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I have no theme for today’s column, other than more leftist follies.  And while many things are in short supply lately — baby food, affordable gas, accurate MSM coverage of any story – there is no shortage of stupid lefty tricks.

Let’s start with Chuck Todd.  (Always a safe place to start, if you want to discuss dim-bulb left-wingery.)  It seems Chuck’s crack staff was looking for an influential Republican congressman to appear on his low-rated Meet the Press show last Friday, so they reached out to see if Alaska’s Don Young would be up for it.

The choice required some cost/benefit analysis on the part of Todd’s people.  On the upside, Young is one of the longest-serving congressmen in House history, so he’s got seniority and a lot of experience holding important committee seats going for him.  Also, he’s one of the few Republicans who might be willing to appear on a show with Chuck Todd.

The only serious downside?  He died three months ago. 

That’s right: Chuck Todd and the Toddettes reached out to book a dead guy on their show.  Did they not see how poorly that went for Jimmy Kimmel, when he did the same thing with the late Joe Biden (RIP) this week?

The late congressman’s spokesperson Zach Brown apparently got his degree from the University of Hilarious Understatement, because his response was top notch: “Unfortunately, I don’t think Congressman Young’s schedule will allow him to be on Meet the Press with you tomorrow, but I’ll circle back if that changes. Thanks for reaching out!”

I know what you’re thinking: That’s a mistake anyone could make.  Like me, you probably didn’t know that Don Young had died.  Or that Don Young was a congressman.  I mean, Chuck Todd had probably never met the man, and might not have been informed of his death.

Oh, wait.  Here’s Zach Brown’s follow-up email, which I swear I am not making up: “Sadly, Congressman Young passed away in March, but you all did a lovely tribute to him!” Then he linked to the less-than-three-month-old MSNBC story on Young’s passing. 

Ouch!  Even MSNBC’s Chuck Todd doesn’t watch MSNBC.

While reading the amusing details of this story, I learned that Todd has been doing so badly that his show was demoted from MSNBC, and is now appearing on the “NBC streaming network.” 

Yes, you read that correctly: there is a circle of hell so utterly horrific that going there would be considered a DEMOTION from MSNBC!  And that is the NBC streaming network – modeled, I’m guessing, after CNN’s streaming network, CNN+.

Which, coincidentally, is as dead as Alaska Congressman Don Young.

Good lord!  Can you imagine ever finding yourself in a position in which you are told, “I’m sorry, but you don’t have the journalistic chops… to work at MSNBC.”  

In the words of the late, great Norm MacDonald, that is the time when you should head to the rope store, followed by stopping in at the next-door rickety stool store.  

I’m momentarily feeling so sorry for Chuck Todd that I will offer him this advice:  I think you’re on to something with this Don Young invitation.  You should steer into that, and rebrand your show as “Meet the Deceased.” 

Your first show can feature Julius Caesar, Hammurabi, and the Credibility of Chuck Schumer. Maybe you can also consider closing with a panel discussion featuring a randomly chosen dozen people who knew too much about Hillary Clinton.    

When they weren’t busy booking dead guys or Toobin-ing over their second-rate, Stalinist January 6^th show trial — the ratings are in, so look for the next hearing on NBC Streaming, and C-SPAN 8! – the media ghouls turned their attention to guns.

Actor Matthew McConaughey — the Dems tried to book actors Laurence Olivier, Abe Vigoda and Moe Howard for this gig, but discovered that they’re all as dead as Hunter Biden’s conscience – offered a litany of “common sense” steps we could take to decrease gun violence.

Spoiler alert: none of them included long prison sentences or execution for criminals who use guns in crimes, hardening school targets, eliminating “gun-free” zones that are demonstrable magnets for school shooters, or forcing the violent mentally ill into treatment.

But McConaughey had lots of ideas for ways to keep guns out of the hands of law-abiding citizens who would never shoot up a school in a million years.  So, yeah.

I was shocked that the Dems didn’t take advantage of the best recent example to make their case for them.   I’m speaking, of course, of the pro-abortion and pro-gun-control lunatic who traveled cross country to murder a Supreme Court justice. 

When he got out of a cab down the block from Brett Kavanaugh’s house and saw federal marshals, he fled.  Because he did not want to face trained marshals carrying Beaver notebooks and #2 pencils, which they could instantly use to write strongly worded letters to deter criminals who wanted to harm the judge or his family.

No, wait. 

As I began writing this, I assumed that the marshals depend on a potent combination of sweet reason and the aforementioned writing materials to stop crime.  But because I’m nothing if not meticulous, I looked for further confirmation.  (Note to Chuck Todd: in the writing business, we call this “doing your due diligence.”)

I was shocked to find that US marshals usually carry either a Glock 22 or Glock 23.   Which, it turns out, are types of pistols.   

Huh. 

Since I was already on a research roll, I thought I’d look into the gun-related wisdom being offered by other socialist Mensa members.  So naturally I thought of propaganda-filmmaker and oversized-turkey-leg-enthusiast Michael Moore.

Moore just posted a podcast screed calling for the repeal of the 2^nd Amendment, so I was prepared to give him points for honesty.

But then I read his post, in which he suggested that we need to focus not on our rights to own guns, but on our right to be protected from gun violence.  A protection, I guess, that we can effect by disarming ourselves, and trusting that armed criminals will no longer behave like…I don’t know… armed criminals?

“We have a right,” concluded Moore, “to live.”

(You’re not wondering, but yes, Michael Moore is pro-abortion.)

Lest you think this disheveled elephant seal in a dirty baseball cap hasn’t fully thought this through, he explains: “You don’t want a gun in the house.  If you’re afraid of somebody breaking in, get a dog.  You don’t need a gun.”    

Well, I already have a dog.  In fact, I’ve got a Wonder Dog.  And as much fun as it’d be to see Cassie launch herself onto a Biden-voting home invader and start masticating his jugular, I’d rather not put her at risk like that.  Not when I could use my gun to get that cretin’s mind right.

Don’t you just love it when a dope like Michael Moore tells you what you need and don’t need?  I mean, he never asks us if we think he needs that third sandwich or second supper that he eats every day, right?  And yet he knows that we don’t need guns, and he’s happy to share that knowledge with us. 

And you’re not wondering, but yes, Michael Moore is protected by armed security. 

You know, just like the trained, well-paid team of guys who surround you whenever you leave your house, and patrol the grounds of your palatial estate whenever you’re home. 

Which is why you, like Michael Moore, don’t need a gun, you peon.

Rather than end on that note, I thought I’d mention one of the more than one million stories that happen in America each year, in which everyday people use a gun to protect themselves.  Put down that pot roast and listen up, Michael Moore!

A young lady in the Houston area moved to a new apartment to get away from a man who had been stalking her.  But on May 30^th, she discovered that he’d found her, because he turned up at her new place, screaming that he wanted to come in.  Then he began to kick in her front door.

The poor woman hadn’t seen Michael Moore’s latest podcast, so she didn’t know that she should yell through the door, “You’d better get out of here, or I’ll deploy my schnauzer!” 

And she must have given her armed security team the holiday weekend off, because the story doesn’t mention them.

So the distressed woman was helpless, and meekly awaited her fate as the evil stalker broke through her door and murdered her.  And all of the Democrats in Congress lived happily after ever.  The end.

Oh no, wait.  Since she hadn’t listened to Michael Moore and her condescending moral betters in congress, she had foolishly bought a gun. 

So she made sure that the safety was off, widened her stance and held the gun in a two-handed grip, and pointed it at the door that her creepy stalker was kicking.  And when he finally kicked it open, she gave him a Clint Eastwood-esque squint and said, “Molon labe, mother-friender!” 

And she shot him once in the chest. 

Okay, I may have taken some artistic license with that last part.  All the news story says is that stalker boy kicked her door down, and hero girl shot him.

