Still life for the age of corona virus

first of three pics. Moi avec mon nouveau look. Must keep up my French. I think my recent difficulty getting a good night’s sleep stems from my excitement at several challenges. Fighting corona virus would be the top of that list. Now I can put on a face mask and have more security should a micron of virus spittle try to invade my respiratory tract. But that’s not all. By shaving my graybeard I won’t look that much older than the 53-year-old Congressman Stauber. Claudia always tells me my beard makes me look much older. I like it and it was a good way to hide my youthful impish qualities that some stodgy voters find off putting. But even with young folks swooning over Bernie I doubt looking curmudgeonly will be that attractive. So now, instead of looking 16 years older than Pete, voters will think I’m only ten years older.

Second pic.

Hooray! Bob Boone got his Reader out with a new printer albeit with another reduction in size. But the staples are back. I have not communicated with Publisher Boone about my all but guaranteed candidacy for the congressional seat so I’m hoping he doesn’t notice my possible flouting of his policy not to let candidates have the advantage of a Reader platform to tout their miraculous cures. Hey, I’m planning to stop submitting columns in July IF and when I file but in the meantime, unless you are a Stauber supporter, keep your mouths shut. Pretty please? He has like a million dollars already!

and finally….

A photographic still life taken in my back entryway. Above a still life my Mother painted as a sixty-plus year old student at the Minnesota Academy of Arts and Design. Below it a ceramic pot from her younger days in art classes. She didn’t make this one. I think it came from a teacher or a classmate but we have at least one sweet little pot she made. Its full of little spatulas and measuring spoons in our pantry.

The composition of the photo is a good reminder of healthy living in the age of …..read the postcard our President designed below. (I guess that I wasn’t the only one to notice) I’ve been extra busy for the past couple days clearing the decks for several tasks. I am finally at that book I’ve been threatening to write. I am also working on a second book that came to me unexpectedly through my French correspondence via the Internet. It was written by a woman who lived through the German occupation in World War II. I’m translating it into English with the help of her daughter and Google’s amazing language translator.

This is not all of course, I’ve resumed reading a great history book to Claudia after a two week break. I’ve mentioned NPR reporter Steve Inskeep’s history of the first Republican Presidential candidate before Imperfect Union. The book I am putting together will touch on this subject as well. How we got to Donald Trump. My book will be the completion of a twenty year old project. It will be a synthesis of the five or six books that have been spinning around in my head for a decade.

A heads up to voters who like the idea of the fresh ideas from the past discarded by today’s Republicans. If I file I will be a serious candidate. I am presuming that this campaign will likely be a rose garden campaign (meaning shelter-in-place) for most of the roughly 10,000 legislative candidates across the nation who will want to avoid spreading contamination until a vaccine for corona virus is found. That gives me a unique opportunity to get past the billions of dollars in PAC donations that have been a safety net for incumbents and major candidates. I began experimenting with Facebook ads myself in my last school board campaign. This would be a great time for folks who like underdogs, or who like me, to lend a hand from the safety of their homes. It leaves me time complete the book and get it into the hands of citizens who would like their payment going to a fresh face in politics.

If you can’t wait for my book to offer advice or support go ahead and send me an email at: harrywelty@charter.net . I will not let Abraham Lincoln die the ignoble death of being buried by an ignorant narcissist. A healthy Earth needs some Teddy Roosevelt types to charge into the Trumplican/Mitchell urge to pave everything over.

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