Herb is sitting on a stool in what once was the balcony of a theater and now is the second floor of an antique shop. He is inspecting a tin coffee pot that is bigger than his head and wondering how to use it at the boarding house he says he runs on the 135 acre farm he says he owns.
A stranger gives Herb the recipe for
Cowboy coffee, which is water, and a handful of fresh grounds thrown into a pot
and heated over a fire. You drink it by pouring it into a cup and
straining it through your teeth -- which is why real cowboys usually had ugly
looking brown teeth. That and the chaw.
Mrs. Herb is there and she’s not happy
with the idea of coffee grounds in her teeth and suggests the cowboys should
have strained the stuff through their bandannas. Not a bad idea in Latte
Land. But cowboys didn’t and don’t live in Latte Land.
Herb doesn’t live in Latte Land,
either. He lives in 1913, in the last month of the administration of
President William Howard Taft, which was when the 16th Amendment to the
Constitution was ratified, the one that makes you pay income tax. Twenty-nine
days before Taft’s term expired, but who’s counting.
Herb doesn’t exactly have his facts
right. Wessays™ does. Herb said Taft had pangs of guilt over even a hint
of support for the 16th amendment. No credible historian will confirm
that. But that’s okay, Herb doesn’t need facts to make his point, which
in this case is the income tax was the start of the downfall of this country.
What Herb means -- what all the world’s
Herbs mean -- is that the income tax is stealing, and stealing from HIM, at
that.
Then he moves along to the school
tax. Wants to know why he must pay since he hasn’t had kids in school for
more than 20 years.
Herb thinks of the government as a
cafeteria. You buy this service and that, leave the rest of the stuff in
the counter trays and pay for what you take at the register at the end of the
line.
Government as cafeteria. He also
mentions that he’s 20-thousand dollars in arrears. Taxes here are pretty
low. So that’s a lot of years avoiding the register at the end of the
cafeteria line.
But, Herb, the government is not a
cafeteria. So, guys with no kids in school pay so kids who ARE in school
get at least some semblance of an education and the country gets to continue.
Guys without cars get roads. Guys
without feet get sidewalks. Everybody gets an army. You get cops
and you get the means to break from the isolation in which you live -- if you
want to. Which you don’t.
Relax, Herb. Make a pot of
coffee. Get a bandanna to strain the cup for the Mrs. She won’t be
able to afford regular dental cleanings when they catch up with you and cart
you away for sneaking off the property tax check-out line before you got to the
register.
I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are
my own but you’re welcome to them. ®
Any questions? wesrichards@gmail.com
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