V-A-C-A-T-I-O-N

The first word I ever learned how to spell was "vacation".  I'm not lying.

That's because my mother had a record by Connie Francis. She was a girl singer in the post-Elvis, Pre-Beatles era of rock and roll and one of her hit songs was "Vacation".

"V-A-C-A-T-I-O-N, we're going to have a ball", is what she sang, and I learned to spell "vacation" from that.   I also learned how to spell Mississippi from a song that spelled "Mississippi," and soon it was easy as pumpkin pie, except as a 63 year old, I still have to sing it.

This year, we took our first post-pandemic vacation.  We went to "The Redneck Riviera": Panama City Beach, Florida (PCB).

Panama City Beach is in the panhandle of Florida. It is about a six-hour drive from Atlanta. I think. We used the travel app WAZE, which is supposed to give you the best and quickest route to your destination. 

I don't know about that.  It took us through downtown Dothan, Alabama.  You know those quaint Southern towns with neat downtowns where everybody drinks coffee and apologizes for being a Southerner. Well,  Dothan does not have that. 

It also took us on a two-lane Alabama state highway that went through a couple of pastures and a chicken barn.  Somehow, and don't ask me how, we got stuck behind a student truck driver.  I think truck driving is a noble profession, and the Lord knows how many great country songs it has inspired.   However, when you get behind a student truck driver on a two-lane Alabama road, it will add some time to your trip. 

We made the Florida state line and looked forward to the free orange juice the State of Florida would give travelers at the Welcome Center.  Well, no free orange juice from the State of Florida, but the Welcome Center kept the bathrooms open.  

From there it was short drive to Panama City Beach.  My wife and I last went there in 2008. Things have changed.

The dinky Mom and Pop no-tell Motels are gone.  Some people have fond memories of these places like my wife. Her family went to Panama City Beach for vacations and stayed at these dumps places.  

My parents were not from Atlanta so we went to either Johnson City, Tennessee or Grenada, Mississippi for vacation. Neither one had a beach.

There is a lot of construction going on in Panama City.  Hurricane Michael hit in October of 2018 and did a lot of damage. But I'm happy to say Pineapple Willy's survived and it is going strong 

Front Beach Road is the main drag and it has construction, too. I'm not sure if it will be bigger and better, but I'm sure it was be finished by the next century.

There is a lot of traffic because there are a lot of people who want to come here aand swim in the ocean.

The problem was we had several double Red flag days.  Here are the meanings of the beach flags

Green:  Alan can enter the water.

Yellow: Alan can enter but he may end up in Destin if he doesn't pay attention

Red:  Alan will die if he enters the water.

Double Red:  Alan will die if he looks at the ocean.

So, in other words, the weather didn't cooperate with our plans. One day was a complete wash out. But that's okay because we went shopping at a large store that sold a lot of knick-knacks and t-shirts that had off-color sayings printed on them.

Shopping is a big thing at PCB because they tore down the old amusement park ("Tetanus City")  and built a shopping plaza called "Pier Park" which is "the Emerald Coast's premier shopping, dining and entertainment complex".  It has (hold on to your seat) a Target.  OMG! You can buy something at Target just like you do at home. 

Fortunately, we didn't go to Pier Park. We did go out to eat, which is another big thing at PCB.

Mini-Reviews of The Restaurants

Hooters.  We went to Hooters the first night because everybody and their momma was at Pineapple Willie's.  Aside from all of their, uh, you know. full bosomed young ladies taking your order and stuff, it was semi-wholesome.  I had a really good hamburger. The waitperson was Tiffany or Crystal and I'm sure she is going to Florida State to be a surgeon.

Pineapple Willy's:  Pineapple Willie's is at the end (or the beginning) of Thomas Drive and it just happens to be were all of the young people are at if they are not at Pier Park. I had chicken fingers and my son and his wife bought a t-shirt. The waitperson was Tyler or Taylor and he is in school majoring in muscles and getting tattoos on those muscles

Angelo's Steak Pit:  Angelo's is a good quality steak house in PCB.  I like Angelo's steaks better than Longhorn's.  The waitstaff no longer wears polyester. Our waitperson appeared to be divorced.

Sharkey's:  We ate on the patio and it was very windy. Good view of the ocean and my shrimp were incredible.  Our waitperson was Kara or Cara and had as many tats are Tyler/Taylor.  I'm pretty sure she has sung in a rock band somewhere in her life.

