I just heard on CNN that Congress is on “Spring Break”. Spring Break. Is that true? Does that include the Senate too, or is it just the House? And, since when did grown-ups take Spring Break? Back in the 20’s, when I was a reluctant member of the BHS class of 1973 (correct me if I’m wrong, but) I don’t think we even got a spring break. Maybe we got off on Good Friday and the Monday after Easter, but there was none of this traveling to exotic locations for an entire week, spending big boxes full of our parents’ hard-earned money, doing all the things that our mommas took so much joy in telling the ladies down at the church that we didn’t do. No way. We were forced to do that stuff behind the Rec Hall in College Field, and, if we wanted sand and surf, down at the sandbar. It was lots cheaper, and nobody had video cameras and phones that would lead to us being exposed (literally) on a variety of internet websites the following week.
Now, I can’t help but wonder if there’s some private beach somewhere in the Caribbean, at this moment, where Maxine Waters, Blanche Lincoln, and Barbara Boxer are having one of those teddy-clad pillow fights in their bungalow while the real Teddy, John Warner, and Lindsey Graham host a keg stand out on the beach. Vic Snyder, Barney Frank and Trent Lott are locked in a hot game of Texas Hold ‘Em, and Vic’s got a side bet on Teddy K with Elizabeth Dole – who’s standing behind him in a grass skirt and a scarf, sipping a Mojito, rubbing his shoulders like Hotlips Houlihan. Everybody’s having one for themselves and one for their homey, Nancy Pelosi, who couldn’t make it this year because she’s off in Syria trying to make some new friends. Mark Pryor? He and Joe Lieberman had to skip the fun tonight to attend their identity awareness classes.
A scene like this couldn’t happen if the good ol’ US of A wasn’t in such great shape. Everything’s just peachy. Poor GWB is about as popular as a porcupine in a condom factory, and just on the verge of packing up Dick Cheney, a facemask, and a couple of shotguns and going over to Iraq to finally accomplish the mission himself – if Congress will ever come back to work and pop for his plane fare. Coach, I would guess. If he can keep Cheney focused on the target, he might be able to pull it off too, because the war has got to be just about over. I say this, after viewing some of the latest top headlines on the news websites:
1. “Fifth-graders arrested after alleged sex in class”
2. “Landlocked Mexico City opens beach” (maybe THAT’s where Congress is)
3. “Grinning woman, 24, wanted badly as bin Laden”
4. “Woman dropped on head alleges negligent dancing”
5. “Doggie yoga leaves pets twisted but relaxed”
I’m not kidding. Those are the “top” headlines. I guess the story about the cop pushing the skateboarder into a hedge couldn’t muster up all the public outrage CNN wanted, and Paula Zahn couldn’t turn it into some kind of racism issue, so they dropped it. Let’s face it, we all secretly want to push a skateboarder into a hedge.
The only other news today was that Hillary (you know, the next President of the United States of America?) raised a hundred gazillion dollars for her campaign – so if she ain’t elected, she can just buy the country; and somewhere – France, I think – there was a passenger train that went 357 mph.
When I was a kid, my grandparents lived right beside the railroad tracks in Van Buren. My cousins and I used to get in all kinds of trouble with our parents for hanging out on the trestle and putting pennies on the tracks and letting the train wheels smash them into little copper foil medallions. They told us we could derail the train by doing that. Have ya’ll ever seen a train wreck? At, what? Fifty miles an hour? Imagine what kind of a mess a handful of French cousins could make with a half dozen Euros on that track.
I hear they’re building one of those trestles from some private Congressional beach island in the Caribbean to connect to the AmTrak line in Miami, then on to Union Station in DC. They’re going to put one of those 357mph trains on it, so Congress can wait until the last minute, after the Freshman Panty Raid, to leave from Spring Break and go back to work. I also hear that, in that part of Florida, you can get five pennies for a nickel.
I’m considering a new business venture: selling little copper foil medallions in the Orlando area.
Get well soon Larry.
© 2007 Rick Baber
