All firefighters do is put out fires and save lives.

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12/1:
The Gatlinburg Pigeon Forge fire has killed "at least seven people" and has "gutted over 700 structures in Tennessee's Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
"Drenching rain on Wednesday helped firefighters beat back the massive blaze, which still burned more than 15,650 acres and was about 10 percent contained."  - NBC

Please give to the Gatlinburg Relief Fund: Smartbank: P.O. Box 1910/ Pigeon Forge, Tennessee  37868/ 865-453-2650

12/5: 
“Thirty-six bodies have been recovered” from an Oakland, California, warehouse fire.  Seventy percent of the building has been searched.   - L.A. Times

​It is the worst fire in Oakland history:
The Alameda County Coroner's Bureau has established a Family Assistance Center with the American Red Cross at 2425 East 12th Street in Oakland/ 510-382-3000.  - Lauren Lee & Jennifer Grubb/ CNN    

​Please give to the Red Cross: 3901 Broadway/ Oakland, California 94611/ 510-595-4400
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Please give to the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation: P.O. Drawer  498/ Emmitsburg, Maryland  21727/ 301-447-1365

“Yeah, okay, it says: Lost Cats Found in Freezer. Freezer owner might sue the newspaper over this story because he believes if the cats were found they weren’t lost.  The owner of the freezer also states that if the cats were smart enough to open the freezer door to get in there in the first place then they were smart enough to reopen the door to get out.  He told the newspaper that he's absolutely mystified, uh, as to why the frozen cats wanted to sleep in the freezer in the first place. 'I’m going to put a padlock on the freezer to keep other cats from sleeping in there,' Claus Putwyn said firmly.  A cat whisperer was called in but the cats seemed uncooperative, wouldn’t play, and wouldn’t voluntarily leave the freezer -- Maytag is investigating."


Please donate to the American Society of the Prevention of Cruelty of To Animals, ASPCA: 6201 Florin Perkins Road, Sacramento, California  95828/ 916-383-7387  

When a negative reaction to President Obama’s election manifested itself in various ways -- from a rush to buy guns in the belief that the Second amendment would be either weakened or destroyed by his presidency -- or in the vigorous and aggressive opposition to his politics or of his prospective politics or even in reaction to his color, the Democrats complained.  But like it or not it was democracy.
When a negative reaction to President Trump’s election manifested itself in various ways -- from mass protests to a reactive belief of policies of racism and xenophobia -- to vigorous and aggressive opposition to his politics or of his prospective politics, or in reaction to his lack of color, the Republicans complained.  But like it or not it is democracy.


Please give to the JDRF, Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation: 26 Broadway, 14th Floor/ New York, New York 10004/  800 533 2873/ info@jdrf.org
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“You don’t have, ah, to be a Democrat to believe in the human rights of a Democrat: don’t have to be gay to believe in the human rights of gay people: don’t have to be a black woman, uh, to believe in the human rights of black women.  But, if I had to pick one, I’d, uh, be a beautiful black woman for about fifteen minutes -- take all my clothes off and stand in front of a mirror.  Maybe investigate a few things.  Then, change back into, uh, hmmm, and..."



11/21: In a twenty-four time span in three states, four police officers were shot -- ambushed -- with one fatality.   - Fox, CBS, New York Times  
A twenty-year veteran, San Antonio Detective, fifty-year-old Benjamin Marconi was murdered.  
​Sixty-one police officers have been killed by gunfire this year.   - CNN



Please support the Police Protective Fund/ P.O. Box 1084/ Schenectady, New York, New York, 72301/ 877-343-2477

