Thursday, May 29, 2014

Things That Are Most Important

The wife and I are at our Minnesota lake cabin. It's located one hour from civilization in any direction. She loves it here. Me, not so much. The weather has been amazingly warm for this time of year. My neighbor and his better half spent the winter at Ten Mile Lake. In retrospect that defined insanity. They both endured forty consecutive days of minus degree below zero temps with the dreaded chill factor not figured in. One morning, just to be obnoxious, I called them and asked what it was like living in -45 degree temps for eight days in a row. I have noticed that the mosquito population didn't suffer from the winter onslaught. Sadly, they are thriving.
I've developed a daily routine. Coffee comes first then a quick glance at the computer starts the day. I always have a note from my Oklahoma stock broker and good friend. If there wasn't one I'd think he had died. After this I hop in the boat and troll for anything that might jump on my lure. Lures in this lake have no fear of being attacked by anything with a fin because there aren't any.
Next up on the agenda is a trip of eight miles to the local golf course and driving range. It's a cheap two hours. Members get free range balls then leave half of them for slackers like me to hit. The best thing about smacking golf balls are the people who show up. I've made scads of friends swinging the stick. Invariably I'll strike up a conversation and it leads to where people are from and what they did for a living. A guy can learn all kinds of neat things about people on the range. This morning I started talking to a fella from the Twin Cities. After five minutes I realized he was going to be the talker and I the listener but that's okay.
I never talk politics on the golf course. There's no sense in it because no one wins. A few years ago at a course near here called Long Bow I teamed up with a married couple my age. We were having a pleasant round when on the ninth hole it was found out that I had voted for GW Bush. That was it, done and over. They told me that they "just couldn't play alongside a Bush voter". Silliness, huh?
Anyway, this fella from The Cities brought up the state of the country and what a mess we were in. I was surprised because most Minnesotans are communists and vote that way. I shouldn't say that as a general statement. Most likely it's those folks who inhabit Minneapolis and St. Paul who are the takers.
So my guy said, and I agreed whole heartedly, that people in government are only concerned with power. They could care less about the citizenry. As long as they are elected the heck with everyone else.
Have you considered what are the most important issues facing our government today. Our foreign policy is nil. We've lost the respect of friend and foe alike. It's the same at home. The party in power seemingly has hung it's hat on three issues: abortion, all issues dealing with LGBT and homophobia plus global warming. That's it. Our Sec. of State goes plane hopping around the world giving speeches on global warming. We have an ex-army soldier being held captive in a dungeon of a prison across the border from Texas and John Kerry is on the world stage speaking about polar bears. In the big scheme of things the American people rank global warming down there with saving the blue darter snail from extinction.
I have nothing else to add. I had the chance to hammer away hitting free golf balls, my children and grandchildren are safe from terrorism for now and our cabin hasn't burned down. If only our politicians would get their heads out of their rear ends life would be good.

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