Thoughts On A Sunday

It’s the last day of the ‘Hot and Humid’ days today. We’ve been in them for four days and of course they will end just in time for us to go back to work tomorrow. Not that I’m really complaining as it is summer, after all. The A/C has kept the WP Mom cool as she doesn’t always deal well with the hot and humid weather when temps are in the 90’s and the dew points are in the upper 60’s/lower 70’s. We do have drier air moving in late today which will help things a bit.

Speaking of summer, I have to ask the same thing so many others have asked, and that’s “Where did the summer go?” It’s hard to believe it’s already August and that school starts in a few weeks. Our town also has what is called Old Home Day on the last Saturday of the month and it’s rapidly approaching.

Old Home Day is a celebration of the town by both present and past residents and the activities run the gamut of a pancake breakfast and a 5km road race that morning followed by a parade which in turn is followed by games for the kids along with vendors selling food and crafts in our village fields near our town center. There is also a concert later in the day which is then followed by fireworks in the evening.

This will be my 25th Old Home Day here in my town and I am looking forward to it even though it does signal the coming end of summer. Of course the ‘official’ end of summer is Labor Day which is on the following weekend.

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I agree with this 100%.

The WNBA is what the entire country would look like if it were run by liberal white women.

Ayuh.

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I find the supposed controversy about Trump’s choice to be the US Attorney General to be a “ho-hum” issue at best. One has to remember that JFK’s choice to be the US Attorney General was his own brother, Robert.

As one commenter put it:

His former personal attorney?

That’s a plus.

Because Trump’s standards are a lot higher than the U.S. Senate’s.

So we’re JFKs for that matter - even 65 years ago.

We have to remember that JFK would be considered a right-wing extremist by today’s Democrat Party standards.

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It seems there are some job numbers that might upset some people, particularly Democrats. What might thos ‘upsetting’ job numbers be?

The shrinking number of government jobs.

John mentioned the July jobs report yesterday, which showed a net reduction of 23,000 jobs, driven by a monthly 53,000 loss in government jobs at all levels. The bulk of that reduction came in the category of local government, namely public schools. Overall employment at the federal level also dropped slightly in July.

Let me pause to savor that.

Digging into the numbers, overall employment at the federal and state government levels and with local public schools, are all down for the past year. That means hundreds of thousands of workers are now available for more productive pursuits. The number of federal workers has dropped by almost 11 percent since last July.

Frankly, I am not displeased to see this.

While the linked post mentions that some of the job loss is seen in public schools, I have no problem with that in light of the fact that many schools have been seeing a shrinking student population. If there are fewer children in the schools then wouldn’t one of the side-effects be a shrinking number of school staff? (That certainly hasn’t happened here in my town as our student population has shrunk about 33% over the past 15 years but the staffing levels have increased over that same period of time. Why?)

Some more of that shrinkage in government jobs can be linked to DOGE and it’s previous efforts to trim federal government job numbers by getting rid of redundant or unnecessary jobs, including so-called ‘patronage’ jobs that fill no useful purposes.

I think we’ve barely scratched the surface regarding elimination of unnecessary or unneeded government jobs.

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For some reason this does not surprise me in the least.

More Than Half Of New York City Students In Grades 3-5 Failed Basic Reading Tests This Year

Considering the state of the education system in New York, is it a surprise?

More than half of students in grades 3-5 in New York state failed basic reading tests this year. It’s an absolute disgrace.

In New York City, they spend upwards of $40,000 on each student per school year. What is the money going to? Lessons on critical race theory and gender studies topics? Social justice activism?

Reading is one of the most basic and necessary skills that schools are expected to teach children. People who cannot read are absolutely doomed in adult life.

Part of this can be blamed on draconian school shutdowns during Covid but not all of it.

--snip--

Preliminary results released this week by the state Education Department that 57% of 3rd graders, 52% of 4th graders and 57% of 5th graders failed to make the grade on their 2025-26 English Language Arts tests.

City kids in grades 3-8 saw a 6% drop in their ELA scores from last year, with just about half overall rating proficient.

