The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

I just crawled out of the cocoon of our 3 quilt bed after snoozing for 15 hours. At least I think it’s 15, although maybe it’s 39 and we missed a day. We had our annual New Years Party a day ago, or two, and I guess we were exhausted after two days of prepping for it and another cleaning up the debris. This year we had a lot of folks cancel because of colds, flu and icy roads so the crowd was limited to about 45 or 50, not the expected 75 or so.

We used to have a few folks over New Years eve, maybe have dinner, then wait patiently for the clock to hit midnight so we could all, mercifully, wish one another a Happy New Year, call it a night, then toddle off to bed. Those last couple of hours were painful. We finally decided to Go Big or go home. So … we went big. Course in the early years here, we didn’t know a lot of folks and we didn’t have many friends down here on the wild South End. Most of the pioneers were older and not that interested in us young upstart newcomers.

But it’s been about 35 years and us young upstart newcomers aren’t anymore. We old codgers have been worming our way into various island nooks and crannies, everything from the Historical Society to the Beach Watchers, the arts crowd to the music scene, the Senior Center to the fire departments, from the Grange to the Friends of the Parks. As the island grew, so did our social circles. And so did the New Years Party.

It’s more than a little ironic, I think, that the xenophobic kid who moved to a shack at the end of this long skinny ass island, the guy who wanted nothing more than to be left alone, should have, after all these years, so many good friends and close acquaintances, so many neighbors he’s happy to see. Life is a series of unexpected turns, some detours and more than a few great surprises, this party every year being proof of that. Happy New Year to all of you. Make a resolution, then don’t worry if it changes into something else. It might be for the best after all….

For a long time I’ve been befuddled by the continuous ‘newsfeeds’ concerning all things Kardashian. I thought maybe it was my lack of cable networks, you know, missing all those wonderful reality TV shows. But this past election opened my eyes to the state of information dispersal in the good old Yew Ess of Aye. We get our news, not from the untrustworthy folks at NPR or the NY Times or PBS and CNN. Not even from Fox News. We get the fair and balanced from Facebook. Since I’m the last human on earth who has not signed up for the Hive, all these Borg newsflashes miss my antennae. I am no one’s ‘friend’ and apparently friend to no one.

Yesterday I read that 49% of Republicans believe Pizzagate is true. Wilder yet, 24% of Democrats believe Hillary Clinton is running a pedophilia ring, human trafficking and satanic ritual abuse out of a family pizza joint in Washington DC. Stop and think about that for one South End second. It’s as if a very sizeable percentage of my fellow Americans believed in evil fairies that live in the sewer system of every major city, planning secretly to use the rats to do their dirty work some night in the near future. They have telepathic powers and they invade our dreams! They know what we’re thinking!! They control our TV’s!!!! They’re filling our heads with insane bullshit!!!!! They have hacked the Russians who have hacked us!!!!!! They have taken over Donald J. Trump’s human body and now will become the next president of the United States of Evil Elves!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Please don’t post this, you folks who are on Facebook. We have lost our sense of humor. We are gullible as demented geriatrics drooling in front of the Sean Hannity Show. Someone, probably those damn fairies, has put Kool-Aid in our municipal water systems. And we’ve been drinking it for years. They tell me a comet is passing our solar system tonight. No doubt it is coming to take the True Believers to a better world. Pack your bags, is my advice. You’ve already paid the fare, why not enjoy the trip?

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!!

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.