The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

Spies R Us

This week the Hot News is this: The Government Is Spying On Us!! Turns out they can check with the phone companies, get a few billion of our numbers we called and using algorithms, figure out who’s been calling Bin Laden. Or their mom in Keokuk. Folks are up in arms. My neighbors are afraid to use their cellphones. Down at the Diner, there’s talk of Big Brother and the necessity to maybe get MORE firepower in their arsenals. GTE Johnny, who used to work in telecommunications, said we ain’t seen nothing yet. “The government knows when you were born, when you got divorced and probably when you’ll die,” he pronounced ominously over his newspaper headline that read: White House Defends Spy Activity. His veggie omelette coagulated while he warned us poor victims what was coming, everything from cyber surveillance to space cameras so powerful they could read the Diner menu from the Hubble.

“There’s no more hiding,” he whispered, although we all knew the hidden microphones in the salt shakers were picking him up Loud and Clear, transmitting his seditious comments to a Cray Super Computer a mile deep under the Rocky Mountains where it was being transcribed, collated and filed in the vast data banks the National Security Agency maintains. Even as Johnny finished, we could imagine storm troopers loading up the black helicopters, GPS set on Camano’s South End, instructions given to breach no resistance, possibly take no prisoners.

“The damn government!” a few soon-to-be-gulag residents shouted over their biscuits and gravy. “Intruding in our private lives. What’s next?!”

Oh, I don’t know. Credit card monitoring? Facebook statistics? Google info gathering? Grocery store scan cards to track our grocery preferences? Yahoo monitoring of our internet so they can customize our ads to maximize profits? Rental car companies using GPS to check our speeds and locations? Cellphone interceptions by crooks and hackers? Security cameras in every store, mall, streetcorner, bar and restaurant? Corporations mining our meta-data to tailor their sales pitch. Phone companies that record every tweet, twitter and text?

If the boyz at the Diner want privacy, well, they should throw away their credit cards, ditch their cellphones, soak their computers in the bathtub, don’t drive, don’t go to town, don’t talk out loud. Do like the Barefoot Bandit — only don’t steal the planes. You think government is spying, welcome to corporate and social networking. You gave Facebook everything you got. Whadja think??? The damn government, as always, would be the last to get this stuff. The NSA shoulda maybe joined Facebook a long time ago. Or YOU shouldn’t have….

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Ma and me got this notion back when she first arrived by mail order – hoping for a new start, a New Land, an employed suitor, only to find herself at the tail end of an island where jobs and work were non-existent – to start our own little business. Being a librarian, well, an unemployable librarian unless she wanted to commute to hell and gone, she considered a used book store. We dug around a little, looked into renting a space above some shops in downtown Stanwoodopolis and made inquiries. They wanted a three year lease, no escape clause. We worried the elderly would never make it up the stairs. Or the lazy either. And we fretted that the illiteracy rate of Stanwoodopolis might spell our doom the first year and we’d owe two more years of rental on the dust bunnies.

Our next entrepreneurial investigation was to start a nursery, maybe buy some land, plant a few botanicals, grow the business organically. Meaning, it would be a slow return on our investment. But hell, we weren’t hedge fund managers, we were managers of hedges. We’d do it the old fashioned way, work hard, be frugal, build the business step by step.

We needed a few acres and a water source. Down on the South End there were plenty of acres, not much water. We didn’t have the money to buy a parcel AND dig a well so we looked for land with springs, something we could dam up a little stream maybe and use it to irrigate in the drought months, and sure enough, we found a place a mile south, got the asking price – about $15,000 for five acres – then called the County to make certain we could operate a nursery.

The nice folks at the County said they didn’t know. We could if we lived on that five acres, not sure if we didn’t. I said we sort of need to know if we were going to buy the land and get a loan to start up operations. They said they just couldn’t say yes but they didn’t want to discourage us by saying no either.

I won’t say we had a real firm business plan developed, just some seedlings of ideas really, mostly like the kind that die off for lack of money. Or water. Or a county closing us down when word got out we were operating an Illegal Flower Operation. In the end we didn’t buy the land and we didn’t go into debt and we didn’t corner the nettle market on the South End. We did manage to make a Go of it here, we worked various jobs, we stayed together. I’m kinda glad the County wasn’t more helpful. I’m real glad we never asked about a marriage license.

