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“I am not aware of that tradition, Mac. In fact, I think that you and your parents were just stealing from that home.” – It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia

I had Mennonite Flu last week, first a little horse, then a little buggy.

As I ended Friday’s post (LINK), I tossed out the idea – what if traditions were essentially just solutions to problems we forgot we even had?

They are.  But modern life has eroded those traditions in many ways.

If I asked the question, “What is American culture?” how many people would answer with questions that described companies and brands?  McDonalds™.  The NFL©.  Nike®.  I could keep going on, but these aspects of American culture are all new – McDonalds® is everywhere now, but it wasn’t until the 1960s that it started expanding everywhere . . . like your mom.

Along with something else . . . what ever could that be?

In fact, the idea that most people are employees of someone else is fairly new, too.  In 1880, almost 70% of Americans were in agriculture.  Sure some didn’t own the farms and worked on farms for a wage, but farming has generally been an occupation run by families, owning and working the land.

Farmers, especially back then, were not a group of people who were dependent, it was a group of people who lived based on their own work.  The “employment” model was used, certainly.  Sailing ships and railroads and industry required it.  But it was not the predominant model.

Neither was rent.  Neither was the subscription model – about the only subscription many folks would have would be the newspaper and maybe a magazine or two.  Neither was contact with the Federal government.  In 1880, more than likely the only contact a citizen had with the Federal government was when the mail showed up.  If you asked what the culture of America was then, the answers would have been fairly easy to guess:  Freedom.  Independence.  The Constitution.  Open skies, far horizons, amber waves of grain, and cooperation.

Cooperation?  Certainly.  The cities and towns that grew every ten miles or so were founded on people wanting to get together to create places of gathering.  Places for churches.  Places for schools.  And, places for commerce and the optimistic growth of a nation.

Funny, the 2020 Chinese plans look like the 1880 American plans . . . .

Was there corruption?  Yes, there were people and money, so certainly there was corruption.

But then, largely driven by technology (but also driven by changes from incorporating the large numbers of people emigrating from Europe) that culture changed.  Farmers no longer had to feed the horses that moved so much of American commodities – now those were moved by a rail network and internal combustion engines.  Also, those same engines allowed farmers to farm much more with lower input from individuals.  Sons left farms for jobs at factories, or to go to universities to learn skills to get jobs.

Renting and mortgage became the norm.  Companies (because of a Supreme Court decision) became forever, and became larger.  Entire new industries were born that required employees.

The culture of America changed, too.  Immediately after World War II, the culture moved to one of suburban living matched with jobs working for big corporations, sometimes in places far from family.  In general, an attractive package was set up.  Work 9 to 5, come home to a freshly made meal by the wife and have a round of catch in the front yard with the boy.  Church on Sunday.  Then repeat.

The Vatican won’t accept Visa® or Mastercard™.  It’s a Paypal© State.

For some reason, this was sold as soulless, and resisted by the “spirituality” of the Lefties in the 1960s.  Most of the rebellion was about weed, LSD, and sex, but at least part of it was about something where they actually had a point:  the core of the nation was moving from businesses supporting people, to people supporting business.

How so?

Monthly phone bills, power bills, subscriptions to TV Guide®, rent or mortgage, insurance, and car payments became the norm.  What was happening was that people were being incorporated as economic farms for banks and companies to harvest every month.  Go, work, and be harvested.  When you’re used up, you can rest until discarded as the world moved around you.

This was bad enough, because it took people out of the reason for the system, and made people into components of the system.  But even more changes were soon to show up which would add to this and create our world today.

First, the birth control pill.  The relationships between men and women had always been governed by one basic concept – one man can make many babies at a time, but one woman can only make one at a time.  As such, even though men might have been the keymasters, women had to be the gatekeepers to sex.  Women had to be choosey.

See, choosey.

Society had solved that problem through a pretty strict system of monogamy tied through both religious and social rules.  If a girl got pregnant, there was an expectation that the boy would marry her, even if a shotgun was necessary to induce him to do the honorable thing.

Once married, the couple were strongly encouraged everywhere to keep the marriage going.  There were real difficulties in breaking up a marriage – for instance, unless someone was at fault and the other party could prove it in court, a divorce could be contested and not granted.  And what would the woman do, anyway?  Who would want a woman with kids as a wife?  And how would that woman support the kids if the man chose to not give them resources?

