catching up with the gang

 Well it's great to see the old gang back together in a flurry of posts critiquing the Zeitgeist of these days and their place in it.  Good to see The Scourge return and showing that he is not just after cleansing errors from small potatoes, but is willing to also take on big political websites like The Hill.  And naturally I don't think I agree with his characterization of Beagles and I seeing only in black and white.  Some topics, like Trump, have no grey.  And isn't he himself seeing Beagles and myself only in black and white?  We have depth Man, no really.

The worst thing for me about smartphones is their tiny screen and my big fat clumsy fingers.  Not so hot for doing anything complicated.  Not so good for outgoing which I generally save for the computer when I get home, but pretty good for incoming, pretty good for catching up on the news, which I do way too often.  A shiny object for idle moments which might be better spent on plumbing the mysteries of the cosmos, but where did that ever get anybody anyway?

It's great for nuisance calls however.  It blocks many of them.  I see the number and name if it's somebody I know.  If it's no name then I won't pick up.  I can push a button and they get this little message to state their business.  They usually hang up at this point, but every now and then they turn out to be someone I want to talk to and then I pick up.

That NASCAR race, well naturally I look down my nose at the sport and its adherents.  When they had the first one I was afraid that there would be all this racket, though I admit that State Street right below me is rife with ambulances and fire trucks, which is ok they are performing city services, but also hot rods and motorcycles and those three-wheeled thingies that blast music (though I am developing an appreciation for them, it is music).

But it turned out this far north I never heard a thing.  It would be ok if we made a lot of dough, but the last mayor made a sweetheart deal so I don't know if we even broke even.  And whenever we have one of these things, and we have them all summer, Grant Park becomes a maze of cyclone fences and teenagers at minimum wages bossing us around in their adenoidal voices, don't go here, don't go there.  I don't mind when it's Lollapalooza with the Lolla babes strutting their stuff downtown which rakes in badly needed dough, but NASCAR, and that dreadful Air and Water show, I would be happier without them.

I hope I have caught up with my suddenly chatty colleagues, and I hope to hear from you after the weekend.  

Being Old Ain't What it Used to Be

 I agree with Uncle Ken that kids nowadays don't care what old people say.  I suppose most kids were always like that, but I wasn't like most kids.  I always preferred the company of adults, older the better, to the company of other kids, except for girl kids of course.  Indeed, I usually got along better with the girl's parents than I did with the actual girl.  Of course this was counterproductive, but before I realized that I was too old to do anything about it.  Funny how you can be so smart about some things and so dumb about others.

I remember that Pepsodent jingle, but I don't remember that particular commercial.  I also don't remember all those chemicals being in toothpaste.  The only one I remember is stannous fluoride.  Crest was the first one to have it, but now they all have it.  There are lots of other chemicals that are supposed to do all kinds of wonderful things to your teeth, but I don't like any of them.  I use Sensodyne with just fluoride added, and my wife likes her Crest the same way.

I still don't have a credit card, I have a debit card instead.  It comes free from our credit union, and it draws off of our checking account.  My wife prefers to use checks, so she carries the checkbook in her purse while I carry the card in my wallet.  

I have one of those flip phones too.  I don't think it qualifies as a smart phone, but it's still smarter than I am.  I mostly use it to call the regular phone company when our regular phone is out of order, and I carry it when I'm away from home in case of an emergency.  Did you know there are no pay phones around anymore?

My computer had been glitching on me for some time before it just stopped working one day.  Also, I got a notice from Microsoft that they were going to stop supporting my Windows 10 operating system next year, and that my machine was not suitable for an upgrade to Windows 11.  Since I only paid $200 for it eight years ago, I couldn't see putting any more money into now.

Another Thursday

New and Improved Post with IMP!

What a commercial!  I don't remember any of the details but the tune brought back memories but I never did find out exactly where the yellow went.  I couldn't help but notice that you are never told what IMP is;  it was only a lucky guess that I found out it stood for "Insoluble Meta-Phosphate."  And they completely skipped over irium and its ionic surfactant goodness.  But that's advertising for you, a little misdirection to make you want to part with your precious treasure.

But there was something screwy about the link, I don't know if it was the link or my computer/browser.  I couldn't get it to open, I kept getting the YouTube message "this video is not available."  Good thing that The Wayback Machine is still in business.