Another place I can't remember the name:  It was Mary Lou's  or something.  It was off the beach and seemed like a place locals hang out.  I had BBQ and it was very good.   I didn't catch my waitpersons name but she sounded like she knew Boris and Natasha.

All in all, we had a very pleasant vacation and we are planning next year's trip. Maybe the State of Florida will give us orange juice again.

Gerald R. Biden

 

History repeats itself. Sort of. Kind of.

Just for the record, not once in my studies as a history major did I have a professor say, "History repeats itself".  If so, I would have asked, "Is this going to be on the test?" They would have said yes, and the test would be two questions over something else entirely different.

But it does seem the past couple of years reminds me of another decade:  The 70s.

 

Civil unrest: Check

Uncontrolled inflation: Check

Leaders that when you look at them, you say, "Really?!": Check

Gas prices going through the roof: Check

A pandemic:  No, not unless you consider Disco a pandemic which I did.

So it is not a perfect analogy. But I think it is pretty close when it comes to our current Commander In Chief.

 

Brief historical recap.  The 70s started with President Richard "Milhous" Nixon as President.

He was a gifted, brilliant statesman that was distrusted because he could be a mean lying skunk.  He also was so paranoid that it seemed like he ate a plateful of those special brownies the hippies made.

 

But, as a poster said back then, "Just because you're paranoid, it doesn't mean they aren't out to get you".  For various reasons, the Democrats and the News Media were out to get Nixon. In true Nixon fashion, he did everything he could to help them out. 

While cruising to a landslide victory against George McGovern, Nixon ordered a break-in on The Democratic National Headquarters at The Watergate Hotel. He then ordered a cover-up.  If you think they make a big deal about things now, you have no idea how much a big deal Watergate was back then.  

In the middle of all this, a separate investigation found Vice President Agnew was accepting kickbacks and bribes. He resigned, and Nixon appointed House Minority Leader Gerald R. Ford to replace Agnew.

 

Soon Nixon resigned, and Ford became President.

At first, all was right with the world. Ford made his own breakfast! Then he pardoned Nixon.

Ford was seen in a new light.  He was no longer Ordinary Jerry and so dog-gone normal but instead just another politician who always made the wrong decision.

Inflation was terrible back then, so the brilliant people at The White House decided inflation could be beaten by wearing a " WIN " button for "Whip Inflation Now".  (In my best Morgan Freeman impression) inflation was not whipped.

South Vietnam fell and Americans were treated to pictures of people trying to crowd onto helicopters leaving Saigon. 

Meanwhile, back home, Ford tripped and fell, was in a car accident, had a gun whipped out on him by a member of The Manson Family, and was shot at by someone else. 

 

Of course, the news media and comedy shows took the position that Ford was a former NCAA Division One athlete and that everyone trips, has accidents, and other incidents.

Just kidding.  Ford's falls and mishaps became a punch line for America's comedy writers, and he practically made the career of Chevy Chase.  (Humor Me, 4/3/21:https://manisville.blogspot.com/2021/04/when-chevy-became-jerry.html)

America's pundits weighed in too.  The trips symbolized Ford's presidency and showed Ford to be the incarnation of The Peter Principal.

I thought about President Ford when I read the Twitter reaction to President Biden's slow-motion bike accident.

Those on my side of the river said it represents Biden's administration.  The other side said, "HE'S 79".  HE'S OUT RIDING A BICYCLE.  TRUMP JUST RUNS HIS MOUTH.

It really isn't a big deal. People have bike accidents every day.  However, you can't say this past year has given you any confidence that Biden can run the country any better than he rides a bicycle.

He thinks yelling is persuasion.  Inflation was "transitory."  There's a labor shortage. The supply chain issues include baby formula and my CPAP machine.

Gas prices going up which isn't a President's fault when there is a (D) beside the name but is when there is an (R) beside the name.  No big whoop, everybody just needs to go out and get an electric car.  Makes sense to me.

His handling of the pull out of Afghanistan?  It made the pull-out of Saigon look organized.

You're not terrible if you think the President's little boo-boo is the perfect analogy of his performance in office.

Some of us have long memories and remember the same arguments used about President Ford.

If you don't think these arguments apply to President Biden, Jerry's ghost would like a word with you.

