Opinions are just like a--holes; everyone has one.

 and most of them stink!  I just turned off the news.  I have turned everything off and it will stay that way the rest of the day.  Today is election day.  Normally I am all a twitter and anxious to see who will rule over me for the next four years, but this year is different.  For most of my life I was a registered Independent and mostly voted Republican.  That all changed way back when Amendment 2 was up for adoption in the state of Colorado.

Normally when I see the words "Shall there be an amendment to the constitution...." it incites something in me to say yes.  Not so with this one.  A yes vote basically removed any protections that my gay friends were allowed to enjoy.  It cleared the way for open discrimination against them for job security, rental of a place to live, marriage and any protection in anything and everything that you and I take for granted.  In order for my fiends to have any basic protection for anything, I had to vote "no."  Sadly there were a lot of people who voted yes and some of them knew what they were voting at the time.  To make a long story short, it passed with a very strong yes vote.  To make it even shorter, we went to the supreme court and it was declared unconstitutional and we all lived happily ever after. (Well, not really, but at least that part was removed.)

But so began my journey into the arena of politics and the need to have my vote mean something.  Today when some one brings up politics, my first question is "Are you registered and do you vote?" If the answer is "No, because my one vote will not make a difference", then we have the talk about one drop of rain in a bucket is nothing, but 6 million drops will flood your ass!"  You register your car.  You register (hopefully ) your gun.  You need to register your wants and desires with the state and federal government.

Voting, to me, is a sacred right.  With my vote I sent the first man of color to be my president.  With my vote, I overturned gay discrimination.  And with my vote I can raise or lower my taxes.   I can require that you have insurance on your car and that your dog has a license.  I can change the county, state, and federal laws.  I can put the man in the White House to rule over my country.  But if I don't vote, I am screwed!

If I don't vote I have no right to bitch about how the rest of the country voted.  So I do.  It may not be much and it may not be the man (or woman) that I wanted, but it is the one the majority of the people chose and I can live with that.  Or at least I think I can.  We will see.

I may not agree with the choices you make, but I will defend to the death your right to make them.

Peace to all.

I am loving this pandemic!

 It suddenly dawned on me that this pandemic could not have come at a better time!  My whole life has been spent socializing in one way or another, but now I am forced to stay home alone and I gotta' tell you, I am loving this shit and I am going to tell you why.  It is an election year and our country is in the shitter and we are going to vote.  

It used to be the election was just a contest and the man who promised us the most usually walked away with the prize, but this year is different.  I have set here for the last 3 years and 9 months and watched a "business man" run this country like he runs his businesses.  Sadly, most of his businesses are teetering on bankruptcy, he is facing rape charges, nepotism is rampant in the white house, and if that were not enough, his wife had the Rose Garden ripped out and replaced with sod so said president could hold a rally on the front lawn of the white house.  Every country in the world has turned its back on us with the exception of Russia.  Putin is loving us.  We are a laughing stock in the eyes of the world and this does not seem to bother the upper echelon!

The confederate flag seems to be a symbol of pride.  Nancy Pelosi is a joke.  Ruth Bader Ginsberg tried to out live him and failed.  Old people are the butt of jokes and women are being sterilized on the southern border.  The government operates as an independent arm of something that we keep pouring money into with no hope of ever getting anything back.  The saddest part of all is that "my friends" can not see what is happening.  The Russian Government handed Donald Trump the last election and if you think it can not happen again, you are sadly mistaken.  

My friend, Nancy, who has since gone to her reward had a picture of Union Avenue taken at a rally 13 years ago for Barack  Obama.    There were people every where.  It was a picture of unity and happy faces.  There was hope in peoples eyes.  It was followed by 8 years of hope, unity, fellowship and a feeling of living in the greatest country on earth.  Check out our last 4 years.  If you can look at that period and tell me you are better off now, then I am the fool!

I do not visit my Republican friends any more.  I have dealings with them, but not on a social basis.  If circumstances arise where I have to deal with them, it is just in and out and do not throw that orange haired bully in my face and try to convince me that he gives a big rats ass about any of us. Sad that it has to be that way, but it is.  I find any number of reasons to avoid human contact with all but a chosen few.  

