# 139 - December 3rd, 2008

Greetings one and all…Are you sitting comfortably - then I shall begin…Well I imagine you’ve ‘recovered’ from your Thanksgiving Day experience and now, as we move full-steam ahead into the holiday season, I have to warn you to be careful out there. Having said that, I feel certain that the good readers of the A.V.A. will not indulge in the kind of shopping frenzy that engulfed some of the Day-after-Thanksgiving customers at a Wall-Mart in New York State who stormed into the store crushing an employee to death in the process. Unbelievable but true...
Meanwhile, as a result of my own excesses over the holiday weekend, the column will have to be brief this week – please accept my apologies...To justify my actions I must refer you to the words of English novelist and all-round know-it-all, W. Somerset Maugham, who wisely observed, “Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of habit” – just what I was thinking...
I’m history...Be careful out there; stay out of the shopping crushes; think good thoughts; and may your god go with you…Oh, and of course, one final request, “Let us prey”…Humbly yours, Turkey Vulture…
p.s. Just time to re-remind those who think badly of us that a fellow by the name of Charles Darwin said about Turkey Vultures, “A disgusting bird whose bald scarlet head is formed to wallow in putridity” – Thanks for the compliment, Charlie – you’ll go far…
You can contact me with words of support/abuse by e-mail at
turkeyvulture1 @ earthlink.net…