I Don’t Know Any

Daily writing prompt
Name the professional athletes you respect the most and why.

It’s true. I have met a few. When I was 12, I met a few Dodgers. Frankly, I don’t remember any of the names. It is one of those times I wish I had pen and paper. I am sure they were all famous. I just didn’t know any better.

I also spent some time with some double A players. I’m sure they were on their best behavior at the time but they all seemed nice. I mean they put up with the four in my family and seemed pleased to do it.

However, over the years I have been disappointed one time after the next. I’m sure, they, most of them are one person in public and another in private.

Then from time to time the private life becomes public. I can name them by the dozens. Most others can too. I guess if I had to make a decision I’d have to vote for Sandy Kofax, Dodgers pitcher. I’m hardly in a position to say much about him one way or the other.

I did remember him in interviews. Moreover, I don’t remember much of his private life going public. Then too, I don’t recall anyone saying anything but good about him. From what little i know of him, he seemed a man I’d have liked to know, if even for a short time.

Better Schools

As I sit here watching Fox News Sunday, I noticed that they were going to spend the hour on improving schools.

1st , let me say it’s the wrong question. We need better teaching. In the past they did better teaching in 1 room schools. In the past, for sure we have done a great job of improving the buildings but we have done horrible at imparting knowledge and skills. In tmes past, 3rd graders learned to read the Bible; more difficult than what 3rd graders read read today. Why shouldn’t our kids know how to read at least as well as times past? It is certainly the most important thing any 3rd grader should learn, not sex ed.

I have 2 suggestions to improve teaching. Keep the federal government out of schools. More importantly, keep dems away from determining what is taught. It is, afterall, the dems and the NEA that has decided 1st graders should be taught about sex, instead of the alphabet.

As usual, the dems sure like pointing fingers at other people, other things, and, of course, viruses. They actually have the nerve to blame the China virus. Let’s get real. The ares that are having the worst results are dem controled.

Moreover, it wasn’t the virus so much that caused the problems but rather revealed them. It was only when the kids stayed home that they realized what their children were being taught.

Again, may I remind one and all, the conditions in the pasr have been far worse. Moreover, never before have our teachers been more educated. Never before have the students learned so little.

By the way, never before was sex ed so so prevalent, especially in lower grades.

Incidentally, one woman on the show said Bush started Department of Education. Wrong. Google it for yorself. I won’t say. However, I will ask was the woman ignorant or lying.

Speaking of Exercise

A thougt came to mind this afternoon when I heard a character in show suggest, ” Come on. Let’s go bowling.” It broght back memories. Another guy and I would get off work about 1 in the morning and go bowling.

It was inexpensive at that time so we would bowl six games and then get a hamburger and fries. We kept score but it didn’t mean a thing…other than trying to improve our skills.

However, the reason I took note of the line in the show was that, well, does any try to get a bowling lane around 8 or so in the evening. Most bowling alleys try to fill the lanes with leagues so they can make more money. Hence, our friends in the show, if real, might not get much bowling done.

There are 2 ways you can bowl. In a league or in the early morning. Even to this day, it irritates me.

Well, that might not be so true these days. That China virus has thrown a monkey wrench in a lot of businesses. Still, I imagine they are still pushing the leagues as much as they can, essentially with the big financial hit everyone has taken.

I guess the one place it bothered me most was while stationed in Japan, they had a nice big bowling facility ran by the PX. Even they insisted on leagues. Maybe it was rhe wrong way of looking at things but it seemed twisted. Who were the lanes put there for? Who actually benefitted from them? I don’t think they were the same.

At any rate, it all left me with a bad taste. I used to like to bowl. Not so much anymore. I would guess it’s mutual. If because of leagues fhey were turn my foursome away, I don’t think it would bother the man behind the counter or the managent at all.

Being as they don’t like me, we all will go elsewhere.

Exercise/Work

Daily writing prompt
How do you relax?

Having problems relaxing or sleeping. It’s the best way. I don’t get near as much exercise anymore, but it still works. Go out in the yard and work an hour or so and when I come back in I have no difficulty in sitting in my recliner and napping a while. Usually, I don’t even remember going to sleep.

It upsets my wife. She says she never saw anyone who could fall asleep so fast. However, the good part is that when I wake, I am fully rested and I feel much better than before the work.

The truth is that I rarely have any problem relaxing. I suspect that people who do try to do their relaxing in a hurry don’t really relax much. They look at the clock and say to themselves, “I have 40 minutes to relax now.” I can’t do that. Relaxing in a hurry has never worked for me.

Of course, it also helps to have a clear conscience. Invariably, I do have problems when I keep thinking about the bad I did or said. On the other hand, I have heard of some folks that have no problem with it.

Capitalism vs Communism

Real capitalism really works. It has a history of centuries of success.

Communism really fails. No matter what name you want to call it, it stifles production encourages lazyness and mostly discourages the inventive nature of mankind.

