‘Shower Thoughts’

VIEWPOINT

By RALPH HARDIN

Evening Times Editor F or the longest time, I thought I was the only one who came up with solutions to all the world’s problems while in the shower. Since I was young, my brain seemed to kick it up a notch while in the shower. I’ve written essays, come up with book ideas, and unlocked the secrets of the universe while the warm waters washed over me.

But it wasn’t until recently that I learned that I was not alone in this. In fact, you can Google “shower thoughts” and find an almost unlimited number of people who have a whole gaggle of cool and funny shower thoughts.

Some of them are goofy. Some are philosophical. Others are just weird observations. Some examples …

“If there were no laws, the crime rate would technically be zero percent.”

“Tall people are expected to help short people reach things that are high up, but if a tall person asked a short person to reach down for something low, they’d probably be insulted.”

“The Moon was invaded by aliens on July 20, 1969.”

“The most terrifying words to read in braille are probably ‘Do Not Touch.’” Like I said, some of them are just weird.

But the other day, while I was showering before church, I was thinking ahead about some topics I wanted to write about for my “Viewpoint” columns in the coming week. I have to write five a week (you folks who don’t read the e-editions are really missing out), so sometimes the creative cupboard is a little bare. I couldn’t really come up with a column’s worth for some of my ideas … more like little snippets, so I thought I’d share some of those snippets here: It’s time for the City of West Memphis to hire a sanitation company to handle its trash (or “trash” and “garbage” I guess). Most cities the size of West Memphis already have made this move. It would cost some jobs but those workers could easily go to work for the private sanitation company. But it would be cheaper, it would be more efficient, and the city would be able to periodically shop the contract around if service isn’t satisfactory. Most importantly, it would eliminate all the city’s headaches that have surrounded the sanitation services for going on three years now.

There’s no way for schools to “win” in this coronavirus deal for the upcoming school year. They are pretty much guaranteed to have students and/or teachers test positive for COVID-19, and no matter what the CDC or anyone else says, you can’t control a school environment well enough to stop it. But there’s also virtually no way to effectively teach some students in a virtual environment, so I don’t know if online education is going to fly … not to mention the impact this will all have on sports and academic club activities.

For all the “news” that has been out there lately, neither President Trump nor his opponent in the upcoming election, former Vice-president Biden have really outlined any actual ideas for the country over the next four years. Yes, there’s been all kinds of criticism and mudslinging over everything from the coronavirus to racial issues to who is too old to be president, but you know, what about infrastructure or economic development or foreign policy? These things used to be important. Now it’s like two teenage girls arguing over who has the most “likes” on their Instagram.

Major League Baseball is trying very hard to have a 2020 season, but in just a few days of being back at the ballpark for “summer” training, there have been more than a dozen COVID-19 positives and many stars are simply opting to sit out the abbreviated season. My wife, seeing this, observed that “you could have a team make it to the World Series and then that club could have to put a completely different team on the field to actually play in it.” That’s not even that far-fetched of a concept based on the coronavirus protocols they’ve got in place for the season.

And finally, with all the racial tensions in the country right now, this managed to make me laugh. I know it’s probably a little over-simplifying it, but I heard a comedian recently quip that he had a solution to police/minority relations… “From now on, only black people can be police officers. That’s it. Problem solved. And white people, only you can be firefighters. It’s for the best, since y’all are more outdoorsy anyway.”

I think he might be on to something.