The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

In 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue. I still remember that bit of ditty from 3rd grade. Nina, the something, Pinta maybe?, the Santa Maria. Three ships sailing into history in search of Asia, the long route, the wrong route. No doubt they loved finding gold instead of spices. And of course a New World to explore, conquer and repopulate. In return for the native’s hospitality they brought microbes the indigenous folks had never been exposed to and so, without the necessity of major battles, the Spaniards decimated the Mayan, the Aztec and the Incan civilizations with brand new diseases. Smallpox for gold goblets. Black fever for slaves.

I suppose when we earthlings go to distant planets we’ll be peaceful, respectful, good neighborly, remembering that Columbus Day is just another Subjugation Day for the unfortunates who get discovered. Mars Rover Day will get replaced with a more politically correct moniker for its historic moment. Indigenous Martian Day really doesn’t work for me, but I won’t be around anyway, call it whatever you want.

Columbus Day either. Dump the whole holiday for all I care. Just don’t rebrand it. Us liberals really do value political correctness carried to the extremes. And so I can’t wait to hear the folks who vociferously decry any political correctness as a limit on their freedom of speech. They’re gonna howl that we’ve waged war on poor Christopher the way we wage war on their Christian holidays. And their Star Spangled Banner. And their Confederate traitor statues. Is NOTHING sacred?

Can’t we just learn to love one another even if they were slave traders and warmongers? Can’t we simply celebrate the holidays of the Judeo Christians and skip the minorities? So okay, we drop Christmas but we don’t call it Islam Alternative Day. And if we drop Columbus Conquers the Americas Day, let’s just find a new one somewhere in October to make a federal holiday. I like Halloween, good national fun and a money mojo for the candy and costume industry. Nobody made a dime on Columbus Day anyway and I notice the stock market doesn’t bother to celebrate it. What kind of holiday is it that can’t be monetized? Not a true American one, that’s for sure.

Hits: 66

Hits: 63

Let’s talk guns! I’m betting most of my card carrying liberal pals, guys like Two Toke Tom, will never in a dozen lifetimes understand why anyone would own a gun, much less a couple of dozen or more. Or 36 like the killer in Vegas last week who killed 58 people and wounded hundreds more…. They want gun control. Half would like guns banned outright. Tom would, for sure.

I had a neighbor who didn’t like me much (I know, hard to believe!) who announced, apropos of nada, that he always carried a pistol and kept a loaded one by his bed. Just in case I was contemplating a late night break-in burglary. When I asked why he ‘packed’ during the day, he said dogs. Packs of dogs. The .38 was dog spray for he-men. I hate to extrapolate from one case study, but my sense is people keep guns out of fear. Dogs, burglars, gays, rapists, Muslims, the Chinese Mafia. You laugh maybe at the Chinese Mafia but I have a pal who, devout Christian that he is, struggled mightily with whether to buy a gun for protection. “Protection from what?” I asked. “The island is pretty much violence free.” He said gangs of the Chinese Mafia. Them and the Muslim Caliphate.

It’s hard to argue against folks’ fears. They’re real even if the basis isn’t. TV news is half reportage of violence. Movies and TV and video games are full to the cerebellum with mayhem. The cities are war zones, gangs rule entire neighborhoods, drive-by shootings are commonplace —— or so we believe. There’s talk of endtimes, societal breakdown, dystopia and riots in the streets. One gun isn’t gonna do it!! Not when the zombie apocalypse or the Chinese Mafia roll into the pastoral South End.

My Christian buddy decided not to arm himself. No killing, the Bible admonished and he was pretty certain he’d be going to heaven if the Mafia did kill him. My neighbor, though, shot himself in the head. Any way you parse it, that’s tough gun control, one that Two Toke might not endorse, but I say it’s a good start. And no, I didn’t pry the gun out of his cold dead hands. Let’s have a modicum of respect for the dearly departed.

Hits: 121

Hits: 44

I have a sequoia I planted below our house, down where the hill levels out into a ravine. I planted it as a seedling instead of buying a wedding ring for myself since I really dislike a ring. At least one on my finger. Ten years later we built the house up on that hill and from a second story perch I’ve been watching it reach up over the woodshop below, then slowly rise to the new house’s level, go beyond the height of the barn across the ravine and above our own house.

I have to step forward into the window now to see its top. At 35 years old it’s still pretty much a baby so far as a sequoia goes. On our anniversary Karen and I wrapped our arms around its trunk and barely locked hands. With any luck it’ll outlive me by, oh, 500 years or so. In my own lifetime, with a little luck, it’ll be the biggest tree on the place, which is no mean accomplishment considering the five redwoods we planted from seed, a few humongous big leaf maples, some second growth firs and one cedar that, for now, holds the title at a circumference of 13 feet and must be the oldest tree by far on our seven acres.

I’d like to think when we no longer prowl this property, it’ll be a forest again, not some logged off scabwoods the way it was when we first arrived. The field that once grew alfalfa for our goats is now a small arboretum of oaks and maples and beeches, rhododendrons twice as high as us, walnuts and hickories, a carpet of shamrocks and periwinkle growing underneath.

