Down-bound Freighter at Sunset

In the first season of Downton Abby, Dame Maggie Smith famously asks, “What is a weekend?” Believe me dear folks, I haven’t slipped so far, so fast that that is a question I would really ask, but last weekend, when Jane was up here, it became a meme in response to my assertion that every day is Saturday that was last Saturday and guess what, today is really Saturday again. It was another beautiful day here on the shores of Gitche Gumee (from Longfellow’s epic poem Hiawatha). Unlike yesterday’s early rise, for some reason today I overslept and then rushed to town to do the shopping, i.e. Walmart. There is not much else up here. Every time I leave that place, I leave it with a sense of dread that Trump may win in November. It epitomizes his arguments against trade and I can see the demographic that he most appeals to shopping there. The irony of it all is not lost on me and I hope not them either. I can see their pain, even as the people of Walmart push their ever filling shopping carts up and down Walmart’s aisles. I’m reminded by their toils of the punishment of Sisyphus, condemned to push a rock uphill, in this case up each aisle, for eternity and all to no avail. Alright Mark, enough of all of this negativity, my two sons sit before me, I’m in the bosom of my family. I guess that I feel grateful for this life that I’ve been dealt and guilt too. Such is the source of my melancholy, too much good life. Well, life’s a beach and I’m headed down to mine now.