BOTH of my senators are cowards.

I have written both of them several times and have never gotten a straight answer from either of them.

Yes and no are acceptable answers. I'll take it under advisement or I'm looking into this are not acceptable answers. I want to be represented by someone that actually takes a stand on something.

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I heard someone use the term 'point blank range'

to mean extremely close range which is a misnomer.

The point blank concept is really an elevation sight setting where one can aim at the center of mass and still inflict a casualty. It can be as far as 400 yards or even greater depending on the rifle's external ballistics.

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I almost forgot to make a post today.

but I didn't. I cought myself.

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I was in a really mean funk yesterday morning

as I was rousted and had to get something done without even the decency of a cup of coffee. It was most uncivilized and left me in a particularly vile mood.

Anyway afterwards I saw a post on another board advertising a combination yard sale and lemonade stand. It was the lemonade stand that caught my eye. Yard sales don't interest me because I have enough useless junk. But the lemonade stand did because they are generally managed by cheerful little kids that have somewhat of an entrepreneural spirit and that's always a plus.

So off to the lemonade stand and I was served lemonade and chocolate chip cookies for under a buck which is a deal anywhere these days.

I got to talk to a cheerful kid and meet a nice family and it dragged me right out of my mean funk. Sometimes something dopey like that does the trick.

Later I mentioned it to a couple of the guys and we laughed about the kind of people that get worked up and report the poor little kids for not having a business license, health department certificate, whatever. Surprisingly it actually happens sometimes.

I do know how the local cops respond to that type of call. They make a quick stop at the convenience store to get a buck's worth of change so they can buy a glass of lemonade when they get there.

Cops like kids that are entrenpreneurs. 

I don't think they go far enough on dealing with the complainer, though. Personally I think they ought to bust the complainer's tail light and then write him/her a ticket for it but that is just me. I'm not alone.

The guys and I also discussed the basic quality of the lemonade that kids sell and none of us recall getting a bad batch. On the contrary. Sidewalk lemonade is almost always pretty good stuff.

Of course I suppose that because sidewalk lemonade stands are technically illegal I have a hard time passing one by becasue I do take pride in helping children embark of a life of crime.

 

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The gang member loophole.

is the loophole that allows gang members to steal, sell and buy guns and get only probation if they are caught.

That's the biggest loophole of all if you ask me.

Let's close that one and see what happens.

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I visited a grave the other day.

I was at sea for Memorial Day and couldn't get to the cemetery so when I got home I visited it. I had been made aware of the grave  by the man's widow.

Earlier this morning I ran a search on him and found out he was a National Guardsman on deployment and was killed by an IED. He left behind a wife and son. From what little I could gather he was one of the good guys. I saw where the man had an education and probably could have commissioned. Instead my guess is he chose to stay enlisted. This is not uncommon. Some people prefer being enlisted. 

Every so often I wander through a veteran's cemetery and wonder about the people occupying the graves. People seem to forget that the military is nothing more or less than a random slice of the people of our country. Each enlisted for their own reasons and served differently.

Some were true heroes, others were bums. Putting on a uniform doesn't automatically make one a saint. Every single one of those uniforms is filled with a human being and humans have vices and virtues.

Mention John Basilone to a Marine and the Marine will beam with pride. Basilone was awarded the Medal of Honor after his action in the Solomons. He truly was a hero and after his war bond tour he insisted on shipping out with another outfit. He was killed in action at Iwo Jima.

Mention one Maynard 'Snuffy' Smith to an Airman and you'll often be treated to a huge, semi embarrassed yet proud grin and the airman will reply, "Yup. Snuffy is one of ours." 

Smith was a one way, self centered, nasty disagreeable jerk nobody wanted anything to do with. Yet on his first combat mission he spent three long hours fighting off German attacks, tending the wouned and putting out a fire. When the fire extinguishers were exhausted he put the remainder of the fire out with his own urine. He was awarded the Medal of Honor for these actions.

