"Your Voice That Bridges The Area Communities Together."
Charlie Melton
By Charlie Melton
I’m scheduled for the Covid-19 vaccine and I truly don’t know what to do. My friends have already taken the shot. My family wants me to get vaccinated. I’m trying to decide if it will be a benefit to my fellow man, or a detriment to society and to the species. I am, after all, of little consequence. In a few years, I’ll be forgotten. According to some, I’m a Deplorable and my life is an imposition. [Read more...]
Charlie Melton
By Charlie Melton
Rush Limbaugh just passed on to that radio studio in the sky. I’ve been a fan for as long as he’s been a force on the airwaves. While I haven’t always agreed with him, I always admired his willingness to say the opposite of what everyone else was saying. He was the inverse of mainstream and some people loved him for it. [Read more...]
Charlie Melton
By Charlie Melton
The Leviathan is a huge, bloated beast from the Bible. It translates to something like “US Postal Service”. I have made fun of them for years, and in return, they punish me.
Charlie Melton
By Charlie Melton
Pastor Jeff is what they call a “Hard-Shell Baptist.” He was only in his twenties, but when he preached you could smell the brimstone. You didn’t doze during Jeff’s sermons. He kept us engaged at church, and even had us spending our Saturdays beating on doors and witnessing. We believed.
On no particular Sunday morning, the house was packed, as was typical. During the sermon, a Deacon came into the sanctuary from a side door. His voice boomed, “Preacher, the nursery is on fire.” Lots of us, me included, got up and ran towards the nursery to save the children. The Preacher screamed into the PA, “Stop! It’s not on fire. Stop! Take your seats.” We were unsure what was going on, but we filed back to our pews. It was a setup, a stunt, a lesson, from the Deacon and the Pastor. [Read more...]
Charlie Melton
By Charlie Melton
I’ve joked about boycotting businesses for years. I joked that at one time, I boycotted so many places it was getting hard to do business anywhere. I’m just about there again, but it’s no joke.
I think my current state of discontent began with my insurance company, USAA. Like most insurances, the fee seems to creep up every year or so. Still, I stuck with them because they’re especially for military personnel and their families. That is, until last fall when I received an email from them. [Read more...]
Charlie Melton
By Charlie Melton
Where are the graves? We’re in the winter of a worldwide, deadly pandemic, but where are the graves?
I love walking through old graveyards. Maybe it’s morbid, but I find it interesting and calming. I love seeing the old stones, sometimes handmade, with their icons and poetry barely legible. It’s in an old cemetery in Columbia, Illinois that I noticed several gravestones of children and young adults who were in one section. They all died in late 1918. I assume that they’re victims of the Spanish Flu epidemic in 1918. [Read more...]
Charlie Melton
By Charlie Melton
Late one night when everything is quiet, a weird coast declares Christmas public enemy # 1. They’ve learned that white folks are bad. Writing in capitals is “aggressive.” Now, my favorite thing in the world is on the chopping block. Wait, pie is my favorite thing and it’s OK for now. Sarcasm, my next favorite thing, is considered verbal violence. Sarcasm has been targeted as violent speech that could make someone get confused or cry. Before sarcasm is outlawed, please follow along. Not that I’m trying to oppress you, if you choose to read along it’s quite alright. You’re in charge of whatever you want to do. [Read more...]
Charlie Melton
By Charlie Melton
“I heartily accept the motto, "That government is best which governs least"; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe — "That government is best which governs not at all"; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have.”-Henry David Thoreau, in ‘Civil Disobedience’, ca. 1849. [Read more...]