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Speaking of computer screwiness, Mr. Beagles mentioned that his computer died.  Any idea of the cause or symptoms?  I have a scattershot familiarity with computer hardware and their deaths are always intriguing.  Were you able to save the data from your old box?  I don't want to get deep into the weeds but you mentioned you needed to go to a certain store; nothing at Walmart or Amazon that would do the trick?  Pro tip when shopping at Amazon: add the word "refurbished" after the name of the item you're looking for.  There are deals to be had.

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I have no opinion of smart phones; my cheapo "pay as you go" flip-phone still serves me well since I use it only for phone calls and sometimes as an alarm clock.  When I'm out and about and see all the folks with their devices held in their hands I picture them on leashes, just waiting for further instructions.  They always respond immediately when summoned.

Mr. Beagles shows good financial wisdom in his use of credit cards.  A big downside of Capitalism as practiced in these parts is the slippery slope of consumer debt.  You think you can easily pay your balance off but it doesn't always work out that way; you're in over your head before you know it and don't ask me how I know this.  Now I'm fine with only two credit cards (not counting Target; they give a 5% discount).  One card is for online purchases, the other is for the rare purchases that require more cash than I usually have on hand and I never carry them unless I know I'm going to use them.  And they're paid off every month, in full.  I like to have a nice wad of walking around money but I can't always get to one of my bank's ATMs.  And isn't it nice that some police stations have ATMs in case you need some quick dough to make your bail?  Or so I've been told.

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And just so Uncle Ken doesn't look like some rube, it's Pizzeria Due, not Duo.  Back in the day, about 50 years ago or so, Due's pizza was supposed to be the better pie but don't ask me, I don't think I've ever been to Uno's.
 

New and Improved Post with IMP!

 How long have I had a smartphone now?  I am inclined to say five years, but I have noticed that whenever I say something happened five years ago, it turns out to be ten.  So let's say ten.

Well of course I have reached the age where I pretty much don't like anything new.  TV's were new when we were kids.  Sometimes in the rare occasions when I am among young people, in order to get a little attention from them, to get them to raise their pimply faces from their phones, I will say "You know I remember back to when almost nobody had a television,"  It never works though because kids are never interested in anything old folks have to say, and I know that because I was once a kid.  

But it was different when we were kids, old folks then were stodgy.  We are not like that, we are hip and with it.  We aren't the old old folks of yesterday, we are the new old folks of today.   

New, it was the buzzword of advertising back in the day.  Every product we saw in commercials on our new TVs, was New.  New and Improved, New and improved and containing IMP!   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOhfGezdcXU

I didn't like the new smartphones.  Who wants to be available to callers even when they are out having some kind of exciting adventure?  Phone calls were no longer the exciting events of my childhood, they were mostly annoying, some boring task, some long-winded boring pal, nothing that couldn't be taken care of when I got home.  Who needed them?  At first you get a little credit for hanging back from the latest trend, like a amiable eccentric, oh that Ken.

But after awhile that credit dissipates.  You are supposed to meet somebody somewhere like an airport and they say, once you get there they will call you and tell you where to go next, and you say I don't have a cellphone. and they are Well fer Chrissake, and you are no longer amiable, you are annoying.

Like calling somebody and it just rings and rings and you are waiting for the machine to come on so that you can leave your message, but at some point you realize the machine is never coming on because they don't have one.  So now, instead of leaving your message and being about your merry way, you have to remember to call them later and hope they are home, and if they are not you will have to call them again and so on and so on.  What a pain in the ass.  Why doesn't this jerk get with it?

In Chicago there is a Pizzeria Uno and a Pizzeria Duo just about a block from each other.  One afternoon I was supposed to meet my sister at Uno, but she never showed up, what the hell?

Later I learned that it was supposed to be Duo.  When time had passed and no Ken, she thought maybe I was at Uno.  She had her smartphone with her so she called there and asked if there was anybody there that looked like Santa Claus wearing a Cub jacket, and they said no.  Well you know those people, they don't give a fuck.

The next day I went out and bought a smartphone.  More on that later.

Phones, Gays, Etc.

 We don't have an answering machine, or a smart phone either.  Nothing against them, but we use our phone so little that we don't see the need for added features that we will never use.  I liked it better before the answering machines came along anyway.  If you called someone and there was no answer, you knew you had to call them back.  With the machines, you don't know if they didn't get the message or if they just don't want to talk to you.  If they don't call you back, then you need to call them again.  But how long should you wait before you do that?  I suppose one advantage might be that you could let the machine handle all the spammers and scammers.  But what fun would that be?  Then again, it's not as much fun now since I have resolved not to abuse them with obscene ethnical insults.  Maybe I should rethink this matter.  