When they went to pin the medal on him he was nowhere to be found and they finally located him on KP duty because he had fouled up again.

Shortly after the medal was pinned on him he was quietly reduced from staff sergeant to private and is the only MOH awardee I know of to be busted after the medal was awarded.

When I wander through the veteran's part of a cemetery I see the graves of American citizens that wrote a check to the US government payable for anything up to and including their lives.

Then I wonder if I am looking at the grave of a hero, a bum, both or something in between. My guess is most of them are occupied by someone in between. I also know that for every medal awarded there are a number of unsung heroes that didn't get noticed as well as a number of bums that didn't get caught.

As for the grave I visited, I'm sure it was the grave of a good family man that was another one of us just trying to do the right thing. Ain't nothing wrong with that.

Rest in peace, soldier.

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Had a couple of busy days.

I saw it coming and made a couple of double posts in anticipation for it.

 bvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvnmmmmmmmnews 

cv                    gt

juiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

Screw it. Today's post has been written by the cat.

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It's none of your business

Over the years I have had people ask why I never had children and it's really nobody's business.

I reserve the right to answer nosy questions any way I choose.

I think I will just leave it at that. You're on your own.

If you are dumb enough to believe that I'm getting married in two years to start my family because my fiancee's father doesn't want her to marry me until she finishes high school that's your problem. (Never mind that I've been married for the past 30 years.)

If you want to believe I'm a crew leader for a team that moves the Stonehenge rocks every six months to reset them to Standard and Daylight time, that's fine by me.

If you want to believe I'm retired from 42 years of writing and directing gay midget porn movies and videos, have at it. I'll even tell you about the cult following the remake of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and on top of that tell you it's available on Youtube so you can spend the whole evening fruitlessly searching for if you want.  

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Your problem is that you're taking this thread seriously

and I am not.

In some cars they put a T-handle and cable on the inside of the trunk so if one is locked into it they can escape.

Someone brought this up and someone else said their car doesn't have one. Of course I pointed out that they only install those things in big, suspicious looking black sedans.

Needless to say, someone just had to ask why that was.

That's because the mob doesn't kidnap people in little, ordinary looking SUVs.

Duh!

When is the last time you walked by an ordinary looking SUV and saw someone tied up in the back of it?

What? You never have? See?

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I live by few rules but there are a couple.

When visiting a veterans grave it's nice to leave a penny on the headstone. It means you visited.

A nickel means you trained with him, a dime means you fought alongside him and a quarter means you were there when he was killed in action.

Do it right! If you don't have the proper coin then leave NOTHING.

I hate the kind of idiot that says, "Well I just had..." and leaves the wrong coin. If you can't do it right, simply don't do it.

There's no shame in doing nothing but you're an asshole if you do it wrong.

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Another adventure in stupidity.

 Someone was looking at an old 1800s picture of a train and went off like a skyrocket about the train making a lot of smoke which is what trains used to do. Steam engines ran on wood and coal back then to provide heat to make steam to propel the train.

Today trains run on diesel engines.

Anyway our little activist looked at the smoke and started carrying on and on about the pollution and asked me why they allowed trains to smoke like that and pollute the atmosphere.

As I get older I have less and less patience for people like that. Of course they are entitled to an honest explanation to their questions and as usual I gave him one.

"For the same reason thay didn't use machine guns during tht War of 1812," I said.

"Why is that?" he asked.

"Because you're stupid," I replied.

I did choose the word 'stupid' because you can't fix stupid and I seriously doubt you can fix that guy.

I saw a term I have not seen in quite some time.

Flatbillies.

These are the same as hillbillies but they don't have hills where they live.

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The older I get the more I realize that

children raise children.

One of my friends told me he was raised by his grandparents and it sure shows. His grandparents were not his buddy pal they were in effect his parents and trained him right.

