Author: Rev. Joe Dirt

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Rev. Joe’s Random Thought #2,341

yeah I know you did not ask!

You should so be blessed – well cursed at times actually – with a mind such as mine, making all these weird connections between my rumored neurons. Just be thankful that I do not share all of my random thoughts.

There is a book that came out about 34 years ago, Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus. I have been thinking there might be room in the market for a book about the differences between girlfriends and wives.   If there is room for that book there there is probably room for a book about the differences between boyfriends and husbands.

Let’s get back to differences between girlfriends and wives.  One section might deal with if a woman’s man has been somewhat remiss in his “manly” duties.  A girlfriend will frequently use the art of seduction to remedy the problem. A wife simply jumps straight to guilt induction.

Which reminds me of a joke I have told many times:

How many Jewish mothers does it take to change a light bulb?

Don’t worry dear, you go ahead and go out and play.  I will just sit here in the dark.

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Quote of the Day – Dolly Parton

Quote of the Day… not actually daily, but whenever I encounter one I think worth sharing and there are not too many in sequence.  I like quotes as they frequently distill a piece of wisdom into a brief passage, or make other points very succinctly – such as the witticisms of Oscar Wilde.

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“Find out who you are and do it on purpose. And do it with purpose. Don’t ever sacrifice who you are, your principles and your morals and your values to just try to get ahead in business. It ain’t worth it.” ~~ Dolly Parton

Dolly was famously loved by the LGBTQ community and was supportive of their right to be who they are.

“… [I do not] believe that we should criticize and judge other people. I think we should be accepting and loving. We are all God’s children. We are who we are, and we should be allowed to be who we are…. I just think that we should be more loving, more caring. We are who we are. If you’re gay, you’re gay. If you’re straight, you’re straight, and you should be allowed to be, you know, how you are, and who you are.” ~~ Dolly Parton

She has frequently stated:

“We’re all God’s children and God should be the one to judge, not other people.” ~~ Dolly Parton

For a great summation of the life and career of Dolly Parton here is a link to Richard Cox Richardson’s news letter, Letters from an American: August 26, 2026

She was a special soul.

To see more Quotes for Day, visit this link: Quotes for the Day

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Dolly Parton – Stairway to Heaven

As I am sure you know, Dolly Parton passed away yesterday at the age of 80.  She has been one of my favorite entertainers for decades.  And while it is hard to tell with public figures, she always came across to me as a truly good person, something very rare, especially in the public sphere as so many of those folks seem to be driven by neurotic needs.

Here she is singing what I – and many others – consider the best Rock ‘N’ Roll song of all time. According to Parade Magazine Dolly Parton’s ‘Stairway to Heaven’ Cover Was Really a Love Letter to Husband Carl Dean as it was his favorite song.

I am betting, though, that Robert Plant never envisioned the song arranged with a banjo and steel guitar.

Enjoy.

A few years ago I posted a video by a collaboration of Dolly Parton, Linda Rondstadt and EmmyLou Harris (does it get any better than that?) that resulted in two albums, Trio and Trio II. They are covering the Neil Young song, After the Goldrush.  It is truly haunting.   If you would like to listen to that here is a link to my article: After The Goldrush Live – Emmylou Harris, Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt

Just one more Dolly Parton song.  Years ago after a bad breakup I made a mix CD that I am still listening to after decades. One of the songs on that CD was
Dolly Parton  – I Will Always Love You Of course, this was a mega hit for Whitney Houston as well as Dolly. Dolly also talks briefly about the history of this particular song.

She will be missed.

I have listened to Stairway to Heaven countless times, and I have always interpreted the song as a woman trying to buy her way into heaven.  Thinking about that I decided to look up the lyrics.  A deeper dive into the lyrics also describes a saner, more naturalistic approach to the woman’s goal… which she is probably not going to take. I suppose at an even deeper level it can be considered a Christian song as the core belief of Christianity is that you cannot achieve heaven by good works or money.  This differs from all the other major religions I have studied.  Having said all that,  I have no idea of Robert Plant’s religious beliefs.

Here is a link to the lyrics: Lyrics to Stairway to Heaven

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Quote of the Day – Ray Bradbury

Quote of the Day… not actually daily, but whenever I encounter one I think worth sharing and there are not too many in sequence.  I like quotes as they frequently distill a piece of wisdom into a brief passage, or make other points very succinctly – such as the witticisms of Oscar Wilde.

“I don’t think the robots are taking over. I think the men who play with toys have taken over. And if we don’t take the toys out of their hands, we’re fools.”  — Ray Bradbury

I am more and more convinced that if we did not open Pandora’s Box with computers, we are doing so with AI (Artificial Intelligence).

I would make Kurt Vonnegut‘s debut novel, Player Piano, required reading.  It is not his best work, but it has an important message. Given that the novel was published in 1952, Vonnegut was amazingly prescient about our current world.

But then again, I would also make George Orwell’s novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four, required reading also. I have read this novel three times for various reasons.

To see more Quotes for Day, visit this link: Quotes for the Day

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Wanna Buy Some Girl Scout Cookies?

