I’m going to hop back in my car after this post and apologize to the guy at McDonalds.
Woke up at 3:30 with an unwelcome busy mind. So what else is new?
While Claudia toiled over a five page assignment on predestination throughout Church History. She read about three books last week leading up to writing it. I kept absorbing my book on the Presidents of the Civil War Era. Before its finished I’ll be able to recite all the presidents up to Hayes no problem. More than anything this is part of a lifelong project to understand the details of US history from beginning to end. Lincoln and the Civil War have loomed large in this enterprise. The echos of this past are still ringing in our ears and on our news. Fergusson, Mo., a few miles from my brother and son, still festers weeks after its boil popped.
My Octoroons post was the latest attempt on my part to rehash these echoes and my Buddy predictably took me to task. Iknow, I know. I recently said I would probably stop emailing him. I can’t help myself. I’m week. After four or five hot retorts on both sides he sent me another salvo and I resolved to post all of our traffic on the blog. Easier said than done. One of his retorts had an enclosure I spent better than an hour trying to format to fit the blog. I still haven’t formed a reply his last email which brings the Constitution into the argument.
Of course, the ongoing problems with the School Board are a backdrop to these worries about equity and civil rights. I had a long call with a staff member who assured me I was right on target to say our overcrowded classes are a disaster. So, I made the mistake after getting out of bed to check my email on my cellphone. It contained a defense of Forum Communications from a sympathizer of mine relating to my cartoon about congressional candidate Mills. That’s the next post (after I apologize to the McDonalds order taker)
All these untangled threads were on my mind as I set out on a vigorous hour long hike topped off with a stop at Micky D’s for coffee to get me through the Mill’s post to come.
So, when I pulled in to pay for my coffee they young man who has gotten used to see me early in the morning greeted me as he always does with the most genuine good will and affability. My first comment to him after his jovial question about how my day was going was to josh that it wasn’t going as well as it was obviously going for him with all his good cheer. I forked over a buck ten for a large black coffee and commented that it wasn’t a bad price to which he agreed.
It was then I went all sour but in a rueful laughing sort of way. Well, of course it probably took a couple dollars worth of gas to get here (a huge overstatement) and I threw in some comment about keep the price of gas low with wars in the middle east and mentioned fraking. By then the poor fellow had a most querulous look on his face. I looked up in half apology and said “I strip the silver lining off of every cloud.”
I’m off to apologize before the next shift change.