Those are powerful inducements to working out a fight rather than calling it all off, if you’re the woman.  And women today file 80% of the divorces.  Why?  Fun and prizes!

And some say we should ignore the old values . . . .

Fault is no longer a requirement.  So, for any or no reason a woman can opt out.  Johnny, show her what she’s won!  Child support, alimony, and, welfare!

Heck, with welfare, there’s no real reason to get married anymore.  One of my high school teachers noted that she had a 16 year old student who wanted to get pregnant as soon as she could so she could, “get her own welfare check every month.”

This has led to significant consequences in the dating market in 2022.  Many women spend their 20s having relatively anonymous sex with large numbers of men.  Tinder® has been devastating for the dating market – see the graph below based on OK Cupid™ data – the “average” man rates the “average” woman as a 3 out of 5 stars.

Perfect!  Good job, guys!  You did it!

The way the “average” woman rates that “average” guy, however, means that only one guy out of six is rated as “above average”.

Houston, we have a problem.  And it’s a doozy.  Monogamy works when people sort each other out and your 4 marries a 4.  Et cetera.  What’s set up here, is that all the 5 star guys have it easy.  Will a 5 star guy sleep with an average 2.5 star girl?  Sure.  Once, probably.  When (if!) he gets married he’ll pick a 4 or higher, though.

Ohhh, my precious!

Thus, the average 2.5 star girl in her 20s has the experience of being acceptable to Chad 5 star.  So, she expects to marry Chad 5 star, when in reality Chad 5 star has no intention of even remembering the average girl.  So, until she’s 30, she holds out, and then reality catches up to her and she’s ready to settle for the 2.5 star guy, Settle Stan.

Wow – inspiring if you’re the 2.5 star guy.  And, she’ll be much more likely to divorce Settle Stan, too.  She’s really a widow to the fun times with Chad, and Stan will never, ever be good enough.  Hopefully Stan makes money?

Well, you can see that James dodged a bullet . . . 

But what about all of the Stans who never have a chance even at an awful relationship?  The modern world has created a series of drugs to lull them gently onto that goodnight.

It takes a thick umbrella to keep out the light . . . 

This is just one aspect of the sexual marketplace that has been devastating for the country.  I’ll leave the rest consequences of the sexual revolution as a class exercise.

There are, of course, other consequences of the modern world and the ignoring of tradition on life, but I think this is certainly the most profound.  Thankfully there won’t be any more consequences of a sexual revolution gone amok.

“Oh, what sad times are these when passing ruffians can say Ni at will to old ladies.  There is a pestilence upon this land, nothing is sacred.  Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress in this period in history.” – Monty Python and the Holy Grail

You can get Batman® shampoo, but not conditioner Gordon®.

I recall sitting in economics class in college.  The professor was from some Eastern European (I don’t remember which one) country.  I really enjoyed his class.  Instead of the traditional “Guns Versus Butter” economic trade off, he discussed “Pizza Versus Beer”.  It wasn’t Bikininomics, but it was still my kind of thinking.

Pizza and beer kept my attention, so one day he made the comment, “If there is perfect competition, there is how much profit?”  He paused.  I blurted out, showing my greatest economic strength even at a young age, “Bikini?”

He responded, “No, John Wilder, it is zero profit!”

I liked my answer better.  But his provoked me to think.  Perfect competition meant that companies could enter and exit easily.  There were no barriers to entry.

Guns and Butter?  Yes.  Cocoa Butter.

What, outside of a single piece bathing suit is a barrier to entry?  Well, it means that if a company wanted to start a business, it could do it without having to spend lots of money on building a factory, or through developing difficult intellectual property or expertise.  In fact, you’ll see today that the companies that have huge barriers to entry are often the most profitable.

It’s not surprising, then, that large companies are hugely in favor of building barriers to entry for themselves.  Disney® is attempting to extend copyright until Armageddon plus twenty years.  Pfizer™ wants to patent your DNA if you can properly spell their name (read the terms and conditions!).  Chase© wants to be the exclusive place where Fed™ trucks drop off all the Biden Bux.

But these companies are no longer American companies.  Once upon a time Boeing© built bombers for the Army Air Force to beat the Axis.  By the 1990s, they settled with the DOJ on a $32,000,000 penalty for giving missile secrets to China.  Boeing™ has ceased to be an American company.  Heck, they even outsourced production of commercial airline parts to China when demanded.  So they could sell jets in China, regardless of the technical expertise that China might gain.