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Some of you out there who stay abreast of fake news coming in 24/7 probably already got the word. And the word isn’t good. Impeachment. I know, you’re tired of it. You’re sick to death of it. And I hate to be the bearer of bad news for those of you who finally turned off your computer, dropped out of Facebook, said you’d rather drink rat poison than listen to one more MSNBC or Fox News commentator drone on half an hour about it. You’d rather go and listen to the South End String Band than endure that.

Yeah, I know. But sometimes you can’t put your head in the sand. You can’t plug your ears. Sometimes a story is too Big, too important, too … life changing to ignore. They’re impeaching Santa Claus. I couldn’t believe it either. The jolly old guy was ratted out by Donder and Blitzen, probably pissed they had to work every Christmas when Santa could have contracted to Amazon Prime. Quid Pro Quo, they claimed. Santa wouldn’t know a quid from a quo, but that’s no defense. The elves had the lists of Naughty and Nice, but Santa had them sequestered before the subpoena came in. Might’ve saved his bacon except Mrs. Claus admitted that yes, the presents for the kids were conditional on their good behavior. Quid … pro … oh no!

I can tell you, the North Pole will be a litiginous place this season. Fa la la? I don’t think so. Next year, if I don’t miss my bet, even the naughty kids will get gifts. Nobody said this was a fair world. And if I were the Easter Bunny or the Tooth Fairy, I’d be afraid. I’d be very afraid.

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Merry Christmas, Everyone! I guess it’s okay to say Christmas, but if you find that offensive, Happy Holidays! This has been a great year for the Daddle family and as we do every year, we like to share our glad tidings. Daughter Brenda went back to community college after her degree from Swarthmore proved less than marketable. She is taking Business Accounting and expects to find much better prospects after graduation. We told her English Renaissance History narrowed her career chances, but you know kids these days. A year working for Burger King convinced her to change her major. Even with the minimum wage increase that’s coming.

Son #1 Jeremiah served his 9 months and two weeks at the Snohomish County Jail for some breaking and entering. Drugs! You think you’ve warned them about the consequences but they think we’re just old fogies. Jerry should be fine after his Narcotics Anonymous regimen. For the time being he’s comfortable in the basement apartment Linda and I set up. Sure, I miss the pool table, but family always comes first! And it’s great to have him home again, even if we have to lock up our valuables.

Son #2 has joined a religious commune down near Santa Cruz. Brian is not supposed to contact his earthly family so we haven’t got much news to report. Occasionally he writes for money and we are happy to help out. Well, Linda is, I confess it irks me no end to send that little twerp anything beyond a message to Wake Up! But these things too shall pass, isn’t that what they say?

Linda is doing much better this year. As you might remember she struggled with some mild depression. Empty nest syndrome is what I thought it was, nothing she wouldn’t pass through soon. Boy, was I ever wrong this time! But her doctor has her on some very effective medications and her crying has greatly lessened. Jerry has been a great help. Sometimes he even makes his own lunches.

Retirement, as a friend of mine likes to say, is greatly underrated. Oh, I struggled a little with boredom at first. Like everyone. But right after my heart attack in February (not to worry, I’m okay, just a couple of stents) I started walking more. You know I never really liked exercise of any sort, but that ticker-tweet kicked me in the butt to get up off the couch and get outdoors. I’ve been walking every day. Truthfully, I walk almost all day. Linda says I’m obsessed, but I say a walk a day keeps the cardiologist away. I tried to talk Linda into walking with me, but she says 20 miles is too much for her. Ha ha. Her sense of humor is coming back!

We did make a couple of trips this year. One to Santa Cruz to see Son #2 at his Seeing Orb Commune, but we were told at the security gate no one was allowed inside, not even parents. Admittedly things got slightly out of hand and the sheriff’s office had to intervene, but in the end I settled down — without some damn mantra — and we drove to the coast and stayed at a very nicely restored auto court overlooking the beach before driving back home.

We also attended a Trump rally in October up at Lynden. The man can connect with an audience, I’ll say that, and we were happily surprised when he won on Election Night three years ago. He’s making America great again and even though I know some of you didn’t vote for Mr. Trump, I think you must to be pleasantly surprised. The business of America is business and this is a billionaire businessman. Okay, enough politics….

Hope you and your family have a warm holiday. We in the Daddle household are going to make Christmas Great Again. It will be Yuge, as Donald says. Ha ha! I mean Ho Ho! Love at ya! Linda and Jeremiah and Skeeter

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