April 13

It is generally accepted that an absent father usually makes for an unhappy family, and is especially rough on any children. This morning I'm saying that an absent sun can also make for an unhappy family but can also go so far as to inflect unhappiness to the neighboring families as well as to most of the families in the whole surrounding area.

This is especially so when the temperature is hanging just above freezing and the clouds are puking snow that the wind seems to gleefully blow around in an attempt to intensify the negativity of the situation, which is exactly what we have here this morning.

Not getting much sleep after standing around for three hours watching some cage fights on a huge screen doesn't help the morning much either. The fights were really good and worth our time but it would have been a lot better had Glenda won little better tickets than the $35 standup only tickets she got.

We stood behind a small barrier about 45 feet from the ring where the opening was guarded by two security guys. Just in front of the barrier there were, at my count, 120 empty chairs that our tickets came up ten dollars short of allowing us to use. We were too far from the ring to see much but there was a huge screen just behind us. That was about the only thing that kept us there.

We're not sure but we think we were probably the oldest two there. Beer was being sold for $4 a can but that didn't deter most of the younger adults from trying to turn the event into an intoxicating party.

Our experience enabled us to realize that the fighting atmosphere would create an aggressive attitude in most, especially with the added lubrication of the refreshment caused us to leave a little early. We just couldn't imagine being on the crooked dangerous road at the same time as another 100 plus vehicles of which many would be operated by a pumped up thoughtless aggressive body of lubricated testosterone.

"To knock a thing down, especially if it is cocked at an arrogant angle, is a deep delight to the blood." - George Santayana