Still on the rails

Sometimes the train runs uphill, other times downhill, but I think that the train is running on level ground right now but with many unforeseen zigs and zags.

Despite all the smoke and mirrors of investigations and accusations, not much is really happening except the sneaky health bill that is proposed.  Both sides of the aisle in Congress are unhappy with Mitch McConnell's shenanigans but not much may come of their ire.  We'll just have to wait and see.

It's puzzling; Trump hasn't really accomplished much of anything except for his tweets and blather yet Wall Street is doing well from what I've read and business is booming.  Maybe they (denizens of Wall Street) know something I don't or they are simply gambling on an unknown future where regulations are lifted, social and environmental consequences be damned.  Again, we'll have to wait and see.

Trump's failure to fully staff his cabinet seems to be of little consequence; services are still being delivered as the federal bureaucracy keeps chugging along.  I wonder if all those appointees are really necessary in the first place; they don't seem to be missed.

Foreign policy is a different matter, in that I don't think Trump has the slightest clue of international matters.  Somebody must be running the show, but I don't think it's Trump.  Cooler heads are prevailing but that could be up for grabs.  I don't know what to think about that poor kid, recently released by the North Koreans, who died.  My guess is that Kim Jong Un, as a political expedient, will find some suitable scapegoats in his prison system to arrest and summarily execute, thus rendering the incident moot.  The bad guys will have been punished, so no harm, no foul, right?

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How long did it take you guys to ride downtown on the bus?  I had it easy; a three block walk to the El station that took me to the Loop via the old Ravenswood line, since renamed the Brown Line.  No need to switch trains at the Belmont station for the subway unless I was in a hurry, which was never.  The subway seemed a little scary, and very loud, to me; can't see where you're going when you're underground.  I liked to see the sights from the El, peering at all the back porches.

Solo trips downtown began when I was twelve or so, usually to hit the Kroch's & Brentano's bookstore on Wabash for their humongous paperback selection in the lower level.  Amazon is a poor substitute.

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I have a very distinct memory of the Kennedy years, which I am unable to verify today.  At some time in September or October of '63 I recall hearing on the radio that the Democratic Party was very unhappy with Kennedy and was thinking of finding someone else to run in '64.  Dallas changed all that, of course, but the memory lingers.  Maybe it was my imagination.