The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

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When you realize that every morning you crawl out of the fartsack, haul down to the mailbox for the morning paper, grab that first cup of caffeine and settle down to an hour of news before starting your ‘real’ day, you might figure, like I did yesterday, enough is, well, enough. You might even, like I did, think to yourself, stop shooting up the news, stop acting like a political junkie, stop stealing time from your days.

Course, yesterday it came out that a whistleblower had reported our President had called up the Ukrainian president to demand repeatedly he investigate a company Biden’s son had worked at for improprieties his competitor’s boy might have committed, in exchange for a deal to send over 250 million dollars of weapons that country needed to fight the Russians. Yet another sad story of how we’ve seemingly lost our way, this country of ours run by a man who apparently has no idea or interest in constitutional limits on his behavior.

Meanwhile millions of kids and adults too were marching in the streets, clamoring for politicians to wake up before climate change was irrevocably ruining their future lives. The Saudi oil fields were bombed with drone warfare, the Iranians say it wasn’t them, the asylum seekers at our borders were being shipped to El Salvador which is a country you want to escape from not be returned to, the Koreans are testing missiles, the Canadian prime minister is wearing blackface and, well, enough is more than enough.

My father is 96 years old. He watches the news but doesn’t seem all that interested anymore. His favorite expression lately is ‘crazy world’, as if that assessment was about all anyone could come up with to explain the endless daily assault on our sensibilities. Crazy world. He was a right wing Republican most of his life but Trump escapes his logic. Horse’s Ass, he calls his president. He fought on a P.T. boat in World War 2, thought Viet Nam was a good idea, supported the Gulf Wars and doesn’t know what to think about Afghanistan. Crazy world indeed.

I’m going out to see him in a couple days. We won’t be talking politics and we won’t watch much news. I’m looking forward to a break from the addiction. We’ll go up to my brother’s cottage in Northern Wisconsin, listen to the loons and watch the autumn leaves turn color. We’ll spend a little time in a world that hasn’t gone crazy, just two old guyz idling awhile. I might even think of it as a vacation.

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ucchini

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Well, here it is the end of the garden, nothing much left beyond a few volunteer pumpkins, some overripe beans, a crop of raspberries and way too many zucchinis. Say what you want about zucchinis, they are a gardener’s tried and true confidence builder. If the rabbits ate your peas, if the crows dug up your bean sprouts, if the raccoons tore down your corn patch before the corn was even ripe, if the tomatoes never ripened in a rainy summer, you can always count on the zucchini to come through with a bounteous crop of never-ending, fast growing squashes. No garden with zucchini planted in it can be considered a total disaster.

In the aftermath of a nuclear war, in a world where desolation and radiation prevail, you can bet your sweet bumpkin the garden will sprout with volunteer zukes. They will re-vegetate the earth, count on it. And if we have to survive on what will grow post-apocalypse, we’ll at least have zucchini. Coming out our ears. Probably mutated to the size of pumpkins and covering acres, just one plant.

I’m not going to go all Martha Stewart here and offer up half a dozen of my favorite all-time zucchini recipes. You probably got plenty of your own. I’ll just say that when the fall garden reaches the end and the green beans hang too huge to eat and the tomatoes are split open from the rains, you can still eat fresh from the garden, just roll up with the wheel barrow and harvest those zukes. You can put off buying the pizzas and the Hungry Mans for another month. So when you offer up some of the bounty to the neighbors, forget that slogan that friends don’t offer friends zucchinis. You’re just doing a small part of saving the world.

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I can remember – and maybe a few of you can too – when telling the truth was considered, oh, something of a requirement for adulthood. Cheaters never prospered, that kind of aphorism, was taught us little munchkins as early as first grade when my teacher, Mrs. Ross, told us George Washington could never tell a lie and Abe Lincoln was Honest Abe. Integrity, you were told, mattered. Better to take the high ground and lose than to sink to the low and win. Didn’t matter who won or lost, it was how you played the game. What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses his soul? Maybe you got that in Sunday School.

