With The Minimum Snark

Fifteen days out from the end of Fast Cash -- yeah, in case you haven't been getting this from my previous posts, where I work is closing in three weeks. I'm keeping track of this in my written journal after my Scripture references as "FAST CASH WILL CLOSE IN x DAYS" not because I'm mourning it (ok, I am a bit, I've been here about fourteen years) but because it is a part of my life that it's hard to imagine won't be there in a few weeks. I'll be at whatever employment I have next, and I've been at quite a few places. Got my latest rejection -- my third -- from a local business specializing in producing business supplies; apparently I was high enough to qualify for the position, but they chose someone else without even interviewing me.


And that happens.


The term "Founding Fathers" to describe the signers of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution is only a century old; Warren Harding first used it in 1918. Stock car racing owes its existence to the repeal of Prohibition; the "rum-runners" and other fast cars and their drivers needed something new after liquor was no longer illegal. If the original proposal for the Bill of Rights had been ratified, what we now call the First Amendment (freedom of speech, etc.) would be the Third Amendment, behind the two that didn't become part of the Bill of Rights. And one of those two became the latest (Twenty-Seventh) Amendment prohibiting Congress from raising its own salary during its current term of office.


It's the only Constitutional amendment to be ratified so far in my lifetime.


All this and much more I learned and you too can learn from Linda R. Monk's The Words We Live By: An Annotated Guide to the Constitution (ISBN 078688620X). It presents the United States Constitution word for word followed by extensive commentary explaining what those words penned in 1787 mean and how they have been amended and interpreted -- the latter is the judicial branch of government's job, per Article III -- over more than two centuries. There's the ever-present debate over term limits for Congress and should there even be an electoral college and many other hot-button topics today, but it's kept to a minimum and for learning what the Constitution actually says and doesn't say, this is awesome!


I wish I'd had it growing up.


There are not many books I can say that of. But on to the weekend ... Friday after I left the office and dropped off the monet I met Martha, Sarah, and Jeffrey at home and we grabbed some dinner from the Burger King where Martha works and headed to Garrison for Martha's aunt Shirley's retirement party across the street from the bar where she (Shirley) had worked for forty-four years. Just one year less than I've been alive! We got there just after the party had started and enjoyed cake, played musical chairs -- well, I did with the kids and I was third to last, promising I would take smaller steps -- and we sang karaoke. Martha and Mary sang Shania Twain's "Honey I'm Home", Martha and Jeffrey sang the Flinstones theme, and I got to sing Steppenwolf's "Born To Be Wild"!


And I got into that to the point I almost fell off the stage!


Saturday Martha got home early from work (about four hours early!) and we took the opportunity to go around to quite a few garage sales. We scored some impressive deals, but one that stands out is a Wii Fit video game we got for twenty bucks, and we didn't hit any deer on the way! I'm waiting for you to get the joke ... we got it home, hooked it up to our own Wii and started on the balance board that comes with the game to work out and have fun, all four of us. I have A LOT of work to do on my balance, let me tell you! It's good for us to have something that we all enjoy and spend time with each other doing besides just the latest YouTube sensation or pick a Disney show (interesting and interconnected though) that maybe one of us enjoys. Oh, to reach the last page of the Internet ...


Thank God Almighty, we'll be free at last!


David