We are definitely shaped by our surroundings, I know that much. And it’s no small pleasure to return the favor by shaping them. The orchards, the flower gardens, the riot of 150 rhodies all blooming over a slowly unfolding spring, the vegetable gardens, the shrubs, the back woods —- all of this becoming as much a part of us as we became part of it. If you were to ask if I was an environmentalist, I would have to say no, probably not. I’m mostly just part of the environment.

Hits: 127

I read a letter to the editor recently from a newly minted graduate of our school system railing about that same school system as mostly purveyors of communist propaganda. It forced him to learn about Islam, he complained, but didn’t teach the Bible. It taught him Egyptian history but never, not once, mentioned Moses parting the Red Sea. Apparently his science teachers wouldn’t touch it either, afraid, probably it would subvert the shaky foundations of rationalism.

I’ve lived here long enough to remember when those commies used to bring in Creationist speakers and when evolution was fairly taboo, days our Graduate would like to bring back. Religion, I’ve learned the hard way, is a tough subject to tiptoe around. Any religion. Just not an amusing topic for the True Believer. So mostly I just pick a safer target and hope not too many toes are stepped on.

But I hafta say, in a country that vents mightily about the Taliban or extreme Muslimism, it is troubling to realize the folks who hate the false gods and beliefs of others would gladly set up their own religious schools and maybe make 2nd class citizens of their Jewish classmates or their Sikh or Hindu or B’hai or Buddhist or Catholic or …. well, anybody but their particular sect. They want freedom of religion all right. Theirs, not yours.

I wish religion WAS the opiate of the masses, but sadly, it’s the testosterone. Maybe if we didn’t have religious beliefs to fight about, we’d wage wars over scientific dogma instead. The Big Bangers vs. the Multi-Dimensionalists. Eat this theory, blasphemer!!

Facts, though, don’t seem to matter, just fervent faith. I can’t prove it … so what? I believe it so it’s true. Obama’s a Muslim, evolution is a fraud, the moon landing was hoax, God is a Christian, the universe sits on the back of a tortoise, aliens are among us, the world banking system is controlled by Zionists, the Stanwoodopolis school system is a communist conspiracy.

It’s nice to know that our taxes have done a fine job educating our children. I think they’ll be more than ready to take their place in society. Sometimes, honest to your God, even on the South End, there’s no place to hide from these people.

Hits: 90

If the blog site here goes dark the next few days, it’s because we’re in transit and I’m grappling with technical difficulties. As usual. Please standby. Our technicians will be working on the problem. Yesterday I punched something on my brother’s Apple and locked the thing up, core to peel. Took the mizzus (the technician) only a few minutes after I’d spent two hours. Then the wireless keyboard pooped out. I changed the batteries, tried to work through the control system then finally gave it to her while I went over to my old man’s house. He’s got the same computer, same keyboard and lo and behold, it didn’t work either.

Course, I figured it was the network probably down for repairs or something, but accidentally discovered the POWER BUTTON ingeniously hidden in the side of the keyboard. I’d inadvertently hit both to the OFF position. Ho ho, mystery solved. And only an hour or two lost.

Anyway, we’re leaving the comfort zone of working computers now, heading toward Lake Superior where the natives probably have never heard of Twitter or Apple or television. If by chance they have and if I can barter some time from them, maybe I’ll get word out through this site that we’re doing fine, that the ice hasn’t locked us in yet, that winter hasn’t descended on the upper latitudes. If not, no doubt we’ll have a saga to share later in the spring when the floes break up. Meantime, try to avoid the news, faux or real. You surely got better things to do….

Hits: 55

Hits: 67

I’m learning all sorts of things in my old age, not by choice really, mostly out of necessity. Lots of my stuff is falling apart and has gone to the Dark Place where no amount of cursing or kicking will bring it back to workable condition. I dismantled my computer last week, pulled out little connectors, changed a battery, beat on it with a fist, but it really didn’t want to power back up again after I’d turned it off when we left for a vacation trip. Lesson learned. The buggers want to be awake. They don’t need sleep and they don’t dream. Mark one up for the machines.

My table saw, however, died a smoky death in mid-cut. Slowed down, made a strange garbled cry of protest, then blew the shop fuses. It wanted to sleep forever. Which, after some amount of troubleshooting, I decided it deserved a proper burial. But not before a few well aimed kicks to its cheap aluminum shroud. Good riddance. I had a backup saw ready to go. Course, it needed to be completely assembled with parts cannibalized from previous incarnations. Only took most of a day, but in the end, mark one up for us humans. So what if it’ll probably run for only a short time before it too joins the growing junkpile out back.

Next day, the refrigerator decided to stop chillin. I know, it seemed like a conspiracy to me too. Revenge of the Machines, soon to be a major motion picture. You know, if the TV will still play DVD’s. I did what any modern repairman would do in these days of internet research — I went straight to Google. Where I learned that 21st century refrigerators (ours is a 20th century model) have a fan in the freezer compartment that pushes cold air down into the fridge area and sure enough, I had blocked that port with frozen goods enough to raise the temperature below by 20 degrees. Only took a few hours to figure all this out, simple fix. We’ll call this one a draw.

Hits: 34

Hits: 61