Opinions

Coker, Alabama

Weather: low 64 degrees, high 80 degrees, cloudy, light rain late in the day

Today, we had to take care of an errand in Cottondale, a little town just northeast of Tuscaloosa. There is not much to the place, but we got a pretty good laugh out of the motto printed on their sign welcoming people to the town. The sign said "Welcome To Cottondale, The Beautiful". I guess beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, but we didn't see anything that we would call beautiful. The town consists primarily of a strip of small businesses along the highway, with a few houses. Maybe we missed something?

Remember I wrote on Monday about the sidewalk jumping up and tripping me? At the time, the worst damage appeared to be a bad case of road rash (or sidewalk rash, as the case may be) on the palm of my left hand. Well, the palm seems to be doing well, but today my rib area on the right hand side is sore. It is so sore that it hurts to move. I think what happened was a strained muscle in that area. As a result, I didn't do much beyond trying to keep from hurting. I should modify that statement. I didn't do much, compared to what I have been doing. I still gathered up a bunch of limbs that I had cut while trimming trees and piled them for burning later on. That little task probably took three times as long as it should have, since I was moving so gingerly.

Has anyone noticed the price of gas? Dumb question, right? How can you not notice when every time you go by a station the price has jumped? Up here, regular gas is about $3.65 a gallon, and it seems to increase every day. Diesel, which we use, is even worse. It is up to 4.33 a gallon. The only consolation is that our truck gets good mileage for the size of it and what it can do for us. I have noticed that the number of RVs on the road is way down from previous years. This would have been a good year to go to Alaska, because I have a feeling it is not going to be crowded.

Congress is talking about enacting a windfall profits tax on the oil companies. What that means is that the tax will be passed on to the shareholders. Who do they think they're fooling when they say those evil corporations are making too much money? Corporations are owned by people who buy shares. So does that mean the people are making too much money? What would Congress do with the money? Spend it on boondoggles? I think Congress would do us more good by passing laws allowing drilling wherever oil might be found and allowing more refineries to be built. And get rid of that sorry ethanol that is being put in gasoline and diesel. The mileage has gone down, the fuel does not have as much power, and we are subsidizing the production of ethanol. If ethanol can't stand on it's own, let it die off.

If you haven't noticed, I don't have much to write about today. It felt good to write about some of the stuff that gets to me sometime.

More later, be safe.

Today's Town - Cottondale, Alabama: The Beautiful

Not all who wander are lost.