I try to avoid Boeing® jokes.  They rarely land well.

Why?  Boeing™ is not American anymore.  They’re Globalist.  Like many Congresscritters, Boeing has no particular loyalty to America.  They just want a profit, preferably next quarter.

Globalists love barriers to entry.  For themselves.

They hate barriers to entry for . . . you.

Again, perfect competition means zero profit.  The idea is that if they can turn labor into a replaceable component, their business gets easier and cheaper.  If there is a never ending supply of cheap labor, wages don’t go to zero.  Heck, if they can automate what an employee does for less than five times the annual cost of the employee – it’s a done deal.

Globalists attempt to drive labor costs as close to zero as competition and automation can make it.

I hear that Elon Musk will be making robots in his Austin factory.  He’s calling them Tex Mechs.

Certainly, there are benefits, in that “stuff” costs less.  Or does it?  In the most recent run up on food prices, the word on the street is that while beef prices are up, while bread prices are up, producer income has not increased.  Farmers aren’t making more money.

Fertilizer prices are up.  Seed prices are up.  Pesticide prices are up.

Farmers have choices – produce at a loss, or produce cheaper crops that require less fertilizer and pesticide.  Or, heck, give the year a rest.  Since farmers can’t make up a loss in volume, I’d expect prices to go up again this year.

The other thing Globalists don’t like is paying people for stuff.  That’s for tourists.

I bought a cheap thesaurus once.  Not only is it terrible, it’s terrible.

Globalism isn’t correlated well with freedom.  Globalists aren’t really into that.  They like captive markets, and a captive labor.  Regulations are great with them:  it’s just another barrier for entry.  So, one of the first things the Globalists do is lobby for the creation of regulation.

How do you do that?  Well, owning a few Senators often helps . . . and owning a President is even better.

Freedom, like I said, isn’t something Globalists do very well.  Freedom means innovation, and innovation means that barriers could fall.  The only reason Silicon Valley is allowed to innovate in 2022 is because it’s owned and funded lock, stock, and barrel by Globalists.  Who do you think funds the startups?  I assure you, it’s not Santa.

No, nations that are concerned with their people are concerned with freedom.  Me?  I’m not sold all that much on democracy.  I like the idea of a constitutional republic better, but, then again that finally led to a place where “shall not be infringed” has been defined to mean “if government says it’s okay and doesn’t change it’s mind”.

I will note there’s pretty good trigger discipline.  Is that an AR-362436?

Oh, and Soros, Schwab, and Gates aren’t all that keen on democracy, either.  If voting mattered, do you think they’d let us do it?

Heck, we might vote for pizza and beer . . . or to be free.

“Do I look like the kind of clown that can start a movement?” – Joker

Mainly memes today to go with the Monday post.  I’ll respond to comments on both of them before my Wednesday post . . . all memes are “as found” on the ‘net – veracity not assured.

 

Shot:

 

Chaser:

“Can’t stop the signal, Mal. Everything goes somewhere, and I go everywhere.” – Serenity

I wonder if Putin got his doctorate in Russian political leaders?  If so, does that make him a Stalin grad?

As technology has changed, so has the information that is available to us.  Starting with radio, the ability of that technology to influence public opinion increased.  Radio was a voice in the night that broadcast the opinion of one to many.  Then, after the invention of FM radio, radio became stereo-typical.

Film increased the ability to spread messages, and in a much deeper way.  There is something about moving images coupled with sound that draws human attention and consciousness.  Measurements of human brain activity while watching television showed that the brain “shut off” while watching television, entering an alpha wave state – a state normally associated with resting.

It isn’t that way when talking, or reading.  Beta waves, associated with active thought processing jump back into play when we read.  In a very weird way, television puts us into a trance, where we receive and don’t think about the message.  If ever there was a way to put propaganda into the heads of everyone watching, television is your answer.  It also caused the problem of losing the controller.  I always found mine in some remote area.

Also, congratulations to drugs for winning the war on drugs.

In many cases, the idea wasn’t only to put propaganda into heads, it was also to entertain.  Why would I watch a television show that I didn’t like?  No, shows competed for market share, too.  If the propaganda was too strong, the show would fail.  But many of the messages of globalist, Leftist thought were still put into skulls relentlessly, slipped in as special episodes, or by painting ideas that violated The Narrative in the most negative light possible.

