.Friday Firesmith

friday firesmith – the summer of 2026

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We are a couple of days into July, yet the heat and the humidity are already trying to kill me. Technically, Summer is only a week or so old, but the reality is this one is shaping up to be one of the hottest Summer on record. I remember a time when September offered some relief but now that month has become August 2.0. October begins warm, but at least the days are shorter, but even that brings its own misery.

With leaves falling not because of cooler weather but the lack of sunlight, October has a unique talent for radiation poisoning late in the day. We started noticing this years ago, but now the heat is making it worse. Temperatures are not going down in the autumn of the year, and even Thanksgiving and Christmas have become accustomed to eighty-degree heat.

Tropical Storm Arthur formed briefly in the northern part of the Gulf of Mexico and brought a lot of rain, five inches in two days for South Georgia, and yes, we needed it, but that seems to be a trend in the last few years; wet storms coming out of the Gulf of Mexico bringing a lot of rain all at once. A pattern is forming, lots of hot dry weeks followed by a flood, followed by drought.

Of course, it’s not very smart to extrapolate climate from a few years of weather, but a trend seems to be forming. This is not the world I grew up in.

In 1998, the temperature hit one hundred and five and an asphalt crew mutinied. All of them quit at one time, and their supervisor vowed to fire all of them. I was out there with them and had a nineteen-year-old guy they just hired to be out there with me. He quit. They allowed him to come back but he never worked with me again.

I remember the next day, which was Saturday, I was cooked. I stayed inside all day and drank beer. I had never been so exhausted in my life. I also stopped daring the heat to kill me.

The woods, which for twenty-five years have been clear of underbrush now is crowded with fast growing weeds. Dog fennel, beauty berries, and a host of other plants I’ve never seen around here have exploded from the now fertile and suddenly unshaded woods. I lost dozens of trees in the floods and the hurricanes, and some are still toppling over.

Now, however, the big thing is heat.

I can mow, and I’m using a push mower because gas is $3.60 a gallon, and before nine in the morning it’s not hellish. It’s light enough to see by about seven. I have two hours a day to do what I can before the heat gets to the point I know it’s going to drag me down more than the actual work.

At 65, I can still function in this environment and do well, but I wonder what this will be like in five years.

Take Care,

Mike

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friday firesmith – the fool and his pool

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A Tragedy on “The Strait of Warm-Ooze”

Trump gave a no bid contract to a donor to redo the Reflecting Pool and turned them loose with no oversight.

Had this all been done in a reasonable manner nothing would have ever been said about it. Had  the contract been let through normal channels, had the contractor been reputable, had the work not been “done by my birthday” and had process been held in higher regard than personality, we would not be talking about this.

But no.

It had to be done by the biggest White Trash Event in American history. It had to be done the way that Trump wanted it to be done, and when he wanted, and how he wanted, and that, my friends, is the problem and nothing else.

The problem was caused by one man wanting things his way and he got it. The solution was also his, and because everyone knows he doesn’t like to be told no, staffers were pouring gallons of Hydrogen Peroxide into the pool and clearly, that didn’t work. It actually made things worse, which is also something Trump is famous for.

But things went south in a bigly way. The algae bloom turned the pool a sickly color green usually associated with horror movies and Ghost Busters. That was bad enough. But the “American Flag Blue” paint that the pool was painted on Trump’s demand, began to peel away. Hydrogen Peroxide is a paint stripper, it seems. But it got even uglier. The seal that Trump wanted in the pool began to disintegrate and come loose.

Trump did what Trump does. He at first blamed Obama, who hasn’t been in office in a decade. He then blamed Biden.

Then came the photos of the Trump motorcade riding in the pool before it was filled with water. I’m not sure what sort of sealant or paint they used, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t designed for vehicle traffic.

Having no traction with blaming former presidents, Trump then went deep and declared “Antifa” did it, and arrested people who were doing more than taking giant flakes of paint out of the pool.

Then came the fences and razor wire to protect the green pond from terrorists.

All of this, every moment of this disaster has been paid for by taxpayers. And it’s just beginning. The damage has to be reversed. In a just and true world, the contractor would be on the hook for repairs. But in Trump World, the taxpayers pick up the tab for every whim and every mistake.

Had this not been “on time for my birthday” the process would have worked itself out. And even if issues had arisen, again, the contractor would have to pay.

But Trump will make you pay again, and again, and again, for his mistakes and vanity.

Take Care,

Mike

Admin note: Does anyone else think the pool contractor looks like a movie villain?

