Snow Job 2

I think I already used SNOW JOB as a previous slug...so I'm making this SNOW JOB 2. 

 

In case the phrase "snow job" is so passe to be useless in current inter-generational conversation?  It means trying to "pull the wool over someone's eyes."  Whoops there's another one (cliche). So let's see? A "con job" maybe? A scam? Well I guess I'm just going to have to "spell it out" for you.

It snowed today.  Not much.  Certainly not as much as the picture up there I pulled out of my archives. At least, if you've gotten this far, you know I'm "fessin' up."  So, hopefully the dramatic photo "got your attention," and now I can get on with "the straight poop."

You see it was 75 degrees out yesterday.  I took my Broadcast Journalism , Television class out for walk just to "see what we could see." 

Quite often, I tell them, "if you keep your 'eyes peeled,' and 'all the wax out of your ears?' You will see and hear things that will allow you to tell stories without ever having to stroke the truth. (very much)  

So here are a few observations we now collective harbor.  On our walk, just as we are leaving campus, I think, to the person, we all become aware of a particular circumstance.  

First we hear the backfiring crackle of exhaust not allowed to be produced by automobiles.  For some reason? Motorcycles seem to get over looked in noise ordinance enforcement.  That is the case here for sure. (There were some deaf cops sitting right across the street.)   But that really isn't the story.  It just gets our attention.

I don't know how many CC's this guy is sittin' on.  But this is no MOTOR SCOOTER.  There is no doubt in any of our minds that this guy will be keepin' up with traffic on the highway. And there is no doubt in any of our minds that he is going to get some attention, and not for the decibels involved in his piston pushing.

HERE is what WE ALL notice. And MAN to have a microphone and a camera. Broadcast journalists, always be ready. This one got away.

I'm sure most of you live in states where there have been LOUD debates over helmet laws.  I bring this up because regardless of your posture on the issue, YOU WANT THIS VIDEO TO MAKE YOUR CASE NO MATTER WHERE YOU STAND.

This guy is CLEARLY wearing a helmet. This HELMET must have been designed by NASA, or at least to make NASA jealous. It is three times bigger than his head, looking like it has satellite communication installed behind this massive heat shield. And I'm sure he is being led into road ecstasy by some Billy Joel album he is receiving via double-Dolby.  It, the helmet, has to have at least cost more than his bike, maybe his house.  I think you've got the picture.  AH, BUT NOT THE WHOLE PICTURE.

Below the helmet? Nice Studded Black Leather Jacket, you're thinkin'?  Nope.  This guy is wearing a TANK TOP. Scan south in the fashion of the day we find our man of the day sitting inside ragged cutoffs. (Can I say cutoffs? You know old comfortable levis you've cut the legs off of,  and then hidden from your wife, mother, sister, daughter because you know one of them wants to throw them out?) But you are still not getting the whole picture. We complete his ensemble by noting that his feet are fully protected from the heat of the engine,  and the hardness of the asphalt, by his FLIP FLOPS.

( I am handily advised by a budding journalist not to call them "THONGS."  I guess "THONGS" refer to something else now.)

Anyway, so we are now fully into talking about issues of transportation, and I ask, " are any of you making any personal travel choices now because of the price of a gallon of gas?"

I'm expecting to hear the standard responses like, "oh, yes I'm combining many of my trips to the store, and the pharmacist and the bar."  Or, " well I've taken to riding my bike more, and using light rail."  But as we've already observed this is not a normal day.

(I have to carefully present this response.  I was given permission to share it with the class, and I'm assuming this person would be willing to let me share with the broader audience.  But I'm a "GOOD GUY!"  So I am going to change the name of the responder and the destination to which she refers.  I hope that covers me.)

So Lucy Lovesick responds,

"Oh, yeah. I used to drive out to Limon every weekend.  I'm not doing that any more. (That is about 80 miles east of Denver.)"

So...smart ___ that I can be,  I respond, "I guess that means HE's going to have to drive into Denver?"

Sometimes you just get lucky. Lucy says, "Nope, we're just going to break up."

"I'm sorry," I say.  "Don't you like this guy?"

"Oh, yeah, I like him a lot!"

"Well then his commitment must be weak?"

"No, he likes me a lot, too!"

"So this is all about the price of a gallon of gas?"

"Yep!"

So there it is folks, a story right in front of us.  Gas prices are breaking up CLOSE PERSONAL HUMAN relationships. Will we be able to keep our families together?  I HOPE YOU'RE SATISFIED OPEC!

Well it is supposed to be back up into the 60's tomorrow. SO....? Well you'll be glad to know, NO MORE SNOW! 

If you let it, TRUTH trumps FICTION every single time!

Hey there smiley!

Meet my step granddaughter Maren Noel. It is my first HUMAN BABY watercolor portrait.  I doubt I captured every nuance.  But I do feel like I snagged a piece of her happy soul. This little girl is going to keep everybody in stitches.