As I age and look back on things I see I was raised by a woman that had led a sheltered life in suburbia and didn't have a clue and a genius that had been around the block a few times. I got lucky because I know many people that have been raised by sheltered suburbanites and a lot of them turned out to be outright stupid.

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Check back for the Chicago Juneteenth sports recap.

This will give you the final sports recap

Check it out in a few days after it gets updated.

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I see where businesses and such are trying to redefine beauty.

which is typical of the times.

There is a lot of 'it's OK to be fat' going around these days and I suppose it IS ok to be fat. I don't think anyone ought to be thrown in jail for it. Just don't try and tell me it's beautiful. It isn't.

I see where the word went out that the Victoria's Secret people are playing the game of redefining beauty and my guess is a lot of people are not buying it. They may not wind up going broke but I'm reasonably sure it's going to cost them a lot of money.

I do not think the customer base is interested in seeing a bunch of purple haired tattooed disfigured fat women. If they want to they can see any number of them live and in person at any Walmart.

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More stupid.

"Yeah," I replied to some idiot a while back. "Everytime I get thrown in jail for drunk driving they always throw me in a cell between a groper and a pyromaniac. I have to sleep on the floor in the center of the cell to get any sleep."

Nobody seems to think that sailors have to be licensed and documented and have clean records to be able to sail.

One time someone asked how long I have been in this line of work. 

"Since I was sixteen," I replied. "That's when dad threw the keys to the family supertanker at me and told me to make sure I got it to Kuwait within ten days."

"Really?"

"Oh, yeah," I replied. "But Dad clipped my wings a couple of months later and took the keys from me for about a month when I got caught drag racing in the Gulf of Suez."

Does anybody even bother and think anymore? Does anybody really believe someone is going to hand some wetnose kid the keys to a $58 million (not including cargo) dollar supertanker?

For that matter, does anyone think that you can simply fire up a behemoth like that with a key?

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The Grandfather's Club has dissolved but the grandkids live on. Making memories.

I miss the life of crime I shared with those guys. It wasn't all that long ago we'd go off and commit the crime of endangering children by letting them ride in the back of an open pickup on sultry summer evenings.

The kids remember it, though. They remember the sights and smells from the bed of a pickup driving through PA farm country at the dizzying speed of about 30 mph.

There's a guy I know of that used to really have fun with his kids. He'd have them leave that back seat section down, the one that connects to the trunk when they got someplace like a store.

When they returned to the car he'd open the trunk, pick up the kids like cordwood, chuck them into the trunk and growl about not wanting to listen them all the way to Cincinatti.

Sometimes the oldest would scream when he slammed the trunk shut. He'd reopen in and shout, "Now what?! Just shut up until we get to Grandma's! I want some peace and quiet from you little yard apes!"

Slam.

Of course the kids would squirm into the back seat, stay low and fasten their seat belts out of sight of the nosy busybodies, giggling and laughing. They knew what kind of a show they were putting on.

Sometimes a woman would screech and he'd tell her to mind her own business. Once they got reported and stopped by the police and after the cop inspected the trunk the kids got out of the car and they demonstrated to the laughing cop what they did.

Say what you will about this kind of thing but it creates memories.

Not too many kids are even going to remember dad or mom doddering all over them and carefully adjusting their seat belts when the got into the back seat. They won't say a word about that in later life.

Of course those kids that do have that kind of memory are going to remember that for the rest of their lives.

Dad will be long dead and gone and the kids will be grandparents themselves but when they get together every so often one of them will say, "Remember how dad used to throw us into the trunk?"

And that will be met with gales of laughter.

Make memories while you can. I look back on every minute the Grandfather's Club and I got together.

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I'm generally not picky about airline amenities.

I'd be just as comfortable sacking out on top of mail bags as I would be in First Class generally and probably a lot more comfortable doing that than being stuffed in a middle seat between two fat ladies which happens to me all too often.

At least on top of the mailbags you can shift around a little and get comfortable.