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friday firesmith – I ran: How Trump lost a war and went TACO

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In the end, Venezuela was far too easy. The people around Trump saw in this the opportunity to stroke his ego to the point of dizziness, and so the war on a country barely able to defend itself led to Trump believing if he could murder fishermen in South America, he could get away with it anywhere he went.

Isreal called and said they were about to bomb Iran, so Trump took an already deficient carrier and tired sailors who just really needed a bathroom break, and he headed toward the Gulf of Hormuz.

In 1953 the CIA overthrew the elected government of Iran and inserted the Shah of Iran in the place of the will of the Iranian people. Oil was the reason and keeping the people of Iran subdued meant doing those things the CIA does to people.

In 1979, the Shah was chased out of the country by radical Muslims, and despite some low grade action, peace has more or less held up until the point Trump decided he could bomb Iran into a nation he could use.

Iran responded by flinging missiles at everyone but Liechtenstein.

Trump responded by bombing a girl’s school and killing 165 people.

Whoever doing the targeting for Trump, and we can only hope and pray it wasn’t Pilsner Pete Kegsbreath, either did it on purpose or was just popping targets for the hell of it.

But Iran was a lot more precise. They destroyed or rendered unusable nearly every military installation in the Middle East owned and operated by the United States. Meanwhile, the carrier Gerald R Ford had to take a bathroom break when their washer and dryer set caught on fire.

A raid to kidnap the Iranian nuke material caused two cargo planes and a helicopter to be destroyed.

Iran, who Trump demanded “unconditional surrender” closed the Strait of Hormuz. Oil prices and gasoline prices went through the roof overnight. In the meanwhile, Isreal, who started all this, is bombing everyone they can reach and blaming terrorists.

China starts helping Iran, and Trump forgives Putin and drops all sanctions on Russia.

Trump begins to panic. His base is cracking. This looks like an endless war from the beginning and shows no signs of improving.

Trump offers Iran everything they wanted just to open the Strait of Hormuz and stop the war. Iran gets billions of dollars, the right to set up a toll booth on the Strait, and reparations.

Trump gets nothing, except the ire of the American people.

Let’s step back a moment. Remember the murdered children? To a lot of ethnic Persians, which most Iranians claim to be, those dead children represent a Blood Feud.

Iran now controls most of the world’s oil transportation, have money to burn, and the United States cannot seem to fix the toilets on their largest carrier.

Donald Trump didn’t merely lose a war he went in alone and tried to cowboy his way through, oh no. He pissed off an entire country, gave them money, and a toll booth worth billions more. Iran is rising from the ashes of this war as the preeminent military power in the Middle East.

Trump lost the war, ran away, and after he leaves office, this will be our problem.

Take Care,

Mike

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friday firesmith – hair today, gone tomorrow

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When I was a young teen my first real facial hair was a single black hair that looked like an eyelash that grew on the front of my chin. It’s was my entire beard. Later in life, I grew my hair out long but facial hair grew like weeds on a rock. Finally, in my mid twenties my beard filled out, specked with grey, but my forehead started to grow about the same time.

In 1998, I was working in a town whose grocery store had a Deli and a guy working there had spiked up the hair on his forehead to make it look fuller. I shaved my head that weekend. Nothing looks worse than a balding man trying not to look like he’s lost his hair.  Everyone freaked out, but now it’s normal because most people have never seen me with hair.

But nature is cruel.

I dated a woman who asked me to grow my hair out, just to see how it looked. During the process I was sitting outside a coffee shoppe and a woman dropped some change into my cup. I have to admit my hair, growing out like drunken dandelions. The hair on my forehead was still a no go, but in other places it grew in, and other did not. I looked mangy. I looked like a drug addict whose family had kicked him out for stealing the good silverware.

She brushed my hair one night and was going to trim it and the brush got more than it left. She sighed. The realization was clear: If she wanted a boyfriend with a lot of hair she was going to have to find another one.

That was years ago, and she is, like my hair, long since gone. This morning, however, I found a hair, long, thick, and black, but it was growing out of my ear. The daily shaving and trimming of the ears missed this one, and I could have used it as a flyswatter it was so long. Why? Why is there hair growing in places I have no need for hair yet my head refuses? Worse, how long had I missed executing it, and it was waving around in public like one of those cobras charmed by a flute player?

In the end, I am of an age where people expect me to lose control of some of my grooming habits. I wear mismatched socks, but so far, not shoes. I did show up for six in the morning Pilates with my shirt inside out, but at least it wasn’t backwards. And one day I forgot my underwear and so the whole trip was wasted. You can’t hang out at the gym if you’re hanging out.