I had a credit card once, but they cancelled it after I had it for a year and never used it.  Many years later, I got a debit card because they wouldn't sell me satellite service without one.  I didn't think I would ever use it, but I did and still do.  It's no more trouble that writing a check, and lots of places seem to prefer it.  

All other factors being equal, I am not inclined to vote for a gay or trans person, although I might consider it if there was another important issue involved.  I don't think that gays should be persecuted or anything like that, but that doesn't mean I have to vote for them.  Tolerance is not the same thing as approval. 

We gave all our old vinyl records to my daughter and granddaughter since they already had collections of them.  We had an old rickety portable phonograph, and we gave that away too.  We would like to find a good home for our VHS collection as well, but we don't know anybody who has a working player.  Ours died and they stopped making them some years ago.  I understand you can still find used ones on the market, but they want too much for them and you can't find parts for them or anybody who wants to service or repair them.  We could use the extra space to store our CDs and DVDs, but it seems a shame to just throw those old tapes away.  

An August post

I noticed something in that article about RFK, Jr. that Uncle Ken copied and pasted from The Hill.  They misspelled the name of that New York steakhouse, something other online sources did not do, even as they copied the same source material from, I think, The New Yorker.  So, maybe The Hill isn't as trustworthy a source as some folks might think.  A little further research surprised me with the extent of RFK, Jr.'s drug use in his past.  Heroin is a little too much, don't you think?

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Seems to me that as time goes by our differences become more glaring.  I don't think we are on the same page; it seems like you guys like things in black & white, you're either on this side or that side, no middle ground.  The Old Dog lacks that clarity of vision, all that is visible are shades of gray.  I think it was Mr. Beagles that mentioned he wasn't going to vote for some guy because he was openly gay.  What does that really mean?  Would he gladly vote for him, maybe even volunteer for his campaign, if he would stay in the closet?  None of my business, of course.  We can vote however we want, for whatever reason, right?

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I read a while back that "once you're over the hill you pick up speed," and I heartily agree.  There was a somewhat recent definition of "old age" and it begins at 75 years old, a milestone I hit last year.  The funny thing is I don't feel old at all except for the inevitable physical deterioration we probably share.  And there's a lot that can be done about that; not easy but doable, and that's a rabbit hole that can wait for another day.

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Sometimes words are mere playthings and I wonder if you guys are familiar with the Japanese word "shouganai."  One of the meanings is "If there's nothing you can do about it, don't waste time being angry or worrying about it."  I find comfort in that concept as the entertaining spectacle of this election year continues to unfold but next week is the Democratic National Convention and who knows what's going to happen here in Chicago.

And speaking of entertaining spectacles, that NASCAR race downtown was excellent, some of the best racing I've seen if you can ignore the rain.  It was better than I expected with none of that droning in a big circle.  The speeds were low, not much over 100mph but that was okay, and no dramatic crashes, only some fender benders.  And the video coverage was stunning, I thought, with normal traffic and pedestrians visible in the background.

Last year I said, "There is something delightfully absurd and surreal about the whole situation, very much in keeping with the wacky zeitgeist of Chicago."  I think I was right.  Too bad that it's so expensive to attend, more than $100 for a one-day pass.  I don't think so.

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Do you guys still listen to vinyl?  There's a couple of good record stores near me and I scored a couple of oldies, can't wait to hear them once I get my turntables calibrated for the proper speed.  The years have not been kind to the rubber belts but soon I'll be listening to The Best of Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs.  Also found a VHS copy of Zulu with Michael Caine and I'm curious to see how it holds up.  Plenty of fun to be had here at The Geezer Chateau!

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I'll close with a bit of modern weirdness, luxury dog perfume:

https://boingboing.net/2024/08/05/luxury-fashion-brand-launches-100-perfume-for-your-dog-spurring-an-rspca-warning.html

Maybe it's a fake site but are we not entertained?

answering machines

 Reading the saga of your troubles with Petosky, a couple things have come to mind.  You don't have a credit card?  And you don't have an answering machine?  

In the pantheon of modern conveniences I don't think the answering machine gets its due.  One nice thing about the days before the answering machine was that you could always get ahold of somebody.  Not if they weren't home of course, but if they were they would almost always answer it.  It seems like the rings were louder then than they are now, but maybe it was just that they were more important.

