What is there to say? Our country is governed by an ice-cream enthusiast who has combined the policies of Jimmy Carter with the presentation of Gerald Ford (if Ford had suffered rabies) along with his own diminished capacity — and he didn’t have that much capacity to begin with. In his speech Monday he sounded like that angry doddering guy on the front porch of the rest home who causes visitors to enter through the back door instead.
Not long ago, one of the gas lines on a piece of yard equipment here broke right where it connected to the plastic gas tank, causing gasoline to leak all over the place and rendering the thing unusable. I’d hoped to buy just the parts I needed from a knowledgeable person locally, but that was no longer possible.
Here’s something that I bet you know, but that it seems our government and news media — in large measure that’s redundant — don’t know: A lot of people are afraid of shots. They head the other way when the needle comes out. You know such people. Maybe you are such a person.
It was sad to hear over the weekend that Jackie Mason has died. He was 93, so it can’t be said that he didn’t have a full life, and we can all use the reminder that our worldly existence does end, inevitably, for all of us. But he made people smile and laugh, for good reasons, and we can never have too much of that.
Last Friday Pope Francis effectively banned celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass, a kind of worship that is unsurpassed in its solemnity and, at its best, in its splendor. In so doing, he flung down and danced upon one of the signal accomplishments of his predecessor, Benedict XVI, and told millions of devout and pious Catholics around the world that the Church is no longer the place for them.
If you look in some of the history books, you’ll learn that the only significant battle in Ohio in the Civil War was fought at Buffington Island in Meigs County.
Well, that would certainly explain the sudden scarcity of medium-sized rodents around here.
Before we get too far along, let me confess an act — an in-act, actually (inactually?) — of idiocy. Normally I’m within arm’s reach of a camera. That has allowed me to capture many fleeting moments I would have missed otherwise. But this time I didn’t make a picture.
If you were here that afternoon, you remember it.
At about 6 p.m. nine years ago yesterday, a line of powerful thunderstorms swept across our area. It would get famous a few hours later, when it struck more fashionable parts of the country. Nine years ago today, the lights were out in Athens County.
It may be about time to get rid of the old Gravely. The last time I wrote about this venerable piece of equipment it spawned a reaction from a Gravely fan in northern Ohio so strident that Athens NEWS editor Terry Smith wanted to call the authorities, lest (or perhaps in hope of a good story should it happen) the angry fellow come round and murder me.
Sometimes when the air is just right, its invisible ingredients comprising a particular admixture of humidity, pollen, fragrance, and who knows what, it is as if a person has been carried back in time.