Skittle, Rainbows, And Unicorns.

 

It is really amazing when you think about it. 

In the past month, both Facebook and Twitter kicked President Trump off their platforms after the January 6th storming of the Capitol. It had something to do with "standards" etc, but it really had more to do with Trump acting bat crap crazy than anything else.  

Facebook and Twitter was looking for a reason to kick Trump out and he gave it to them. 

Look, I know Trump was fat and orange and talked in circles AND HE LIED.  I'm still uncomfortable with the Social Media bans.  O.J. Simpson has a Twitter account, for goodness sakes, and Lord knows HE LIED.

Anyway, there's a lot of talk about Social Media and how it is important to use it responsibly. If not, we get Presidents like YOU KNOW WHO.

Since President Grandpa has taken office, I have noticed a different tone on my Facebook page.

I'm not seeing a lot of right wing stuff.  A lot of them have vamoosed because of various reasons, mainly because they don't want to hear how everything is Skittles, Rainbows, and Unicorns now that Jen Psaki is telling LIES instead of Kaleigh McEany.

I'm seeing more "liberal" memes that are just as gooberish  as the "conservative" ones

There's a cottage industry devoted to telling everyone, through memes, what a great guy Bernie Sanders is.

My favorite liberal meme theme compares Bernie Sanders to Jesus.  Both were carpenters, both were Jewish, and both were "socialists".  I can think of a couple of differences, the biggest one being Sanders doesn't believe Jesus's father exists.

Another thing I've notices is that there is almost an hourly sermon about how important masks are and that we should never take them off

I wear a mask because I can't go into a store without one on. But now we're hearing that we should wear two masks because our main mask may not work and we'll need to rely on our secondary auxiliary masks. It is the perfect fail-safe.  Plus we need to wash our hands for an hour. 

Look, I get it. Honest. I think the virus is real and it is spread by people. But the daily mask sermon is getting kind of old, kind of like when your preacher does a year's worth of sermons on The Book Of Revelation.  

The Biden Administration is considering sending a mask to every American.  Look, President Joe, cut my taxes and I'll buy my own mask. I promise.

Another idea being floated around is that the President will cancel all student loan debt.

I'm not sure even the most elastic interpretation of the Constitution grants Presidents such powers, even those that have a (D) besides their name. On top of that, our family is student loan debt free.  Were  we saps to pay off loans we freely took out?

Besides, why should a kid that studied a trade, like plumbing, be on the hook to pay for a history major like me?  It doesn't make sense to me.

I admit that I've sort of enjoyed the return to Normalcy. But there was a bit of nostalgia when I read of President Trump's resignation from The Screen Actors Guild.

The SAG was going to hold a "disciplinary"  hearing which supposedly was going to lead to SAG stripping Trump of his membership.

Well, you know Trump.  He sent SAG a letter:  "I write to you today regarding the so-called Disciplinary Committee hearing aimed at revoking my union membership. Who cares!"

Ah yes, that's our Donald. He continued, of course: "While I'm not familiar with your work, I'm very proud of my work on movies such as 'Home Alone 2,' 'Zoolander' and 'Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps'; and television shows including 'The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,' 'Saturday Night Live,' and of course, one of the most successful shows in television history, 'The Apprentice' — to name just a few!"  

Who wouldn't be proud to be in "Home Alone 2"?

But now everything is almost back to normal. It will be normal as soon as we get our shots and  that mask Uncle Joe promised he's sent us.

 

 

Hank

Like many of the Atlanta area guys of my generation (i.e: on the first steps of geezerhood), I was a little verklempt with the passing of baseball legend Henry Aaron.

We saw Aaron go from player-to executive-to a living breathing icon. His last couple of appearances in Atlanta Braves related matter showed an old man that was an absolute delight.  He announced Freddie Freeman's MVP award last November and he looked happier than Freeman.

What is amazing is that Aaron flew under the radar as far as the national sports world was concerned for years. That's because he played in Milwaukee (ick) and then Atlanta (Eek! The South!) when the Braves moved here.

No, the sports media complex was more in tune to whatever was going on with The Yankees. Of course, The Giants had Willie Mays and The Dodgers were in L.A. and appearing on "Mr.Ed".  Aaron was applying his trade in the backwaters of the country quietly building up his stats. 

Back then, baseball appeared nationally once a week with a program titled "The Game of The Week". At one time, the great Dizzy Dean was the color commentator. It was Dean who commented on an amorous couple in the stands. "Yas, pardner, she's huggin' him on the strikes and kissing him on the balls".

