Photo Essay: This week's Postcards to the President.

 

Today's timericks.

 

Watch your P's and Q's, reporters/but especially your N's/cuz otherwise you'll find yourself/with a dearth of friends/Once a pack of hypocrites has gotten on your scent/your editor abandons you/and your career has went/Take my advice and only use/the blandest of bland nouns/and you can never be accused/of going out of bounds.

Ev'ryone's a witness when it comes to Trump's high jinks/We all have read his postings on a host of public links/Baiting race and spreading hate were all his stock in trade/Anyone can testify he is a renegade/So send him on a world wide tour like presidents of old/and let him start at Gitmo, and stay there till he's old.

The Post Office is awful slow/and now it's getting slower/while stamps are going up in price/(please get me a snow blower!)/Ben Franklin wouldn't like the way/that USPS functions/and wouldn't put a bit of stock/in DeJoy's bland unctions.  

The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light

 

If men prefer to walk alone in darkness and not light

they only find dim ignorance and that all things are trite.

But those who place their hope in God will walk a sunny lane

that leads them on to joy when their true home they do regain.

Today's timericks.

 

People fall in love in elevators all the time/according to the movies it's the sweetest paradigm/But I do not believe it; romance in a sardine can/is for the daydreamer or perhaps for Peter Pan/Me, I like the backseat of a car, or movie show/Someplace where imagination has the time to flow!

Big Pharma was gouged by fines

for boosting the opioid scourge.

And no one makes a ruction

when they take a tax deduction

for that monetary purge

that improves their bottom lines.

In this here pandemic all the greasy spoons agree/there ain't no rhyme or reason when to start or shut -- phooey!/Bring in lots of wait staff and the Health Board says to fold/Send 'em home and suddenly your joint will be paroled/Open up a food truck, all you chefs who tear your hair/running over Health Board staff without a single care.

How I Plan My Community Meals

 

I'm happy & grateful to be able to serve free community meals from my door again here at Valley Villa.

In case you were wondering how I plan the meals I offer for free here at Valley Villa in Provo, Utah -- here's the inside scoop:

I treat my meal planning like a competition on the Food Channel, called "What Can I Make With Donated Foodstuffs today?"

Each day I go through my pantry, checking canned goods, and combing my refrigerator for fresh produce, eggs, and dairy. Then I get creative and start thinking up combinations.

For instance, today's community meal of Chinese Pork and Brown Rice is based on the fact that someone gave me a big package of boneless pork chops and another person gave me a big package of brown rice and a bottle of soy sauce. So I threw the chops in the slow cooker with some fresh veggies that I have been given, added two tablespoons of soy sauce, some red pepper flakes, ground cloves, ginger, and pepper corns, and two cups of water. The result is what I call Chinese Pork. The brown rice goes in the rice cooker as soon as I finish writing and posting this.

I try never to spend more than twenty dollars of my own money each week on community meals, since, like many of you, I am on a fixed income. Most of that money goes for spices, herbs, fresh produce, and pickles. 

I hope that explains my menu choices. For instance right now I have a package of salmon, a package of pollock, and a package of tilapia fillets in the freezer, all donated by generous neighbors. What to do with them? Individually, they are not enough to feed everyone that might come to my door -- but if I combine them into a fish chowder, with lots of potatoes, etc., then there will be plenty for everybody..

Get the picture?

The judgements of man are not always just

 

The judgements of man are not always fair;

the truth of the matter is hard to ensnare.

That's why I rejoice that ultimately 

all-knowing God will judge you and me.

Injustice will cease with scrupulous might,

with none left behind to walk in the night.

Today's timericks.

 

Winter's hung on long enough/starting now we should get tough/Giving snowmen all the boot/holly plants we should uproot/ice fishing no more promotin'/skating on the pond verboten/Otherwise Jack Frost will stay/longer than Trump's dossier.  

