Swinging the bat left handed and throwing with my right was not that unusual. My brother, Greg, hit left handed, threw right handed and wrote left handed. He is an amazing artist.

I looked up to him because he would eat Thanksgiving leftovers with his left hand. It seemed more productive for him, so I tried it out on my napkin which was where the gravy, potatoes and stuffing landed.

For all you a-holes not knowing the difference between dressing and stuffing, don’t worry about it. I didn’t understand until my mother stopped making both. Pretty simple. The stuffing is stuffed in the turkey and dressing is placed in a buttered glass dish, also known as lazy stuffing.

Pre heat the oven to 3000 degrees. Wait a minute. 375 degrees unless you live in Canada. You and your metric system are on your own.

Ingredients:

Two table spoons of butter. Get the salted butter. We are all going to die, so we may as well go down in glory with salt and butter.

Two Onions chopped. I have two great friends from Walla Walla, so I get the sweets. Other than my friends and their mothers, there is nothing good about Walla Walla, other than the name and a side of asparagus.

6 large cornmeal muffins. Unless you are a mormon, skip the Marie Calllender’s waste of your time recipe and go to your local baker. Believe me. They are better. No cooking or prayer required.

One ostrich egg , or you may substitute it with a regular egg at the local grocery store.

Fresh Sage leaves, chopped angrily if the in-laws are coming to bitch about you not taking advantage of stove top stuffing found at the dollar store. Two for one discount.

Firearms: Put them in a safe place.

1/4 heavy octane cream good for the soul and your last artery.

1/4 chicken stock…broth is for the suckers. The Irish are the only ones buying chicken stock because it’s cheaper and no one will hire them. It’s easy to hate the Irish. (My wife just informed me I’m Irish…dang it.). Thank God this recipe doesn’t include potatoes.

Salt and Pepper. It’s an equal opportunity spice.

The cooking:

Melt the butter in a medium skillet. My friend called it a munchkin skillet, and I found that offensive. To his credit, we did watch The Wizard of OZ recently.

Cook the onions for ten or fifteen minutes….or as or as long it takes to finish your drink…in that case five seconds.

Caramelize those onions as though they were your best enemy. Low and slow but try to enjoy the sweet suffering.

Mix the egg, cream and stock. Pour it over the corn bread, stir it together and thirty minutes later, you will be asleep but wake up to some great leftovers.

While playing cribbage with our former commander and chief, I lost. He ended the game before I could count the cards….without cheating…according to him.

Two plus two is not four, but seventeen, according to the foolish man trying to run our Country.

I was honest and counted his cards for him. When he reminded me the game was already over, I was baffled. He had placed his peg in the winning hole and said, “I won.” I said to him, “You know you’re delusional, right?” Upon telling me he didn’t know what that word meant, he went on spewing abnormal lies I couldn’t accept, but I did listen. I just, for obvious purposes, didn’t believe one word coming out of his orange pie hole. Almost feeling sorry for him, I said said, “Let’s play again.” He replied with, ” Ok Fred.” He thought he was playing cards with Frederick Douglas…..a man Trump believes to still be alive and doing great things.

You want to feel sorry for him until he cheats at cards and makes fun of race, creed and culture. Then, you just want to smash him in the face with the Irish wand of truth. Since that wand exists as much as Frederick Douglass, my sympathy level is not low. It’s on empty.

Returning to the game, I knew the truth was something which didn’t exist on his side. I was intrigued with this poor, sad, well dressed pooched lipped evil soul.

The next game didn’t end in a tie, according to him. Skunking him, I won in a card landslide. He wanted a recount. Sadly, he couldn’t count his own cards.

Always carrying a straight jacket handy in our living room, he was carted away, kicking and screaming wearing a silly red hat. After I placed the hat on his head, he screamed, “I’m Santa Clause, you asshole!”

Strange dream. Prophetic?

i bbq’d Ribeye steaks last night just to forget about the election. We also celebrated life with baked beans and salad smothered with ranch dressing, garlic croutons, and onion straws.

We happily shared the meal as though it was our last.

That’s being a little dramatic. The meal, however, was delightful.

Not attempting to influence voters, I do wish to warn you if Biden is going to preside as the next POTUS, his adversary provided solid news about what that would mean for our quality of life.