To get on "The Game Of The Week", a team had to be doing well and in the "pennant race".  The Braves, most of this time. was out of the pennant race in May and was an afterthought as far as the nation's sports media was concerned. 

In Atlanta, The Braves were on WSB-TV and the announcers were Milo Hamilton and Ernie Johnson. More often than not you would hear Hamilton yelp "There's a drive" when Aaron was at bat.

I was in 9th grade the day Aaron broke Babe Ruth's record.  It was an odd day. A tornado hit town in the early morning and there was some talk the game would be delayed. It wasn't.  Aaron hit a high Al Downing fastball over the fence.  It was probably the best day ever in the history of The Atlanta Braves and that includes 1991 and 1995. 

If Aaron wasn't the best player in his generation, he is definitely in the top five. The ones that are close are Mays, Mantle, Frank Robinson, and Roberto Clemente. 

Aaron just made everything look so easy.  He had smooth swing. He was deceptively fast. It looked like he was almost jogging but he managed to get there first.  

One of the interesting things about sports media is that you will always find those who belittle the accomplishments of players. Example:  Aaron received 406 of 415 votes for The Hall of Fame.  97% is not too shabby, but it means there were 9 voters that did not believe Aaron deserved to be in The Hall Of Fame.  

I would like to hear the reasoning for not voting for Aaron into The Hall Of Fame. What more could he had done?

You used to hear a lot about Atlanta being 1050 feet above sea level, which meant balls would fly out of Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium more easily than they would have other ballparks.  Yeah, maybe.

It ignores the fact that Aaron hit a ton of home runs during the era in which pitching was dominate. He had to hit against Koufax (7 home runs), Marichal (8 home runs), Drysdale (17 home runs), Seaver (4 home runs), and Gibson (8 home runs).

On top of everything, Aaron seemed like a regular guy with a good sense of humor. When Hank died, the great Johnny Bench tweeted out this picture of a play at the plate.  

 

It says "I WISH THE HELL YOU'D STAY OUT OF MY WAY".  I think Hank was safe.

When Aaron was inducted into The Hall Of Fame he said, "I never want them to forget Babe Ruth. I just want them to remember Henry Aaron."

We'll remember.

30 Years A Dad

 

My son, Ben, just turned 30 years old the other day.  I can't believe someone as young as me has a 30 year old son.  Ha!

It seems like yesterday my wife had the baby. It wasn't. It was 1991. George Bush, the first one, was the President then. I turned around one day and there was another President George Bush but he didn't look like the first one.

In between, was President Bill Clinton and his lovely wife Hillary. You may remember them. Bill went into "public service" (that's what politicians call running for office) because he wanted to serve all mankind and perhaps see all womankind naked. At least, that's what I sort of remembered.

In any event, the first part of my son's life was spent in the car taking him to various parties (you'd be amazed at how many birthday parties you go to), rec league sports games, school functions, church functions, and a billion other things. You're basically a personal Uber.

By the way, you come to hate Chuck E. Cheese.  It's where a kid can be a kid and you can eat frozen pizza.

Coming home from one church function, six year old Ben announced he wished he was  half Jewish because he would get Christmas and Hanukkah presents  ("Hanukkah is eight crazy nights!', he said.) 

In fact, a lot of parenthood is just hearing and seeing what your kids do and then making fun of them for the rest of your life about it.

Another example,  one time Ben and my wife went to a "Harvest Festival" (Baptist talk for a Halloween party) at a local church named "Fortified Hills Baptist Church".  The next day, he told me about the Harvest Festival at "Four Or Five Hills Baptist Church".

Of course, I've never let him forget that because he lives close to that church. For what it is worth, I think "Four Or Five Hills Baptist Church" would be a great name for a church.

You go to a lot of movies (you remember going to the movies don't you?)  when you have small kids. There were a lot of great ones when Ben was a kid, my favorite being "Aladdin".  "Toy Story" and "Toy Story 2" were great. A lot were not.

 I feel sleep in both "The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers" and "The Pokemon Movie".

The Power Rangers were just stupid.  Pokemon (or as we in The South called it: "Pokey Man") was just stupid squared.  But it taught boy children a very valuable lesson:  make sure you fill your brain with useless trivia like which "Pokey Man" you can use in a battle versus whoever the heck Pokey Men face (it was a bad guy, but I never cared enough to learn what they were called.) 

