April Showers

We can't really complain, can we?  We've have had rain three of the first four days of April, but after the winter we just endured......  There are still pockets of snow and icy patches.  Ice still covers the lakes.  And this after a number of 50-degree days.  Little league practices have now missed three weeks, as the league directors--correctly--have ordered the fields closed.  There is still ice and snow on some of them. And the frost line beneath is likely keeping the outer crust nothing but mush.  Maybe in a week or two I can get out with the three teams I'm helping to coach.

The Codester and I have "played catch, Grandpa" three or four times and took BP once or twice.  Bopper and I were throwing the ball one day last week, too.  But, now with the rain......

I'm finishing a book by Doris Kearns Goodwin, Bully Pulpit.  It's a dual biog of sorts of Teddy Roosevelt (He didn't like the name "Teddy.") and William Taft (Imagine, as it is claimed, this 325-pound man being a twinkle toes on the dance floor!).  It's interesting, but a slow go.  There are a lot of extraneous additions, esp of the magazines, editors, publishers, writers, etc. of the time.  Of course, the thesis of the book is how TR used the magazines and newspapers (their editors, reporters, etc.) to effectively gain support from the American citizenry to get things done while Taft wasn't so good at that.  Still, one thing has remained with me throughout the book (other than Big Bill's dancing ability!).  By all accounts, even from his political enemies, Taft was a good man, a decent man. He was honest, compassionate, caring, and willing to listen to others' laments.  Yet, he seems to have been out of his league in dealing with the corrupt, lying, deceitful politicians he encountered.  Imagine a culture where the scumbags rule and the decent people are the losers.  Boy, if I've been sour toward politicians and government officials, this does nothing to change my mind.

I almost drove off the road earlier in the week driving to class.  On the radio--I don't know who said it other than he was some liberal talking head--some guy said something such as "Of course, the Malaysian liner went down and we're having all sorts of trouble in the after math. [And here's what shocked me.] It's government-owned. Governments are not good at running this sort of thing."  Wow!  Again, I don't remember who it was or even what day it was.  I wonder if the guy even knew what he was saying.  Here was some guy who politically believes in bigger and bigger government (at least he talks that way) now saying that l'Affaire Malaysia shouldn't be a surprise because that what gov't always does--messes up.

Gasoline prices heading upward again--about $3.70 right now, but some stations are at $3.80.