There once were holidays when I wrote sad words and heartbreaking paragraphs about the commercialization of Christmas, but by 2024 anyone caught moaning such rubbish would be brought up on charges of Journalism Malpractice (Second Degree); mandatory 60-day license revocation.
Better to spend newspaper ink on more relevant holiday fare.
Below, a few questions, but not a quiz.
1) How many of your friends will “experience” their final Christmas in 2024? (Should it count if your friend is alive but has tubes inside everything but one ear, and doesn’t know Christmas from Rice Krispies?)
2) Which of your Christmas gifts is your least favorite? (Hint: The last one to go at the yard sale next June.)
3) Bet your spouse this: Come February 1, 2025, name any present given to you by any family member. Keep a list of each other’s gifts, then laugh at the failing memories: “How about the vape kit? No? The port wine? Alright, an easy one: Who gave you the ‘1000 Places You Absolutely Must See Before You Die’ book?”
4) Did your first nap on Christmas morning begin prior to the last package being opened?
5) On a scale of one to ten, how annoyed were you to receive a gift from someone A) you dislike, and B) you sent nothing to?
6) Good news: Kids called from Florida to say “Merry Christmas.” Better news: with smartphones they can’t call Collect.
7) What idiot decided champagne on Christmas morning is a good idea?
8) Did you remember to tell everyone that it irritates you hearing radio stations play “classic rock” at 9 a.m. instead of continuing with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Annual Christmas Singalong?
9) Rounded off to the nearest second, how long did it take to decide not to put Christmas lights up this year?
10) Suppose your wife whispered to you that the maroon velour smoking jacket you received this year is actually the same one you got in 2021. It had been on a closet shelf, put in a box, wrapped in shiny paper with red ribbon and placed under the tree in 2024. Question: would you be able to name which of your cheap, sneaky offspring was responsible?
11) On a scale of one to ten, how much are you looking forward to New Year’s Eve? Would it matter if you thought it would be held at the Forest Club?
12) Joy Joy Joy! Christmas Day falls on March 25 next year. Black Friday is in three weeks.
NOT SO JOLLY
Motoring south on State Street down around Raley’s I spotted a bearded gent walking an uncooperative bicycle across the intersection. The big bags and bulky sacks contributed to the bike’s recalcitrance.
And I thought, “That’s an awfully tough way to live.” It was a guaranteed-to-get-cold night and it looked like all he had to keep himself warm was his beard. A hard life indeed.
It resonates with me now, as it always has and will. A few wrong turns, some friends worse than the ones I had, some bad decisions, a few drugs and more alcohol and all I would need tonight is the bicycle and the beard.
How did it come to be that a poor fellow can’t have a small room with a locking door with a window and a hot plate? Is that too much?
How is it we spend billions of dollars on workshops and networks and working toward common goals and collaborative immersions and constellations of services toward viable working solutions, and meanwhile out on the street a 60-year old man with nowhere to go is pushing a broken bicycle down a cold busy street in mid-December?
There is something so cynical, so corrupt, so selfish and so wicked that the tax money we give to people and agencies who promise to help the poor instead get rich, while the streets of Ukiah and the cities of California are clogged with people dying and crying for help.
I don’t know where all the money goes and neither do you, and neither does the guy trying to persuade his balky bicycle to get under the Highway 101 overpass 500 feet north before the cold rain starts, again.
I give whatever spare change and however many smallish dollars in my wallet to anyone in a parking lot who asks. Had my unknown friend been on my side of the street at the Raley’s entrance I’d happily have given him a 20. Not much really, in 2024.
But the utter and disgusting failure(s) of the state and nation’s programs to help the homeless are a stain on all you thieving profiteers, grifters, nonprofit agency administrators and elected leaders trusted to do the right thing but instead pad the payrolls with Democrat loyalists, election operatives, friends, thieves and criminals
May the souls of your dead suffer in hell.
Be First to Comment