What I ask for from an airline is to be on schedule. 

I don't want missed connections, running to a damned ticket counter and all lost luggage and the assorted crap that goes with it. Just be on time.

I want to take off, arrive in schedule and be able to walk and not run to meet my connection and arrive there without having to be the last person boading and jump aboard like Indiana Jones dodging an opening up in the ground chasm.

One thing they did during Covid that they ought to still do is board rear to front. It's a lot nicer than all those boarding by groups based on ticket price circus parades go.

I always seem to get stuck in the last group with all the cripples, beggars, dwarfs, hunchbacks and lepers. 

I do know a way of curing this and making them go back to the Covid board rear to front, though.

If all the people in the last group or two would start hassling the First Class passengers on the way past by acting like cripples and the like the First Class passenger complaints would make the airlines change things.

I would have no problem myself walking past them spatzing out and begging. "Alms. Alms for the poooor. Alms for the poor!" as I walk like a hunchback with my tongue hanging out ans wagging in the breeze.    

 

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Someone posted that Washington State ran an ad for the lottery

of a black woman talking about buying lottery ticket to be able to provide for her grandchildren. While I did not see the ad in person it sounds like something Washington State would do.

Lottery tickets! Not a word about investments. Nothing about savings, schooling or apprenticeship programs! Nope. Lottery tickets, a one in a million chance of short-lived riches.

Typical. That's targeting the poor minority sector that seems to buy a larger than average number of lottery tickets. It leads them to believe that hitting the jackpot is going to solve everything instead of telling the truth that except in very, very rare instances they are wasting their money and simply making themselves poorer.

It's just another way of keeping minorities down.

Several years ago a shipmate and I used to buy  a ticket about once a week and sit by the TV to watch the drawing. Before the drawing we'd talk trash aout what we were going to do with our millions and afterwards we'd groan and have a good laugh. It wasn't with the hope of making money. It was simply cheap entertainment. It cost us a buck for a pretty good laugh which sometimes is in short supply in my line of work.

What my shipmate and I did was one thing. We did it to sit in front of the TV for a few minutes and laugh.We spent a buck apiece for a laugh. What I see a lot of lower end working class and unemployed people do is another. They spend a fortune on lottery tickets and think that the lottery is going to pull them out of misery and/or poverty.

You can see the look of desperation on some of the faces as they buy their lottery tickets. They're hoping against hope for a way out of their lifestyle. They want to become rich and famous.

Of course when one of the unwashed masses wins, say several million dollars they generally don't keep it for very long and quite often wind up poorer than they were before they won the money.

Almost weekly we hear of some person that won millions and managed to lose every bit of it in record time and is now worse off than they were beforehand. Some end up totally homeless. 

People with no solid financial background make stupid decisions and stupid decisions cost money. In many cases a lot of money. They do incredibly dumb things like buying expensive toys and naturally assume the money will last forever no matter how fast they spend it. A couple of million dollars really isn't a whole lot of money when you think about it. Especially when you figure the average house in the country runs about $300,000. It can easily double that in many areas.

Most people with any real financial savvy say that if they won a million bucks they would pay off their house and stay working. They would invest the money one way or the other for retirement. 

Most of those that can afford to play the lottery seldom do. They are not in the habit of throwing money around wastefully which is likely the reason they can afford to play if they wanted to.

As far as the woman in the lottery commercial goes, she should not be relying on lottery ticket winnings to pass onto her grandchildren. She should take the money she spends on them and try and save it so her future generation can put it toward some kind of education or apprenticeship program that will actually put them into a position where they can take care of themselves.

As for the people that aired that ad?

No comment but THIS is the type of thing BLM and company should be screaming about.

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

Incidentally one day my friend looked at me and asked "What are we going to do if we really did win something big.

I told him if we ever did that the first person I was going to call is ann old friend of miine that is in the banking business. I said that maybe he wasn't the person we needed but he could certainly send me to the person we needed.

