So, who's next?

SANTA VS. THE SNOWMAN A story that you might believe, This happens every Christmas eve It’s when the winner gets to drive the sleigh. After all the daylight’s gone Just before there’s any dawn These two meet up without the need to play. No cause for fear or false alarm For down the road from Tucker’s Farm One of them is going to have his say. It seems this most amazing duel That happens every frosty Yule Is quite bizarre in nearly every way. The story that my father told Long ago, ‘cause now I’m old Was, “Santa doesn’t always drive the sleigh.” One night, I wandered to the farm Hoping that I’d face no harm And what I saw, I must explain today. To the left, old Santa stood As though he were a block of wood His face a somber shade of pewter gray. Not far away, up near the oak Adjacent to a gleaming cloak Frosty mulled this moment, said “OK.” Santa hunkered by the fence As now the battle would commence And I could tell that this was hardly play. The man in red...

I take time to check the local reports around the country for their version of the fall colors. I guess I have too much time on my hands. Usually, it's the same story, depending ... not enough rain will make the colors dull ... too much heat will delay things. If your perspective is to look up at the trees, you might wonder how long it's going to take you to rake them - if they ever decide to fall. Which they will. I have an oak tree out back that is losing its leaves and I've learned to be patient. Leave them in place. By November, a big wind will come along and ... whoosh! Leaves are down the block. Fall is a nice time of year if it doesn't rain.

Evidence that other-world creatures have indeed come to Earth has been deciphered. At first, it made no sense. Naturally, the creatures speak and write in a different language. But the small bits of paper came together nicely for the students at Brainard College, N.D. Apparently, on one cold December night in 2002, the ship landed quietly in a bean field not far from where its inhabitants believed was a source of civilization. The lights in the distance were bright. Machines were moving about rather freely. The place was a 24-hour convenience mart. As it turned out, the bits and pieces of paper that were picked up by a group of Scouts who were cleaning the North Dakota roadside were unique enough that they caught the eye of their faculty adviser. He turned the scraps over to the Humanities Department at Brainard. Eight years of work have paid off. Here's what the scraps said. "We came to Earth in search of intelligent life and, finding none, we returned to our ship. Our comman...

Apparently there's a debate afoot about whether America, as a "Christian" nation, is not doing the Christian thing by ignoring its poor. The premise, according to a comment by TV personality Steve Colbert, is that this isn't what Jesus would do. The conversation, I suspect, comes back to the Tea Party, which considers itself either Republican or part of the Christian Right, neither of which connects very well to poverty, according to liberals. Liberals, according to the Christian right, are actually "niggers and wetbacks." They don't actually say that because even the Christian right occasionally demonstrates some restraint. Truth is, nearly everyone born in this country in the 20th century is aware of the principles of Christianity. Part of that is connecting the religion to the lives of the poor. Generally, however ... and correct me if I am wrong ... the main goal is salvation of the soul. Needing a sandwich at the time is optional. My knowledge of bi...

Most of the time, I believe nobody actually sees this blog, not that in the course of human destiny, it will matter. I lament sometimes that I think my best writing occurs on the blogspot pages. Recently, I took to trying to see who was looking at this blog and where they came from. Not surprisingly, most of it comes from the Fairfield website. A couple of other places yielded some returns, only after I asked folks to click on the site, providing them with the link. Curious, one of the hottest links is a place called Yandex.ru, which is "something" in .ru, which is the suffix for Russia. It's all in Cyrillic, so I have no idea who they are, why they are reading MY blog and what they got out of it. I don't intend to explore it beyond that. But I did notice that the little PacMan pie chart isn't being kind to MacIntosh.

What I've learned about most creatures on this planet, maybe humans too, is that when they come up against a rival species, or one they can't easily understand, they seek a secure environment and go from there. Mostly, the secure environment was assured before the creature ventured forth. As in, a squirrel isn't usually too far from a tree or a groundhog too far from a hole in the ground. Snakes usually can slither to cover. Chipmunks have some interesting skills, though, and one of them is their quickness. They dart for cover and when they are in the open, they move very fast. They can even climb. Mostly they are wary little buggers. And they know a good thing when they see it. Yeah, he's afraid of me. But he ain't stupid.

Back in the day, we were zealous in hewing out the goop and seeds from a pumpkin, not really caring what became of that stuff. How, we wondered, can you make a pie out of punkin guts? Never really getting an answer, we went about the business of hacking some triangles into the gourd in hopes of creating the most frightening jack-o-lantern in town. Yep, with a candle inside it, it glowed. Just like all the other jack-o-lanterns in town. Today, you can get kits to make carvings in pumpkins, all of which is a bit disconcerting to those of us who believed creativity came at the end of a 6-inch blade. Then again, Michael Myers ... what would HE do if he had to dig all that goop out?