The door bell rang, then was repeatedly rang, somewhat insistently.

Knowing that Señora probably was not hearing the door bell, I dropped what I was doing in the basement, and I went upstairs to answer the front door.

Standing on our stoop was a young lady, well, more accurately, a little girl around nine or ten, dressed very casually.  Without a preamble, without a howdy, without presenting any sort of credentials, without any sort of salesperson’s lead up to the closing question, she said, “wanna buy some Girl Scout cookies?”

Not totally taken back, but somewhat surprised by her brusqueness, I replied, “Life is a parade of absurdities and pain, and then we die, alone, in filth. So, yes, little girl, I will buy a box of Thin Mints.”

Suddenly the hairs on the nape of my neck stood up and I heard Señora behind me,  “DAVID! Don’t you think that was a little over the top?”

Addressing our little salesperson, Señora went on, “You will have to excuse my husband.  He suffers from what COULD well be a terminal case of curmudgeonitis. How many different types of Girl Scout cookies are there?”

Looking at her sales sheet and slowly counting, she replied, “Adventurefuls® , that’s one, Exploremores™ that’s 2, Thin Mints®… Caramel Chocolate Chip… Lemonades®… Toffee-tastic®… Samoas®… Lemon-Ups®… Trefoils®… Do-si-dos®… and Tagalongs®, that makes eleven.”

To which Señora answered, “Good. My husband will take one of each, and I KNOW he will gladly pay for them.”

Well, there goes the waist line.

Okay, okay, the story was made up.

On the Internet, I came across this line presented in a meme format: “Life is a parade of absurdities and pain, and then we die, alone, in filth. So, yes, little girl, I will buy a box of Thin Mints.” Thinking that be must be more to the story, I came up with the above skit. However, it could have very well have played out around here.

And so it goes.

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Rev. Joe’s Random Thought #4,359

yeah I know you did not ask!

You should so be blessed – well cursed at times actually – with a mind such as mine, making all these weird connections between my rumored neurons. Just be thankful that I do not share all of my random thoughts.

We seem to spend an inordinate amount of time looking for Señora‘s lost (misplaced would be more accurate) phone.  Which made me wonder if at some point in the future phones might be implantable and eliminate our frequent exercise of phone search.  I suppose then the issue would be remembering to plug Señora in to charge her phone.

We are Borg, you will be assimilated.

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Interesting Fishing Method

YouTube tends to feed me a lot of videos on golf and fishing. Go figure. This particular video caught my attention for some obscure reason!  I am not sure, but I think the language is Russian or at least in that language family.

It did  remind me of a time I took the kidrens fishing.  We were at their grandparents small ranch in Arkansas.  We had permission to fish the neighbor’s pond which was larger and fishier than any of the ponds on their grandparents property.  I don’t really remember very well, but I think David Bryan might of been around 5 or 6. That would have put Keely around 9 or 10.  They were fishing with cane poles and I was fishing with a spinning rig.

It was always a little funny fishing with those two as David would be catching fish left and right, and Keely would be getting skunked.  I remember one time she bumped David from his fishing spot.  He went down to where she had been fishing and started catching fish, and she continued to be skunked.

This particular day, David had caught 5 or 6 bass of a pound or two when he announced that he was going to catch one more fish, then quit. We got his line out into the water then I started to pay more attention to my own fishing.  After a bit, David, without catching one more fish, put his rod down and began doing other things.

I suddenly realized that his cane pole had come off the bank and was floating in the pond. I was fishing with a lure that had treble hooks.  I cast out and managed to snag his cane pole and drag it back in.  Lo and behold, there was another one of those one pound bass thrashing around on his hook .  He had caught (with a little help) his one more fish.

Just for the record, I watched this video several times.  I could never figure out the species of fish that she landed.  Any ideas?

And so it went.

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Quote of the Day – William Shakespeare

Quote of the Day… not actually daily, but whenever I encounter one I think worth sharing and there are not too many in sequence.  I like quotes as they frequently distill a piece of wisdom into a brief passage, or make other points very succinctly – such as the witticisms of Oscar Wilde.

Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing. ~~ Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 5 by William Shakespeare

To see more Quotes for Day, visit this link: Quotes for the Day

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Bonnie Taylor: 8 June 1951 – 8 July 2026

What can I say, a song from my past that once meant a lot to me.  The song silly…

I learned today that she passed away recently.

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Vanity Plate for the Day – MATH OZ

Vanity Plate of the Day… not actually daily, but whenever I encounter one in the wild that I think worth sharing and there are not too many in sequence.  When I was commuting from my home to downtown St. Louis and back, I was spending anywhere from an hour and half to two hours daily in rush hour traffic. I used the exercise of deciphering vanity plates to help pass the time… plus sometimes they are very clever and worth sharing.

I thought this one cute.  It just took me a second or two to reinterpret it as MATH WIZARD.

It was on the back of a gray Toyota RAV4.

To see more Vanity Plates of the Day use this link: Vanity Plates of the Day

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