"If you think it's hard to meet new people, try picking up the wrong golf ball." ~ Jack Lemmon, Actor, (1925-2001), Two time winner of an academy award

I've double checked it for you so you don't have to wonder. It got here a little sooner than I expected but it is, it really is, Wednesday, May 20, 2015. Have you noticed there seems to be a lot of school graduations at this time of year? Everywhere you look there's another one going on. Well, well, our local area NBA team, the Rockets, have made it to the Western Conference finals for the first time since the late 1990's. The fans are elated. The players are happy too. They did something very difficult. After having played some of the ugliest basketball in recent memory and getting down in the series 3 games to 1, well, they came back. One of the key players said this was their goal all along because when you look at them you see the word pursuit. Pursuit of the NBA title and ring. One commentator said that when he looked at how they had played he saw the word pursuit also, as in pursuit to the exit door. I just wanted to share a different perspective. Oh by the way, this is a good one. Some fan in the Boston area has started a crowd sourcing site to help pay the $1 million dollar fine the NFL levied aganist the Patriots. How funny is that? I bet the billionaire owner is really happy to see that folks want to help him out. That just kills me. Well, not really. It's another one of those figures of speech. But, it is pretty funny. To me. Maybe not you. But to me. Okay. Shall we move on?

You think my thought process lacks continuity? I hear the late and in my opinion great Eddy Arnold singing in the background, "Welcome to My World." Here's one that we knew was coming and it should have made us sit up and take notice a long time ago. China now owns more US debt than any other country on the planet. They crept by Japan in a recent accounting from our treasury department. They hold $1.261 trillion of our debt while Japan, the former biggest lender, now holds $1.229 trillion. Here's the clincher. That same report indicated that these numbers are official US Treasury estimates. They do not include debt bought through third parties on behalf of China. Many monetary experts say this means you can take this official accounting with a grain of salt because the numbers which are impossible to get since China doesn't publish them, would be staggering. That doesn't mean much to most of us but it sounds ominous to me. In fact, it reminds me of that famous line made popular by, not originated by, the old time comedy team of Laurel and Hardy, where Hardy says, "Well, here's another nice mess you've gotten me into!" There are mistaken variations of that one but that's the actual quote. I had thought it was 'fine mess' but it was 'nice mess', and at any rate I believe it is transparently obvious how it applies to us being beholden to the world's most brutal communist regime. Yes, the North Koreans and the Russians are definitely in the running for that distinction. (Even a country boy from the rural environs of Louisiana can see this debt situation is seriously bad!)

I know. We typically respond to stuff like that with a yawning 'oh well'. It reminds me of that 1967 hit song from Bobbie Gentry, 'Ode To Billy Joe'.  It's a song about a tragic suicide but even though they recognize it in passing, they've got more pressing issues to concern themselves with. ~ Today, Billy Joe MacAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge" And papa said to mama, as he passed around the blackeyed peas "Well, Billy Joe never had a lick of sense; pass the biscuits, please There's five more acres in the lower forty I've got to plow" And mama said it was a shame about Billy Joe, anyhow Seems like nothin' ever comes to no good up on Choctaw Ridge And now Billy Joe MacAllister's jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge ~ That may be a bad analogy but it was the one that came to my mind, therefore, I thought it to be somewhat appropriate. In many ways it seems to me that for us to continue allowing the Chinese to own us, literally, well, that's kind of like a form of jumping off the Tallahatchie Bridge. But, meanwhile, I think I smell the Community so I better tend to that and Lord willing I'll catch up with you later. May God help us is all I can think of to say as I go. Amen. ....More later.