“If you elect Biden as President, there will be no weddings” (Thank God), “No graduation ceremonies” (even better), “No Thanksgiving” (promise?!), “No Christmas” ( I will still celebrate the birth of Christ without presents.or preservative desserts…no big deal).

Trump’s campaign promises of what Biden will prevent make a great case for casting a Biden vote. As long as he doesn’t close transfer stations, that is. That would cross the line!

Anyone who knew me as a child or high school philanthropist, drifter, song writer, poet and idiot, recognized I was a Dodger fan. (Mostly for the hot dogs.)

Tonight, I’m placing my plastic LA Dodger helmet,( purchased from a local drug store in Spokane Washington forty years ago) down…rooting for a game seven. I’m not rooting for the Rays, I just want one more game.

America needs a game seven.

Between the Sunday night football game and the World Series, using my thumbs for three plus solid hours changing channels , I developed an affliction known as Carpel Tunnel Syndrome.

It’s also referred to as laziness.

One of my six sisters has cancer. That is a really awful introduction. I guess my brain is a bit broken as well as my heart.

Smart, beautiful, dynamic, great sense of humor and flat out genuinely giving whether it was out of her pocket or, more importantly, out of her soul. That is our Patricia.

My six sisters have all treated me wonderfully. It was similar to having seven mothers. Morning, day and night, I always felt safe with all of them, including Patricia.

Patricia’s force of positive nature made you think, laugh and love.

I’ve been educated in many ways regarding my family. I love them all. Patricia didn’t just teach me to think, laugh and love, she taught me to embrace it. Spread it. We all need it.

For that, I am truly thankful.

Thank you, Patricia,

Benji Blooper

(You are the only person I allowed to call me by that name)

I……We love you.

Rolling down the stairs while fighting with one’s sister shouldn’t be something to celebrate, but it can be funny, especially when your father and mother are hosting a dinner with the local Catholic Priest. Thank God I was only a spectator. None were wearing masks because it wasn’t Halloween, and no Covid. It was just prior to the decade we all wish to forget….the eighties.

I won’t even recite the profanity used while my sisters were rolling down the stairs fighting over a precious sweater, housing fleas who couldn’t even afford the rent to our closet. Far too graphic.

Regarding the sweater, the priest forgave them thinking the sweater may have been the shroud.

Sorry.

My wife has given me two great honors. Or perhaps, they are a little dubious. She says I am the most impatient person in the world. Not in the city, state, or country, but the whole world. Additionally, she has deemed me the king of apologies. With a tremendous deal of hard work and ridiculous behavior, this stature didn’t come as that much of a surprise.

I began sincere apologies probably at the age of ten. That was when I ruined a new shirt while in a fight with one of my older brothers’ friends. Although I didn’t start the fight, the verbal abuse this boy was tossing at me, like a 95 mile an hour fastball, just made me blow a fuse. So, when my mother made be apologize for not using my constitutional right of “Sticks and Stones may break my bones…..” you know the rest, I apologized to both her and the friend.

As the years passed, I went on to apologize frequently to administrators at school for heinous crimes such as spitting on the ground during recess. That landed me in the office, but it seemed the principal thought it would be a waste of his time to punish me. I was paroled immediately.

Giving a “high five” during P.E., after hitting a home run sent me to the office as well. Perhaps, I was just too excited. This was the fifth grade, and apparently, my friend hadn’t experienced pain and excitement at the same moment. He cried, and I was sent to the Warden of Puberty. (He was a good guy.) I sort of rolled my eyes with this apology, thus kicking me down a notch on the contrite apology meter of life. Rolling his eyes as well, the principal’s punishment: “Don’t hight five too hard.”

Fast forward to high school. I don’t remember apologizing for much until seventeen years of age. I was guilty of trespassing on property. I do remember apologizing to the police officer who provided the ticket. It wasn’t so much the trespassing part, but I was driving one of the tractors on the premises. Presiding in juvenile court, (what a dream) my father and mother stood by me. The judge was shaking his head.”Will you try not to make any ridiculous choices again?”

“Yes”.

“Please the court, give this young man 10 hours of community service.”

I’m also hell at thank yous! I thanked the judge for not sending me to Alcatraz.

While doing my 10 hours of hard time at Goodwill in Spokane, Wa, home of the most sinister criminals, and International House of Pancakes, I was told I wasn’t folding clothes properly.

Sorry