Elsewhere in the linked post it does bring up something that could certainly have a major effect on readings scores, brought up by Stephen Miller on X:

Nearly 40% of children in New York State are foreign-born or the children of migrants. Of that group, about 85% are migrants from the third world. The education debate (like so many others) often disguises the real debate.

I’d have to say that is a big contributing factor, particularly in New York City. It is something often overlooked. Of course the answer to solve this problems is the same whenever it comes to problems with the educational system here in the US: Even More Taxpayer Money.

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And lastly, there’s this I came across while indulging in one of my guilty pleasures, that being dashcam videos on YouTube.


Two things I don’t miss from the 1970’s?

Paneling and shag carpets.

The rest was pretty cool, though!

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the last of the hot and humid weather is departing...for now, the ice cream stands have been doing really well, and where the Day That Shall Not Be Named is returning all too soon.

Relationships Between Men And Woment Getting Difficult...If Not Worse

This is not the first time I have delved into this topic and I doubt it will be the last, that topic being how relationships and social interactions between men and women have been deteriorating.

Social interactions seem to have become a minefield. This is even more so in a work environment where a thoughtless word, action, or a simple misunderstanding can end a career and damage a reputation beyond repair even if after an investigation it turns out that no such thing happened.

When we look at dating, things can be even worse because expectations can be too high, and just as bad, too low.

On more than one occasion I have mentioned that it seems to many young women have standards a man must meet before she’ll even consider dating them. There’s nothing wrong with that...as long as those standards are reasonable. But when young women keep talking about men who are now referred to as “Sixers”, meaning that are at least 6 feet tall, have a six-figure income, and have six-pack abs, they are deluding themselves because the number of men in the US that meet those criteria and are available is less than 1% of male population. Add in a few more ‘standards’ and that number gets even smaller. The problem is there are millions of women competing for that small number of men that meet their standards.

A related issue is what when the women who would like to meet a guy to settle down with, particularly those who have successful careers of their own, have their own money, their own homes, etc. but insist anyone they would consider dating must have more income and more net worth than they do. (This is an aspect of hypergamy where women want to marry up, not to an equal or someone who makes less than they do.) The problem is that the wealthier women become, the more their dating pool shrinks. While hypergamy is nothing new as it has been around throughout human history, it seems to have taken on a darker meaning as as it doesn’t deal with marrying up regarding wealth or social status. They also have to be good looking, ambitious (as if they aren’t ambitious even if they’ve reached the economic stratosphere), and be willing to lavish gifts and money and anything the want before they’ll even consider spending more than one minute to get to know them.

The question we seem to hear from many of these women again and again is “Where are all the Good Men?” The problems is that there are plenty of good men around, they just can’t (or won’t) see them because they don’t meet their standards.

For men, it seems to be a “Damned if we do. Damned if we don’t,” situation. We hear women’s complaint that men aren’t approaching women anymore and they wonder why. On the other hand many of those same women castigated men on social media about being approached and told men to leave them alone. Men listened.

I could go on and on about this but I would probably get depressed or angry or both. Instead I will leave you with this from the ‘manosphere’ that might explain some of the problems and why men are keeping their distance:

Friday Funny - Old Lady Scams Her Bank Manager

This one is NSFYE (Not Safe For Young Ears). You've been warned!

I'll Tell You The Story - Binky, Alone

Thoughts On A Sunday

The humidity has returned to the lake, something you feel the instant you step outside. However, isn’t nearly as humid as it will be over the next few days as the Weather Guys^TM have said we can expect ‘tropical’ levels of humidity. That also means we might see some thundershowers as well. Not that I’m complaining as it is summer, after all.

That does mean we are running the A/C here at The Gulch, more to keep the inside air dry rather to keep it cool. The higher temps don’t feel all that uncomfortable if the inside humidity is kept relatively low. Not that I’ll let it get into the 80’s inside, but the mid to upper 70’s feel quite nice if the relative humidity is 40% or lower. If the indoor temp gets down to the lower 70’s the WP Mom feels cold.

I’m just hoping I’ll be able to venture out on the lake sometime during the week after work. As I have mentioned before, I avoid being out on the lake during weekends because of the large number of boats and the large number of Cap’n Boneheads driving many of those boats. If the weather is good enough, meaning I won’t be dodging thunderstorms, I will be out there even if it’s only for an hour.

