A Chicken in Every Pot!

There once was a time in this country when people were extremely naive. They believed what people told them, or sold them, because they had no way of discerning whether or not it was true. The day of the traveling salesman selling snake oil was nothing more than a few entrepreneurial men who saw an opportunity to make money on peoples suffering.

By the time the buyers realized that is was nothing more than a colored liquid placebo, the salesman was gone, on the the next batch of suckers. Word traveled very slowly back then, and a guy with cases of fake ointment or balm or vitalizer or cream or what have you could canvass the entire country without the rubes coming around to see the light. Generations have passed, the internet now connects the world in nanoseconds, yet the salesmen remain, spewing their bullshit to an audience lapping it up. We have learned nothing from the past.

A headline today says Hillary Clinton is in Florida to woo the millenials. Ah, the millenials, that group of young men and women that are the future of this country. They don't understand things that us old folk learned and grew up with. Like how to say thank you. Or hold the door open for someone. Or walk a little old lady across the street. Or look you in the eye. Or pay attention to history when it maters most. Yes, our presidential candidates are those very same salesmen, canvassing the country, peddling their snake oil to whole generation of voters who are eating it up like candy. (To those millenials who shun the "it's all about me" mantra and actually contribute to society, I apologize. To both of you.)

I have lived more than a half a century in this world, and I know a few invariable truths about elections. One of which is the fact that candidates will say and do and promise anything to get elected. To listen to someone in today's race and take them at their word is nothing more than buying a bottle of Dr. McGillicutty's Magic Elixer Tonic. But today's suckers are far more dangerous than those of the late 1800's. Because if you are buying what they are selling today, you have absolutely no excuse. A few clicks on a mouse should tell you everything you need to know about anyone.

So if Hillary is successful in wooing enough suckers to vote for someone that by all rights should not be running for president, then the days of the snake oil salesman is alive and well in the 21'st century. If you believe anything that comes out of a candidate's mouth during an election year, then you are truly stuck in the past. Live and learn. A simple motto lost on today's me generation of headphone wearing, Netflix binging, MTV watching, society shunning, self centered suckers. There is more at stake than here than simple self preservation. The future of our country is at stake. And the stakes have never been higher.

The Least I Can Do

The Guitarman's first political statement. Almost.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmHo6D34b3g

In a galaxy, far, far away...

The universe. It's big, right? So big that it boggles the mind. What do you think of when you hear "the universe?" Planets far, far away? Black holes? Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock? Or maybe Captain Picard is your choice of Trekiness. All of the above for me. Almost, never got into the Star Trek Next Generation thingy. That is, actually, what I used to think. Now when I hear "the universe," it means something entirely different to me.

A couple of years ago, if you would have struck me up in conversation and said something along the lines of, oh I dunno, "...the universe made it happen," I would have been all like, "Umm, yea. And how many THC edible's did you consume today?" The concept of the universe being a living force (not EXACTLY like "The Force Be With You" kinda force) was fools folly. It was for the nut jobs and cranks. True believers of the notion that something other than what you can touch and see is real. More than likely I would have steered the conversation to something like, "How 'bout them Bears!" Today, as I live and breathe in our new dream house, I have a very different perspective indeed.

I have come to accept as reality a part of life that is hidden from 99% of the world. Most people believe in heaven and hell, God and Satan, good and evil. But most don't buy into the theory that some people are born with a gift to man. That they have an empathic ability to sense and differentiate between negative and positive energy, truth from fiction, living from dead. People that can speak with other people with their mind, living or dead. Medium, empath, clairvoyant, all names we assign to people with the gift, whether we believe or not. Well I am here to tell you that it is real, that there is no coincidence, only the universe, and what it has laid out for us. I am this/close to a person in my life who has opened up my eyes.

Whew! You kept reading, which means you are convinced I am a crank and want to see how nutty I really am, or that you, like me, know that all we say and do is linked by an unseen force of nature. The universe.

So where is that leading me? The story I want you to hear. The wife and I were looking for a new house. It was a long process, and we saw our share of dumps, rehabs, cottages, lake houses, ghost-ridden spaces, and outright tear-downs. So much so that we were beginning to think that we would never find the right place. Until we did. We had just sold our house, listed on a Friday, had a verbal agreement on Monday. And now we were under the gun to find a new home asap that wasn't horrible. With a tip from our agent we drove down a street that was like 5 miles from our old house, in a tiny community I had driven past a thousand times but never ventured into.

Had we just been transported to a fantasy island? We couldn't believe the quaintness of the neighborhood. Everything we wanted. Close to the wife's job, a lake, a forest preserve, seclusion, a place to ride bikes. As we pulled into the driveway I might have mentioned something like, "..as long as this place isn't about to collapse, this is it." One 5 minute tour of the house and we KNEW that this was where we wanted to spend the rest of our lives. I didn't even look in all the rooms. We left, called him back, and gave him an offer. 30 seconds later we had a deal, and the rest is history.

But, that is not the part of the story I want you to pay attention to. It was that night that I put out a post on FB, asking all to send positive vibes so that we could consummate the whole thing. Not in a "I need some luck so it can't hurt" kinda way, but more in a "I believe that if enough positive energy is thrown my way this will happen" kinda way. The response was overwhelming. So many friends shared their positive vibes I felt blessed to have such support. There were so many obstacles to overcome between a handshake and contract, it seemed like it wouldn't happen. But in the end, everything, and I mean EVERYTHING went our way. When we sold our house, we were afraid it wouldn't appraise. It did. The inspection did not go so well, but in the end we gave up nothing. The new house was at the high end of what we wanted to borrow, but we qualified. We were afraid the closing on the new place would force us to rent for a couple of weeks, but in the most stunning development, we found out at 9am the morning of the day we had to be out of the old house, that yes indeed miracles happened, and we would close that afternoon on the new place. Now I don't know how many of you have gone through this, but you usually know your closing day a month in advance. We found out 6 hours in advance.

Other stupid little details like getting the last truck at the Uhaul place, the sun shining on the day of the move though it had been dreary for days, helped fuel the notion that stars had aligned and someone was looking over us. You may not believe as I do, you may chalk it all up to coincidence, you may say the story is no story at all, but I believe. I believe that the power of positive intervention is real, and that all you need to do is believe yourself, and ask for help. And if you do, you may be surprised to find that help is on the way.