No matter what the topic, when we debate, attempt to resolve or start to chortle, should I think, “donuts?”
As a professional musical storyteller and educational service provider I tend to launch into tales rather easily. Yes, I admit: I tell stories. I seem to come by this naturally… and it also seems to be somewhat of a Carman trait. Get a bunch of us around the table and if someone inserted “have you heard about…” we wouldn’t miss a beat.
One of my favorites is the true story of Dad’s donuts. In 88, after my father’s memorial service when we held that thing no one dares call a party I was asked to go get a dozen of Dad’s favorite donuts. There’s a little shop in Eagle Bay, NY that boils up donuts to a delicious deep golden brown where you can practically taste the word “crunch.” We used to buy them as kids on the way to and from Twitchell Lake where we lived.
One of the two sources… “to drool all over yourself… yum,” in the little hamlet known as Eagle Bay… the other being The Chicken Hut that served up buckets of broasted chicken pieces the size of dinosaurs. I exaggerate… just a little. No wonder they’re extinct. If they tasted that good no asteroid kacked them. They were definitely eaten by aliens, since we weren’t around yet.
Well, The Hut was either just an empty parking lot by the time of Dad’s memorial service, or close to, but to this day you can still buy those donuts. So in 1988 I put my new 88 Mazda pickup in gear and drove just a few miles north to the Bay. Pulled into walked up…
“Oh, I remember your father. He used to buy donuts for his dog.”
Dad had diabetes. Donuts and diet should have been antonyms. And knowing my father he probably actually believed the dog ate them not too long after he scarfed them down. Of the few things we fought about usually we fought about me wanting to talk about whatever actually happened and him not wanting to talk about anything else but that. I always thought it was odd, but these days I have begin to wonder if maybe I’m the odd one. The collective memory of folks seems seconds short, at best, and the amount of delusion about as prevalent as bait on a fishing hook, or in trap.
Barack Obama has spent a lot trying to dig us out of our economic mess. Adding to the deficit is by all means a concern and, if possible, we should figure out how to pay for what we spend. But even amongst close family sometimes I seem to be the unheard voice as they rant about this. Not once during Iraq-aganistan, and unpaid for tax cuts mostly for the rich, did I hear these same folks moan and kvetch about this. When Dick Cheney told us over and over that “deficits don’t matter” the silence was… well, silent.
Selective hearing?
Selective kvetching?
Selective hate?
Maybe all of the above with far more than “a pinch” of self delusion?
Did the dog eat their donuts?
“The professional left.” Give me a friggin break. After how many years of the AM band being pretty much an exclusive kingdom: Limbaugh Radio… including more than a few clones… now we’re moaning and kvetching about “the professional… left?” While ieAmerica and Air America struggled to stay afloat, while Rupert Murdoch and the dishonorable Reverend Moon willingly, eagerly, lost billions of dollars making sure people the professional right pretty much owned the national stage, did I hear these same folks who chuckle while also bitching about the professional… right?
No… and hell no.
Probably to busy feeding “donuts to the dog.”
Does the Democrat in the White House who much of the right calls a socialist actually have active advocates for the professional right working for them? Did he forget that bad mouthing your base while ignoring the over abundance of those “professionals” who wouldn’t give you the time of day is a terrible tactic just a couple months before the first election that tells the world what America thinks of you so far?
Do they know nothing of this?
Or did they “feed the donuts to the dog?”
So many things this applies to. When I hear my generation of grandparents and oldsters minus children rant about kids, did they forget their parents doing the same? Or that an actual tablet has been found with the same claims and how they’d be the end of everything?
Why do we collectively scarf down fried delights while screaming, “You ate my donuts!!! Bad dog!!!”
People’s ability to lie to themselves, convince themselves of sometimes insane things, seems bottomless.
Today, as I type this, I drive back through Eagle Bay, on the way home. A couple of weeks ago I stopped on my way out… going back on tour… and bought a donut. I am borderline hypoglycemic and, yes, I do know some medical professionals claim that isn’t possible… another story I promise I will tell. I shouldn’t be buying a donut: just like I shouldn’t tell my mostly left of center readers I used to be a William F. Buckley Conservative, and still respect that dying breed: traditional Conservatives. Just like I shouldn’t tell you many other things. But I do and I did.
Unlike my father, and apparently many others, I admit that I not only bought the donut….
…but also that the dog definitely did not eat it.
-30-
Inspection is a column that has been written by Ken Carman for over 30 years. Inspection is dedicated to looking at odd angles, under all the rocks and into the unseen cracks and crevasses that constitute the issues and philosophical constructs of our day: places few think, or even dare, to venture.
Copyright 2010
Ken Carman and Cartenual Productions
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