About Last Night

I remember one time when I was about five or six years old, my mother was putting me to bed.  I asked her, "How do you go to sleep?"

"You just lay down and close your eyes, and go to sleep,"  my mother replied. 

"But how?"  I asked.  "How do you go to sleep?"

I never did figure that out.  Even as a child, I'd lay in bed for hours with my eyes closed and not go to sleep.  I still do it.  

I was doing it last night at 2:00 AM ish, and that memory immediately sprang to mind.   Lots of other things sprang to mind, as well, but I really felt like I needed to re-run this for those folks up in New York City.  All of the photos in this post were taken my yours truly in the local Walmart back during COVID.  

This will be NYC soon.  And no, you better not move down here.  You voted for this mess.  You stay there and live in it. 

 The Gods Of The Copybook Headings

As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race

I Make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market-Place

Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,

And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn

That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:

But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,

So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,

Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market-Place.

But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come

That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

With the Hopes that our World is build on they were utterly out of touch

They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch

They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings.

So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.

They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.

But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,

And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said:  "Stick to the Devil you know." 

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life

(Which started by loving our neighbor and ended by loving his wife)

Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,

And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "The Wages of Sin is Death." 

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,

By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;

But though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,

And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work, you die."

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smoothed-tongued wizards withdrew,

And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true

That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four--

And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more. 

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man--

There are only four things certain since Social Progress began--

That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,

And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire--

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins

When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins

As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn

The Gods of the Copybook Headings, with terror and slaughter return!

Rudyard Kipling

 *Note:  all photos taken at the local Walmart within the last two weeks.