 

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I feel....

I've been sick and tired of this feel business for decades. I'm supposed to live my life based on someone's feelings, huh?

Sorry. How about 'NO'?  Yeah, 'NO'.

Truth be known, I really don't care about your feelings. No, not even a little tiny bit.

I don't care if this morning you were sitting on the toilet turning inside-out and tried to drag the tub over to puke in while your head was exploding. I am not going to change my life and/or give up my rights because of your stupid feelings.

Get over it and maybe you won't feel as bad.

Incicentally if you felt like that when you got up you might try laying off of the booze and/or cocaine or at least try and keep it down a bit. That's the usual culprit.

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How were Viet Cong snipers outfitted during the Vietnam war?

someone asked.

Let's see, now. I believe the VC had a contract with Brooks Brothers to outfit them in conservative profession attire as befitting their rank.

The Armani bid was rejected because the VC considered their clothing too stylish and thought the snipers would look outdated much sooner than the classic and seemingly timeless look of a conservative Brooks Brothers suit. They wanted longer term value for their money. They also thought that Brooks Brothers suits would last longer under the rigorous conditions of sniper duty.

While the Viet Cong were short on finances they did make an effort to outfit their snipers in profesional looking clothes as a matter of national and village pride.

No  place likes to send their snipers into combat looking like a poorly dressed bunch of ragamuffins.

Now how do you THINK they were outfitted? They were given a rifle, ammunition and whatever they had that they could give them. The Viet Cong were not NVA regulars. They made do with what they could get their hands on.

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This may/may not be a rerun.

I was talking about how we treat our elderly with someone else the other day and it reminded me of an old woman I got something off the top shelf for.

She commented on how prices were going up and how she would have a hard time helping her grandchildren out. I explained to her that she and her husband should take care of themselves first and that the grandkids have to find their own way in life.

"But what do I tell them?" she asked.

"Tell them you're pregnant and have another child coming along to raise." I said, with a mischevious look on my face.

"They'd never believe that!" she protested. "Pregnant at my age!"

"We both know that," I answered "But tell them that's your story and you're sticking to it."

"What would my husband do if I said that?" she asked.

"He'd do what every single husband since Adam and Eve has done. He'd sit there with a stupid looking sheepish grin on his face," I said.

She furrowed her old brows for a few seconds as she thought about it. Finally she replied, "I do believe you're right. He would sit there with a dumb looking grin on his face! They all do!"

I shuffled off and wondered if she really would tell her grandkids she's pregnant. Then I pictured the dopey look on her husband's face if she really did and had to stop and laugh. 

 

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I'm an Old School torch and pitchfork kind of guy.

Nothing in the world gets an elected officials attention faster than having the gnarled peasants standing outside his/her place with torches and pitchforks.

We citizens ought to do this more often.

In fact it is SO effective that carrying torches and/or pitchforks to a demonstration it is outlawed in Virginia.

Time for a little civil disobedience! Virginians ought to show up at the Capitol in Richmond carrying them and demand the law be repealed.

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As some of you have figured out by now

that while I do not object to free advice, I don't suffer fools very well. 

I was in San Francisco and was buying groceries and reached into the dairy case for milk. I wanted 2% regular milk. I grabbed 2% milk and someone commented that there was lactose free 2% a couple down.

"Thanks, I'm good." I answered.

Now it should have ended then and there but he started giving me a big spiel extolling the virtues of lactose free milk and everything it does up to and including curing the common cold.

I looked at him and smiled warmly. "But I LIKE $hitting my pants," I said and walked off leaving him looking confused.

Enough is enough.

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It seems like every generation has a bunch of busybody women

that think they have a brand new idea as what to do for teenagers to keep them out of trouble.

I'm watching the umpteenth generational rerun of 'Let's give them a place to hang out under the watchful eye of an adult'. Here we go again.