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This is something the GOP should play up in the upcoming midterms:

Serial Criminal Murders Man Hours After Jail Release

About an hour and a half after a Charlotte jail, where he was being held on on weapons charges, released him on bond, David Simpson got into an argument that led him to shoot two people, killing one of them. Talk about a completely preventable tragedy.

Simpson is only 29 years old but already has a long rap sheet, according to Channel 9’s crime reporter, Hunter Sáenz. After his latest deadly rampage, authorities are holding him without bond, but had they simply done so in the first place, there would be no murder charge to worry about. They had good reason for doing so because this is not Simpson's first murder charge. He has a record of deadly rage outbursts over trivial matters.

This is the horrific reality of Democrat cities, where woke politicians and judiciary do everything they can to reward criminals for their crimes and ensure more victims.

So they let a violent criminal go on bail, a criminal with the lengthy criminal record, much of it dealing with violence including a previous murder? Who thought this was a good idea?

Considering how many blue states have ‘relaxed’ bail laws which allow violent criminals back onto the streets as if they are going through a revolving door, is it any wonder they have seen large increases in violent and property crimes? California also changed the limit on how much money or goods could be stolen so that what in the past had been felonies are now only misdemeanors. The result?

Shoplifting skyrocketed to the point were shoplifting ‘mobs’ would go into stores and dozens of thieves would grab up all kinds of goods and rush out the door. If they got caught and the value of the goods did not exceed a certain value – I believe it was $950 – they were charged with a misdemeanor. And with California’s bail reform laws, most of them would be released on their own recognizance meaning no bail. They would then go out and steal more merchandise. They cycle continues even today. New York City isn’t much better.

I have to wonder if Charlotte, North Carolina has one of the infamous Soros DA’s who are loath to prosecute criminals, even violent ones, because to do so goes against what Soros and all of the other Progressives/Socialists/Communists want, that being making sure that city after city becomes a hellhole that will be easier to take over.

I have to wonder how long it’s going to be before the populace starts handling this problem by both removing these deluded do-nothing DA’s and forming their own ‘Vigilance Committees’ to deal with criminals?

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Yes, it’s a mystery indeed.

NOT.

If we want yet another example of just how vote fraud can influence the outcome of an election, there’s this:

Mamdani's margin of victory in the New York mayoral race was 207,570

The amount of votes in question, per audit, is 228,000

My question is if they find out that all 228,000 were fraudulent and the all were for Mamdami, will the GOP do anything about it? How about the DOJ? Will the results of the election be overturned?

People need to go to prison for crap like this.

And they wonder why we need the SAVE act to try to get this under control.

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I have to say that I agree with Neo’s take on the following.

Regulating guns in the home: how far to go?

Many or perhaps most laws that restrict liberty are rationalized as being necessary and/or desirable in order to protect the innocent. The problem is how far to go, because at a certain point the infringements become unconscionable, and perhaps they don’t even prevent the behavior. These are constant issues, and not just in the field of gun control.

Arguments about the protective benefit of a restrictive law are nearly always used to justify infringements of personal liberty . There are terrible tragedies that appear to be preventable through restrictions on personal liberty. In the case of Colt Gray (the 14-year-old murderer) and his father Colin (who failed to lock up weapons), however, there was no law in Georgia that required such a locking-up. I see the harsh verdict in the Colin Gray trial as an attempt to rectify that, ex post facto, without actually passing such a law. In the service of this effort, another law – one I see as inappropriate to the facts of the case – was pulled into service in order to label one person, the father, as responsible.

Today, it’s guns. Tomorrow it will be the First Amendment, and we’ll see they kinds of restrictions here that have been imposed in the UK which has seen people be arrested and jailed because they expressed their opinions about how the government has screwed everything up by opening the migration floodgates and allowing the UK to become an Islamist state. Blogging or posting on ‘X’ or TikTok or YouTube opinions from your home here in the US that offend those in power, particularly the Communist wing of the Democrat Party (aka the DSA) will get one arrested and eventually imprisoned. The only freedom of speech that will exist is the freedom to parrot the Party line.