Today is Sunday.  Our church is closed.  I have not attended church since last March.  Supposedly we will meet the first Sunday in October.  We will see.  In the interim, I will just set here and wonder what day it is since I have no benchmark.  And I will watch the news and I will curse trump and all his cult following for what has become the most violent time in my memory.  I lived through school integration, demonstrations during Vietnam conflict, but this time there is no hiding from it.  Our government is out of control and headed for a collapse like none we have ever seen.  And you want to know the saddest part?

When this is all over and the smoke has cleared away, this will be the darkest time in American history.  This "regime" will go down as the one that bankrupted America, caused the most derision, and it was all orchestrated by a morally bankrupt business man supported by religious organizations marching in the name of God and financed by the NRA under the banner of the confederate flag.

And with that, I bid you adieu and like I  used to say when I was interviewing a job applicant, "Don't call me, I'll call you!"

My mother was a Republican.

 Mother was born a Republican.  I am sure she died a Republican and I am willing to bet that every vote she cast in her life was for a Republican whether it be for county clerk of Reno County or President of the United States of America.  She followed in the footsteps of every Haas that went before her.  Sadly, I am not sure she could have lived with our current government.  I could be wrong.  In hindsight she may not have been the kind caring woman that raised me.  Even as I type these words, I am ridden with guilt, so I feel I need to expound on my feelings.  Let me go back in time here.

I moved to Colorado in the early part of 1970's.  I used to make 3 or four trips back home every year to keep in touch.  Thanksgiving was usually spent with mom.  Usually the kids were dropped off in Lakin, Kansas with their dad.  Now when I travel alone, I like to listen to the radio.  Back then I did not have a tape player, which later morphed into a CD player.  It was radio only.  It was on one of these trips that I lost the music station and was introduced to Rush Limbaugh.  I know there are people out there who listen to him or he would not be on constantly.  Being a liberal, I found him both repulsive and ludicrous, so it was with a feeling of disbelief that I walked into my mothers house to find her glued to the radio listening to Rush Limbaugh!  With trepidation I asked her what she was thinking even listening to such drivel.  

It was at this point in my life that my mother explained to me that the damn liberals needed to be stopped and that Rush Limbaugh was the voice of all her beliefs.  Until that moment, I had not given a lot of thought to the two party system that compromised our government.  I just knew I liked Ike.  I liked Truman.  I liked the man who had come on the radio when I was very young to announce that the war was over.  I did not understand that we operated under a two party system and that my beliefs were in direct conflict with my mother. 

As time passed I supported Jane Fonda and rallied to end the Vietnam war, although it was never called a war!  I did subscribe to Rush Limbaugh newsletter and had it delivered to my mother because that was what she wanted.  Integration was not discussed because our opinions differed so radically.  Abortion.  Welfare.  Watergate.  There was no discussion of anything political with mother.  She had Rush Limbaugh in her corner and that was that.  I am sure that the day she died, she read her Rush Limbaugh newsletter and I do know that when they sent me the renewal notice, I did not pay it.  My Republican mother was no longer a slave to Rush Limbaugh and his drivel.  For that I was grateful.

Now here I set all these many years later, still thinking about political parties.  I have assuaged my conscience with the idea that the Republican party that my mother, my grandmother and great grandmother adhered to so closely is not the same Republican party that exists today.  I can not look at the man who holds sway in the greatest house of all time and hurls edicts to crush the down trodden even further is really in charge.  I can not believe that my friends who identify with that party will actually vote to keep him in charge.  I can not think that my mother would have put an x in front of his name had she known the devastation he would cause.  

Ruth Bader Ginsberg stood between him and totally bringing the downfall of all our work.  I can only pray that a miracle will transpire and someone with half a brain will stand in the breach between us and total antihalation.  

I am an optimist.  I love my fellow man regardless of the color of skin, religious affiliation, political party preference, status of their bank account, or any of that other drivel.  I am just like Will Rogers who once said, "I never met a man I didn't like."  (I think Mae West often quoted him on that one!)  I will always look for the silver lining and hope springs eternal in my bosom, but today was about mother and she raised me.  They say the fruit does not fall too far from the tree, and I believe that to be true!  I hate to think that at this late day in my life I will trade in my Liberal Democratic walking shoes, so I have to alter my thoughts of my mother.