Because you never knew who was calling, or, if you lived in a house with other people, who the call was for.  It could be great news and it could be terrible news or it could be a long winded busybody, and you had to answer it to find out.  On the other side if nobody answered your call it was almost certain that they were not home, and nobody would know that you called.

And then came the answering machines, the first ones to own them were the up to date folks, always glomming onto the next thing and a little annoying because of that.  Who doesn't remember when they first came across one?  At first everything seemed normal, you heard the voice of the person you were calling and you were just about to say something but something was off and you realized that this was a recorded message.  This was one of those new-fangled gadgets that you had read about in Life Magazine.

Well dadgum it if that didn't beat all, and you were unsure how to answer because you had never done this before, and then you realized that your stammers were being recorded and you were sounding like some hick from the sticks.  You switched to your cosmopolitan man-about-town tone, but you couldn't help but be a little offended that you were being asked who you were and why you were calling and what is your number by some doggone machine.  And now whatever you said would stay on that damn cassette until the callee came home and saw the blinking light, and then they would call you back at a time of their leisure, or perhaps they would forget or just not bother for some reason.

But it was great to have one you realized after you wisely waited for the price to come down.  Now it was you who was responding to the blinking light, you who was deciding when it would be convenient to call back, if at all.  But even better than that was letting the phone ring and waiting to hear the answer on the machine and then deciding whether or not to pick up.  A little insulting to the caller sometimes to realize that you were letting them go to machine, even though you had no way of knowing it was them, but you know how people are, so maybe you would breathe a little heavy, so it would sound like you had dashed across the room, just to be polite you know.

And then another development once the machines became popular and almost everybody but the stick in the muds had them, was you would wait to call people until you were pretty sure that they would not be home.  Because you know, you have to be social, ask about the little ones, gab about the weather, be sociable when you really only wanted to know the answer to a simple question.  And then maybe they would wait to call you until they knew you wouldn't be home for the same reason.  Very cosmopolitan for the two of you..

I'm planning on moving on to more sophisticated answering machines and cell and smart phones in the next post.  Don't bother to drop me a line because I will be screening you.  

But just for the record, did you have an answering machine?

There's a First Time for Everything

 None of the candidates I voted for in our primary made the cut.  The Republicans who were nominated for Congress and the state legislature for our district are all Trumpists.  The local offices don't matter because they don't have any Democratic opposition, so they are as good as elected already.  Therefore, it looks like I'm going to vote straight Democrat in November.  (May God have mercy on my soul!)  I've never voted straight Democrat in my life.   Although I did vote for McGovern in 1972, I voted Republican on all the rest of the ballot that year.  That was one of my first elections, and this one may well be my last.  How ironic!

I got a letter from our Secretary of State's office today telling me that their inquiry into my medical fitness to drive has been cancelled.  Of course that's good news, but I couldn't help but notice that they didn't mention any of the difficulties we had with the paperwork.  They just said that, since my physician sent in the form last April like he was supposed to, there is no need for any further action.  Funny thing, they sent me a letter in June saying that they never received the form and that I "failed to comply".  I resubmitted the form forthwith, sending it by certified mail and received a receipt that said they got it.  Apparently, that wasn't good enough for them, but they didn't tell me why.  The local Petosky agent then tried to call me, and we know how that turned out.  What he eventually told me was that two pages of the five-page form were missing, probably because my physician's people didn't notice that the form was printed on both sides, so those two pages didn't get scanned into their computer.  If the Lansing office had told me that in the first place, the above-mentioned difficulties could have been avoided.  Oh well, if they are willing to overlook my mistake, I guess I can overlook theirs.

How it All Began

 After I signed off last night, I remembered the name of that fake company, it was "Cardholder Services".   I looked it up and found this about them.

Cardholder services: Is it a scam? | CreditCards.com

Apparently, they are still in business, at least somebody using their name is.  We first started getting calls from them some time after we moved here, so it must have been in this century.  They would start out with a recorded message that offered to connect you to a live person if you would press "1".  We just hung up on them at first, but they were calling so often that I decided to press"1" so I could tell them that they were wasting their time with us because we didn't have any credit cards.  The live person would usually promise to remove our number from their list, but they would continue to call us, sometimes that very day.