Even the news, though, was part of the same message, which we now call The Narrative.  The Narrative is strong.  Honestly, I am still finding elements of The Narrative that I believed to be true.  It’s more or less like The Matrix, but Elon Musk doesn’t keep forgetting that Keanu Reeves is the good guy.

Now here’s a narrative I could get behind. (meme not an original)

One example was that The Narrative that drove the United States both getting into and getting out of the Vietnam War.  It was the first war that was televised on a daily basis.  And, regardless of our recent fiascos, presidents dream of being a “War President” which gives them nearly unrivaled political power.

A case in point was the attack on the Twin Towers.  Whoever did it, the beneficiaries were George W., Lockheed-Martin®, and everyone who didn’t like the United States.  It’s unlikely that George W. would have been re-elected because of messy economy.  W. drove the “Left” every bit as insane as Trump did, and would have (no doubt) driven them to the same level of coordination to bring him down in 2004 as they spent on Trump in 2020.  Except?  9/11.

I think Sleepy Joe would love nothing more than the power and prestige that comes with a War footing in the country.  Or at least someone would.  Hence, Ukraine.

They asked Joe what he thought of this meme, but he’d forgotten Biden.

I don’t know exactly what the game is.  It appears that the Ukrainians are a lot less concerned about the Russians than we are, and that Joe is far more concerned about Russians crossing the Ukrainian border than the millions that he’s inviting to cross our border.

Why not?  If get gets the Russian Bear just grumpy enough, I think the calculus is, he can turn Putin into a figure to unite the country.  If Corona-chan couldn’t do it, well, trot out the (spins wheel) Russians.  And we’ll have a united country, and the whole economic mess will get solved when spending even more billions with weapons manufacturers!

First, we’re no longer a serious nation when it comes to anything military.  Yes, I know that we have a long, proud tradition.  But have you seen the military in 2022?

I had a friend that joined the Army and killed a lot of people.  He’s a horrible doctor.

Second, although the people of the United States were in favor of going to get Osama Bin Laden, the wars overseas soon became background noise.  Without a significant loss of Americans, say, a carrier battle group, there is little chance of getting the rank and file American citizens would support a war in Ukraine.  Outside of, say, loss of a carrier battle group.

And, finally:  What, exactly, is this about?  Ukraine and Russia are similar in the national corruption index scores – it’s not like Ukraine is remotely on par with Denmark or even Albania.  Yes, Albania is less corrupt than Ukraine.

A Russian wedding used to be called a Soviet Union.

Even the Ukrainian president, Zelinsky, told Biden to chill out on fanning the flames of war.  Russia has a long sense of paranoia, and isn’t interested in having NATO camp out right next door.  Honestly, I have no idea why we have troops in Europe in 2022, let alone trying to pull Ukraine into NATO just to irritate the Russians.

Oh, yeah, because international tension takes away from the intractable problems Joe has at home.

The problem that Joe faces is a simple one:  the old model of a single source delivering a single Narrative is gone.  Places exist all over the Internet the question The Narrative.  That’s crucial.  Heck, they’re even questioning The Narrative in Canada.

Politely, but they are.

From Trudeau:  “They only hate me because I’m black.”

And the Signal is getting out.  I have only listened to a few minutes of Joe Rogan.  It was okay, but not enough to keep me coming back.  But he’s irritated the gatekeepers of The Narrative.

Or at least Neil Young.  Neil Young, who hasn’t had a headline since Nixon was in office, decided that he was so in favor of free speech that he’d pull his music from Spotify®, who sponsors Joe Rogan’s podcast.

It’s unlikely that Spotify™ will cave to Mr. Young, even though he’s now been joined by Joni Mitchell, Liza Minnelli, and maybe Wolfgang Mozart.  Of course, The Mrs. and I made fun of Mr. Young on our podcast.  When I checked on it the next day, I found that our podcast was gone.

There are fates worse than death.  (not my original meme)

The Mrs. had used a music bed for a parody commercial.  The music bed was one of Mr. Young’s songs.  The next day, we were pulled down for copyright infringement (no strike).  The Mrs. is getting ready to re-upload an edited version.  I really don’t think Mr. Young had anything to do with it personally.  So, our podcast hits dozens of visitors sometimes.  Joe Rogan hits millions.

They try to censor the small when we deviate, but the large they must take down, in public.  If the Canadian trucker protest were not so large, there would be a complete lack of news coverage.  As it is, the coverage will be small as they can make it, except to cover whatever trivial outrage can be manufactured.