Being a parent is a lot of work. It's not hard work, per se, it is just work because you are always doing what you think is best for the kid, but you are never really sure if it is the best until later.

When we were in rec league baseball, we were on a team which had a kid who was really good. His dad was a college baseball player. I was a near sighted twerp that couldn't hit a beach ball thrown at me underhanded. 

One day, at practice, this dad said to me that sometimes he and his son go out to the batting cage he built (with lights!) and have batting practice at 11:30 at night. I felt bad because: A) I couldn't build a batting cage with lights even if given a batting cage kit  and B) I was always asleep at 11:30 at night.

But, both kids grew up and ended up okay, which is the point of rec league sports.

After my parents died, sometimes I would sit around and wonder why they did this or why didn't they do that.  Then I realized they did the best they could with the information they had at the time. That's all you can ask.

A little bit of advice for young parents.  Your kids are growing up and you are aging. The most important thing you can do for your kids has nothing to do with schools, sports, and money. It is to be the best husband to your wife or the best wife to your husband. 

It is the best gift you can give to your children. After all, as my son reminds me, they are the ones that will decide which nursing home to put you in. Yes, he usually tells me this after I make a joke about Four or Five Hills Baptist Church.

 

 

The Planet Of The Trousered Apes

 

"Hold my beer" - Year 2021 to 2020

 

I thought 2021 would be just a little more "saner" than 2020.  Oops, wrong again.

Leave it to Donald Trump to figure out a way to destroy whatever legacy he has.  I can't say what history will say about Donald Trump. As Georgia's recently elected Senator said about an actual dictator who tortured his critics, Trump's presidency is complex and it is filled with nuance.  However, I feel confident in saying that the people in the universities that write the history books won't put Trump up there with Washington and Lincoln.  Mr. Trump, may I introduce you to Andrew Johnson and James Buchanan?

To put it nicely, Trump's behavior has always been boorish, rude, and impolite. He is a builder from Queens, New York. What did we expect?

Since the election, his behavior has been abysmal. 

Basically, Trump didn't understand that this election was a flip side of his election in 2016. While he improved in some segment of voters, he got crushed by suburban women, who turn out do not like boorish, rude, and impolite men.  Suburban women, am I right?

Instead of taking his defeat like a man, he began propagating a tale that he not only won, but that he won by a landslide! 

This enabled a bunch of weird stuff to pop up in social media. For example: Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia was going to be arrested for treason. 

By the time January 6th got here, Trump and some of his MAGA buddies have concocted a theory that Mike Pence could somehow  do some parliamentarian magic and install Trump for a second term. Forgetting, of course, that he couldn't do that even if he wanted to.  You think Richard Nixon or Al Gore would have thought of it first.

Trump holds his rally and sends them to Congress to "protest" the certification of the Electoral College results.  Here's where things get a little cloudy.

Do I think Trump sent them to Congress like they were some Flying Monkeys of the Wicked Witch of Mar-a-Lago to do his bidding?  Or did he think they would circle the Capitol complex and chant "Stop The Steal" and then look at #stopthesteal Twitter thread?

I can't say.

However, I can say this. Trump has a history of things ending badly. Think of some of his properties, brands, marriages, and friendships. Add to this, the GOP, which he acquired through basically a hostile takeover.

I was re-reading some of my blog posts from 2015 and 2016. My opposition to Trump was that he would lead the GOP to defeat and practically destroy it in the process.  I was only off by four years.

I know it was not funny, but I laughed at his taped message to the Flying Monkeys telling them that he loved them.  Could you see FDR say, "We have nothing to fear but fear itself. And I love you"?

Trump apparently gave little thought what would happen when he sent people on their way. Just like he didn't think about the other 74 million that voted for him.  Did this empower them?  No, it left them ashamed to associated with such a group of trousered apes.

As I always say, things could have been worse. More people could have been killed. We could have fallen into a Civil War. (One side has tanks, the other side has a man wearing a Viking hat). 

I don't know who thought this was a good idea. It wasn't. We're going to have to deal with it for the next couple of years. Or decades.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2020 Goodbye And Good Riddance

 

As I have mentioned a few million times before, I majored in History in college.  Therefore, I think I know what History will say about 2020 years from now. 

History will say 2020 was the suckiest year that ever sucked. 

Oh sure, other terms will be used.  Dumpster fire in the middle of a Sharknado with the sharks pooping is one that comes to mind. 

It was one of those years in which everything goes wrong.

