perhaps some comedic relief for today, I dunno

[franksolich]

franksolich the morning after.  About four in the morning, I was awakened by the presence of three hunters.  One I knew as a good friend of the neighbor’s; the other two I’d never seen before.   They were going hunting this morning with the neighbor, although not on this property; they’d stopped by because they were delivering ten pounds of beef, sirloin cuts, to augment the two crockpots over the weekend.

I thanked them, but pointed out it wasn’t really necessary, as I considered the cost of feeding droppers-in a “security” expense”--and cheap at that--since I live way out here in the middle of nowhere, and since I can’t hear, people dropping in at various times add immeasurably to my personal safety.  In case something happens, no sweat, because somebody’ll be by.

It definitely deters stalking primitives, especially when they see the droppers-in carrying firearms.

Actually, I was sort of irritated, as someone had apparently not explained something to the guests; that if one shows up here before 6:00 a.m., one is bound to be startled by something.  But as what’s been seen can’t be unseen, I let it go.

They were exuberant over the election returns--for Nebraska, not for the country--especially one of the constitutional amendments, which passed by a vastly wide margin, making hunting and fishing a right in the state constitution.

I’d voted for it too, even though it’s not really necessary, as pigs will fly before hunting and fishing--and the right to own firearms--are banned in Nebraska.

There were three other amendments on the ballot; the first one changed the “eligibility” for impeachment and removal from a state office, making it looser.  I’d voted against it, but it passed.

The second one raised the salary of the 49 state senators from $12,000 a year to $22,500 a year; that failed, and I’d voted against it myself.

The third one changed the term-limits from two terms to three terms; I’d voted against it, and it failed by an enormously large margin.  Nebraskans don’t care much for people making careers out of politics.

And for the first time in about 35 years, the natural order of things has been restored, with both U.S. Senators being Republican.  It’s been a long long drag since 1977, all those years out in the wilderness, with only one, or sometimes no, Republican senators.

All three Republican congressmen won re-election; other than the nonpartisan state senators, there were no state-level races this year, but those are all occupied by the proper people.

It was great in Nebraska last night, but not so much elsewhere.

The friend of the neighbor’s said, “I wonder why we did so well here, when we didn’t do so hot in the other 49 states. It seems the rest of the country is always out of step with us, or us with them.”

“Well, we in Nebraska are what we are, and we do okay as long as we be what we are, rather than trying to be ‘like everybody else,’” I reminded him; “whenever Nebraska follows the common herd, we always seem to get into some sort of trouble.

“So it’s best that we just continue being Nebraska.”

After which they left,  and I finally had a chance to get some clothes on.

[RobJohnson]

It sounds like things were good in NE!

[franksolich]

It sounds like things were good in NE!

Things were great here; I just wish the rest of the country would've followed suit, and my condolences to those members living in places where it didn't happen.

[franksolich]

The neighbor dropped by this morning, Thursday morning.  He had to do some work on something, but also told me of a potential invitation for Thanksgiving dinner with a primitive.

Thus far I’ve acquired five opportunities, but alas they aren’t exactly what I’m looking for.

One involves a young chick, an 0bamaite and “fine arts” degree who works as a file clerk until her big chance comes along; a second involves a 35-year-old guy who still lives at home with his mother; a third involves a member of the College Democrats from the University of Nebraska coming home for the holiday; a fourth involves a bitter angry strident grimacing social worker; and the fifth involves a Gandhian “pacifist” from the big city, coming to town to see his grandparents.

Good candidates, but not quite what I’m looking for.

These are all reasonably young primitives, who haven’t yet been ravaged by the consequences of their primitivity; they’re still all whole and intact and sentient.  They haven’t lived life long enough to suffer the consequences of their attitudes and their behavior.

I’m looking more for a primitive like the now-late “Auntie” of the neighbor’s wife, whose brain was mush and her body decorated like a Christmas tree.

I asked the neighbor if this one was similarly decorated, or at least its mind gone.

He wasn’t sure; he’d known the primitive when he was a little lad, about 8 years old.  The neighbor’s now 38 years old, so that would make it circa the early 1980s.  He said the guy was considered a hippie--even though hippies were passe by then--and as a kid, the neighbor remembered the primitive already looked like a wreck, from copious drug use.

“I don’t know if he’s decorated his body, but surely by now his brain’s gone,” the neighbor said.

I said that sounds promising, closer to what I’m looking for.

The primitive, who doesn’t live around here, belongs to one of the wealthiest families in town.  The neighbor said he’d ask around, and as this one seems the most interesting for Thanksgiving dinner, I said I’d evolve a “strategy” to getting myself invited.

