Why is it cold in Duluth / Recollections

 So, skipping past the food orders, etc., and cutting to the chase here: The Cheese domands, ( politely ), to inspect this " mineral ", deposit, that Ralphie is interested in, and so Ralphie announces, using his " best " beaverish accent: Okay, everybody, her Cheeseship will be taking a little nap, right now, and the 3 of us, well, just think of it as we are going to use the " rest " room.  And please do not worry about this hammer, as it not the way it looks. PLEASE DO NOT PANIC !!! We will be back ... So, then, a bit of a panic did follow when Skylander, Bloomer, and Ralphie disappeared at the same time the Cheese slumped in her seat.  So, the details of what occurred around that afore mentioned mineral deposit, well that could be a long story, but briefly, Ralphie gave the Cheese some design info on how the folks of X or Y, might be able to advance their ballon technology, and they returned and finished their meal, took their leave, wandered around for ...

  So, now the three-some is directed by the host, to the table, and " doffing ", ( really ), his hat/cap, Ralphie introduces the group as follow: Madame la Cheese, ( best beaverish accent ), my name is Ralphy Bogart, and this young lady is < he can do the paragraph pefectly, with an " Inner " Alterian accent  >, from the Altarian Federation, and our esteemed colleague Mike Henry , from Earth.   The Cheese:  My goodness, Earth you say ? Never heard of it. But really hear on X or Y, we don't  get that much information from the " outside ", except through lthe Encyclopedia, and frankly I don't put a lot of stock in their material ... But do tell me, Mr. Henry, about this Earth. Bloomer:  Well, ma'm not that much to say really, just kind of an ordinary planet, goes round and round.  We have , in my opinion, some great clouds, and near where I live , not far, there is a Grand Canyon.   The Cheese:  A canyon, and a grand one, as wel...

 Now, this trio , very near the French Beaver Bistro, maintained by a family of French Beavers, from the Frenchier area of X or Y, are heading into the joint , Ralphie, taking position in the back , because he can't stop giggling, and has decided to go -- no sunglasses -- , because he's got one of those " wider " brimmed hats, and glasses would probably be overkill. Now, there a a few things you need to know about >> Po Ba << Beavers.  Now, you may know, that this concepts of  the >> Po Ba <<, goes way back, to the time of Christer Robin and Pooh, at which time Pooh, was mistakenly mispronounced as Po, and Bear of course as Ba.  So, as to be brief , Beaver Po Ba's generally like " buttons ", in particularly , shinny buttons, that will , " show off ", there natural furs. Also, if you go into one of these " swankerier " French Beaver Bistros, you will also find like , front of the house , with the white collars, ...

 You can see how possibly complicated this can get , very quickly .... And so, to summorize more or less; what we got is mostly the following: Bloomer and Skylander some how lose a vote against Ralphie; in other words, they lost a vote 2 to 1 ???, because the Hamburler voted with Raphie, and then the 'ol hologrphic coin toss, ( do holographic coins , really , have two sides ? ).  Then the call to the Encyclopedia to get a fix on the Big Cheese ...  Okay, before I finish that, there is the issue of Big Cheese, right?  Why would the numero uno on a planet of beavers be called ,  a Big Cheese?  Probably several books, by accompished authors of their times, even among the classic writers of the Altarian Republic, do examine this curious topic, however, no really, conclusive proof, has yet been found , on the matter.  ( sounds like another Encyclopedia (smoke screen) ? ) ... Now, back to that summary, Skylander, of course, speaks to the Enclycodia, and is m...

 So, it may be possible that Aristotle is to blame for all the problems in the world.  Regardless of what Alexander did or did not do, it strikes me that Aristotle had very little to do with that, because , suppose Aristotle spent Alexander a message, using the most up to date technology availabe in ancient Macedonia. And he says: Alexander, my dear boy, you should hang it up when you get to Egypt, and head on home, 'cause you might not make it all the way on that route we discussed.  Just respond with 200 trumpets at 50 minute intervals for 2 days, if you got this message. BFF, and be careful in Egypt. Okay, obviously did not work for Alexander , but for Julius Caesar, hanging out was fine by him. And ,as far as I know, Alexander was not an issue for the Chinese. And so the crew, with Ralphie appearing as Ronald McDonald with Hamburgler, were busy discussing their strategy and even purposing venturing to the actual surface.  But, as Ralphie/Ronald had detected down ...