Of course, everything didn't go wrong in 2020.  Bernie Sanders was not elected President of the United States. A gigantic meteor didn't hit earth either. Carole Baskin didn't win Dancing With The Stars. Other than that, 2020 was a year "Murphy's Law" was in effect and was in force.

It didn't start off too bad for us. My wife and I went to New York and met actor Ed Harris. We had a nice conversation with him about the movie "Radio".

When we came back home to Georgia, I checked Twitter and learned Kobie Bryant had died in a helicopter crash.

The year took out some of my favorites: John Prine, Jerry Jeff  Walker, and Billy Joe Shaver.  

The year began with a political double whammy.  One was the impeachment of President Trump based on the high crime and misdemeanor that President Trump was President Trump.  After several weeks, the Republican Senate, (surprise, surprise) voted to acquit President Trump. The day after the acquittal, President Trump gave a speech, at The White House, calling the whole thing "Bull (bleep)" on live TV. Nobody seemed surprised.

Then the Democrats held their primaries and it seemed that the long, long, long, long, long career of Joe Biden was finally over but then they realized he was the only candidate that could possibly beat President Trump because all of the rest were unknowns, kooks, and socialists.   They woke Joe up and pronounced him the winner and he stayed in his basement for most of the year.

However, none of this prepared us for that day in March when we heard something called "Covid 19" was really, really bad and would even infect cool people like Tom Hanks.

Somehow, this made people run out and buy toilet paper. 

They shut down small businesses, churches, and synagogues because they were not essential. Target and Wal-Mart were essential.

Schools shut down and parents had to figure out who was going to stay home with the kids and help them on their Zoom classes. There has never been a time in which I was more thankful not to have a kid in school.    

Of course, President Trump provided the calm, reassuring leadership we have come to expect from him. Oh sure, maybe he did, just spitballing an idea, suggest we could inject disinfectant to kill the virus. But the man is a doer! 

We got to know people like Dr. Anthony Fauci who advised us to:

1. Wash our hands for four hours when we touch a door knob.

2.  Wear a mask everywhere, even if you live alone and you are taking a shower.

3.  Social distance! You should shop for groceries, in your car, wearing a mask.

For his part, the Democratic nominee said that he would handle the pandemic differently. Biden said he would:

1.  Tell people to stay inside and wash their hands every five minutes whether or not they touched anything.

2.  Everybody wears a mask at all times. 

3.  Just admit you're going to get it and you will die so go ahead and make final arrangements.

The virus was a persistent little Booger McFarland and various waves came which caused some states like California and New York to still have the strict rules they had in March and April which they said would wipe out Covid, but it didn't because, you know, Trump, and Joe Bob didn't wear mask at the grocery store.

Liberal Democratic politics were strangely immune to Covid 19.  Cletus and them at an Arkansas pool would cause a spike in Covid cases.  People sharing the same champagne bottle after the results of the election was announced didn't. 

As I alluded in the previous paragraph, some people were really excited over the election results. 

If you didn't hear, Joe Biden  and his running mate, Senator Cackle of California, won the election. Of course, President Trump handled his defeat in the gracious way we expected from him by claiming:

1.  He won, by a lot.

2.  There was a lot of cheating .

3.   Republican office holders that certified the election results were actually "RINOS" (Republicans In Name Only) and should have done more to help the President cheat win.  

As of this writing, President Trump still hasn't conceded and there still are some out there that think Trump will still pull out a victory because he's Trump and can declare martial law because he lost an election.

Some reports have Trump running again in 2024 when he'll still be a spry 78 year old like President-I Guess-Elect Biden.  Gee, there's a pleasant thought.

Seriously, things weren't all bad. It could have been much worse and we have a vaccine that's out that will get us back on track.  So cheer up America!  By this time next year, we won't have to wear a mask to take a shower in our home. Maybe.

"The Crown" Season Four Recap

 

A part of my awesome responsibility as a blogger is my duty to comment on various shows on Netflix. (It is somewhere in the fine print, trust me on this).

I have some experience in blogging about TV shows. When I started Humor Me, I did a weekly recap on "Mad Men".  It was season three of "Mad Men" which finds Don bedding another woman in town and Betty finding out Don's real name is Dick.  It was a great season. The boys of Sterling-Cooper started a new firm, Peggy dated Duck, and a man named Guy gets his foot run over by a riding lawn mower.

Then I did a weekly recap of "24", with a lot of help from Dave Barry.  It was more popular than the "Mad Men" recaps when I learned an important lesson about recaps: recap shows that are seen by a lot of people.

