Will's Autumn Ramblings

Autumn has arrived here in Nueva Jersey. Never mind the calendar, it's 55 degrees out there. We can't translate that into that stupid European system. We can't. We won't. Here, in the only nation that's landed a man on the moon, 100 means it's really hot and time to break out the kiddie pool and speedo, while 0 means it's really cold and time to go ice fishing.

Autumn means Sunday Hebrew school for Middle and Youngest Daughter, we got Oldest Daughter's Bot Mitzvah in just before the Wuhan Virus from Wuhan* China. For reason's we've never understood, Autumn means extra ju-ju. Scientists remain baffled as to why, but we don't get this kind of Sunday ju-ju in the winter, spring, and certainly not summer, a season upon which were are turning.

We'll be reading about the War Between the States today rather than watching that band of criminals, unpatriotic bastards, socially promoted morons, and other assorted non-members of MENSA. At this point the only NFL benefit we can think of is Mrs. Stroock breaking out her football jersey, in which she looks, well, what can we say....even if it's an Eagles Jersey.

We may also be reading about rebuilding Japan. We have one book, Embracing Defeat, about just that. While they are not 100% analogous, post WWII Japan is the best example we can think of for post nuclear war America. When people debate the use of the Bomb, they forget that one of Curtis Lemay's 400 ship raids was exactly equivalent to Nagasaki and Hiroshima, casualty and devastation wise. Lemay had scathed about 50% of Japan's urban area by the time we were done. Never, ever, make the United States angry. We'll build special high altitude bombers just for you. Interestingly we never quite knocked out Japan's public utilities. Again, the two situations are not exactly the same. But by figuring out just how the hell Japan rebuilt, by which we mean where they got the brick, the mortar, the rebar, we can figure out what President Rockefeller needs to do, and where the US should be in say, 1985.

We've talked at length with one of our Canadian associates (from the soon to be independent nation of Alberta), and he has pointed out numerous times that North America is simply too big and dispersed for the Soviets to nuke everything. If European reader(s) think America is big and empty, take a look at Canada. Folks across the pond just don't appreciate that North America is a sliver of civilization carved out of the wilderness, which is everywhere and if one backs off for even a little, the wilderness creeps back in and burrows through your garbage cans. Why here in New Jersey we have a bear problem and the dear are everywhere. Day in, day out, one see's fresh car kills on the roadside. The wise Floridian doesn't dive into his swimming pool without checking for gators. It's goddamn Wild Kingdom at the Stroock mountain retreat in the Berkshires of Western Massachusetts. Bears, Bald Eagles, Otters, Cayotes...Once our esteemed year round neighbor was setting a homemade cayote trap while drinking a Coors Lite, looked at us, shook his head and said, 'Fucking hillbillies.' And that's in the part of the country that's been settled for 400 years. What we mean is, North America is a wild continent that spends half the year trying to kill you.**

[Half a year? My sister who immigrated to Australia says it's a year round thing down there. But she says the sun is nice-Ed]

What the frick does a Liverpudlian like you know about the sun? You say Britain hasn't been invaded in a thousand years, we say who the hell wants to go there? We were amused a few years ago when the Land of Eire was getting a freak Category 1 Hurricane and people were panicking. Our childhood friend in Cork just sat back and laughed. We counseled an Irish associate that he just needed to put his lawn furniture in the garage and that he might lose a roof shingle or two. We've been in a Cat-4 and went through Superstorm Sandy, which seemed to hover over our house for 18 hours. It was as close to an episode of Little House on the Prairie as one could get, as we went around the yard putting crap away, went up on the roof to shore things up, all while the clouds rolled in ominously from the south. Oh and we had a newborn, like five days newborn.

In the aftermath the insurance company guy said, 'Here's a cheque for a new roof.'

'Yeah but we only lost some shingles and some of the garage siding.'

'Here's a cheque for a new roof.'

'Ok.'

*A province in China from which the Wuhan Virus from Wuhan China originated.

**As the Canadian M. Steyn has remarked.