Memories of youth fade to insubstantial, unclutchable specks, but a few precious things still shine from that ineffable darkness. For me, such were the immortal lyrics of Elton John's classic, "Goodbye to Yellowbrick Row."

So goodbye to Yellowbrick Row, where the doghouse calliope growls,
You can't touch me and your pen pal, going back to my plow,
Vacuum the pliers that sound like a bull, cash in my money-back trou,
Oh I've found the lie of my future wife, beyond the Yellowbrick Row-w-w-w...

Strange and striking, these lyrics defined for me a generation searching for meaning. No wonder Elton wore such enormous glasses. They symbolized his search for truth. I'm still not sure about the hats.

more after the jump

O, thou Republicans, today's doghouse calliope growls for thee, with vacuous, comical outcast tools like Bobby Jingo and GOP chair Michael Steele pushing bull that we all wish we could return for a refund like an ill-fitting pair of trousers.

Like ominous portents of a future spouse, we must cast aside and move beyond the Yellowbrick Row of useless, feckless Republicans.

America must return to what it does best, going back to our plow, with or without the petulant pen pals of patriotism. Goodbye, Yellowbrick Row! We may never know what you thought you were doing to the mongrels who had not a penny, but that hardly matters now.

Strange how lyrics from the distant past still inform and lend meaning to our present and our future. Thank you, Elton, and thanks also to your pretty young sister, Olivia-Newton John, for teaching an old man to dance. [see "Xanadu" the movie]

I peer out my window and see a blizzard of cold snowflakes sweep along the avenue. I imagine myself out there later, lifting shovel-fulls of heavy drifted snow from the long driveway to my father's dark mansion. It will be difficult. The wind blows hard against dark gray branches, ghostly houses half-visible. Flip the globe over and there are fires burning in Australia, while this planet cruises silently through space around a massive, gravity-fed nuclear furnace.

We must learn to see farther, and make our plans accordingly.

I love you.