I am sure she would have remained a Republican after her last breathe of life, but I am thinking she may have mellowed a little and realized that there is a fox in the chicken house.

Rest in Peace my mother!  There is a glimmer of hope on my horizon.

Cory Gardner? I think not.

 Looking back over my voting history it has come to my attention that I may very well be a Republican!  While I am a registered Democrat, I say this because I have voted for a lot of Republicans.  Ronald Reagan, the two Bushes.  I was too young to vote for Eisehhower.  On the state level, I voted for Cory Gardner.  Actually met him several years back and conversed with him briefly about the railroad from La Junta to here and up the front range.  This man turned out to be one of my biggest disappointments to date.  Why?  Let me tell you.

I have had several occasions to want to voice my opinion on something that is coming up for a vote.  "Call Gardner's office and make your wishes known."  That is simple enough.  He has a recording you can leave your message on, but that gives me little room for talking points.  Have you tried to contact him?  That is what is known as an exercise in futility.  I can leave my phone number all day long and there is not one shred of hope that there will ever be a human voice contact me.

Several years ago we began carrying a cardboard cut out of Cary and we called it "Cardboard Cary" because we did not see him.  It was a full size image of him and it looked just like him standing and waving.  He appears in several pictures in my scrapbook with his "Clint Eastwood smile and Robert Redford eyes."  He was always a "no show" at any rally we had because he was never around.  He likes to take vacations and I am thinking he should be given more time to do just that.

So election time is coming up and we will be voting by mail as we have done for many years.  I am not involved like I used to be, but I do vote.  I am happy with the mail in ballots and secure when I drop mine down the slot into the steel box behind the building at 8th and Main.  Bo Ortiz will gather up my ballot and count it.  I trust the mail in ballots more than the one where we used to vote at a ballot box.  While I do miss the actual voting place and the people who ran it, that is just a personal preference.  Mail in is more secure and I have time to actually study my ballot.  

So, I have not paid much attention to the candidates, but I have made up my mind that I am voting for who ever is running against Gardner.  Well actually, I would vote for Godzilla.  This year it is a straight shot down the Democratic side.  Trump and his Mitch McConnell puppets have soured me on the Republican Party.  I am very sad at the state our our country is in today and the ballot box is the only way to change that!

So rest assured, I am voting a straight Democratic ticket this year. I do not feel good about this, but I have seen what having the Republicans in complete control has done to my United States of America.  And contrary to popular opinion, it is still my country.  "My country tis of thee, sweet land of liberty."

Never forget that! 

Never let your right hand know....

"Never let your right hand know what your left hand is doing", was something my mother always said when she was imparting her wisdom to my tender ears.  She was referring to acts of kindness or charity.  We should never brag of our work.  Or at least that is what I took it to mean.

But it also applies to our world outside of the church and I never really understood what that meant until I started paying attention to our politicians and public leaders.  What brought this to my attention was a headline I just saw over on my news feed.  "Unnamed prominent person fights to keep Epstein records sealed."  Now I know what she meant!

I am pretty sure I can guess who it is, but then again, maybe not.  Oh, wait!  Do I care?  Not really.  Our politicians today are all so screwed up that it is just a matter of whose sins are bigger and how many bodies are hidden.  And all of those things are covered up and if not covered, then buried in public view.  Does anyone remember Chappaquiddick?  Watergate?  Clarence Thomas and the infamous Coke can?  Did any of that change history?  Nope.  Not one iota.  More importantly, do the participants remember what they did?  Hell no!  It is old news.

Our nation is in crisis and we are bombarded with news of pedophiles, sexual assaults, disrespect and anything to keep our minds off of what is really going on in our nation.  Our government is spending money like it was free and the upper echelon does not even pay taxes.  But we do!  We set here like a bunch of ducks in a barrel waiting to be harvested by bigger guns than our military carries, because we have our second amendment rights!  Give me an effen break!

