Choosing Sides...2017 Style

In one of my last political diatribes, I predicted that the world is in the process of choosing sides. Those willing to fight for liberty are arming to the teeth and preparing for the not too distant future by buying and storing the three B’s…bullion, bandages and bullets.

Both political parties are irreversibly split in philosophies and only await November’s election before the birth of two new parties on the more extreme ends of the political spectrum. The desire and the plans are already in place, and only the fading hope of retaining our republic delays the inevitable. The give-me-free-stuff socialists will flee the Democrats, and the responsible-adult wing of the Republicans will reinstate the Constitution of the United States as the basis for their party platform. The remaining go along to get along moderates, the “republicrats”,  will become the dodo birds of tomorrow, doomed to quickly fade into irrelevancy.

Once the two spin-off parties attain power, I foresee a serious move from the right to achieve a friendly, non-violent  geographical/political divorce from the non-producing leftists on each coast. If the left is dumb enough to ignore that desire in order to retain their political ability to suck the success from the free enterprise system, there will be blood in the streets...and they are not the ones holding the three B's.

You can say you read it here first.

North Texas Storms

Monday evening we experienced the worst thunderstorm I've seen in the twenty years I've been in Texas. The edge of the storm hit here, but winds were near 80mph with golf ball sized hail that was driven sideways from the wind. They punched several holes in the vinyl fence panels, and sounded like they were going to come through the roof windows.

Those in the middle of the cell got softball size hailstones that actually penetrated house roofs and literally destroyed cars sitting outside. Where they hit the ground, the craters left after the ice melted looked like the surface of the moon!

I'm sure the fly-by-night roof repair companies will soon be prowling the neighborhood. The last time we had damaging hail, they began calling even before the storm had stopped. This time the storm area is so large they will have thousands of homes to contact.

One thing I noticed after the storm was how much better built the old cars were. When the wind and rain abated,  I checked my old '56 Plymouth parts car to see if the windshield survived, as I had planned to put it in the car I'm restoring. The glass was fine, and not single dent in the heavy sheet metal! Newer cars would not have survived the beating without major damage.

The Move and More

The biggest change is that we’ve moved from our quiet, wooded, rural acre in East Texas, back to the windy, treeless, small town bedroom suburbs of the DFW Metroplex. No need to explain why, but suffice to say it was by mutual agreement, and there is no turning back at our age. I’m sure I’ll occasionally comment on the frustrating challenges we experienced trying to coordinate and monitor construction of a new house from 150 miles away. That project will be remembered for the rest of our lives, but not with fondness. The best thing about the move so far is the lack of scorpions and black widow spiders around here. They are native to this part of the state, but I’ve not seen any and I hope it stays that way. There are several candidates for the worst thing…like wind, noise, clay soil, higher prices and traffic, but mostly I miss my coffee drinking buddies at Pop’s Café. Small town East Texas had some great people that I’ll never forget.

I don’t know if any readers of this blog are visitors to my other blog/journal that documents the trials and tribulations of rebuilding a sixty-year-old, extremely rusty Plymouth. I’ll assume not, but if I assume incorrectly, please bear with me if I repeat a few things from the other site. However, instead of a play-by-play record of progress, I’ll just hit the high spots if and when they occur.

I've been asked about my novel-writing efforts. The last I posted was about a year after In Dreams was published in 2011. Success was about as expected for a typical work of fiction by a new author, meaning sales tanked after a short period of modest sales. Most buyers chose the downloadable versions i.e. Kindle. Writing that one novel seemed to sap all my creative energy, so except for a few feeble attempts to ignite new interest, I’ve done little in the writing department. The story I had in work fizzled when the plot became too weak to continue, and while I hated abandon the 25 thousand words I had on paper, it was no used beating a dead horse. Recently, I found myself creating a plot in my mind and while that’s the way the first book started, it remains to be seen if thoughts will ever translate to words on paper.

Family-wise, my wife’s granddaughter stayed with us for the better part of a year, but finally got her own apartment near Dallas. I’m too set in my ways to have houseguests more than a few days, so it’s good that she got a job that (barely) pays her rent. The Maltese puppy she acquired shortly before moving out is still living with us, as her apartment doesn’t allow pets. Thankfully, she and the pup weren’t together long enough to really bond, so we now have a new furry child to terrorize our two older dogs. Gracie has a very sweet, energetic personality and provokes many more laughs than scoldings.

National politics continues to drive me nuts, and this year being a presidential election cycle makes it especially frustrating. We still have a country, but for how long? An amicable divorce between unbending regional political philosophies looks better with each passing day.

Like a Phoenix?

While I haven't posted anything new here in years, I'm surprised by the number of visitors this blog still manages to attract. Most are probably random hits from searches for other sites, but those who do stop in often read  many of the old posts.

Since I occasionally get the urge to vent about our crazy world, or to share something that interests me, I've decided to do so here since the blog site is still available.

I have no clue as to the frequency of new posts, but it will not be often enough to attract new readers. It will only serve as a place where I can ramble on to my heart's content, while providing some new fodder for the few regulars who still drop in.

The next post will attempt to fill some gaps since Porky Pig helped say goodbye four years ago this month.