CHICKEN ON A HOT PLATE by JAIMIE VERNON

For as long as there have been people with talent to share, there have been people waiting impatiently to exploit it. P.T. Barnum was the first to realize that a) you could make people pay a nickel to see a woman who couldn’t afford a Lady Bic razor on her face and b) you could pay the woman herself a penny if she would just stop shaving her beard off. Barnum was shameless in using any perceived talent (sword swallowing, knife throwing, anvil lifting) or any physical infirmity to sell tickets. He became massively rich and his ‘performers’ became slaves to the grind. Some were smart enough to negotiate riches in partnership with Barnum, others were just glad to have a few square meals a week and a place to sleep every night. It beat the alternatives.

Roxanne Tellier – Ho Ho Holiday Memories

“Rockin’ around the Christmas tree, at the Christmas party hop.”  “It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas!” Oh NOes! Must be getting close to the holidays – the earworms are out in full force!

This will be the last DBAWIS column for 2019. Next time you see us, it will be a bright and shiny new 2020! Let’s hope that 2020 applies to our vision, rather than to our hindsight.

I’ve got a holiday gathering to go to this afternoon, and every year, it takes me a little longer to get ready to be serially hugged. But one of the perks of having written a weekly column for many years is that, now and again, we can reach back into those past ponderings and re-release them into the present, dusted off, re-edited, and ready to be digested anew.

For your Christmas reading, wonderment and wandering …. a few morsels from my past holiday tables …