Excuse me! I don’t want to take up a lot of your time because I know you’re a busy person, but I do have a few questions I wish somebody like you could help me answer. – I promise to keep it brief. OK?
(1) Why is it that we pay into Social Security with money that’s already been taxed, but then, when we start getting it back in monthly retirement payments, we have to pay income tax on simply reclaiming the same money that was already ours? Can you explain that to me? I wasn’t too good at math in school. I figure I missed out on something.
(2.) Why is it that women say to their husbands, “if you want to have a better love life with me, you’ll first try to do a better job of getting close to me emotionally,” but the men turn right around and say to their wives, “if you want to get close to me emotionally, you’ll first help me make sure we have a better love life!” I tried to get Mrs. Colombo to answer this one, but she just said, “if I have to explain it to you, it doesn’t really matter!”
(3.) Why does being born on American soil to non-American parents automatically make you an American citizen who will be eligible to run for President at age 35 while an immigrant naturalized American, born elsewhere, is automatically disqualifed by place of birth from ever serving as President? Isn’t place of birth more of a coincidence than it is a statement of how American or Un-American you are as a baby? – Unless one of your parents is already an American citizen , shouldn’t you just be a citizen of whatever country your parents come from, no matter where you first see the light of day? Otherwise, doesn’t the present law of the land pretty much establish a “running back headed for the end zone” relationship between some foreign pregnant women and American soil?
(4) Why do we allow members of Congress to establish and benefit from retirement and health care plans that are so far superior to our own? Don’t you think they might find some better answers quicker to these two great national issues if they were stuck in the same retirement and health care boiling pot with the rest of us? What do you say we figure out a way to “rein in” Congress to Social Security and Medicare with the rest of us and press Congress to pass an amendment that prevents our lawmakers from ever again establishing retirement and health care plans that are separate and superior to those available to us “Everyday Joe and Jane” American citizens? Don’t you think those steps my light a fire in their desire to find better solutions for “our” plans?
(5) Why do “John and Kate Plus Eight” matter to anyone? Oh well. maybe they have the answer to that man and woman relationship question I asked earlier. John and Kate, please listen up. – Mrs. Colombo and I need an answer here. What’s most important first in a marriage? – Good loving? – Or good feelings?
(6) Why do we bother to have smoking sections in restaurants when we don’t have urinating sections in swimming pools? Wouldn’t the latter be about as ineffective as the former, even when people play by the rules? I guess the only difference is – at least – in the case of smoking sections, we can see who’s violating the rules.
(7) When I first reached the age of eligibility for Medicare, I didn’t sign up for Part B, the part that pays some your office visit and prescription drug bills. I didn’t take it out because I first misunderstood that my other very good private insurance would make it fairly meaningless as help and just cost me money deducted from my new Social Security payments. Then I said to myself, “I’ll just save the system some money by holding off taking Part B until later. – Well, it’s later now. – Now I’m being told that I’m going to be penalized on the cost of my Part B plan because I didn’t start it when I first had the chance! Nobody told me that earlier. Am I that dumb? Doesn’t the government ever want to save money? Why should I be penalized for doing something the bureaucrats in Social Security ought to be rewarding me for doing? Oh, that’s right. I keep forgetting. The bureaucrats get their pay regardless of whether or not the programs they run make, save, or lose money for the taxpaper. Forgive me. I’m taking way too much of your valuable time with matters that should be very obvious to a smart guy like me. After all, I’m Colombo!