But stalker boy definitely did win the room temperature challenge, because the cops arrived just in time… to draw a chalk outline around him.  (Hooray!)

The moral of this story, to paraphrase Sammy Davis’ funky theme song from Baretta that was stuck in my head for a big chunk of the 1970s:  Don’t be a thug, if you can’t take a slug.  (Don’t do it!) 

Avenatti/ Disheveled Elephant Seal in a Baseball Cap, 2024!

I’m writing this column as the January 6^th dog and pony show is going on, and I’ve resolved not to watch it, for the sake of my morals and my blood pressure – both of which would be sorely tested by watching that dishonest, hypocritical circus. 

I trust that a lot of better people than I will watch it and distill a few crucial clips, and I’ll watch those later, when I’ve had the prescribed amount of medicinal bourbon and a more contemplative mood going.

In the meantime, my theme for this column is a more optimistic one: the Dems are beginning to reap what they’ve been sowing, and it’s heartening to watch. 

For much of the 127 years of the Biden administration, it’s felt like leftists have been getting their way on every front, and we’ve been powerless to stop them.  I won’t argue that they haven’t done an enormous amount of damage, and that they don’t have WAY more influence than – in a sane world – they would.

But I see a lot of heartening signs that normal Americans are feeling some justified, righteous anger and are fighting back.  I’ll point to several social arenas where this is happening.

In business, the scrappy little slogan, “get woke, go broke,” has gone from producing derisive snickers to  chills up the spines in many corporate boardrooms.  More than a year ago, one company after another was pursuing far-left smear campaigns against more than half the country, with no fear of a backlash. 

Razor companies castigated their customers for their “toxic masculinity,” sports networks lectured their viewers about that and racism, woke employees bullied their own companies into far-left campaigns  insulting the vast majority of their audience.

Sure, there’s still too much of that going on today.  But a growing backlash has cost many companies enough – in sales, ratings, and collapsing stock prices – to feed the growing perception that when it comes to the far-left crybullies who seemingly ran everything a year ago, those emperors have no clothes.

(And there’s nothing on God’s green earth more off-putting than an army of soy boys, blue-haired feminists and militant transgenders with no clothes on!)

A year ago, Netflix was greenlighting one insulting, perverse program after another.  A year later, their woke programming has performed badly enough to cripple their stock price.  Their management once  cowered before a small number of extreme left employees who raised a stink about Dave Chappelle and demanded even more woke programming.

But a month ago, the company pushed back, issuing a “culture memo” to their entitled workers that must have shocked the little darlings.  It said that Netflix will, “let viewers decide what’s appropriate for them, versus…censoring specific artists or voices.”   It even suggested that, “you may need to work on titles you perceive to be harmful,” and rhetorically Hillary-slapped them with the offer that, “If you ‘d find it hard to support our content breadth, Netflix may not be the best place for you.”

That’s not as pointed as the “go friend yourself” message that I would have given if I were the king of Netflix.  But it’ll do.

Disney’s small contingent of sexually confused and hostile employees went to bat for an aggressive campaign of queering up (their words) everything they put out.  Now many employees are pushing back, and their stock price is falling like Joe Biden trying to walk up a mobile airplane staircase.  In the last 24 hours, one of their executives who has been an outspoken critic of attempts to stop them from sexually grooming children was fired.

Twitter spent the last 5 years lying about everything, and censoring everyone to the right of Mao, and now they’re in a death-struggle with Elon Musk.   If he completes the purchase, Pagan Narwhal and his band of slimy apparatchiks will be out on the street; if he doesn’t complete the purchase, the company could collapse.

In other words, current Twitter employees and management don’t know whether to Schumer or wind their watch.

In media and entertainment, the backlash is hitting just as hard.  The ratings for the Emmys, Oscars, Grammys and ESPN are lower than Hunter Biden’s moral standards.  Greg Gutfeld is whipping all the big-budget, late-night network “comedy” shows, and Fox news is beating the networks’ news shows like Victor Davis Hansen in a debate with AOC. 

MSNBC regularly gets outdrawn by the Korean Soccer Channel and the Watching Paint Dry network, and CNN+ lasted for less time than Jeffrey Toobin on a Zoom call.

In politics, every new primary brings worse news for the hard left.  Turnout is down, poll numbers are down, and far left candidates are under-performing. 

In San Francisco – San Fran-freakin’-cisco! – the voters recalled pro-crime Marxist DA Chesa Boudin by 20 points!  And he was a class act until the end, blaming Republicans and billionaires for his defeat.

Never mind that Boudin and an entire wave of leftist prosecutors across the country came to power largely because the leftist billionaire (and close personal friend of Satan) George Soros bankrolled their campaigns.

And never mind that our very own Christopher Silber and seven of his friends are the entire Republican voting base in San Francisco.   

Similarly, the egregious teachers’ union chief Randi Weingarten used to be able to call out ideological goons to steamroll all opposition in most elections nationwide.  But lately her endorsement has been as useful as teats on a boar.  (No offense to transgender boars in the audience.) 

She made a high-profile push for Terry MacAuliffe in deep blue Virginia… and elected his opponent, Glenn Youngkin.  She strong-armed public school systems nationwide to stay locked down so that kids who weren’t at risk for covid wouldn’t be harmed by covid – but would be devastated by social isolation.

As the nation’s pre-eminent advocate for public schools, she’s been a boon to enrollment in private schools and charter schools.  Her hardline anti-school-choice position is proving so unpopular that it’s even contributing to defeating RINOs in favor of conservatives; this week 4 incumbent state rep RINOs in Iowa lost primaries to school choicers.

And she’s not doing lefties any favors, either.  When the Texas State Board of Education held its Dem primaries in March and run-offs in late May, all 20 candidates endorsed by the teachers’ union lost.     

Other Democrats are proving nearly as unpopular.  Fauci has been banished to the same desert island where Fredo Cuomo, Daddy Cuomo, Bill DuhBlasio and Anthony Weiner are slowly starving in much-deserved obscurity. 

Michael Avenatti is in jail, Eric Swalwell is crying over a Dear John letter from Chinese spy Fang-Fang, and Mayor Pete is making the nation wish he were still on paternity leave.

Meanwhile Biden and his cabinet are drifting helplessly, like so many Portuguese men of war — sorry, Portuguese transgenders-of-war – in a sea that is ominously receding from the shore, as a prelude to the incoming Red Tsunami that is (God willing) going to pulverize them in November.

And it’s not just the Democrat politicians who are unpopular, terrible as they all are.  Their ideas are even more toxic.

A year ago they were screaming to defund the police, promising to kill gas and oil production, and crowing about how great it is that evil white folks are being supplanted by black and brown people. 

Now they’re pretending to be pro-police and anti-crime, and to be upset and confused about why gas and oil cost so much.  And they’re whining that the idea that minorities will soon outnumber whites is a conservative conspiracy theory. 

The sky above the Dems is dark with chickens coming home to roost, and we just need to hang on, and be ready to rebuild after the red wave storm surge decimates the rickety blue infrastructure that the left has been trying to build.

It’s been a long 127 years, but it’s only five months to November!

I don’t want to write any more about Joe Biden.  You don’t want to read any more about Joe Biden.  But we’re all stuck having to notice him once in a while, since he’s – technically, infuriatingly, posthumously – the president. 

At least for the remaining 2.5 years of his presidency, which has somehow been going on for 127 years so far. 

Remember what it was like, 127 years ago? 

Our country had a border.  Inflation was around 2%.  Pronouns still worked the way they’d worked since around the year 450, when the Angles and Saxons said, “Let’s come up with a Germanic language called Angle-ish, so that Shakespeare and King James’ boys can kick some arse with it in 1000 years.  And we’ll base it on rational pronouns.”