First of all let's look at what kind of kid it draws. It draws the kind of kid that doesn't mind having some dopey grownup look over his shoulder while he does something fairly harmless like crafts or whatever.

Those kids don't need a place like that because left to their own devices they won't get into any real trouble to begin with.

Of course the real troublemakers are the kids they should be catering to but there's no way in hell they're going to hang out supervised. Most likely it they do show up they'll promptly get kicked out by some suburban housewife. Of course the instant the adult supervision leaves the troublemakers swarm in and use it as a base of operations to deal drugs in.

I've seen this in my lifetime since the 50s and it generally is a fairly short lived waste of time and money. Eventually the place closes and the grownups return to grownup land and find other things to do to try and fight off old age and make themselves feel relevant.

What's funny is that it seems every generation of moms comes up with this bright idea and thinks they are the first person on the planet to think of it. 

Sometimes I think this kind of thing goes back to the ancient Egyptians but it probably doesn't. They kept the kids busy back then by making them do something useful like building a pyramid or something like that. The best I can figure it's a post WW2 thing.  

Of course they sometimes turn into a meeting place where kids meet up to go elsewhere. I used to do that. I'd walk in give a couple of guys 'the look' and we'd all bug out together and head off to do something.

It did serve as an excuse to get out of the house and away from the parents and meet up with skulldugerous friends.

What was funny about this is there were always a couple of kids that were slick enough to use it as a base of operations to sell pot out of. I wasn't a pothead but I knew how the system worked. You'd walk in, give the seller the high sign on the way into the bathroom and wait until he showed up. There you would make the deal and wander out and slither off into the darkness. 

Many of the parents the parents that manned these places seemed to be woman that were fighting middle age. They wanted to think they were still one of the cool kids. Others were the kind of parent that wants to be their kids friend instead of doing their job as parents. 

I always got a kick out of one of the women at our hangout. She was in her 40s and age was beginning to creep up on her. She'd show up in bell-bottom hip huggers which looked ridiculous on her.

Much of this business is often a feel-good thing for the parents. They want to do something that makes them feel good about themselves.

One of the few programs that actually seemed to work was none other than the Old School Boy Scouts of the 50s and 60s. It was outdoors oriented and a lot of kids liked it. 

A lot of scout leadership at the time came from WW2 veterans and they were generally pretty good. They did a pretty good job of keeping us outside and active. They were all pretty practical guys.

A lot of motivation of scout leadership back then was simply giving back to the community. They brought a lot of true life experiences along with them. Most of them knew tools and knew men.

Of course, if you know men you know boys because boys are just small men when you think about it. They treated us like men and we grew into manhood as a result.

Some of them were real characters.

Scouting seems to have gone downhill over the years and it's a shame.

Still, I just read somewhere that there is now a new and improved place to keep the kids off the streets and out of the pool halls and from what I can figure it's just going to be a rehash of a rehash of a rehash.

It's not going to change anything.

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Jimmy retired a while back.

After about 40-odd years or so working for an outfit in the Gulf of Mexico. He's been a damned talented person to have working on the Western Rivers running river tugs and being pulled off to act as a salvor occasionally.

It was said that he raised a sunken barge in less time than it took to actually sink. I don't doubt it.

He's one of those incredibly talented people that has made everyone he works for money and everyone he worked with a lot more educated. Speaking of education, I believe Jimmy is pretty much self-educated.

I don't know Jimmy all that well but every so often he belts one out of the park. He's not the most polished individual I have ever met. The few times I have seen him I could probably replace his outfit easily for under $4 at a Goodwill. Maybe even less.

Anyway they tried to make a big to-do over his retirement and Jimmy just wanted to walk off into the sunset quietly. He said he didn't want a retirement party but I guess management insisted.

He was a no-show at his own retirement party and had a friend deliver a note which was read at the party he didn't attend.

" Enclosed is $5. Just mail me my f***in' gold watch. Jimmy."

Classic gold there.

