Leave It to Peever

by Bruce Weik

­­ Bumper sticker of the week: Custer got Siouxed.

­­ Quote of the week: ''It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory.'' --W. Edwards Deming

­­ I see our brilliant collection of nitwits in Washington failed to ratify the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. So much for showing leadership in the world. These people are getting so far off base I'm beginning to think somewhere along the line Washington, D.C. was declared an insane asylum. I don't know what else you'd call it?

­­ Most relevant quote of the week: ''This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or exercise their revolutionary right to overthrow it.'' --Abraham Lincoln

­­ I've been driving over to the other side of town, where gas is two cents cheaper. It's tough trying to figure out what to do with the 16 cents I save.

­­ I'd like to know who the brilliant person was that put a bar across the middle of a boy's bike and left it off a girl's. This idiot must have missed school the day they explained the difference between boys and girls, or was a sadist. Or was a female.

­­ Some impressions of the scenic drive:--

I don't like traffic jams out in the middle of nowhere.--

It in many ways is becoming too commercial.--

I mentioned to my wife that I could make a lot of the craft items I was seeing. She reminded me that those were the ones that weren't selling.--

The so-called antiques at most of the stops are for the most part backyard sale junk. I personally would throw most of it away.--

The eating was good. That's all I ever spend my money on anyway. Good kettle corn. I like the lightly glazed. I had the best brat I ever had at Glisson School on Route 150. It was very relaxing to sit in the shelter behind the school and chow down. (I am, by the way, an expert on brats, having lived in Wisconsin for four years.) I searched high and low for a grape pie, but came up empty. I settled for an apricot, which was runny.--

It is, all and all, a nice fall event. Take away the traffic, the commercial food vendors, the junk stands, and force somebody to make grape pie, and I would call it extraordinary.

­­ Seems the son of a Nazi is making a big splash in Austria. Apparently this is an example of ''like father, like son.'' He has been known to praise Hitler's economic policy, which I understand had a lot to do with pillage and plundering. He also thinks the SS soldiers were good men, which they probably were before they became murderers. I suppose we'll always see this type of madness. It seems to be a part of humankind. The German folks in particular can get a little carried away. For a long time I thought it was the warm beer, but I've come to learn it's the sauerkraut.

­­ A lot of people seem to be decorating for Halloween. This is good to see. Of course some people believe Halloween is the Day of the Devil, and to celebrate means you are leaning towards the Dark Side. Apparently some of our school principals are of this mentality. Kids should not be exposed to such evil things as eating sugar-laced cupcakes or parading around in vile and ghoulish costumes. Seemingly this would be way too much fun. These folks are lucky my kids aren't in their schools. I'd dress them up to look like them, which would amount to nothing more than looking foolish.

­­ Man vs. woman:--

''It is not good that man should be alone.'' That don't cut it in San Francisco.--

''It takes a great man to be a good listener.'' It takes a woman to test this out.--

''Man is free at the moment he wishes to be.'' Yea. Tell that to the woman.--

''It is a man's own mind, not his enemy, or foe, that lures him to evil ways.'' Buddha said that. He didn't have much experience with women.--

''You can kill a man, but you can't kill an idea.'' You can kill a woman, but you can't stop her from nagging.--

''All men are created equal.'' I suppose they could have said, ''All men and women are created equal,'' but why lie.--

''No man is ever old enough to know better.'' You can say that again.

­­ Some sorry idiot developers cut down a 300-500 year old oak tree in Peoria to make way for a strip mall. They should be jailed for murder. They promised the neighborhood that they would spare the tree. At the very least, they should be made to pay restitution to the community, I'd say at about a million dollars a board foot, or whatever figure it took to bankrupt the sorry scavengers. A mighty oak tree or a strip mall? That wouldn't be a choice in a civil community.



Uploaded to The Zephyr Online October 26, 1999

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