Criminals tried to hide, and commit their crimes when no one was watching.  When they were caught, they used to be – get this! – tried and convicted and thrown in jail.  Usually for longer than a week or two!  

Mummies only showed up in monster movies, rather than in the House Speaker’s chamber.  And all the fake Indians in the country were either selling rubber tomahawks in roadside souvenir stands or acting in F-Troop, instead of occupying a MA senate seat.  (#wemustneverstopmockingher)

And Cassie the Wonder Dog was Cassie the Wonder Pup, but dogs were still Man’s Best Friend, instead of an “emotional support” prop for troubled people to take on airplanes. 

And there were constitutional amendments that Americans were fond of, including ones about free speech, and the ability to defend yourself with a shootin’ iron that would – it was well known – “get ya’ mind right.” 

And gather ‘round kids, because Grandpa Simpson is going to really blow your mind:  Gasoline was $2.20 a gallon!  Not a liter, or whatever you kids these days measure with, an actual gallon! 

And when young mothers wanted baby formula, they’d go and get it from a store.  Just the way it works in a first-world country.

And you knew where you were then, goils were goils and men were men.  Mister we could use a man like Ronald Reagan againnnnn!

Where was I?

Oh, yeah.  The ghost of Biden continues to ruin everything. 

Three examples from the last week:

1.NBC “news” had a long story – in which they were trying to spin FOR him! – that portrayed him as a bumbling incompetent.  The story listed a bunch of failures caused or exacerbated by Biden — the Afghanistan debacle, inflation, baby formula shortages, spiraling gas prices — but cast them as if they were acts of God, beyond his control.

Biden comes across as a self-pitying dope, whining about how he “can’t catch a break,” and asking, “What’s next, locusts?” 

Biden also moans about how he’s not getting “any credit” for all the good things that are happening on his watch.

Oh yes you are, Brandon.  If by “all the good things” you mean “the terrible things,” and if by “credit” you mean “blame.”

2. That NBC story mentions another metaphorical rake that Biden continues stepping on, and which other news reports have chronicled: he’s angry because his staff keeps “walking back” his statements.

In Biden’s “mind” – and yes, those are scare quotes – “he makes a clear and succinct statement,” and then his aides follow up to explain that he meant something else.  Biden tells his advisers that those constant clean-ups, “undermine him” and “smother his authenticity.” 

Ah yes.  Joe Biden’s many clear and succinct statements. 

Like telling Putin that a minor incursion into Ukraine would be okay, and saying that Putin can’t remain in power, and telling China that the US military will defend Taiwan, and claiming that meth-addicted, brother’s-widow-jumping degenerate Hunter Biden is the “smartest man I’ve ever met.”

Those statements.  How dare his aides try to walk those back?

Besides, how could they – or anyone — “smother” Joe Biden’s “authenticity?!”

This is the same guy who ended earlier presidential runs after getting caught plagiarizing.  Twice!  (In one case he spoke movingly about his early years spent mining coal – in a coal mine in Wales, where the original author came from.)  And who has claimed to have been a truck driver, with a high IQ, and highest GPA in his law school class.

Also, he was accepted into the US Naval Academy.  And he knows his way around a shotgun, and could whip your butt in a push-up contest, Fat!     

Obviously, if there’s one thing Biden is known for, it’s authenticity!

3. Don’t worry, though, because those same aides came up with a PR master-stroke to sell Brandon’s agenda to a nauseous American public: bring in a Korean boy band for a photo-op!

The idea didn’t go over so well at first.  One minion was explaining the phenomenon of K-pop to Biden, which made him drop to the floor and cower behind his desk.

Once the aide made clear that the plan involved K-pop and not Corn Pop, he got the green light.

But the event was a little confusing, for several reasons.  Biden clearly didn’t know any of the band members, and they didn’t know him.  The message was supposed to be a rebuke of all the white supremacists who have been assaulting Asians lately.

But inconveniently, all of the recent assaulters have been the same kind of white supremacists who attacked Jussie Smollett: white guys cleverly disguised as Nigerians, cosplaying as Trump supporters.

Sadly, when Biden took a picture with the 7 band members, only one person in the room was a fluent speaker of English. 

And that person was not the president of the United States.  

In the words of one of K-pop’s best known songs:  가자, 브랜든.  (Please look that up and see if I’ve got it right, because my Korean is a little rusty.)

By the way, for those of you who recognized the theme song from All in the Family above, I give you this gift: part of the lyrics to a second verse that weren’t sung on the show– 

“People seemed to be content.

Fifty dollars paid the rent. 

Freaks were in a circus tent. 

Those were the days.”

Freaks were in a circus tent!  That’s poetry right there, and it’s funny because it’s true.

It’s been a long 127 years, and it’s only been 70 weeks

Let’s start in Washington, DC, where the trial of sleazy Hillary Clinton hatchet-man Michael Sussman ended with him following in the footsteps of Jeffrey Toobin on a CNN panel discussion: he got off.

Even casual trial watchers saw that this was an open-and-shut case for conviction.  Sussman was exposed as the kind of lying sleaze bag you’d expect to be working for Cankles McPantsuit, having taken a false story smearing Trump as a Russian collaborator to the FBI.  He turned over doctored evidence – which FBI investigators quickly recognized as having been faked – to support his claim.

When questioned under oath, Sussman denied that he was working for any campaign or outside entity, and had come forward simply as a – control your gag reflex – “concerned citizen.”  Criminal mastermind that he is, Sussman proved his own guilt beyond any doubt by… wait for it… billing the Clinton campaign for the time he spent providing fraudulent “evidence” to the FBI!

So why was he acquitted?  Because he truly had a jury of his peers. 

Three of them donated to Hillary Clinton, one donated to AOC, and one had a daughter who played on a sports team with Sussman’s daughter.   And the Obama-appointed judge presiding over the trial naturally believed that those people would be impartial.  Duh.

After the infuriating verdict, one juror gave a media interview in which she argued that the case should not have been prosecuted, since “There are bigger things that affect the nation than a possible lie to the FBI.” 

Great.  Is there any worse American city than DC?  

How about San Francisco, where the geniuses in charge have gotten their priorities – you’ll forgive the term – straight? 

Sure, residents of the city have to teach their kids a horrifying version of hopscotch that involves jumping around to avoid the used syringes that litter the street.  And they can’t leave the house without wearing hip-waders, as if they were going fly fishing in a pristine Montana river, rather than stepping through mounds of human waste.

And crime is skyrocketing, and taxes are ruinously high, and you need a home equity loan to fill up your gas tank.

But don’t worry, because the SF Unified School District has taken the crucial step that is going to turn everything in that benighted city around: they’ve banned using the word “chief” in all of the district’s job titles.

According to their spokesperson Gentle Blythe – and how on earth is she not a Puritan minor character from The Scarlet Letter with that name?! – “our leadership team agreed that, given that Native American members of our community have expressed concerns over the use of the title,” the word “chief” is henceforth off the reservation.

First of all, even counting the Indian from the Village People, the Native American population of San Francisco can’t be that large.  And not too many of those can be such frivolous dopes that they’d be losing sleep over such a trivial issue. 

“Chief” is not a pejorative term, and in the context of education, it is always used in ways that have nothing to do with Native Americans.  Its etymology isn’t connected to Indians in any way, either.

It comes, by way of Middle English and French, from a Latin root that means “leader.”  It’s cognate with terms like “chef” and “captain,” and has been associated with chieftains of Celtic clans, and in modern times with various leadership positions, such as Chief Executive Officer, Chief of Staff, Police Chief, etc.

But we should probably expect no less from the same board that recently made a name for itself by changing the appellation of schools that had been named for such disreputable characters as George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. 

So congratulations, future San Franciscans!  One day you’ll be able to send around your transcripts from George Floyd Junior High and Hunter Biden High school!

