In keeping with my recent Christmas theme, my first four-letter word is TREE. I decorated my Christmas tree yesterday. Many people go out and buy a tree this time of year; others pull a box out of the attic and, defying the logic of Joyce Kilmer, assemble the artificial tree inside and decorate it. I keep my tree up all year. I know you’re thinking, “Jimbo, you lazy bastard.” But let me explain. Several years ago on the day after Christmas we made a trip to K-Mart for batteries for my son’s Christmas presents. While looking through the after-Christmas bargains, I saw fifty or so small trees, Norfolk Island Pines, eighteen inches or so tall, decorated with silver balls with red ribbons. Forty-nine of the trees had root balls shriveled by lack of water, soil hardened like brick in the dry K-Mart air. Those trees had a greenish color to them, but to the discerning eye of the of the experienced gardener, the only option left was to perform last rites; the only decent home for the trees was the mulch pile. The fiftieth tree, however, had been grossly over-watered. Its root ball was in an almost gelatinous stage. I decanted the excess water from its pot into the pot of one of the dead trees and then I purchased the tree for a dollar.
When I brought the tree home, I let the root ball dry out and transplanted it into a larger pot. I put it in front of the south-facing window of the third bedroom of my house, which serves as my home office where it remains today except for brief visits outside during the summer months. The tree now stands four feet tall and sets on a table twenty-four inches tall, so the top of the tree is an inch or two above my head. Every year at Christmas I decorate it with three strands of white lights, various balls and bells and other decorations and a large gold bow. If Martha Stewart wasn’t in the slam, you’d think she had done it.
My second four-letter word is BLOG. I read on Yahoo! that blog was Merriam-Webster’s number one word of the year. I’ll grant you, a month ago I had no idea what a blog was, but on consecutive days my son told me they were using a blogsite in one of his classes in school and I saw some bloggers on TV. That’s when I started blogging. With three weeks under my belt, I’m now an experienced blogger. It was pretty exciting when the Guardian Unlimited in the UK quoted one of my blogs that second week. I’ve had no international notoriety since, but I’m still new at this. The blog is the ideal medium by which to communicate opinion that is outside of the mainstream. If one were to look up the definition of outside the mainstream in one’s dictionary, it would likely be illustrated by my less-than-handsome countenance. Long live the blog.
My next four letter word is JOBS. The jobs data came out today indicating the economy created only 112,000 new jobs in November, a number far weaker than economists expected, while the unemployment rate dropped to 5.4%. I think the government is under-reporting the rate of unemployment. I have a very small circle of friends and acquaintances and dramatically more than 5.4% of them are out of work. It’s my understanding that the unemployment numbers are based on people making claims for unemployment insurance. There are many people whose benefits have run out or people who are not included because they haven’t collected unemployment . In any event, this has been a jobless recovery. We need to put this country back to work.
That leads me to my fourth four-letter word: BUSH. Mr. President, you need to get this economy back on track by putting people back to work. The way you can do that is balance the budget. Stop spending all our money on pork. When congress recently passed the “no lobbyist left behind” spending bill, it was your job to veto it. Hang your head in shame, Mr. President. Hang your head in shame. It’s the Christmas season. The best gift you could give the American people is leadership. It would cost nothing compared to all the money being squandered on special interests.
The last four letter word is NOEL. Webster defines it as (1) a Christmas carol. (2) Christmas. Remember to treat everyone well this month and spend time with your friends and family.
Merry Christmas.
That's what we say in Jimbo's world.
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