Culler, I didn't mean to misspell your name; apologies.

All right, I admit it:  there are some things our United States Government does, every now and then, that may not make complete sense all the time, to everybody.  Even to me.  NOW are you happy?  Dear Ralf, I have never been happier or more optimistic, because as I said above "Thanks to you folk (you) ....." there is still hope and good work being done by people with passion. Huh?

 

In the meantime, it seems to me that this story puts the kibosh on the notion that all you goddam holier-than-thou Chances (Sorry, don't know what that is unless you mean the gardener character player by Peter Sellers in the fabulous movie "Being There".) I seem to have been having major problems with spellcheck last night: I meant to say "Canucks".  up there are all a bunch of tree and whale huggers if this girl piano player is running all over the world with an instrument  -- and her own personal instrument, it would appear!-- made out of God knows how many elephant tusks.  That's not very nice, is it?   We are indeed the suppliers of great quality fur seal coats.   I can get you a good price on one if you like. Thanks but no thanks; Mrs. Ralph won't use the goddam Coach purse I bought her several years ago, so it molders away in our attic, so I'm sure as hell not gonna spring for a fur coat she'd only bitch about. We also have fresh wild salmon available out of the car trunk of a friendly Indian.  Do you offer fresh beef to your Subcontinental penpals, as well as fish to me, and pork to the rest of the Hebes? 

 

Re. personal instruments, are you suggesting that it is somehow odd to own one's own instrument? Owning one's own instrument and even schlepping it to concerts in foreign countries doesn't necessarily strike me as unreasonable, in my capacity as a retired (and very bad) trombonist.  In the case of a grand piano, however, it seems a little excessive.  It's not my impression that the even the really bigshot concert pianists haul their axes around with them.  But of course I could (theoretically) be wrong.   I certainly own mine, including two pianos, a harpsichord, a pump organ, a harmonium, a chest of Renaissance recorders, two fabulous Baroque recorders and a van load of other early instruments, (almost all purchased in the Hew Hes Hay and only one recorder with real ivory as well as the baby grand piano that was made in New York).  Well aren't YOU well endowed! I hope you own your own instrument too. Yes, and I practice a lot when I'm alone.  It is more fun that way. Assume you mean owning your own instrument, rather than practicing alone.  Besides, ivory feels really nice.  I like their soap, too. The elephants know how to do it right.  Assume you know what it means when your flower beds are trampled and the trash bags are missing?  Yep, elephants have been having sex in your back yard.

 

Does she have a baby seal fur coat, too?  How about roasting kittens on her screen door?  Does she wait 15 hours to see some communist doctor (who went to meed school (do you mean Mead School? I meant "med" school. That is the one really worth attending.  Especially for doctors.  Sort of combines the physical and the spiritual in a practical way.   The nearby Pizza Hut has a very good local mead.)    in Cuba, no doubt) in your wonderful national health plan, or do people with their own grand pianos get to have their own doctors and just waltz right in by flashing a wad of money?  Yea, you are right, they get to travel to the MAYO clinic at their own expense instead of waiting 14 months here for a CAT scan for prostate cancer diagnosis as the rest of us have to.  So you admit that socialized medicine is AFU!! No doubt you've seen the Americans with bumper stickers that say "If you think medical care is expensive now, just wait until it's 'free'."

 

Of course the real news of today, Thursday, is that the (I just can't say "our") A lot of us have that problem Provincial Government just laid off most of the staff of the great historic site known as Barkerville, an 1800's gold rush town with 120 original buildings.   This is the premier historic site for BC, equivalent to Old Sturbridge Village.   The government says that history preservation and presentation must be treated like any business and not subsidized by government.  Damn right. Everybody should pay their own way, except big business which keeps us all employed. The only jobs they appear to want to "subsidize" without evaluation or any apparent responsibility are the jobs of Cabinet Ministers, who raised their own wages as their first act in office.  Thank God we have state representatives and congressmen to do that, instead of a bunch of goddam cabinet ministers. Now that I think about it, maybe our religious right would like it if we changed all those guys in the gov't from "secretaries" to "ministers." I hope you never see politics like this where the government has no faith in the future of their plans.   It is all "take and run" here now.   All thought of leaving or creating monuments for the future is gone.  No doubt we're right behind you on the road to hell.

 

There is a really disturbing lack of morality in government here now.   During the recent spate of major forest fires in this region, one little town was wiped out, including the sawmill that employed everyone and almost all of the houses.   Meanwhile, near a big city not far away, some historic railroad trestles were burned, causing grief for high-end tourism operators who use the abandoned trestles for a bicycle path for German tourists paying high prices for Champaign tours.   Immediately the Federal government stepped in and said they would insure that the trestles are rebuilt, already beginning the organization of a fund raising campaign, while nothing is being said by them about help for the residents of the little sawmill town How about if the sawmill town builds the new trestles?? who lost everything.   More than the smoke stinks here right now.  Just wait til our boy Cheney starts drilling for oil next door, and then you can pay him to put out your fires and build you some new cement igloos.

 

Even so, folks like you make life good.  Got so much smoke you can afford to blow a little up our ass, huh? Thanks for being there (beyond the bridges and tunnels).  Anytime.