 Now, there may be some who might ask, if these guys/gals are so darn smart, why don't they just plot a course to some point they will be at in the future and then continue in that way, til they get to their final destination.  As appealing as that idea might seem, we will skip that unless it becomes truly and absolutely necessary. And so, the next convient planet turns out to be the planet - X or Y - ., and it would not suprise you to learn that the planet X or Y , is somtimes called the planet Y or X, by some people.  For now, I believe we will stick with X or Y. So, after a good deal of conversation they decide that they will just circle around above the atmosphere and gather some information or data from above, utilizing what is called, the top down method.  And so, they discover rather quickly that they have arrived on a planet , on which, the dominant species is in fact the beaver.  This particular beaver populated planet is populated by a very large numbe...

 And so to begin part III, we need to know one simple but quite important facr; these folks are not in New York City or anywhere near there.  Infact, where they are, is  the big issue, but the really big issue for the threesome right now is, how irritating Ralphie can be with his Humphrey Bogart holograms, like the guy in the easy chair sipping, I suppose sipping ???, on holographic scotch, with his holographic Chesterfields , or the desk where he rolls his own.  Then of course his overly frequent use of the term " doll " , when refering to anyone of the female gender, which is extremely hard four someone from the Altarian Federation to hear, because they have no , I mean zero, old time movies like that there.  I suppose you might be able to get a copy from the Galactic Encyclopedia, but that would surely cost you. So, the crew decided, Raphly must limit Bogart holograms to less than 20% of his total holograhic projection time.  Of course neither Skylander ...

 So, quite oddly at this point Lillian turns to Dr. Z, and says: Tell us about this violin player you spoke of, and Dr. Z : Well, some time back my friend met an old Dr. down is Princeton, who did enjoy himself some fiddling music.  My friend eventually got into working doing Humphrey Bogart impressions in the Catskills, but that was later.  Anyway, the old man had a joke about photons. Which goes like this: You know why photons are all free ?  ( No ? ) .. Well, it's just that they have --- no --- charge, not a one of 'em. So, not sure what happened to my friend, a curious fellow, but he did do that Humphrey Bogart routine, in the Catskills, somewhere ... And when he said somewhere, they all felt something in there stomachs, like perhaps these Oster-berries where not such a good year. And Lillian said: Might land that in Newark, but around here it would probably --- just bomb. So, with that , it was pretty much , upward and onward, on account of it was Thursday, and ...

 So, how do you make a long stroy short ?  Well, focusing in on picking up or dropping off; it turns out that a lot of public transportation has two doors so that they can pick up and drop off.  However, most or all public school buses do not; and therefore, a school bus can only pick up or drop off... That may sound a bit complication however: Dr. Z:  Lillian, I really did value this time , and really did find you humor to be vibrant as in packs a punch.  Where did you get your rythm ? Lillian:  Well sir, if I must admit it was mostly the Boston Symphony.  But as I have worked for other musical organizations, I hate to say it but, mostly the same .... Dr.Z. Reminds me of a friend of a friend who used to play the violin. Susan:  Well, you do know Maggie and my grandfather did play the violin. Maggie:   Perhaps a little too often ??? Susan:  Well, perhaps but nobody is really that perfect. Tin Man:  However, a lot of people are ...

 So it seems we have arrived at da' fork, which it seems is conviently tucked into most fiction, on account of , well builds " drama " , towards the end.  If you examine this fork you will find the classic >>> left <<<  and maybe, usually, a classic <<<< right >>>>>, which way is right or left usually resolves in the end.   Of course, as you see, coming back the other way, meaning say, coming back from the future to your present, well, you'd have reverse that <<<< right >>>>>, or, >>>>> left <<<<<< ... If perhaps you get mixed up, then. Who knows, maybe, Dorothy ? Which in some ways does sort of bring us back to the tin man, the tigress, the man behind the curtain and Maggie's sister Susan, and obviously Maggie, and those issues about consumption of all them Oster-berries.  There is always these issues about too much, or not enough. So, we do know that i...

