draft

 I can't say that I ever thought much of Clive the deadbeat who grazed his mangy herd on federal land without paying for it as any good law abiding citizen would.  Nor do I have much sympathy for gun-toting Jan 6 types.

Of course I wasn't at the trial and the articles are short and sketchy as to what happened.  Maybe there were technicalities that I am not aware of, but more likely these guys just didn't like the gummint.

This may be an omen of something that I dread, a Trumper sneaking himself onto the jury in that Stormy Daniels case by covering up his tracks.  One monkey can stop the show.

Of course Trump may well end up in the hoosegow for just not keeping his trap shut when it comes to bad-mouthing the judge, the prosecution, family of the judge, family of the prosecution.  

Our buddies against Putin, the Ukrainians, are not doing so well of late, partly due no doubt to the Trumpers not wanting to give them any dough.  A sad and sorry state.  You know the Dems would be sending them plenty of arms.  Actually so would some of the republicans if they were allowed to vote on it.  

And now it looks like that may happen despite, or perhaps because of the shenanigans of the nuts of the freedom caucus.  They have forced Mike Johnson to go over to the dems for votes otherwise nothing would pass and bingo we have that heralded goal, bipartisan leadership.  The dems and the reps banging heads together and coming to some kind of agreement.  The way it should be instead of those endless tantrums of the Marjorie Taylor Green types.

This just in 4 or 5 hours after I wrote this it is announced that one of the jurors was likely a Trumper was caught lying about his history.  

 

Cliven Bundy Revisited

 Remember this guy?  Has is really been ten years?  Seems like only yesterday.

I find it hard to believe that he actually won his case.  Is this a great country or what?

Bundy family standoff: 10 years on, cattle graze disputed Nevada land | AP News

Jury refuses to convict 4 in Nevada ranch standoff retrial | AP News

The Eagle

 I too once had one of those ride the rails for free cards.  Courtesy of Blago before he went to the steel hotel in Colorado and they straightened things out a little.  I recommend also Aurora and Elgin both of which are pretty good sized and were their own towns for some time before the the broad shoulders gave them the big hug that turned them into drab and drear suburbia.

Back in the days when I lived in The Land of Milk and Honey when we drove back to Chicago there was always a sign on the interstate that pointed Chicago to the right, Memphis to the left.  Memphis, it sounded so far away and exotic, but we always went right to familiar and boring Chicago.

Likewise I think of Old Dog standing on that wintry platform and along comes the Texas Eagle, and he thinks what the hell.  He has that savoir faire such that no conductor would question him as he took his seat and before you knew it he would be dining on chiles relleno on the riverwalk in Old San Antone.

That was my train when I left The Little Nubbin of Nirvana.  I boarded about suppertime in Chicago.  At midnight I was passing through St Louis.  They had a couple of those big gambling boats at the time which lit up the night and the whole thing reminded me of the Susie Q scene in Apocalypse Now.  Holds up well.  Watch it again: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Decko2h-S20

The next morning we were moving through Little Rock, I treated myself to an exotic Belgian Waffle, which was a bit of a disappointment in that it was just a big waffle.  

And then it was on to the miles and miles of miles and miles of Texas, and late that night I was drinking Shiner Bocks along with a couple of my Champaign expats.

Turns out that when I settled down there I was only a block or two from where the Texas Eagle makes a turn from south to southwest on the way to San Antonio with a big blast of horn.  I tried to schedule my phone calls to around dinnertime so the listener would hear the blast and when they asked what was that, I would say, Why Son, that is the train to Old San Antone.

Another one of the bad things about being old is that there are no more big adventures, well no good ones.  In younger days Old Dog would have been drinking tequila out of dark eyed Senorita's slippers.  Nowadays he would have been rousted off the train at Pontiac to figure out his own way home.

Actually I am too old to be a boomer, the war was still going on in Japan when I was born.  Boomers didn't start until 1946, but I try to pass just for the glory.

And look at those balloons!  Not sure what to make of the one in the photo.  A motorcycle, or maybe an abstract?  Will likely have to wait a couple weeks for the response and maybe Old Dog will have moved to another adventure so maybe I will never know.

I know Old Dog is still kicking because he likes my weekly art post every Sunday.  But sure would be nice to hear more from him.

Child's play

Early spring?  Not so fast, Bubba!  Since that post there has been snow and temps in the 20s.  A fella could sprain his neck watching the thermometer go up and down but it is entertaining in a perverse, only Chicagoans get it, kind of way.

