I’ve got some catching up to do, and I ‘spect some apologizing as well. I’m kinda late at getting last weeks column posted, mostly because of a serious case of stomach flu. (??) In this case, I was laid low for nearly four days by some sort of bug. I rather felt sick enough to die, and was afraid I wouldn’t! I guess I’ll live, but I wouldn’t wish this stuff on even Mr. Obama… but don’t tempt me to much, particularly in my present mood.
On Nov. 10th, I attended an abbreviated County Commissioners meeting, and presented the Commissioners with VFW Buddy Poppies. This is the mercifully short “speech” I gave ‘em with those Poppies:
“Gentlemen, let me remind you that tomorrow is Veterans Day, a day set aside to honor America’s veterans. These are “Buddy Poppies”, originally a reminder of World War One and the terrible cost of war. Today they are a symbol of all American Veterans.
A veteran is sometimes referred to as an individual who, at some point in his life, wrote a blank check to ‘The United States of America’, for an amount “up to and including my life”. In the two-hundred and forty-three years of our nations’ existence, well over a million of those checks were cashed.
Gentlemen, we willingly wrote those checks, and gave it our best, in order that you, our nations leaders, could sit here in relative peace, and give our people and our country your best. I charge you, always remember those cashed checks, and don’t let us down.”
Must have done alright, ‘cause I didn’t break down and cry, as I so quickly do when we bury another vet, and they play last ‘taps’.
Huh… didn’t get thrown out either.
Who...?
Howdy! I'm Robert "Bob" Fogarty, your friendly Central Idaho backwoods redneck rabble rouser. On the personal front, I'm well over 60 years old, an ex-soldier (Cold War and Vietnam), and a recently retired career firefighter. I'm married, stand 5'10" and tip the scales at about 160 when in fighting trim. I smoke cigars, prefer Irish whiskey when I can afford it, and drive a thirty year old pick-up truck whenever I can coax it into running. A few of my "pet peeves" are hard core environuts (with the emphasis on the "nuts" part), left wing bleeding heart liberals, opinionated people (unless they agree with me), politically minded lawyers, and government bureaucracy. Generally I get along fine with individuals, but I also think that humanity as a group is probably the dumbest bunch of sheeple ever to come down the pike.
With my political interests, I suspect that everybody in the alphabet soup of government agencies considers me to be a threat of some sort or other, and they've probably got me on all kinds of watch lists. That's OK, I don't particularly like them either, and I really do think the government has gone totally nuts. Most of my writing is published in a local paper as a Op-Ed column. Our publisher lets me write about whatever strikes my fancy at the moment, then she's brave enough to print it.
If you don't particularly care for my opinion, ignore me and I'll happily ignore you. If 'ya like my stuff however, that's wonderful, and compliments are always accepted with gentlemanly grace.
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