“One of the good things about planting soybeans,” said Dave Winston as he sat down at Mabel’s Grill for breakfast the other morning, “is that you can sit in your tractor cab and listen to your music and you can almost forget that there’s an election happening at all.”
    “Hey, remember Mabel doesn’t allow talk about politics in here,” warned Molly Whiteside as she delivered their menus and prepared to take their orders.
    “Oh I wasn’t going to talk about politics,” said Dave. “I was talking about how nice it was to be able to ignore politics for a few hours.”
    “Between the election and news from Ukraine, I gave up even turning on the news at all,” said George Mackenzie as he took a brief glance at the menu before ordering his usual eggs and bacon.
    “Who needs the agony of watching the news at a set time every night,” said Molly. “I can get whatever news I want when I want it on the internet.”
    “See that’s the key word,” said Cliff Murray, as he set down his menu. “Whatever news you want! Young people get to choose whatever news makes them happy, not what some news editor says is important.”
    “Or they look for the stuff that makes them mad, like the stuff on Fox,” said Dave.
    “Oh I prefer the news that makes me feel good,” said Molly as she scribbled down their orders
    “I can go along with her idea of what’s really news,” commented Dave after  Molly headed for the kitchen and Mabel. 
    “See, that’s what got me about watching the national news on TV,” said George. “They give you 18 minutes of news about COVID or Ukraine that makes you ready to slash your wrists, then they have a two-minute lighter story that’s supposed to keep you going until the next night when they make you want to do it all over again!”
    “Hey, COVID isn’t anything to worry about anymore,” said Cliff with an ironic smile. “So what if a whole bunch of people died yesterday, the pandemic’s all over as far as most people are concerned.”
    “See, that’s what I mean,” said Dave. “Even in here I can’t get away from the bad news.”
    “Well, hey, I heard a bit on the radio the other day that in a few years people are going to live to be 150 years old,” said Cliff. “Does that make you feel better?”
    “Not really, because it’s not going to be me who lives to 150, it’ll be my grandchildren or great-grandchildren,” said Dave.
    “Well I’m glad I won’t live to be 150,” said George. “I can’t imagine what changes you’d have to get used to if you lived that long. I mean, I remember when we got two television stations, and we were kind of thrilled with that! Then we got satellite dishes and the internet and we got more and more choices but it just makes more work making a decision. Heck I remember, as a kid, Andy Griffith came on TV and you just watched it!”
    “Who?” said Molly as she delivered their orders.
    “I’m glad you asked that because I was kind of wondering myself,” said Dave.
    “It’s like everything else,” said George, ignoring the question. “I mean, take food. When I was a kid we had meat and potatoes and whatever else grew in our garden. The other day I was watching this morning TV show and the women were griping the price of avocados had gone up. When I was young avocado was a new colour for your stove.”
    “I love avocados,” enthused Molly. “Guacamole, quesadillas . . . I bought a whole book of recipes for avocados. Except like the ladies on TV said, they’ve gotten awfully expensive. Thanks to you guys.”
    “Hey, we can’t even grow avocados around here,” objected Dave.
    “See people don’t even know what we grow anymore,” said George. “It was so much easier when people simply ate the fruits and vegetables we grew.” ◊