I hear some of the protesters are semi-retired.

The important thing is, large or small, there is an alternative to The Narrative.  I try to be as honest as I can be in every single post.  In many cases what I say is slightly different from The Narrative.  Sometimes it’s a lot different.

And there are thousands of other voices out there, too, willing to defy The Narrative, in ways both big and small.  This is new.  Television and radio gave us the grand wave of propaganda that led to The Narrative being so powerful.  They’ll stop at almost nothing to stop us from seeing that the emperor has no clothes.

But it’s too late.  The signal is out.  It’s even covered in maple syrup sometimes.

Question:  how many trees did mankind have to suck before they found maple syrup?

Tomorrow, there will be a rare Tuesday version of Wilder Wealthy and Wise, just memes and examples of The Narrative being exposed.

“The Mandela Effect has been an Internet meme for almost a decade. It’s always been called that.” – The X-Files

According to National Geographic™, 80% of Americans can’t find Ukraine on a map.  They’re really ahead of the news!

Got in fairly late tonight, so it’s memes for dinner for everyone.  Back to original content on Monday – these memes are “as caught” in the wild.  I’ll note that on the podcast side, apparently, Neil Young didn’t like us making fun of him, so we had our first podcast pulled down.  I hope Neil Young will remember, this blogger don’t need him around, anyhow.  Since they pulled him from Spotify®, I hope he does okay.  I hear that he’s going to concentrate on MySpace™.

 

“Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit amphetamines.” – Airplane

Jill caught Joe chewing on electrical wires, so she had to ground him.

Joe Biden is having his worst week in office.  In fact, so far his time in office has been an utter string of failure that makes the whole farce looks like it’s on purpose.  Let’s just look at the catalog of mess (not in order) that he’s created/made worse since last January.

I thought that Biden was in denial, but from the picture, looks like he was in the Suez.

• In March, that cargo ship blocked the Suez Canal. Not Biden’s fault (probably) but I think Kamala might have been driving.
• Increased inflation so it is now at multi-generation highs. Biden has successfully turned the economy into the number one fear of Americans.  I guess that’s one way to solve the COVID crisis.
• International embarrassment about fleeing Afghanistan in the middle of the night. Certainly, we should have left, but we left like a fat man sneaking away from the dessert bar with a full plate.
• Announced a mandate for workers at companies with over 100 employees to force-vax as a last-ditch effort to get support, only to have the Supreme Court deny it. This actually was to his benefit, except that it makes him look weak politically.  Or like an old man with dementia.
• Actually got in place a requirement for health care workers paid by Uncle Sugar to be force-vaxxed. While it might seem like a political win, the fallout from the health care systems will be very dark indeed – expect emergency levels of personnel shortages coming soon.

How does a pirate set up his Bluetooth speaker?  Parrot with his phone.

As I’ve mentioned before, Biden has made himself as popular as morning-after-tequila breath.  People actually would rather have that volcano that just exploded near Tonga as president, since it would certainly do less damage to the country.  A tornado?  That would be a huge improvement on Biden – at least the tornado stops destroying after a while.

In previous years, I would have asked the question, how could it get worse?  But since I asked that question about 2020 “How could 2021 be worse?” I’ve learned to stop tempting fate since I don’t want a plague of Leftist vampires with electric cars to appear suddenly as the Sun goes nova.  So, I don’t want to push my luck.

With good measure.  Biden’s problem is that . . . he has nothing but problems.  I had a boss once who said, “Nothing succeeds like success.”  What he meant by that was that when things were going well, if you could keep them going you could end up in a virtuous circle.  Things just got better and better, and the momentum led from one victory to the next.

Little known fact:  you don’t need a parachute to skydive.  You need a parachute to skydive twice.

Success leads to success.  Does failure lead to failure?  Absolutely.  Joe Biden’s life is a patchwork of failure that somehow has led to him to the most epic failure of all politicians since Louis XVI said, “Nah, you can ignore them.  The peasants never do anything.”

But failing politicians are like failing businesses.  They’ll do almost anything to try to turn things around.  Businesses will borrow increasing amounts of money while promising increasingly ludicrous deals.  Politicians will . . . do exactly the same thing.  Except with a politician, they’ll toss in war as a bonus.

