Rip van Winkle woke up every day and read the paper and said, “Unbelievable!”

Roosevelt gets a third term – “Are you kidding?”
Germans, the country of Beethoven – “What’s with this thing about Jews?”
Military-industrial complex? “Sounds like a mall.”
Someone shot Kennedy? “No way. Why was he in Texas?”
Tanks on the streets of Detroit: “Impossible.”
Both Martin Luther King and Malcom X? “Unbelievable! Why would anyone?”

He thought the Moon Shot was great; he enjoyed that, it was not incredible.
But the photos coming out of Vietnam were “unbelievable.” 
Some of it just went over his head. The Kent State killings, for example. Jackson State? No clue.

The volunteer army? “Well, maybe.” 
He liked “Morning in America.”
Tax cuts? Can’t hurt.
But his local post office closes – “I can’t believe it.”
The price of medical care? “Unbelievable.” 
That 6-lane bridge that fell in Milwaukee: “Are you kidding?”
The Twin Towers – “Why them? They’re not military. They’re office buildings. I don’t get it.”
“What kind of nutcase takes a mortgage with an APR? What’s a tranche?” 
Gaza – “Good god, how did we get here?”
And “No more fireflies? What’s with that? There were always fireflies.”

Now this guy – “You’re not going to believe this. Incredible.”

Tell Rip to read this poem backwards. Maybe push it back 150 years. Your assignment: help Rip believe.

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