 

Top Gun: Maverick. The Ten Cent Review

 

I haven't checked the reviews of the boffo megahit movie Top Gun Maverick, but I am willing to bet somebody wrote, "catch a ride to the Danger Zone and see Tom Cruise in Top Gun: Maverick."

Mrs. Blog and I went to a local theater in Acworthsaw or Kenneworth (that area on Cobb Parkway that is sort of Kennesaw and sort of Acworth) to see Top Gun: Maverick mainly because all our friends said it was cool.

When we got to the theater, we saw there was a gang there:  Red Hat Ladies.

These are members of a global organization that changes women's lives every day by wearing red hats and walking around naked in public.

Just kidding about the naked part.  It is a "playgroup" for older women who have given all of their lives to the ungrateful group known as "their family" and now want to have some fun with other gals.  Men have something similar but it is called "a bar" where they go and "drink".

Because this is the modern age, we had to choose our seats before buying our tickets.  There were only two seats next to each other that were not in the front of the auditorium.  Believe me, you do not want to sit that close to the screen for this movie.

We found our seats thirty minutes before the movie was about to start. We were the only ones there. 

Soon, however, the Red Hat Ladies started strolling in to find their seats.  You can imagine fourteen elderly women trying to find their seats and hold on to their popcorn. Part of this play date was everyone telling everybody else they were sitting in the wrong seats. 

Soon after a series of commercials featuring people telling you to go to the doctor, the "previews" or "trailers" started. First, there was a preview of a movie about Thor, which for some reason, my wife liked, and a preview of a film about Elvis, which has Tom Hanks playing Col. Tom Parker.

Before the movie started, we were treated to an address by Tom Cruise, who thanked us for coming to the theater to see the movie.  Imagine  Hollywood thanking their customers for seeing a movie instead of going into lecture mode and telling them they are a bunch of redneck mouth breathers.  

One guy in front of me said, "Thanks, Tom Cruise".   The Red Hat Ladies blew Tom kisses.

In Top Gun: Maverick, Tom Cruise reprises his role as "Actor People Like" in the sequel of a movie made in the mid-80s.  Ah yes, in the mid-'80s when people listened to Kenny Loggins records.  Today, he would have been named Lil KenLo, and "Danger Zone" would have featured a ten-minute rap about what he is wearing in the jet. 

If you remember the original Top Gun, you remember that Tom Cruise played a cocky Navy fighter pilot that liked to break the rules and cut footloose with an Amish civilian instructor.  In between, his flight antics were partly responsible for the death of Meg Ryan's husband, Goose. 

In Top Gun: Maverick, Maverick is still breaking all the rules and crashing airplanes. So, the Navy decides to send him to TOP GUN school so he can teach the newest generation of  douches Top Gun pilots

Things have changed in Fighter Town. The commander is Admiral Don Draper. He doesn't like Maverick because he is almost as good-looking.

You'll be happy to know the douches pilots are diverse and it even includes a guy wearing glasses. I didn't think guys with glasses could become pilots.

They still have their call signs. One is "Gender Equity". Another is "Binary". But the most interesting one is "Goose's Son" played by a guy that looks like Goose. OMG!

Maverick trains the pilots how to use The Force. Strike that, wrong sequel. He trains the pilots on this very difficult assignment that has no chance of success. 

In between, Maverick reignites a love affair with someone he met after the Amish civilian instructor (the actress had the nerve to grow older and fatter).  The new love is Jennifer Connelly, who is easy on the eyes.  When Tom and Jennifer started to get it on, several of the Red Hat ladies passed out from the vapors.

Top Gun: Maverick is a very enjoyable movie.  It won't win awards but it is a great way to spend a Saturday afternoon.

A word of warning:  Do not get a big soft drink before the movie or you'll be running with the Red Hat ladies to bathroom when it is over.

 

Sex And The SBC

 

 

The Southern Baptist Convention recently hired a group called Guidepost Solutions to investigate several sexual scandals if you haven't been following along.

The group issued a report and revealed a consistent pattern.

1) Somebody did something wrong to somebody else.

2) Somebody else told a Baptist big wig.

3) The big wig hemmed and hawed

4) The bad guy left the church and went to another church.

5) If it made it into the Baptist press, it was a big story, and if the victim were a woman, someone would walk up and call her a whore.

6) Repeat.