That’s just what Joe is doing.  Why would we want to increase the size of NATO by one Ukraine?  I have no idea.  But right now, I have no idea why NATO exists.  The Warsaw Pact and Stalin are both long gone, so who, exactly, are we worried about attacking Europe?

And why would we care about Ukraine enough to do, well, anything?  When Putin took the Crimean peninsula over, I was surprised – surprised he didn’t control it already.  But, again, why would we care?  I personally wouldn’t care if Guatemala took over Nicaragua, but that would be far more relevant to the United States than Ukraine is.  I see no role for the United States in any of these issues, but I’m not a politician looking to score popularity points like Joe.

I’m glad I wasn’t born in Ukraine.  I don’t speak a word of Ukrainian.

Additionally, though, Biden is playing the war card inside the United States, defining over 80,000,000 Americans as “terrorists” that the FBI just hasn’t organized terror plots for.  I do hear that the 2022 New Year’s Resolution of the FBI is to make their plot planning just a little less obvious.  The big advantage here is the government can time their schemes so they get all the Federal holidays off.

In one sense, Trump should be happy he isn’t in office:  the economy is was cooked for 2021 no matter what happened.  The aftermath of the COVID-19 shutdowns combined with the currency faucets spraying cash everywhere was bound to create an additional economic catastrophe.  That was baked into the cake already.

But Biden took that situation and made it worse.  The biggest mistakes were (and are) the Federal stimulus bills that have directly led to the inflation we’re seeing today.  You can only pour so much money into an economy until it shows up everywhere.

And it’s about to get spicy for Biden, the Federal Reserve® has signaled that they’re more than fine with abandoning Biden, too.  The only real cure for an inflating currency is to dry it up through higher interest rates.

If you had a dollar for every time you thought about me . . . you’d think about me more often.

The higher interest rates will (eventually, and if the rates are high enough) reduce inflation.  But the cost includes lowered prices on things people need to borrow money to buy, like houses.  So, while interest rates make borrowing more expensive, housing prices will drop, while rents stay high, and inflation remains.

Joe’s approval rate is 33% now.  What will it be when that perfect economic storm hits?

I bet that week will be even worse.

“This man has no salt in his body at all.” – Star Trek, TOS

I had dinner with Bobby Fischer once.  It took him two hours to pass the salt.

In the wake of the Supreme Court (which we all know is just Regular Court with tomatoes and sour cream), I thought I’d post some Leftist tears with plenty of salt that we could all mine, along with a selection of “as-found” memes.

Were the rulings all we wanted?  No.  Rather than collapse the whole economy, SCROTUS decided to keep the mandate for health care workers.  I can expect that this will result in breathless headlines in about a month when the health care system starts to crater (it’s never really overstaffed at the nurse/doctor level) and the blame will go on (spins Biden’s Wheel of Blame-Shifting) to dart-shooting ninjas.  Aesop, who is in health care, (LINK) has a take on this.  His post is labeled as, BURNING HATRED LIKE A THOUSAND SUNS.  That might actually understate his level of anger.

But, for tonight, let’s enjoy a selection of memes, all are “as-found” on ‘net with zero originals.  Some of them are so full of salt that if you just add water, they make their own sauce.

For now, my annual Christmas post . . .

“You’ll put your eye out.” – A Christmas Story

Nobody was too concerned with my eyes.  But do NOT make us have to pay for a neighbor’s window.

(This was first published in 2018, but I’ve made some slight edits.  Merry Christmas!)

I’m a believer in Christmas – it’s a time of redemption and rebirth that proves that miracles can happen.  People can escape their past, and become something more than they were before – they can become reborn.  We can become better.  The birth of Christ is an example that we can all be reborn and change our lives in a miraculous and meaningful way.

But, I’m not sure I can recall any particular Christmas miracles.

Oh, wait, here’s one.  It’s mostly true, as well as I can recall, and field-tested to read aloud to your family:

On Christmas Day when I was in second grade, the one thing I wanted more than anything else was . . . a BB-Gun.  No, this is not a remake of A Christmas Story, this is A Wilder Story.  And I was there for this one.

As I recall, this was the last Christmas when we opened Christmas presents on Christmas morning.  In all following years, my older brother John Wilder and I wheedled our parents into a Christmas Eve opening of everything but “Santa” gifts.  We were insufferable.  My brother (really) is also named John Wilder – my parents didn’t want to waste those extra birth announcements they had bought when they could just change the day and year, but that’s another story.