Those were the days….! This week was another anniversary of September 11th and of course a few words of remembrance needed to be spoken solemnly by the current President of the United States. Sharpiegate was a few days earlier, a series of sad cover-ups over what should have been a non-issue, made quickly into headlines and threats to agency heads to support a white lie or Else. Trump, of course, in his role as Braggart-in-Chief, trumpeted his own work down on Ground Zero those subsequent days, his team of Trump Tower working in the toxic debris, doing all they could to help the firemen and police digging through the rubble and wreckage.

Nobody but an imbecile thinks the fastidious germaphobe Trump was dirtying his Brooks Brothers down on the streets. An imbecile or a deplorable. Or both, if that isn’t redundant. The man is incapable of telling the truth. Bolton was fired, he said the same day. The Russians aren’t involved. His tax returns will be released very soon. The sky is green. The election was fixed. Mexico will pay for the border wall. Obama was born somewhere else. China tariffs won’t hit U.S. pocketbooks. Windmills cause cancer and vaccines cause autism. He is a multi-billionaire. Even when the truth would make no difference, the man opts for the brag, the exaggeration, the lie, the cover-up. This is our President, a big fat Liar.

Maybe these are the times we live in. Fake news and bot websites. The truth may be out there somewhere, but we’re too lazy or too partisan to be bothered looking for it. Reality is nothing now but a very slippery slope. The ends not only justify the means, they are the means. All those first grade teachers should be tracked down and incarcerated. The world they described is a fantasy now. Someone has to be the scapegoat. Mrs. Ross, if you are still alive, we’re coming for you.

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I know I know, the Democrats have all these great ideas, debate strategies, a plan for nearly every problem we have in this country. They figure an intelligent discussion, a meaningful argument, a cogent debate will win the day against a poseur like the Trumpster, that folks will see through this clown suited guy and vote for sanity once again, restore American integrity and, oh, yeah, make us great again, not grate.

I got some news for my left leaning friends. You need to laugh at this guy. Don’t stand on stage and pretend he’s a worthy opponent, that’s exactly what he wants. He wants to be taken Seriously. And the last thing you want to do for him is take him seriously. He’s a joke so treat him like one. Make fun of his hair. Make fun of it repeatedly. Give him a nickname with his hair as the butt of the joke. President Hairball. Donald Rogaine. Doesn’t matter, anything will do. Just so long as you giggle when you say it.

Mock his girth. I know I know, fat shaming is wrong. Screw it. Ask him who he’s hiding in that tailored suit of his. Stormy? Get over your political correctness. Go for the jugular, hit below the belt. Ask him if he has to use Viagra. Why the nondisclosure clauses in his affairs? Ask him and laugh out loud. Forget about his tax returns. Ask him if he can produce his GED. Tell him his attacks on the CIA and the FBI must have been an envy of a mistaken idea of what is meant by the ‘intelligence community’.

The man is the most insecure guy you ever had the misfortune to meet. Attack him in his vulnerables! Make fun of his looks, his intelligence, his shabby hotels, his failed casinos. Ask him again what his favorite book is and if he ever read another. Ask him if he and Sean Hannity are ‘seeing’ one another. I know I know, it’s okay to be gay, but lighten up here gang and put political correctness aside for one lousy debate hour. This is Entertainment now. This is Smackdown Wrestling. The rules have been altered this past few years. Climb into the ring with this phony and give him some tit-for-tat. Ask him who Ivanka’s real father is. Couldn’t be him, not with her looks, maybe her brains. Ask him how that son-in-law’s doing with that peace in the Middle East thingy? Don’t wait for answers, hit him with another left.

Walk up behind him the way he did with Hillary and give his hair a friendly tussle. Smirk and mug. Pull on his trousers and throw your arms wide, wink at the moderators. Have fun with this. Running for president isn’t serious business any more. Enjoy yourself. You’ll thank me.

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