Immunity no longer holds/for old Trump and his households/He got refunds now suspect/which the taxman won't neglect/Like Capone of gangland fame/the IRS his rackets will tame.

I never saw the reason for/weddings that bought out the store/Bride and groom should show some wit/saving for the dread obit/when the marriage has expired/and expensive lawyers hired/Call me cynic, crank, or fool/most couples skip the Golden Rule.

Folk from other planets is the score.

We cannot be the only biped souls.

To fill the universe with dust and ash

without at least a smidgen of trailer trash

or somebody who lurks around black holes

is just not fair and strands mankind ashore.

Valedictory to my online newspaper subscriptions.

 

I have always been an inveterate newspaper reader. When I was a kid my parents got the Minneapolis Star in the morning, and the Minneapolis Tribune in the evening. I devoured both -- for the comics, the movie ads (back in those days they were gigantic, garish, and promised unbridled sex and incredibly scary monsters), for stories of murder, arson, and exotic monkey business in foreign lands, and even for the  opinion pieces, which often told me things I never knew, such as the Park Board was riddled with crooks or that Mayor Art Naftalin was a saint.

When I left home to join Ringling Brothers, Barnum & Bailey Circus as a First of May (new clown) I got a day old copy of the New York Times each day from Prince Paul, a dwarf clown. He struggled with the crossword puzzle mightily, but never completed it. So I would finish it and show it to him, just to hear his sizzling blasphemy against those fiends incarnate who designed such byzantine and misleading clues.

As a domesticated family man with many mouths to feed (eventually there were eight children) I found it behooved me to take a second part-time job, so I got up at 4 each morning to pick up, fold, and insert in plastic bags the local newspaper, and then take the station wagon around town, tossing and aiming for porches but most often sending the daily news into the forsythia.  There were always one or two papers left over -- so, as time permitted, I'd settle down in the evening, with a cup of chamomile tea to peruse the latest scandal and folly.

Ever since I retired seven years ago I've subscribed online to no less than three newspapers at a time. Not only did I read and enjoy them thoroughly, but I also began responding to some of the reporter's stories with light verse, which I called timericks. And sometimes a reporter would reply via email that they appreciated my little ditties. I guess it was a welcome change from most of the kvetching and threatening messages they were getting. I became online friends with about a dozen of 'em. 

But recently I came down with the COVID 19 virus, and after it was all over and the bills  started coming in, my modest finances (meaning Social Security) were insufficient to pay my current expenses. Something had to go.

And I'm truly sorry to say that it was my online newspaper subscriptions that I decided to let go. 

I hope all my reporter friends will understand, and forgive me for abandoning my financial support of their fine enterprises. I feel like I've betrayed one of my oldest and most trustworthy of friends . . . 

My success is God's success.

 

My success is God's success

because He is my maker.

He is not distant, unconcerned,

or merely a caretaker.

Each battle that I fight and win

He feels my triumph, too.

Each time I lose he knows my pain,

and helps me carry through.

Today's timericks.

 

Impeachment trials are just the stuff/to take our minds off things too rough/Let's bring the old boy back to growl/so we can snicker and then howl/Perhaps he'll toss his golden hair/then have a fit and throw a chair/I hope it's streamed commercial-free/so I get the full fantasy.

Investing in a Chinese group/puts you on a Loop-the-Loop/dizzy regulations mean/punters enter sight unseen/Beijing has its little whims/on the cream it always skims/So beware such foreign deals/or you'll start to miss some meals.

My keyboard's full of greasy crumbs/and stained with Snapple juice/It's sticky and will welcome bugs/I think I need to sluice/Otherwise I'll just add cheese/and bake it by and by/and then I'll have a savory/keyboard pizza pie!  

Facebook and Craig's List have got lots of junk/from moose heads to snow shoes to old steamer trunk/Shipping and handling will bring them to you/back issues galore of Judicial Review!/Beware of the hoarding of other men's rubbish/'Twill make of your domicile something quite grubbish!