One funny consequence is that 13 bureaucrats in the school district now have no job titles, since they had been chiefs of this or that.  The district’s website still lists them under their newly offensive former titles, since nobody in the place has yet come up with an alternative.

Might I suggest, “Jack Asses 1-13?”   

Get to work on those business cards.  

Finally, speaking of San Francisco, I would be remiss if I didn’t pay tribute to this happiest of all months in our new liturgical calendar.  It’s a month of festivities that will be in your face daily, through such a profusion of hectoring ads and self-righteous PSAs and obnoxious White House proclamations that you will never cease to be reminded of how much celebrating you should be doing, if you’re not a terrible person.

I am speaking, of course, of National Dairy Month.  

Which I am not making up.   

I started my Dairy Month celebration early, during my trip through Wisconsin and Michigan.  I had some cheese curds with several meals, made a pilgrimage to the birthplace of the sundae (Two Rivers, WI), and continued my life-long love affair with daily servings of ice cream.

Does my contemplative appreciation of all things dairy necessarily make me a better person than you?

Probably. 

But what certainly makes me even more better than you is my new PSA, which I am composing right this minute:

“Hi, my name is Martin Simpson — gentleman, scholar, and widely recognized hilarious genius.  You may know me from such previous PSAs as, ‘What is Lizzie Warren Squaw-king about Now?’ (#wemustneverstopmockingher), ‘Michael Avenatti: Con Man for All Seasons,’ and, ‘Rest in Peace, Joe Biden (1942-2019).’ 

I’d like to speak to you today about the linchpin of our American society: dairy products.

From the delicious butter that you put on your toast or corn on the cob, to the diverse array of cheeses that you enjoy separately or on crackers or hamburgers, to the sweet, sweet ice cream that helps you hold it together in tough times like these, dairy products are one of the consolations of life.

Dairy is also an important source of Vitamin D, which strengthens your bones.  That’s especially important if you’re a woman, and thus more susceptible to osteoporosis. 

Or if you’re a man who identifies as a woman, and who therefore magically has woman-bones, I guess.  

Speaking of which, please don’t let your cisgender, homophobic bigotry interfere with your appreciation of delicious, nutritious dairy products each day.

‘Martin, how could such a stupid-sounding thing ever happen?’ You are probably thinking.

Easy.   You probably are not consciously hateful toward any members of the bovine community.  You probably don’t think that you have attached any negative connotation to first openly gay California politician Harvey Milk’s last name.  You might even believe that when it comes to chocolate or white milk, you don’t see color.   

But when you are raised in such a sexist, transphobic, cud-bashing society like ours, you can’t help but be affected by it.  You probably assume that the breed a cow was assigned at birth is its actual breed, even though science has proven that if a Guernsey identifies as a Holstein, she’s a Holstein. 

And you probably assume that just because you are vigorously milking her, a cow is a female, and her pronouns are she/her.  But what if she’s a male cow who identifies as a female cow, commonly known as a trans-heifer?  What then?

Ummm… if that’s the case, you should probably stop “milking” that cow immediately.

So this June, observe National Dairy Month by consuming at least 5 servings of dairy each day, and celebrating the entire rainbow of cattle breeds and sexual orientations.

And remember the National Woke Dairy Manufacturers’ slogan: “In Our America, There’s No Tolerance for Lactose Intolerance.”

Avenatti/ Goody Gentle Blythe 2024!

This Memorial Day, I’m feeling more contemplative than usual, which is as it should be. 

Amidst all of our recent self-inflicted troubles, I’m still appreciative of our military, and the sacrifices that they’ve made.  As a conservative, I’m feeling optimistic about the prospects of a red wave in November, and the turning point that that might offer us for at least the short- and mid-term future.

I certainly wouldn’t trade our position for that of our leftist friends, even though they still have control over both houses of congress.  And I don’t think the their recent difficulties arise primarily from the uniform repugnance of their leaders.  (Although their terribleness is pretty stunning!)  

I think their main problem – and it’s one that’s much harder to solve – is that their animating ideas are fundamentally flawed.

There’s an old quote about the difference between philosophy and ideology that goes something like this: philosophy involves adjusting your mind to the reality of the world around you, and ideology involves adjusting the reality of the world to your mind.    

I’ve been thinking about that quote a lot over the last several years, and especially over the interminable 27 years of the Biden administration.  The quote sums up for me the dilemma that elite leftists find themselves in right now: their ideology requires that they force the world to fit the mental scaffolding they’ve built, and the world is not cooperating.    

That scaffolding has been creaking and shifting as it becomes more untethered from reality, and lately nuts and bolts and pieces of pipe have begun falling off.  Soon the badly built structure will inevitably collapse, and I wonder if even then the left will recognize and admit the shoddy workmanship undergirding their failed ideology.

I’m not confident that they will, because the more reality resists their ideas, the more they double down on what’s failing. Consider a few examples.

On the economy, they raise taxes and increase regulations, and generally make it riskier, more expensive and more time consuming to start or conduct business.  When productive people and businesses flee the cities and states they control, they seem genuinely shocked – and then furious.

They do everything they can to restrict the supply of oil and natural gas – killing pipelines, hamstringing attempts to explore for oil, and then slow-walking any permit requests to drill – and when prices skyrocket, they are shocked that people are unhappy.  And they get furious.

They borrow and spend trillions (the GOP is not exactly blameless on this front, either!) while calling it “investments,” and anticipating only benefits and no costs – and are startled when inflation results. And then call for more spending.

On crime, they crack down on policing and incentivize crime by excusing criminals and minimizing punishment – and when crime skyrockets, they are caught by surprise.  And they smear anyone who notices the bodies piling up as racists.

On guns, they refuse to support harsh treatment for criminals who illegally use guns, and focus instead on trying to get guns out of the hands of law-abiding citizens.  When citizens resist, they are dumbfounded.  And they get furious.

On race, they insist that we’ve made no progress since slavery and Jim Crow, and they teach kids that they should judge (and hate) others because of the color of their skin.  They search for micro-aggressions and dog whistles and unconscious racism.  And when race relations get worse, they are happy.  (Which is much creepier than when they’re furious!)

On national pride, they denigrate America and sneer at patriotism, while exaggerating other countries’ virtues and our vices, and when regular people push back, or stand for the national anthem, they get furious.  

On biology, they insist that women can have penises and men can get pregnant, and that women are terribly treated in America, but also that it’s impossible to define what a woman is.   And when normal people laugh and mock them, they get furious.

A quote from the great C.S. Lewis’ treatise The Abolition of Man sums up their situation perfectly: “In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.”

Especially in light of all of the trans madness going on, that last bit seems especially, painfully applicable.

I’m optimistic, though, because our country will soon have a necessary reckoning with reality on reality’s terms.  While that reckoning is going to bring with it a lot of pain for all of us, the brunt of it is going to be borne by those who have been steadfastly denying reality. 

Which, also, is as it should be.

Rather than ending on that grim note, I’d like to point you to a great musical version of the main idea of this column.  It comes via Billy Strings, the young country/bluegrass guitar wizard that I recommended a year or more ago.  (That recommendation was for an original song of his, “Dust In a Baggie,” which you can easily find on Youtube.)  

It turns out that in the same informal session in somebody’s modest living room that produced “Dust in a Baggie,” he also played a great version of Johnny Winter’s song, “It Ain’t Nothing to Me.” 

Although the analogy isn’t perfect, I consider the grim fate awaiting the Dems in November to be analogous to the song’s theme.  On the surface, it’s a song about a foolish man’s terrible choices, and the singer who tries – unheeded – to warn him.

With any luck, the song’s last line is going to be a political epitaph for the Dem House and Senate later this year.  Because we’ve been trying to get them to change course for a long time now, and when they (please God!) reap what they’ve been sowing, I think Johnny Winter will be speaking for all of us when he wrote…

“It ain’t nothing to me.”