My family and I got a dog at the Humane Society, way down the hill in the former mining metropolis of friendly Nevada City.  The dog came with the name of Humper.  The dog won’t come to Fido, or Spot, or Finkelstein.  So, Humper’s name has been left unchanged through the fourteen months that we’ve had him, even though the dog really won’t come when he’s called, period, anyway.
One day during Jackalope Hunting Season in the Great Milton Berle Forest, while I was working on my converted Ford Edsel truck, uh, wagoner sort of bush vehicle with a three-and-a-half-inch-lift kit and Reese hitch portable winch -- using Ramjet’s tools and Ramjet’s garage -- Humper ran out into the dirt road after a woman and her dog.  
The lady, clad in orange -- vest and orange hat -- was walking east and uphill at a phenomenal clip with her yipping mutt in tow.  The dog was wearing an orange vest, too.  I dropped my tools, er, Ramjet’s tools, and Ramjet and I ran after Humper.  But, before we could arrive at the scene of the, ah, unfolding series of crimes, Humper started to wrestle around with the orange lady’s dog.  Unfortunately, while trying to separate the dogs the orange lady fell down, hard, on the frozen ground, and with such force Ramjet later told me that he winced in abject commiseration.  Of course, this was the point that I started to plan my retreat.  
At that exact moment, having once been in Naval Intelligence a long time ago, Ramjet started waving his arms around and yelling excitedly at the dog, “Humper.  Hump-er.  Doggone it, Hump-er.”  Though, there is some small disagreement between the two of us over who actually yelled the most idiotic part of this dialogue --
I remember distinctly it was Ramjet, the glorious fool.
The incensed orange woman struggled to her feet, eyes aflame with anger:
She screamed for all the world to bleeping hear: “Hump me, will ya?!” and she booted Humper for all she was worth...  

And, when the orange lady came back by twenty minutes later, well, we all hid in the woods.  -- from Of Jackalopes and Househusbands by Kevin O'Kendley


​Happy Thanksgiving.

"In 1621, the Plymouth colonists and Wampanoag Indians shared an autumn harvest feast (in Massachusetts) that is acknowledged today as one of the first Thanksgiving celebrations in the colonies."  - History.com/ Google


​Please give to Feeding America: 35 East Whacker Drive, Suite 2000/ Chicago, Illinois, 60601/ 800-771-2303

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                                  Environmentalists are the ultimate pragmatists.

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Please support The Sierra Club: 85 Second Street, 2nd Floor/ San Francisco, California 94105/ 415-977-5000/ and:
The Maine Chapter: 44 Oak Street, Suite 301/ Portland, Maine, 04101/ 207-761-5616/ maine.chapter@sierraclub.org

                                                               Klansman in tie...

Please give to the National Urban League: 120 Wall Street, 8th Floor/ New York, New York, 10005/ 212-558-5300/ and:
​​Please support the Anti-Defamation League: 605 Third Avenue/ New York, New York 10158/ development@adl.org/ 866-386-3235

"Broken nose New Hampshire and Cauliflower Ear Maine were settled by refugees from the Canadian Boxer Rebellion of 1961.  The Canadian presence is still powerful in the twin cities manifested by the word 'ay' in just about every sentence, uh, in local newspapers, television, radio,  and, ah, screamed out by many women in the throes of sexual ecstasy:  AYYYYYYYYY" …  

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"In America, uh, as human beings we're equals; we all have value, we all have worth. It's not always that simple but it is always that noble.  Let us, ah, be who we are -- Baptist, Jew; black, white; gay, straight -- in peace, whenever possible, and by law always."


Please donate to the Winterport Heating Fund: Winterport Town Office/ 20 School Street/ Winterport, Maine 04496/ 207-223-5055

Happy Veteran's Day...
​To all that served: thank you.

"Veterans Day originated as “Armistice Day” on Nov. 11, 1919, the first anniversary of the end of World War I.  Congress passed a resolution in 1926 for an annual observance, and Nov. 11 became a national holiday beginning in 1938." - history.com/topics/ holidays/veterans-day-facts


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“It was Sister Philomena that gave me the inside dope on childbirth.  You’ll never believe this one: she told me that Uterus isn’t a planet in our solar system Uranus is.  Uranus?  I howled at that and so did the nuns.  I can’t even say Uranus with a straight face:  Ha ha.  Sister Philomena had some dice in a little change purse dangling from her rosary beads, so we, uh, played craps in a back chapel.  The sisters took four weeks’ pay from me.  Sister gave me two shots of Jim Beam.  The ladies were very attractive in their uniforms I must say: I wondered if any of the expecting fathers ever hit on the nuns even though the women could well have been devout Catholics.  And, of course, the mothers were, uh, having babies in the next room screamin, yellin, and cussin like longshoremen as the tortured vessels of a man’s animalistic lust."   

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Please give to the VFW (Veteran's of Foreign Wars): 406 West 36th Street, Kansas City, Missouri, 64111/  816-756-3390/ and:
34 Field Street/ Belfast, Maine 04915/ 207-338-2358.