I’ve had it. I mean it. This is it, the last straw. For nearly eight years now, I have put up with our current administration. No, I haven’t been happy, but like most of my fellow citizens, I have tolerated it. Well it’s over now; it’s time to act.

While the two presumptive presidential nominees will appear in three debates sponsored by the Commission on Presidential Debates, the timing and format of any other joint appearances remain unclear. Obama has proposed two face-offs.  McCain wants 10 town hall meetings prior to the national conventions. According to USA Today, discussions about additional debates “are at a halt.”

WDBJ ran a report a few nights back about a guy in Roanoke selling these three-wheeled truck things that get something like 70 miles to the gallon. For about $6,000 you can buy this contraption that promises a top cruising speed of 45 mph, has an AM/FM radio and a heater.

I was gone so long that my broccoli started to bloom.  I was not gone so long that my cat forgot me.  Still, I was gone too long. That’s not because I walked all the way to Indiana and back again.  I did walk to Indiana.

I drove to Louisville for a job and stayed in a hotel on the Ohio River for a week.  During the day, I worked hard.  In the evening, I relaxed and tried not to think about my lonely garden vegetables.

Slumped in the waiting room chair, I dreaded the receptionist calling my name. Actually, I was hoping and praying she would not call my name, that somehow I had the wrong day or the wrong place, that the whole thing was a bad dream. I was there for a root canal. A root canal is a dental procedure used to salvage what remains of dead or dying teeth, or to extract information. Concerning discomfort, it falls somewhere between a beheading and having a hot needle poked in your eye.

I had been expecting the call from Bill Clinton.  He only calls me when he is very depressed.  I tried to soften the opening.  “You’ve had a tough 10 days, Bill.”
“We were so close.”
“Statistically even in the vote count.”

We were headed somewhere, I don’t know where, and the car broke down.  It was always breaking down. It didn’t matter what year it was or what car.  It broke down.  This time, instead of going back inside the house and taking off our Sunday best, we posed for pictures anyway.

The bottle on my desk is blue and white with bold red print. It contains 8 oz. of a mysterious liquid, the ingredients of which I can hardly pronounce much less reprint here. I have never seen a product label exactly like this one. It reads “Wash Away Your Sins Hand Cleanser.”

Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of eighty and gradually approach eighteen.“
—Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens), American author, humorist, newsman and raconteur.

At 18, I would never have agreed with Brother Twain. Now that I am far closer to 80 than 18, I agree with him wholeheartedly. Ordinarily, this would be my favorite time of year, late spring, early summer, the time when a young man was just tuning up for a summer full of fun.

It is a white flower with five wispy petals arranged asymmetrically, green leaves showing more yellow than the dark green leaves in my picture book.