Unfortunately, I cannot do a weekly recap of "The Crown", which is the Netflix series about Queen Elizabeth and the gang.  They made only ten shows and you can watch them all in a day if you want.

As a history major, I found "The Crown" interesting because it dealt with something I knew and cared little about: British history.   Sure, I knew all about  The Magna Carta and all that, but you know, big deal, a ball game is on.

Then a few years ago I found out that I am a direct descendant of King Henry VII.  I never thought I'd be royal, but it just runs in my blood.

So when we stumbled on "The Crown" and I got to see what old Cousin Liz is doing.

The first three seasons of "The Crown"  have this one question:  How does the monarchy, which has been in power for 1209 years deal with the rapidly changing times of post-war Britain?

The question in season four of "The Crown" is:  Which one is the biggest douche: Queen Elizabeth or Prince Charles?  (Answer:  Charles by a mile.)

Season four introduces two new characters into the mix.  One is Margaret Thatcher, who was the Prime Minister of Great Britain for eleven years.  The other is Princess Diana.  

Margaret Thatcher is played by Gillian Anderson, so I naturally called her Prime Minister Agent Scully.  (When reading my blogs, you might want to try to remember 90's television.)  

I would say even Agent Mulder would not recognize Prime Minister Agent Scully. They really have her in heavy, heavy makeup where she almost sort of looked like Thatcher. They also had her speak in the slow, ponderous way that would take five minutes to say "Your majesty".  ("Y.........ore......Ma......jes....ty")

You would expect she would get along with the Queen, being a gal and all that. Wrong. Whereas Thatcher was a self made person, Queen Elizabeth was just the winner of the lucky baby club.  This caused friction between the two, particularly in a system where the person with all of the power has to genuflect in front of someone with no power.

"The Crown" questions most of Thatcher's motives because, after all, she is a conservative. She starts The Falklands War because her goofy son was lost in the desert.  She refuses to call for sanctions for South Africa because the same goofy son has business ties there.  "The Crown" goes out of its way to blame Thatcher for some loon that broke into the palace and had a personal interview with the Queen. It supposedly had something to do with Thatcher's "policies", In real life, the Loon has said for years he didn't talk politics or politicians with the Queen.

Basically, "The Crown" holds Thatcher at arms length and treats her with an odd condescending contempt. 

They did a little better with Princess Diana. Emma Corrin plays Princess Diana and they couldn't have found someone who looked more like her.

When Diana first appears, you just want to yell at the TV set "RUN!" because you know she's going to marry Prince Charles and we all know how that turned out.

The marriage of Charles and Diana was doomed from the start because: 1) They had nothing in common  and 2) They hated each other.

It was all fun and games when they had a whirlwind romance which was spurred on by Mummy, Daddy, and Dead Uncle Mountbatten. Before Dead Uncle Mountbatten became Dead Uncle Mountbatten, he wrote Charles a letter stating Charles' booty call days are over and it is time for him to get busy and make heirs for the crown.

The problem was Charles (stop me if you had heard this before) was in love with another woman, who just happened to be married to someone else.  Charles started looking around, discovered Diana, and Bob's your uncle, decided Diana would be a good baby factory for Great Britain.

It didn't take long for Charles and Diana to tire of each other. Diana had trouble adjusting to all of the adulation and fame.  After all, here was this knock-out blonde beauty who acted like a human being, in the Windsor family which was as dull as dish water. As we macho guys would say, Charles outkicked his coverage and she knew it.

Meanwhile, Charles went around walking in that weird hands in the front pockets way of his telling everybody except his mom and Diana, that "Camilla" (the married woman) was the true love of his life. The fact that they both were married and Diana was way better looking didn't even register to Charles. 

In fact, the only way Camilla was superior to Diana was she knew how to tell a joke first told to me by the great Greg Marshall who I can only assume heard it from Camilla.

Charles was just a royal (ha-ha) pain in the butt. He sulked and criticized Diana mainly because she was good looking and had a good personality.  This took all of the attention away from Charles and he didn't like it one bit.

Back in my insurance days, I worked with a lady from England. I asked her if she liked Queen Elizabeth, Prince Charles, and all of the rest.  She said, "I don't-they're no better than the rest of us and they put their trousers on one leg at a time".

That lady from England was a great American. 

 

We Need A Little Christmas

 

 

 

I am going to admit something very, very shocking.

 I like listening to Christmas music.

There, I said it. That took a load off of my mind. 

