The Last of the Teens

When you stop and thing about it, the "Teens", whether you want to talk about the Nineteen-teens, or the Twenty-teens, were pretty goddamn shitty decades.

The period between 1910 and 1920 brought us the most pointlessly, brutally destructive war in human history. Sure, the second "world war" was worse in terms of pure human misery. But at least that fucking mess settled the hash of the fucking Nazis and Imperial Japan.

The Great War? What a goddamn disaster; millions of dead, maimed, homeless, impoverished, raped...and for what?

And the Twenty-teens? The Rise of the New Fascism? Terrific. I can't see that getting Disney+ makes up for losing the American Right to the freaking looney wingnuts. Sorry. Ain't gonna happen.

Surprisingly, only the Girl had a Happy New Year; she went over to her pal Lucy's house and rocked out with games and treats and fun. The five of them - two girls and three boys (color me a bit shocked - when I was in middle school my parents would no more have been okay with me having an overnight party with girls than they would have been okay with me putting on a dirndl and trolling the docks for sailors).

But the Girl's friend's parents took the whole thing in stride, and so did the kiddos; it was all good fun, and everyone went to bed alone (but not until the pre-dawn - the Girl has now slept most of the afternoon away making up for lost sleep last night...)

The kiddos understand to a point where they stand, and what is happening to the country around them. They hate it, but they are cynical as hell, and don't think there's much they can do about it. They don't understand how old cranky white people can hate their gay friends, or want to hurt poor people, or homeless people, or just plain helpless people...but that's being a kid. As an adult I've seen way too many ruthless, heartless bastards to think that any outfit that promises to hurt the people those bastards hate won't profit from that promise.

But regardless of who and how old we are, here we stand, on the precipice of a new decade.

It is up to us, We the People, to decide what kind of decade we're going to get. Who will rule; will we be the nation of Martin Luther King, or the nation of Stephen Fucking Miller?

I'm an old sergeant, so you know what I think We'll choose. As my old drill sergeant, SFC Harris, famously said; "GI's, eh? Those fuckers'll fuck up a wet dream."

But here we are, nonetheless.

And, for the record, here's the scene at the Fire Direction Center this afternoon; you can practically taste the excitement. The Girl is the large black lump hiding from the camera, by the way. She did eventually emerge to whine about her brother and complain about my dinner selection.

But that's parenting - as I've warned you; it's a contact sport.

But, hey...how about those Ducks!