Part of the mess is that the Southern Baptist Convention has a hierarchical structure that theologians call "Loosey-Goosey."    Despite what some of their Preachers think, there is no Pope in the Southern Baptist Convention. Things are left up to the local church and they can hire anybody they want to hire. Sometimes they hire people who have "issues" that are never "dealt with" because they work at the church.

The report also contained an investigation of a local Baptist preacher, Johnny Hunt. Until 2018, Hunt was the pastor of the First Baptist Church of Woodstock, Georgia.

First Baptist is a big old church. I have inlaws that have been members there for years. I have friends that have been members there for years. 

Until last week, I had never heard of a bad thing about Johnny Hunt as a person.

I mean, Hunt was one of those hellfire and brimstone types of preachers, at least the times I listened to him. He would shout. He would stomp his foot. He would clap his hands. He would give alter calls that lasted for days, if not weeks. 

Despite this, his church grew and grew. The people I met there were amiable, and outside of the pulpit, Hunt seemed like a nice, personable guy. But there was something about him I just couldn't put my finger on.  I chalked it up as he wasn't my cup of Joe. A lot of people would talk about Hunt's positive influence in their lives. Fifty million Elvis fans can't be wrong.

He would hold weekend retreats for men. I went to one. The sermons were about being a good Christian man.  A lot of it was about avoiding temptation because men can resist anything but temptation. I remember one sermon in which Hunt described turning on the TV and learning the cable had a free HBO weekend. So he said,  "I called the cable company and said I didn't want that filth in my house."

Keep that in mind as you read this narrative from the report. 

"Dr. Hunt then moved towards Survivor and proceeded to pull her shorts down, turn her over and stare at her bare backside. He made sexual remarks about her body and things he had imagined about her. During this time, Survivor felt frozen. Survivor said these were some of the longest moments of her life. She mustered the courage to ask him could she turn back over, and Dr. Hunt said yes. When she turned back over, she began to pull up her shorts. Dr. Hunt then pinned her to the couch, got on top of her, and pulled up her shirt. He sexually assaulted her with his hands and mouth. Suddenly, Dr. Hunt stopped and then stood up. Survivor pulled down her shirt. Survivor said she did not want him to ruin his ministry, at which he responded he did not want to ruin hers. But he then forced himself on her again by groping her, trying to pull her shirt down, and violently kissing her. Survivor did not reciprocate, but rather stood eyes open and very stiff, hoping he would just stop and and leave. He finally stopped and left."

Well.

I'm sure that was hard to read because it is at least sexual assault.

I don't know how you can go from telling men that you can't watch movies that have dirty parts to pulling down a woman's pants. 

Of course, there's two sides to every story.

For his part, Hunt has admitted to a light kiss, touching the woman's breasts over the clothes and trying to pull her shorts down. However, he calls the report "sensationalistic."

Come on guys, he just lightly kissed a woman, copped a feel, and merely tried to pull her shorts down.

I don't know how you write a report about a former President of The Southern Baptist Convention pulling down or trying to pull down a woman's shorts and not be sensationalistic.  It is pretty wild stuff.

Hunt has his defenders.  One on Facebook didn't like the terminology of "survivor" to describe the woman.   The woman has to share some of the blame because she let a MAN that was NOT HER HUSBAND in her condo.  Yadda, yadda.

Whatever. I'm not one of those "believe all women" types.  Women lie, just like men lie.  But her story sounds credible me. 

But only two people know what really happened.

Is it too much to ask for a preacher to keep his hands to himself. 

Amen?!

Mini Concerts Review

 

I started this month going to two concerts on the same weekend.

If you know anything about me, you know I'm not too keen on anything I have to do twice on any weekend.  Yes, my indigenous American name is "Stick In The Mud."

The first concert was by Michael W. Smith.  Smith is huge in a genre of music known as Contemporary Christian Music, or CCM. 

His primary instrument is the piano, and frankly, the guy can flat out play the piano. He has written several songs that are now in hymnbooks. If churches even use hymnbooks anymore.

The concert was terrific—no two ways about it.

At first, I thought it would be a little bit hokey.  He came out, sat a the piano and said a few words, and played some snippets of his songs.  

The audience was er, older saints who loved and appreciated this artist.  The artist loved and appreciated his aging audience. 

The second concert was by Van Morrison, who I am not sure even likes his audience even though they have made him very rich and a legend.

Everybody knows Van Morrison, but they don't know Van Morrison.  

