OK, Get Ready…Butch’s New Year’s Resolutions

Well, 2023 has arrived. It’s time for my New Year’s resolutions and goals for this year:

1. Finances…I hereby resolve NOT to save money. Besides, I am fairly certain that to actually SAVE money, your income must exceed your expenses. I found out my car needs major repairs this week, so I am on my way! I am pretty healthy. Does anyone need any slightly used internal organs at discounted prices? I am willing to negotiate.

2. Diet…I hereby resolve to stick with my present diet. One half cup of oatmeal for breakfast. No lunch. Then whatever is placed in front of me for dinner. According to what my folks drilled into my brain, I should be glad to have ANY food. “There are people in Africa who are starving, you know.” Thanks, Mom and Dad.

3. Smoking…I hereby resolve to never take up smoking again. I quit 22 years ago. Can’t stand to even smell cigarette smoke…and $7.00 a pack..Whoa! Marijuana? Never tried it. Have no desire to escape reality and become a ‘70s flower child.

4. Woke-ism…I hereby resolve to tune out anyone who attempts to legitimize abnormal behavior or promotes flawed facts. This includes the government and any company, such as Disney. Transgender athletes, “forced diversity” proponents, climate alarmists, Whoopi Goldberg, and Mickey Mouse can all take a hike.

5. Work…I hereby resolve to keep working as long as I am physically able. If I keel over dead at the library, I have instructed the library board to stuff me and bronze me…and stick me in the corner with the statue of Ben Franklin. If I retire from here, I will work for anyone who will hire an old geezer.

6. Politics…I hereby resolve to abandon all hope that Ol’ Joe and the liberals will use any common sense, or that Republicans will move swiftly to accomplish anything significant. After all, their party symbols are a jackass and an elephant.

That pretty much says it all.

7. Phones…I hereby resolve to keep my “flip” phone. No iPhone for me…I don’t want 70-80 calls and texts every day. I can answer all calls with no worries. No one can get any information on my flip phone, and I love calling the fraudulent callers back…it’s a blast!

8. TV watching…I hereby resolve to stick with only three shows…”Tales of Wells Fargo,” “Gunsmoke,” and the 10:30pm weather report on Fox 59. The “vast wasteland of TV,” as one commentator said many years ago, is even worse today. I’ll stick with a good book and my hobbies.

9. Lottery…I hereby resolve to win the Hoosier Lottery this year. I have been a good little boy. I deserve to win…so this is the year…I just know it…plus a message in a Panda Express fortune cookie said I was in for good luck. That is incontrovertible evidence.

10. Goals…I hereby resolve to work toward my lifelong goal…to become a major league baseball pitcher at age 74. If Satchel Paige can pitch at age 59, then there is still hope….Right? As Satchel said, “Age is a question of mind over matter. If you don’t mind it, it doesn’t matter.” I practice each fall by throwing hedgeapples across the road.

And oh yes…I forgot…I told my wife, after 56 years of marriage, that I would finally take her on a honeymoon vacation this year (our honeymoon was to the Payless grocery on our wedding night). I’m going to let her choose from several choice vacation spots…Smartsburg, Parkersburg, Beckville, or Bedbug Junction (near New Richmond). But if I win the lottery, I’ll splurge and take her to Alamo, the birthplace of Charlie Bowerman, my childhood basketball hero, and we can also visit the house where Lawrence Reath had a general store on his front porch. I know she’ll love it!

Well, that’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it. Have a great year!

John “Butch” Dale is a retired teacher and County Sheriff. He has also been the librarian at Darlington the past 32 years, and is a well-known artist and author of local history.