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A month without the wise counsel of Mr. Beagles, don't know what to make of that fact.  My delusional scenario is that he decided that maintaining 80+ acres is no way to spend his time and hitting the road with Lady Beagles would be much more fun.  Throw a camper thing on the back of the truck and just get the hell out of Dodge, could be in Nashville by sunset if he gets an early start.  Sounds like a good idea to me.  I have a card that gives me free travel on the CTA, RTA, and Metra trains so I looked at the Metra schedule and noticed that the Rock Island Line runs out of the La Salle Street Station and, if my memory of Johnny Cash is correct, the Rock Island Line is mighty fine.  Never been on that line so I went down and took the first train out of town and ended up in Joliet.  Nice trip, but on the return trip I ended up on the wrong platform and nearly boarded the Texas Eagle to San Antonio.  That would have been good, too.

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I'm guessing that Gage Park High School, Class of 1963, didn't have a 60th reunion last year or you guys would have mentioned it.  But you are the Silent Generation, after all.

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I'm starting to spend a little time at the local Senior Center and saw they have an occasional class on making balloon animals, something that should dazzle my niece's little ones.  A quick trip to a nearby Party Store and I'm getting a head start.  Before you start cracking wise check out the prices that Jeff Koons gets for his sculptures, and he doesn't even make them himself.

early spring

That whole rathole thing, I have to tell you I was not a big fan.  Oh I jumped on the bandwagon like everybody else it had a nice cynical vibe to it, but there was no actual animal to it like the alligator or the turtle.  It was just a little distraction in the winter.   And, except for that one big cold spell, not much of a winter.  And look what I spotted two days ago in the IBM planter across the street.

Time to get down to the garden store before they run out of tomato plants.

I wrote this a week ago.  I'd go out and get another photo of it but the sun has not yet risen.  

Meanwhile the Trumpist's case for impeaching Biden has fallen through since their main witness, who nobody outside of them ever thought was anything more than a Russian stooge, has turned out to be a Russian stooge.  But they are going to press on with it anyway because, because, Trump wants them to.  Not that that matters because no way is the senate going to vote against him, not that that matters either because, because, Trump wants them to.  

Meanwhile the Ukrainians, fighting on our front against the Russkies are running out of ammo, and the house can't find a way to give them any more dough because they didn't like the senate border proposal so the senate took it out, but then the house didn't like it because it didn't have a border proposal, but the real reason they don't want to give the Ukrainians any dough is because, because Trump doesn't want them to.

Meanwhile the sun has come out and I crossed State to get a photo of that shoot in the IBM planter.

Actually I am not sure if that is the same shoot as I posted last week, but hey close enough.  Daffodil I am guessing.

Warmest feb in history and I have to say I am enjoying it, even if it is  a harbinger of our doom from the hothouse effect.

Concrete evidence

When that story broke about the rat hole I was thinking, "Oh boy! Another opportunity to exercise my inner artsy-fartsy demons!"  Just gotta make a casting, then a plaster mold and then start cranking out ceramic replicas.  Ought to be a pretty penny in such an endeavor but Holy Moly it was cold that week and casting could be problematic.  And then I recalled one of those procedural cop shows on TV and they made a cast of tire tracks, in the snow, but they used sulfur, a technique I never heard of.   I was willing to try but I was fresh out of sulfur and it could be tricky showing up on a residential street with a camp stove melting sulfur.  Time passed, it warmed up but then everybody and his brother was showing up and just like that! the golden opportunity slipped away.  No worries, there will be others.

And speaking of sidewalks, I saw this warm sentiment scratched into the concrete near the Geezer Chateau.

Nighthawks

 Nighthawks.  Sure we have nighthawks.  Usually drop by it whenever I drop by the Art Institute,  The counterman is there because he is getting paid.  The couple are having a tryst, or maybe plotting a murder, likely her no-good hubby with the fat insurance policy.  But what about that guy with his back to us, the brim of his hat pulled down maybe a bit more than fashion would allow.  Is he an undercover copper or is he just a guy who likes a good cup of joe at two in the morning?  Why is nobody eating pie?

Can't say as I have every noticed the nighthawks here.  I don't remember them from Homan Avenue and probably they don't come downtown.  But it's nice to have something to welcome you to a new town.  In Champaign it was it was a Playboy magazine in an otherwise empty drawer in my dorm room.  In Herrin it was a big sign in front of  Red Top Liquors that read Cook's Beer, $2.80 a case.

That rat hole thing has been super-hyped here in Chicago.  Seems to me that since there is no real animal there like that Humboldt park alligator or that fat turtle in the river, that it doesn't deserve all that  attention.  But we Chicagoans like anything that can bring us together, and knocking catsup bottles out of tourists' hands in hot dog joints gets old after a while.