Povey Prattle

Senator Barack Obama has announced his running mate – Senator Joe Biden of Delaware. I am not excited. It feels like a move to the centre, which is probably the only way to get elected. But for me, some of the sparkle has gone out of Senator Obama’s campaign. The Olympics are winding down. I have not watched a single moment of any event. It’s all a big commercial yawn so far as I am concerned. The Chinese Government has proved its mastery of control freakery. We are headed that way in these United States. Tropical Storm Fay missed Sarasota all together. We got not one drop of rain. Now she is lumbering across the Florida panhandle - good news for that rain deprived region. She also may be headed towards New Orleans - bad news for that City. We are getting our usual daily rains in SRQ, but, welcome as they are, they have nothing to do with Fay. I’ve spent most of today labouring (and I mean labouring) over the sermon I will deliver tomorrow morning at St. Margaret of Scotland C...

"By all reports George W. Bush has been faithful to his wife. If only he had been so faithful to the Constitution, the American people, and those silly little things we have in this country called laws." I have been using the above quotation as a “signature” on my e-mail. I use it because I believe in the Constitution, the People, and Laws. I am an un-reformed “Lefty”. So there is little breathing space for me in these United States. I will of course vote in the November Presidential election for Senator Barack Obama, and not for Senator John McSame. I’ll do this because I believe that Senator Obama will bring a change in tone to Washington - from confrontation to co-operation. But I am frustrated that the campaign is developing into the “oh so usual” tit for tat and “gotcha” slogans. I so wish that my candidate would take the high ground and challenge us to return to the roots of Constitutional Government and the Bill of Rights.

Mum never baked cookies. We had biscuits in England, and we bought them at the shop. “Custard Creams”, “Ginger Biscuits”, “Jammy Dodgers, “Digestives” (always called “Disgustives”) and “Chocolate Digestives” were amongst our favourites, as well as “Jaffa Cakes”, a biscuit with a chocolate coating and an soft orangey centre. Mum baked cakes on Saturdays. She make a mean fruit cake, and muffin sized cakes with raisons, currants and sultanas. She’d make little jam tarts and also my favourite, a pastry shell (maybe 2 ½” across) filled with jam that had been mixed with desiccated coconut. She’d bake wonderful pies: apple, rhubarb, gooseberry, or blackberry and apple, always served with hot “Bird’s” custard, or with evaporated milk. She also would make a fine meat pie for Saturday lunch. Dessert on Sundays would be apple pie, and/or wonderful rice pudding. In the days when milk was not homogenised, the cream would rise to the top, and form a slightly burned crust which was much to be d...

.... so here is an awful "Blonde" joke. Bob walked into a sports bar around 9:58 PM. He sat down next to a blonde at the bar and stared up at the TV. The 10:00 PM news was coming on. The news crew was covering a story of a man on a ledge of a large building preparing to jump. The blonde looked at Bob and said, "Do you think he'll jump?" Bob says, "You know, I bet he'll jump." The blonde replied, "Well, I bet he won't." Bob placed a $20 bill on the bar and said, "You're on!" Just as the blonde placed her money on the bar, the guy on the ledge did a swan dive off the building, falling to his death. The blonde was very upset, but willingly handed her $20 to Bob, saying, "Fair's fair.. Here's your money." Bob replied, "I can't take your money, I saw this earlier on the 5 PM news and so I knew he would jump." The blonde replied, "I did too; but I didn't think he'd do it again....

I met a man who wasn’t there. He wasn’t there again today. I wish that man would go away." So it has been with Tropical Storm Fay. The storm was not here today. It moved east somewhere south of Naples (maybe 125 miles south of Sarasota), and has hung around south central Florida all day. That area is receiving a good soaking, good for the Everglades and for Lake Okeechobee. Sarasota has been scarcely affected. At 7:00 a.m. when I walked, there were lovely cooling breezes. They have hung around all day, but now they are much balmier. Low clouds have been scudding across all day, but they have refused to release any rain. Banks, schools and local government offices were closed all day in anticipation of a major storm. The United States Post Office was open, and mail delivery was normal. "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds" (Unofficial USPS motto) My friend Ben and I decided to go ...

"OH, SINNER, YOU’D BETTER GET READY" This is the first line of a wonderful Negro Spiritual. Yes, they are still “Negro” spirituals, called thus to be faithful to an historic word. “You’d better get ready” for the judgement day is the theme of the spiritual. Today we’ve all been getting ready for Tropical Storm Fay, which may yet become Hurricane Fay. Earlier it seemed that the storm would come up the west Florida coast. Now the prognosticators see it moving east across central Florida. Despite the bellowing of the newsreaders on radio and television , the meteorologists have been much more honest. They have warned us to be prepared for a hurricane in the Sarasota/Bradenton area, but also made it clear that the storm could by-pass us. I’ve gotten ready. My plants in pots have been moved from a garden area in my car port into my laundry room. (No-one wants clay pots to be flying around in a storm). I have good supplies of fresh foods and bottled spring water. I’ve check...

“ Dream, dream, dream”. So sang the Everly Brothers. We all dream when sleeping. Some of us remember those dreams when we awake. For two years I’ve had dreams with a re-current theme. In them I am at St. Stephen’s in Pittsfield, MA or at St. James’s in Cambridge, MA. In each dream I should have left a month or two before, always to move to Atlanta, GA. Sometimes the dream says that I should have been moving at Atlanta to take up a new Rectorship. Sometimes it’s been to work for the National Westminster Bank. But it’s always Atlanta. Who knows why? And in these dreams, I am still in Pittsfield or Cambridge long after I should have moved to Atlanta. Always I have not packed my bags, nor sold my house, nor confirmed to the Church or the Bank that I would accept the new position. Last Friday night I dreamed that I was still in Pittsfield, long after I should have moved. In the dream the new Rector at St. Stephen’s arrived a day earlier than was planned. I remonstrated with him...