It has been a while since we spoke from our lofty position on this quiet street of things not worthy of full blogitty. We have been saving up these random observations since our last haircut, or more accurately our most recent one, which means there’s a lot here. During your faithful scribe’s most recent haircut the barber thought he had discovered a growth on the side of my head. I was concerned until he announced it was just my ear.
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Your obedient servant does not want to return to normalcy after the Trump presidency. Presidential candidate Warren Harding used the word during his 1920 campaign and his wish for the America mentality to return to what it was before The Great War. Although the word is found in some dictionaries as far back as 1857, Harding’s use of it made it popular and something repeatable for generations long after his.
Eugene P. Trani, writing for the University of Virginia’s Miller Center, says Harding is ranked by historians as one of our worst presidents because, “Unlike other modern Presidents, such as Ronald Reagan, who possessed conventional minds and who thought simply, Harding never understood where he wanted to take the nation. Nor could he communicate his message effectively, because he had none to communicate. He spoke about a “return to normalcy,” but he had no idea what this slogan meant. Lacking the moral compass of a Reagan, Harding had no guide to follow. He was lucky to have had a few good men in his cabinet who generally ran fiscal and foreign affairs well. In the end, it was not his corrupt friends that tarnished his legacy and undermined his historical impact. Rather, it was his own lack of vision and his poor sense of priorities that positioned him so low in the ranking of U.S. Presidents.”
This is not the kind of man I want setting the standard for the use of the English Language. From our lofty position, we believe the word should be “normality.”
And My Lord! Do we ever need that.
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About our lofty position—it’s time you learned the truth:
Our loft is in our house on a quiet Jefferson City street. You can’t actually see where we write these important missives because there’s a lot of flotsam and jetsam between the railing and the writing shrine. But that’s our lofty position. If the place looks trashy, let us remind you this is a HOME, not a museum.
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I saw my neighbor working in his yard the other day. I wanted to go talk to him but I was worried that I’d be run over in the street.
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Anybody else bored. to. death. because of this virus?
We’re hanging in there. But we can only watch Hamilton so many times. And we’re sooooooo tired of some kinds of television commercials. One of the greatest insults to intelligence caused by the extended hours watching television because of pandemic-induced mobility limits is seeing an epidemic of commercials from law firms rounding up a lot of people to take part in class-action lawsuits. We have yet to see a commercial telling how much the firm will keep and what the average damage payment will be.
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(Speaking of which, we pause for this message from a sponsor):
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Now that we have vaccines against the virus, when will we get one to protect us from the physical and mental deterioration caused by binge-watching. At this point we aren’t sure whether it’s more important to get a shot that protects us from the virus or whether to get one that ends ROKU searches through Disney plus, Acorn, Netflix, PBS, National Geographic, YouTube, or the channels providing old TV shows such as Groucho Marx’s You Bet Your Life or the Bob Newhart channel or the Story Lady Channel.
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We’ll know when we have exhausted all other possibilities when we start watching shopping channels until midnight each night.
(Now, a word from another sponsor):
(Cute eight-year old kid): “I had to live with ugly scabs on my knees every time I fell on the sidewalk—until a friend told me about Zxxvvqnt. I tried it and within weeks my scabs went away. Now I have the happiest knees in town!”
(Announcer): Zxxvvqnt, the magical scab healer, can restore your knees or your elbows, or even your forehead to their natural beautiful state in just days! Laboratory-tested Zxxvvqnt is a non-animal-based cure for ugly scabs wherever they might be.
(Kid): “Just smooth it on four times a day and see pink skin come right back!”
(Announcer then spends the next 40-seconds speaking rapidly while print too small to read on a 60-inch screen scrolls past even more rapidly, warning viewers that Zxxvvqnt should not be taken internally, that it could lead to amputation or permanent scarring. It should not be used by people who know better than to use it. Best if used in conjunction with a large bandage over the injured area, leaves stains on sheets the next morning without one, and sticks to legs of pants or to sleeves of long-sleeved shirts unless covered. Not approved by the FDA. Not sold as a preventive or a cure for any disease.
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However, two days later a celebrity recommends it as a cure for the Coronavirus if applied as hair dressing.
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Ever wonder why in the world you’d use any medication that spends two-thirds of its commercial telling you how it could kill you? Us, too. And why would an old, wrinkled, and creaky person be interested in a substance that appears from the people in the commercials to be for young and handsome people to begin with?
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I will believe our economy is as good as we’re being told it is when I see stores opening in our malls and paycheck protection offices closing along our streets.
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Sent a letter in mid-July to Quincy, Illinois. Got it back on September 2 marked “Unable to Forward. Insufficient Address.” Zillow found the address with no problem. Showed me a lot of outside and inside pictures of the house, including the curbside mailbox. Told me how much it would sell for it if was for sale. I checked and there’s no truth to the rumor that the letter carrier on that route is related to Louis DeJoy.