WoodChips football expert J. Schmidbauer advises me that the football season is upon us and thank God for that.  I think you’ll all agree after the past couple of months we could use a break.

It has been positively stressful lately.  We’ve  faced numerous simutaneous crises such as  1) a football strike, 2) inability to invest in Dunkin Donuts and 3) some trifling budget deficit thing I kept hearing about on TV.

Anyhow, the country faced up to these problems, rallied and showed its true national priorities.

First, we took care of the football problem and ended the strike.  I don’t know all the details here but just guessing there were probably gazillions of dollars involved to get this done – and money well spent, I might add.  This undoubtedly averted a national meltdown.

Speaking of football, my British friend Ken Taylor once cracked me up at a pub with his droll observation that in American football we wear crash hats (helmets).  I think the implication may have been we are a bit wussy compared to English football – sans crash hats – and well; he may be on to something with that.  Never underrate the British, my friends.  They are a tough lot.

Anyhow, back to the second crisis facing the country, EVERY American eats Dunkin Donuts all the time, especially the police — but none of us could invest in the company.  This has been a national tragedy in the offing for some time.

Then, miracle of miracles, Dunkin Donuts went public with a stock offering and now everyone can invest in this American staple diet item.

This no doubt averted a congressional convention to amend the constitution which would have read something like “Congress shall pass no law that prohibits life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness and shares of Dunkin Donuts,” or something like that.

Which averted another BIGGER crisis of Congress going back into session, i.e. as the late, great Will Rogers always said, “The only time the country is safe is when Congress is not in session.”

Whew – so we got a pass on that one.  Two down, one to go.

Then we had this trifling budget deficit thing which I almost didn’t report because I don’t know what really got done.

Basically we owe a butt load of money and Congress wrangled around about reducing the debt and ultimately decided to create some super committee and let them decide what to do with it later.  So at least they didn’t kick the can down the road and we can all be thankful for that.

Come to think of it, this courageous decision did lead to one very positive outcome which was that all the television reporting stopped.  Thank goodness, because this was really looking like some very bad Washington D.C. Reality TV.

Ummm … also then all the congressmen went home so we’re safe again.

All that said, its clear America has not lost its core values and those that write us off prematurely do so at their peril.  After all, solving our problems in this priority order of  1) football, 2) Dunkin Donuts and 3) that little debt thing … hey, that just says it all, doesn’t it?

So don’t give up on America yet.  Our national will is still very much intact.

Is this a great country or what?

Have a nice day – J. Daniel