Good Christian Men, REJOICE!

 

Good Morning! Merry Christmas!

                Good Christian men Rejoice! With heart and soul and voice! Give ye heed of what we say: Jesus Christ is born today! Ox and ass before him bow and he is in the manger now! Christ is born today, Christ is born to day!

                I’m going to start with something not typically thought of as a Christmas activity: Holy Communion.

                I’m not a stickler for wafer and wine, so if you have even a stray Cherrio and some breakfast juice that will be fine. The references will be from Matthew’s Gospel, chapter twenty-six

‘While they were eating, Jesus took the bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, “Take and eat, this is my body given for you.”

‘Then he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, “All of you drink from this; this is my blood of the promise poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sin.”’

                And there you have it, the thumbnail of God’s gift to us. All of you know what happened next, Jesus was arrested, tried, then crucified. Three days later he arose fulfilling the promise of life.

                Merry Christmas!

 

Santa Claus

             This fell into my email in-box about twenty years ago, and I trot it out for inspection every now and then. Since I haven’t done so recently, this year I’ll abuse you with this.

                              A CHRISTMAS STORY

                   I remember my first Christmas adventure with Grandma.  I was just a kid.  I remember tearing across town on my bike to visit her. On the day my big sister dropped the bomb: "There is no Santa Claus," she jeered.  "Even dummies know that!"

                   My Grandma was not the gushy kind, never had been. I fled to her that day because I knew she would be straight with me.  I knew Grandma always told the truth, and I knew that the truth always went down a whole lot easier when swallowed with one of her "world-famous" cinnamon buns.  I knew they were world-famous, because Grandma said so.  It had to be true.

                   Grandma was home, and the buns were still warm. Between bites, I told her everything.  She was ready for me.  "No Santa Claus?" she snorted...."Ridiculous!  Don't believe it.  That rumor has been going around for years, and it makes me mad, plain mad!!  Now, put on your coat, and let's go."

                   "Go? Go where, Grandma?" I asked.  I hadn't even finished my second world-famous cinnamon bun.

                   "Where" turned out to be Kerby's General Store, the one store in town that had a little bit of just about everything.  As we walked through it's doors, Grandma handed me ten dollars.  That was a bundle in those days.  "Take this money," she said, "And buy something for someone who needs it.  I'll wait for you in the car."  Then she turned and walked out of Kerby's.

                   I was only eight years old.  I'd often gone shopping with my mother, but never had I shopped for anything all by myself. The store seemed big and crowded, full of people scrambling to finish their Christmas shopping.

                   For a few moments I just stood there, confused, clutching that ten-dollar bill, wondering what to buy, and who on earth to buy it for.  I thought of everybody I knew: my family, my friends, my neighbors, the kids at school, the people who went to my church.  I was just about thought out, when I suddenly thought of Bobby Decker.  He was a kid with bad breath and messy hair, and he sat right behind me in Mrs. Pollock's grade-two class.  Bobby Decker didn't have a coat.  I knew that because he never went out to recess during the winter.  His mother always wrote a note, telling the teacher that he had a cough, but all we kids knew that Bobby Decker didn't have a cough; he had no good coat.  I fingered the ten-dollar bill with growing excitement.  I would buy Bobby Decker a coat!

                   I settled on a red corduroy one that had a hood to it. It looked real warm, and he would like that.  "Is this a Christmas present for someone?" the lady behind the counter asked kindly, as I laid my ten dollars down.  "Yes, ma'am," I replied shyly.  "It's for Bobby."  The nice lady smiled at me, as I told her about how Bobby really needed a good winter coat.  I didn't get any change, but she put the coat in a bag, smiled again, and wished me a Merry Christmas.

                   That evening, Grandma helped me wrap the coat in Christmas paper and ribbons (a little tag fell out of the coat, and Grandma tucked it in her Bible) and wrote, "To Bobby, From Santa Claus" on it. Grandma said that Santa always insisted on secrecy.  Then she drove me over to Bobby Decker's house, explaining as we went that I was now and forever officially, one of Santa's helpers.

                   Grandma parked down the street from Bobby's house, and she and I crept noiselessly and hid in the bushes by his front walk. Then Grandma gave me a nudge.  "All right, Santa Claus," she whispered, "get going."  I took a deep breath, dashed for his front door, threw the present down on his step, pounded his doorbell and flew back to the safety of the bushes and Grandma.  Together we waited breathlessly in the darkness for the front door to open.  Finally it did, and there stood Bobby.  Fifty years haven't dimmed the thrill of those moments spent shivering, beside my Grandma, in Bobby Decker's bushes.

                   That night, I realized that those awful rumors about Santa Claus were just what Grandma said they were: ridiculous.  Santa was alive and well, and we were on his team.

                   I still have the Bible, with the coat tag tucked inside: $19.95  

 Author Unknown

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            If anyone knows this author, please let me know as well.

            I would normally draw something up in the Critters of Habit style to go with; not this year. Later maybe.

