Please pardon my paltry puns proliferation

Boy howdy, you talk about feeling left out. Alone. Ostracized. Adrift at sea. My self-esteem just fell 10 floors lower than a whale’s belly….

I believe I’m the only citizen left in America who did not receive a presidential pardon this past week!

I don’t see how they could have missed me. They sure included everyone else! We all know it couldn’t have been my clean living, spotless record, or choir boy good looks. 

I stole that spyglass from the Ben Franklin store in 1954 like the common thief that I was. I blew up Mrs. Boaz’s mailbox with a cherry bomb in 1959 because it seemed like a good idea at the time. I peered over Anne Alexander’s shoulder during a math test in elementary school because she was a lot smarter than me. I whacked David Mark over the head with a hoe handle one time (OK, maybe more than once) because he made me mad.

I lied like a dog when I told Milicent Blackburn in the seventh grade that I loved her. But her grandmother made the best oatmeal raisin cookies I’ve ever put in my mouth. It was a ploy to ingratiate myself into granny’s kitchen.

Come to think of it, I repeated that same lie to Charlotte Melton because her dad owned all of those horses. My young dream was to rope, ride, and sing like Roy Rogers. The riding came easily, and I learned to rope a fence post if I wasn’t galloping by. But I gave up Roy, and Charlotte, before I got to high school because I couldn’t yodel worth a lick, and it was near ’bout impossible to play “San Antonio Rose” on Leon’s old Silvertone guitar and keep that horse moving along in a straight line at the same time. 

Now, it was only a partial lie when I told Mary Hadley Hayden I loved her. And we may be splitting hairs here. But, as we all found out last week, there ain’t much hairsplitting in the presidential pardoning business. Everybody, except me, gets an equal opportunity to be a part of it. 

It wasn’t that I didn’t love Mary Hadley, but the “hairsplitting” truth is her dad had a right smart bit of cash. The pardonable fact here is obvious. I don’t believe you can be dead level honest out on that front porch…. when you’ve got one eye on the girl, and the other one on her father’s money!

Think of all the years I wasted dancing and playing cards. You might not think one would need a pardon for being involved with such innocent rituals…. But then, you didn’t know my Mother. And you weren’t with me and Bobby Brewer in that small shed over by his house when we were playing strip poker with Carol Jean Ellis.

My conscience has not let me rest over the years because I stole that 15-cent spyglass. I couldn’t “come clean” about Mrs. Boaz’s mailbox because Daddy (he suspected Leon, but had no proof) would have found out and whipped the living daylights out of me.

I have kicked myself over the years for not being a little more forthcoming, honest, decent, truthful with the aforementioned girls. I didn’t handle any of those situations in a correct manner. These are mistakes that I cannot take back, rectify, or forget. 

You see my frustration this morning. We’ve got not one, but two, presidents throwing out pardons like rain coming down in the days of Noah. And I don’t get a drop. It’s inconceivable with my need for exoneration.

There is no justice here.

I could use Anne Alexander’s help. She always had the answers. All my little brain can come up with is that I got ignored because I haven’t killed anybody lately. I have not led a charge against CVS demanding they lower their prices on Diet Cokes. I have not strangled my hairdresser because she cuts my hair like she wants it to look.

I don’t know one person in China. I don’t know anyone who’s even been to China. It’s the same for Russia and North Korea. That eliminates me from any list involving foreign espionage. I don’t have enough money for insider trading. I have never lied before a Senate subcommittee.

My family’s influence and worldwide status is so poor I can’t sell it to anyone.

I apparently don’t have enough axes to grind to be in the running for a pardon. It is disheartening to be so overlooked.

You’d think a lifetime Chicago Bears fan would be in line for a pardon.

I wonder if you could get a presidential pardon for your thoughts? ’Course, that clearly isn’t the answer either, thinking is not my long suit. I feel like a man without a country. I can’t get a pardon when presidents are passing’em out like candy canes at Christmas.

Good Golly, they pardoned Leon! I kid you not, he was on one of those guy’s lists. He rightfully needed to be there, no one could disagree with that; but I was still mildly surprised…. seeing as how he died 10 years ago….

Respectfully,

Kes