Why Don't They Make Mirrors Like They Used To?

Dearie, do you remember glass milk bottles topped with cream at your door in the morning, boys wearing knickers, the telephone operator asking the number you want to call, and computer-free motels that gave you the key in five minutes? Then, dearie, you're much older than I.

Those were the days, my friend, when they pumped your gas, wiped your windshield and checked your tires. "Keep the change," we said. Now, you do everything yourself and go inside to pay. All they give you is a handy tip jar next to the cash register.

Yesterday, life was such an easy game to play. Stress was slight and everything was simple. Nowadays, even nostalgia used to be better. Something's wrong, all right. We ought to retrieve the best ways of the good old days.

Technology, ugh! Civilization, take it away. Take back your VCRs, plastic cards, DVDs, ATMs, IPODs, car alarms, cell phones, voice mail, sprinkler systems, chemical spraying, computer addiction, remote car locks, e-mail, faxes, fast foods, insurance clerks playing doctor, doctors who won't leave their offices, and mirrors that reflect false images (as if we had wrinkles or something.)

Even the world of sports is phfftt. Basketball players dunked only in warm-ups because it was too showy and against the rules. Football players played both defense and offense - as in life - and quarterbacks called the plays, not coaches sitting from a perch above the field. Baseball players spit on the ball, not the umpire.

Let's lament what we lost and promote a return to unencumbered living. Just you wait. The old will become new again. Throwing away this trash will bring relief.

There is hope. Already, ATT is experimenting with a telephone system where the caller is greeted by an operator who asks the number and places the call. They call it a new idea.

Look forward to the past.



Thoughts While Jaywalking

* Light to moderate smog in the lower areas.

* If illegal immigrants get amnesty and become citizens of the United States, who will do the jobs Americans won't do?

* Gold scoots up to $700 an ounce. Even fool's gold is valued higher than Federal Reserve Notes.
* Senator Hatch is vigorously expressing his worries about the upcoming non-nuke blast, which has nuke implications, rescheduled for June 23. Hatch's efforts are quite lame, but heroic compared with the complicity of Bunker Buster Bob Bennett. Both senators ought to be badgering Bush, Cheney, Frist, and Hastert. Washington needs Dixie consciousness and awareness of Downwinders' concerns.

* The Bush administration, and especially Secretary of State Rice, keep mentioning sanctions against Iran. That takes a lot of cold hearted guts, after what the sanctions did to the innocent weak and young in Iraq, during peace time. More than a million Iraqis died in a decade from starvation and lack of medical supplies, blockaded by the UN (Great Britain and US.)

* The FDA claims that green tea has none of the properties and benefits we hear about from health advocates. If someone is lying, you know who it is. Or if someone is mistaken, you still know which is which.

* Senator Hillary says that President Bush has charisma. That's strange, our usually reliable sources told us that W. had a charisma bypass.

* Please don't laugh, I'm just reporting this, George W. says, "I can't do anything about gas prices because those are determined by the free market."

* Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson, the first official to identify smog in Dixie, has included in his budget a $20,000 expenditure for a portrait of himself. Who's surprised? Ego propels most public servants into office. Why would they lose it there?


Twenty-Years-From-Now News

Utah will become the fifth state annexed by Mexico effective 2026. The public referendum to approve the change of national allegiance passed by 51%. Only Spanish and Chinese will be spoken here next year. Chinese will be only at Wal-Mart.


Overheard

"What will you have," asked the waiter of an expectant mother seated in a cafe.

"Probably a boy," she replied.


IT'S ALL SO SIMPLE.