Brain Freeze

Some mornings I get up and my brain hurts. It's like having a hngover when you haven't had a thing to drink As my mother used to say (before she became a saint), “I’m about as useful as tits on a boar hog.” (That’s a male hog for those of you who are not up on hog gender.)

As an aside: Mom, my niece and nephew visited us in Illinois years ago. So we decided to drive down to Springfield for the state fair. As we were going through the hog barn, Mom whispers in my ear, “A hog’s thing is like a corkscrew.” Okay Mom, I really needed to know that.

Now, back to my point. Brain freeze is not good. Especially since I have to start work on our stores damaged by Katrina. There are 13 on the list, but the one in Gretna, LA doesn’t count because arsonist burned it to the ground.

I’m not sure why some people suddenly become animals when a disaster happens. Or maybe their animal nature lurks barely below the façade of humanity all along, and a catastrophe simply brings out their true self.

I didn’t set out to preach. I wasn’t there, thank God. There are always two sides to a story and each is presented from the perspective of the person telling their side. A lot of things happened that shouldn’t have, but more went right than the media would have us believe.

It’s easy to complain and wail that the authorities were late, uncaring, coldhearted and on and on. But I don’t see those people who are complaining saying, “I’ll go out there and make everything okay.” Besides which, they have no clue as to HOW to fix it.

Of course, it’s easier said than done for these great armchair quarterbacks. No doubt, Katrina has rained on everybody’s parade. Rather than standing around pissing and moaning about how poorly the current administration handled the crisis why don't they do something constructive.

I don’t care whether you like President Bush or not. Right now it doesn’t matter. He didn’t cause the hurricane in spite of what his critics would have you believe. He’s not running for office again, so get over it! Rather than sitting in your safe, comfy family room with a beer in one hand and the remote in the other, and complaining, get off your butts and help.