Defeat at Hormuz

I would be thrilled if I could remember why I sat down to write. I’m sitting in a doctor’s office, no, not my doctor, I’m waiting on my wife, in downtown Athens, Georgia. I’m facing a wall of impressive credentials, looking at my keyboard like a puppy looks at a box of dog biscuits. I had a theme I wanted to capture, that’s why I brought my PC in the first place, but by the time I scrapped my bumper on the office parking lot, read my emails on messages on my cellphone, I forgot why I bothered to power it up in the first place.

My muse has slipped down the hallway somewhere, probably checking on my wife, while I struggle to recover my thoughts. Our current President has made a fool of himself yet again, and I wonder where the Republican party went. I’m sure I can write an intelligent comment, but it isn’t worth it because America really doesn’t care any more. The Republicans are more worried about their God taking over the country than they are of those of us who live here. You know, us Americans. They don’t care about anything but their own salvation, which is in direct conflict of the teachings of the God they want to install. It’s like Jon Stewart asked one his devout Republicans on television years ago, “Can I have your parking space after the Resurrection?”

But, enough religion and certainly enough politics. I’ll write about what we watched thirty minutes ago just a few miles from here. By we I mean myself, my wife, and my just-turned-17 year old granddaughter, Claire. We were sitting in our car in the parking lot in front of the stage door of the school where Claire is taking voice lessons, waiting for Claire’s teacher. We chatted and checked our phones as is the norm nowadays, and noticed a quiet, real life or death struggle unfolding right in front of us.

We were watching the confrontation of a chipmunk sitting on a rock, directly in front of us at eye level, staring a rather large King snake, which in typical reptilian fashion, was surreptitiously maneuvering ever so much closer. We were less than ten feet away. I quietly opened the car door and got out, cellphone camera poised and ready to capture my wildlife photo of the century when the chipmunk decided the snake was close enough. It practically disappeared right in front me. I really couldn’t tell you where the fuzzy brown blur went. At first, the snake, seemed as confused as I was, but, tongue sampling the air, slowly turned around, and began slivering into a nearby burrow covered by the pine straw. I quickly approached the rapidly disappearing snake and snapped as many snapshots as I could get. My photographs were terribly disappointing, the snake had neither a head nor a tail.

In retrospect, as I sit here pondering our current situation, I have come to the conclusion that is probably how our President feels after his Defeat at Hormuz. I do, however, believe the snake has a better understanding of what happened.

George