October 17, 2020

By Dan Hall
Tribune Contributor

(Note: Our old friend, Rip Van Winkle, hereafter just known as “Rip,” is woken up from his long slumber in January, 2022. A “nod of the head” to a short story by the American author Washington Irving, first published in 1819. It follows a Dutch-American villager in colonial America named Rip Van Winkle who meets mysterious Dutchmen, imbibes their liquor and falls asleep in the Catskill Mountains. He awakes 20 years later to a very changed world, having missed the American Revolution).

So, how do you feel after your slumber, Rip?
Rip: “Very rested thank you, so what time is it? I must have fallen asleep.”

Oh, yes you did, Rip, quite a long “nap” …..of fourteen months!
Rip: You will never guess what I was dreaming….I think I must have drifted off just before the 2020 elections in the Colonies.

Well, Rip, as you may recall, we don’t call ourselves the Colonies anymore. After the American Revolution, we became the United States of America, or USA, but most of us just say we are Americans.
Rip: Yeah, that’s right, I just forgot for a minute…. WOW does time fly when I take a nap!

What were you dreaming, Rip?
Rip: This is going to sound really strange, but, I was dreaming that a frail 78 year-old nearly senile man was running for US President, but really thought he was running for the US Senate….how crazy is that? And, you won’t believe this, but I dreamed he picked a totally unqualified person to run as his Vice President, saying he did so just because of her skin color!

Well, Rip, when you dreamed you must have remembered some of the news coverage just before you fell asleep.
Rip: “But the really weird part was I dreamed he won the election and picked a crazy cabinet.”

So, who did he pick to run our federal government?
Rip: “Now this is where it gets really “funky” bro. Now I can’t recall everyone he named, but here is what I do remember:
First, because she had done so well destroying her tapes and lost computer files, he picked Hilary Clinton, as his new/old Secretary of State.
Second he asked, Beto O’Rourk, of Texas, to become Secretary of Defense so he could use the military to “roundup” all those guns and bibles that conservatives like to carry.
Next, as I recall, he asked, Bernie Sanders, to “head up” the US Treasury Department, because of his keen understanding of socialist economics.
Last, and this is about all I can recall, he named, Elizabeth Warren, to be chief of his Department of Interior, because of her personal knowledge of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

WOW! Rip, you really had a vivid dream. Do you recall anything else?
Rip: Yes, but only in bits and pieces. I remember that gasoline prices went from $1.74 per gallon to $7.54 a gallon when fracking was banned. Then, I remember a fellow named Trump, I think was his name, that actually won the election on November 3, 2020, but then lost after the late mail-in ballots were all finally counted on January 3, 2021. Then that 78-year-old forgetful man was joyfully declared the winner by CNN.

Well, Rip, that was some dream you had.
Rip: But you haven’t heard the last thing I dreamed.

And what was that, Rip?
Rip: Well, guess what, after that old guy won the election, he died three days later in what the main stream media called an “unexplained airplane crash,” allowing his Vice President Harris to be inaugurated on January 20.

Sorry, to “rain on your vivid dream,” Rip, but you need to be wide awake. That guy, Trump, while he did lose the popular vote, he again won in the Electoral College vote, having carried every “swing state.”

Now, Rip, you can go back to sleep, but please try not to have any more frightening nightmares. We “Colonists” would just like to keep our American Revolution.

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