The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

Louisiana just legislated the 10 Commandments be put in every schoolroom in the state. Doesn’t bother them that the Supreme Court has already ruled on this, might as well spend some tax dollars on defending that decision. It is, after all, the Word of God. Well, at least the God of the Christian Louisianans. Not so much some other religions’.

When I was a pup in the school system of Georgia back in the early ‘60’s, we had to recite the Pledge of Allegiance every morning first thing and then one pupil would be required to read a verse from the Bible at the front of the class. I must have been in 5th grade at the time but even then I resented being forced to listen to Bible passages. Much less have to read one myself out loud. When my turn came around I read the shortest passage in the King James version: Jesus wept. Then sat down. Some of my audience snickered but most assuredly my teacher was not amused. Even though I had kept to the exact requirement she had laid out. And so she sent my Yankee ass down to the principal’s office, I guess to teach me some sort of lesson I hadn’t gleaned listening to my fellow classmates’ recitals from the Good Book.

It did teach me a lesson, although not one Mrs. Gilroy might have hoped I’d learned. It taught me I didn’t want the Bible or any other religion shoved down my throat. And so, back around 1980 when I heard the Stanwoodopolis high school was bringing in a Creationist speaker to argue against Darwin and that evil theory of evolution, I went to my one and only school board meeting to protest. I mentioned the Supreme Court decisions and argued that this school administration was wasting us taxpayers’ time and money pushing an agenda that was sure to end up in court and cost plenty in attorney fees. Gary, another concerned citizen, echoed this sentiment.

So naturally the following day I found religious brochures stuffed under my shack door and Gary, caretaker at the time for Cama Beach resort, woke the next evening to a carload of Chapel highschoolers apparently intent on intimidating him, honking their horn and spinning gravel down the long drive. When they arrived at his cabin, Gary was waiting in the shadows, shirtless, sawed off shotgun in hand and in no mood for these shenanigans. He tapped his shotgun against the driver window and asked to have the window rolled down. Please. Which, suddenly quieted, they did.

Gary explained that he was going to be merciful. This time. But next time …. He whacked the barrel of the shotgun on the bottom of the window frame and suggested they ought to get on home. Gary ended up getting fired from his caretaker responsibilities, a heavy price for self-protection, you ask me, but it did send a message. Some folks value their freedom. Thou shalt not take it away. Without a fight. Jesus may have wept.

The latest study on teen usage of electronic devices found that they spend over 9 hours a day texting, gaming, video watching and net surfing. And this is when they’re not in school. I can only assume teenage crime rates have dropped to near zero. When would they have time to shoplift? Or to plan a robbery?

Any way you slice it, this is one helluva lot of time spent on social media and the rest. More time than school, more time than … well, anything. Except maybe breathing. This is good news for Apple, Google , Samsung and Facebook. To call it a national epidemic, well, let’s not be Alarmists. To think of it as a national addiction, c’mon, we’ve had TV for most of our lifetimes.

One of my neighbors yesterday told me he’d bought a cellphone. I said say it ain’t so, Joe. Not you! He grinned the way a convert to Jesus grins, sins washed, iniquities atoned, born again, fresh start, brave new world. He told me the great deal he got — meaning I should haul right down and get one too. Just spreading the Good News, I guess, proselytizing the ignorant. You better believe I’ll be checking under the bed tonight for alien pods.

Join the Hive. Accept the Borg. Sign up on Facebook. Carry a cell. I’m the Last Holdout on the South End now, an anachronistic curmudgeon with one foot in the 19th Century, still got a phone plugged to the wall of my cave. Outside the cave I’m disconnected. Satellites can’t reach me, friends and telemarketers can’t call me, the mizzus has to holler or just let it go til I stroll back in. At the grocery store I have to make decisions without outside help. Do you want the pitted olives or the unpitted, honey?

Sure it’s lonely, course it’s eerily quiet, damn right it’s a life of isolation. Just the way I like it.