Enjoy the song, and have a grateful, reflective Memorial Day.

It’s been a long 27 years, and it’s only been 69 weeks.

I was tempted to start this column by writing something like, “I leave town for a week and the whole country goes to hell in a handbasket.”

Then I remembered: Joey Gaffes is president.  So the country has been hell-bound and handbasket-adjacent for about 16 months now.  (Longest. 16. Months. Ever!)

But I’m not going to talk about the baby food shortage, or Scary Poppins getting canned before she could censor her first conservative outlet. 

Nor will I mention the Dem brain trust spending 6 months working on devising a scary phrase to move voters, and coming up with nothing better than the laughably stupid “Ultra Maga.”  (I mean, “Mega Maga” was lying right there, people!  And while still idiotic, at least it sounds a little cooler.)

And I’m not going to talk about the tragic school shooting in Texas, nor the predictably ghoulish, self-serving leftists trying to score political points over the still-cooling bodies of the victims.

(Though I was sad to see that in a crowd containing a lot of Texans, none of them put Beta O’Rourke in a headlock and hauled him out of the press conference where he pulled his self-aggrandizing stunt.  And then, when out of view of the cameras, gave him a much-deserved horse-whipping.)

Nope.  Today, I’m just going to talk about two stories that tell us a lot about the state of our political leadership.  

First, how ‘bout that new White House press secretary, huh? 

Just when you thought that nobody could be worse than Hacky Psaki, the Ginger Circle-Backer, along comes Karine Jean-Pierre, and says, “Hold my mug of racial grievance and unearned self-esteem, and watch this.”

On her first day on the job, she opened with a paean to her own historic history-making historicity, proudly checking her identity politics boxes:

She’s black.

She’s female.

She’s a lesbian.

She’s an immigrant.

Hooray!

Did you notice what was NOT mentioned in that list? 

Competence.  Unflappability.  Quickness on her feet.  Truthfulness.

Okay, that last one’s not fair, since a press secretary’s job is to spin and shade the truth for an administration.  And the job of doing that for Joey Gaffes has to be the toughest one ever, given how little she has to work with.

But holy Holstein, did she ever make a mess of things right out of the gate!

She struggled to produce clear answers.  She read – woodenly – from written talking points that only tangentially dealt with the questions being asked.  And when Peter Doocy asked her a question that was the least bit pointed?

It would be an insult to all the deer ever caught mid-way across a country road by a speeding car to say that she reacted like a deer in the headlights.

I’ve seen more convincing hostage videos. 

I can’t understand the attraction that identity politics has for some people.  How long will it be before a majority of our fellow citizens will recognize, admit and reject the utter folly of hiring people based on their skin color or who they are attracted to?  It’s galling to hear this brought up as if it’s a qualification for employment. 

So KJP finds women attractive.  So what?  So do I. Does that mean I should be the White House spokes-weasel?

Though wouldn’t that be sweet?  Sure, I’d last about 7 minutes, but they would be 7 glorious minutes, as I walked out without any notes and started winging it:

“Hello, I’m Martin, and I’m the new WH spokesman.  I’m a phallo-American, I’m 2 shades darker than Grandma Squanto (#wemustneverstopmockingher), I like chicks, and my parents were proud Appalachian-Americans on one side and Germans on the other.  

So you know that I’m going to know what I’m talking about.

Now let’s get started.  And before you can ask what the President meant in his unscripted remarks this morning, your guess is as good as ours.  But just to be safe, we are walking back whatever he thought that he meant.”   

This kind of racial and gender box-checking would be outrageous even if the job wasn’t high profile and important, like supreme court justice, vice president, or press secretary.  As in many other cases, average people’s common sense would keep them from making that kind of hiring decision, even when making a much less consequential one.

Would you choose an accountant because of her genitalia?  A mechanic based on his skin tone?  A plumber because of where his ancestors came from? 

Consider this scenario:  You get home from work and walk past an odd-looking character yanking fruitlessly on a mower’s pull cord in the front yard, and then find your wife in the living room, watching through the front window.

You: Who is that?

Wife: New landscaper.

You: How’d you find her?

Wife:  Don’t misgender!  Her pronouns are them/they.

You: Don’t you mean, their pronouns are them/they?  (You notice a hard look.)  How did you find them?

Wife: I heard about them on the local non-binary social media job board.

You: Do they have any experience?

Wife: Yes.  They transitioned at 20, had the top surgery but not the bottom yet.  They’re also visually challenged, gender fluid, and vegan.

You (suspecting you have made a terrible marital choice): Do they have any experience mowing?

Just then the mower fires up.  Within a minute, a bunch of chopped up peonies slaps against the front window.  Then a cat screeches.

You (noticing that your wife has crossed her arms over her chest, and won’t look at you):  It looks like they just mowed over the peonies, and one of the cats.

Wife: (icy silence)

A grinding noise comes from outside, and rose petals fall in front of the window.

You: I think they just took out your roses.  (A cat screeches.)  And another cat.

Wife: Fine.  Go fire her.

You: Do you mean fire them?

Wife (giving you a look like Darth Vader when he was strangling that underling with his mind): We’ve got one cat left – move!

You: I’ll take care of it. (You move to the front door)

Wife (softening): Oh, what will she do for work now?

You: Don’t you mean, what will THEY do—(You get a look that makes part of your anatomy withdraw into your abdominal cavity, and clear your throat.)  I mean, they’ll find something.  I hear there’s an opening for a non-binary lesbian immigrant to lie for the president.

And, scene.

Second, monkey pox is now stalking the land.

That sounds pretty scary.  When you mention a disease called “monkey pox,” you’ve got my attention.  But you had me at “monkey.”

Can there be any disease-related word to follow up “monkey” that would NOT be seriously disturbing?

“Monkey fever” sounds pretty grim.  I would not want to be diagnosed with “monkey-itis.” Or any condition that combines “simian” and “syndrome.”

And when you follow up “monkey” with the medieval frisson of “pox,” you’ve got yourself the makings of a public panic. 

Which is just what the Dems would love.  Their exploitative over-reaction to covid – and the perfect storm of mail-in voting, unsecured drop boxes and month-long voting periods they were able to shoe-horn in with it – helped them to elect a posthumous president and throw our country into its current dead man’s spin. 

Today, given the horrific polls for Brandon, Que Mala, Imhotep Pelosi, Grandma Squanto et al, what kind of electoral rabbit can they possibly pull out of a hat to forestall their pending electoral massacre in November?

There’s no rabbit for that. 

But there is a monkey… preferably one with pox! 

But — cue the sad trombone – it looks like monkey pox isn’t going to be the pandemic they desperately need.

First, it’s much less communicable than something like covid.  Second, the best way to contract it is to have sex with someone who has it.  Third, there is already a vaccine for it, so you won’t be able to lock down the public until way past the election with the promise of an eventual cure.

Like most Americans, I’m thinking this:  You’re telling me that if I can refrain from having sex with strangers – especially ones with visible sores — I’m not getting poxxed up? 

Done and done.

Compare that to the fears felt in the first days of covid:  Don’t go outside, or see people, or touch things.  Don’t go indoors, but being outdoors doesn’t help much either.  Also go easy on the inhaling and exhaling. 

And try to breathe through this cloth over your face — like waterboarding, only without the water.

And do everything Fauci tells you to, even as that advice changes every 17 minutes. Sorry Dems.  This isn’t the virus you were looking for.

Monday was our last traveling day, and we had some great weather for it: sunny, but still cool.  We drove to the shoreline town of Saugatuck, to take advantage of one of God’s gifts to the locals. 

