Howdy do, honey bunch. Here we are in the last weeks of August. I’d like to say things fly by when yore havin’ fun, but let’s face it, with the COVID situation, there’s not a whole lotta fun around the berg, or anywhere else for that matter. Interestingly enuff, Cobina was talkin’ with a neighbor who cannot be classified as a “political type.”
She had a very interesting commint which, I hafta say, is something that this body has thought about. She said she’s calling the virus the Election Day Flu. She’s convinced that a lotta the hype that is going on with the virus – which effen yew look at the numbers is nowhere near what was predicted, shut down or not – there will be a miracle cure found once the ballots are counted in November. She ain’t the only one, a lotta people think there’s more politics to this than much else.
One wonders then, effen things don’t go the way the media and the Demmies want what in Hades is gonna happen thereafter. And, right now, I wouldn’t put my kopecks on what the media and Demmies want. So, it’s a thought that is steeped in reality.
Meanwhile here in the Asylum by the Sea the big thing people are wonderin’ about is the opening of schools. Whatever might be going on nationally, the day-to-day concerns of people are what take up most o’ their time. The school system is expected to go into some type o’ “hybrid” plan, wherein the students are gonna be in class some days and learning online others. That seems to be the plan isshewed by most systems in the area.
That is puttin’ a crimp in some households cuz they aren’t able to have the at-home presence cuz both parents work. It’s gonna be very interesting to see how this all plays out. Of course, effen we git a couple o’ cases in school when things begin – as will probably happen – one hopes that there won’t be panic, but that ain’t a given nowadays. Panic is the theme of the season.
A cleric our esteemed editor knows has coined the term “Covidtide,” and it seems an apt name for the 21 weeks we’ve been under various arbitrary rules. Yup, 21 weeks! Remember when it was supposed to be only two?
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Of course, school is supposed to open Sept. 8, we’re told, cuz hiz excellency in Hartford don’t want schools to open until after Sept. 1. Sooo, we’ll be back to the day after Labor Day like it was for ages. Tennyrate, one has to wonder how the bus companies are gonna cope. With “social distancing” regulations abounding how many buses are gonna be needed to make sure that the kiddies are apart and in such a way that things don’t git contacted. Tis quite a puzzlement, and I figger our own bus company, Winkle, is tryin’ to woik out that conundrum.
We will be printing the bus schedule in our next edition, which is planned on Sept. 3. We are told that the bus regulations as put out by the powers that be are quite extensive, and being perused by all the bus companies in the state.
As the wag said, they’ve saved money during the shutdown, now the bus companies are gonna hafta shell out bucks for extra bus runs effen things shake out the way their expected.
One last thing on the schools: it was something to see the front o’ the old high school git torn down. Memories came back to Cobina even effen we didn’t graduate from that building. A lot has happened since 1964 and with the demise of an iconic building like that, yore thoughts go back to the people who have traveled this way over those 56 years.
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The other thing that happened just after we went to press last time was the tropical storm “Isaias” pronounced in a Latin sort o’ way, though why, one doesn’t know. Honey, talk about getting things wrong. The forecasters from the National Weather Service should be sued for misrepresentation.
During the days and hours leading up to the storm, we were told things weren’t gonna be so bad. Well, judging from the number o’ trees that went down and the powerlines that stayed down for more than a week afterwards in many places, things went off the rails with the forecasters right away.
Hereabouts we had a lotta old trees take a tumble. One on Chestnut Street came down and just missed the house, falling in a diagonal. But that was the one thing they got right, the wind came from a different direction than the tress’ normal defenses were geared for, and came tumbling down.
Nelly Nuthatch was the only one who really thought the thing was gonna be as bad as it was. The days leading up to the storm were hot, humid and dank, and that always seems to precede a big storm around here. It’s only August.
One hopes were in the midst of a normal August cool-down that leads into September and the beginning of fall. Otherwise, be prepared the next storm or two might not be as nice as the last.
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And look at that. We had a primary in the state, people went to the polls as normal, and those who couldn’t took out absentee ballots, and things went off without a hitch. All this talk about ballots by mail is silly. A package was sent to Cobina back in June from North Carolina. That package didn’t arrive until seven weeks after it was mailed, to the pernt that the person sending it gave up that it would ever arrive. And this ain’t the foist time. What would happen effen they did that with ballots – and it wasn’t just a malfunction.
Nope. Effen you can’t go to the polls, Tough cookies. Take out an absentee ballot. The politicos will have too much temptation to do something nefarious. Better to have ballots that are traceable than mail-in ballots that appear – or disappear. After more than 50 years of watching politics, you never cut a politician an even break.
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And we’re back to the Haven. Sammy Bluejay fluttered in and said that nothing was happening over there – not that Cobina was surprised. Our editor writ an editorial wherein it says it’s about time the developers let people have a timeline of what exactly is gonna happen. Things have been laying fallow there for years, and it’s been almost four months since Water Street has been close.
Except for nightly rush hour traffic jams that are worse than ever, nothing much has happened over there. It’s about time the developers let everyone know exactly what to expect — or not expect — in the coming weeks and months.
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With that bit o’ chatter, I’ll close this week till next, mitt luff und kizzez