To roll back a bit to the new attack on the Second Amendment, anyone paying attention realizes that it is yet another step to stripping us of the right to keep and bear arms to make sure that if the worst happens and the ‘Feces Impact The Rotary Oscillator’ that we will be defenseless. That’s how totalitarians strip the ability of the people to defend themselves. We saw that in Venezuela when the Chavistas took power. We’ve seen that in every Socialist and Communist state throughout modern history.

Am I being over-the-top about this? Maybe...but maybe not. I’ve seen it happen again and again over the past 70 years and read the history books the described it decades before I was born. It’s the old story again and again and again. People here in the US may think “That can never happen here!” But they’re wrong. All it takes if for us to allow our rights to be stripped away a line at a time through the use of restrictive laws sold on the basis that they’ll protect the innocent. But in the end, they won’t. They certainly haven’t done so in the past. Why anyone thinks they’ll do so thisbaffles me.

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It seems the side effects of Mayor Mamdami’s “Free S**t” campaign are already being felt and it’s not good.

Mamdani’s Free Ride Promise Drives Up Fair Evasion

Socialism destroys society not only economically but also morally. For example, the current de facto leader of the Democratic Party, Zohran Mamdani, promised to force other people to pay for bus rides. Whether enough money can be confiscated to finance this is doubtful, but already the notion has had an effect.

Paid ridership plummeted 7.7% last month compared to June 2025, when there were 1.32 million paid bus riders, according to the records — while May saw an even sharper 10.4% decline compared to a year earlier.

[Metropolitan Transportation Authority CEO Janno] Lieber suggested that free bus promises that the social media-focused socialist made during his campaign last year helped normalize the idea that riders did not need to pay.

Despite seeming to grasp the pernicious effects of moonbattery, Lieber implies that it’s okay to freeload so long as you have less money than others, demanding “the people who are on their way to office jobs, who are making a good income” pay their fare and threatening to create a system that “feels a little fairer with enforcement.”

Yeah, like “We’re gonna make others pay for you to ride the bus or the subway even though those who we will force to pay for your fare will soon be leaving and then we’ll have to find other people to steal from because you don’t want to pay the fare yourself” is going to work. To paraphrase Princess Leia in the first Star Wars move, “The more you tighten your grip, the more the people with jobs and money will slip through your fingers…” Eventually Mamdami will run out of ‘other people’s money’ and everything will fall apart. If it happens during Trump’s term we know the federal government (meaning the rest of we taxpayers) won’t be bailing out New York City.

Mamdami keeps making promises he knows he can’t possibly keep, then blames the “other people” who will no longer fund his socialist dystopia because they are either broke or have left ‘Detroit On The Hudson’.

Hmm. I think I’m going to need to buy more popcorn because this is going to get interesting to see.

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the humidity is going up, so is the possibility of some thunderstorms rolling through tomorrow, and The Day That Shall Not Be Named returns to harsh our weekend.

I Wouldn't Have Thought Of This

It seems all the war news is focusing on the situation the Persian Gulf and the ongoing war with Iran. I do hear passing references in the news about the 4-year long war between Ukraine and Russia and how it doesn’t seem to be going in Russia’s favor.

As Ukraine’s capabilities expanded, it made it easier for them to hit targets deeper inside Russia, most of those targets being oil refineries, factories, airfields, trains and trucks carrying military personnel and materiel, ships, bridges, and other targets that degrade Russian logistics and their economy. All of this affects Russia’s ability to fight their war against Ukraine. The Ukrainian aerial campaign has been intensifying even as Russia’s ability to defend against it seems to be waning.

I have to admit that one thing that caught me off guard was Ukraine’s latest targets of interest, that being the Russian equivalent of Amazon, known as Wildberries. But once it was explained, it made perfect sense.


While the Russians have been claiming Ukraine’s attacks against Wildberries is a war crime because it is a ‘civilian’ infrastructure that adversely affects Russian civilians, it must be understood that Russia has been hitting civilian infrastructure and targets from Day 1 of its ‘Special Military Operation’. These include supermarkets, hospitals, apartment buildings, malls, power stations, and so on. The list is lengthy. So how is it Russia can say that what they’ve done is not a war crime against Ukrainians while what Ukraine has done is even if a small fraction of what Russian has done is a war crime against Russians? At least Ukraine has not been targeting civilian targets like those the Russians have been hitting.