The prevailing winds around Lake Michigan usually blow from the northwest to the southeast, depositing large amounts of sand in the process.  Over many years, this sand has formed huge dunes at many places along the eastern shore of the lake.

Decades ago, some entrepreneurial types in Saugatuck got an idea: let’s cut the tops off of some trucks, replace most of the body with three benches, and put ropes into the benches to use as seatbelts.  Then we’ll get people to sign a liability waiver, load them onto those benches, and drive hell for leather all over the dunes like maniacs.

Because: America. 

We were really looking forward to doing some dune running on the last day of our trip.  Unfortunately for us, we arrived to find several school buses’ worth of kids and their parents.   It turns out that a popular end-of-school-year field trip is to take kids for a day at the dunes, when they should clearly be in school, learning how to be transgendered unisex bathroom users, or something.

The first open appointment for us to ride in the dunes wasn’t until 3:30, so we sadly missed out on that bit of fun.       

So we drove into town, parked, and took a long walk around.  The place is charming and picturesque, the way many of the lakeshore towns are.   Starting on Memorial Day, the place will be crawling with tourists, but now there were just enough people strolling the streets to keep it from seeming empty.

Several canals coming in off the lake were lined with boat slips and shops and restaurants, but when we walked one block inland, the neighborhoods became partly residential and partly small shops and bed and breakfasts.  The architecture was eclectic and pleasing to the eye: no cookie cutter housing developments here, other than the waterfront condos. (But the once again, houses built in the 1960s and 70s never fail to disappoint!) 

We had a good lunch at one of the little restaurants on a side-street.  They were serving inside, but also had a shaded patio out front, and we ate out there.  Being a couple of blocks off the lake knocked down all the wind, and with no clouds to speak of, it was a perfect temperature.  (I know that a week from now, back in Florida’s early summer heat, I’ll be nostalgic for that street-side lunch!)

Next we drove down to Grand Haven, and took another leisurely drive and stroll around yet another cute beach town.  More of the same: leafy streets, well-manicured lawns and landscaping, a varied assortment of building styles.  Then south on some roads that were almost a tunnel through the trees, though that didn’t make up for missing the actual Tunnel of Trees farther north in Michigan.

We ended up back on 31, eventually connecting to I-94 into Indiana.  We made it to the Indiana Dunes around 3:30, and climbed up Mount Baldy, which is a shoreside dune almost 300 feet high.  From that vantage point on such a clear day, we could make out the Chicago skyline, which was probably 45ish miles distant.

We made it back home in time for supper, meeting Bob’s mom and dad for a nice meal, before unpacking the Caddy and putting it back into its garage for some well-earned rest.   

As I look back on the trip, I realized that I enjoyed the whole ride, but there are always regrets on a 5-day trip that could have easily taken twice that long.  There are lots of places in Wisconsin that I’d like to see (Fond au Lac, for one), plus I’d like to make a longer return visit to Milwaukee, along with a little more time to visit some museums in Kenosha and Sheboygan. 

The same goes for Michigan.  Several readers mentioned Petovsky, the Tunnel of Trees and Leggs bar in northern Michigan, among other places, and of course I’d like to actually ride the dune runners in Saugatuck.  I’m hoping to make a return trip soon.

The people were really friendly on the whole trip, offering to take pics for us and providing good conversation and advice for where to site-see and eat all along the way.  I’m sure that many, many people on both coasts aren’t as rude as their reputation, but you generally can’t go wrong with the politeness of Midwesterners.   

As on our Route 66 trip last year, the old Cadillac performed like a champ.  Because of the cool temps up north, we only got to drive with the top down for the first day.  Darryll checked the oil each day, we used a Tomtom to give us our speeds, and as far as I’m concerned, having no gas gauge just keeps you on your toes. 

A lot of people gave Darryll compliments on the car – Bob was counting, and says the total number was 28.  A lot of people talked to us about it, saying that their dads, uncles or grandfathers had one when they were kids.  Darryll noticed a numerical oddity about that: around 14,000 1976 El Dorados were made, and between last year’s Route 66 trip and this one, we must have met half of those owners or their kids!

Conversely, around 671,000 AMC Gremlins were made, and other than 2 Cautious Optimism readers – Tom Dixon Jr. and Dennis MacMenacevelt (?) – I’ve never met anyone who would admit to ever owning one!

Other than taking a beating on the gas prices (Thanks, Brandon!), the driving was a lot of fun.   

Except for the heavy rain on Day 2, and the overcast skies that day and the next, the weather was great, and I appreciated the change from my usual north Florida heat and humidity.  Even that shockingly cold boat ride on Lake Superior would have been fine, if I’d dressed appropriately. 

And that experience taught me something.  You’ve all probably heard the old Mark Twain quote to the effect of, “The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.”  Well I can say that one of the coldest January days I ever spent was a May 21^st in Munising, Michigan!

Thanks for reading, and I’ll be back on Friday with a new column trying to catch up on the political events of the last 10 days.

We spent most of Sunday on Mackinac Island. 

From St. Ignace, we took a ferry over to the island.  It was another cold and overcast morning, and we all sat on the open, top deck of the boat for the first part of the ride, which went to and under the huge cable bridge called “the Mighty Mac.”  It looks a lot like the Golden Gate bridge, and is even bigger. 

The bridge was built in the late 1950s, and finished about 1% over budget, and one year ahead of schedule.  It’s hard to believe that there was ever a time when a huge government infrastructure project did that.

The bridge lived up to the hype, and sailing under it was a great way to see it.  But as soon as we turned away from the bridge and toward the island, we all went back downstairs to make the rest of the trip in the enclosed, main cabin.

The island has less than 600 year-round residents, but around 10,000 per day visit during the season, from early April to early November.   It feels like a step back in time, combined with a modern tourist town.

As you approach, the most prominent features are the Grand Hotel on some high ground on the left, Fort Mackinac at the same level to the right, and the main town laid out all across the shoreline. 

When we docked and walked out onto the main street, we saw a lot of horse-drawn carriages of various types.  No cars are allowed on the island, which is an appealing idea that produces some strange sights.

During our day on the island, we watched horses pulling wagons full of luggage up to the Grand Hotel, and wagons full of building supplies, and wagons full of tourists on rides around the island.  We even saw the Mackinac Island version of a carry-off dumpster: a wagon full of building debris, parked in front of a house and waiting for the garbage horses (I guess) to haul it away. 

There were also some tourists riding their own rented horses through the streets, and a small army of workers with containers and shovels on bikes, riding around to clean up the streets after the horses.  Which reminded me that all of the environmentalists who take car-hating too far are forgetting about the social costs imposed by the mountains of horse manure that were omnipresent in the good old days.  

In addition to horses, Mackinac also has a lot of grand old houses, some of them bed and breakfasts or inns, and some private residences. 

After walking through town, we took a horse-drawn tour of the island, during which we learned some interesting history.  In the 19^th century a local accidentally shot himself in the stomach, after which a local doctor was able to save his life – a rare outcome in a time when gut wounds were rarely survivable. 

But the wounded man had a hole into his stomach that never closed, and the doctor did a series of experiments on human digestion, using the man he saved as a living test subject/laboratory.  I remember reading about that – and being grossed out and fascinated by it – when I was a kid.  And now I know that that strange story happened on Mackinac Island. 

After rolling through some historic neighborhoods in town, our horses pulled our wagon up into the hills, where we stopped at a small museum/gift shop.  The museum had a variety of cool old wagons, from one-horse power models to two- or four-horse, and including closed carriages and open ones, and also a hearse. 

The next leg of the tour carried us through the wooded parts of the island, with stops at some scenic overlooks.  By this time the sun was out, and the views and variations of color of the water where Lakes Huron and Michigan meet were really beautiful. 