            As we age, we lose our hearing, our eyesight, our ability to bend and get up off the floor. In return we get a shiny new head, hair that grows in places it’s not needed, and stories about forgetfulness.

But we are also still alive. The teachers and cops who told me I would never survive myself are all dead now. Life, no matter what form it takes, is victory.

Take Care,

Mike

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friday firesmith – the zombie

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“I want to be a cocaine dealer,” Greg said. It’s not that I asked Greg what he wanted to be when he grew up, but we were both in our twenties, and we were both working as kitchen help at Shoney’s. I had my doubts about Greg’s ideas towards career change, but I didn’t say anything to him.

The next day he didn’t show up for work. I did not attribute his disappearance to his new life as a wealthy drug dealer who was living on the beach with supermodels.

Greg did buy some cocaine, and he sold cocaine, so yeah, somehow he got his toe in the door, but he started doing more cocaine than he sold, and then he started doing crack.

He was behind on rent, bills, and he started stealing from his roommates so they kicked him out. Greg set his bed up in the yard and slept there for a few days. It was surreal to see a man in a bed in a yard but that was how it happened. Then it rained hard one day, and Greg started living under the overpass at Exit 16.

Greg would haunt the people he once knew, but he would steal anything he could. And ex-girlfriend named Susan let him stay in her parents garage, and it wasn’t a bad set up. He had a cot and access to hot and cold water, and a bathroom. Someone called Susan’s mother the next day and asked her if she was having a yard sale, and Greg had taken Susan’s mom’s belongings and was selling them in the front yard. They got there before any of the good jewelry was sold but they lost a toaster over and some smaller stuff.

So Greg was officially not living anywhere after that. None of us had anything to do with him, and he drifted away. He would come back to Valdosta, and I would see him at one of the Exits, but until I saw Susan at the Y one day, and told her I had seen him, I didn’t think twice about it. Susan sent me with her husband, Jim, who hated me and Greg both to look for Greg. We didn’t find him, but a man who will go out looking for his wife’s ex boyfriend to help him get off drugs is a damn hero in my book. That was ten years ago.

So yesterday I thought I saw Greg. No. I am sure it was him. He was at Exit 16, just like he always was.

But a few years ago his bones were found in a wooded area near I-75 and returned to his parents. Id-ed via dental.

I’m not sure what to do with this one.

Take Care,

Mike

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friday firesmith – trumpty dumpty

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Trump comes home from China, blithely unaware how deeply he, and America, have been insulted by the Chinese, and immediately warns Taiwan about declaring independence. Trump went to China to plea for help with Iran, and we have no evidence any such thing has happened. The art of the deal may be, in this case, Trump surrenders something bigly and hopes for the best.

Considering the low regard he holds little girls, the bombing of the school in Iran that killed 168 children is no surprise. Betraying Taiwan shouldn’t surprise anyone, either. Trump has systematically alienated all of America’s allies and he’s creating generational hate among those enemies we might establish ties with later.

Russia, who firmly holds the leash attached to Trump’s neck, now realizes Trump could have, but did not deliver Ukraine, as he promised. The speed at which Europe reacted in boosting Ukraine’s drone expertise was stunning to some, but those paying attention to Trump realize he tips his hand before the cards are dealt.

Flatly put, Europe has no need of a bumbling boy-king who wrecks more than he can repair. Russia is learning the hard way that what Trump could accomplish is never anywhere near what he does.

China is not in a war, and has avoided military conflict on a large scale for decades now. They cannot be extorted by a threat to their energy needs, nor do they owe anyone large amounts of money. Their economy is stable and other than their never ending food supply chain issues, China is unlike many countries willing to bend to Trump’s will.

And as Trump betrays and dismays one ally after another, the exit is filled with former friends of America fleeing the unpredictable and unstable force that an aging Trump represents. Trump’s tariffs shocked and destabilized allies we had cultivated for decades. And now, as Trump stands alone against Iran/China/Russia in the War of the Strait, we see how vulnerable and weak Trump has made America.

Midterms must cause a sea change in American politics. Trump must be tried for his many crimes, including all the Epstein Files hold. He must go to prison for his crimes. America must return to unity and to justice. American must not live and die by slogans and reactionary politics.

Trumpism must end and it must end forever.

Take Care,

Mike

-5

Friday firesmith – in memory of trees: the fallen

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On April the 12th of 2023, a freak rainstorm dropped nearly a foot of water in six hours. The sound on the metal roof was surreal. A dull roar that simply did not end, the rain began with a vengeance at midnight and I dozed off and on until five then got up. There was no chance of getting the dogs out until the rain stopped. At six it was a slow drizzle and my little piece of the world had flooded.