As to taking out Wildberries, I have to admit that I probably wouldn’t have thought of doing so. That Wildberreis appears to be shipping dual use goods, much of it going to the front lines, certainly makes me think it’s a legitimate target. That it also weakens the Russian economy in the process makes it a twofer.

Friday Funny - Live, Freeze, Then Die

Considering we are in the middle of summer, I thought something delving into winter might be appropriaate if for no other reason than to remind us that we complain about every season, at least here in New England.

Thoughts On A Sunday

It’s been a beautiful weekend up here at the lake. Warm temps, low humidity, and just enough of a breeze to keep thinks comfortable. It certainly made it easier for the folks who attended last night’s concert at out local venue. Both Styx and Chicago performed last night, the latest acts from the Before We Get Too Old Or Die tour.

The weekend traffic here has been quite heavy, more than I recall from last year. I have also noticed that air traffic at our local airport (which happens to be right next door to our local concert venue) has also been quite heavy. I haven’t seen that many business jets parked on the airport’s itinerant ramp that I can recall. I know the FBO’s at the airport are selling a lot more Jet A fuel than they ever have. (It also helps that our airport has the lowest Jet A prices in New Hampshire.)

The WP Mom and I made a trip to out local Dairy Queen to avail ourselves of their Blizzards. I prefer the Oreo Blizzard and she prefers a Butterfinger Blizzard. This we do a number of times during the season, visiting all of the local ice cream establishments and sampling their wares...for quality control, of course.

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Why doesn’t any of this surprise me in the least?

It seems that a lot of conspiracy theorists who delved into the Covid fauxdemic were right, and that Fauci had a lot more to do with it and that he knew his ‘recommendations’ were absolute BS.

How much unnecessary suffering and economic disruption can be laid at the feet of Fauci, the CDC, etc. forcing us to take precautions they knew were worthless?

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Tell us something that we don’t already know>

It’s Hollywood’s fault that Hollywood is dying and the proposed merger between Paramount and Warner Brothers has nothing to do with it.

Far from “thriving,” theaters sold roughly 770 million tickets last year — down 37% from 2019 and less than half the 1.57 billion sold at the 2002 peak. The share of adults who see a movie at least monthly has fallen by more than half. Receipts hold up only because the average ticket now runs north of $13. Charging ever more to ever fewer people is not a thriving business; it is a shrinking one, repriced. And moviegoers will tell you why they stopped coming: nearly 2 in 5 adults who attend less often say there is simply not a good enough variety of new films worth the trip.

Count me among those who think movies are not good enough anymore. The last movies I saw in a movie theater were Bohemian Rhapsody (2018), Yesterday (2019), and Downton Abbey (2019). I haven’t set foot in a movie theater for almost 7 years. These days I tend to stream them even if I have to wait for a few months before I can do so. It’s cheaper. I also already know if it’s a decent movie. Refreshments are cheaper (and abundant), and I can pause it any time I want to to either get more snacks or go to the bathroom. I don’t have to worry about loudmouths or people who are incapable of putting their damn phones away which can spoil my enjoyment of a movie.

I think Hollywood as we have known it is doomed, if not already dead. More production has been taking place well outside California because the producers don’t have to answer to the self-important ‘wokerati’ who have worked so hard to make movies unwatchable.

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It appears the ‘wokerati’ are also busy in Washington D.C., specifically at the Smithsonian Institute where they are trying very hard to ‘Erase our Founders and Reinvent American History’. After all, if they don’t there’s no way the Communists presently masquerading as Progressives and Democratic Socialists can take over and turn the US into a new version of the USSR.

The Smithsonian is supposed to be a place where America’s history is celebrated and taught. It is not a place where history is censored, reshaped, reinvented, and our Founders vilified and erased. But that is what has been happening over the last few years.

