October 23, 2008

"People say (and do) the darnest things!"





Harvey, IL. The mail always gets delivered no matter what the circumstances or weather conditions may be. This was always the mail carrier's motto in this small, but violent Suburban town in Chicago. Until now. Chaos and panic took to the streets this Monday when some fifty homes found out the mail delivery had suddenly stopped without warning. Most residents there always go the extra mile to make sure all their bills are paid on time. One resident of the area became concerned that his five cell phones would get turned off and his Lexus would be taken away due to late late payments. What he found out was that a female carrier had suddenly given up her route and was "too scared" to deliver mail after being caught in the middle of gang crossfire just last week. The USPS took her side and agreed that this sets a new precident and delivering mail there is not worth the risk of something "postal" happening. After a meeting between several members of the town's Council, the USPS and Harvey police officials, everyone walked away agreeing that the poor woman have a patrol officer on foot accompany her on her delivery. Nice, eh? Even more amazing is the fact that lady who was too afraid to give her identity or speak to news crews, was still captured on tape by all the local channels walking her route with the cop. If that wasn't easy enough to figure out who the woman was, the showed her and the cop walking past a street sign. I guess if you want to get her, you can do it thanks to this mistake by reporters. If not, look for the white truck and police cruiser parked behind one another at the end of the block. To fight back, this lady needs her own gun and Anthrax when walking. Not "Anthrax" the white powder... "Anthrax" the ddisbanded heavy metal group from the 80's and 90's! They're scary looking for starters, and probably have a lot of free time to help assist. It's only a thought. By the way taxpayersm this escort was for one day only. You won't pay for it until postage goes up another dime early next year!

  • With only a few days to go before voting for our next President, it's time to decide not only who is able to get us out of the mess, we must now examine the brains of Joe Biden and Sarah Palin. God forbid one of these two are ever given permission to take the car keys and drive the USA should anything bad happen to the President. All you need is a small group made up of Charlie Gibson, Katie Couric, Keith Oberman and Jeff Foxworthy to get together and see how smart both of the hopefuls are. Take the remarks of Joe Biden who appeared on ABC Nightly News. Earlier that day, a group of little kids came up with some important questions and then Charlie put Biden on the spot for an answer. Now, one kid asked what a "Recession" is all about and if we're in one (A question that I'm sure was ghost written by his teacher). Biden started babbling nonsense and started on the subject of "The Great Depression" explaining that it was indeed a "tough time" in history however, President FDR often went on television to assure it wouldn't last forever. Two problems: 1) FDR was NOT the President during that time and 2) Television wouldn't be invented yet for several more years> Oops! Then there's Palin who always comes under fire for anything she says or does. She was a little bit off track when asked what her duties as VP would be, confusing her responsibilities with the leader of the US Senate. First things first come January...I'm sending a CD-ROM of Encyclopedia Brittanica to Washington so someone can get a refresher course in History. What a shame!
  • Throwing a dart at the board of silly news brings us to our spot just outside of Cleveland. An 89 year old woman gets taken away by the cops for not returning the next door neighbor kid's football. I'm sure you heard about this somewhere in recent days. This story isn't unusual. Every town in America has a cranky Senior Citizen that's afraid of death and takes it out by holding a troublesome toy for ransom once it crosses the property line. Growing up, we had one of those people on our block that would make a big issue out of anything that made it over the top of the fence and into her yard. It's a good thing to see that some things never change! In this case, the kid's father called 911 when the old, cranky lady took the football. A football that according to dad, was purchased by his son. The football itself must have been priceless as dad said his "tweenage" son worked the "whole summer" as a caddy to earn the money to buy the ball. I automatically assumed there had to be more to this. Maybe this was an autographed ball signed by a Hall of Famer or maybe an entire roster from a past Super Bowl winning team... Not so. This was bought right off the shelf at Sports Authority. Everyone on both sides of that fence has got to be kidding! The old woman stands firm that she's taking that ball to the grave. The kids parent's aren't too excited at the outcome because after the story made it to the news, protesters were able to convince them the charges be dropped.. Back in my day in the 1970's, there were actually three things the lady across the way would love to go out and grab. First one was a simple little parachute which had a little rubber guy on the bottom. When you threw it up in the air, it would slowly open up and sail back to the ground (the number of these things lost forever is unknown. They always ended up in someone's gutters and had to be removed before the next big rain event. Two other things were big too: WHAM-O's "Superball" and anything "Nerf". There were many WHAM-O variations of the ball that we never saw again...a "super baseball", "super dice and marbles" and assorted Nerf rockets, footballs, etc...Like the lady in Ohio, our neighbor kept these things and always said she would take them with her when she died. When she passed years ago approaching 100, she kept her word. There they were lying next her in the casket. No one had the guts to get these collector's items back! Anyone got a shovel?