I had a lot of company last weekend. A lot of family from across the plain gathered at my house to celebrate the life of my late sister-in-law, Freda Harry. Freda passed away recently in a Dallas Care Center and remains will be interred in Allen Cemetery at a later date. We loved and we all will surely miss this remarkable lady. Freda’s obituary was published in last week’s Advocate.

Living in Allen makes me feel like I live in a special place in the world. And I do. But regardless of where we live, we are all affected by the many things that take place outside our area. I guess that’s one reason that Allenites pay close attention to national and world events. Well at least most of us do. One guy pointed out the other day that yours truly, (that’s me) had been neglecting his job. He referred to my occasional published news flashes of things happening around the world. I was embarrassed to admit that he was correct, and I plan to remedy that glaring flaw, starting right now.

I’ll start off on with news from England. Queen Elizabeth has just let us know that she hasn’t been feeling too good and would miss the global climate change meeting (a topic of extreme importance to locals) over in Scotland. She also urged the conference to rise above politics when discussing this topic. Be nice, she said. Well, I thought as I read this, “it’s about time.” But adding a sour note to this was the Church of England’s leader saying outright, “people who oppose climate change are just plain old Nazis.” The Queen had no reply to this not so nice statement.

While the climate change debate rages on, so does the vaccine debate. “Should people be forced to take it or not?” A number of employers are now mandating the shots. Or else. “You’re fired.” Many employees, not liking to be bossed around are taking the “or else” option. As a result, many airlines are short of pilots, Chicago Is coming up short of police officers and New York City is begging people to become volunteer firemen to fill in the gaps by firemen who don’t like the shots either.

But I did see one glimmer of hope for some folk. If you happen to be languishing away in the United States Marine Corps on a long enlistment — and wish you were not — well cheer up. Just refuse the Covid shot. And out you go. And that goes for the other services too. I know when I was in the Navy it seemed like a lot of my shipmates were always trying to figure a way to get out and go home. Now with this unexpected blessing, all you have to do is let your commander know you don’t want a Covid shot. Goodbye service! Hello mama.

I know everyone is worried sick about this climate change stuff. So much so that those that love climate change are cheering their heads off for gasoline prices to go way up. This way we will all feel better about buying ourselves one of those new plugin electrics. Get away from gasoline and save the world while you’re at it. But be subtle about it. Try to be more like our President Biden. Yesterday at the first session of the Climate Change conference in Scotland, Joe fell asleep — knowing full well how much we are all worried about his worrying about this issue. You can be sure it was very reassuring to me, seeing him snoozing away while the conference was in full swing.

One last bit of news for the Allen-Gerty area, aeronautical engineers have defeated the sonic boom. What does this mean? That area residents will soon be able to fly coast to coast in less than 2 hours. Quick flights to Europe will return too. Now, aren’t you glad you read this paper? Have a good weekend and be sure and go to church Sunday. Wayne Bullard, DPh

cwaynebullard@gmail.com