring a bottle. We’ll start at 7 and go til the bogs are firm. Happy New Year even if you can’t make it!!

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I don’t tweet. I know, I’m being left in the digital dust and the future is moving away from me at the speed of Kardashian news. The President elect, who seems to think he’s president already, communicates primarily by tweetspeak. Short and to the point. Mostly to the Point. It’s a new paradigm for governing in this post-truth world we now live in.

Makes sense, I guess, if most of us citizens are capable of not much more than a text message, fat thumbs flying on tiny keyboards, words distilled to the fewest letters possible, paragraphs obsolete. Our attention spans are nicely compatible with the complexity of tweets these days and I don’t expect to see that expanding anytime in the near future. Can’t imagine why politics is reduced to soundbites and 30 second commercials.

We used to call this, at least where I come from, shallow thinking. These days it passes for research. But I know, I know, I’m just being curmudgeonly. The modern world moves a little too fast to stop and smell the newspaper ink. We don’t have the luxury of time anymore, not when we have to respond to text messages and update our Facebook page. Read a novel? Fat chance, Hemingway. Read a non-fiction book? Give me a break. Read beyond the first paragraph of a Yahoo news feed? Why bother?

No, I suspect we’ll actually shorten those attention spans a little more before I leave this mortal coil. Not sure how much shorter we can make them, but if watching friends text messaging while they’re in a conversation with me is any indication, I’d say there’s still some wiggle room. Just have to avoid those conversations with me to do it. I’ll sure miss those engaging discussions.

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Two Toke Tom and myself were quaffing a couple of Christmas cheers down at the Pilot House Lounge yesterday, talking about the State of the Union, the last election, Santa’s illegal immigration status and our plans for the holidays. Me, I go away with the mizzus for 3 or 4 days, somewhere that hasn’t heard of Christmas or else is too impoverished to want to participate. We go with a few other childless friends, fellow bah humbuggers, hoping to avoid the DMZ of the War on Christmas we’ve been hearing about for way too many years.

“And you?” I asked Two Toke.

“Same drill,” he answered, holding his glass up for Jerry behind the bar to refill. Jerry had a red Santa stocking cap on, the tail slung over his shoulder. The place was humming and Jerry was hustling to keep up. “Going down to the Shelter and serve grub to the homeless,” Tom said, draining the last of his current beer. Tom had been doing this since I could remember.

“You make me feel like Scrooge’s black sheep kid,” I muttered and nodded to Jerry that yeah, I’d take another round, Tiny Tim would have to go hungry while his old man got hammered at the pub.

“Guilty conscience?” Jerry asked. “Not for long,” I answered, “maybe about one more beer. Tom here serves Christmas dinners to the homeless.”

“I get a free dinner myself,” he told Jerry, almost apologetically. Jerry shook his head. “You’re a good man, Charlie Brown,” he said over his shoulder with the Santa tail bobbing a white ball. When he came back with our drinks he said to Two Toke, “On the house, man.”

“Mine too?” I chimed in. Jerry laughed. “Oh, what the hell, yours too. Merry Christmas, boyz.”

“You too, Jerry,” T.T. said.

“And to all a good night,” I answered, ever the comic smartass. What I meant to say was we need a few more Toms in this world.

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Skeeter’s gonna go into exile for a few days, at least til this War on Christmas subsides or there’s a negotiated truce. Santa’s immigration status is a bit in doubt, what with Trump calling for Border Walls, so we’re going away a few days til those reindeer visas get straightened out. If you got a jag for more of these pithy epistles from the South End, scroll down a couple of years, see what you missed. Course, you probably didn’t miss much but it might cure these election year blues if you take a time machine back to that simpler, happier era we once enjoyed. Just don’t go too far back….

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I don’t need to tell you Christmas started a little early this year. I know, it does every year. Apparently there’s no need to wait til we’ve digested half a ton of turkey to move on to the next holiday, just step right off from overeating to overconsuming. If you’re worried about a so-called war on Christmas, I got some real good news for you: Santa is winning! And so, apparently, are the retailers and so are the Chinese.

Even on the Scroogish South End the muzak droning Bing Crosby chestnuts has become a tinselly tinnitus. Folks leave their Christmas lights up 365 days now, why bother crawling up a precarious ladder to pull the shack decoration down for the one month we aren’t counting down the day til the credit card bills hit JACKPOT?

Call me a curmeudgeon, label me a Grinch and hit me on the head with Aunt Pearl’s fruitcake, but our holiday strategy is we hightail it off the South End when Christmas gets close. Nowadays we grab a few friends who don’t have kids or family that necessitate a 2nd mortgage to fill a tree with presents and we head to places so bleak, so impoverished, so beaten down that they don’t bother with lights or tinsel or commercial trappings. Used to be we could escape the hoopla down here, but not anymore. Naw, you have to be farther off the beaten path to escape the holiday onslaught than Camano Island, even the South End.

I’d tell you where we exile ourselves, but then half of you would follow us off to serenity and a quiet holiday devoid of WalMarts and strip mall outlets. No offense, we’re sure not trying to wage war on Christmas. And we sure don’t want to collapse the economy. We only want to celebrate Christmas the way it once was, with friends and good cheer. Just not all year long.

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