Everybody has heard "Brown Eyed Girl," his most famous song, which came out in the '60s. Unfortunately, due to some contractual issues, Morrison never made a lot of money from this song, and for years, he never played it.

He plays it now. It doesn't sound like the record.

Van doesn't care.

He's sort of like Bob Dylan because he's always working on his songs and he gets bored playing the same thing the same way all the time.

He's Van [insert bad word here] Morrison and he doesn't care if you like it. 

His music can be described as a sort of jazz.  It is not rock and roll.

Here is a transcript of my wife and me during the Van Morrison Concert.

My wife: "What's this song called?"
Me:  "I don't know."

I have been a big fan since 1970.

Even though I didn't know many of the songs, I enjoyed the concert.  I have always wanted to see Van Morrison.

It was great.  He wasn't introduced. He just meandered onto the stage with his saxophone wearing an Auqa Blue suit with a scarf and an Aqua Blue fedora.  My wife said he looked like a garden gnome.

He didn't talk to the audience except to say "Give  it up for the band" after the last song.

I'm not sure he knew he was in Alpharetta, Georgia.

That's okay.  He's Van You Know What Morrison and he doesn't have to talk to me.

Pay Off Your Own Freaking College Loans

 

 

 I'm sorry the title of this week's post is too vague.  Next time, no more beating around the bush. I'm going to say exactly what I think about this topic.

If you take out a loan to pay for your college expenses, you should pay it back.  I'm not sure why this is even a discussion.

If you take out a loan to buy a car, you are expected to pay it back.  If you take out a loan to buy a house, you are expected to pay it back.  

A  credit card is just a plastic loan. You are taking a loan to pay for something and you are expected to pay it back.

With interest.

However, over the past several years, people have noticed that it costs a lot to go to college and most people don't have that type of scratch lying around the house.

Some examples of college costs. This is for tuition only.

Harvard:  $54,002 a year
Yale:  $57,000 a year
University Of Georgia (Georgia resident) $12,068  (out of state) $31,108.
Ouachita Baptist University:  $29,120
Kennesaw State University:  $6436 (Georgia resident)

So you see, Kennesaw State is a bargain. However, Kennesaw State did not win the NCAA College Football Championship and that's why the University of Georgia costs almost twice as much for a resident of the state of Georgia.

Therefore, students and their parents must take out loans from the Federal Government to help pay for the cost of college.   It is an expensive undertaking to train the leaders of tomorrow in the desks of today to become lock-in step members of the Democratic party.

One of the dirty little secrets of college is that if you stay long enough, you can graduate. Sure, you won't be a part of any college ad campaign, but you'll graduate.  But along with the graduation comes the bill for the college loan and Lordy Mercy, people have to make payments on the loan they freely took out. 

The newly graduated students soon realized that they can't buy that $650K house, or the $56K car, or the G.I.Joe with the Kung-Fu grip.  And they began to complain.

Well, Uncle Sugar, President Biden, heard their complaints.  If there's one thing we've learned about President Biden, he'll be in favor of anything as long as it might help him pick up a few more votes.  

So President Biden is working on a plan that will forgive $10K of a student's federal college loan.   Most of the pushback came from the "progressives" (i.e. those that majored in 15th Century Bavarian Hygiene at Ursinus College, tuition $55,210 a year) who said the forgiveness is just a drop in the bucket and wouldn't help that much.

If I know the current Democratic Party and the zeitgeist of the times, people like me (Hey, pay your bills) will soon be considered mouth-breathing troglodytes that want to keep women in chains.

Yet nobody is asking this question:  Why does it cost so much to go to college?  I went to college and I didn't see the expense.  I guess you have to pay the professors. You just can't get that snottiness for free, buddy. 

It is not just the cost of the professors.  When I went to school, colleges had dorms. Usually, the dorms were cinder block structures and smelled terrible.  The boys had communal showers where they took showers with other male students and soon learned that all men are not created equal. 

Now they have these living structures that resemble apartments.

When I was in school, there was only one place to eat: the college dining room. It served food. When my son went to Georgia Southern University, they had several different places to eat.  They even had a Chick-fil-A.

A significant expense of college is the Greek Fraternity and Sorority system. There, young people learn how to binge drink and score with members of the opposite sex. 

What about those that take out the loans and actually (hold on to your hat) pay them back?  Like my son.  Like his parents.  Explain how this doesn't make us look like a bunch of chumps.

