BARLEY SERVICES: no ordinary plumber

Another wave of thawing and bursting swept over the city today.  I received a number of calls, nearly all of which I referred to a plumber friend.  I just spoke with him at about 10pm.  He was on his way to his last call of the day. He made over $1,000 today.  I made about $225, but I only worked nine hours and got home around 7:30pm.  I had some friends in trouble and some promises to keep — the kinds of stuff that don’t pay much money.

At the supply house today I learned that one plumbing company was booked three days out and had turned down forty calls.  My customers were lucky that they know me.  All of my callers were served.

I even missed a chance to be in the newspaper.  A reporter whom I know called to ask if he could do a story with pictures about plumbers and frozen pipes, but I had to decline since I was spending the day doing mundane stuff.  My fifteen minutes of fame — down the toilet.  Story of my life.

Much bemoaning has been heard in the last decade about how divided America has become.  I think we’ve gotten past that this week.  Across all racial and religious lines, despite Marxist leftism and Americanist rightism, irrespective of age, college football team loyalty, or propensity toward cell phone moronism, America has come together to say with one common voice:

It’s too darned cold.

Yahoo Weather told me at 7:00am that it was five degrees out on the streets of Memphis. That’s just downright disrespectful. My phone began ringing at 7:30 as victims reported waking up to frozen pipes.  Those pipes have been just fine for twenty three years, but nooooooo, the weather had to dive down to South Dakota levels and wreak havoc across our beloved southland.  And I don’t even want to know what South Dakota is like today.

In fact, that last paragraph was written over a bowl of beef stew at Jason’s Deli on Highland.  This paragraph is being composed at home ten hours later.  What happened, you ask?  A housewife called me in the middle of lunch to complain that bucketfuls of water were pouring through her ceiling.  Some women have a low tolerance for that sort of thing, so I closed my laptop and headed for the truck.  En route to her house, another girl called with a similar problem.  Before I could finish that conversation, I received a third call: water pouring through the ceiling.  I got home at 9:20pm.  Mankind was not created to live like this.

It’s getting better.  The forecast for tonight shows a low of 23 degrees, which is a far sight better than five.  It’s supposed to climb into the 60s by the weekend.  But for tonight, I can’t bear the thought of opening a refrigerator door.

This week’s news stories would make you think that the sky had fallen or the Lord had returned to establish his kingdom or something. Marijuana was legalized.

This is hardly a big deal. You still can’t smoke it in public, so stoners will have to do it in private. How is this different, pray tell, from what they were doing before?

“But it’s legal now!” Again, I have to ask, “So what?” Everybody who wanted to smoke dope was already doing it, and practically nobody was getting caught (since cops have other things to worry about).

There are three distinct arguments among my libertarian friends for legalizing recreational drugs:

1. People should be free to do as they please, except for fraud or the initiation of force.
2. The effects of prohibition are worse than the effects of legalization.
3. The benefits of legalization are too attractive to pass up.

The first argument is an assumption based on atheism. Since there is a God and he has given certain rights and responsibilities to the State (and others to individuals), the first argument is powerless, although it does provide a powerful tool for criticizing government actions.

The third argument is profoundly unsound. No amount of tax revenue could justify an otherwise evil action.

I have a lot of sympathy with the second argument. The “War on Drugs” has been the most colossal failure of anything government has ever done (and readers, that’s saying a lot!) It seems incontrovertible that nothing is going to stop people from doing dope. Why, then, sink hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars into the effort?

This argument says nothing about the morality of using drugs. Instead, it says something about the purpose and responsibilities of the State.

There is a higher level on which the issue might be discussed, too, and that is the matter of personal responsibility. I favor a world where people can take their chances and take their losses. The old saying is that to protect people from the consequences of their folly will be to fill the world with fools.

There was a time when drugs were legal. You could buy heroin at the pharmacy. “Dope fiends” were scarce. That day could return.

Two Middle East mothers are sitting in a cafe
chatting over a plate of tabouli and a pint of
goat’s milk.

The older of the two pulls a small folder out of
her handbag and starts flipping through photos.
They start reminiscing.

“This is my oldest son, Mujibar. He would have
been 24 years old now.”

“Yes, I remember him as a baby,” says the other
mother cheerfully.

“He’s a martyr now, though,” the mother confides.

“Oh, so sad, dear…” says the other.

“And this is my second son, Khalid. He would have
been 21.”

“Oh, I remember him,” says the other happily.
“He had such curly hair when he was born.”

“He’s a martyr too…” says the mother quietly.

“Oh, gracious me…” says the other.

“And this is my third son, my baby. My beautiful
Ahmed. He would have been 18,” she whispers.

“Yes,” says the friend enthusiastically, “I
remember when he first started school…”

“He’s a martyr also,” says the mother, with tears
in her eyes.

After a pause and a deep sigh, the second Muslim
mother looks wistfully at the photographs and,
searching for the right words, says . . .

“They blow up so fast, don’t they?”

Before Marguerite first called me for plumbing service in November of 2002, I had never heard of her. She identified herself as Marguerite Bergtholdt, which was her married name, and told me that she’d gotten my name from her daughter-in-law Veronica.

When I entered her home at 2813 Central Avenue, I just assumed that she was one more well-to-do lady like so many other customers I’ve served. She left me alone near the stairs while she finished tending to her bedridden husband, Harry. I began studying the trophies, plaques, posters, newspaper clippings, and photographs that covered the walls where I stood and slowly got an idea of who she was. When I acknowledged what I’d been looking at upon her return, she simply observed, “Well, I’ve lived a long life.”

I became a regular visitor to Marguerite’s home, mostly for plumbing purposes. I was always amazed by the force of her personality and the liveliness of her mind. I spent many hours, all told, sitting at her table and talking, but mostly listening.

Harry died in ’03. The day of the funeral (March 18th), the kitchen sink stopped up. I was over there that morning to straighten it out. They all left for the funeral and I left a bill and locked up on the way out. I managed to get loose from my jobs long enough to attend the services at St. Louis Catholic Church.

Marguerite was gracious enough to come to my church a couple of times, and it was my privilege to chauffeur her and her daughter Shirley.

Many obituaries and testimonials will pour forth in the next few days to retell some part of the story of this amazing woman. My contribution is meager: she was kind to me and it was an honor to serve her for these ten years.

(1) All electioneering ads shall be banned from the airwaves. All of them. From president to dog catcher.

(2) All such ads shall be banned from cable or Internet locations where they interrupt other viewing, such as pop-ups or ads you have to watch before another video begins.

(3) All visual ads shall be limited to 8-1/2″ x 11″ in size. No billboards or yard signs or newspaper ads may be larger than that.

If a voter wants to learn about the candidates, he can pick up literature (8-1/2″ x 11″) anywhere the campaign makes it available: checkout counters, libraries, etc. There will be plenty of web sites he can visit. His friends can give him a list of phone numbers he can call to have info mailed to him. The permissible avenues of communication are abundant.

This reform accomplishes three things. First, it makes election time less repulsive. Second, it lowers the stupidity level of the process, since the voters have to read and inquire in order to form opinions. Third, it guts the power of money, since all candidates are limited to simple sheets of paper and web sites. Maybe there’s a way to ban direct mail; I haven’t got that one figured out yet.