It is now official. I just got home from the doctor and he said I am good for 3 months, maybe a little longer.

All right. I’m trying to be funny again and not being very good at it. However, it does have a point. When I was in my pre-teen years, I had the mistaken attitude that I would live to a thousand, or at least 900. During my teen years, I started getting realistic. Now my 77th birthday is right around the corner. I really have a hard time getting over it. It seems just yesterday I was getting off the bus at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot at San Diego. They shaved my head as much as the could with regular clippers.

First time I had a chance to look in a mirror, I wished I hadn’t. Thing is, the sun never hit the top of my head and my scalp looked ghost white. Matter of fact, a person can tell how long a recruit has been there by how white their head is, if nothing else. It’s a real shock to a person’s psyche.

At fifty, I had my first heart attack. That is another thing that will change a person’s outlook on life. Things are different now. instead of expecting to live to 100, I am suspicious I won’t make it through the week. I never expected to make it to 70; yet here I am. No one is more surprised than me.

The fact is, none of us is promised another day. It does make me wonder. I know where I am going. I just don’t know what I leave behind when I take my last breath. I am for sure concerned about my wife. It’s my job to spoil her and I wouldn’t be able to do that anymore.

I won’t leave in debt. At least I can say that much. What I owe is less than what I have.

I would like to say I will get everything straitened our before the Lord takes me. However, if I live 4 times the three months I joked about above, it won’t be enough time. So here I am, so stupid that I haven’t straitened things out although I have had more than enough time.

As before, I have said many times, I am a procrastinator. Do you suppose I will be able to keep procrastinating my time of death? I suppose we all do that to some degree. We go to the gym and drink the healthy smoothies. Maybe that will prolong our lives, maybe not. We just have no way of knowing.

Many of us meet death by surprise. Some have accidents. Some meet death by violence. Oddly, some actually die trying to be careful. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of our youth were lost to the so-called vaccine.

The thing is, if a person knew they were going to die tomorrow a person might be quick to seek salvation. It is the logical thing to do. On the other hand, there are those who would party hardy. In some cases in spite of knowing their fate. In some cases, not believing their fate.

Regardless, like it or not, we will all have to face it. As they say, nothing is for sure but death and taxes. The truth, some folks can avoid the taxes by living off the land. Not one of us is going to avoid death. Best to face it and prepare for it. That procrastination thing is only going to work so long.

Old Joe, Kamala and friends seem to be quaking in their shoes. They seem afraid of Trump getting into office. Would they be in so much fear if any other republican were to win.

At first, I thought it was simply that they were afraid that their efforts to rule the world would be slowed. However, lately, I think it is more than that. The communists are patient. They know how to wait four years. They have even made gains while weak republicans were in office.

Trump however, somehow is different. Maybe it would be worth our trying to figure the difference.

There is one big reason. Trump is not really a part of the system. All the other republicans are part of the system. Since Reagan, all the others were part of the club. They had friends in DC and many of those in DC were friends with them. I’m not suggesting that Trump is not friendly. It just is that Trump is not subject to their bribes. Being a multi-billionaire, he has no need of the money of those who would like to control the government via the dollar. Indeed, while others get rich in politics Trump lost money while in office.

So, when Trump made up his mind as to what is right, he made up his mind on what was right and did it. The dems don’t like that. Actually, a lot of republicans don’t like that. Those who would like to use their millions to control the government, don’t like that. Certainly, the communists don’t like it. And… sometimes, if you look really close, you can tell a good man by those who hate and fear him.

You see, there are some things the republicans and democrats agree on, which the general public do not. Most of the leadership of the dems like an open border. Most of the leadership of republicans like open borders. Trump closed the borders. He had no friends on dem leadership. He had maybe fewer friends in the republican leadership. Those in the country club society love a good supply of cheap labor.

I use the border problem as an example, but there are many other things as well. Let’s face it, after many Republican presidents, the US Embassy was not moved to Jerusalem. Trump did it amid complaints from the left and the right. Indeed, there was almost as much anger from the republican leadership than from the dems. Many people gave many reasons. The truth be known, they didn’t want it to happen.

It is far more than that. There were those of the dems with their hands held out for bribes but the republicans were just as guilty. It just is, mostly they sought their lucre and ill-gotten gains from different sources. The one group went in the one direction the other from the other direction. It seemed they both had much the same result.

Then, suddenly, those who used their money as power to get that which the wanted from Uncle Sam were stuck. Those from both sides had no one to bribe. And those who wanted the so-called comprehensive border bill… they had no one to go to… other than their senators. Most of them found out in a hurry, that’s no fun.

I decided to try out DuckDuckGo. The tracking didn’t bother me. Those that tracked me would find out very little about me. First, when I can, I write. When I write, I do research, mostly on the internet. One of my books starts out in France so I did some research on France, especially Paris. Oddly, for a few weeks after, I started getting ads about France and Europe. If they were looking for info on me, they struck out. More, all they had to do was ask me. All they needed to do was read my blog. My life is pretty much open.

One thing about it, it did alert me to the fact that people were watching over my shoulder. Many times, it brought some laughter to me. Sometimes, I had to just shake my head.

Now that I am using DuckDuckGo, I still get ads, strange ads. I get ads like a four thousand pound skip loader. I get ads for hydraulic equipment. Stuff I don’t use or ever looked for.