But that particular Christmas morning when I was in second grade I looked down on a real-life lever-action Daisy® BB gun.  It looked like a real rifle even though the wood parts were plastic.  I’d never shot a real rifle before, but I knew that all I wanted for Christmas was that BB gun.  And there it was, all mine, pristine in its oiled metal and plastic perfection.

It looked very real.  Mine was the one on the bottom.  It was actually mistaken for a real rifle several times.  Mainly by me, because everyone who was an adult could see it was just a BB gun.

“Take care of that, and it’ll last you a long time, Son,” Pop said as he handed me my first gun.  This was the first time he’d said that to me, and I nodded gravely, feeling the responsibility and pride deep inside me.  Pop would later repeat that phrase about boots I got in high school, a Buck© pocket knife I got in fifth grade, and my first car.

I still have the BB gun and the boots.  I lost the knife, probably at school.  It was expected when I was a kid that you had a knife with you if you were in fifth grade, because what if you had to gut a fish during English class?

But I was in second grade, and I had a BB gun.  My BB gun.

And I was ready to use it.  I was given a quick tutorial on how to load it, a list of all the things (mainly windows), people (mainly windows), places (our windows), and forbidden objects (neighbor’s windows) that I shouldn’t even think of aiming my BB gun at, let alone shoot.  I was trusted to take my new BB gun out on a Christmas morning expedition, because it was made clear to me in no uncertain terms that the worst punishment in the world would fall upon me if I shot something I shouldn’t.  I would lose (probably until I was 40) my BB gun, be grounded from TV until I had my own children and probably be branded as a BB abuser for the rest of my life in my Permanent Record.  (For kids:  Permanent Record is now called Snapchat©.)

With the earnestness only a second grader can muster, I put on my deep blue Sears™ parka (the ad said it was designed for pilots stationed in . . . the ARCTIC, you know, where we fought the Soviets to save Santa from becoming, I guess, more Red) with polyester fur trim, and a pocket for pens and pencils on the arm, because where else would you keep pens and pencils except your left arm?  I pulled on my black felt-lined snow boots and stiff green plastic gloves, and went outside.  It was cold, certainly below freezing, and probably hovering around zero in non-communist units.

Like a pocket knife, every boy had a parka like this.  Every boy. But does anyone know why pilots need parkas if they’re in heated jet airplanes??  Oh, yeah.  Soviets.  Image from E-Bay.

It had already snowed enough that the snow pile in our front yard was 10 feet (43 meters) deep, but we had a packed trail where our snowmobiles had gone onto the snow-packed country road and up into miles of forest roads that dated back to the old prospectors looking for gold.

My feet crunched in the snow as I walked due north onto the road, my breath puffing out as if from a small blue fake-fur-trimmed steam engine headed uphill.  I kept going.  What was I looking for?  I’m not sure – I don’t remember, exactly.  I guess, looking at stuff with a BB gun in my hand and shooting anything that wouldn’t get me in trouble with Ma Wilder at the rate of 6 BBs per step.  But I felt like a man, and what would a man with a rifle do?  Hunt.  Win World War II again.  Look for communists.  It’s hazy, but I know I had a purpose.

Snakes weren’t a possibility, since I knew snakes wintered in Florida with baseball players, Santa and Cubans.  Regardless, I wanted to shoot my BB gun, even if the opportunities to send Soviets back to Russia with a backside full of BBs was limited, at best.  I still don’t recall ever seeing a Soviet in the forest until I saw Red Dawn, and then my BB gun was at home.

I guess Europe decided to sit this one out.

I trundled up the road.  I think that’s probably the only time I’ve used the word “trundled” precisely since it implies I moved along slowly, noisily, and in a less than graceful manner.  All of those applied.  But I was ten feet tall with my BB gun, shooting aimed fire into snowbanks and sage brush alike.  About a half a mile from my house, more than three-quarters of the way to the Old Cemetery, I saw it.

The Bear.

Sitting motionless, huddled against the barbed wire fence, not 20’ away, was the bear.  It was a black bear.  I knew that grizzly bears had been killed nearby, but this was definitely a black bear, being black and all.  Ma Wilder had told me about them before going hiking and told me to never, ever get between a black bear cub and its mother – she said that was more dangerous than being between Beto O’Rourke and a microphone.

