Those were the days…
Good morning, Netizens...
Cartoon credit: David Horsey/Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Ah, yes, I was wondering if David Horsey would pick up on the stories that ran in several prominent East Coast papers about the number of Big Box stores who were laying off Santa Clauses and here we have David Horsey's vision, complete with a corporate pinhead type with a really nifty tie and a $29.95 pocket watch ready for the embalming of Santa Claus.
Not so fast there, buckwheat!
Our Christmas is still, despite what think tank types want us to think, a magical world at Community Comment in the Virtual Ballroom and Espresso Bar, a place where fancy and imagination always takes precedence over reality. Although we occasionally and somberly report the news of the world, ours is still a place where we as living adults can joyfully recall and embrace our days of innocence, where ghosts returning from their graves can gently remind us of how it once was before our culture became hardened and cynical about life.
As I stumble in the front door of the Virtual Ballroom this morning after forging my through an intensely-cold fog that has settled upon Spokane, I am at once relieved to be off the slick streets, but even more delighted to see our virtual world alive and as vibrant as ever. In the corner of the Ballroom a group of female ghosts are baking Christmas Cookies in an antique cast-iron wood-fired stove. The only magic involved is, despite the roaring fire in the wood box, there is no smoke coming out of the stovepipe that terminates about four feet in the air. When I vapidly ask where the smoke from this contraption goes, one of the ghostly ladies responds, “Why, up the cook, of course! That's why it's a smokeless cookstove.”
Some kind of an elf all dressed in green is our barrista of the day, and after sliding a cheerfully bubbling cup of today's blend in front of me, giggles somewhat like little people do, and announces, “Today's espresso blend of the day is called The Effervescence of Christmas. If you drink an entire cup of this blend, they say you will forget David Horsey's Cartoon this morning about the downsizing of Santa, and remember instead the times Santa came to your house and ate all the Christmas Cookies while you slept peacefully.”
Yes, those were the days, weren't they? Do you still remember those days?
Dave