captainsblog | ♫Billy, Don't Be An Asshole....♫

It's hard to believe that, just a few days ago, I was waxing poetic about zip codes. Much of the world has turned upside down since then, from the newly discovered crime of Birding While Black to the much worse events of Minnesota that caused protests rise up around the country and dangerous senseless destruction, likely not by the genuine protesters, become part of them. We've had an alleged president threaten to fire into crowds or sic "vicious dogs" on them; and his chief minion Veep took to Twitter to decry violence while saying he supports peaceful protest (after walking out of a football game where players took a knee). Oh, and there's still a pandemic on.

In my/our own little world, there have been new incidents with, and a reminder of at least one older one with, a range of difficult people. In the next day or so, I will get to chronicling some of those, but for now, it's Sunday, and that means that after the countywide curfew was lifted at 7 this morning, Pepper and I went out into yet another park for another round of That Nature Thang: this time, to this one-

Our friend Ann took that one of the sign, and later this one-

of Briefly Maskless Me, Formerly Muddy Jake to my right, and his mom Ellen and Momentarily Dogless Darbi more than six feet behind.

Billy is a fairly recent namesake for this former dump of a town park. This article gives its history and the strange politicizing of its name over the years. After the board changeover referenced in this 2013 piece, everybody stopped fighting and just renamed it for Staff Sergeant Wilson, a local hero killed in action in Afghanistan. The town also dropped some major coin putting in this handicapped accessible playground-

- or, anyway, as accessible to the handicapped when CLOSED as it is for everyone else.

On the way past it into the woods, we found this guy-

- who, unlike our annual crop of baby bunnies in the back yard, the dog did not try to play with or eat. Once in the woods, she found the way to her second favorite activity, though:

LOOK, Jake! MUD!!!!!!!!

(He didn't go in this time;)

I took an early leave from the walk because Eleanor called from Lowe's. She'd had them load a trunk worth of gardening supplies onto a cart, which their burly guys refused to then offload into said trunk- only SUVs or trucks, they said. They then changed their mind by the time I was halfway there and loaded them in. No problem, though; we've been looking for a new Bluetooth-enabled boom box to use outside with an actual cassette deck, and I found one at Best Buy for a decent price, only to have them change their pickup rules on me when I got there. No harm, though; it's here and works fine.

I also found this old chestnut in the garage while making room for things. I think one of Donna's friends gifted it to me some years back-

The red RC logo is there, but faded, but that's not why they sent it or I kept it. It's for the legend on the back: it references 1977 stats, so it was after the dreaded trade of our beloved Tug McGraw to the hated Phillies, but at least they airbrushed the logo off his cap. It's now resting with my cans for Conehead IPA, Bills Make Me Wanna Stout and Fudgie the Beer. Someday, I will take me out to a ballgame again and get a new one....

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And ending with one COVIDilevity:

Come back tomorrow. We're gonna do.... ASSHATS!