I like all kinds of Christmas music.  I like the Christmas carols, of course. Some of them are so well written it would make Dylan/Cohen/Lennon and McCartney green with envy

"Yet in thy dark streets shineth, the everlasting light
 The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight."

 That's just from one song. All of these songs are always there. You can probably name them all. "Silent Night".  Admit it, you always wondered what a "round yon virgin " was, haven't you?

Next are the pop Christmas songs of the Forties, Fifties, and early Sixties, before The Beatles and that old long hair came in and tried to make everything cool. Speaking of which, I know people like "Happy Christmas (War Is Over)" by John Lennon.  I don't.   I just imagine (ha, ha, no pun intended) John staring me down saying "So, this is Christmas, what have you done?" with that smug John Lennon face. I don't know, John, just back off and let me enjoy my figgy pudding.

The  Forties, Fifties, and early Sixties songs were drenched in nostalgia. People are dreaming of a White Christmas just like the ones they used to know.

I was raised in Georgia. It never snowed at Christmas. If we were lucky, it rained. 

One song that I like even though it is kind of weird is "Happy Holidays" by Andy Williams.

When I was a kid, Andy Williams was everywhere adults were at. He wasn't quite as boring as Lawrence Welk and those doofuses.  He just seemed like everybody's dad that could sing "Moon River", which is, as a matter fact, wider than a mile.

Here's a part of the song I think is kind of weird.

"It's the holiday season
With the whoop-de-do and hickory dock
And don't forget to hang up your sock
'Cause just exactly at 12 o'clock
He'll be coming down the chimney
Coming down the chimney
Coming down the chimney, down!"

I get there is a whoop-de-do at Christmas time.  I'm not sure I know what a "hickory dock" is  and why it goes with a whoop-de-do.  As a personal preference, I prefer to use the term "stocking" instead of "sock" even though I acknowledge a "stocking" is just a "sock" that knows somebody. "Stocking sounds like Christmas. "Sock" sounds smelly.

Additionally, I never knew Santa came down the chimney exactly at 12 o'clock. It is not enough that he flies through the air with a bag of toys powered by reindeers, but he does all of this at the exact time of 12 o'clock?  I'm sorry, even with my limited math and physic skills, I'm not buying it.

There is one song played at Christmas that is very appropriate this year:  "We Need A Little Christmas".

I have done some research on this song. This song came out in 1966 and was part of the Broadway play "Mame".  It seems Mame had lost her fortune in the stock market crash of 1929 and she decides her household "needs a little Christmas" to feel better about life. It was first performed by Angela Lansbury who, right now, as of this writing, is still alive.

This verse:

"For I've grown a little leaner
Grown a little colder
Grown a little sadder
Grown a little older
And I need a little angel
Sitting on my shoulder

We need a little Christmas now!"

If there is ever a year that needs a little Christmas it is 2020.  It practically started with Kobe Bryant flying into a mountain. Then the unending Presidential election in which we selected a 78 year old man who warns of a "dark winter" with 250,000 additional Covid deaths in December in the United States when we've had a total of 272,000 total since last January. Nobody with our ever vigilant Press tried to question him about that figure because they're still dealing with the Trump Circus. 

Covid-19 started with the promise that we would only be in lock down to "flatten the curve" and in some states, oddly enough with the strongest restrictions, still haven't flatten the curve. 

Add to that the unrest, which doesn't cause the virus to spread, and it has been one bummer of year, man.

We need a little Christmas. We need laughter. We need Christmas pageants of little kids wearing towels on their heads pretending to be shepherds in the field. We need bright lights. We need to see The Radio City Rockettes, at least I do.

We need to go see the latest Christmas releases from Hollywood.  We need to see choirs. We even need crowded malls and shopping centers. We need to see little children sitting on Santa's knee. 

We need to stand when the cantata reaches "The Hallelujah Chorus".  We need to hear the people ringing the bells for The Salvation Army.

The Christmas after the 1929 Stock Market Crash had to be bleak. The same with the Christmases of World War II, Korea, and Vietnam.  But there has never been a Christmas, at least to my knowledge, where the government has gone out of their way to be a Scrooge all in the name of your personal safety.

Maybe they are right, I don't know.  I take solace in the words of another Christmas song.

"Have yourself a merry little Christmas
Let your heart be light
From now on
Our troubles will be out of sight."

Hopefully, with a vaccine on the horizon, by this time next year, our troubles will be out of sight.

But, like the song says, "Until then, we'll have to muddle through somehow".

In 2020, we are going to muddle through. Somehow.