 I started to get creative after a while, coming up with all kinds of ways to engage them and waste their time.  This too got old because I was wasting my time as well as theirs, and they would hang up on me as soon as they could tell I was toying with them.  I decided I would rather be the one to hang up first, so I began quoting a line from an old "Peanuts" comic strip, "Shut up and leave me alone!" before hanging up on them.  I don't remember when I started adding that elephant insult at the end, possibly it was because they kept calling us in spite of my admonition.  Looking back on it, it didn't discourage them from calling us, but it made me feel better because I was doing something to retaliate instead of being a passive victim.  So yes, I have certainly learned my lesson.   Although it makes me a little sad to give up one of the few pleasures I have left in my old age, it's just not worth it.  The risk outweighs any benefit I might derive from the practice.

Thanks for the information about candidate Kennedy.  He seems like a regular guy, and I might vote for him now that I know that.  On the other hand, my most important priority is to keep Trump out of the White House, and voting for Harris is probably the best way to do that.  Well, I've still got three months to make up my mind.  

The Bear

 So, um this elephant construction is just a variant of one that was popular during the gulf wars and used the word sand?  But maybe not so widely used, if at all, beyond the borders of the freehold.  When I asked Mr Google about it he said, "Never heard it, Bub."

There are a variety of words and phrases that could be used to castigate a possible spammer, so why you chose this one is a mystery to me.  You didn't do yourself any favors and you cast a pall on the day of the gentleman in Petosky.  Well I hope you have learned your lesson.

Since I knew this castigation would not fill up a full post, I scouted through my news feed to see if there was some topic that I could riff on and my expectations went way beyond my dreams.

I normally just give a link for these things but in honor of its impact I am going to import it whole

Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy on Sunday said he was the one to dump a dead bear in New York City’s Central Park a decade ago, claiming he wanted to clarify the story before The New Yorker allegedly releases a “bad story” about him.

In a video posted to X on Sunday, Kennedy, apparently in a kitchen with actress Roseanne Barr, said he was driving through the Hudson Valley on his way to go falconing with a group of people when he watched a woman hit and kill a young bear.

“I pulled over and I picked up the bear and put him in the back of my van because I was going to skin the bear. It was in very good condition, and I was going to put the meat in my refrigerator,” noting people could get a bear tag for roadkill in New York.

The environmental lawyer said the bear stayed in his car while the group went hawking during the day, but the group stayed late, preventing Kennedy from going home before going into New York City for a dinner at Peter Leger Steak House.

He said the dinner also went late and he did not have time to drop the bear off at his home in Westchester before needing to head to the airport.

“And the bear was in my car, and I didn’t want to leave the bear in the car because that would have been bad,” Kennedy said, adding, “At that time — this was a little bit of the redneck in me — there had been a series of bicycle accidents in New York. They had just put in the bike lanes and some people, a couple of people had gotten killed, and it was every day, and people had been badly injured every day, it was in the press.”

“I wasn’t drinking, of course “, but people were drinking with me who thought this was a good idea,” he continued.

Stating he had an old bike in his car someone previously asked him to get rid of, Kennedy said, “I said, ‘Let’s go put the bear in the Central Park and we’ll make it look like it got hit by a bike.”

The presidential candidate revealed the group thought it would be “amusing” and was surprised when it made national headlines the next day.

Kennedy was “worried” authorities would trace his fingerprints on the bicycle, but said the story eventually died down a while after the incident. That was until fact checkers from The New Yorker recently contacted him about the allegations about a “big article” on him.

“It’s going to be a bad story,” Kennedy said, while writing on X, “Looking forward to seeing how you spin this one @NewYorker…”

The Hill reached out to The New Yorker for further comment.

Some of the details of Kennedy’s story appeared to coincide with an October 2014 incident, in which a woman walking her dog noticed a dead cub lying under the bushes besides a bike in Central Park.

The state’s Department of Environmental Conservation said the necropsy showed the cause of death was “blunt force injuries consistent with a motor vehicle collision,” The New York Times reported at the time.

Ain't he sumpin? 

Random sentences I thought were interesting:

“I wasn’t drinking, of course “, but people were drinking with me who thought this was a good idea,” 

I don't drink, and when I don't drink I always pay special attention to what the drunks around me recommend.

 ‘Let’s go put the bear in the Central Park and we’ll make it look like it got hit by a bike.”

Why what a splendid idea.

Kennedy, apparently in a kitchen with actress Roseanne Barr,

Roseanne Barr?