Am I legend? Naw, I’m just a living fossil, that’s all.

I live in a state, a blue state, that has a regressive tax system. No state income tax but a pretty hefty sales tax. Meaning, the rich get off a lot easier than us serfs. Pay 10% on that item down at Home Depot, same for the gent making 7 figures as it is for the poor clod making minimum wage, what passes for fair in these times of income inequality writ large.

The rich will argue that their federal taxes are way higher than the rest of us in the lower brackets, say 30 plus % compared to 12% in mine. What they don’t tell you is that most of their wealth is either deferred or it comes in the form of stocks and bonds, taxed upon selling at a capital gain of 15%, about what I’m paying. Except I don’t have an accounting fir and a team of attorneys sheltering my income. Don’t kid yourself, the rich didn’t get rich on an equal playing field. The rich made the laws and the rich wrote the tax rules.

You have to ask yourself why anyone needs a billion dollars. Or even multiple millions. You figure maybe they’ll become philanthropists and give it back to charities? Maybe buy you a Maserati or a village in Tuscany? One billionaire, when asked how much money was enough, replied: it hasn’t been printed yet. Personally I don’t want the billionaires deciding where the money would do the most good, even if sometimes it’s admirable. I want them to pay their fair share of taxes and we’ll let the damn people decide what’s priority. We already let them make money doing whatever the hell they want, whether it’s in our best national interest or not. You listening, Musk?

Don’t get me wrong. Capitalism isn’t the enemy to me — after all, I have a business myself. Not exactly Microsoft or Amazon … but unlike them, I pay taxes on my profits. Okay, probably wouldn’t buy the wing on a stealth bomber, but maybe a few titanium bolts, more than Amazon pitches in for.

Some people are born to be businessmen. They know how to promote themselves, they understand negotiation, they embody what Donald Trump calls the Art of the Deal. I wish I had a couple of strands of those genes in my DNA. My kin, my ancestors, my genepool — all I can say is they climbed down out of the trees, but they never figured out they could sell the timber or develop the real estate. Plus we never remembered how to climb back up so now folks want to sell US the damn trees.

I actually have a business. I know, hard to believe. My right-leaning Republican relatives and in-laws shake their heads sadly to think I’m the only one in the two families who represents their bedrock GOP values of entrepreneurial get-up-and-go, job creation, small business struggles, all those virtues they hold dear. I sell goods. I buy materials, fashion them into art and then I have to sell the product. American? Well, it sticks in their throats, but yeah, as apple pie. Mom and country. Bootstrap success story. You might suppose, after 35 years, I’d be pretty good at it. I just made a stained glass entryway window for some new arrivals on the South End. Even though I’m cheaper than any glass shop in the Pacific Northwest … and even though my stuff is original artwork … I ended up giving them a discount. And they’re rich. You tell me what’s wrong with that picture.

I bought a new truck a few years ago when my old one almost caused me to miss a huge commission for a public art project down in Portland. You think I negotiated a lower price or argued for some ‘extras’? If you thought that, you don’t know me. All I asked my salesman was sell me the damn truck sitting out there in the lot, the one without any bells or whistles, and don’t screw around, I want to leave here ASAP, I don’t want to play the game, I don’t want the sales manager showing me an invoice proving you aren’t making any money on the deal, I don’t want to hear that bullshit. Yes, I’ll pay full price. No, I don’t want to take it for a test drive. Yes, I’m a complete idiot.

But …. I’m an idiot who would rather pay the full monte than get down in the pit and wrassle for a few dollars. I’m not going to lie and say money is beneath me. I’m frugal to a fault. I’m my Depression-era parents’ kid. I shop mostly at Goodwills, I buy Chinese, I’m so stingey I squeak. Money comes hard and it leaves hard too.

Sales is a tough job, at least for the likes of me. Buyer beware? I don’t think so. For me, it’s seller beware.