But on that happy note?  Let me ask a few questions. If this comes off as some journalistic jingo arrogance, so be it. SOMETIMES a BLOG has to let you expel your demons.

In every Presidential political race year my brain  gets bombarded with a host of 'WHYs?'

Why is everybody so ANGRY?

Why do we need superlatives to make our choices?

Why do we circle the wagons every four years?

Why do candidates hide behind the pretense of intellectual sincerity,  when WE all know a whole bunch of other people are telling them how to behave and what to say.

Why do these candidates make promises that both THEY and WE know they can't and won't keep.

I hope you'll not challenge my patriotism with this last WHY, but I can take it if you do.

Why do we believe that for sure this is the most judicious and efficient form of government on the planet...WAIT....WAIT a MINUTE...that wasn't SUPERLATIVE enough....Not ON THE PLANET...but IN THE  WHOLE UNIVERSE?

I don't expect any answers to some WHY'S I've been asking all my adult life. 

I'm just going spend the rest of my night HOPING little Maren Noel won't have to mess with them when she's my age. Of course she'll be wanting to know WHY I didn't get her nose just right.    

"Nuttin' Honey!"

"Johnny is a JOkEr"

In my day rock lyrics really meant something.  Take the Everly Brothers for instance. Ponder the depth of meaning when they belt out the words...

"Johnny is a JOKER,

 

He's a BIRD

 

A very funny joker, HE'S A BIRD.

 

 

 

But when he jokes my honey?

 

 

 

 

He's a DOG

 

 

His jokin' ain't so funny,

 

What a dog

 

 

Johnny is a joker

 

 

That's tryin' to steal my honey,

 

 

 

He's a BIRD

 

Dog....."

 

I kind of enjoy these days when my friend Bugs

 

 gets to say..."That's all folks!"

 

 

I believe we've GROUND TO A HALT!

Aunt Lola

Laugh for us one last time! 

My aunt Lola died this week, peacefully in her sleep. She was on my mother's side, a Thompson. Big deal?  Well first of all Aunt Lola was in her mid 90's.  I think that is still kind of a big deal.  And another big deal?

 

She was the last survivor of this family of nine  kids raised during the great depression in dust bowl Kansas.  Just off the top you'd know that had to give you a lot of character. But it also made it possible for all the Thompson kids to BECOME characters. Lola may have led the pack. Somehow Elmer and Murrell Thompson found a way during the turmoil of the times to let the Thompson kids be themselves, think outside the box (Elmer was a one room school house teacher), find their own paths in life.

And, oh my, what wonderful story tellers they all were. When all nine of them were together there was no sense in trying to get in the middle of the conversation. They all knew the road map, but it would have been dangerous for anyone else to do anything but sit on the curb, and listen and laugh.  And I don't think there can ever be a dispute about this.  Aunt Lola was the LAUGH LEADER.

She was the shortest of the nine, but not the least heard.  When she let go with her gleeful explosions I don't think it would be much of an exaggeration to say you could hear her a block away.  Now don't let me give you the impression that that is all she did.  When I was around, and admittedly that wasn't much, she would always have some sharp words for sons Bill and Errol. They didn't exactly grow up in choir robes.

But I have to tell you less than a minute into a tirade she would catch herself and turn it into a cacophony of guffaws. Her laughter was always joyous, never mean.  If you'd ask her secret to long life I'm not sure what she'd say.  But those who've known her would have to say it had to have been that unflappable positive outlook and that wonderful laugh.  (I hope someone has recorded it.)

Well anyway, I and a couple million (exaggeration) first cousins, are orphans. For me and my sisters that is now on both sides of the family. 

There is an infamous media story here in town of a reporter interviewing a mother in grief over her kidnapped and missing daughter? That reporter in the excitement of the news gathering moment reportedly said, "I know just how you feel. I lost a cat once." I suppose it is tough to forgive the apparent arrogance of that remark. But as I'm sitting here I'm starting to understand. It really depends on how attached she was to that cat, doesn't it?

It's clearly justified that I lost ten pounds of tears when my own parents died.

 

Mom

But in my case? Let's see, aunt Marge, uncle Gabe, and uncle Rudy, all on my father's side, gone over the past three years. Uncle Art died a long time ago. Then, on my Mom's side there was uncle Virgil, a long, long time ago, aunt Gladys and uncle Forest quite a while ago, uncles Dicky and Danny over the past decade, followed by aunts Velma, Theda and Lola in the past five years. 

I can't match the grief of the Lola Woolen family right now. But I think I can tell you I'm missing a lot of cats.

Let me tell you if they put all those Thompson kids in the same room up there, they better pad the walls with acoustical clouds.  If they don't nobody in heaven is going to get any sleep.  Come on Lola lets hear it just ONE MORE TIME!