Thank Goodness Marlow came up with something this morning for the first of this new month. He talked about Grandparents and birthdays. We were left with ‘fools.’ There had been some glances at the night cap last night before surrendering the Month of March to the gentle embrace of the Piedmont darkness and the imminent caress of fools. Attorney Amanda was still alert, and asked a point of order before retiring:

“Is there going to be anything stupid that occurs tomorrow morning? I read about a guy who said he was going to take a truckload of old tires up to the summit of Mount Pony and light them off in a plume of dark smoke to fool the people of Culpeper County into thinking that it was going to erupt.”

“There hasn’t been an eruption here in several hundred thousand years.” Buck is the other new arrival at the Fire Ring. He looked a bit apprehensive on the prospect of unexpected morning mistakes perpetrated by former handlers of high explosives. Splash would be the most logical suspect for something in that high-order variety of foolishness.

“I am going to pass on any pranks. We have a parade of Fools who are passing lunacy more efficiently than I could. We have endorsed madness as public policy, and I am hoping tomorrow they will just admit it and we can all have a decent laugh.”

Loma rose in the deepening darkness. “I looked at some of the archives to see what we have produced annually on this day. It seemed strange in 2005 and 2008, if you would care to go back to that.” He reached in the pocket of his battered survival vest and produced an actual sheet of paper. He squinted down at it. “This was from 2008. Remember that strange year?”

There were some nods around the circle and other blank looks reflected in the glimmer of the dying fire. He cleared his throat, took a sip from the tall glass in his left hand and continued, seemingly at random.

“Here we are, 14 years ago. We said: ‘This can’t go on forever, and the cost of the fuel will get passed along to the you and me soon enough. Senator Obama said something about hope; and I know he hopes this is all over soon. Mrs. Clinton is trailing him in the popular vote, in total delegates, and in the national polls. She is a tough lady, though, and recent polling in rusting Pennsylvania give her a double-digit lead in the primary that comes in three long weary weeks.”

Rocket looked at his empty glass and frowned. “We have done the fuel thing several times in my memory. It seems kind of foolish to draw down the strategic reserve in something we could just pump out of our own ground instead.”

“That isn’t ‘foolish,’” said Buck. “There is a better word for it. Like ‘deranged.’

“Oh stop. Yesterday was Transgender Appreciation Day. They should just have slid it back a day to demonstrate a national commitment to Fools and Foolishness.”

“The National Institutes of Health estimate there could be one in 250 Americans who are transgender, and thus aggressive Federal action is required to ensure that more than half of the population should be denied some privacy in latrines to accommodate a moral necessity. And destroy the essential fairness of women’s sports in the process.”

DeMille was relatively assured advancing age had diminished the possibility of untoward foolishness upon the dawn of a new day. He rose and carefully marched his glass back toward the bunkhouse. As he departed, he called back to those still upright. “There is nothing we can do to enhance the notion of national foolishness. We have succeeded in this one, another of the advances of this remarkable year. We have elevated the Fools to actually manage the system.”

Amanda leaned forward, those words putting her on alert. “Of course you are not referring to anyone specifically noted as being entitled to legally-enforced respect under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, I presume.”

There was general laughter at that. And in the dying of the light it was not possible to ascertain who might have actually ended the evening’s consideration. “We respect anyone we are obligated to under penalty of law. And that might be the best way to celebrate the First of April. We have met the fools, and they are us.”

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