Posted by
William D. Dannenmaier on Monday, April 05, 2010 4:54:45 PM
Recently, I modestly mentioned that I had achieved the age of eighty. In a responding e-mail, my friend and former pastor, Reverend Frank Chubb, wrote to say that his son, Kevin, was visiting and that the two of them had gone skiing. He said that they had achieved 79 kilometers per hour in going down the slope. He added that he thought that was not bad for an 86 year old man. I’m sorry Frank, but I have never considered boasting or one up-man-ship admirable qualities. I think they are especially sinful for a minister of the gospel. But I forgive you.
Sheila said Stephen was reminiscing of his childhood recently. He distinctly remembers when we decided that he and Andrew should begin sleeping in separate rooms. He said he told his mother he was afraid of the dark and received a reply that there was nothing to fear. Then he asked if she or daddy were afraid of the dark, and she said no. He said that when she left the room he thought it was unfair that he and Andrew, who were afraid, had to sleep alone while she and daddy, who weren’t afraid slept together.
Sheila and I have decided to give up television. When our government decided we needed the new, more expensive televisions, thus providing more profits and employment for the television industry, we switched to satillite so we could continue to watch the local news. We pay $40 a month for this. The problem is that our local news spends most of its time talking about the harlots of the entertainment industry and describing the weather we can see out the window. We quit watching that. Earlier we had quit national news because of its unrelenting and undeserved praise of Saint Obama. We found that the only things we watched were football games, which my bride claims I sleep through, and Fox Sunday. We decided we had better uses for our $40 than a silent, unwatched television. We continue to watch movies we purchase.
I am amazed by numerous and continuous articles publicizing the women who announce that they have been in bed with Tiger Woods and someone known as Jesse James. I find them a bit boring, but it is obvious that reporters don’t. Still, you can’t avoid hearing or seeing some of them. Tiger and Jesse don’t surprise me, it is the attractive women who announce to the world what sluts they are. I should think they would be ashamed. Or is it possible that they are professionals and the publicity of having played with someone who is famed will permit them to increase their prices?
Currently Sheila and I are doing taxes. This always makes me very nervous. I don’t know why. Just recently I saw photographs of a new penitentiary that has been built outside of Chicago by “stimulus” money (our taxes). The exterior is almost unbelievably beautiful, which could lead one to think it was an especially expensive hotel. Pictures of the interior showed televisions in every cell, a full sized basketball court, a weight room where incarcerated hoodlums can muscle up for their next attacks on innocent people and a recreation room with Ping-Pong tables. They have other things also, such as free medical care, a library and a lunchroom. I didn’t see any ponds for fishing, but they may have those also. If I do my taxes incorrectly, I could be asked to be sent there. In fact, elderly people who have made the mistake of working all their lives and paying all of their taxes and who are living on cat food in Chicago slums should consider this place. All they have to do is hold up a bank. In prison they will be living better than their working lives and, now, retirement lives have ever permitted. Sheila asked about conjugal visits, but when you are in your seventies and eighties those are less important than good food, medical treatment, television and other relaxing goodies, all now provided to imprisoned felons. Why should they stop committing crimes?