floundersgreatadventure

Well another year has come and gone and you know what that means. More stuff in the house and your head,everywhere just more stuff. Stuff can mean a lot of things but for the purpose of this post lets say its a bunch of things or thought s accumulated over a period of time. You know what I mean those ideas you’ve had and one reason or another you simply stored them away and left them to collect dust. The same goes along with al the gifts you’ve received over the year. Come on now how much of that had real practicable applications to you life. How many time did you say thank you to someone and then stick on on shelf somewhere. And you know what it turns into when you do that? Stuff! And before you know it you have a ton of stuff. Now what are you supposed to do with it all? There are several choices 1, straight to the dump 2, recycle it, or here’s my favorite re-gift it to someone your not that fond of. Some creative people will take their old stuff and use in art projects. But somehow I can’t picture a pair of edible undies in some oil painting. One thing I like to do with my old stuff, is if its not in to bad shape is give to a shelter so somebody can get some use out of it. The hardest stuff to get rid of is old electronics. Some of that stuff contains toxic material that you shouldn’t just through in the dump. If you look around you’ll find people who will take care of it for you. Just remember if its a cell phone take out the Sim card and the battery and dispose of them carefully. You don’t want to be giving a stranger you life history. Well I could go on and on but i’m getting bored so I know you are so lets end this and say HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYBODY be safe and we’ll talk next year. This is Flounder and Fats saying CIAO from Medellin, Colombia.

“ Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;
The children were nestled all snug in their beds;
While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads;
And mamma in her ‘kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled our brains for a long winter’s nap;
When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter,
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.
The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow,
Gave a lustre of midday to the objects below,
When what to me wondering eyes did appear,
But a miniature sleigh and eight tiny rein-deer,
With a little old driver so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment he must be St. Nick.
More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
He whistled and, shouted, and called them by name;
“Now, Dasher!now, Dancer! Now Prancer and Vixen!
On, Comet! On, Cupid! On, Donner and Blitzen!
To the top of the porch!to the top of the wall!
Now dash away!dash away! Dash away all”
As leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky;
So up to the housetop the coursers they flew
With a sleigh full of toys, and St. Nicholas Too–
And then, in a twinkling, I hears on the roof
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.
As I drew in my head, and was turning around,
Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound.
He was dressed all in fur, from his head too his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with soot;
A bundle of toys he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a peddler just opening his pack.
His eyes – how they twinkled! His dimples, how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!
His droll little mouth was drawn up like bow,
And his beard on his chin was as white as the snow;
The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke, it encircled his head like a wreath;
He had a broad face and a little round belly
That shook when he laughed, like a bowl full of jelly.
He was a chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself;
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread;
He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And filled all the stockings; then turned with a jerk,
And lay his finger aside his nose,
And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose;
He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down on a thistle.
But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight—-
“Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!”

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We wish you a Merry Christmas
We wish you a Merry Christmas
We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

Good tidings we bring to you and your kin
We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

Now bring us some figgy pudding
Now bring us some figgy pudding
Now bring us some figgy pudding
Now bring some out here

Good tidings we bring to you and your kin
We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year
We won’t go until we get some
We won’t go until we get some
We won’t go until we get some, so bring some out here

Good tidings we bring to you and your kin
We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

We wish you a Merry Christmas
We wish you a Merry Christmas
We wish you a Merry Christmas ans a Happy New Year

Dear Editor—

I’m 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, “If you see it in the Sun, it’s so” Please tell me the truth, is there a Santa Claus?

Virgina O’Hanlon
115 West Ninety Fifth Street

Virgina, your little friends are wrong. They have skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virgina, whether they be men’s or children’s, are little. In this great universe of ours, man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, Virgina, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! How dreary would be our world if there were no Santa Claus! It would be as dreary as if there were no Virgina’s. There would be no child like faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence.
We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The external light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.
Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies. You might get your papa to hire men to watch the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if you did not see Santa Claus, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that’s no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world .
You tear apart the baby’s rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived could tear apart. Only faith, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virgina in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.
No Santa Claus! Thank God! He lives and lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virgina, nay 10 times 10,000 years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