 So, very quickly, if you are in New York, and you can tell time ( which, actually does not mean you know what time it is ... ), this quartet was seated, and the choice of beverages was the Oster-berry, and a good year, some vitamin D+, extra-juicy mango mist tonic, and some citrus without a fork.  So Dr. Z got two bottles of ? Oster-berry, ?   Anyway, Lillian begins her act: The folks around town do seem to be getting their ginger up these days, and ... audience: You old hag, why don't you go fry fish in the back where you belong? Lillian:  O, my god, we do have a live oyster in the audience this evening.  Sir, I have a great deal of experience with the slinging of slurs through a microphone, which you do not have, and have been doing this since before your mama patted you on the butt with mineral oil.  So, I might just suggest some breathing excercises , and preferably outside. at which point, one member of the audience seemed to be making his way to...

 Well, a good deal of the literature of the late 1800s surrounds or is somehow connected with this notion of scoundrels and scientists, and of course Samuel Clemens notion that truth >>> is <<< , stranger than fiction, which I suppose brings us to Sherlock Holmes and exactly how >>>> elementary <<<<<, everything really is, and in fact at the beginning of the 20th century, which would be the century preceeding this one, of course, Dr. Einstein himself would have agreed, that in fact, it is all very elementary, but Dr. Einstein may not, in fact, have been, himself, a doctor,/ Doctor at that time ? Anyway, in New York, around 9:00 P.M. , Dr. Z., arrives first ( obviously ), and so , Susan:  Hello, Dr., fine evening, don't you think. Dr. Z:  Good to see you , I am very much looking forward to this show.  Is this your sister Maggie? Susan:  Yes, Maggie this is ( Dr. Z. ) ,  Maggie:  So good to meet you, and I am ...

 This could go different ways, but it is your standard digression, and it's mostly about proof.  Having spent a good deal, if not most of my life trying to prove things, or studying how other people prove other things, this issue has really been a big focus for me.  In fact, my interest in mathematics is mostly concerned with this issue and mathematics mostly falls apart, or turns into something else entirely with out it.   Of course, it becomes of great concern when we enter the realm of judical practices, where in fact somebody has to make a decision about what has been proved, to their satisfaction, and what has not been proved.  Usually, there is more than one person involved, which makes the whole thing perhaps more reliable, but nevertheless, not so easy.   For example, if you could prove ' me ' to ' yourself ', that is for example, if you could anticiapte what I would do next, then I should be able to do the same thing to you, and that does...

 When it comes to tigers/Tigers or tigresses/Tigresses, well, what can you say , really. ??? Lillian , the tigress, lived in the same apartment area, for many years and had many friends in common with the tin man. Her income came mainly from work as a musician, which was something like cello, or oboe, maybe both, but did play in some group or groups with Susan and Maggie's grandfather.  So, it does seem a little odd, that actually Susan nor Maggie had never met her, but it is possible , that they were all at the same events , perhaps years ago ? She did standup comedy as much as four times / week, though maybe less.  It was kind of a stress reliever for her, because people in the audience yelled at her and of course , she did yell back and did have a microphone, so it was kind of a break from rehearsal and performances, during which, individual performers rarely get singled out for that kind of treatment. So, on this particular springish evening she was doing some, " rout...

 Now, if confronted by 3 whys in a row, a reasonable response might be ,, utterly ,,, . If you have two whys in a row, depending on the context or the situation you might be able to make some sense of it, but when you have 3 whys in a row, it gets really difficult, and you might end up in something like Wonderland.  You will note of course that Dorothy , in order to return to Kansas, had to click her heels together 3 times.  What would have happened if she only clicked twice, or once.; maybe, it wouldn't have gone down so well.  Therfore, I must conclude that, why, is something like searching or looking for something. Maybe, something that you lost ?  And that is how it ended up that Susan and Maggie arrived at some comedy club in New York City, waiting for the tin man and the man behind the curtain, on a pleasant New York evening. You know, I just don't know any songs about spring time in New York, and I kind of wonder why ? I am quite certain they do have one....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rm9coqlk8fY  " Senor, Senor "  So prelude to part three, apparently the mixed trio has arrived on a planet where they are busy as beavers.  This you have to see .... Anyway, can't get into too much prelude in part two, but basically it goes like this; there is a comedy club somewhere in New York, and could not tell you where in New York, where the tiger works, sometimes, because the tiger is also employed like regular in some professional music operation, where in fact she did know Maggie's grandfather.  Oddly, the tiger is also good friends with the tin man, as they live in the same apartment building or what you may call it, so have been pretty close friends over many years.  But on this particulsr evening they will all meet up together, meaning, Susan, Maggie, the tin man, and the tiger, as well as the man behind the curtain, i.e. Dr. Z.   They are bound to say something, on account of all of them will be at the same ...