Now I am not here to give you a lesson in morality because most of you should be old enough to know right from wrong, but it seems a lot of our leaders in this tumultuous times are keeping a lot of secrets and on an almost daily basis we read of one of our reputable leaders falling from grace.  Oh, trust me, there are a few things I did back in my wicked past that could come back to haunt me, but this would mean somebody has a way better memory than I do because I have pretty much forgotten my dark days.  That, coupled with the fact that I have out lived most of my cronies, allows me to sleep soundly at night.

Washington is a hot bed of corruption and we turn our backs and walk away.  It used to be we could "vote the rascals out", but with Russia in charge of our ballot box,  we stand little chance on that front.  But you know what I think?  I really feel that some where in this hot bed of filth that is now our government, there are a few decent people who really care.

My mother was a Republican and she was a good person, so I am sure that not all of them are bad.  But we have to research our candidates from the township election clear up to the presidential ballot.  From the city, to the county, to the state, to the federal.  Every damned one of them.  Vote like your life depended on it, because with our environment in the shape it is in, it does!

Another one my daughter pulled out of her hat was  "What doesn't kill you, will make you strong."  That one pretty well puts it all in prospective for me.

I may not be the brightest bulb in the box, but...

I am not big on government and how all this works, but it has come to my attention the ours is not working at all.  I know we have checks and balances and I also know we pay a bunch of people in Washington, D. C. to pass laws and generally keep my world spinning on its axis.  Seems like there should be about 102 Senators and 435 Representatives ( I could be wrong on the actual numbers because my memory is not what it used to be back when I actually paid attention.) Along with all these people who are elected to represent us in our great capitol  are many helpers, secretary's, and various assistants of all kinds.  All these are there to make sure my life runs along on an even keel and I can go about my business of living and making money to pay taxes for these people to run my life.  Not happening, is it?

I pay my taxes and the powers that be use my money to pay these great men and women to keep me safe and happy.  Well, it sure as hell is not working out that way now, is it?  We have a nut in the white house, placed there through the help of Communist Russia and the people I depend on to make my life run smoothly are running around like a bunch of chickens with their heads cut off trying to make me think that they are doing their job!  How friggin' stupid do you think I am?

The Polar Ice Cap is melting because of a thing called Global Warming and the EPA is non existent.

 People seeking asylum because they are being raped and murdered by the drug cartels in their  countries are being locked up at our borders and their children shipped to "holding facilities" without even a wrist band to identify infant children so they can be returned to their parents.

 Blacks and other minorities are being harassed by rebel carrying rednecks who are still fighting the Civil War.

Pipelines are being shoved across land that was "given" to the Indigenous People who habituated the land by our magnanimous government years ago when we stole the only home they knew.  Bet they wish they could take back the welcome they gave us!

The streets are full of drug addicts that became addicted because big Pharma pushed opioids for every ache and pain through prescriptions  pushed by doctors who received payoffs for selling the product that they knew were addictive.

Teachers are not given the tools they need to teach our children and the cost of getting a higher education gets higher and more impossible to achieve.

People die in our streets for lack of healthcare.

I could go on and on, but suffice it to say, no one is listening in the hallowed halls.  The only time these people know we are here is election time.  And that, my friends is the key!  They are in Washington D.C. because we sent them there.  You can send an honest person to Congress, but you can not get them back.

Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan, and the whole damn bunch have been there and padded their pockets with money and favors from the NRA, Big Pharma,  Monsanto and the Koch Brothers,  just  to mention a few.  They are not interested in our welfare.  What they are interested in are laws that let them operate at our expense.  We are not even allowed the luxury of having our food labeled and the contents that end up in our bodies are irrelevant to the bank accounts of the powers that control our lives.

Do you think that the man that ordered the babies taken away from their only security on this earth bothered to ask why so may people were running from one country.  Hell no!  That man is a loose cannon and the very people we sent to protect us are in bed with the enemy.  The countries around the whole world laugh at us.  We are backward and we should be the leaders.  Other countries educate their children and furnish healthcare , but we set here like morons wondering how in the hell that joke of a man got into such a position of power.   Let me tell you, if we do not pull our head out of our ass and wake up the Congress we are going to be marching off to our own Auschwitz.  And it has to start with a whole new bunch in Washington who are not controlled by money.

