As you know I live with three women and a female English bulldog. Why do I start things this way? I start things this way to make a point. I hope it ends that way. The women in my life live without sidelines, boards, a foul pole or baseline. They know not of what I speak when I sit there in the living room watching a televised hockey game and stating the obvious (to me) out loud. Not one of my girls pipe up or question my madness to what is happening on the frozen television screen, as I cry “oh he hit the pipe!” This will change of course when the days worth of sunshine last a little longer than five:pm and we’re not scraping the ice off our windshields at six:am and we hear the men in black state “Play ball!” Our loving house is one big free-for-all while we enjoy our free speech, knowing our opinion will be carefully and objectively listened to, perhaps later dissected should the words “Jets” or “Yankees” be included, and we rarely hesitate to hug each other or let each other know things might just be jacked up a little. We keep things within the four corners of our own home and share little with the outside world, other than this blog of course, but seriously, we are hardly on the phone, if ever, with anyone other than family or close friends and we like it this way. At work I have an opportunity to be myself for eight hours without many interruptions and the office I reside in has no opportunity for daydreaming as the four walls are sans windows. Probably better that way – but certainly less healthy. While enjoying the quieter time with my bride this morning she tells me she heard on the news this morning where “they” (you know who I mean) are considering a ban on smoking on your balcony – should your balcony be in public view. This whole smoking ban has been in our windshield for decades now, and I have to tell you … if I, as a homeowner, or even renting a place with a balcony view am told I cannot use that space to smoke because I’m now in the view of the PUBLIC? They should only know what I’ve done in full view of the PUBLIC in my earlier years. The outcome would of course be just as expensive today as it was back then – but what changed? As of late the girls have been hearing their dad say “What part of East Germany do we live in?” and sadly this question has been asked a lot more than I’d like lately. I don’t smoke, but I recognize and understand a freedom when I see one, and when the door to that freedom was purchased or rented by the very person who plans to use it and is then later somehow revoked by societal pressure – one can only then start to realize why and how we got in the funk we’re in today. Stay out of my business – and I will definitely stay out of yours.
Good day,
Papa