(8) Why do we live in neighbborhoods that pay good money to management firms to preserve quality of life when all they do is snoop through our streets, noting things we need to do with our money, on their short-time schedules, to fix up our properties – or else? Oh yeah, these little weasling micromanagers are straight out of George Orwell’s “1984” too. They let you know by anonymus letter (what they call a “courtesy contact”) that they have been watching your house and that they have observed certain things “you need to fix” to move out of harm’s way from possible legal action. – This kind of thing is only important to the quality of life enjoyed by the little anal-retentive people who snoop through the neighborhood, squinting at everyone else’s houses, enjoying the only power they have to abuse others! – Why can’t we just tar and feather people who do this kind of dirty work and get back to the simple enjoyment of living in our own homes? We’re not talking cars parked on the front lawn here on my block. We’re talking, in the case of one neighbo, about an ivy vine that managed to run a strand out of bounds down the side of a front yard rain gutter. Now, I gotta ask. – Is that one little vine really going to ruin mine and all my other neighbors’ days? Man! Do we really want to hop to the tune of some chicken-livered overseer who doesn’t even have the guts to ask us face-to-face about things he or she finds wrong at our houses, preferring only to send us an unsigned “couresy contact” ultimatum? What’s wrong with this picture, anyway?
(9) So how come so much of life seems controlled by bad timing? When we’re young and in good health, but broke, we miss out on a lot things we can’t afford to do. Then, by the time we can afford these things, we’re either too old or too ill to even entertain the idea of travelling far from home. – With Mrs. Colombo and me, it works more lke this. She says to me: “You never take anywhere!” I say: “OK, let’s drive over to Nevada to see your sister.” Then she says: “Do you really think I’d want to drive all the way to Vegas in a car with you?” – Why is she like that? I’m damned if I do, and damned if I don’t. – You tell me! I may be smart enough to solve a lot of crimes – but not this one!
(10) Why do they call the game of baseball “America’s Pastime” when, for a lot of us, we’re not passing time at all when we go to the ballpark. When we’re at the ballpark, we’re pretty much living our lives as we want to live them. So how come Mrs. Colombo doesn’t understand that? She can’t figure out why they don’t do something to shorten the games. As for me, I don’t care how long the game runs. When I’m at the ballpark, in fact, I don’t care if I never get back. In fact, don’t you think life would be simply so much easier if Mrs. C. could just think more like me?
(BONUS 11) How is technology helping us to communicate better when the Internet, cell phones, and texting only encourage us to reach out to talk with people who are not with us while we simultaneously ignore the people who are with us? Mrs. Colombo thinks that she and I have a problem in this area. I told her to call me about it sometime. Is that so bad?
Sorry I took so much time here after I promised to be brief. I’ll tell the Pecan Park Eagle man to get back to baseball tomorrow.
Sometimes I’m reminded of certain former members of the Houston Buffs by the e-mails I get from people with a special interest in same. Yesterday I received a request for research assistance from a fellow named Ken Hogan, a guy whose doing background work right now for what he describes as a “booklet” on a cousin who played for the Houston Buffs in 1933, a BL/TR catcher named Ken O’Dea.
So, how does a guy get a nickname like “Tomato Face?” Let us count the ways he may have earned it honestly from the baseball culture, especially back in the old days.
should be a welcome breeze after all that Clark has been through over the course of 2009 and his brief thirteen-game career as the guy who was appointed to bring this train-wreck of a season into the station over the last few miles of its beleaguered journey.
As all Astros fans await the decision on who will take over the reins as the new full-time field manager of the club in 2010, it’s fair game time to talk about the kind of man who might best fill the bill. I sure can’t talk about it as a baseball insider, but as a forever Houston major league team fan since that first season in 1962, I’m like the rest of my crowd in the sense that I have my own strong opinions – and the first is easiest to express:
The six foot tall, 164 pound stringbean righthander named Jack Dalton Creel was born on April 23, 1915 in a little place called Kyle, Texas. From 1938 through 1953, Creel amassed a fifteen season record of 179 wins, 157 losses, and an earned run average of 3.37 Throw in the 5-4, 4.74 W-L, ERA record he recorded in his one 1945 season with the St. Louis Cardinals and you’re looking at a pretty fair country resume’ for a fellow who played it all out during one of baseball’s most heavily talented personnel eras.
Houston, Baseball, & Other Musings.
The Pecan Park Eagle 