Think your vote does not count?  Think again.  Not voting or casting your "protest vote" is what got us here today.  For God sake, educate yourselves!  Register.  Study your candidates and do not just go with what Facebook puts out there as fodder for the masses!  The race for even your precinct in your local city is important.  The mayor race is important.  The Governor, Senator, Representative, and on and on.  The school board.  Do not go like a lamb to the slaughter because the man you sent to the Senate all those years ago, is a familiar name.

I watch as groups march against the yoke being tightened around our throats and I watch the nightly news and see the leaders in Washington doing nothing.  NOTHING!!  Their job is to lead us.  Yeah, like lambs to the slaughter.  Use some of your precious minutes to call their offices and tell the answering machine (because very few of them even bother with a live person in their office) to stop the madness and return us to the civility that we deserve.  We work hard and pay a congress to protect our interests.  And do it today.  Not tomorrow or some future time when a man with a tattoo gun is putting your identification on your forearm as he leads you to a bus.

A country that does not learn from it's mistakes is doomed to repeat them.

PEACE THROUG POWER!

Wait a minute! I thought I was supposed to vote.

What happened to the primary?  I thought I was supposed to go to the poll over at South Mesa where I always go and cast my vote for my chosen person for the big election in November?  Apparently not.  It now appears if I want a say in who is the Democratic nominee for President I have to go to County High and attend a caucus.  When I register out there and they see I am really a registered Democrat then I will get a black X on my hand.  Then apparently both sides will tell me who I should vote for.  Now, sorry, but this insults my intelligence.  Does it appear that I have been living in a bubble all this time that Hillary and Bernie have been slugging it out with the debates an all?  I would have to be pretty brain dead not to have made a decision by now.

It was certainly a lot easier when I had all day long to run by the school and show them my identification, step in the booth, and vote.  Then I could see my friends and I always ran into some one I knew. When I was done I always got a little round circle that said "I voted" in the center.  Wonder if I will get one of them tonight?

And speaking of tonight, do you think I will actually make it out there?  I have to be there at 5:30 and I also have chores that need done at 5:30.  That means the geese will have to be locked up early.  They do not like that.  It also means my dogs will be alone and I will miss Jeopardy.  I do realize it is my civic duty to vote and like President Obama said "If everyone votes, it will not matter what the 1% want."  It was just so much easier when I had the whole day to take care of a 3 minute job.

This is what confuses me... I now receive a ballot in the mail.  No more going over to the school and doing that either.  I then have that mess to figure out and be sure I sign it and put proper postage on it, or load up and drive into town to one of the convenient drop off locations which I have yet to find one bit convenient and have had to park and go up to the second floor where I am once more questioned about whether I am a legal voter.  That in itself is amazing because had I put it in the mail they would not be able to confront me and make me feel like the criminal for exercising due diligence in voting.  Course when I mail it in I have to go to the postoffice and buy the stamps required.

So my question here is this, who decided to change the whole system?  Seemed like it was working pretty well before they fixed it.  And on what level of government was this decided?  Is the whole state this way?  Will we ever get back to being a civilized society, or is this the best I can hope for in my remaining time here on this little blue and green ball?  And how much longer is this little ball going to be spinning?  I love the advertisement where goat girl says "We have been fracking saftely for 65 years."  No we have not!  I remember an unexplained explosion near where I worked in Hutchinson  40 years ago.  I also remember the furniture store going skyward "for no apparent reason."  I remember sink holes opeing up in the streets.  That one may have had more to do with the salt mines that run under the city, but come on people!

Once more I have digressed, but old age does that to you or at least to me.  Makes me long for the good old days when a man's word was his bond.  When credit was extended at the grocery store on the corner because the owner knew who you were and knew you worked hard.  When mother stayed up late ironing clothes for the rich people in town and dad made a hot toddy because he did not want to get a cold.  And when President Roosevelt talked to us on the radio and all of us kids listened, because he was the President.  Then Harry Truman came and he said "damn!" and we were all amazed that he was elected when he used "dirty words."  And the words that I lived by then were words that I live by today.