I asked him how hunting had gone yesterday, with those three guys who’d dropped in here first.  He said they all got some birds, but not as large as they’ve been in the past, probably due to the Great Barack Drought of ‘12.

He also remarked I’d impressed one of the friends of his friend--”Man, that guy has confidence, nerves of steel, acting as if nothing was wrong.  Me, I’d go run and hide.  Nerves of steel.”

And then the neighbor asked me what that was all about.

I told him I didn’t have the slightest idea.

[BlueStateSaint]

 

I want to hear the reason . . . !

[franksolich]

I want to hear the reason . . . !

Near as I can figure out, it must've been something I said.

But as we talked about a lot of things, I'm not sure of the specific "something I said."

[Dori]

Near as I can figure out, it must've been something I said.

But as we talked about a lot of things, I'm not sure of the specific "something I said."

were you nekkid? 

[franksolich]

were you nekkid?  

Oh now, that wouldn't have been it, because franksolich is utterly average-looking, hardly worth a second glance.

It's long been a popular custom in the Sandhills of Nebraska to sleep without any clothes on, so as to save wear-and-tear on the underwear, and pajamas are for wimps or the decadent.

There are no wimps or decadents out here in the Sandhills.

As for your unasked, but possible, question, no.  

[RobJohnson]

Things were great here; I just wish the rest of the country would've followed suit, and my condolences to those members living in places where it didn't happen.

WI did good at a state level.

My state did ok. Dean Heller R kept a seat he was appointed to earlier. When they called it it was close, less then 1.5 points per our friends at Fox. On a local level some Ron Paul types voted to get rid of our town board and let the county take over our town, not a great idea. It lost by less then 40 votes. (I keep hearing different numbers, they are all under 40) We also voted not to raise our fuel tax by .03 a gallon.

Clark County (Las Vegas) had the unions bussing people in to vote. Those union workers had to be picked up and led like sheed to the polls. I'm sure the poll workers started to get the munchies from the smell of second hand marijuana smoke. 

The union officials were checking the list, like Santa Claus, and checking it twice to make sure everyone had voted, those that did not, were paid a house call.
 
One voter they grabbed when she was still in her bath tub, giving her a free ride to the polls:

 

First, a middle-aged caucasian women comes to the door in her slippers.  Her husband isn't home, but she assures Rangel both of them will be at the polls tomorrow, voting for Obama.
 
Three-doors down an African-American male answers. He lives with his mother.
 
"Do you work?" Rangel asks him.
 
"No," he responds timidly.
 
"Then please make sure it's the first thing you do tomorrow," she says. "And take your mother with you."
 
Rangel likes to start with a simple questions like if they have a job.  That way, she says, the person can start mentally planning their day with voting in mind.

http://www.neontommy.com/news/2012/11/nevada-unions-make-final-push-mobilize-voters

[Skul]

were you nekkid? 

After which they left,  and I finally had a chance to get some clothes on.

[franksolich]

I forgot; she's new here, and probably doesn't know.

Most people can prevent such startlements by simply locking their doors, and I assume most people do.

However, because I'm deaf, I can't hear someone knocking on the door, rapping on a window, or yelling from the front porch.  I have no way of knowing there's a person there.

To complicate the matter, I live way out here in the middle of nowhere, but near a highway, and this is the only place someone in trouble can find help, unless one wishes to walk six miles north (of the highway) or six miles east or 42 miles west.

So as a service to humanity, I need to be as accessible as possible, hence the always unlocked doors here.

(There's no worry about theft, because there's nothing worth stealing here; the valuable things are kept in a locked storage rental in town or in a safe-deposit box at the bank in town, and all my important papers are kept in the safe of an automotive dealership.  What's here wouldn't bring fifty bucks in a garage sale.)

From a very young age, I already knew there was much going on around me that I wasn't aware of, especially other people seeing what I was doing (unknown to me).  There was no point in getting paranoid about it though, because I couldn't think of anything I did, that needed to be a "secret."

The only guaranteed privacy franksolich has is the fifteen or twenty minutes a day behind the locked door of the bathroom, doing what one does in a bathroom.  Otherwise, I'm wide open.

Fortunately, most people know I go to bed at 10:00 p.m., and am decent again at 6:00 a.m.

[franksolich]

Whoa.  That was easy.

When I went to the post office in town to pick up my mail in early afternoon, by sheerest of coincidences a certain person was also picking up hers; the aforementioned relative of the 1980s hippie as the neighbor remembered him.

