I’ve been plugging away at writing this column for over three years now so I thought I’d take a break. There will be no column this week.
Initially I’d thought, since we are nearing the primary election, I could say something about Idaho politics, but honestly, what’s the point? It’s the same old story.
We have the super-majority Idaho Republicans crowded into their big tent arguing over who really represents the conservative values of Idahoans. There are so many in the tent they can’t all see each other, hear each other, let alone know each other. They can’t even agree on what to eat, so they keep taking a bite out of each other.
Meanwhile, both remaining Idaho Democrats are sitting outside at a picnic table looking at the noisy tent trying to figure who will pay for their lunch. The baloney sandwiches weren’t free. There’s no news here folks, so I will pass on Idaho politics.
I try to focus on Idaho healthcare issues but this pandemic is perplexing, so there’s no point writing a column about that. Once we know if it was just a bad flu or truly the apocalypse, we’ll think we know what we should have done different. But that could be years from now. I choose not to speculate at the moment, so I have decided not to write a column this week.
It’s no news that the natives are getting restless, as natives should, about what authorities are telling us to do. After all, who put them in charge?
At least our wise representatives in Washington DC have decided we all need a check in the mail. They fired up the presses at the Treasury and printed them up pretty fast, didn’t they? I haven’t got mine yet, but I’m comforted knowing it might come soon, so I can’t really write about that. I’ll let you know.
In the meantime, most of us are staying home and wondering where all those spider webs came from. I really have noticed a lot of spider webs, but who wants to read about spider webs? So, I won’t write a column this week.
And there’s no point sharing all the projects I’ve been puttering on. Yours are probably more interesting. I got the 1949 Chevy dump truck running like a champ, but I can’t haul the roof I need to tear off to the dump. It’s closed.
So, I fixed up an old lawnmower a neighbor left me. I’m now blessed with four lawnmowers. See why I shouldn’t write about how I’ve been filling my time?
There is one thing I’ve put off for quite a while that I am tackling now in all this isolation. It’s not really much of a story. I have this old wooden sailboat that takes more time to keep shipshape than it spends in the water; kind of like our government. I’ve sanded and varnished and patched and replaced more than I can list. That too, sounds like this Republic. It has really big sails and it can go really fast with the right wind, but right now it’s in storage, also like our country. I can get it out in a couple weeks. See, there’s not really a story here.
Right now, I’m fixing the rudder. It was really dinged up and cracked. The third coat of varnish is drying now, and it’s really quite attractive. The image of a beautiful rudder for a boat that doesn’t sail somehow resonates with me right now. But like I said, it’s not a story.
So, to all my readers I apologize for not doing a column this week. We suffer in these troublesome times, socially distanced and worried about the plague upon us. Since you won’t be wasting time reading my column, maybe you can share a story with a loved one. We need to feel close; tell a story.