 It turns out that in the last few maybe four yesrs, Dr. Z. had a series of conversations on this topic of democracy with Ralphy, and as it turns out, because there were mutliple conversations during that time,excluding, last Februrary which was about >>> celebrating <<< , and so to try and reproduce the dialog would be mostly futile, but to sum it up, it's something like this: Human behavior really encompasses two main activities: actions and thoughts.  Generally, thoughts preceed activity but that is not always the case.  Activities that are , well guided, involve a good deal of thought, and what we often refer to as planning  and these quite often  resolve to successful conclusions.   These activities involve both collective and individual actions.  Very often,  the probelms we encounter , which might  occur in a variety of ways, on different collective levels; is, those thoughts, which develop in relation to activit...

 All I can say about principals is : if you don't have any, that might be a problem.  If you do have principals, and you have more than one, like say several, then try and get them in a bunch. Now, it's important to skip past the 1990s, not because nothing happened, but as far as democracy is concerned, in relationship to Ralphy , then you just have to consider that it was not until the " early " 2000s that his crankiness increased and that neurosis began to , sort of , sink in. Well, for the Altarians that were monitoring all this, obviously, the neurosis was an issue, but nobody really knew what to do about it, so although some were concerned, they just let it go. But the issue is, what was his perspective in the early 2000s.  Well, both he and Dr. Z, continued to believe that democracy did still mean something.  But looking at the bigger picture at that time, it was kind of like, as they say, the debri hit some fan, all all of a sudden, well, it just seemed to get...

 So it will be necessary to skip past the 1970s , during which time, Ralphy was significantly less cranky. So really it's not until the 1980s that the crankyness is revevant to his thoughts on " democracy ".   During the 1970s Dr.Z was of course, very busy with his business and other things, but probably did find time to travel around with Ralphy, and so they traveled all over the places, like Rome, and Cairo, Madrid, Paris, London, Lima, Winnipeg, Tokyo, etc.  Of course, they also went to less populated locations. You really have to understand that Ralphy was kind of " addicted " to the sound that his rubber would make on the road.  So in terms of sensations, it was primarily sound and smell.  But he did enjoy travel in high traffic situations and therefore, by the 1980s had  pretty good notions about what humanity was getting on about.   So, at some point during the 1980s , Ralphy commented something about democracy kind of revolves around ...

  https://divination.com/iching/lookup/39-2/ I got , basically, achieve balance, in a timely manner, from the Buddhist  I Ching

 So, we can rush down that >>>> deep <<<< rabbit hole or we might just go slowly at this point, at least in my opinion.  Obviously, an idea that is at least 4,000 years old and yet is extremely difficult to describe, is not something that you really need to rush into. So, to start out with the issue of Ralphie vs. Ralphy.  Ralphie is the " Italian " spelling of Ralphy, and the odd thing is that the French might spell it the same way.  The French will likely pronouce that differently. You can go on and on about this spelling as you get into various languages or land masses.  But obviously, sounds very much the same , no matter where you are. So, this democracy thing, is mostly connected to conversations between Ralphy and Dr. Z.  ( Some people do call Dr. Z, the Doctor of AAhhhs. )   Anyways, these conversation begin around 1967 and go on for several decodes, and you can notice over time , how much more cranky, Ralphy does b...

