The Amend Corner

Politics is distracting, family is far more interesting

By Don Amend
Posted 1/10/23

Another year has disappeared in our collective rear view mirror, but parts of it are still following me around, sort of like a hangover.  I can’t be sure of that, though, since having …

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The Amend Corner

Politics is distracting, family is far more interesting

Posted

Another year has disappeared in our collective rear view mirror, but parts of it are still following me around, sort of like a hangover.  I can’t be sure of that, though, since having never been drunk or even a little tipsy in my whole life. I have an aversion to imbibing rotten barley, fermented fruit or flammable liquids. 

I have, however overdosed on a few activities that left me feeling pretty bad the morning after they ended. One morning I awoke after a full day of  watching a basketball tournament. I had lain awake all night due to a constant chorus of whistles ringing in my ears, the slapping of shoes on the floor and human voices yelling. Out of curiosity,  I contacted a friend who had considerable experience with hangovers, described my symptoms and asked him if that was what I was suffering.  His reply was, “Yep, you have a hangover.”

Well, that’s kind of the way I’ve been thinking after the hustle and bustle of the last week of 2022, and it has been overwhelming.

Just consider the political issues and activities we’ve had rattling around in our heads. Personally, I’ve been flooded with emails that beg for my attention and my money. In fact, if you took a peek at my electronic mailbox, you would be convinced that I was a personal friend of Nancy Pelosi and every other prominent Democrat, from Barack Obama on down. I even found messages on my computer from people telling me the race was lost if I didn’t cough up $100 to stop Mitch McConnell from taking control of the Senate, because of the $100 I sent yesterday.

Receiving such emails is my own fault, of course. This was the first election that I have actually put my money where my mouth is. Once I did that, the floodgates opened, and some days I found as many as a dozen requests for money when I opened my email. I thought the flow of requests woule stop, but instead people began requesting money to help a senator from Georgia get votes. When he didn’t, they began requesting money to help Democrats push the Justice Department to indict some guy named Trump for his attempts to overturn the 2020 Election.

OK, I know all that stuff is important, but I’m afraid I don’t have enough money to do all that stuff, so I’m just going to change the subject and talk about one of my grandson.

As you may or may not know, our son and his family are currently stationed in Ethiopia, where his wife works for USAID and he works with the director of an ecology program. They are in their fourth year in Ethiopia and their eighth year in Africa, and will be moving to Ghana this summer.

They have a week or two of vacation at Christmas every year and they have taken advantage of that time and geography to explore Europe. They have visited Sweden, where Karen’s ancestors lived until they moved to Nebraska. Along the way they saw Denmark, where they visited the place where LEGO bricks are made and Italy, where they saw the art created by the artists of the Renaissance.

This year, when they discussed other places to visit, Cormac, our grandson had one place in mind, Bratislava, the capital city of Slovakia. Furthermore, he had only one objective for going there, and it tells you about all you need to know about Cormac.

Our grandson likes animals of all shapes and sizes. When he was young, he carried a zebra hand puppet everywhere he went, and one Christmas, he received a stuffed Rhinoceros Beetle which was sort of ugly, but you couldn’t say that when he was listening. He would take a magnifying glass on safari to get a closer look at the bugs he saw.

But he especially liked the bison he saw on a trip to Yellowstone when he was younger, and that is why he wanted to go to Bratislava.  He knew that those impressively big animals grazing by the Yellowstone River have cousins living along the Danube. 

The European bison differ from our bison in a number of ways, but they do have one thing in common. Both species were nearly wiped out by humans and the descendants of those humans are trying to revive both species. Cormac had learned that there is a facility near Bratislava where more European bison are bred to restore them to their rightful place in the world.

He loved it, even though it took a flight to Vienna, a train ride to Bratislava and a bus ride to the place where bison roam so Cormac could have his wish. And he loved it.

And along the way, the family found a cafe that features 17 varieties of hot chocolate. That made everybody happy, especially his mom, who loves hot chocolate.

I can hardly wait to see where the family goes next year.

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