At the local meeting with our representatives, the banning of books came up. One banned book cited by Rivera was "To Kill a Mockingbird." Newton said the state superintendent of schools banned it due to depiction of slavery. Murdock said he had no problem with the book. What right does the state superintendent or anyone else have to say what we can and cannot read?

There was a hubbub years ago about television content. Again, someone was trying to control what we watched. A wise cousin of mine figured it out. If you don't like what you are seeing, change the channel. The same goes for the books. If you think you will be offended, either don't read it, or read and draw your own conclusions. Slavery, war, romance, murders and thieves are all part of life and history. What happened happened, and erasing or whitewashing it makes us susceptible to repeating our mistakes. I am fed up with the government, news media, and numerous groups telling me what to think. What scares me more is I am old and know mostly how to sort the bull out, but the younger generations are bombarded with falsehoods, government lies and biased media stories, and might follow the freedom takers blindly.

I usually take commercials at face value, and enjoy the humorous ones, but I was offended by one recently. In an extended warranty ad, it shows a lady distraught about the cost, and has a mechanic singing a money-money song and throwing money in the air. It gives the illusion that mechanics are dishonest and overcharge customers. There are mechanics that do overcharge, misdiagnose a problem and pass their mistake on to the customer. For every shady shop and owner, there are hundreds of legitimate mechanics around. Car repairs are really expensive now.

On a related note, I got so bored the other night I started to call Jake at State Farm to see what he was wearing.

I get calls from companies wanting to send me Covid tests, back braces or any number of things I don't want. I always tell them to not send me anything and not to charge Medicare for anything using my name. Sure enough, I received a couple of boxes I didn't order. One I sent back unopened but did open the second thinking it was something I had ordered. This is a government sponsored fraud and waste of my tax dollars. By the way does anyone need some home Covid tests? I have six I will give someone.

I don't answer many of these calls unless they could be from someone I know, or a customer wanting to buy parts. If I do answer one and the caller wants to know about my pain, I usually agree I do have pain, mostly in my behind (stronger description). I ask them if they have any cure for the butt-pain I get from telemarketers' calls. Some of them need their mothers to wash their mouths out with soap for the bad words they tell me.

Redneck logic: Chemistry teacher, "What is barium?" Student, "That's what you do after you killum,"

Hot weather is on the way, so let's all be safe out there, and God bless.