The other night I ate a light supper of hogshead cheese, Polish dill pickles, a rusty can of spam I found in an old trunk and turnip greens fried in bacon drippings then retired to a pallet on the floor (hogshead cheese makes me snore and wife kicks me out of bed). I drifted off countin’ possums jumpin’ a pea patch fence and everthing was alright ‘till I started dreamin’.
I was in my kayak, PAM, and we were driftin’ on a flat calm sea. The fog was denser than pound cake soaked in sorghum syrup. I was paddlin’ along without knowing where I was headin’… just paddlin’ like anybody in a dream like that would do. After a while, don’t know how long ‘cause I cain’t tell time in my sleep, I came up on a little island ‘bout the size you could chunk a tater across. There wasn’t no place to land so I paddled ‘round it in big a circle and through the syrup soaked cake I saw something movin’.
I hollered “HEY” and it started movin’ toward me with a kinda waddlin’ motion. I couldn’t quite make out what exact shape it was but it was ‘bout the size of them dogs that rich women tote around in their purse. It got right up to the waters edge and started talkin’ !
“Are you from the political mainland ? “ it said in a voice that reminded me of them rich women’s dogs. “If you are can you tell us what’s going on over there ?” ‘Bout this time I noticed a half a dozen other little fellers just like the first one was all headin’ toward me. I could ‘em see better now and they looked like little rolls of paper. You remember the that little cartoon character Congressional Bill from the Schoolhouse Rock show? Well they looked like that. Normally I woulda lit out from there quick like a bunny, but when you’re on a foggy dream ocean and ain’t got no map nor compass you think things through a little — these little fellers didn’t look like they’d bite and that couldn’t be said for sure ‘bout what else might be out there in the fog — so I decided to stay and chat for a spell.
“If you talkin’ ‘bout American politics, well things is sorta gone downhill lately” I said, “Picture tomcats with their tails tied together and you got the idea. The term ‘civil war’ is startin’ to come up in places outside history class. The Country’s in a fighten’ mood and sides is bein’ chose right and left but not much middle.”
“ What are the issues that are being discussed ?” He asked
“ Well, I said, Not much of nothin’ is bein’ “discussed” but there is a lot of cussin’ and screamin’ goin’ on ‘bout immigration, race, gender, guns, abortion, the environment, Emails, sexual shenanigans of all kinds and ever so often secession will come up. People are willin’ to duke it out over ‘bout anything from pooties versus woozles to shorts versus briefs to ‘tastes great versus less fillin’ . The Countries in a fighten’ mood and fists are startin’ to fly along with the insults.”
“That is because we have been exiled on this tiny, remote island, we are political ideas that neither party wants, we have been marooned here by the leaders of both at the insistence of the people and corporations that that fund their political careers; by the way what are pooties and woozles ?”
“Never mind ‘bout them” says I “Y’all must be a purty unpopular bunch for ‘em to have done you that way — Who all’s over there, Eugenics ? Segregation ? How ‘bout Constitutional Ban on Flag Burning are you over there ?”
“Those guys are dead except for old Burn Ban and he’s retired and living in Bush senior’s garage apartment, we aren’t like those creeps at all — we were put here on this island because it was feared we would be too popular.”
“Well if that’s true I expect I’ve heard of you” I said skeptically “who are y’all ? “
“My name is Withdraw Our Military From the Middle East, my friends call me Hoppy, it’s short for Hopeless Dream’; these are my fellow orphan causes”
As he called ‘em out they stepped forward kinda like they was scared —
“ This is Legalize Marijuana Nationally , we call her Mary Jane, as you can guess. She was exiled on the Island of Crazy Ideas but was sent to us we she began to get too bipartisan,
and this is Breakup the ‘Too Big To Fail’ Banks, he’s a new comer He was sent here by Eric Holder in 2013.
Next we have Nationally Accredited Free Internet University, he was taken from his cradle at birth and replaced with a corporation.
Step up here Manny, this is Encourage and Invest In Small Scale Manufacturing , He’s invented a boat that could get us off this island but can’t get the resources, meet the regulations, pay the fees or defend his patent.
Mike where are you? Oh there behind Manny, This is Micro Loans To Entrepreneurs and Startups he and Manny are always together, thinking up new products that cut into big corporation’s profits, they’ve been warned but they just can’t stop dreaming.
there’s one more of us, The Fourth Amendment, He keeps to himself over there on the other side of the island. He has become quite bitter because He thought that being in the Bill of Rights exempted Him from being exiled here with a bunch of orphan policies. He misses his old friends from the Constitution, they were together for a long time.”
Well I just set there in PAM and I gotta say I was flummoxed ( a word that should be gettin’ used a lot more than it is, these days ). “If y’all could get off this island I bet two thirds of the all the voters would support you — Democrats and Republicans both, I mean y’all are the most un disagreeable bunch of policies I can think of. The only folks that would oppose you would be the defense contractors, Wall Street, the higher education cartel, the drug companies, the beverage industry, the NSA, FBI, CIA, and the whole Fortune 500 but all of them ain’t as powerful as the electorate, I mean we still live in a democracy don’t we ?”
“That is what we all thought at first; we believed that common sense would prevail as it has in the past — usually anyway — but then we learned of the other island, the one where everything named Common was sent: Sense, Respect, Decency, Concern, Interest, Courtesy and Values. Until those are rescued there isn’t much hope for the rest of us” Hoppy said in a voice that sounded like his dog had just died.
It was about this time I woke up on my pallet and I just laid there a while like a poleaxed possum and thought about what I just dreamed. It was then and there that I made a decision — The next time I find a rusty can of Spam I’m gonna throw it away — Who needs trouble like gettin’ mixed up with a bunch of orphans. That’s how I got that lazy cat.