Porchside Musings.

  Now the end of August, thankfully both political parties have now had their conventions, a pair of far more mind-numbing events than usual this year. Normally one at least has the actual nomination vote to watch with those over-inflated declarations of the grandeur of one's state before a delegate submits the vote count from their state to be tallied. What made those micro-speeches fun were two things.... First he/she was in all likelihood suffering from the mother of all hang-overs after a week-long binge of cheap booze and partying hardy away from work and family. Which made his/her staid deliver to the cameras one heck of an acting job. Second, the odd little bits of trivia they were boasting about were for the most part actually true. Not that anyone else cares that much about Illinois, the folks who live there consider these factoids very important. What was to be avoided were the headliner addresses. Delivered by either a war-horse or sometimes an up-and-comer, these often ...

This year we experienced a pandemic, the first since 1918 the experts say. People were told to stay inside their homes, avoid getting too close to others, and wear masks when having to travel outside. A lot of authorities saw fit to impose measures not everyone felt comfortable with. Restaurants, pubs, bars closed. Then most businesses shut down. The economy ground to a standstill. But this plague kept marching on, new cases and sadly new deaths. People failed to understand, they had the 1918 Spanish Flu in mind. Given how COVID-19 can spread, how deadly it is in some cases, how effective the countermeasures were they should have been looking at 1665 London, the year of the Great Plague. People then tried quarantines, social isolation, sterilized money, even wore masks. All for nought. Some religions refused to comply with the emergency regulations. Members of those groups were hit hard, some even were accused of deliberately spreading the infection. Today the urban areas in the US wor...

Back in my college days I  occasionally encountered someone who doubted I was just in my early 20s. To them I seemed to be much older because of all that I had experienced plus all the things I knew about from reading so much. Eventually I ran into the term "old soul" - a person wise beyond their years. Some believe than an old soul has lived many previous lives and has retained some of memories and experiences of those lives. It's an interesting premise which does explain why I'm so comfortable in certain places and enjoying certain activities.  I once took one of those online quizzes, How old is your soul? , knowing full well that the test is just for entertainment. The results were to say the least, bemusing. According to that quiz, I have lived 1,532  past lives. Even for an old soul that's a lot of trips around our sun. My gaming friends like to tease each other in a friendly way now and then. Because I'm the most senior member and much older than man...

Today is a special day for my wife, Jill. Today is her birthday and so hard to believe that it's her 60th. Her name is said to mean youthful  and it fits. Between her height ( she is all of 4' 12" tall )  and cheery round face with sparkling blue eyes she's been mistaken for someone far younger many time. Even real kids have mistaken her for one of their own at times. I suspect her Swedish heritage includes some of the wee folk. 😊 I met Jill during my senior year in college at a AD&D game hosted by one of her friends from her hometown as a welcoming mixer to River Falls. Secretly Rhonda was hoping to set Jill up with the game referee, Steve. Steve had invited me to come along because he believed that I was a good player besides needing extra bodies for his campaign. I ended being a team leader. Not the normal place for a wizard character who should command from the rear if at all. At one point a very new and now distraught Jill was stranded with her horse so...

During the 2016 presidential election one candidate made a comment about some people favoring her opponent as being "deplorable". It was a comment that was intended to follow up another earlier presidential candidate's comment, in part saying, "They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion...". The deplorable comment really hit home and not in a positive way for the woman from New York by way of Arkansas and Illinois. I'm quite sure it cost her Wisconsin along with several other states. She's been in a petulant snit ever since, claiming she was robbed of the office she believes she was entitled to. What both candidates failed to understand is people do cling to religion and have a strong tie to owning firearms. It's not a weakness or some throwback attitude, but basic American philosophy. By trying to denigrate those attitudes they triggered a backlash so massive that years later they're still blinking and saying to themselves, "What h...

As a child I was what some would call a bookworm. My mom insisted from a very early time that you had to wash your hands before handling any of the books in the house. Well, anything that required that much effort by a kid just had to be good, so wash up and read I did in earnest. There were coffee table books, books on travel, old history books, music books, medical texts and technical books. I got caught smuggling books to school because the selection in the school library had been exhausted. Countless hours were spent at our city library. Soon the children's section had been picked over too. The library staff decided that I was mature enough, so they gave me access to the rest of the stacks at the tender age of eleven. Mom thought I was reading too many technical books and effectively ordered that I try something else, hoping I'd bring home some fiction. That week I came home with my usual armload of books, some of the works were fiction. Science fiction. Of cou...

I mentioned in my first posting here that I once worked as a chef. It was a fascinating experience working at that little eatery. I did more than just prepare meals. I waited on tables, bussed the dinnerware, washed dishes, did the daily book-keeping, help secure a renovation loan, set and grout floor tile, moved a staircase, and helped make the heavy decision to let some go. That last task convinced me that I never want to be a manager. Leading a team, yes. But no more. In a restaurant setting I could run the line and service staff. Let another more qualified person handle the hiring and firing as well as other managerial chores. I still enjoy cooking. When I start describing the preparation of a meal it's practically certain that the listener will soon complain that I'm making them hungry. Many of my creations are what I call heart-friendly .  I won't go into that category of heart-healthy. Many of those dishes are frankly boring, they have gone so far into "health...