THANK YOU

A dispatch from the road ...

Hi folks:

I am still in the process of extricating myself from Madison, Wisconsin, and moving my keyboard and desk to North Carolina, but wanted to check in real quick.

First, many thanks for all the wise, wonderful comments on my farewell to the Badger State over the weekend. I read ‘em all, but have been knee-deep in snow after a late-season blizzard Monday (above photo), and am currently up to my tired back in boxes, bags, and assorted trash and treasures that are the residue from being around for so damn long.

For the past few weeks I have been living with the mantra: “When in doubt, throw it out.”

That makes me feel no less like a cold-blooded killer at times. So many silly things still have so much meaning ...

For instance, I came across this chest buried in the rubble of our basement and stuffed with old newspapers I was so lucky to be part of during my former life in the newsroom.

I’ll never forget that day, or my heroic staff in the National Press Building and the Pentagon, who put together that paper for our troops and their families overseas, while we were under attack in Washington, D.C.

Real irony there …

I decided to hold onto a few of those papers, even if the chances are better than average I’ll never see them again.

Currently, we are living out of a hotel as we continue to empty the house and ready ourselves for our trip East at the crack of dawn Thursday morning. I have the Monkey the Cat shift here in the room this afternoon, while my wife handles the 67 things that still need doing back at our soon-to-be old, happy homestead.

<sigh>

Long way of saying, barring the unforeseen, this will probably be my last blast until next week sometime after (hopefully) we’ve completed our journey to the Atlantic.

As always, my thoughts are with you as you navigate your lives, while refusing to accept the mayhem coming at us from this abhorrent, incompetent, and subhuman regime in our White House. Because you make the choice to tune in and give a damn, you are true patriots in my book. And because you are true patriots, I am honored to know you, and so, so thankful for your readership, friendship, and support.

Please be good to yourselves, because I know for a fact you deserve it.

-Earl

(That’s Monkey the Cat in the full sprawl position Sunday night. Little did she know what was coming the next morning. In this case, ignorance was bliss …)