You know we’re getting close to Christmas and the end of another year. I don’t want to talk about the past year it hasn’t been one of my best. For that matter the country hasn’t had a good year either. Which brings me to a point. Did the Trumpster, by getting involved with how we say Merry Christmas or happy Holidays, actually ruin Christmas. Well I know he ruined it but I’m not sure if was about that. I think he ruined it by encouraging Bigotry and Racism. In his desire to make his supporters happy he has set not only our relationships with each other, but our relationships with other countries back 50 years. Two years ago I went to bed feeling fairly safe that the cold war was over and peace was looking good. Three weeks later I went to bed and couldn’t get to sleep because everything was starting to go to hell. Whatever happens in the future whether good or bad we will only have ourselves to blame. We’ve but into place the worst President I my lifetime, perhaps ever, and a bunch of politicians that have no empathy for the poor or sick ao even the one that are as old as them. They have done so much damage by giving credibility to the far right that the damage done in two years will take 30 to fix. They don’t believe in science and think that oil and coal are going to be here for ever and have no effect on the Climate. They don’t care because they’ll be dead before we are. They don’t care about health care because they have it for the rest of there lives. I remember when Obama was discussing this one time and he said, and I’m paraphrasing. I have the best Heath insurance in the world. You see that man back there he my doctor he follows me everywhere., he’s on me if I sneeze and best of all it’s free. He was being honest about it he wasn’t bragging he was just saying how it is. The rest of the dicks in the Senate and Congress don’t have the Doctor following them around but their medical care is covered by us. I read somewhere this week where someone had proposed a bill that would make congress and the senate go out and get their own insurance and wouldn’t let them vote themselves raises and other things which we all know won’t get passed because there not about to give up what they have. Now were in the Holiday season and all they care about is building walls and other bullshit. You I not only remember safer times I remember when people actually cared about other people. A time when you knew your neighbors names as well as there kids and you would look after each other. Now something happen and no one sees anything or stops to help anybody. They just put there heads down and walk rapidly away. I don’t know what the future hold for the world I’m 72 years old and I don’t know how much more I’ll get to see. But I would like to see Christmas as it used to be a happy time for kids and families. This is Flounder and Fats saying CIAO from Medellin, Colombia.

What a week huh. The stock market is in the toilet, the Trumpster in it up to his squirrelly little eyeballs. But that’s not what I ‘m here about today. You probably seen some posts where I say that Christmas isn’t a big religious holiday down here but Easter is. Well I went shopping at the mall yesterday and Home center(The Colombian equivalent of home depot) had already removed most Christmas decorations that were for sale. The same went for the Exito. Now I ‘m told that’s because all the decoration is supposed to be done by the night of Dec. 7 in preparation for the 9th which is the feast of the Immaculate Conception. Now the 8th is when all the partying begins and the Christmas spirit gets stoned. It is also when teachers and other people who work with contracts are laid off until after the first of the year when in some case they must reapply for there job and hope somebody younger doesn’t want it. Now knowing that I can understand the drinking. How can you plan a future when you don’t know if you’ll have a job next year. This also explains why professionals want t o move out of the country. This is also a country where age discrimination is a well established pattern. Once a male reaches 50 it’s almost impossible for him to find a job. I believe its even worse for women. That is why you see so many homes being expanded or having businesses in the parlors, it’s a safety net or in a worse case scenario there main source of income. Like our Social Security the pension given to Colombians is not enough to survive on. So this can explain the heavy drinking during the Holiday season. Yet with all this the Colombian are a happy people, maybe its the liqueur and drugs I don’t know I just wish that stores could look like Christmas for awhile longer. This Flounder and Fats Saying CIAO from Medellin, Colombia.

December is here and with that comes holidays and the end of another year. Lets talk about the end of the year and what it means. It means we’re another year old but necessarily wiser. Have yo eve considered the pros and cons of getting older. Well first you get to see all this new stuff that come s around. You know what I mean. I’ve seen rotary phone replaced by touch tone phones them cordless phones cell phones right up to todays smart phones. TV from 9 inch black and white to color 21”, 24”, 32” Right up to 85” flat screen smart TV’s. Radio from little Crystal sets up to Stereo components. HiFi to Stereo. Music from reel to reel tape to 8 track, Cassettes Vinyl to CD’s and back to Vinyl. Walkman, to Portable CD players, to music on you phone. I’ve seen man walking on the moon ,rockets to Mars. Polio Vaccine cures foe Malaria, the Flu, Measles and more. Now that covers the science and technology stuff. Now comes life and history. I saw the Korean war, Viet Nam, Desert Storm, 911 and far to much. One of the surprising things is that with science the science fiction writers seem to be able to predict the future or at least stimulate creative thought. But one thing becomes crystal clear as you get older people don’t seem to learn from their mistakes when it comes to life. A scientist learns from his or hers mistakes but when it come to the human condition we never learn. Look at the Mid East, we’ve been trying to control what happens over there for just about forever, but if we really looked at that area we’d see that its not about religion, thats just an excuse these people really don’t like outsiders or each other for that matter. i’m convinced we’ll never really solve the Mid East problem, but if we’re lucky we might contain it. Now look at the rest of the world, something like 40% or more don’t believe that the Holocaust really happened so they turn a blind eye to racism Anti Semanism and what happens politicians see it as a way to gain power. You can see it in the recent events in the United States and some countries in Europe and South America. You say how can this be and I look at history and see that’s exactly what people said before. So as you can see there are a lot of great reasons for getting older but if you just sit around and reminisce and don’t try to correct your mistakes you’ll never get to live on Mars or live in peace. This is Flounder and Fats saying CIAO from Medellin, Colombia.