If you have time, I have two or three things for you to consider this morning.
Do you ever have the same dream over and over? This morning I dreamed that I’d parked my car and my truck on the street in Rockland a few days earlier and couldn’t remember where I’d left them. No problem in real life because the streets in Rockland are finite.
I haven’t had this dream in a long time. But this time I was looking for the vehicles while riding a motorcycle and I was going across lawns and down over curbs because I was senile. I finally got to the police station, which was in the location of a popular bar named the Oasis, to report my loss, and it was a private home where the officer lived with a dozen or so small children and he had his hands full.
This is not good. I like the older dream better where I simply wander about helplessly looking for my car. I told my wife, Marsha, that I had the lost-car dream again, and she said she keeps dreaming that she is finally able to get a haircut.
You have heard that a lot of young people do not want to work and that it is hard for old people, like myself, to find young people who are willing to get out there and do the jobs that are now difficult for us.
On the other hand, some people don’t seem to be able to stop. An aged Clark Island woman says that she doesn’t have an ache or a pain, which kind of shuts her out as she says she doesn’t have a thing to talk about with her friends.
I heard that another valued neighbor, who is over 90, drives to work almost every day. He told my brother that he’s thinking about retiring next year. My brother told him, “That’s the matter with you people. You just don’t want to work.”
When I came downstairs this morning and looked out I saw a green truck in my yard. I rushed out and looked down in the rhubarb patch and saw my young helper cleaning out the weeds down there with his weed whacker.
So envy me, if you will, for living near a young person who is not only willing to work but also is able to actually do things without needing someone to stand over him every minute and tell him what to do.
Yesterday he said he’d try to get at the project soon so I really wasn’t all that surprised to see him out there before I’d even had my breakfast because he’s very reliable – and it’s a good, cool, overcast day to do it.
He is strong. Not long ago I saw him reach up over the door casings and chin himself twice just to show off. Powerful arms are the result of mowing with a hand scythe. After mowing with a scythe, weed whacking is easy, and it should be: My little brother is only 80.
I nurse a great deal of comfort out of YouTube on Roku. In between gardening and my household chores, I’ve spent countless happy hours watching Yale professor Dale Martin lecture on the New Testament and Stanford’s Robert Sapolsky speak on religiosity.
Just recently I stumbled onto hour-long clips of police cars chasing felony suspects, and I am presently hooked on them.
In case you’ve never seen a televised police chase, the person being pursued goes as fast as he can – even though he doesn’t know where he’s going. After watching half a dozen of these things you turn off the sound because the newsman narrating from the helicopter keeps waking you up when you inevitably doze off. It is very relaxing.
You can answer the phone or go to the bathroom and you don’t really miss a thing because the chase seems to be endless. Come back in a half hour and it looks just like it did when you left. You can even watch the same chase several times because one is much like any other.
The suspect might go straight, suddenly dart off to the right or left, or even do a U-ie and go right back where he started, much like a wild animal on a tether. The driver has no plan, so even he doesn’t know what he’s going to do from one minute to the next. Only one thing is certain: No matter the obstacle, he’s immune to reason.
It has taken me a week to realize why I enjoy this simple form of mindless entertainment. It reminds me of President Trump’s speeches.
The humble Farmer can be heard Friday nights at 7 on WHPW (97.3 FM) and visited at:
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