            Melanie, you may remember sending this out back in 2004, or not. In any case this chicken has come home to roost.

Dana “Madman” Hansen

“Honk If You WORSHIP the DEVIL”

    Bumper stickers.

The rolling Burma Shave signs of our existence.

 To those who’ve never heard of Burma Shave, they predate me, even. Burma Shave was something like Barbasol, Gillette and Schick, shaving soap. Their idea of advertising was to put a series of signs along the roadside, just big enough to contain a line of doggerel, like, “Does your husband / Misbehave / Grunt and grumble / Rant and rave? /Shoot the brute some / Burma-Shave”

You get the idea.

 As long as it can fit into something roughly twelve to eighteen inches long, and about five inches tall, you can say something meaningful (or not) and display it to the world. Everything from voter preference to food affiliation to (harking back aways) “Native” on a Colorado license plate background.

 A recent prank I saw on the doomscroll: the bumper sticker read: “Honk if you WORSHIP THE DEVIL”, and when someone did, the trunk would open up and reveal someone dressed as Jesus.

     Guerrilla Theater at its finest.

Click the link above for a sample.

In other news, …

In other news I’ve been watching old movies starring some of my favorites. I say ‘old movies’, but I’d never seen them before. Peter Sellers in ‘The Mouse That Roared’. Well, I’d seen that one a long, long time ago. George Martin’s ‘In My Life’, which included a pairing of Robin Williams and Bobby McFerrin on the song ‘Come Together’. ‘From Time to Time’, starring Maggie Smith (think Professor McGonigal or what’s-her-name’ from ‘Downton Abbey’), Robert Redford and Morgan Freeman in ‘An Unfinished Life’, and again Redford in ‘Lions for Lambs’, … And Paul Newman in ‘Fat Man and Little Boy’. I’ve not yet finished watching this film.

Unintentionally, many of these films have dealings with end-of-life, which is somewhat top-of-mind just now. I think I’m being overly concerned. What happens, happens.

The other things these films have in common is the taking our imperfect selves and rendering, not perfection necessarily, but the good, the best we are capable of. Of taking our good points, and even our flaws, and turning them into good results, of being a force for good, resisting evil, making the world a better place. Sometimes, even rendering minor miracles.

The overriding theme of this little stab in the dark, is ‘Yes, You Can!’

It is a lot of me taking what I have, or, in this case, what I have left, and stabbing at the world with the bludgeon of encouragement, the sword of love, the shield of faith (Paul had that right) to ward off the discouragements that are out there. I do not have a lot of strength left; all I can do is encourage, will my strength into those who follow.

Occasionally, like now, I take a break to eat a can of soup.

And listen to the Bear Cub dance and sing her heart and her joy. I love that kid!

 It’s the small things that keep us going.

 Good night.

 

Fiday funnys: Typos

 That should be: “Friday Funnies”, but typos are the name of the game today. 

With that in mind I’m recalling something from a book by Norton Mockridge[1], who was City Editor of the New York World Telegram and Sun. The book’s title is: A Funny Thing Happened …, and (Mr. Mockridge) recounts a story where a new restaurant had sent to the printer an order for menus, advertising matter, and other whatnot with its name, The Pink Pantry. This was about the time of that Blake Edwards film, “The Pink Panther”, and they were perhaps trying to capitalize on the name similarity.

When the material came back from the printer, however, instead of The Pink Pantry, it was The Pink Panty!

My Kingdom for a proofreader!

One hopes their Grand Opening was a great success, in spite of (or perhaps because of) the printer error.

J

Allong (oops) along similar lines is this example from Thoughtco.com[2] (12-feb-2020). As above, this is an atomic typo (a single letter difference, leaving behind a correct, though inappropriate, word):

"The Typo of the Year award went to Reuters for this in 2005: 'Quaker Maid Meats Inc. on Tuesday said it would voluntarily recall 94,400 pounds of frozen ground beef panties [emphasis mine] that may be contaminated with E.coli.' (Read 'patties,' presumably.)"

 Another ‘ooops’; the 11PM alarm has just sounded, and I need to be in bed if I expect to get up in a timely fashion tomorrow. So I need to finish this up quickly.

“Tomorrow” gives me a clue. There’s a song by the Kingston Trio called “To Morrow”[3], and it revolves around the town of Morrow, and the confusion between a traveler and a ticket agent about ‘tomorrow’ and how to get ‘to Morrow’ and back.

I’ll let you chase down the song: To Morrow

Good Night, Folks!

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Oh, and anything you've a mind to tackle, 

Yes, You Can!

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[1] Along the way I discovered much I never knew about Norton Mockridge, including his being part of an interview/discussion on Richard Heffner’s  “Open Mind”, discussing a free press in relation to trial by jury, and how the rights of the accused might be abused thereby.