But this is a small town; one runs into everybody.

I hadn’t been more specific before, because I didn’t know, but apparently she’s an elderly aunt of the Reagan-era hippie.  Loaded; lots and lots of dough.

I don’t know much about her, but she seemed to know all about me, which is par for the course.

After discerning her nature, I started my song-and-dance, my waltz, to subtly extract an invitation for Thanksgiving dinner.  I inquired what she was doing for the holiday.

She said she and her husband were having company at noon, naming the retired banker--the old grouch who hikes his pants clear up to his midriff--and his wife--the award-winning gardener, who comes out here every so often to collect more of the William Rivers Pitt for her flowers and plants; an older widowed sister of hers; a retired high school principal and his wife; a guy who was town cop a very long time ago; a nun from the convent in the big city, who’s apparently some shirt-tail relative; a retired telephone company operator; the guy who once owned a coal-distributorship in town; a long-retired blacksmith and his wife; someone who was once a maitre d‘ on the Santa Fe railway’s Super Chief; and the errant nephew, who’s apparently about my age and in not good health.

A geriatric crowd, excepting the hippie nephew.

These old folks were going to need my help, I figured, and so I was starting to develop a strategy to get myself invited, when she, to be polite, inquired in turn what I was doing for Thanksgiving.

“Oh, nothing special,” I said; “the cats’ll get their usual holiday treat of pure white turkey, one whole can for each, and I’ll just do my ‘nothing special.’”

She looked at me.  “Ah yes, poor boy, no family.”

Then much to my open-mouthed surprise, she invited me to join them for Thanksgiving dinner.

And here, I’d been doing all sorts of mental gymnastics inside my head, trying to contrive a creative way of disgorging an invitation out of her, and I didn‘t have to.

“You know,” she said, “we haven’t ever exchanged but a few words in passing all the time you’ve lived out here, but I’ve heard a lot about you.  I think you’re quite interesting, and would be delighted if you’d join us.”

Mission accomplished.

[Dori]

Congrat's - sounds entertaining

I hope you are writing stories.  You could be the

[BlueStateSaint]

I hope you are writing stories.

Look around, Dori--look around.  Frank's a great storyteller.

[franksolich]

Man, I wasn’t supposed to work the rest of this week after Monday, but then I was called out two times--today, in late afternoon and then in mid-evening.  It’s a good thing I don’t have other people to be around for, just the cats, and the cats don‘t care when I‘m around.

The neighbor came by after supper, and I told him I’d inveigled an invitation for Thanksgiving dinner with a primitive, the very primitive he’d mentioned earlier.

The neighbor had been busy all day, and hadn’t had time to inquire of anyone about the primitive, who he’d seen only one time, when he was eight years old back in 1982, and the primitive was in his early 20s.

“He was scary-looking.  He took drugs, and he had this wild-eyed look on his face, his hair standing out on end.  He was pretty skinny, and always dirty and disheveled.  The way I remember him, he reminded me of pictures I’d seen of Charles Manson, although younger and smaller.

“If somebody tried talking with him, he’d snarl at them.”

Well, well, I thought to myself; it’s a good thing I’m having Thanksgiving dinner there, as the rest of the crowd was going to be all these frail old people, and they needed some protection from this homicidal maniac.

“He wasn’t from here, but he had family here.  But after one saw him one time, one didn’t bother looking around for him again.

“I heard through the years he spent some time in jail, but even more time in mental hospitals and half-way houses.”

Whoa.  This was going to be good.

But, as the neighbor reminded me, this was all a very long time ago.

“People can change a lot in thirty years.”

I expressed skepticism.  “After all, I’m about this primitive’s age, and I haven’t changed hardly at all the past thirty years.  Just a few more scars and a now-absent elbow.

“Other than that one gets tired more easily, I’ll bet he hasn’t changed that much.

“I’ll ask [the property caretaker] about him, the next time I see him.”

[franksolich]

“Well, boss, it looks like you’re going to get what you wanted,” the property caretaker said to me this morning.  “That guy, he fits all of your requirements for primitivity.  And yeah, he’s about your age, but I haven’t seen him for twenty-five years.

“I saw him around lots more times when he was younger.

“His folks were farmers two counties west of here, modest, hard-working people, he was their only kid, and they had him late in life.

“Up until he was in the middle of high school, he was an ideal kid; did as he was told without complaining, got good grades in school, and was quite the eye-candy for girls, but then he started running with the wrong crowd, and started smoking dope.

“He got withdrawn, apathetic, lazy, didn’t care about anything or anybody.  Sat around all day, doing nothing.

