Good morning, y’all. Just a gorgeous day, albeit a little cloudy. This is the kind of day when I can really get some work done on my honey-dos. I’ll give the painting of the Rec room a rest for a day or so, so I can take advantage of the pleasant temperature. When the temps stay under 70, I’m a landscaping machine. As long as it doesn’t get hot enough to where I feel like each breath is my last, I feel like I can pull my weight against any other octogenarian.
One of my honey-dos was to clean up the drain at the far end of the park and see if I could somehow fix it to where it didn’t clog up every time it rains. About 98 percent of the problem is people not keeping the trash picked up around the park. That’s one thing rain does really well, pick up the trash. For a real world example, go visit Bourbon Street in New Orleans, before and after a rain. Old timers in New Orleans joke that that’s the only time the trash gets picked up. I’ve traveled to the Crescent City enough to know that is not entirely true, but darn close.
Anyway, I’m headed down to the drain at the far end of the park, and when I walk by Number Fifty Nine, something looks suspicious, but I can’t put my finger on it. Since I’m in a hurry to get done what I can get done before the weekly service from The Full Gospel Original Church of God comes on, I put it in the back of my brain. I’m still pretty good at “background processing”. Even if it takes me a week to come up with somebody’s name. I know the information is stored away, I just keep digging until I find it.
Well, like the caverns in my brain, the drain required extensive digging. I eventually get down to the culprit, which is a license plate with an old timer Confederate soldier shaking his fist saying, “Hell no, I ain’t fergetting”. It has slipped through the gates of the drain and then flattened itself up against the drain pipe to effectively block the flow of water. Well, there’s no telling who’s missing a tag, and it could have been a visitor, so I just dig out the drain and head on back home.
When I walk by Number Fifty Nine again, it hits me. The tenants are Ben Dover and his wife Eileen. Turns out it’s Ben’s thirtieth birthday and Eileen has poked fun at him by ordering up a bunch of pink plastic flamingos for his yard. I guess on my first pass it registered that there was a preponderance of flamingos, but the riddle was not solved until I read the “Happy 30th” sign. I bet if Ben was turning fifty I would have sussed it out right away. I’m assuming this is a temporary condition and that Eileen will reduce the number of flamingos to a more acceptable number. If not, I’ll have to check the rules and regulations. We have standards to uphold.
I arrive back at Number Two just in time to catch the opening hymn from The Full Gospel Original Church of God, and it was a beautiful rendition of the 23rd Psalm by the choral director, Ophelia Bottoms. It appears that the two participants of the most famous coupling since Space X hooked up to the International Space Station, are busily redeeming themselves with the congregation. The Right Reverend Dale E. Bread is conducting services at 9AM and 3PM to help alleviate the overflowing crowds at the church. The Reverend Helen Handbasket is conducting the “prime time” services at 11AM and 7PM. Choral director, Ophelia Bottoms is working all of the services with whatever resources she can muster. I would definitely say Ms. Bottoms is carrying the heavier load right now, especially since she is doing everything under the watchful eye of Alva Bread and her brood.
I look forward to the continued rehabilitation of the Right Reverend Dale E. Bread. Let’s be honest, he owes me a few month’s rent. Christian charity has its limits, or at least mine does. In spite of the Reverend Helena Handbasket’s sermon this week on Greed, I don’t feel like I’m out of bounds asking for at least February’s rent from him. Like my Republican friends always say, “first we have to break this cycle of dependence”. I don’t mind going a little bipartisan on that idea.