At the end of the ride we walked to the gigantic Grand Hotel, which has a 650-foot covered porch on one side.  It reminded me of the Overlook Hotel in Estes Park, CO, a stately old 19^th century behemoth from a bygone era.  We paid to tour the public spaces inside, which were well worth seeing.

From there we headed back down to the dock and took the next boat back to St. Ignace, and then to parts south.  We drove over the Mighty Mac bridge that we’d sailed under earlier, and after a little time on I-75, we got off on smaller roads.      

The countryside was green, with a mix of mostly forests, with occasional lakes, farms and very small towns, and was more hilly than I’d expected.  Under sunny and cool skies, the drive was really pleasant.  Unfortunately, we were a little behind time, and weren’t able to take more time to stop or take detours to places that looked intriguing on the map.

South of Boyne Falls we came across a sign identifying the 45^th parallel, which Darryll tells me means that the mid-point between the north pole and the equator goes through a guy’s small yard somewhere in the middle of rural Michigan.

A little farther south, the town of Mancelona had a gigantic pole near the middle of town that read “Mancelona Snow Fall.”  The top of the pole indicated “20 feet,” and there was a big, wooden snowflake at the 9 and-a-half-foot mark.  After more than three decades in Florida, I love snow and try to see it at least once every winter.  But more than nine feet in a typical winter?

Which reminds me: when we got into Sheboygan, WI several days ago, I noticed what looked like a large metal antenna mounted to the side of the fire hydrants in town, with a red-painted tip about 8 feet off the ground.  When I asked what that was, Darryll and Bob looked at me like it was a trick question.

It’s there so that when the winter snows are piling up, snow plows and fire truck crews will be able to spot where the snow-buried hydrants are.  We came across the same thing while driving a lot of the roads through the Upper Peninsula’s forested roads, which featured tall poles on both sides of the road, so the plow drivers can see where the roads end.

When we entered the town of Kalkaska, we saw a gorgeous, 7-foot-tall statue of a trout in front of its old railroad depot, along with a few signs proudly identifying Kalkaska as, “Trout Town.”  So of course we had to stop there for supper.  And of course we ate at the Trout Town Tavern and Eatery.  The food was good, and the décor was homey and trout-centric.

From there we drove south again, ending up on 131, which was a divided highway that looked like what I picture the autobahn looks like: smooth pavement and long, sweeping curves moving through a gently rolling landscape.  I soon saw a speed limit sign saying “75” for the first time in my life.

The caddy was floating along like a dream, and Darryll pushed it to 75, just because it seems fundamentally wrong to drive less than the speed limit.

We made it another couple of hours, stopping for the last night of our trip at Ludington.  I already know that I’d like to make this trip again, and spend more time at some of the places we’ve seen, and go to many more places that we haven’t been able to get to.

We got up early on Saturday the 21^st, a partly cloudy day with temperatures around 40 degrees: a brisk late spring day in Munising, MI — and the depth of bone-chilling winter in north Florida! 

After breakfast at the hotel on the lake, we drove through Munising for a bit, before going to the Pictured Rocks boat tours shop, where we bought our tickets for a 10:00 a.m. cruise out of the bay and into Lake Superior to see the much-celebrated rock cliffs that line parts of the lake for around 20 miles or so.

That left us with about an hour to spare, so we drove to the nearby Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore Visitor’s Center.  We took a short hike up to Munising Falls, which was the best waterfall we’ve seen so far.  A modest creek — flowing with water tinted by the tannins in the surrounding leaves to the color of weak coffee — spilled down around 75 feet into a small, rocky pool. 

After a little while spent communing with nature, we walked along the creek back out of the forest, and then drove back to town, and parked near the boat launch.

I had already realized I’d made a tactical error in terms of clothing.  After three decades in Florida, the concept that late May can be really cold in some places did not compute.  So I had packed a bunch of shorts and t-shirts, along with one pair of jeans, one fleece and one windbreaker.   (Both cousins, needless to say, were much more warmly dressed.  The jerks.)

As we stood on the beach waiting to get onto the boat, a steady, cold wind off the lake made the 40-degree temperature feel much colder.  Then the captain made an announcement that buoy data was indicating that the lake waves were at 2 to 4 feet; anyone susceptible to sea sickness could return to the gift shop and get a refund for their tickets. 

I looked at my cousins, and we all knew that the pact of juvenile males (despite their chronological age) was now in effect: anyone who vomited on the trip would be mercilessly mocked for the rest of our lives.

I was already freezing, but I knew that I couldn’t back out of the trip.  So I did the only thing I could have, given my iron will and lack of maturity: I resolved that if I had to vomit during the trip, I would do it on at least one (and preferably both) cousins.

Then the captain went over the refund policy: if the seas were too rough to make it to the first key point on the trip, everyone would get a full refund.  If we made it past that point but less than halfway through the trip, everyone would get 50% refunds and/or a rain check to take a future trip.

With that ominous bit of spirit-dampening, we all tramped aboard.  The boat had a top deck with rows of bench seats, and a glass-enclosed main deck, which everyone (wisely) chose.  We got underway, and for the initial part of the trip, the seas were pretty mild.  But that’s because a large island (4 times as large as Manhattan island, the captain said) called Grand Island mostly blocks and shelters the bay from the wind and conditions on the rest of the lake.

As soon as we got out beyond Grand Island, the waves started hitting, and some onboard took advantage of the offered plastic bags.   But, thankfully, none of the cousins suffered that indignity.  Though the boat got tossed around a little, and a lot of spray was dramatically and regularly launched against the windows we were sitting beside, the trip wasn’t bad.

Mid-way through, Bob got up and walked unsteadily to the stairs leading to the uncovered rooftop seating.  The boat was rocking enough that his movements were hampered, but he was undeterred, and made it up onto the roof deck, where he quickly got soaked, but took some very good pictures of the cliffs and lake waves. 

The rock cliffs really are striking; they’re streaked with colors from various minerals (iron, copper, manganese, calcium, etc.), and they’ve been dramatically eroded into a variety of oddly shaped outcroppings and passageways.  The skies were slate gray for most of the trip, so the cliffs weren’t as dramatically lit as they could have been on a sunny day, but I’d still recommend those views.   

We headed back to port and landed around noon, and the first thing I did was buy a “Pictured Rocks, Michigan” hoodied sweatshirt, which I put on immediately.  We stopped for lunch at a place called, “Eh Burger.”  Apparently the “eh” is a linguistic quirk of local dialect that doesn’t suggest what it looked like to me, which is a slight variation on, “Meh, a burger” and seems to suggest a mediocre burger at best.

We left Munising heading east, and soon stopped at Miner’s Falls, which was located a little more than a half mile into a forest of widely spaced trees that let through a lot of sunlight.  The temps were still in the low 40s, but felt about 30 degrees warmer than the 40 degrees on the lake that morning.  The path was wide, and every so often we could see Lake Superior in the distance to our left.

As the trail gradually descended, views of another small lake in a lower section of the woods, between us and Superior, began to pop in and out of view.  Soon we could hear the falls ahead of us.  This one was wide and loud, and featured around a 125-foot drop.  Two wooden platforms, one near the top of the waterfall and one halfway down, provided great views. 

Clearly, the progression of waterfalls during this trip has headed in a good direction: from the three-foot drop of Sheboygan falls, to the 25-foot Wagner Falls, to the 40-foot Munising Falls and finally the 125 foot drop of Miner’s Falls.

Leaving Miner’s Falls, we drove east again, and soon came to Miner’s Castle, which offered more scenic overlooks and trails on a high bluff above Lake Superior.  We had seen the Miner’s Castle rock formation from the boat this morning, but the view from overhead was equally impressive.  The water of the lake far below was a light turquoise near the shore, and a richer, deeper blue farther out.