The house was okay. We were safe. But the pond spilled over into the yard in a big way. Two more hurricanes followed that year. Most of the back of my property was underwater for two and a half years.

The Big Pine Tree near the pond died slow. The Leaning Live Oak fell over on Day One. A host of smaller trees fell or simply drowned in time.

The Slingshot Tree, a small water oak with two main branches died first. One of the last to die was the leaning tree where Sam, Sam, the Happy Hound dug under the roots to make a den. Sam would hunker down there, and Bert would try to drag him out. They would play like this for hours.

Lucas and Lilith played this game, too, much younger animals than Bert and Sam, they used the same toy in the same way. I remember a Black Racer making his way under those roots and stopping Sam from going after him.

Tuesday night I heard a thump and went back to sleep. The next morning the tree was on the ground.

I knew it would be. It had died late in the flooding, but was still dead. The trees surrounding the pond, so many of them are dead now, so many still standing, a feast for woodpeckers, but so many dead.

You can try to dictate terms to nature but then you are no longer living within nature. The drought lasted for eight months after the pond finally dried up. Now, rain has returned and we’ve gotten three inches of rain this week, which seems to be a lot but the fires in Georgia still burn east of here.

Homes destroyed, lives disrupted, smoke covers the eastern part of Georgia like the dire mists of Mordor. The sun rises red over in that part of the world. Their trees have burned, and mine have drowned.

I know most of the trees on my property. None fall within notice. I have been here long enough to see a place where no tree stood to have a tree, and the first bird nest. I have seen giants die and fall. I have seen small trees grow beyond my own height and reach for starlight.

But this day, I say to you this: A tree that holds memories of my pack has fallen.

These words are a memorial, and they are grief.

Take Care,

Mike

The tree broken, not yet fallen over. I still wonder how its root system held

Here it’s landed on the pile I started when I was able to start moving stuff out of the yard, and away from the fences. It landed with its kin. All the bushy looking stuff was once so shaded nothing grew there. The loss of tree has triggered a population explosion of smaller plants.

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friday firesmith – the fate of america

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Trump basically showed up with a couple of aircraft carriers, murdered some school girls then looked around for help.

No one was joining his gang rape of the Middle East.

Worse, infinitely worse, Trump, having declared victory after the first day, didn’t seem to have a plan for Day Two. Or Day Three. Or Day 68.

In the most terrifying moments that were sublimely comical, Trump tossed deadlines around like covfefe, TACOed beautifully, got banned from allied airspace, had meaningful negotiations with himself, and at the end of the day had was over four bucks a gallon and MAGAdom began collapsing around Trump like an overfilled diaper.

At this juncture, with midterms six months away and Trump relying on SCOTUS to gerrymander away minority voters, things look decidedly grim for Republicans.

And worse for Trump.

If he disengages with Iran after all the “unconditional surrender” talk it’s going to look a like Trump lost the war with Iran. But that was clear on Day One, wasn’t it?

Trump Lost the War With Iran is going to be the only headline coming out of this other than a ruined economy.

Worse, for Trump, the Epstein Files have not gone away.

Every day there’s new news, new horror, new victims and there’s New Mexico, where the bodies are buried.

Trump doesn’t have any cards left to play in the Middle East. Neither his bombs nor his bluster impresses the Iranians.

The traditional allies have abandoned him in favor of more stable and less violent regimes, like Iran.

China is backing Iran and destroying the American navy in the process. Taiwan is there’s for the taking. Trump won’t be able to start another war.

Basically, Trump is wishing for the end to look like the world did before the war talk and bombs fell. He wants a do over. Trump wants America to be respected by their allies and foes alike.

And, perhaps, sooner than Trump suspects, the damage will begin to be repaired.

But Americans have to vote Trump’s lackeys out of the government and elected people who will do right by the Constitution.

Trump has to be tried, and if convicted, be imprisoned.

Justice must be sought with vigor. You have to ask yourself, I would hope, what would Trump do to those who he had such a preponderance of evidence against? Rape, murder, corruption without end, and a war that eliminated any ally we might have really had in the Middle East? What should be the punishment for the dead little girls, the raped little girls, and the things Trump has done to hide his part in all of this?

America can still awaken from the cult nightmare and take the country back from Big Money.

It will not be easy.

I fear it will not be without bloodshed.

But without the reckoning of how Trump was able to do what he did, and without the Justice Department and Congress putting Trump on trial, we lay open for the next con man.

We must never allow this to happen again, or we have done nothing.

The Fate of America, now hangs in the balance.

