Dear Gentle Readers,

The Fire Ring is damp this morning and the Usual Suspects instead gathered in the Bunk House for fresh and richly brewed Chock Full o’ Nuts and idle banter. Splash provided one of the “Letters to the Editor” from the Coffee Company, which protested our misspelling a week or more ago, and involved a severe counseling of editorial staff. That wasn’t the top of the “Letters” stack. The rest of them included some delightful cards, some exciting voice-mails, and a host of digital messages involving a birthday which should have been celebrated yesterday, in accordance with the wishes of Mother Socotra, but which involved unavoidable rescheduling.

The matter there actually required deferral of the usual morning blather in order to accommodate the just demands of a hospital staff located a convenient thirty miles away from Refuge Farm. A more lucid explanation of the Medical Adventure will follow, at some point, but is most accurately part of a full depiction of our continuing series of monographs on “Life in the Country” and the functioning of speciality medical trades and their interlocking networks.

It was actually sort of fun, by report, and harkened to collective memories of Quarter-and-Flight Deck operations on other oddly dissimilar platforms. The Patient even contributed a note with a special word of thanks to those who actually were involved in the minor invasive surgical procedure:

Matt the Motorist, who skillfully delivered the patient to (and from) the theater of operations.
The personnel involved in the invasion: Doctor Krieger, Kristen, Gwyneth, Mary Beth and Harold.

The first four of these were noted as attentive, professional and engaging, while the last most closely harkened back to the efficient and brash Bos’un Mates some of us served with an ocean away from the placid Piedmont Farm. Volume sometimes has a value all its own.

Which, as Melissa noted from her corner of the circle, is a suitable means to launch into how things work outside the denser urban areas for specialities necessary to be maintained in less populated areas.

Rocket just wanted to blow through the matter, saying that the State Road could be negotiated with speed and a certain amount of intrepid forcing to minimize inconvenience imposed by distance.

Loma wanted to stipulate how the network of networks actually functions in rural areas doused in green.

Buck was impressed by the requirement for certification by signature that no motor vehicle operations were permitted by the afflicted for twenty-four hours surrounding the minor invasive procedure.

Amanda declared the seventy or eighty assorted messages not subject to regular review could be “saved” for detailed scrutiny at some later unspecified time.

So, that was how we got around to discussing what the group would attempt to deal with later, while appearing to remain in compliance with the strange new legal system none of us recall voting for. Which naturally led to an extended debate on the nature of the word “democracy,” which is a word we hear frequently these days and was a subject specifically addressed by the Founders of the nation we share with others.

Splash summed it up, before we entered into the supervised production meeting. “The (REDACTED) Framers thought that in a democracy, the people would eventually vote themselves access to the public treasury. So, to temper that natural human inclination, our government was chartered as a Constitutional Republic.”

We were going to discuss some of the implications of the recent change from Republic to Democracy, but Amanda had taken out her tablet to take notes on who was speaking, and in desperation to avoid attribution, DeMille stood to call the meeting to order.

We were going to write a story about that, how missing a day of texts, messages, voicemail and smoke signals can change things, but conversation turned to who was qualified to operate motor vehicles for the Saturday drive to Belmont Farms. The requirement to cover emerging Sunday needs for clear consumables was of paramount public interest. Given that imperative, we blew through the rest of he meeting agenda quickly:

Inflation? It is fine. We are now calculating numbers in a different manner than we did in 1980, so it is lower than it actually is and we are not so shocked. A clear Government success.

Immigration? We agree with Mr. Beto O’Rourke, who says the Border is fine. It must be, otherwise it would be against the law.

Guns? There was universal relief that all such things were lost in that boating accident years ago.

Climate Change? The complete conversion of the American power grid to a system not remotely prepared to do so may require some inconvenience. To minimize that, we support moving massive mining operations to build cars we can’t charge in countries that can still use forced labor and burn coal to do so. That will enable us to save the other planet we apparently live on. There was laughter at that, even if some of it was muffled by masking to protect us from ourselves.

DeMille looked around at the circle. He didn’t frown, exactly, but instead did what a lot of folks do these days. He put on a mask to conceal his actual facial expression and you couldn’t prove whether he agreed or not. We think we agree with that.

Copyright 2022 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com