Answer #17 - Yes, if you're easily distracted by shiny objects

Not long ago, Indiana (and other states) got smacked with the 100 Year Flood.  We were mostly lucky.  We mostly got wet, muddy, and shorn of some belongings.  As great floods dictate, though, others lost much more.

It's fresh in my mind, as California's under a deluge, following a season of wild fires.  Mud everywhere.  I'm wondering if Pat Robertson will step up and let us know the cause of this particular event.  Since he's got the telephone line to the sky.  I'm speculating that this situation is probably due to the misguided election of a foreign devil to the post of Governor.  That's what I'm thinking.  He talks funny.  Can't be good.  Pacts with foreign devils are almost as bad as pacts with THE Devil (the one with the big corner office and the great view).

Are Non-Sequitors Really Effective Means of Communication?

Hey, speaking of Alaska, one of my favorite poets is Robert Service.  My father introduced me to him. Every once in a while a writer shows up and pulls the gritty soul of the thing out of the air and lays it out before us.  In the case of Service, he grabbed the beast's heart of Alaska, probably skinned and fileted somewhere in the Yukon, surrounded by rough men, empty whiskey bottles, and circling wolves on the periphery.

I wrote this in his honor not too long ago.  I'm dedicating it to Whole Wheat, Talkeetna, Alaska!  In the meanwhile, I'm hoping that friends and relatives in California ride the storm out and come away with everything they love and great stories to tell.  And hoping further that Pat stays in his glass house.  Preferably in the ivory tower with the flat screen and surround-sound.

Pondering Robert Service and the 100 Year Flood
A hundred year flood, now we're covered in mud
and never such soggy grass mown -
Oh, the teeth of the storm took a perilous form
with a bite only few had 'ere known

Bearing down like a wife who's been given a knife
and a husband with wandering eye
it cut a gash in the land, like the heart of the man
and then left without saying goodbye

Oh, we all heard the warning, but who, in the morning
could dream what the siren rang true!
of a day, as we know, the damn thing'll blow
and it only means lunch is past due!

So some lounged in the evening with appertifs, dreaming
of fireflies, moonbeams and such -
Then to bed with a book, and nary a look
at the radar - bad news is too much!

Nestled in like dumb squirrels in the hollows and burls
of our bedrooms and couches (and gutters)
we woke to the sound of the sky falling down
and the wind tearing off all the shutters

And we cowered and clamored and uttered 'Alas!'
and some hid 'neath the beds in bordellos
in hotels and motels in the black underbelly
and the company of questionable fellows

At the Vid and at Legends where legends are made
on the laps of Night Moves clientele -
and we scuffled and shuffled and prayed for the end
of the storm that might send us to hell!

While the good people clung to their children
and sung songs of teapots and spiders and stars -
there are those, it is said, who'd rather be dead
than give up their stools at the bars

There are those of the wild who've not seen a child
as they'll n'ere see the harsh light of day -
for they sleep with the sun, and a loaded handgun
to banish the demons away

And they chew up the thunder and never crawl under
a shelter, umbrella or roof -
And they spit out the lightening - a spectacle frightening
for even the bravest - 'tis proof

That the Devil is well, and that storm came from hell
and maybe the heart of Man -
Still, for us who lived through it, no drink will undo it -
nor one thousand bags all filled with sand

And we'll speak of this night - and the teeth and the bite
and the rivers that run where none had -
to our grandchildren whisper, 'I nearly lost my sister -
but then that, maybe, wouldn't a been so bad!'