It’s Friday, Dec. 13, and Taylor Swift’s birthday. There are other things to celebrate, of course, but this is also the anniversary of the 1st battle at Fredericksburg. We like this one since it is a reminder of how a really miserable day in December can be if you are in a dugout in Urkraine’s cold ground waiting for incoming artillery in the moist chill that will go on for another sixty or seventy days.

There had been motivation to fire up the Panzer, the Socotra House common staff vehicle, have Mellisa drive, and go down to see one of the other ones.

That was inspired by the local campaign to help preserve the memory of what happened on this now-forested former farmland and now an area in transition, which is why the Battlefield Preservation folks are back for cash. It is one of the two the Company supports regularly.

It is just a small monthly contribution, but the cause had an increasing urgency when the base of Company operations shifted down to Culpeper near the rest-stop by Rt. 3 we didn’t normally use on the round trips to the base at Norfolk.

It was at Fredericksburg, and the old route west to the rising hills, from those old quaint brick towns on the Tidewater now swamped with strip-malls and McMansions. So, the memory of what has happening when the old brick was still new was something the Chairman thought DeMille should at least mention it in case we wanted to stop down there for a meal on the way to something more interesting than the end of the American Century.

The 13th is what they decided on, since there is a campaign to raise money to protect some of the old battlefield. The company sends something for all the Sections, so we haven’t worried about the actual printed literature in a long time and have automated the process. But the land itself is worth a mention.

We don’t have time to go into it today, but the search term “battlefield trust” or the address for the American Battlefield Trust will lead you to a full explanation. American Battlefield Trust.

But the one we keep is the date, this one, the temperature and the cold rains that swept the gray afternoon on the patio, the effort to simply don protective clothing, angle the chairs away from the swirl of cold air, light the products intended to be burned.

Not the other ones, and imagine there is another crowd on a patio near this one who think it is their right to sit on the one we are using. And seem to be sort of insistent on it.

We are more comfortable today, since the power is on, lights are bright and the giant flatscreen in the conference room talking about birthdays, drones and reports of an extraordinary meeting held a couple years ago.

That was the one- check this out- in which the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, decided to have lunch with the Attorney General and figure out what to do with a Chief Executive whose judgement he no longer trusted and sought guidance on how to restore democracy to the United State of America by dramatic action.

As you can see, we are pleased to be retired from the retirement jobs we had after the ones with the official costumes the job requirement to attempt to do the right thing.

Whatever that is, and it is sometimes a tough question. But it used to be simpler when we were supposed to be responsible, you? ‘Protect and serve’ is one of the cliches we didn’t think was ironic and is now a sort of cry of solidarity and merriment against a host of fools.

Splash keeps it in mind. DeMille, our Creative Section leader, had sked him to try to stay on top of the New Jersey Drone story, since it now has aspects beyond the “Alien UFOs At My House!” stories and is happening here, too. Where we can see it.

We always have those sorts of stories from the Garden State, and this should have been concluded with a simple announcement, something like:

“In a test demonstration, Jeff Bezos is making an initial trial on a new, safe, automated home delivery system which will revolutionize commerce, eliminate the requirement to travel to fixed locations, and revolutionize social interactions in a new social order of ‘home labor’ in which the old brick and mortar shopping centers can be converted to homeless facilities where all sorts of free, self-identified activities can be conducted in righteous virtue undisturbed by the people who used to just shop there in peace. Their Peace.“

The young people who were at Fredericksburg on that morning 172 years ago were sort of in the same position, you know? Their Bosses, like proper squat-bearded Ambrose Burnside, was about to order them to fix those pointy things on the ends of those heavy steel things and start to move forward with them held awkwardly in front for safe delivery of them to the intended addresses, you know?

We think Taylor Swift would want it that way. With the messages, whatever they are, safely delivered. She will tell us what they are later.

Copyright 2024 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com