I didn’t know if this bear was cub-sized or mother-sized, but I already knew that this was something way out of my experience level – I mean I still wasn’t even coloring within the lines very well.  Communists?  Sure, I could take down a dozen of them since they were weak because they were Godless and fatherless and mainly starving when they weren’t swilling massive quantities of cheap Afghan vodka.

But bears?  Better call the reinforcements (spelled D-A-D) in.

Calling out an APB on a tiny blonde boy.  He looked tasty.

I backed away from the bear, keeping my eyes on it the whole time.  My BB gun was loaded, a precious brass sphere ready to explode outward on a column of pressurized air at the bear should it charge me.  I knew I was too slow to out-trundle the bear.  Even my candy-cane addled brain knew that the BB was scant protection against a bear, but if I was going to go down, I was going to go down fighting like a man, and not running away like a weak Soviet child would.  Even though it was nearly zero, I built up a sweat in my green turtle neck under my Air Force Pilot Parka®.

That green turtle-neck was really tight and made me look a lot like an actual turtle, so I only wore it three times.  Why?  A chubby kid covered in the smell of fear sweat and Nacho Cheese Doritos™ isn’t really a winner with the ladies despite whatever Bill Clinton might say.

An aside:  In the safe realm of 2018, I know that it seems insane to allow a second grader to hike up into the forested wilderness alone at temperatures near zero on Christmas morning armed with a weapon that’s patently illegal to arm a second grader with in New York City, and twenty other states that are, no doubt, now deeply under the influence of the Soviets.  Or, does it?   When I last had a second grader (Pugsley) he had a BB gun and trundled off into the backyard with a zillion BBs.  I can attest our backyard is now safely Soviet-free.  But back in the day?  We weren’t building weak Soviet children.  No!  We had backbones of steel and cheap Taiwanese Rambo® knives with compasses built into the handle.

So, yeah, not unusual.  I guess it was a crazy thing called freedom.  Anyway . . .

I got back to the house and threw open the door.  I stamped my snow-covered feet inside.  Yeah, I know, bad form.  But I was in a hurry, I had real news and information for the family.

My parents were lounging on the couch, enjoying a quiet coffee.

“A BEAR!”  I yelled.

“I swear, I saw it, a bear!  It was just right up the road, right where the hill starts.  A bear!  A black one!”

Ma looked at Pop, concerned.

Pop Wilder shook his head.  “Bears are hibernating.  None are up this time of year, not when it’s this cold.”

“No, it was there, right by the fence.”

Ma Wilder nudged him, seeing the absolute certainty on my face.  “We should take a look.”

There is a look a man gives a woman when he knows that he has lost the argument even before it started.  I know that look because I saw it then.  Pop sighed, got up, and got dressed.  Half an hour later, he and Ma and my brother were all dressed, and ready to go up the road.  I had my BB gun.  I hoped that the bear would still be there.

We walked.  I pointed, when the Bear came into sight, not 300 yards away.

“See, I told you.”

Ma Wilder looked concerned when she saw visual proof of my story.  I think she had put my bear story into the category of “addled ravings of an overly imaginative eight-year old that may or may not process reality like a normal human after he told me that he was worried that Grandma would turn into a zombie (Sleep Deprivation, Health, Zombies, and B-Movies).”

As for me, I was concerned that Pop hadn’t brought bazookas, howitzers, grenades, or maybe a battleship.  Nah, Pop Wilder could probably wrestle a dozen or so bears, if they came up to him one at a time, like in the Kung Fu movies.  We finally got up to the road where we were perpendicular to the black bear, still huddled up against the fence, not 30 feet (432 meters) away.  It hadn’t moved since I’d first seen it.  I felt . . .vindicated, even though I’d never heard the word.

“Hand me the BB gun,” said Pop Wilder.

I did.

Pop shot one BB into the bear, smoothly worked the lever like a cowboy in the Old West, and then shot another BB into the bear.

The bear was motionless.  It must be dead!  Pop Wilder killed it!  Pop handed the BB gun back to me.

He then walked back into the deep snow directly to the bear, reached out, and pulled up the black plastic sheeting that had blown into a ball up against the fence.

He handed me back the BB gun and handed my brother the black plastic sheet.  We walked home in silence.

So, there was that:  the Miracle of the Transubstantiation of the Bear – where a Christmas miracle transmuted a black bear into a sheet of black plastic.  Not sure of any other explanation.

But the real Christmas miracle, it’s below.  Merry Christmas to all.