What was it Edison said about genius is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration. Well, do you really think Edison would have invented all he did under a truly communist government. It’s why Russia and China are very good at copying. Not so good at inventing.

And so it is that communist nations reward certain of their citizenry. Then, it is no loger communism but socialism, which, by the way does not not work much better. Fulton would have never teken the risks he did to build the steamboat as he did if he knew it would have been taken over by the government.

I might also mention, the US tought Russia modern oil technology. We already had it. They taught us not one thing about it. No one in the USSR had a reason to build the better widget, or the better mouse trap.

The more that the socialists reward those entrepreneurs willing to invest their perspiration, the closer it gets to capitalism, and the more likely it will succeed.

Better to just start with capitalism. It avoids all the dumb ideas. It avoids all the pain, suffering and death trying to put the round peg in the square hole; or is it the square peg in the round hole?

Regardless, be it known, when rhe communists take over, people and freedom always die. It is historic. It has happened 100% of the time.

In the Air We Breathe

News flash- University of Washington have found traces of drugs in the Washington & Oregon transit systems air and surfaces. If there, then where else?

I guess this means that if the degeration continues, we might need to go back to wearing masks again whenever we go out in public. Even more we also need to wear gloves and carefully discard both after they are removed. It will likely be good to change clothing. Thar stuff can be absorbed through skin.

Keeping that Mexican border open is and was a bad idea. Now, even more important, we need to send good strong signals to China and the cartels. If we don’t, we might need to wear space suits every time we leave our homes.

The worst part is that the party in power does not care one iota. Ask them about the drug problem and all you’ll hear is crickets, that is, unless the insects start getting high too.

New Yorkers Love Illegal Aliens!

Oh, yes. It’s so very true. The folks of NY, NY love to have people coming up from our southern border…as long as they don’t come up to NY, NY.

They have quickly figured it out. Illegal aliens take jobs, overload the schools, tax the welfare system, increase crime (which decreases safety) and pushes the hospitals beyond their limits.

By the way, those were all the same problems that faced Texas and the dems just put their fingers in their ears. Wait a minute. Today is the age of high tech. They were using noise canceling head phones. Far more effective.

Too Many Things

Daily writing prompt
If you had to give up one word that you use regularly, what would it be?

I hadn’t noticed how much I have overused the word until I was proofreading one of my books. Not only had I used the word twice in one paragraph, but I noticed that there were many other words I use that end in ing. I don’t know if there is anyone who did any research on it, but, sometimes it seems impossible to get through one paragraph without using a word ending in the suffix.

I don’t guess there is anything wrong with it, but it just never occurred to me before, as in the word “anything,” which I used earlier. Sometimes I spend hours rewriting to keep from using too many word ing words, especially thing. None-the-less, it seems the harder I try, then the more difficulty I have.

The fact is ing does seem to be one of the more common suffixes. (something, everything, morphing, trading… well you get the point) Moreover, thing is a handy word to use when we can’t think of the right thing to say. Moreover, it isn’t very exact. Whenever possible, we really ought to use a more precise word.

Besides, as author if I am bothered by the word, I am sure anyone reading my work will be bothered too.

And so it is, If anyone can think of something to replace thing with, I am open to suggestions.

In the previous sentence, I should have wrote “another word” instead of “something”. It would have decreased the ing count.

The Unthinkable

No one dare bring up the question. It is unthinkable. However, here I am bringing it up. Most, almost all consider it improper to to bring the subject up and yet here I go. I just might catch a bunch of flack for it but one must admit, it is possible though not likely. I mean, timing can be everything, right.

What if Old Joe again carries the pennant into battle and it becomes Old Joe vs Trump again. Then, let’s say, two weeks before the election, Old Joe has a massive stroke. Maybe he dies from it. Or, maybe he is just incapacitated.

Old Joe’s name is on the ballot, well not quite. It doesn’t really work that way. We here in the state select electors and the electors vote vote for the president. However, in a situation like this, who are the electors going to vote for. If selected by the state, surely the Democrat electors would vote democrat, but for whom? Some might vote for one, others for others. Still others might chose someone else. Nothing but nothing that I know of specifies who the electors will vote for.

You talk about panic. Worse yet, some of the votes of individuals might already be cast for Old Joe during early voting. Just how would that be handled.

On the other hand, maybe it’s not a massive stroke. Maybe it is just a little one and Old Joe won’t release his electors.

Sorry for bringing it up. I don’t know if such an emergency was ever thought of, simply because it would be improper to think of such things. I mean it is possible, though not probable that Old Joe could die the day before election day. The what do the dems do. It is conceivable they could win the vote and lose the election. All it would take would be five or six electors to change things. Some of these elections these days are pretty close.

I wish I could come up with a suggestion to cover such a thing. I don’t think anyone is listening to me anyway. However, if they came and asked me, I would have no idea as to what to tell them.

Regardless, just maybe someone ought to give it a little thought.