Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
Throw a nickel on the drum, save another drunken bum!
Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
Throw a nickel on the drum and you’ll be saved!
Oh, G-L-O-R-Y, I’m S-A-V-E-D!
I’m so H-A-P-P-Y to be F-R-double-E (hee-hee!)!
F-R-double-E from the ways of S-I-N!
Glory, glory, hallelujah, tra-la-la-l’-amen!

Monday morning’s leaden skies were joined at noontime by a cold and piecing wind.  The end of the day brought with it, a driving rain to add to this first workday’s dismal weather.  I had to retrace my steps and return to my desk and fetch my umbrella before daring the dash to the car and then the commute home.  This sodden, sullen, Monday’s weather was ample grist for the millwheels in my mind, as I began to formulate this post on the drive home.  In truth though, those wheels had already begun turning earlier in the day.

First nurtured by Sunday’s many hours of listening to the World War II spy thriller, Spies of the Balkans, my fevered brain had hatched a rant, a memorable rant, if I do say so myself.  Having spent hours listening to Nazis asking, “Your paper’s please.  Show me your papers.”  I was ready to start drawing analogies between their jackbooted behavior aboard Europe’s war era trains and today’s TSA, with their invasive peek and poke procedures at our nation’s airports.  I planned to question how the German people could have brought upon themselves such a horror.  I also planned to answer this question with the explanation that they did this to themselves by traveling down a slippery slope.  Finally, I planned to draw a parallel between them and us.  Kind of dark, don’t you think?  Still, its theme was in keeping with the weather and my spirits.

I swung by the grocery store on the way home.  The Salvation Army was kicking-off their annual charity drive.  They had a five-piece band playing Christmas carols and two celebrity bell-ringers leading the charge.  I put my nickel on the drum and then stepped back to take their picture.  I know good blog fodder when I see it.  Afterwards, as I was turning away to begin my shopping, I heard the larger man quip to his female compatriot, “For tax purposes.”  I turned around again and our eyes met.  As with that twinkle in his eye, he knew that I knew that he had just gifted me with a great line.  What he didn’t know, but I did, was that he had also given me a better theme to write on, than Nazis, the TSA and all that.  Season greetings and Merry Christmas to all!