My kind of guy.

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As I type this I am watching an Albin Vega 27 sell at an on-line auction.

With an hour left the top bid is $2000.

I figure it'll start to climb at the last minute. No telling how high it will go.

That's one hell of a good boat and it's astonishing how inexpensive boats seem to have gotten over the past year or so. It's stomp down crazy the number of deals there are out there to be had.

Thirty and forty year old Albins are still considered good boats for circumnavigations. 

The boat seems to be in basic good condition and appears to have everything needed to be launched and sailed away after a basic cleanup.

Of course it's being sold as is/where is and that makes it a pig in a poke. Still, it's probably a pretty safe bet that if it is not perfect that at that price it could be made seaworthy for short money.

Where were these deals back in 1985 when I bought my sailboat?

Update.

Someone got a good deal at $2000!

  

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Ahh, yes. The return of the idiot.

He crossed my path and gave me a hurty look because I made him feel stupid a few years back and kept moving.

A few years back he said he heard that merchant mariners were real party animals.

Yeah, right. 

We're constantly being tested for drug and alcohol abuse. It you're any kind of a druggie you ain't gonna last very long in this business. I've been in this racket over 30 years so you figure it out.

Anyway I told him that the instant I got off the boat that my dealer would show up in the parking lot with a pint of JD, a 6-pack of Stella, four joints, a couple of hits of acid, nine tooeys, a  Quaalude or three, three hits of MDA, a couple of peyote buttons, a handful of mushrooms, some nebutol, a little meth and on and on.

I explained to him that I'd immediately do it all in the parking lot and that was my limit because if I did any more I'd need a designated driver.

He looked at me agape and told me he had a friend that could get me into rehab.

I told him rehab is for quitters and walked off.

I figure that one was on him because one is expected to think at least a little bit. Just half of the stuff I listed would be enough to make a big herd of elephants pass out stone cold dead.

Then again there was a woman I told that Abraham Lincoln told us not to believe everything you read on the internet but that's a different story.

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Read yesterdays post and you will understand a little better

I have this dream occasionally and it hit me last night, probably as a result of yesterdays's post. 

It's the old disabled aircrewstory Hollywood has run a few times. Someone managed to land the airplane intact. In this case me. 

So I get on the PA and bull$shit the passengers into thinking I'm a hotshot pilot to settle them down and swear them to secrecy that they won't identify me because I don't want to be pestered by the media and have my peaceful life destroyed.

Even the attendents swear to secrecy. They say they'll name me as Dan Cooper which is perfect for the situation. Perfect!

I have no memory of getting the plane on the ground. In the next part I was sneaking out of the cockpit and got off acting like a passenger to fit in.

Somehow I get the beast down without too much damage and slip out with the rest of the passengers and hauled in for the big debriefing. On the way I slip into the men's room and lose the mob, go out to a cab and adios.

In the debriefing someone's dip-$hit do-good grandmother doesn't seem to get it. She insists I should be rewarded and rats me out. After the debriefing some kind soul knocks silly but it's too late. I barely get home and the feds show, dragging the press with them.

I open the door, point to my 'Come back with a warrant' door mat, slam the door and sneak out the back and flee to a motel for a good night's sleep.

Of course things have a bad habit of snowballing and the more I try to disappear the more I get dragged back into the circus. Finally I decide to release a statement in the form of an online video.

I ask the public to find out who ratted me out so I can make arrangements to destroy their life as they have destroyed mine. It comes forth inside a couple of days and I make another video listing her as Snitch of the Century and ask the public to make their life as miserable as possible as they have done to my life.

Then I pack my seabag and it's up the gangway and off to sea for a good, long time. Six or eight months later I finally come ashore and a lone reporter knocks on my door. I snap his picture with my cell phone and ask him if he wants to be in a video listing him as second place snitch of the century he flees. Apparently he found out what happened to Snitch of the Century. 