“He never made it out of high school.

"Just went to pot.

“When his parents died, her sister, your hostess for Thanksgiving, got guardianship of him, but she couldn’t control him.  He was deep into hard drugs by then.  He spent a lot of time in jail here, and in surrounding counties.

“He was nuts.  One time he was picked up while wearing a women’s dress, a pot on his head, and carrying a bird-cage.  He told the sheriff he was out hunting for rabbits.

“The sheriff thought he needed put away, at the madhouse in the big city, but his guardian wouldn’t let him.

“But then one day when he was about 23, 24, years old, the sheriff caught him acting funny around a kid.

“Nothing had happened, but it enraged the sheriff, who grabbed him, loaded him into the car, and drove him over to the next county, telling him, ‘I don’t ever want to see you in this town or this county again--I’ve got more than enough to put you away in the looney bin, and if you cross this line ever again, that’s where you’re going. 

“’Just stay the Hell out of here.’

“And then he got everything squared away with the guy’s aunt.

“The last I heard of him, about ten years ago, he was living in a half-way house up in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, part of the time, and in a straitjacket the other part of the time.

“His guardian lost track of him, and the guy who was sheriff then is dead.

“I dunno why they invited him here; perhaps because they’re old and looking at the cemetery, and want to see him one more time.”

“Well, since nobody’s seen him, what do you suppose he’s like now?” I asked.

“I dunno, but he’s probably no improvement over what he’d been before.”

[franksolich]

This morning began the deer-hunting season in Nebraska, so I was up early, as there’s supposed to be a crowd around.  The weather’s still reasonably pleasant, but it’s supposed to turn bitterly cold and snow tonight (Saturday night), and be that way all of next week.

I could never figure out deer-hunting season.  From reading the guidebook, deer-hunting season in Nebraska actually runs from September 15 all the way to January 18 of next year, but this week is generally considered the deer-hunting season, as if the other weeks aren’t on the calendar.

But whatever.  Anything to cull them down.  Nebraska in 2012 has four times as many deer as it had back in 1870; so much for this tear-jerking idea that humans drive out Bambi.

I never paid attention to deer until this past summer, during the Great Barack Drought of ‘12, when one night while I was driving on a back-road so as to avoid the prairie fires, I saw a deer standing by the side of the road, and paid close attention lest it decide to cross.

Too bad for franksolich; because I was paying attention to that deer, I didn’t see the one right in front of me.

Yeah, the motor vehicle got some, uh, damage.

But at least it was my car.  I usually have four pick-up trucks and three sedans at my disposal, free to use as I see fit, but those don’t belong to me.  Although everything’s all insured, I would’ve felt badly if it’d happened to a vehicle not mine.  I take responsibility very seriously, and if something happens to something due to my negligence, best that it happens to something that belongs to me, not to other people.

I haven’t gotten around to replacing my own vehicle yet, still driving it around with its bashed-in front, as a matter of ego.  There’s many who think franksolich hasn’t fully experienced life around here, that he’s a bit soft and citified and challenged in machissimo, as if someone from effete Connecticut or decadent Maryland, and this helps give lie to that slander; franksolich hit a deer.

I’ll drive it until the sheriff finally tells me to get it off the road, after which I’ll look around for another one.

One of my college classmates and roommates is coming up from Omaha on Sunday morning, to hunt.

I dunno how it is in other places--I lived in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, yes, but I wasn’t paying attention--but this one-week deer-hunting season in Nebraska isn’t just a weekend deal.  There’s almost as many hunters out on weekdays as well as the weekend.

[ExGeeEye]

Hunting and fishing now State Constitutional rights?  What visible effect does that have?  Are there differences in hunting season, license procedures etc.?

[franksolich]

Hunting and fishing now State Constitutional rights?  What visible effect does that have?  Are there differences in hunting season, license procedures etc.?

It's pre-emptive, as it's been anticipated the "friends" of animals will keep increasing in influence and power, until they pretty much get all hunting and fishing banned everywhere.

By making it a constitutional amendment, it makes it tougher to do that.

Otherwise no changes in seasons or procedures.

[franksolich]

Hunting and fishing now State Constitutional rights?  What visible effect does that have?  Are there differences in hunting season, license procedures etc.?

To further explain.

Vermont, once one of the most reliably Republican states, as you know, has been dominated by ultra-left moonbats ever since hippies started moving there, from their blue hell-holes.

However, despite all this primitivity, gun laws in Vermont are pretty permissive.

This is because the Vermontese of old wanted to ensure residents of their state enjoyed the Second Amendment, and so put the right to own and bear firearms into their state constitution.

