The Russians are coming

Way back in 1966 amid the fears of a Russian-induced nuclear war and certain death, a movie came out named “The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming.”

It was a hilarious montage of great actors including Carl Reiner, Brian Keith, Jonathan Winters, and Eva Marie Saint among others. Every year Ol’ Dutch tries to watch it at least once as the hilarity of this small island people’s fears are realized when a Russian submarine runs aground on their coast.

To fully understand their fears, you have to realize that ever since WWII the rise of the Russians as a world power has been held up before us as something to fear and loath and that they may one day attack us in some way or another.

We hid under our school desks in the 1960’s in nuclear bomb drills as if the flimsy metal and wood desk would somehow insulate us from a blast as hot as 1000 suns. I can recall hiding under there from Ms. Quigley, my fourth grade teacher, and that darned desk didn't even protect me from her let alone an atom bomb.

Watching the news we can see that the Russians are once again interfering in everything from elections, the economy, international spying, the price of milk and our neighbor’s lawn issues. America always needs a scapegoat to take the blame for what the politicians and others are actually doing behind the scenes and so the dirty Ruskies have become our bully of choice.

I have to assume they do the same blaming the U.S.A. when things go wrong over there so it's an even trade of sorts kind of like trading wheat or soybeans for rubles and dollars.

Two weeks ago the pesky Kremlin gremlins finally found Ol’ Dutch and Miss Trixie and began interfering in our lives too. And I can understand that as we are an imminent threat in general. I am not sure what I did to stir them up but they sure are after me now and here is what is going on.

I had submitted my weekly column for publication and when it went through there were a lot of “tweets” about politics embedded in the text.

Also the headline was something political and had nothing to do with the content. Many readers wrote to me and asked what that title had to do with anything at all. And I had to agree but it's not too far from my normal blather and I also now understand a lot more about international intrigue and spying.

I long had doubts about Russian interference in our everyday lives until now but it seems that I have struck a nerve with them by writing about Ol’ Dutch and Miss Trixie and they are out to silence free speech at the very least.

Who knew that my column about hunting and fishing, nonsense and some sense would be a danger to a super power? But I do understand their fears as once you let the proverbial cat out of the bag you are in for real trouble in paradise as they see it.

Having opened up this can of worms of influence I now am expecting new interference from the Chinese as they have been suspected in everything from soup to nuts and the short life laptop computers they manufacture are just a start of that conspiracy. Their use of fortune cookies to influence the everyday lives of us normal Americans is proof positive of their intentions even though the cookies now say “made in Cincinnati.”

So if you see anything political in these columns please note that Ol’ Dutch has been hacked -- and is hacked off too -- all the while eating Russian caviar and typing away on his Beijing laptop special.