I hope this one doesn't keep recurring like the pickup truck dreams I used to have until it finally got settled but it's odd that it showed up last night.

I've posted the pickup recurring dream and finally the last episode of it I managed to come out on top and simply get my pickup replaced with something suitable. The dream has not returned since. If you want to dig back a couple hundred posts or so have at it.

 

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I see on Nextdoor that some woman is looking for a pair of teenagers

that helped her save the family dog. She wants them recognized for their good deed.

Suppose they don't want to be recognized?

Suppose they're on the lam for a murder they didn't commit? They may be scouring the dark, murky insipid depths of the underworld trying to find the real killer and bring him to justice. They know if they're caught they'll wind up spending the rest of their lives falsly imprisoned.

They're probably a little too short on cash to hire the A-Team and besides the A-Team members are getting a little long in the tooth to be getting into a hot chase with some criminal type. Right now B.A. Baracus is pretty close to 70. Hannibal Smith is dead and Murdock is 73. They're too old for that sort of thing.

So now we have two teenagers on the lam that helped someone with the family dog being sought after by the dog's owner on top of that. and jailed.

Being recognized for their good deed is the last thing they need. Most likely it will wind up with them being caught and jailed. It's the last thing they need. The murder will then never be brought to justice.

And it's all the fault of some nice lady that wants the two of them to be recognized for their good deed and act of kindness.

What kind of message will that send them? Most likely they'll never do a good deed for the rest of their lives after that.

OK, OK. It's not that likely. Let's try another scenario.

They probably don't want to be found and have a bunch of adults cooing and fawning all over them and telling them what good kids they are. I can remember that I would not have wanted that and it's pretty likely that they don't want it to happen to them either. Can't say I'd blame them. Things like that can be embarrassing at their age.

How about we simply leave the two kids alone. If they want to be recognized I'm sure they'll come forward.

How do I know this?

There was an old widow that lived nearby that wasn't getting around too good. She had been good to the neighborhood kids for years so sometimes I'd get up early and shovel the snow off of her walk. She didn't have a car so there was no driveway. It didn't take but a few minutes.

She was living on damned little and if she had found out who the phantom snow shoveler was she'd have tried to pay me and it would have been embarrassing. I kept it a secret.

Had any of my friends found out and ratted me out there likely would have been blows struck. They'd have said something and I would have responded. Kids are that way sometimes.

Had an adult ratted me out it would be eggs and toilet paper and soaped screens,

I was caught twice. Once by my father who promised to keep it under his hat. The other person was a local cop on routine patrol at about 3 am. I told him if he dimed me out I'd stop doing it so he kept mum.

She was good to us so it was only fair I was good to her.

She made GREAT apple pies.

As for the woman trying to find the dynamic duo that saved her dog? I think she's on a campaign to reward those two to make herself feel good. It's either that or she doesn't understand how kids operate. But that's just my opinion.

Like I said, if the two kids want to be reecognized I'm sure they'll surface. If not, leave them alone.

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You don't sign mypaychecks.

I was visiting a condo dweller and there was a landscaper outside and some twit was trying to argue with him and tell him what to do.

He replied, "You don't sign my paychecks."

He was right. Of course she wasn't very happy to hear that so she went looking for the boss who told her the same thing and that she could settle it with the condo association that had hired him.

I think she is a chronic pain in the ass because she threw in the towel there like she knew she was going to lose with the association.

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SHout it out.

Seems a supermarket chain in New England had gotten 'woke'.

Someone reports that they made an announcement about such and such a product being produced by some LGBTQ organization and the usual speil about how you ought to support them.

If you are in a store when they make an announcement like that, speak up! Shout,  "Who cares?" at the top of your lungs."

It may surprise a lot of people to find out that a lot of LGBTQs are growing sick and tired of their sexuality, whatever being used for political purposes.

Like everyone else, they just want to be left alone to live their lives in peace and quiet instead of being treated like a bunch of circus clowns.

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