It’s a quiet Labor Day Monday. Labor Day has always been on Monday in my lifetime. My adopted state, Oregon, was the first state to establish Labor Day by law. I’m not always so proud of Oregon and its history, especially up in Portland, which was yugely racist.

The Atlantic points to Utah as a powerful swing state for this US presidential election, emblematic of the larger problems voters face, that their candidates aren’t popular and most are voting the lessor of evils in their minds. I felt the Bern, myself.

Even though it’s been argued that fracking has nothing to little to do with Oklahoma’s quakes, because the fault lines weren’t mapped before the quakes started, Oklahoma shut down thirty-seven fracking wells after the 5.6 quake. Hmm, wonder why?

Atlanta recorded its second hottest summer on record. San Francisco regarded its coldest August in seventy-four years.

Poor Brock Turner, right? People are pretty pissed at the convicted rapist who spent only three months in jail. Poor guy, who would think that his fifteen minutes of fame would ruin his life after an act of violence his father blamed on a culture of alcohol and partying. Consider me one of those pissed at him.

Only one Howard Johnson restaurant remain open in the United States. They were once as ubiquitous as GC Murphy, Woolworths, Sears and Montgomery Ward. I think I ate at one once. I know I ate more often at GC Murphy, where $1.00 bought three subs. I also ate at Woolworths, as my local town had one with a daily blue plate special.

Of course, computer games were once the province of children.

What were once treats are now normal. We rarely ate pizzas when I was growing up. Pizza places were small, family owned businesses with a few tables, never anything fancy. Now, wow.

And I never had a taco or burrito while growing up. Mom made spaghetti with meatballs for dinner regularly and lasagna once in a while, but it wasn’t normal to go out to dinner for pasta.

The food thoughts are triggered by dark chocolate salted caramels a house guest presented us. Wow, are they delicious. I’ve heard of salted caramel for a few years now but when did they become a thing? Speaking of chocolate, I didn’t discover dark chocolate until I was older. I’d always preferred Mounds bars but never quite realized it was dark chocolate that so attracted me. Now, fortunately, dark chocolate is as available as, say, lattes, mochas and beer. Once upon a time, growing up in Pittsburgh, PA, I thought Stroh’s, Miller, Hamm’s, Pabst Blue Ribbon, Rolling Rock and Old Milwaukee were the only beers available, and that Rolling Rock was the best! I haven’t had any of those beers in yonks, at least since visiting family in America in 1988. Fortunately, I returned to the US from overseas when the micro-brew craze was striking in 1991.

Barbra Streisand has her 11th #1 Billboard 200 album.

Some things change more slowly than others.