 Anyway, if you were thinking that this might have something to do with democracy, but certainly not Democracy, well, you might be right, or you might be wrong.   From my , personal P.O.V. , well, it's about a dictionary I somehow got from my father.  Now, of course, maybe, conviently, I can not rememeber how I came by this disctionary , but I do know, I used it to try and figure out, what enlightenment might mean.   What do you suppose I found ?  Well, just this, more or less, >>> to be without prejudice <<< .... I was suprised at that time.  No, in fact, I would say, shocked, or SHOCKED and so I showed it to a friend who studied yoga in Indian, and as I recall, he was really not so surprised.  A dictionary might be considered ,,, by some,,, as a dangerous or even DANGEROUS thing, you know ? Some one might even try and figure out what democracy might be, and if , perhaps, they paid enough for their dictionary, they might ev...

 And so, as you might expect this is mostly about hitch hiking, which it seems did increase somewhat in popularity after Kerouac published - On The Road - , at least in my imagination, but it is useful also when dealing with , and talking strictly galactic travel.  See, if you got 10 pellets to run the equipment, and if you know you have already traveled about 100,000 light years, and you really don't know where you are or where you are going, well, guess what, you are probably lost, and if you can't find one of those pellets, well, you may be in serious difficulties. That kind of brings us to the issue of, > is it the pellets, or the light years ? < That was ,of course, not a problem that a young man from Iowa would be facing, as he began hitch hiking to New Yorik, I am pretty sure  this issue of , one last one, what ever that might mean, to a young man from Iowa, in the early 1960s, was not on his mind.  Running into some oldish Studebaker pickup, looking par...

 Before we get into Dr. Z's understanding about democracy or Democracy, and he might have been able to distinguish those two, we have to have a little understanding about Dr. Z and Ralphy, because of course, a lot of Dr. Z's understanding was derived from conversations he had with Ralphy and therefore it is quite important to know that of all the people who did spend time with Ralphy , Dr. Z spent the most.  And Ralphy did like to talk and Dr. Z enjoyed those conversations and so it was good all around. Anyway, before we can get into that, we have to get into Aristotle and Alexander.  We mostly know that Alexander was a student of Aristotle and Alexander did conquer the world, at least to the satisfaction of many people, and a city was built which ended up with possibly all or most of the knowledge of the Ancient world.  And I kind of " blame " Aristotle for this whole, good and bad idea, which it turns out, does seem obvious , but actually, is really hard to prove, ...

 You could also call it, >> all in it's good time <<, or, briefly on the nature of time. But before any of that , Mr. Z, is the man behind the curtain, who is the employer of Susan, Maggie's older sister, who has been employed by Mr. Z, for quite some time and of course they are both licensed professionals.  We have to call Mr. Z, Mr. Z, because he knows, probably too much about Ralphy. How he acquired all that information is not entirely clear.  Could be relatives in Missouri ? And so this is supposed to get into a pointless ramble about time and numbers and things like that, but most everything I write is kind of like that, so might be redundant. We can remain hopeful that part III is not a >>> stupid <<< remake of the African Queen, but traveling through " space ", because that would be kind of >>> stupid <<<.  Also, the key thing is that Maggie has to do something before we get to part III, and also the tin man, the...

 Okay, now as to >> smushing <<, technically, I am currently aware of only one legitate target for smushing, which would  be, 'smores.  I have rarely heard debate, legitamant debate, but I suspect, that once you stray from 'smore, you might end up in , " controversial ",  " waters ", I guess.  And one thing they do say about water is, >>> how deep <<< ???? Oh, this is all about Mother's Day, which really, I do say, with Billie Holiday, in the background, I can only say, not an expert.  However, I do know some things, which I actually wrote down on an index card. I don't know when exactly ,,, Mother's Day ,,, would technically begin or end, but I must note that there are 364, or 365 days, which are not ,,, Mother's Day ,,,  , but only almost >>> everything <<< , seems to have a Mother/mother.... which really comes down to ,,, there are approximately, 365 or maybe 366 days, during which a mother...

