THE ANIMAL FARM

By Greg Evans

I had to take a ride down to the bank and from there to a store to pick up a birthday card. What completely befuddled me was the incredible amount of people on the road. Dented up cars and distracted drivers everywhere I turned, in all of my mirrors, dark clouds lumbering along over the mountains and once the gray rain begins to pelt us the population on the roadways become treacherous and the movement slows as waiting for your order at Buffalo Wild Wings. It is ruthless and along with the inefficiency of non-synchronizing traffic lights, I was very close to pulling out my hair or looking for the nearest hooch barn to pick up some of Popcorn Sutton's sweet relief. Nobody cares about anything anymore, nothing except partying and race mongering. I'd rather go to an all-you-can-eat Dominos pizza buffet than sit in traffic with all these drug addicts. My daughter was in her car seat in the back shrieking "Honk! Honk at that schmuck!" Even she was loosing patience and ready to fling her sippy cup at the gastropod mollusk. We were trying to get back home so we could turn on the British Open and watch Westwood and Woods duke it out for the final four holes. But with a trip that should normally take no more than 20 minutes we were out for nearly an hour and a half. Population overload. People are tired of living in the crime riddled, over-croweded over priced cities and moving out to the boondocks. Nothing surprises me anymore with the mess we have ruining this country and all the scandals with more waiting to be unveiled. Nixon would have been given the keys to Denver (Most sought after city listed by Forbes) by today's standards though I'm not so sure there are standards anymore. The current administration obviously has no standards and it doesn't take a certain political leaning to agree that things aren't so great. I turned on Bill Monroe and listened to him singing Blue Moon of Kentucky and I sat back in my recliner and wondered what happened to the world I knew once as a child. Where did it go? I turn on Alabama, The Beach Boys, Billy Joel, Dion and the Belmonts, Tiffany, The Traveling Wilbury's and I'm taken away to a different time and I am struck by pangs of nostalgia. But it's not only that I am longing to return to that world, but I wish my daughter could have been able to experience such a world. I don't want her to think that corruption in the highest office, the regular scandals and catering to the lower class of society is OK. I don't want her to think that rampant divorce rates is OK. I don't want her to think that taking God and religion out of schools and out of society in general is OK. I don't want her to think that not being patriotic toward ones nation is OK. I don't want her to think that Dominos pizza and their crappy recipe is OK. It should be a crime for them to be allowed to charge as much as a quarter for a large pie. I don't want her to have to fear for her life every time she steps out her door because the streets are filled with brutes and streets thugs. I don't want her to have to wait in breadlines because the President feels the need to go on vacation. Do you get the picture? I don't want her to think that it is OK for a society to conduct itself like a filthy Animal farm. I don't want her think that owing a gun is wrong. I don't want her to think that $3.62 for a gallon of gas is OK. I don't want her to think that $4.15 for a loaf of bread is OK. I don't want her to think that 16% unemployment is OK. Are you tasting the vinegar yet? It doesn't matter your political leanings you can't deny nor argue the facts. They are called facts for a reason and in a world where there is no reason all you can depend on is the facts and for people out there to give them to you straight.

You think you are the only one out there struggling and grinding away for every nickel you earn and wondering if before long it is going to be taken away from you by some crazy brownshirt who laughs hysterically with stale, fetid breath before beating you black and blue with a Billie Club? "That can't happen here,"I have had people say to me. Tell that to an old holocaust survivor from the 1930s-40s. They once probably thought the same thing. I didn't mean to rain on your weekend but it was just something I wanted to get off my chest. Sometimes a thought is triggered but it just isn't the right time to put it down. Maybe this is one of those times but it is something that everyone needs to constantly be told, over and over because it is so easy to become complacent.

It all weighs so heavy on all of us and those that claim it doesn't are probably high on illegal jungle juice, or have a prescription for old Mary Jane. I'd rather talk about the weather which as been as bizarre as everything else going on right now. The temperatures here are soaring, every day in the 90s which I love but it also rains every single day at least once, sometimes twice. Most likely we are experiencing the beginning of a geomagnetic polar shift which will take thousands of years to complete it's cycle but people are going mad in the process and trying desperately to come up with an answer. My answer over the past four days has been to eat so much junk that my organs feel like they are beginning to shut down. I was so full of saturated fat and sodium that I have been tossing and turning every night, my mind flooded with all kinds of nightmares. I am in the ocean caught in a rip current and being stalked by jittery sharks, my towel on the beach filled with spider nests and then walking home I am repeatedly mugged by roving bands of hoodlums of all different races. Don't try and peg me as some kind of racist because I do not judge based on color but on the conditions of society and the degenerates that make it up.

Thankfully we still have our books that we can turn to to lose ourselves. But who knows how long it will be before our books are taken away from us also. Maybe Mars is already inhabited. Maybe we'll all be turnip pickers.