8.26.2020 – when coffee not work

when coffee not work
thank goodness for back up plan
those smoothies at dawn

Some mornings I don’t drink coffee so much as I pour into my stomach and wait for the caffine to kick in.

No thought for the taste, aroma or the smooth liquid brown warmth that starts my day.

Its the kick.

The kick in the head.

The kick in the head that starts me up and off past all other complaints and concerns and gets me in a place to start my day.

Some days it isn’t there in the cup.

Then what?

The back up plan.

I get up and go to work on the kitchen counter.

I work there as the coffee usually goes to work.

And on the days that I go to work and the coffee doesn’t?

Well …

On those days,

I have Ellington.

Ellington is my son who is also stuck at home and working his way through his senior year in high school.

He is starting is day.

His day starts with a fruit smoothie.

A concoction that requires about about 10 kinds of fruit, fresh or frozen, that he puts into his smoothie maker.

A smoothie maker might have been called a blender but for one slight diffference.

I am not awake.

Not fully awake anyway.

And the mornings I need a real kick to get going are not my best mornings.

Sickly.

Headachy.

Thick headed.

Slow.

Then Ellington turns on the smoothie maker.

It doesn’t turn on as much as it goes off.

It goes off like a bomb.

Like a bomb three feet from my ears.

Like a shrieking siren.

Like a shrieking siren three feet from my ears.

I have never stood next to an F-16 fighter jet when it takes off.

But I would be surprised if its louder and produces a higher pitched squeal than that smoothie maker,

It wakes me up.

It wakes up the people in the next apartment I am sure.

Maybe the whole building.

It gets me going for a lot of reasons.

In the short story, Something to Say, James Thurber writes of Elliot Vereker, “Vereker always liked to have an electric fan going while he talked and he would stick a folded newspaper into the fan so that the revolving blades scuttered against it, making,a noise like the rattle of machine gun fire. This exhilarated him and exhilarated me, too, but I suppose that it exhilarated him more than it did me.”

I know just the point Thurber was after when Ellington hits the on switch on that smoothie maker.

Except that I am sure if the sound exhilarated Ellington and exhilarated me, too, I suppose that it exhilarated ME more than it did him.

My backup plan.

It’s good to have a plan.

It gets me back up.

8.25.2020 – to write funny things

to write funny things
about the conventions
just write what happened

Will Rogers wrote, “I started going to conventions because editors were willing to pay me to write funny things about convention goings‐on. That’s funny. All a fellow has to do to write something funny about a convention is just write what happened.“

The Poet Lariat of America also said, “In the Five times I have appeared before President Wilson I have used dozens of these same jokes, about him.

And he has the best sense of humor and is the best audience I ever played too.

Which bears out the theory I work on, that you can always joke about a big Man that is really big.

But don’t ever kid about the little fellow that thinks he is something, cause he will get sore.

That’s why he’s little.

Well, folks, all I know is what I read in the papers.

8.24.2020 – Congress shall provide

Congress shall provide
for the general welfare
of the United States

Section 8 or Article 1 of the Constitution of the United States of America (Remember, that document that starts “We the People” or “Ee’d Plebnista” as Captain Kirk heard them), reads “The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States.“

The Congress.

AND NOT WILL, BUT SHALL.

Shall have the POWER …

To PROVIDE FOR THE

GENERAL WELFARE …

The online dictionary defines welfare as, “the health, happiness, and fortunes of a person or group.”

Sometime …

Well, ALL THE TIME, I wish our elected representatives in Congress would read the Constitution of the United States of America.

Not just the Bill of Rights, but the entire Constitution of the United States of America.

Provide for the general Welfare of the United States.

How about that!

Section 8 also calls upon Congress “To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts.”

Maybe we need someone to read and explain this to Congress.

It just calls to mind that old joke, if CON is the opposite of PRO, what is the opposite of PROGRESS?

8.23.2020 – band between rainbows

band between rainbows
known as Alexander’s band
who first described it

What is a double rainbow?
A double rainbow is a wonderful sight where you get two spectacular natural displays for the price of one.

Surprisingly, this phenomenon is actually relatively common, especially at times when the sun is low in the sky such as in the early morning or late afternoon. The second rainbow is fainter and more ‘pastel’ in tone than the primary rainbow because more light escapes from two reflections compared to one.

The secondary rainbow is also dispersed over a wider area of the sky. It is nearly twice as wide as the primary bow.

A key feature of double rainbows is that the colour sequence in the second rainbow is reversed, so instead of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet (ROYGBIV), the colours appear in VIBGYOR order.

The dark band between the two rainbows is known as Alexander’s band, after Alexander of Aphrodisias who first described it in 200AD.

Who knew they were common, cool, reversed and it took until 200AD to see one.

8.22.2020 – least interested

least interested
in politics segment that
actually decide

“The segment of the population which is least interested in politics actually decides the outcome of most elections.”

So wrote political consultant, Stephen Shadegg back in 1964 in his book, How to win an election; the art of political victory (New York, Taplinger Pub. Co, 1964).

Mr. Shadegg republished the book in 1972, as The New How to Win an Election.

Of which Jeff Greenfield said it was, “staggeringly unreadable.”

And so what that in 1964 Mr. Shadegg was taking part in the overwhelming unsuccessful 1964 Presidential Campaign of Barry Goldwater when he wrote that.

I don’t have much to say about Senator Goldwater at this time except that he must have had something going for him as my parents named my little brother Peter Barry Hoffman.

For most of time together in highschool, he was a year younger, kids were always coming up to me and asking, “What does the B. stand for in Peter B. Hoffman?”

I refused to tell.

One of few times I had Pete’s back in High School.

Not that he needed me.

Senior Class President.

After school job at the corner drug store.

Married the head cheerleader.

Lived in Bailey Park.

Ran a savings and loan.

Okay I added the last two.

But I digress.

So to repeat, the segment of the population which is least interested in politics actually decides the outcome of most elections.

How do we apply that today?

I know who I am going to vote for this fall.

Most of the people I know, know who they are going to vote for this fall.

Not much in the way of a what happens in a political campaign will change our minds.

Me and the people in my world are NOT part of the segment of the population which is least interested in politics actually decides the outcome of most elections.

BUT ….

But we KNOW people who are part of that segment.

So my 2020 campaign is called PLUS ONE.

If all of us find one person, just one person, who IS part of the segment of the population which is least interested in politics actually decides the outcome of most elections and we make it our personal goal for 2020 that we make sure this person votes (and I would say votes the right way but …) we can change this election’s outcome.

We can take charge of this election.

We can prove that what we always say about the power of the vote, the power of free elections is true.

So I ask you, “Who is your PLUS ONE for Tuesday, November 3, 2020?”

And I ask you to ask other people who you know who are also not part of segment of the population which is least interested in politics actually decides the outcome of most elections, “who is your plus one?”

One last quote from Mr. Shadegg.

“There is no prize for second place in a political contest.”