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Blogs by Robert A. Mills
CLOSE THE POOL!
9/4/2009 9:58:45 AM
Another Labor Day is just about here and summer is nearly kaput. And not a moment too soon, if you ask me (didn't you?)
Back in the Dark Ages, when we lived up North, Labor Day meant time to close the pool. . . . Dismantle the ladders and board, drain the water down below the intakes, scrub the liner, add the seasonal chemicals, drag out the hideous brown cover, inflate the airbag weights to defeat the Lake Ontario gales, clean the filter, kill the pilot light and shut off the gas to the heater—-this was the annual ritual I dreaded, the joys of summer in the backyard with my family notwithstanding.
What I look back on as most significant about Labor Day was the anticipation of at least six months standing in the atrium and staring at my snow-covered thirty thousand dollar hole in the ground, while we waited for the Mother’s Day celebration of re-opening our aquatic playground-- re-opened on Mother’s Day but never tolerable enough for an adult swim until Father’s Day!
Now, living in the South with all the progeny grown, gone and scattered, I look forward to sitting on the berm across the street and watching paid workmen close the subdivision community pool, usually within a week or so after Labor Day. Too soon, but practical with the life guards back in college
It won’t be long into autumn that I will have to forego my standard wardrobe of cargo shorts, faded t-shirts and boat shoes. By Halloween, I will have to wear socks again; come Thanksgiving, back to jeans; Christmas will means long sleeve shirts and perhaps an occasional sweater; by Valentine’s Day, I’ll be wrapped like Frosty the Snowman in ratty woolens and knitted half-mittens. The older you get, the colder you get—-even if the temperature rarely reads lower than fifty-five.
It got me to wondering the other day how old and ancient presidents like Andrew Jackson, William Henry Harrison, Zachary Taylor, James Buchanan, FDR, Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan, and G.H.W. Bush survived the drafty rigors of the White House—-they were all into their 60s and beyond when they had to call for extra blankets in the official residence. Even Jimmy Carter was over 50 when inaugurated, but he doesn’t count: he’s from Georgia where it’s usually 100 on President’s Day and his blood is thicker than peanut butter, anyway.
Barack Obama, though he hails from Hawaii, is immune to cold weather. Look at him. In his late forties, he’s ready for one-on-one at the drop of a snow shovel in January. No flu virus (H1N1 or otherwise) would dare come near him. A sniffle is as remote as an air ball.
But I am concerned about our erstwhile President. I think he is getting a bad rap from the AP (Aggravated Press) over his health care and insurance reform bill-—I say “his” but in reality it’s ours. It has become apparent the Whiners and Maligners want us to think it is solely for his political benefit, since he is the only American since Ted Kennedy to openly suggest we are getting hosed by the health care insurance industry.
The big question today is, will it (or any of its bastard siblings) ever get passed into law? Vegas odds are 9 to 5 it will. But those aren’t the kind of odds that form lines in front of betting parlors. Smart money would rather take a chance on your bank’s CD accounts.
FDR once said we have nothing to fear but fear itself. He could have been talking about Mr. Obama’s health care reform, though obviously he was not. Taken out taken out of context and applied verbatim to today’s dilemma, our biggest fear is that it will not be passed into law, and once again we will be saddled with the status quo. No! No! Passing it will mean socialized medicine! Rationing! Euthanasia! Death panels! Government mandates! More and higher taxes! Get real, Chicken Little.
What if John McCain had been elected? Unfortunately (for him,) he became an “also ran” the moment he announced the name of his running mate. The election was over, a mere formality remained, and Democrats, with justification, began popping champagne corks. Now, with nothing else to hang their hats on, it’s get even time. And that is exactly what the opposition is striving to accomplish.
Health care and insurance reform seems never to have occurred as a viable idea before-—except by the millions who have no insurance, the millions who can’t get it anyway, the millions who can’t afford it, and the millions who are being bled by insurance companies for services that are more often denied than delivered. Who said “bleeding” was an archaic medical procedure?
If a true health care reform bill is not passed, and Barack Obama’s presidential philosophies are simply hung out to dry, America as a country will be the loser. Mr. Obama’s detractors, however, will not be declared winners. Vindictive spoilers might be more apt nomenclature.
So much for a summer of despair. What awaits us? For me, at least, I look forward to UGA, SEC, NFL football, U.S. Open tennis, FedEx championship golf, Braves’ wildcard hopes, the World Series, the Super Bowl, March Madness, April 15th-—and the completion of ROSALIND’S WEDDING, my sixth book.
A winter of discontent? Hardly.
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