 So, obviously drama... See the thing is , all a bunch of lies, involves , all, bunch, and lies.  So, first, what is all ?  Then you have bunch, and nobody will really tell you how much is in a bunch.  Then you have the problem with " lies ".  As I am attempting to write fiction, I do not like to think of it as lies, I like to think it's fiction, and therefore, different.  And certainly fiction sounds better.  Anyway, as you might imagine, this is about the man behind the curtain.  That guy.   The man who seriptiously travels the highways, byways, and other ways of New York City, and possibly the surrounding areas.  So, he's around.  We also know that he gets somehow involved with a librarian, a comedian and well , another gentleman who also worked for the library.   One thing that is very likely in this particular situation is, the man behind the curtain, most likely knows a lot more about Ralphie, perhaps, more than...

 Anyway, trying to meander around New York , at this point in time, to try and get some info from a New York HVAC guy about the weather in Duluth, does seem a bit pointless, in particular if you consider that, the objective clearly is all about >>> advoidence <<< , which means not wanting to do dialog for Humphrey Bogart, traveling across the Galaxy.  So, the first issue I face is how long can I possibly stretch this out, and because New York, is a pretty big city, in a pretty big state, it occured to me , it might get stretched out quite , a good way.   Anway way ,,, apparently ,,, it all comes down to : https://www.herbiehancock.com/ which suprised me, on account of well , what does Herbie Hancock have to do with a librarian, a HVAC guy, and a comedian ?  Well, we can rule out the possibility that Mr. Hancock would be the man behind the current curtain, although, obviously that must happen, but my guess is he is more in front of the curtain. ...

 So, basically, it's hard to know much about the tin man, whose real name is , pretty sure, George, and before he retired he was one of the lead HVAC internal people for the library.  We really can't know much about George without knowing about the Tiger/tiger, who in fact is the tiger, or at any rate a tiger, recongizing that there may be one or more tigers , at least of this type, in New York City.   At any rate, be that as it may be, George did a lot of work with getting rid of stuff.  You know, if you got a library, there is always stuff you have to get rid of.  And , oddly , in the late 1950s , there were an odd assortment of various extremely blurry photos of what George determined was a flying Studebaker pickup.  So, he did destroy over 90% percent of the photos, and really was never sure where they came from, but for some reason he did keep a few, just because he thought they were so , " weird ", ?  Where or how these photos arrived at the...

 So, why we got to New York City, via the Kyber Belt is not clear. But it is a little more clear, the connection with the tin man, if you just think public library, it's pretty clear, who, that particular individual might be.   But , it all may become a lot more clear, from a bit more knowledge , and specifics about, what is going on with the tin man, and motivations, and who he might be or even who he may not be. As to the Kyber Belt,  they do say(who?), or some do say, mostly, a long way.  And they keep telling us, or at least I might infer, the thing keeps getting <<< bigger >>>, all the time ?

 This is really more about / more on, the Tin Man / tin man;  or also a lot about capitalization. Basically, the whole issue is, the story about Maggie, who is, on some kind of a journey, as we all mostly are ,  and this journey is most likely along the --- old road ---, on account of, as some may know better than others, that all life's secrets are found, there. So , Maggie must interact with the three characters, of course, perhaps the man behind the curtain, may be of least concern at this point, but certainly right now we must distinguish between the tin man and/or the Tin Man.  If there is a Tin Man, then at least for right now , that Tin Man, is not the tin man in this story, or journey , or what have you. The tin man is a real person who lives, in or around New York City, and in some way, interacts with Maggie in order for her to reach some goal.  We do know that some of that would or might occur a long that old road.  Oddly perhaps, on account of, a...

 What can we know, seriously, about a man made out of tin ?  We , if we can cross the great river of Metaphor , without getting wet, at least , well, life is kind of " un-predicable " , but of course there might always be bits and pieces of metaphor.   So, apparently not very water resistant, however, usually only somewhat affected by heat, however, the issue of cold does seem to be a bit more problematic.   So , brass tacks, we might be pretty sure there are " emotional " issues, , on account of the >>> on going <<<, I we might imagine are , perhaps, on going passions, desires perhaps , which most likely are connected to the actions , connected to being in fact, a tin man, or perhaps, the Tin Man. Now, for some reason this reminds me of Harry Truman, a once upon a President of the U.S.A., who also sold hats, and if that makes really good sense, perhaps, it could not. But how could Maggie, working in the New York library system, possibly e...