But President Biden doesn't care about that.   Just use a magic wand and wipe out a bunch of debt of some richy rich kids who hate the idea they can't upgrade their iPhone when the new one comes out.

No new ideas about building back a better way of going to college.   Just let the kid who went to vo-tech to become a plumber pay for the education of the English major.

Seems fair.

Generation Jones

 

This week, I was starting my day like I usually do, reading The Bleat, the blog of James Lileks of The Minneapolis Star-Tribune. By the way, you really should too.

Me and Lileks share a couple of things. First, he enjoys the pop culture of the past and present. He has one child (a girl, while I have a boy). He was born on August 9th, a year before I was born.

Other than that, not much. He was born and raised in Fargo, North Dakota.  He has worked in "the media" all his adult life. He can also write like the dickens.

This week, he revealed that we have something else in common: we both are members of Generation Jones, a subgroup of the famous Baby Boomers you've heard so much about.  It is the generation born from 1955 to 1964.

Lileks says, "I learned today that I am not a Boomer. Never felt like one, but I figured I was doomed to be lumped in with them. It always seemed a rather large demographic, gathering up people with disparate culture references. The Summer of Love, the anti-war movement, the folkie movement when they were earnest tweens, black-and-white TV, and so on."

He notes that we (fellow members of Generation Jones) have been expected to romanticize Boomer nostalgia. Woodstock. JFK.  The New York Jets winning Super Bowl III.  You know the drill. 

Instead, he says we "were blissfully unaware through the 60s, which meant we had our anchors in overculture, not counterculture. We woke up in the craptacular 70s. We had money - well, some - and freedom in the 80s, which had their own set of anxieties the Boomers in the media saw through their lens."

Isn't that a great description of the years from 1970 to 1979? "The Craptacular '70s"? It was a time we watched super duper naked women on the movie screens but insisted on electing a Sunday School teacher as President of The United States because he said he would never lie to us. Of course, he never said anything about a recession, gas shortages, or Iranian hostages, but we got all three by the decade's end. 

I think the biggest difference between Generation Jones and The Baby Boomers is that Generation Jones is more pragmatic than the Boomers or the generations that followed: X, Millennial, and Z.  Generation Jones saw the landmines the Boomers stepped on and tried to avoid them. 

We would never ever go to San Francisco with flowers in our hair. We would go with mousse.

We saw what "free love" did.  It caused divorces and unhappiness with a lot of diseases only some of which penicillin could cure. 

We saw that having long hair might turn off an employer, so we cut our hair to make us look like big boys when we went to the office.  Of course, the Generation Jones Ladies had their hair piled on top of their heads and wore dresses that had shoulder pads like a linebacker.

Another thing, all of Generation Jones never knew what life was like before TV.   And we consumed TV like we did our instant snacks.

We talk about the good old days of television like "Gilligan's Island,"  which was about seven people on "a three-hour tour" (sing along with me) that was shipwrecked on a desert island.   They had enough wood to build huts on the island, but not enough to fix the dang boat.

We've even invented a parlor game:  Ginger or Mary Anne?  For the record, I'm Team Mary Anne all the way.

However, everything Generation Jones touched did not turn into gold.  We had a brief flirtation with something called "Disco," which was primarily a genre about dancing the night away. 

You either loved Disco, or you hated Disco.  I'm pretty much in the hated Disco column. In my old age, I will admit that "Stayin' Alive" is a good song as is "I Will Survive."  I refuse to count "September" by Earth, Wind, And Fire as a disco song because it is way too good.

There's an article about Generation Jones which says Bob Dylan was the generational poet of The Boomers and Bruce Springsteen was the generational poet of Generation Jones.  

Now before all of my fellow Generation Jones members get up in arms:  I like Bruce Springsteen,  he is an incredible performer, and tramps like us, baby, we were born to run.

However, I was a junior at Wheeler High School   (School motto:  Aren't You Glad You Don't Go To Sprayberry") when Springsteen was on the cover of Newsweek and Time (in the same week), and it didn't register a blip on the Wildcat scale of important things. (Number One:  Whose house got rolled last week?)

But other than that, this article rings true to me, and if you were born between 1955 and 1964, it will ring true to you too. https://medium.com/atta-girl/why-people-born-1955-1964-arent-baby-boomers-6afdebc5c3ba
 

By the way, why did the Howells carry all that money with them?