“Makes a guy wonder sometimes,” Windy Wilson said, “if gettin’ all stabbed to death might not be a bad way to go.”

The rest of us – the Supreme Court of Dang Near Everything at the Mule Barn coffee shop – politely choked on our java and put the cups down. Even for Windy, this was quite an observation.

“Yer prolly askin’ yerselves,” Windy said, “how I gerrymanderated myself into this observation.”

“Well … yes …actually.”

“Doc, I know you and the boys need fresh idears ever year or two jest to keep you sharpened, so here’s how I figger it. You know it’s dang near March fifteen, right? Back in the olden days, before we even had our interdependence from England, they called it The Idears of March. So they knew they needed idears even back then. This whole stabbin’ thing came from that old Roman guy, Julius Caesar.

This year woman, called herself the Oriole of Dolphins, ‘cuz she thought she was smarter than most folks in Baltimore or even in Miama … she told ol’ Julius to beware them Idears of March, ‘cuz they’s nothin’ but trouble.”

Windy waited for Loretta to top off his cup. “But ol’ Julius wasn’t too purty good about listenin’ cuz he’d already whupped England and Germany so he figgered he was too smart already. So he give a speech they didn’t like and a bunch of Brute’s stabbed him plumb to death. Well, it sure made him famous, didn’t it? I’m sure you heard of a caesarian section house – somethin’ on the railroad, I think – and an epileptic Caesar, and Caesar salad, and an Orange Julius. ‘Course you have. 

“So mebbe we need to ease up on them Brute’s in history, light up a roman candle in their honor. They messed up them Congressional steps some, but Julius Caesar’s story is still around and it’s long after that mop bucket dried out.”