Take Care,

Mike

-7

friday firesmith – from the woods

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The subdivision I lived in before I moved into the woods wasn’t bad. My neighbors were all good people and for the most part minded their own business. Church going was a thing with most folk and I was openly not going to church and hostile to any suggestions I might need to do so.

I moved to a place where the odds of seeing someone up close depended entirely on me going looking.

About three years ago the pond beside my house flooded, and then hurricanes came in. Seems odd, but in just a few days, I had alligators popping in from all directions. Most of them were small, and I think they came from a larger lake about a half mile away.

Alligators are pretty cool to have as neighbors. They’re fun to watch and they don’t really get involved in human activities. In the two and a half years my property was flooded I had one five footer get into the back yard, and he didn’t stay long.

We all know Alligators will go after dogs, this is true, but the fiver haunting the flooded area never acted interested in the residents. They were wary of him.

In twenty-five years, I’ve had two dogs zapped by cottonmouths and both lived. One of them, Tyger Linn, hunted Cottonmouth but no other snake. She was bitten four times in two years, including a day it was 40 degrees. She dug a Cottonmouth out of a stump hole and got popped. She lived. Tyger also didn’t learn from experience, clearly.

In twenty-five years I haven’t killed any animal out here. I didn’t move into the woods to declare war on nature. I assumed me and mine could, and would, accept the risks associated with the environment and our non human neighbors and we would live in peace.

I’ve been told I’ll regret this.

I regret watching a dog die because he was hit by a car when I was a kid. I regret not ever seeing pond birds up close until I moved out here. I regret one of my neighbors losing her sense of security when her house was robbed in town.

I don’t regret seeing the Milky Way at night out here or listening to owls hunt in the darkness. I don’t regret the deer feeding in the yard or the sight of a fawn following its mom across the yard at down. I don’t the silence, the solitude, or the peace. I don’t regret the mindset of the people who live near me, who never bother me, but will check in with me after a hurricane.

Living within the realm of nature isn’t without sorrow or loss but being alive means you’re going to experience both. Hiding from it or killing creatures to avoid loss is cowardice.

It takes a certain sense of acceptance a lot of people simply won’t commit to living.

Take Care,

Mike

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friday firesmith – drowning

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I haven’t seen my friend Tracy in over a decade, but I know he’s still alive out there, somewhere. Or maybe he isn’t. It’s hard to know, really.

The first time I knew his drinking problem had gotten to the point it was going to be a real problem was the time we went out to eat Mexican and he passed out in the bathroom with a cigarette in his hand, his pants down around his knees, and the door locked.

The manager asked me if my friend had heart problems, and we finally pounded on the door hard enough to wake him up.

I paid our tab, slipped waitstaff a twenty, and we got the hell out of there.
College educated and good with people, he invariably ruined each and every friendship by borrowing something and destroying it, losing a job due to not showing up, or by showing up, or even stealing money to buy booze. He drank a marriage to death.

He came over a long time ago, we drank for a while, I quit drinking so much, and he passed out on the porch. I left him there. The next day I had to go to work and I think he got his feelings hurt because I wouldn’t let him hang out at my house while I was gone to work.

Recently, a friend of mine in Florida I haven’t heard from in a while called me and wanted to know if I had seen Tracy. I hadn’t, and this guy, Bart, was livid. I saw it coming before he told me. Bart and his wife were friends with Tracy from way back, and they were trying to talk him into getting help. They let him have the spare bedroom, but they weren’t giving him any money or alcohol. What could go wrong?

Tracy rummaged around their house while they went out, and found a can with change in it on the dryer, and a couple of bucks here and there in the house. He took Tracy’s truck, went to the liquor store, and bought a pint but also stuck another in his boot. The clerk saw him so Tracy bolted without paying for the bootleg pint, so to speak.

So Tracy leaves and starts drinking from one of the pints. Tracy has nearly made it back but he sees a cop car do a U turn and does something bizarre. He stops the truck, parks it, and then walks off into somebody’s yard and keeps walking.

After that, no one knows what happened.

The cops got the truck, called Bart, showed up at his house, and Tracy was nowhere to be found. It cost Bart five hundred to get the truck back. An empty pint was on the floorboard. Bart called me and I assumed sooner or later Tracy would appear but he didn’t.

No one has seen him since.

Or at least no one has called me. I don’t think he will now. Not because I’ve stopped drinking but because I think those of us who knew Tracy, and really cared, are exhausted. We’re tapped out. And we’ve all tried.

Eventually, if you were once a party animal, you drift away from drinking, or you sink deeper into it. Or maybe not. I can’t speak for anyone else.

Take Care,

Mike

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