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Mine Creek Revelations by Louie Graves: It all boils down to a problem with dogtags

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FAIR WARNING. I almost hate to share this with you because some people think I fixate on insignificant details. I think they’re entitled to their own stupid opinion, and so I gladly share this with you in the hope of enriching your life.

Friday, Sept. 22, is the date of the 2017 Autumnal Equinox. The Equinox happens twice a year. It’s the date that the sun shines directly on the equator and is closest to Earth. Day and night are almost exactly equal length on the Equinoxes.

As both of you know, the Equinox is also the day I set aside to scrub my shower stall.

I get excited about the Autumnal Equinox and the scrubbing of my shower stall because it’s one of two times a year I get to put to use my 2013 purchase of All New Pine Scent Comet Cleanser with 20% More Free! And it’s amazing at the stuff that comes off the shower stall under the stern urging of the Comet.

I figger that at the rate I’m using it, the larger container of New Pine Scent Comet will last me until the Spring Equinox of 2022. And that’s if I remember to scrub the shower twice a year.

As both of you know, I set aside the Autumnal Equinox so that — if I forget, or if something unfortunate happens to make me miss the date — I STILL have the next Spring Equinox for scrubbing.

Something else you need to know about the 2017 Autumnal Equinox is that maybe the sun will be weaker because it hasn’t quite recovered from the full solar eclipse just a few days earlier.

The problem inherent in only scrubbing shower stalls on Equinoxeseses is that if I unfortunately miss an Equinox or two my shower stall reverts to battleship gray.

Some people would rather say battleship grey.

I could argue whether it should be gray or grey, but then it would seem like I get fixated upon insignificant details.

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ANIMAL CRACKERS. This is the second time I have been responsible for the untimely death of a bird.

While adding chemicals to my pool equipment, Monday morning, a big rat ran out from behind the filter and disappeared into a landscape bush.

I nearly wet my pants. Boy, I hate rats. But maybe it was a squirrel. It was big enough to have been a raccoon. Maybe a bear.

I couldn’t take a chance so I baited a rat trap (both of you may remember that the local discount giant was out of springy-thingy rat traps in June so I resorted to making an online purchase. The only problem was that I had to buy a dozen.)

Well, I said to myself, I’ll never use that many.

Lo and behold I’m already down to eight remaining traps after putting out one of my swell traps with a piece of multi-grain bread as bait.

I checked the trap just an hour later, and I had caught (and killed) a bluejay. Boy, I hate rats!

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WELL, I HAVE ALREADY thought of a problem with Comrade President Trump’s ban on transgender persons serving in the military.

The thing that leaps to mind immediately is dogtags. On the dogtag you’re issued in bootcamp it says M or F, depending upon your gender (for former subscribers of ‘The Nashville News,’ M stands for male and F stands for female).

But what if our brave military service person is CHANGING gender? What do you do about the dogtag?

The only solution, it seems to me, is to have someone take a little hammer and hammer the dogtag flat where it used to say M or F.

Then have someone use a metal stamping machine to make the dogtag say M or F, whichever is appropriate.

But what about the period of time while the brave military service person is undergoing this important change?

They’re still partly M and not completely F. And vice-versa.

I hate to fixate on this, but it wouldn’t be right to change M to F too soon.

The logical solution, it seems to me, is to put a + (plus) or a – (minus) before the M or F.

Carrying this further, the + or – could go AFTER the M or F if our brave military service person is getting really close.

Close but no cigar (that’s funny saying I just made up).

Close only counts in hand-grenades and horseshoes (that’s another funny saying I just made up).

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THINGS I LEARNED from opening email: Hard work pays off in the future; laziness pays off now.

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WORD GAMES. The Twins: Work and Play. What else is there? They are distantly related to All Work and No Play.

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HE SAID: “When you rise in the morning, give thanks for the light, for your life, for your strength. Give thanks for your food and for the joy of living. If you see no reason to give thanks, the fault lies in yourself.” Tecumseh, warrior and chief of the Shawnee

• • • • • • • • • •

SHE SAID: “It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all, in which case you have failed by default.” J.K. Rowling, author

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SWEET DREAMS, Baby

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