Learning to Love the Fiddle

      Once there was an emperor, who decided that the best thing he could do was play the fiddle while his empire went up in smoke. Nero was his name. Along came, Marie Antoinette, Queen of France who is wrongly attributed with the statement directed to starving peasants, “let them eat cake,” which really was a type of bread, but it was enough to start a revolution.

           Today, there’s much fiddling going on in the form of diversion. It works so much better, as the American people blinded by the music, happily eat their cake. See, the bread hasn’t quite run out...yet. Water will be the new oil, and bread will be the last thing people are going to be worrying about when that happens. Besides, it takes water to make bread. Break out the fiddles.

           If you haven’t heard about Russia sending soldiers, and military advisors to Venezuela, then you probably are listening to a lot of fiddling and not seeing the potential smoke. There are plenty of fiddlers playing these days. Fiddling about the wall, fiddling about a report the American people have every right to see in its originality, full and unedited, for we must not forget, they all are elected to work for us, and we don't like things hidden.

           Just the other day, I shook my head when I heard a statement so similar to “let them eat cake,” that for a moment, I wondered just where I was living. A statement so out of touch, inhumane, and foolish, I wondered to myself just what kind of people could even agree with this Nero-ism madness about immigration, “They think they’re on a picnic, and going to Disneyland.” Nero danced.

           I’m going to let you in on a very true, and little known secret about me, and a picnic I went on in Central America. It was in the late nineties, and I decided I wanted to explore the wonders of the rainforest. It wasn’t quite the picnic, I imagined. Four men kidnapped me one night outside a bar and I found myself in the back seat of a Honda hatchback and driven out into the middle of the jungle. Two men in the front seat with me sandwiched between the other two in the back seat. You’ve never seen blackness until you reach the top of a mountain where trees whose canopies are so thick they block out the stars. It could have been a beautiful picnic with one exception, who brings a baseball bat to a picnic? They did, I discovered, when they dragged me out of the car, and had me turn away from them and reach for the sky.

           I glanced over my shoulder to see the bat held high and my head was about to become a Grand Slam home run. The on deck batters ripped my watch from my arm, and rifled through my pockets. I never carried much cash traveling anywhere. It disappointed them. Hell, at this point they didn’t even want to kill me. Instead, they commanded me not to turn around, and I heard them heading back to the Honda, doors closing, and the engine starting. I breathed once I heard the sounds of the bad exhaust growing distant as the car made its way back down the same narrow dirt road. I wasn’t about to hang around to see if they changed their mind about snuffing me out. So, I reached in my pocket for my Bic lighter to show me the way, they took it. Let the picnic begin.

           Here are a few things you think about in the black jungle of Central America when you are wearing shorts, sandals, and a Hawaiian shirt. First, it’s not a picnic to travel through, and Disneyland is the last thing on your mind. Secondly, the howler monkeys barking around in a troop aren’t happy campers when someone invades their territory at night. Third, deadly snakes, one in particular they nicknamed the “bull viper,” because one bite kills a full-sized bull in minutes. They are extremely tough to spot in the daylight, let alone at night, and there's another beautiful but deadly viper called the, “eyelash viper.” It’s a pretty thing, bright green, and small, like a vine. It likes to hang in the trees, at eyelash height, and strike you right smack in the face, and you die. It’s no picnic to writhe on the ground with that venom coursing through you and it sure isn’t Disney’s Space Mountain. 

           I made my way down that great mountain, though, slow enough that I saw it turning to daylight, a welcome sight. Not as welcome, though as a church bell chiming somewhere down below and it became my audible beacon leading me to civilization. I made it to the small town and to the steps of that church, unscathed except for my embarrassment over my tourism stupidity. I’m lucky to be here to tell the story. Did it change my mind about the people of those countries who make up Central America, not one bit, because it happens across America on a daily basis and involves more than ball bats most times.

           What I do remember however, is not that experience in the jungle, but the people in that small town who watched this white dude, disheveled, and wandering out of the jungle. They became my asylum, showed compassion, and were outraged that people of their kind, their fellow citizens acted in such a manner. Their actions far outweighed the action of the kidnappers. I remember them more than I do the bad people with a ball bat. In fact, when I got back to my hotel, and they heard the story, every taxi driver, and bellhop was on the lookout for these dudes. They didn’t fiddle around.

           Which brings me to this, Honduras, Guatemala, and Nicaragua, three countries in Central America that Nero wants to cut aid to because we’re so full, we look like a diarrhea commercial for Pepto-Bismol. How long before the one child per family law takes effect here. That’s what happened in China when they became, “too full.” Do you know who would love to help those three countries out? Why, our Nero’s good friend, and private meeting pal, Mr. Putin will gladly lend a hand. He’s already helping Venezuela with military advisors.

           Military advisors have an objective, in case you wonder what their job entails. My brother was one in Vietnam. He never got out of that place alive. You can offer your thoughts and prayers up at the Pleasant Hill Cemetery. I leave a can of beer up there from time to time.

           The military advisory trains local people and teaches armies the necessary skills to kill the enemy. The objective is to pacify the local people with food, medicine, housing, and other needs to make their lives easier. You want them on your side after all. Russian advisors play the same role. They are doing it as we watch Nero fiddle. They are making Venezuela great again, without the red hats; they are too easy to spot by the enemy.

           You’ll see the number of advisors grow, count on it. Then you’ll see Russian troops added to the mix in bigger numbers, it’s a Venezuelan Vietnam staring you in the face. It’s less than a thousand miles by air from Venezuela to Panama. Russian construction battalions are quick at building airstrips. Can you say, “The Russian Canal?” That would put a quick halt on shipping now, wouldn’t it? It’s long haul around the Cape of Good Horn, too long actually. It also makes commercial ships, sitting ducks when a blockade of roving enemy ships and subs are the shooting gallery. But hey, we’re in a national emergency here folks; we need defense funding for wall building. It’s almost as if this is being allowed to happen, but that couldn’t possibly be true, could it? I mean just because Russia sent two destroyers and a refueling ship to the Philippines and Chinese disputed islands, well, they certainly wouldn’t want to draw our Navy in that direction would they? I mean far enough away from Panama that the military eye is off the ball, and all.

           So, now Russia, who would control the canal, is ready to move into those countries they kindly aided and pacified while we turned a blind eye. Nicaragua, Guatemala, and Honduras pave the wave to head north. Then, you are really going to see real caravans, because that’s what people do in war. They escape from it. No amount of walls will stop that when it reaches that point; just ask those who watched it with their own eyes in Vietnam. Don’t ignore history, learn from it, or you’ll soon find it won’t be a picnic or a trip to Disneyland, or you can just learn to love the fiddle, and dance, dance, dance while Rome burns.    

Ronnie Ray Jenkins

?2019 Ronnie Ray Jenkins