And the world keeps turning and people keep killing each other, drugs are rampant, and the news is filled with what some movie star wore to some big deal in Hollywood.  And I really do not give a shit!

Did I watch the debate last night?

Well, yes I did!  I was a little late getting into the house so I missed part of it.  My first few moments were spent watching Mitt Romney and the moderator parrying about whether his time was up and should Barack Obama be allowed to make his point.  Sorry.  I very quickly decided that this was too much chaos for my little mind.  Two minutes is 2 minutes any way you look at it.  Aren't there rules?  Something like you get 2 mnutes and then he gets two minutes and then you each get one miunte for rebuttal.  That is what I want to see.  Yeah, order out of chaos would have been good.  After that is it down hill. 
And something else that bugs me is this Mr. Obama and Barack Obama.  It is President Obama and Candidate Romney.  President.  I was taught way back when I was barely big enough to pee hard on the ground, a little thing called "respect."  Whether it war President Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, Richard Nixon, or Clinton, they were always prefaced with "President."  I remember mom and dad listening to the radio which was a precursor to television.  They would stare intently at that little box and await words from our leader.  Vaguely I can remember the one announcement that announced the end of World War II.  "The war is over.  The allies have prevailed. The world is at peace."  It was my president speaking.  I had no idea what he looked like at the time, nor if those were his exact word, but he was the leader of this United States, and he was speaking to me.
We have come a long ways to end up on such familiar ground with Barack and Mitt.  The respect is gone.  They stood before me last night two men, debating or argueing, what ever, and I was saddened that the world has come to this.  Not only did I grow up with President Harry Truman and President Dwight Eisenhower, but the principal at Nickerson Elementary School was Mr. Houston.  My music teacher was Miss Barkiss.  The man next door was Mr. Rienke.  That was how it was.  Anyone who was our elder was called by something that showed respect.  Well, almost everyone.  The exceptions were Whittlin' Joe and Johnny Carson over on the highway and Hank Windiate, the old guy up the street.  Those guys were characters.  So does that mean that the President of our United States and the man opposing him in the election are now relegated to become "characters?"
Now follow my train of thought here for just a moment.  Could it be that this is one of the reasons our great country is in the shape it is in?  The man who is head of our country today was elected by the people of this fair land.  Doesn't he deserve any respect for that?  I was in court yesterday and we had to stand up when the judge came in.  She was referred to as the Honorable Judge of such and such.  Then we could set down.  The plaintiff called her "Your Honor."  Slap that fellow with contempt if he doesn't.  Just goes to show that we know the terms, we just don't use them.  I think we need to get back to some of the basics and I rather suspect we should teach our children this little thing called "respect".
So this is my rant for the day.  I shall get ready for the next debate between President Obama and Candidate Romney.  Maybe Washington has turned our leaders into objects of ridicule and that is sad.  I just wonder if we will ever be able to return to any semblance of what was long ago normal?

 

************************************************************************
This is the novel I have for sale.   Do not be confused by the title. Chapter One simply means this is my first book. There may never be another, or there may be many more. I am very proud of this endeavor and guarantee you will enjoy the book in it's enirety. Lou Mercer

From the back cover

Chapter One...Loose Ends
Lou Mercer

Meg Parker led a simple life.  She was a widow of three years and lived on a chicken farm at the foot of the mighty Rockie Mountains.  Life was good and her little store on eBay made her extra spending money.  But snow and wildlife were not the only things lurking in the forest above her house.  Nor did it stay in the forest for long.

Marshall Purcell came home a wounded veteran from vietnam.  He still had his dreams, but they were of an incestuous past that threatened to consume him.

When Meg and Marshall met it seemed an inconsequential meeting, but it changed both their lives forever.  And change is not always a good thing.

This is adult fiction at its best without all the sex.  Well, maybe just a little bit. 

About the author.  Lou Mercer was born in Nickerson, Kansas. She came to Pueblo, Colorado in 1977 and is now a product of the majestic Rockie Mountains