Actually, I find some of them very interesting and even educational. Did you know they build huge commercial generators that run on Gas, Diesel or natural gas. If I had one delivered, I might be able to replace the local power company for three or four blocks. Why can’t they deliver these things to disaster areas. They have them on wheels. The can lift them in with hopter-choppers

Actually, I’d like to have a generator, but more in the 2 to 4 KW range. We do have power outages now and then, but I have a hard time letting go of the money when it is so infrequent, until we have an outage. It would be nice to have one for my Nissan EV too.

When I saw the ad for the skip loader, I spent a few minutes thinking of ways I might be able to use such a thing to make money. Obviously, some people do use them to make money. So picture me rubbing my scruffy little beard trying to think of someone that might need some dirt moved. Actually, I could use the thing for myself, but I don’t think I even have the money for it. If I had the money, I don’t think I’d want to let go of it.

You put the term tractor on the side of a machine and instantly the price goes up 25% or more. Commercial quality you know.

What I’d really like to borrow is one of those big machines that goes in, clamps onto a tree and severs just below where it is being held. Then the machine drives off with the tree in it’s grips. I have about 10 pine trees that ruin my lawn, drop needles on my roof and cause damage to my foundation. I don’t know anyone who has one. Even more, I’m not sure it would be able to get into my backyard. ( I suppose I could take down the fence temporarily.)

Maybe I need to use my regular browser and look for one of those machines. Perhaps I can get a deal for ten trees. The neat thing, all I would need to do is browse and they would come looking for me.

Meantime, I need to find a team to take down that pin oak tearing into my my foundation, before I have to look for someone who will fix my foundation.

Back in the day, there was a very popular song, which most of us enjoyed hearing. I guess maybe I heard it too much. It was sung by Kenny Rogers and was the story of the reluctant hero who, through most of the song was, was known as the coward of the county.

I was reminded of the song today, Only I would change three things. First the character in the song was not a coward but was simply honoring a promise. The character I’m thinking of is afraid to leave the basement and hold a news conference, probably at the behest her handlers, aka puppeteers. Second, she is a woman, representing a party that knows not how to define a woman. Third the hero in the song is called the coward of the county. The woman I am referring to is the coward of the country, a one letter difference, you see.

I learned the phrase when my oldest son was in Little League. It is when the home team provides the biased umpire. To be sure, to really admit it, there were not as many cases of home cooking as I thought.

For sure, we did get some bad calls. On the other hand I am sure most of the umps were trying to be objective. Were there biased umps? Sure. On the other hand, there were umps that maybe called it the other way, to make sure they weren’t being biased.

It’s hard to find an umpire that isn’t biased. I guess even in the majors there might be one or two calls that go the wrong way. On the other hand, their calls are watched carefully and if a bias, either way shows up, someone has a few words with the one making the calls. Moreover, there is a professional pride involved.

I was never a professional umpire, but I was an unbiased one. I went to Syracuse for ten weeks for a school. In the afternoon, I often went for walks through a nearby park. I started watching Little League games on the way. Next thing I knew I was called in as the unbiased umpire. You see, being from Desoto County, I had no bias, at least theoretically, in the games.

I must not have done too badly. They kept asking me back. Either way, no one ever accused me of home cooking.

It is a problem in our society. Getting unbiased people to call strikes and balls. All too often those who sit on the bench in judgement are biased. Even those who try to be unbiased are. Worse yet, many are biased and are open about it.

What it means is that we have a serious problem in our society. When the judge and jury is biased and calls a person guilty when no law was even broken, it puts the general population in fear of false judgement. It might even encourage people to break the law. It encourages people to look the other way as the government officials openly break the law.

However, it’s not just the court system. Recently, the director of the FBI admitted a very biased activity in saying he knew the laptop belonged to Old Joe’s son. But why did he cover it up. There can only be one reason, to let Old Joe win the election. This is home cooking at its worst. This is the highest office in the FBI interfering with the election and openly admitting to it, without any fear. And then, of course, they all insisted there was no fraud. Worse, if someone suggested fraud, they immediately hushed them up. They made threats. They immediately made fun of them. They tried to put their businesses out of business.

Then too, there was more home cooking, by the press. You can ignore it. You can try to deny it but it was not only obvious, but in some cases, they even admitted it. This, when they say that the job of the media is to call balls and strikes. Yet they call nothing but strikes when the republicans are up and they call nothing balls when the dems are at bat.

Are we destined to become a third rate society because we have an obvious Pravda making all the calls?

Wouldn’t it be nice to have someone honestly and unbiased calling the balls and strikes at least half as well as the professional major league baseball umps. Sorry. Not going to happen in our lifetime. And the consequences will likely be far worse than any of us can imagine.

Actually, at this time, I would settle for what we called home cooking when my son was playing baseball. Better than what we have in the no-justice system. Better than what we have in the court system. Far better than what we have in the new media. Even more, it was less obvious back then.

I didn’t look it up so I am relying on my poor memory. Seems to me it was said by Frank Lloyd Wright. His point was that the design should be that the function should be most important and the appearance would take care of itself. Seems a good idea to me.

So, a few days ago, I saw a guy getting in his big, huge pickup, which by the way looked very nice. I noticed the emblem on the side of the truck, something to the effect of certified for offroad. I complemented him on his truck and I duly noted the the offroad certification. He smile and said, “Yup.” I asked him if it was ever offroad. He said, “Nope. No, no.” Somehow I don’t think it will ever be either.