Things You Didn't Know Till Now

Tomorrow at The Old Folks' Home we're getting one of those Unitarian guys as our preacher. I don't know about Unitarians -- they seem a little soft on religion.

"That Christ guy was a helluva carpenter. Could have invented mortises and tenons and arches and arch supports if he wanted to. About that walking on water thing, it seems a little far-fetched to me. But whatever."

It was a Unitarian, I believe, who said the Ten Commandments weren't really "commandments." No, he said, it was simply a True/False quiz.

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Back to More Things About Ol' Hoss (the newspaper days): This is No.

13. As a reporter at the Albany (Ore.) Democrat-Herald in 1954 I spotted a football gambling operation going on at a local tavern. (I was having a sarsparilla, if you must know.) Bets were being taken on National Football League games, which was then illegal. So later on I asked the Police Chief if he knew about this, and he said, "No. You have any proof?"

I went back to the tavern, picked five games, gave the bartender a dollar, got my receipt and went back to the Chief. He busted the operator, a fella named Sandy. When they got Sandy to the police station he said, "You don't need to look in my shoes. I don't have anything there." Naturally, in his shoes, Sandy is packing $1,000.

I hit all five games. Woulda won $10. Police never gave me back my dollar, either, saying it was "evidence." That was the last time I tried to be on the right side of the law. Thieves.

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These days, it seems like you can call anybody just about anything, and it don't seem to matter much. People trade invective for invective and then go about their business.

But it doesn't seem safe to say what another person writes on the Internet is "lame." I seen some big fights erupt over that one. It wouldn't surprise me any to pretty soon see a site advertising some get-even help: "Redress of Insult, Brought to You by Rent-A-Thug."

Yeah, I'd be pretty careful about criticizing other people's Internet pieces, if I was you.

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