In my opinion, of late much has been going on to sway the courts for this person or against that person, letting the court of public opinion effect jury nullification. The television program was: “The Courts and a Free Press” aired on NBC Television, Sunday, May 4, 1958, on the program THE OPEN MIND https://www.thirteen.org/openmind-archive/government/the-courts-and-a-free-press-part-i/

[2] Nordquist, Richard. "Typo: Examples of Typographical Errors." ThoughtCo, Jan. 17, 2021, thoughtco.com/typo-definition-1692479.

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qp88oumRQvs

Rancor

This should have been posted yesterday. Sorry about that.

This’ll be short. This Thanksgiving our ‘Lustrous Potentate said that we needed to tone down the, and I quote: “Rancor.”

As I recall, I’m not the one who called half of the voting population ‘Terrorists’. So I say:

“People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.”

‘Nuff said.

Have a great day, folks.

Be Thankful For Seventeen-Seventy-six (1776)

 This is for Wednesday, November 22, 2023. But actually, it’s Thursday, Thanksgiving, and I’m down in the man cave.

 The really did start yesterday, though. On the movie rotation came “1776”, which is a musical rendering of the events culminating in the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and was produced a few years ahead of the Bicentennial of 1976. Last summer we celebrated the 247^th anniversary.

I admit to having discombobulated thoughts - I've been dealing with Social Security and Medicare and that's enough to drive a saner man than I straight out of his skull. Come six a.m. this morning, or ten minutes 'til, I finally gave  up and gave in to the need for sleep and went back to bed. Then I woke, and we did stuff, and now I'm finishing my thoughts of the day and the season.

Some people who think they can perfect Socialism want to convert a republic into a commune of three-hundred-thirty-odd million people, and all will work for the common good with only such reward as their new government may see fit to provide.

 Hogwash!

 So, find the movie (1776), it’s on Tubi, and also on YouTube movies. Watch it. Some of you of a certain age will see a familiar face or two.

Yeah, it’s long, not quite three hours, full of silly songs (and I like songs). But ignore all that seems silly, and hear the STORY!

It takes liberties with history, as all dramatizations do, but it sticks as close to the truth as it can without making it too dry.

 Make a bowl of popcorn, take a seventh inning stretch and make another bowl of popcorn, refill the Sprite and Fanta, and settle back to watch some history.

Pay special attention to the song sung by South Carolina’s representative regarding slavery (2:05:00), and see how close we came to failing to win a consensus to make the grand attempt. For if the Carolinas had not joined, the consensus would have been lost, and with no consensus, then our bold statement would not have been made, and without that bold statement of us taking our rightful place among the nations, …

 We wouldn’t have.

 What would we have had instead?

 A collection of colonies, subjects to the British crown.

Not free citizens.

And these people tempting us with ‘free stuff’ think they can buy their way into power and control using money stolen from the rich. Margaret Thatcher was correct: the only problem with Socialism is, eventually you run out of other people’s money.

 Good Heavens, people! Think of all that has been done to wrest this nation from careless hands to be held in our own careful hands. With freedom under the rule of law, with checks and balances arranged under the Constitution, with ..

 Did I say ‘our careful hands’?

 I daresay we have become as careless our parent nation ever was.

We spend money we do not have to gift to people who care little for us apart from what they can take from us. We have a segment of our populace who think that work is a four-letter word, who would rather be given bread and circuses than opportunity, and our rulers, eager for voters in their pockets, provide the same. We have a minority segment who would rather do away with free speech lest someone is offended by an improper pronoun.

 So-called ‘Hate’ speech is merely speech you do not like, and to certain people the paragraph above simply reeks of it.

Yet, I have not written a single hateful thing; I have merely stated obvious facts.

 We are a nation of laws, not of prior restraints. Or we were, once. 

We should be free to say what we mean, and mean what we say. If we say the wrong thing, let the right thing be said and have it argued out in the arena of ideas. We should be free to do all that we are able, to use what we can to bless our nation, and our culture, showing our willingness to be ‘E Pluribus Unum’, Of Many, One Unity.

That, our motto, is marked on our coinage and currency, lest we forget it. We are many people, of many ancestries, forming one unified whole. Despite our problems this whole, this body, this nation can be the best nation on earth again.

 Or we can settle, stare at our screens, eat another slice of microwave pizza.

Do we really want to settle?

 On this Thanksgiving we should respect and honor those who planted the seeds of a new nation, thank the peoples of this land who welcomed and supported us, as well as the spirit of the Divine that watched over our young sprout and sapling of a … well, what can we call it but a new community struggling to stand, making use of the resources provided by Providence itself, to form itself a new nation to stand among so many other powers of the globe.

 And this is what some of us in our nation wish to swap for ‘free stuff’?

 Remember those fifty-odd signers of our Declaration, men, no more, no less, who pledged, and I quote: “Our Lives, Our Fortunes, and Our Sacred Honor.” Remember them, and thank them, on this Thanksgiving Day November 23^rd, 2023.

Remember their gift two-hundred and forty-seven years ago of a nation of freedom and opportunity, where you can start from nothing and end up among the stars.

 With the help of Divine Providence (damn, I cannot help tearing up when that bell is rung),

 Yes, You CAN!