Jeb Bush & Rickie Fowler

I’ve been absent from my blog for quite a while. I don’t know if it’s because I’m running out of things to say or I’m just too lazy to work on a topic. It’s so much easier to just bop along on random thoughts than to have to do research on a film or a tv show or items in the news. Just lazy, I guess. Also, I’m approaching my thousandth blog post and am considering that number to be enough for one lifetime. Not that I’m planning to drop over when I hit one thousand, sort of like that wonderful one-hoss shay that Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote about. On November 1, 1855, 9:30 a.m., this wonderful shay had simply had enough and dropped into a heap, “went to pieces all at once,” leaving the poor parson sitting on the remnants wondering what had just happened. I guess there are still people who find my blogs and read them. I’m still amazed to see how many readers there are from outside the U.S. My blog site keeps track of such information and lets me know each day where my readers reside. For the past year or so, about half of those who read them are from far away places. For example, this past week I’ve had readers from France, the UK, Greece, Russia, China, Canada, India, and the Netherlands. What are they searching for when they find me? Are any of them repeat readers? Do any of them recommend my blog to friends? I’d like to get feedback from some of them, but I never get any comments. Maybe Google or whoever has made it too hard to leave a comment. But enough of that. How about a few non-researched comments.

I see that Jeb Bush is building an almost insurmountable war chest for his push for the GOP nomination. Haven’t we already had enough brushes with Bushes? I also find it disturbing that people running for office may be elected not on their political views or their character but on how much money they can raise. If that’s the case, why bother with an election? Why not just put people in office based on how much money they have behind them. Heaven forbid, if we did that, Donald Trump could become president, and that’s not a scenario I’d want to see. Why haven’t we required financial limits, each candidate allowed the same amount for campaigning? And why must all these campaigns be based on negatives instead of positives? The more dirt those running can buy and throw at opponents, the more likely they’ll get elected. Nonsensical. In this Internet age, candidates need to be squeaky clean to run for office. In this age of an almost infinite storage of information, every word ever spoken, every action of every candidate is there for examination, like little mud balls ready for throwing.

Last weekend, I watched the conclusion of the Players Championship at Pete Dye’s test of golfers’ nerves, the TPC Sawgrass. It was the most exciting finish of a golf tournament I’ve ever seen. Well, maybe second to Jack’s win at the Masters in 1986, but certainly the second best ever. Rickie Fowler put to rest the idea that he was overrated. His final six holes of regulation and then the four playoff holes have to be the finest golf I’ve ever seen, especially when it was played on that monster of a course. Rickie played the final six holes in birdie, par, birdie, eagle, birdie, birdie. And in the playoff between Sergio Garcia, Kevin Kisner, and Rickie, Fowler twice birdied the nasty island green 17th to beat Kisner. Non-golfers won’t understand a word of what I just said, but golfers all over the world will.

Okay, readers out there, welcome me back, and maybe you could even post a comment. I’d be happy to respond.