1. WE THE PEOPLE

DATELINE: D.C.& DeKalb

DATELINE: D.C.--I heard such a funny news story last week, I had to commit it to memory. Unfortunately, it was my memory, a sieve that couldn’t hold the Eastern Seaboard, but I vaguely recall the gist.

It was about our Nation’s Capital, and how it was shut down for four days due to the blizzard raging in Washington, D.C. Lawmakers got those days off, which cost the country millions of dollars in lost business--just slightly less than it would have cost if they could have gotten into their offices and conducted business as usual.

But that was not the funny part. The funny part was when the newsman said, “Essential staff are still required to come in.” He was not talking about the president, senators, representatives, elephants, donkeys, etc. that make up our fair democracy. He was talking about the janitors.

As a proud American who used to clean the multi-purpose building in Covington, which houses a gym, kitchen, dining area, office and bathrooms, I would like to take this opportunity to announce: No Street Shoes in the Gym!

Thank you. That has been building up inside of me for a long time, ever since our three kids were little enough to come with me and play “Hop the Mop.” They’d stand in a row on the gym’s center line while I came tearing across the floor at them, pushing a three-foot-wide dust mop aimed right at their feet.

At the very last minute, they’d hop the mop. Sometimes, playing upon their innocence and my superior cunning, I’d do a little hesitation step and knock them all down like bowling pins. I so miss having little ones about. Can’t wait for grandkids!

As I was typing, even though outside conditions were not suitable for man nor beast nor lawmakers, essential staff still had to report for duty last week. While the Wheels of Justice spun in the snow, they kept the Capital running like clockwork: shoveling, firing the stoves, and mopping up imaginary strikes starring our Supreme Court justices.

Or did they?

For four stormy days, essential staff ruled. I am not typing that they actually ran our country during that period. I am typing that I would have liked to see them try. As they say in the business, “One hand washes the other, and both hands scrub the Floor.”

Essential staff would put up a unified front, because they know if you don’t take care of business by the end of the day, people will be tripping over their trash. If essential staffers indulged in partisanship, they might have constituents, but they wouldn’t have any customers.

The implications would be staggering: the keys to the free world in the hands of the common man! World peace was surely within our grasp, along with sensible spending and having to kick your shoes off before coming into the House.

Then the storm in Washington passed, and non-essential staff were all called back to work.

DATELINE: DeKALB--The Washington snow scoop was still making newsmen swoon when another big story broke, this one much closer to home. An earthquake caused our very own Midwest to shudder. My brother, Mark, was there. This headline was mine!

It happened last Wednesday, and the quake’s epicenter was in Kane County, IL. Depending upon your news source, it registered anywhere from a 3.8 to a 4.3. It rattled the corn cobs right in their husks--a few kernels may have even popped--and was felt as far away as Chicago.

Mark, a retired Army major who lives perilously close to the source in DeKalb, IL, said it was no great shakes.

“Yeah, we used to have earthquakes bigger than that every day in Alaska,” Mark said in a live telephone interview, displaying no regard whatsoever for my career aspirations. “It didn’t even wak