That's all folks.

The Elephant in the Room

Well, if you didn't like the other word, you're not going to like this one either.  The Elephant part is to distinguish between these guys and the African Americans.  See, India is known for having lots of elephants, or at least it used to be.  Like I said, though, I would never talk like that to a real person, it's just that I have a long history with those scammers from India.  

I think it started some years ago when the U.S. government started cracking down on the regular spammers, most of which were American based.  They were annoying, but I think most of them were legitimate salesmen.  There was one outfit, though, that promised to reduce your credit card debt for a price, took your money, and did little or nothing more.  I read somewhere that the government finally shut them down, whereupon they sold their software and equipment to pay their legal expenses.  Whoever bought them out was soon back in business, but they moved their operation offshore to evade the long arm of the law.  After that, similar operations sprang up in India and soon came to dominate the market.  Over the years, I have become familiar with their tactics and can usually recognize them.  

The only thing is that I didn't know that there might be other reasons for a dead air phone call like that.  One of them might be if the caller is using a cell phone and happens to be in a "dead zone".  When I get a call like that now, I say, "If there is somebody there, I cannot hear you.  You might try calling from a different location."  Of course this doesn't do anything about the scammers, but my abusive greeting of them has not done any good anyway.  They still keep calling after all these years.  I plan to still greet the live ones with my customary "Shut up and leave me alone!", but I will leave out the elephant part, since it doesn't do any good anyway.  

This experience has inspired me to start a list that I'm calling "The Great Assumptions".  

I've got three so far.  Can you think of any more?  

I:  The gun is always loaded.

II:  The microphone is always on.

III:  There is always someone on the other end of the phone line who can hear you, even if you can't hear them,                                                                                                

Don't say that

 I think that thing about the phone spammers is probably correct.

I don't understand that hypothetical thing at all.

I don't understand what elephant has to do with that word.

I am no pc guy but you would probably save yourself and a whole lot of other people a whole lot of trouble by just not saying it.

Suck out my ass, a little too graphic by my delicate standards, but I suppose it is tolerable, just not that other word.

Oh wait, I guess I do understand that hypothetical thing after all.  I remember you writing about it and it is a true story.  The part about the phone is new, but I am guessing that whole thing did happen because when people say, "Or so I have been told," that means the preceding has been what they have experienced. 

I assume then that you have already heard from some gentleman in Petosky what I said about using that word and that that experience will deter you from doing so again.

Probably best not to use it in the blog either.

I have one question though.

What does the elephant have to do with anything?

The Sound of Silence

I don't know if you guys get this in Chicago, but we get this a lot in our neck of the woods.  The phone rings, you answer it, and there appears to be nobody on the other end.  Some people just hang up, but I like to follow through on these calls.  If you wait a minute or less, the other party hangs up with not a word spoken.  I read somewhere that this is often a "dropped call".  Certain spammers and scammers have a machine that dials their phones for them.  When one of the phones make a connection, it alerts the spammer/scammer who picks up the phone and interacts with his victim.  If the spammer/scammer is busy on another line, after a predetermined amount of time, the machine hangs up on that call and starts dialing another one.

I have long wondered if anybody on the other end can hear anything I might want to say during this period of silence, like "All you elephant niggers suck out of my ass!", for instance.  I would never say anything like that to a real person, but I figure those spammer/scammers deserve it, and they probably can't hear me anyway.  I recently found out that this is not the only reason you might get the sound of silence when you answer the phone.  I also discovered that the other party may indeed be able to hear you, even if you can't hear them.  To protect the privacy of any innocent party that may be involved in something like this, let me give you a hypothetical example.

Let's say, hypothetically, that you were involved in a minor traffic accident a year and a half ago.  Let's say that you told the attending policeman that that this may have been caused by an undiagnosed medical condition for which you have already resolved to seek medical attention.  Let's say that this incident put you on the radar of the Secretary of State Driver Assessment Department, which, after an elaborate procedure, determined that you were safe to drive as long as you followed you doctor's instructions, which you did.  Let's say that you were due for a re-evaluation now, and there was some kind of problem with your paperwork.  Let's say that the agent in charge of your case called you on the phone to inform you of the problem, but due to some technical difficulty beyond your control, you could not hear him, even though he could hear you loud and clear.  Let's say, hypothetically of course, that you innocently assumed this was one of those dropped spammer/scammer calls and mildly remonstrated those alleged spammer/scammers with something innocent like, "All you elephant niggers suck out of my ass!"  