From a wooden platform overlooking the water, we took a walking path along a nearby ridgeline.  The scene looked something like the views over the Pacific at Pebble Beach and Pinehurst golf courses, if you didn’t know how cool the temperature was.  But by this time, it was probably close to 50, and the earlier clouds and overcast were gone, replaced by blue skies that almost seemed to mirror the lake.

From there we got back in the car and headed farther east and north.  We made several brief stops along the lake, then drove through around 100 miles of very sparsely populated interior landscape.  Forests lined both side of the road, broken up once in a while by some swampy areas, and more rarely by a house or small cluster of houses. 

We made it to St. Ignace – just across the water from Mackinac Island — around 6:30.  We checked in to a hotel, had some Mexican food nearby, and made a lap around the town before calling it a day. 

We had walked around 8 miles today, and were looking forward to more of the same tomorrow, when we’ll take a ferry over to Mackinac Island. 

We started our second day with a good breakfast in Sheboygan.

Actually, my cousins started it earlier than I did, because they were up before 8, and I find that reprehensible.  They took an early morning walk down to a different area of the lake shore, where the remains of a ship that sank in the late 1800s – the Lotte Cooper — was on display. 

After breakfast, we drove back down there so I could see that ship.  While doing so, we learned another Sheboygan area shipwreck story that brought home the vicissitudes of fate. 

In 1847, a propeller steamer carrying around 300 Dutch immigrants, the Phoenix, sank about 7 miles north of Sheboygan harbor.  The boiler had overheated, setting the ship on fire, and while 41 people escaped on lifeboats and two crewmen clung to the boat until rescued, everyone else died.

One more tragic detail: the Dutch immigrants had first arrived in Buffalo, NY, and when they arranged to settle in Wisconsin, they chose to get there by boat rather than traveling by land because they believed that sailing would be less dangerous.

Stories like that certainly make one feel a little ridiculous for whining about gauges that don’t work in a car that’s a little old!

From Sheboygan we drove to nearby Sheboygan Falls, another small town with a quaint downtown.  The falls themselves weren’t especially impressive, but I love a small town with a river running through it. 

Our old hometown of Marseilles was similarly situated in the Illinois river valley: Main Street came in past a state park along the river, then over a bridge and past a gigantic Nabisco factory which used the river for power and transport.  Unfortunately, when the plant changed owners and eventually closed, the town never recovered, and is still struggling.   

Sheboygan Falls seems to embody a happier ending to that story. The town only has around 8000 residents, but the downtown is on the National Register of Historic Places. 

Coming into town, we passed a big old mill – now converted into apartments – called the Brickner Woolen Mill.  Extending from the river for several blocks is the downtown, with a lot of well-maintained and ornate business buildings, including several with turrets on the corners. When I was a kid, I always fantasized about living over a storefront in one of those kinds of buildings, and hanging out in a turret, reading a book and watching the townspeople going about their business on the street below.

Employees at a flower shop were putting out at least a full city block’s length of every kind of flower you can think of.  They looked gorgeous and smelled great, and customers were out in numbers, doing some very pleasant window shopping, minus the windows.   

On our way out of town, we passed a gigantic Kohler plant nearby.  I love businesses doing their manufacturing in America, and I’ve got Kohler faucets in several of the rentals, so good on them!  

We spent the next few hours driving north under increasingly dark skies, through several small towns.  We saw some cemeteries with a lot of German names, some modest houses and some impressive ones, some gently rolling green countryside, and frequent views of lakefront vistas.  

We took a quick tour of the town of Manitowoc.  After some generic strip mall stuff on our way into town, we arrived at a waterfront harbor with a gigantic ferry ship (the Badger), just pulling out for a trip across the lake, and more nice old houses than you’d expect in a town that size.

The next town we reached was small Two Rivers, where we found a nice bit of Americana, right beside the Civil War memorial and statue: a plaque showing some hometown pride, touting Two Rivers as the birthplace of the ice cream sundae. 

According to the plaque, in 1881 George Hallauer asked soda fountain owner Edward Berner to top a dish of ice cream with chocolate sauce, which to that time had only been used on ice cream soda.  After that innovation proved popular – duh! – it was initially sold only on Sundays, for some reason.

Soon, a 10-year-old girl asked for one on a weekday, saying that, “we could pretend that it’s Sunday.” And a boon to the world was born.

On the one hand, that doesn’t seem like a towering achievement to me.  I mean, ice cream tastes great, and chocolate also tastes great.  How hard was it to come up with the idea to put chocolate ON ice cream?

It would be like giving a MacArthur genius grant to the guy who invented the mini-skirt, just because he said, “I love looking at women. If only I could think of a way to see much more of–   Hold on!  What if I were to cut a normal skirt much, much shorter?  That’s just crazy enough to work!”

Regardless, I love an all-American story, and stories don’t get much more all-American than a small American business in dairy country coming up with a great-tasting treat, and then watching it take off  because of the sweet-tooth of a wholesome, Wisconsin girl!     

After leaving Two Rivers, the rain clouds that had been threatening all day let loose, and we drove through rain for the next 45 minutes or so, including around 20 minutes of a pretty good downpour. 

The good news: the Caddy’s windshield wipers worked. 

The bad news: the front of the convertible top is not completely waterproof.  Darryll was driving, so he had to keep toweling off the spot where the convertible top meets the top of the windshield. 

Crucially, the rear seat – where I was sitting – remained cozily dry.  So I enjoyed watching Darryll and Bob going through their character-building exercise in the intermittently drizzled-upon front seats. 

During a break in the rain, we reached Green Bay, and drove into the Lambeau Field and Title Town complex, where the Packers play football.  I love the idea that a modest town of 100,000 has a storied NFL franchise, and their stadium complex is pretty impressive. 

On the other hand, I’m a Bears fan from Illinois, so I can’t say anything too nice about the Packers.  Darryll and Bob discussed various ways to express themselves on the subject – sneaking in and relieving themselves on the 50 yard line was a particular favorite.  But we managed to rise above our baser nature, and leave Green Bay without scandal, or charges being filed.      

We made it to Oconto for a nice lunch, then Kewaunee, and then Marinette, on the Wisconsin border.  Then we crossed into the upper peninsula of Michigan at Menominee.

The driving through northern Wisconsin and up through Michigan took us through more and more lightly inhabited countryside.  At Escanaba we found another small town with a waterfront park area, and a short hill topped by some stately houses facing it.  

We stopped at the Sand Point lighthouse, which was built in 1867.  We got out to stretch our legs and read the story of the lighthouse, and we would likely have spent a little more time there.  But when I was walking about 40 feet away from Bob and Darryll, I saw both of them start to twitch and flail erratically. As I got closer, I saw that a small cloud of mosquitos had enveloped them both.

I’d heard about far-northern, lake-adjacent mosquitos, and I had a plan:  I hightailed it back to the car, abandoning them to their fate. 

I figured if they made it back, fine.  If not, Darryll had given me an extra set of car keys, and I know that he would have wanted me to have the Caddy, and to drive it in his honor.

But they got back to the car – itchier and more irritable than usual — and we hit the road one more time, for the last leg of the day’s travels.

We had decided that even though it was out of our way, we wanted to go farther north than we had to, to the city of Munising, on the edge of Lake Superior.  We’ve heard that Pictured Rocks is an especially beautiful sight, and that a tour boat that takes people on a lake trip to see them is well worth it.

So we left the traditional “Circle the Lake” route and drove sixty miles or so through the Hiawatha National Forest – stopping briefly at a small, scenic waterfall (Wagner Falls) — before arriving at Munising.  We got rooms in a small hotel on the edge of the lake, where the views were breathtaking. 

Because Munising is just into the Eastern time zone, the sun didn’t set until almost 10:00, after we’d eaten and walked the town for a bit. 

The plan for tomorrow is to take the boat ride on Lake Superior to see Pictured Rocks, and then to head south to re-join our regular route across the upper peninsula.