Category: Rev. Joe Dirt’s Ramblings

The unsolicited, unreasoned, uninformed, unapologetic opinions of Rev. Joe Dirt

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Sarah’s Smiles

“It has been said, ‘time heals all wounds.’ I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens. But it is never gone.” ~~ Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy

There are many different words that I could and do use to describe my wife, Robin. One such word would be charismatic; people are just attracted to her. She genuinely loves people, and people love her back.  She is kind and patient, qualities that served her well during her 30 plus years as a special education teacher. She is also a bit ADHD, but she uses it to good stead, getting a lot done with her need to keep moving and to be doing something.

She has also experienced great strife and loss in her life.  She and her mother had a very “complicated” relationship. Continue reading “Sarah’s Smiles”

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Rev. Joe’s Random Thought #876

yeah I know you did not ask!

Okay, this one is a little off-color.

For some reason I began to think of the word junk as being used as an euphemism for the male genitalia.  A brief search on the Internet describes the origin of this use of the word as murky.  First use in print with this context was in gay literature.  To me, it seems a little counter-intuitive to use the word, junk, this way.  Most guys that I know strive to keep their “junk” very well polished, one way or another, not something you typically do with junk. (Insert your own comedic rim shot here.)

Just for grins and giggles, if you are interested here are a couple links of the multitude of articles on the subject.

Origins of ‘junk’ as slang are murky

Even the New York Times weighed in: On Language:Junk

 

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Rev. Joe’s Random Thought #7,294

yeah I know you did not ask!

Okay, I am officially totally sick and tired of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.  I almost never read these celebrity stories, and these two are all over my Internet news feeds. Perhaps my aversion is the result of my opinion that Prince Harry is one of the most henpecked men on the planet. She just cannot be that good!

Henpecked was not my first word choice, but I try to keep it somewhat clean unless I truly need the seasoning of profanity.

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That Old Time Gospel Music

I had passed the following around in an email.  In response to a reply I decided to post it on Curmudgeon-Alley and add a little something to it. My Jewish wife was playing Amazing Grace on the piano and was singing along… She just loves the music, but I still find it humorous, her selection  of this song as it is epitomical Christian hymn. Many years in various choirs has also resulted in her singing many  Christmas songs this time of year.  On the other hand (my hand),  I find it ironic that as an agnostic that I like gospel music so much.  It harkens back to my childhood.  My mother’s mother, Mama Carr, seemed to always have had a gospel station tuned in on her big plastic desk top radio.  I have many fond memories of her and her house.

Now just for Jeanne… I know you were looking for Robin’s performance, but you will have to settle for Elvis.

 

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Rev. Joe’s Random Thought #6,629

yeah I know you did not ask!

I want to add a new phrase to the lexicon, that being the “Amazon peek“.

We have not had problems, that I have heard of, with porch pirates in this neighborhood.  And I know that from some delivery entities I receive emails when a package is out for delivery and another when it has been delivered.  And I have a built in loud and insistent announcer of strange happenings in our yard in the form of a fierce 15 pound heap of fur named Lily. Brave is the delivery/postal personnel  that comes to our front porch .

But I still find myself peeking out the front door to see if Amazon/Walmart/USPS/FedEx/UPS has delivered whatever urgent item I have recently decided I could not do without… and 2 dang days is too freaking long to wait for any package anyway.

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Rev. Joe’s Random Thought #7,132

yeah I know you did not ask!

One of the things I have been doing to pass the COVID-19 slow down is revisiting a lot of the science fiction novels I read years ago.

I’ve been focusing on other authors, but I have also started to reread Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Barsoom series.  Just in case you do not know, these are 11 short novels involving an earth man from the 1860s, John Carter, who is transported to Mars by mystical means.  There he weds a fabulously beautiful princess and has all sort of swashbuckling adventures involving much sword play and mountains of corpses.

Reading his novels I begin to feel sorry for authors that followed him.  If any individual adjective has a finite number of times it can used across the space-time continuum, then Burroughs has certainly used more than his fair share.  This leaves a dearth of available adjectives for those authors who wrote after him.  But then again not putting one or more adjectives with every noun might  not be a bad thing.  Perhaps by forcing this scarcity of adjectives it was a blessing for the readers of those subsequent writers.

Be well.

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Presidential Monkey Poop

First, let me confess that sometimes my mind makes strange connections…

Señora has not been feeling well the last few days.  This morning she was staying in bed and passing time with her smart phone.  She had leaned over the precipice and fallen, careening wildly, into the YouTube rabbit hole. She was watching a video of the Jimmy Kimmel Live show from 2017.  This particular segment was Clip of the Year, showing various short videos that went viral . As I came in with fresh coffee, the venturi effect took hold and I was sucked down with Alice.  Unable to fight the maelstrom I just entered,  I watched this one video with her.

My favorite was of a sports star from Europe or Africa that was receiving an award.   He was remarking on how glad he was to receive it and was thanking various folks.  He then went on to thank his wife and girlfriend. Realizing what he had just said, he gave the classic double take. He then worked diligently to backtrack that comment and only thank his wife!

The winner was a clip of a monkey who threw his poop and nailed a zoo goer right in the nose where the poop stuck. Ouch!

There were also a couple clips of Trump.  In one he tried 2 or 3 times to pronounce Puerto Rico correctly, never succeeding. And then… was the much seen clip of him throwing paper towels to people when he visited Puerto Rico after the devastation caused by Hurricane Maria.  For some reason it struck me as much the same as the monkey nailing the tourist with poop.

If you want to see the video here is the link:  Jimmy Kimmel Declares Viral Clip of the Year 2017

Keep well.

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Definition of Panic

You are backpacking in the Ozark National Forest in north central Arkansas.  Since it is 0230 you are in your tent.  Because the ambient temperature is plus or minus 2 degrees of the freezing point of water, Fahrenheit, you have your down mummy sleeping bag zipped all the way up.  In fact you have the cord on the hood portion cinched up so that all that is visible is your very manly proboscis.  Because you are 68 going on 79 you have just woken up with an extraordinary Continue reading “Definition of Panic”

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Funny? or to the point?

This last weekend my brother Mike and I hiked the extended Sylamore Creek Trail in Arkansas.  The original trail was around 14 miles and I have hiked that section multiple times.  They have extended the trail by 9 miles to connect with the Ozark Highland Trail.  We hiked from the top of the new extension that starts at Cripple Turkey Trailhead in a southeasterly direction to Allison Trailhead.  I picked this direction as it is “generally” downhill.  However, if you have ever hiked in the Ozarks you know you spend your time going up then down, up then down…

At Allison Trailhead the first or last thing you need to do is ford North Sylamore Creek  about a mile or so before it enters the White River.  I have never made the ford without having to take off my hiking boots and sometimes more.  This is the same ford that Robin lost her panties while crossing, but that is a story for another time. This weekend it was only a little above my knees.

As we were getting out of the creek crossing we encountered a elderly man, a younger man and a child of 4 of 5 years of age.  The elderly man made some comment basically wanting to know what we had been doing.

I replied, “We are just finishing up a 23 mile hike.”

To which he replied in his slow Arkansas drawl, “Must have been a tough one!”

Keep well.