I think you will agree that this would be an honest mistake that could hypothetically happen to anybody.  Nevertheless, you would be required to drive all the way to Petoskey to beg forgiveness from this agent in front of numerous other people because he would not let you in his office..................or so I have been told.

Presidents

 I was born a month before FDR died.  Google tells me I could raise my head when I was laid upon my stomach and turn my head to one side.  I started to focus with both eyes and could follow a moving object.  Well I will have to take Google's word for that.  Pretty sure I didn't know who the president was.

In 1948 my family was in Chattanooga Tennessee.  I remember once finding a turtle under a house. Don't recall being astonished at Truman beating Dewey.  I have visited Harry's presidential library and even though he was not an intellectual giant and a little bit crooked, he generally did the right thing, and I think he was a good man.

1952 I liked Ike.  Second and third graders divided into two gangs on the playground, Democrats and Republicans, and there were some skirmishes, but nobody even skinned their knees.  The fifties were a golden age if you were white, which I was.  Not a bad guy.  Eight years of peace and prosperity.

In 1960 I have to admit I was for Nixon.  Kind of wanted to be a Republican like Dad and was suspicious that all the Catholic kids I knew were for Kennedy which seemed kind of like a conspiracy.  When he got shot my first thought was oh no, now we were stuck with that hillbilly Johnson.

In 1964 the Republicans nominated Goldwater who scared me.  I believe his VP was all for unsheathing the nuclear sword.  Too nuts.  I shed my fading Republicanism and have never looked back.

In 1968, the first year I was eligible, I wanted to vote for Dick Gregory's Peace and Freedom party, but I was afraid that in the polling place reason would seize me and I would pull the lever for Humphrey.  Solved the problem by not registering to vote.  Enough said about that.

In 1972 I was full in for McGovern.  Gave twenty big ones to the campaign and did work out of the local McGovern office.  Worked election day getting out the vote.  It was all very exciting. He lost in 49 states.  Dick Nixon did himself in.  Probably the worst thing he did was sabotage the Vietnam peace conference, and then continue the war for no good reason.

Carter was far from my first choice in 1976, but he won the nomination.  Ford was kind of a nothing, but I was surprised that Carter did so poorly in his presidency.  Too much of an outsider, too pure to play the game pundits have said.

Ronnie Reagan was an affable guy but not very bright.  Taxes for the rich began being slashed under him. Trickle down turned out to not trickle down but stay with the rich who knew it would and were the  advisers he listened to probably because Nancy told him to.  No wars, which was nice but definitely increased income inequality.

Bush 1 was not awful.  He handled the first gulf war quite well, showed future presidents how to do it, but was completely ignored by his dumb kid.  Continued Ronnie's trickle down ways, raised income inequality and inflation.

1992 was a great year for me.  I bought my condo and Slick Willie rescued us from 12 years of Republicans.  I loved him for that alone though I wish that he was more liberal.  No wars and I believe he actually cut the deficit once or twice.  In retrospect though, pretty sleazy.

In 2000 I thought Bush 2 would not be so bad.  I fell a little for that compassionate conservative crap, and early on I think he did a couple good things with immigration and AIDs, and he might not have been bad had those planes hit the towers.  Under the evil influence of Cheney he put on his old national guard uni and went to war led by the neocons who were ignorant or feathering their own nests.  A terrible, terrible war that did nobody any good.  In retrospect to the last Republican prez though, he now appears to be a gentleman and a scholar and a statesman.

When Obama won in 2008 I thought Free at last, free at last, Thank God Almighty free at last.  He gave us Obamacare, no wars, no scandals, and talked to us like we were smart people.  But Mitch and the crew fought him at every single fucking turn, and the yellow dogs turned tail. Still he is my shining star.

Could it be as bad as I thought it would be I thought after election day 2016 (just days after the Cubs won the World Series!!!).  Yes.  Actually worse.  Enough said about that.

I was a little surprised Biden hadn't run in 2016, and didn't believe he would get in in 2020, and having got in I didn't think he had a chance.  He was far from my first choice (Elizabeth Warren), but after he won I thought this might turn out ok.  I'm a cynic and think believing in something is cornball, but maybe after the last four years of believing in nothing, he was the guy to do the job.  I think he did pretty well considering his small margins.  I was horrified at the debate though and am glad he has dropped out, and I think we have a shot.