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Thursday, November 13, 2008

Salutes for a special Thanksgiving

Approaching Thanksgiving and the season of good cheer, let’s all be thankful for the many things we should be thankful for.

Although my personal appreciation list isn’t all that long, having publicly cheered for the GOP this fall, for instance, I do want particularly to thank a new manager of Starbucks on the corner at Stafford Marketplace, and to wish her well and “Adios.”

You see, she was helpfully instrumental in preventing, from now on, the spread of awful diseases among her customers occasioned by the presence of my little Yorkie pup, Lollipop. The other day, the lady ordered us in no uncertain terms to vacate the premises immediately and permanently. She hollered that the health department would close the place down otherwise.
Nonetheless I’m honestly happy, first that Lollipop will no longer have to face any more stern rebukes like that. Me neither. I could have pointed out that her fine Starbucks coffee had in fact proven highly therapeut ic when administered in small doses to my pup over the past two or three years there. Lollipop’s teeth remain so clean that she doesn’t even have to get them scrubbed by the doggy dentist anymore. We’ll now find out if other kinds of coffee might do just as well and be certainly cheaper, without the hassle.

Thanks should also go to the nice company that recently sent me a free sample of some Extreme Acai Berry Melt Away Tablets. I intend to try them out, soon as I get around to securing a refund from the company for two subsequent shipments of the pills. I hadn‘t intended to order them (at $89.31 per bottle, as charged to my credit card), but here they came anyway. It’s a small price to pay to be reminded there are places out there on the Internet that you do not want to go, and certainly not to disclose the numbers on your credit card. Especially at Thanksgiving.

My seasonal good wishes also go out to Barack Obama. His election to the presidency occasioned history’s sharpest two-day point decline in the Dow-Jones Industrial Average, making for some great stock bargains for me to buy. Too bad my supply of cash (see above) is now a mite tight.

But don’t get me wrong. I’m sure his election was for the good of the country. It surely prevented numerous race riots, darkly predicted previously had he not won. Further, he deserves what the pundits describe as the typical honeymoon for a while in a new President’s dealing with Congress.

But if he gets that pup he promised for his daughters on election night, he’ll want to keep it out of our local Starbucks. On second thought, perhaps a Starbucks nearer to the White House, being in Democratic areas already friendly to Obama, might not be so tacky. After all, Stafford County is still GOP country, partner. It is in fact the nation’s closest one geographically to the White House, for whatever that‘s worth.

Seriously, Obama truly has my best wishes. I only hope he might be able to do even half as well for the country as another talented part-black American, Tiger Woods, has done for golf. Granted, George Bush is a tough act to follow, but...

By the way, I hope you won’t mind if in the future I refer to Obama (which sounds kinda foreign, don’t you think) as “President Beaux,” a much friendlier sound. Or, in headline usage (as in JFK, RFK, RMN, etc.) make it BO. He may even want to name his new pup BO also. My old cowboy buddy Sid Goodloe once had a really ugly hunting dog he called BO (or was it Beaux?). Anyhow.

What I was most thankful about this presidential election, other than the fact that everyone was so tickled pink over the national proof positive that just anyone could become a president here, was that it made the big newspapers profitable, if only for a few days. As you may know, they have been suffering lately from decreased readership, having to lay off reporters right and left.

But President-elect BO's victory sent his huge throng of supporters on a joyous hunt for newspapers to proclaim for all time--say, in some future attic collection discovered by curious heirs-- the wonder of his precedent-setting election.

Which reminds me, finally, to proffer a personal Thanksgiving salute, seriously now, to our area’s leading local daily paper. Unlike its famous big-city counterparts, Fredericksburg's Free Lance-Star has managed to keep growing in circulation in recent years. May it continue to serve us locals--even the Democrats-- in fine fashion.