Please remember not to drink and vote…
It was on a rainy January 20, 1937 that Franklin D. Roosevelt and his sidekick John Nance Garner were sworn in for their second terms as President and Vice President of the United States, respectively. That may seem a somewhat unremarkable event since FDR won re-election in a landslide, and most Americans know the President is always inaugurated on January 20th. But that’s actually a much more recent phenomenon in American history…
The Founding Fathers® originally decided that March 4th should mark the start of terms for newly elected members of both the legislative and executive branches of Federal government. That left a sizeable four month gap between the November election and March inauguration for potential lame duck officials to have to serve out… thus the swift ratification of the 20th Amendment, in 1933 which fixed the terms for newly elected Congressmen to begin on January 3rd and the President and VP on January 20th. Because the Amendment, by its own terms, did not take effect until the following October, the first January 20th Presidential inauguration did not occur until 1937…
And if American Presidential festivities don’t excite you (and why should they?), then there’s always this tomorrow….
And now that you have something to look forward to on your Friday, let’s get to answering Melanie’s Share Your World questions for this week!
Fun fact: Squirrel appreciation was part of FDR’s New Deal.
Fill in: ‘If I were really completely honest, I would say that …’ This is a question for ‘radical honesty’.
I’m always completely honest… I just rarely share my points of view that I know will cause contention, which I’m not going to entertain.
So since I’ll take a Mr. Fox as usual, here’s someone to field this question for me who has no problem with being brutally honest…
SNUGGLE: ‘Sup?
Hey Snuggle! Since you don’t seem to have a verbal filter, would you mind sharing some of your radically honest thoughts with us?
SNUGGLE: Does this mean I can talk about Mitzi’s melons?
Errrrr, I think we already know your honest opinion on Mitzi’s…. um, melons. Tell us a few things you’ve been wanting to say that will shock the audience!
SNUGGLE: Uhhhh…. yeah, sure! Well….. I think that….. ummmmm….. damn, what can I be honest about? Uhhhh….. I liked New Coke.
Come on, Snuggle! You spout off offensive and tactless comments all the time! This is one moment you can freely let it all out without fear of reprisal!
SNUGGLE: ……………………. Fuck, man, this is hard when you expect me to actually be an asshole!
Oh, so you’re saying you have performance issues?
SNUGGLE: I didn’t say that!!! I can get hard as a rock at the drop of a hat!
BIG SCRAT: (Dropping his fedora) Hmmmmm…. seems you’re being bluntly honest about that, Snuggie Wuggie Teddy Bear… quite a blunt instrument indeed! Or maybe you’re just excited about present company!
SNUGGLE: NO!!!! This is just….. er….. random wood! These things just happen…. (Flick!) YEOW!
BIG SCRAT: And such fine random wood it is, if I may be so honest! Too bad it’ll just have to just flop around while I inject you with my truth serem…
SNUGGLE: I…. just thought of some radically honest things to say! (Being dragged backstage) Can I have a mulligan? Helllllllllllllllllpppppppppppppppppp!!!!!!!!!!
Have you ever broken anything? What about rules?
So much for his budding SCT career…
That will teach me not to just slam my bags in the trunk of the car when I buy something fragile…
Are you also afraid of spiders? What is your biggest fear, other than spiders?
I don’t like spiders, but I hardly fear them…. especially given how overly dramatic so many others are around them…
Sure, let’s shake hands… all eight of them.
My biggest “irrational” fear is lightning. Now, you might say it’s not irrational to be afraid of lightning… though the truth is you could run around for hours in a raging thunderstorm holding up an aluminum baseball bat and most likely would never get struck because there’s a reason lightning strikes come up when one talks about a very rare event happening. Many, many people will walk around in a storm like it’s no big deal. Still, I not only won’t go outside when there’s active lightning… but am extremely hesitant to do so even if it just looks ominous enough for lightning to start striking.
But I love watching lightning from someplace where I feel relatively safe from it….
My favorite lightning strike ever!
Do you think time goes faster as you get older?
Of course not, time passage is a subjective notion that is skewed by how much time we have to compare it to in our past memories. When you’re seven years old, a month is to your entire life as half a year would be to someone in their forties…. or a year to someone in their eighties. It’s the toilet paper roll illusion…
This is where Zeeba the Reaper steps in…
Please share something that really inspired you from this last week or month.
Speaking of the passage of time…
Evil Squirrel's Nest 
we love that toilet paper roll illusion… we think as we were kidlets our life wasn’ as interesting as it is now, therefore it needed an eternity till you were allowed at the movies ( darned movie-witch, I sure was 16 and dressed with my mom’s shoes and painted like the best oeuvre by Miro, I sure looked older than the 13 years I was)
The paradox of life…. you can’t wait to grow up, and then when you do, you wish you were younger again.
yep… I never got the idea to buy an anti wrinkle cream for 130 bucks as I was 13 ;o))))
Lightening is your kryptonite, eh? Go figure.
I have a great story about the time I went up Pikes Peak with my family when we vacationed in Colorado 25 years ago. There was a lightning storm and I ran like a madman from the van to the gift shop. That didn’t end so well at 14,000 feet above sea level….
Lightning in the mountains can be terrifying (and not just for the wildfire potential). I don’t blame you!
Friends with that spider??? Oooh!
I’ll bet he’d like some acorns! Or maybe blood….
Erhmmrr *koff koff* Um Thanks for Sharing YOUR World E.S. I thanked you in that specific manner because that spider does NOT exist in my universe. It couldn’t possibly or I’d be deader than Buster ™ after a particularly bad day. Gah. Spiders brrrrrr. But. I give you credit that lightening is far more frightening (and more deadly) than even humogous evil arachnids that hide in holes and pop out to say Hello! Be friends? Uh, no. That’s doomed because my overriding wish to see such as you dead would make friendship impossible. And really short lived. I was going to comment on Snuggle’s ‘honesty’ (I knew something that adorable and cuddly couldn’t really be a pedo…Scrat toy). But I think the word skit covered every possible base and a few that probably haven’t been thought of!
Aw shtuff. ….probably haven’t been thought of 😲 😜 I am sorry about the glowing squirrel figurine, but isn’t that what Gorilla Glue ™ was invented for? To stick broken bits back on other bits of… you get it. Have a great week Bill!
Super/Gorilla/Krazy/Godzilla Glue never works! Literally never works! Those pieces were too thin to really glue back on anyway…. but I did fit the big piece back in so he doesn’t have a huge hole in his side anymore…
You have squirrel appreciation in the same post with FDR? Very fitting.
I believe it was his predecessor Hoover who called for a bird in every pot…
It was Hoover (when he wasn’t selling vacuum cleaners door-to-door).
Shame on you, putting poor Snuggle on the spot like that. He’s a spontaneous fibber, he can’t lie on demand!
Wouldn’t it be cool if you could say “I’m taking the Mr Fox” in court.
Now I desperately want to be a witness in some high profile trial so I can invoke my right to take the Mr. Fox on the stand! The judge would probably give me a worse sentence than the defendant…
I will enjoy appreciating our squirrels today – they have been appreciating us as we have kept “their” birdfeeders loaded during the snows this past week. The golden squirrel would have made a great pet for Hung Lo…..I said PET, not MEAL.
Pam
Snowy squirrels will appreciate all the extra feed JUST FOR THEM! Mine only have to put up with the brutal cold (7 degrees as I type), but they’ll get some extra from me today as well…