Good Riddance, Farewell and Amen

[captainsblog]

I was supposed to be out of town today, but the client wasn't ready, so I let the historic events of the day unfold on live television- something we almost never watch.

First was being up before 8 to make sure that Ding, Dong, the helicopter actually collected its passengers.




As the chopper flew off, bypassing the flags on the Mall symbolizing the dead and wounded, I quietly hummed the theme from M*A*S*H. I posted that photo soon after it was taken, and that got into the discussion of the song that became the television show's (instrumental) theme, "Suicide is Painless." It was composed by the great Johnny Mandel (who just died last year), with lyrics by Robert Altman's teenage kid, and was used, with lyrics, in a faked-suicide scene in the film.  I don't recall the lyrics ever being used on the television show, although at least one friend remembers it in the series finale "Goodbye Farewell and Amen."

Let's leave that for now, as I've rewritten the lyric for today's departure.  You know the tune.

♫Through four years of insanity
And mindless instablilty
Our fervent prayer would always be
That we’d live till this day to see
That Washington is Trumpless
Joe Biden brings hope to us
America’s back to normal, finally!

Our Capitol was stormed in rage
And children were confined to cage
It didn’t take the wisest sage
To know we had to turn the page
Washington is Trumpless
Joe Biden brings hope to us
America’s back to normal, finally!

Historians will judge that when
“Make America Great Again”
Was on their tongues, they meant for men-
The white, the straight, the affluent
But now Washington is Trumpless
Joe Biden brings hope to us
America’s back to normal, finally!♫

The original had four verses; I tried writing a fourth, but it wouldn't have stood the test of time. But then, since the last four years won't, either, why not?

♫He’s slithered off to Florida
His Senate trial’s next, then a
New York case from Letitia-
And we get Joe and Kamala!
Some prison will be Trumpy
His stay there may be bumpy
But I’m just glad we’re free of his disease!♫

----

The chopper then delivered the departing passengers to their Air Force One More Time flight out of town. His pity party at the air base had more flags than actual worshipers this time.  He promised to return "in some form," which immediately made me think of this:

 

Watch on YouTube

As we said decisively on November 3rd, Check, please!

Finally, our long national nightmare was over:)



(What, the man who gave us "covfefe" and "hamberder" is gonna complain about a typo?!?)

----

Then our eyes looked forward and our spirits upward. The first sight of Team Biden was of responsible people wearing masks and cleaning the podium in between speeches, songs, poems and prayers. I actually missed the Oath, which came a few minutes before noon, but I heard the Lady Gaga anthem, the young woman's beautiful poetry, Garth Brooks singing Amazing Grace, and the address itself. That is not a man suffering from dementia, but it is one who understands suffering far more than his predecessor ever will.

And then the workday, as with much of life, returned to a serene sense of normal.

----

I did take care one odd bit of housekeeping in between all of that:

 

That bigly envelope came yesterday. They’ve sent this to me repeatedly over the past few years. I’ve never responded, and compared to Eleanor, I know as much about trees as a potted plant does.

I went online to see if I can opt out, or at least go paperless. It just seems stupid fir the Arbor Day Foundation to cut down trees to send junk mail. (And I left that typo in on firpose;)

----

Documentary tonight, then tomorrow brings our first day of the New Normal.  And I can take or leave it, if I please:)