It's difficult to repeal something from a constitution; despite that the lunatic moonbats have owned Vermont for almost forty years now, the right remains instact, because it's in the constitution, not in a mere law or regulation.

This amendment in Nebraska was inspired a couple of years ago when the most-liberal member of the state legislature casually commented, "Oh, hunting and fishing's so popular in Nebraska it'll never get tampered with."

When a Democrat, liberal, or primitive starts talking like this, it's time to nail it down, to engrave it in granite, to make it permanent, to ensure that what they want will most certainly not happen.

It was pre-emptive, as I mentioned.

[ExGeeEye]

Thanks.

Though I might have a word or two to say about how the Second Amendment preempted NFA34 and GCA68, except that it didn't.

Good luck to NB and VT.

[franksolich]

Well, as of suppertime this evening (Saturday evening), it’s pouring rain but still 55 degrees; however, it’s supposed to be snow and temperatures about 40 degrees lower than that, during the night.

I had nine hunters here during the afternoon, none of them having any luck.  The Great Barack Drought of ‘12, combined with all the massive prairie fires here this past summer, apparently had an effect upon deer copulation and where the deer now call “home.”

Nobody was especially disappointed though, as it’d been expected.  Not hoped for, but expected.

There was some conversation about the elections, the gist of it being the big-city bosses in corrupt blue cities stole it again, what with their manufacturing “votes” out of thin air.  And so those of us who cast our honest one vote got disenfranchised again.

Nebraska beat Penn State this afternoon, which was some cause for elation.

There was some talk about what happens to this place, but the most credible rumor seems to be that the owners are just going to go ahead and develop the property despite that the kleptomaniac Democrats might try to steal it; after all, they’re pretty old and want to have something in place for their children and grandchildren.

That means only one more hunting season out here with franksolich.

“But maybe because you’ll have to move, you’ll be a lot safer around more people,” I was advised, an obvious reference to strangers and primitives stalking franksolich who show up here, out in the middle of nowhere.

I said I wasn’t so sure about that; the whole world is a dangerous place if one can’t hear things, so it doesn’t make any difference where I eventually go, congested with other people or not.

One hunter, who I didn’t know but who was with another hunter I did know, joked, “Well, I suppose there goes the skinny-dipping in the river,” at which I bristled.

It really bothers me that other people know more about me, than I do about them, but I accept it with as good grace as humanly possible.

[notaDUmmie]

Things were great here; I just wish the rest of the country would've followed suit, and my condolences to those members living in places where it didn't happen.

I live in Virginia, and I'm truly heartbroken.  Not only did my adopted state fail me, my beloved home state of Florida did as well.

I became concerned when I went to vote at 2:00 PM...due to a glitch with the paper ballot tabulator, I had to alert the Chief Election Officer (who was as useful as a job for a DUmmy), and when he did nothing, the ORCA representative for the Romney team that was on-site.  To say that I was less than impressed with him would be an understatement, but while I waited for him to make his call, I chatted with the Republican precinct chief outside, and she told me they still had 1000 Republicans that had not yet voted.

That concerned me, so after I left, I drove about 7 miles away to the precinct where I had served as an election officer in 2008...heavily Democratic...and at 3:30 PM, the lines were still outside the door.  I knew that meant that they were wrapped around inside the school, meaning very high turnout. 

At that point, I became quite concerned, and the rest of the night didn't get any better.  I followed the Fairfax County Twitter as the precincts came in, a printed copy of 2008 results in hand, and I saw within about 30 minutes that Virginia was most likely lost.  I called it by 7:45 PM.

I'm glad that Nebraska came through for the country - wish I could say we did.

[franksolich]

I'm glad that Nebraska came through for the country - wish I could say we did.

Here, after showing identification and checked in the register of voters, one's given a paper ballot and a pencil, and fills in the circles of one's choice, and then puts the ballot into a box.

It's a snap; easy as strawberries-and-cream.

I suspect a Democrat invented the voting machine, so as to make it easier to screw with the numbers.

Those things should be tossed into the junk heap.

[franksolich]

Well, because south of here--Omaha, Lincoln, the Platte River, whatnot--got snow while all we had way up here was rain, the expected guest from Omaha decided to not drive here, and perhaps come next weekend.

It won't break his heart if he didn't nab a deer; he prefers hunting pheasants anyway, and there's a lot of time to do that.

So, it's a drab dull grey day here today, overcast skies, damp, and the temperature's in the low 20s, which is about as high as it'll get until Wednesday.