“At a time when the soul of our country is being tested, our Talking About Race portal will help individuals and communities foster constructive conversations and much-needed dialogue about one of our nation’s most challenging topics: racism and its corrosive impact,” the museum began in a July 15, 2020, Twitter thread. “As an institution devoted to learning and education, we welcome those discussions while also encouraging the public to take a holistic approach and read the information in its full context,” it concluded.

Yes, that was at the same time riots over fentanyl-riddled criminal George Floyd and his 4 funerals were taking place. Democrats were kneeling and evidently the Smithsonian museums were working behind the scenes to redesign American history into their favored DEI woke narratives, which includes an inability to define what a woman is.

If they want to destroy America, first they have to destroy our Founders, paint them as criminals, judge them against 21st Century ‘sensibilities’ which is designed to reduce their stature, if not their eliminate them entirely.

The Smithsonian needs to be revamped, purging the ‘wokerati’ who have absolutely no intention of preserving our history.

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You know that judges are getting uppity and are ignoring the law when they decide they do not have to abide by the Constitution or US Supreme Court decisions because they consider themselves The Law In And Of Themselves. The latest example of that is a Biden appointed federal judge who ignored a Supreme Court ruling regarding Temporary Protected Status terminations.

A Biden-appointed judge completely ignored the Supreme Court ruling from last month which affirmed that the law does not allow for judicial review of these TPS terminations, and blocked DHS trying to end TPS for Ethiopian nationals.

This is the same judge who left ICE agents stranded in Africa last year when he blocked a plane of criminal illegals from being deported to South Sudan.

--snip--

The Supreme court ruled, in the case of Syrian and Haitian nationals, that neither were “entitled to orders postponing the terminations during litigation” because “The TPS statute bars judicial review of non-constitutional claims.”

[U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy of the District of Massachusetts] will most certainly be overruled on appeal.

I have to wonder if he’s a buddy of Judge Boasberg who likes to order aircraft in international airspace to land in the U.S.?

It’s time to let these rogue judges know that they must follow the law, the Constitution, and the rulings of the U.S. Supreme Court, or be kicked out for violating of their oaths and judicial malfeasance. They cannot create laws by fiat just because they don’t like something.

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the weather has been awesome as has the ice cream, much needed rain will be moving in starting Tuesday, and where Monday should be called “The Day That Shall Not Be Named”.

Small Town Doings

It was one of those small town America things that took place in my home town today.

There was nothing political about it, though there was talk about politics now and then.

It wasn’t something that made news headlines, nor can I think of why something like this would.

What is this “thing” I keep talking about?

Island Cleanup Day.

Every year our town sets aside one Saturday in July so folks from the islands on Lake Winnipesaukee that happen to be in our town can bring junk and stuff to our town docks so our DPW can dispose of it for them.

Items they bring include pieces of lumber left over from a demolition/renovations, an old charcoal or gas grill, old doors and windows, furniture that is either broken or of no more use, box springs and mattresses, bits and pieces of concrete or old bags of concrete mix that have solidified, old kayaks, jon boats, canoes, paddle boards, and even sailboats. (One islander brought in an old small catamaran sailboat, towing it behind his 26 foot runabout.) Sometimes it’s boxes of books, old TVs and radios, water heaters, sump pumps or well pumps, old pipes – both cast iron and copper, electrical cable (including old BX armored cable), and pieces of decking or from their docks. There have also been old lawnmowers, leaf blowers, and weed whackers.

This year the most common item we saw were old slider doors. Dozens of them. Why? I haven’t a clue.

Last year is was storm doors. The year before that it was old windows of the double-hung sash type.

Folks from the DPW as well as volunteers (like me) help unload the islanders’ boats and get the junk to the appropriate 30-yard dumpster or dump truck or trailer for proper disposal.

People get to hob nob, get to know the islanders and the DPW crew and volunteers. It’s something I’ve been volunteering for for over 10 years now and I intend to keep doing so for as long as I can.

I have to say that it was a perfect day for this event as it was sunny with temps in the upper 70’s/lower 80’s, low humidity and a slight breeze. I was glad to see the islanders made the best of this year’s Island Cleanup Day.

While not a town-wide event, it did show a little bit of small town America that so many of us yearn for.

Friday Funny - Hot Flashes